Advice needed regarding upgrades
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Advice needed regarding upgrades
03-04-2009 11:44 AM
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I have a Dell Inspiron 5160 laptop with 512MB RAM memory. My son uses it to play PC Games on, but the system requirements are getting too much for the poor old laptop. Recently, there has been a smell of burnt plastic after a few minutes of playing, which I assume is the computer over-heating. I was thinking of getting some extra RAMs to help the laptop deal with the PC Games, but before I spend £100 on memory from Crucial, I would like to know if you knowledgeable people agree that the over-heating is likely to be caused by the insufficient memory. (The minimum requirements for that particular game were 256MB and the recommended were 1GB, but he spent several hours on it). What do you think?
I also have a Dell Dimension 4550 desktop with more memory, but the graphics card is too old. Do you have any idea which graphics card I would need?
Thanks for your help!
Re: Advice needed regarding upgrades
03-04-2009 3:15 PM
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Placing them on top of papers/mats etc can allow the heat to build up.
What OS are you using - if it's Windows it doesn't cope well with lots of installs/uninstalls of programs.
I would compare the cost of buying a new machine with the cost of adding memory, followed by some other upgrade.....
Same applies to the desktop - except that you can probably keep the same monitor.
"In The Beginning Was The Word, And The Word Was Aardvark."
Re: Advice needed regarding upgrades
03-04-2009 4:24 PM
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Dell now have laptops for £369 (http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/laptop-inspiron-1545?c=uk&cs=ukdhs1&l=en&ref=lthp&s=dhs). Seems relatively cheap for a laptop. Do they seem decent to you?
We're pretty broke right now so I'd rather not go for a new laptop if I can fix the problem at least temporarily with extra memory, but obviously I don't want my child getting hurt with a laptop catching fire!
Re: Advice needed regarding upgrades
03-04-2009 4:28 PM
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Quote I would like to know if you knowledgeable people agree that the over-heating is likely to be caused by the insufficient memory
I would doubt it. If it's an old laptop is it's more likely to be dust blocking the heatsink and fan!!. Problem is you usually have to do some level of dissasembly of the laptop to get at them to get rid of the dust. The DELL website is pretty good for manuals though, you can probably find out how to get into it.
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Re: Advice needed regarding upgrades
03-04-2009 4:31 PM
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The smell is actually on the side which is further away from the fan, so it sounds quite plausible.
Re: Advice needed regarding upgrades
03-04-2009 4:35 PM
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Re: Advice needed regarding upgrades
03-04-2009 4:37 PM
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Quote It's four years old, is that considered old in laptop years
Yep, thats pretty old, my bet is that it could do with a good clean,
Superusers are not staff, but they do have a direct line of communication into the business in order to raise issues, concerns and feedback from the community.
Re: Advice needed regarding upgrades
03-04-2009 4:40 PM
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Quote from: Jameseh Mine literally fell apart after 3
We've only just finished paying for it!
Re: Advice needed regarding upgrades
03-04-2009 4:41 PM
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Quote from: MisterW
Quote It's four years old, is that considered old in laptop years
Yep, thats pretty old, my bet is that it could do with a good clean,
OK, will look for instructions on the Dell website. Nervous about opening it, though...
Re: Advice needed regarding upgrades
03-04-2009 5:11 PM
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Re: Advice needed regarding upgrades
03-04-2009 5:27 PM
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and how to do it for the 5100 model http://www.adinochang.com/archives/cleaning-dell-inspiron-5100-cooling-fan-part-1.html
This is what I found on the Dell site http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/ins5160/en/SM/index.htm
Re: Advice needed regarding upgrades
03-04-2009 6:32 PM
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Re: Advice needed regarding upgrades
03-04-2009 11:08 PM
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Are you running it off the mains as if you run it on battery it would slow down fans as the power reduced, If the game uses a cd/dvd coping this to the hd may help as if the cd and hd are both running its more heat
Re: Advice needed regarding upgrades
04-04-2009 9:54 AM
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Quote from: Samuria If the game uses a cd/dvd coping this to the hd may help as if the cd and hd are both running its more heat
Is there a particular method for copying the cd-roms onto the hd or is it just copy and paste?
Sorry, I realise this is very basic (put it down to the fact that I am just a mother ;))!
Re: Advice needed regarding upgrades
05-04-2009 8:49 PM
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Thanks again very much for the advice.
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