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re: Adding memory and hard drive? Sunday, March 5, 2006 at 3:59 pm Posted by Kiwi (2117 messages posted) Whether it is adequate or not will depend on whether there is anything that you want to run in that time period that demands more system. For instance, Vista will (perhaps) be out later in 2006. It wants a fairly powerful VGA card to display its Vector Graphics GUI (Aero Glass). Meanwhile, Me will operate much more snappily with more RAM. I would suggest that you consider a "modern" Hdd for the Primary, and use the old one for backup. A 60 GB drive with only 2 MB's of cache will be seriously outrun by the current type, with an 8 MB cache. . Kiwi ** On Sunday, March 5, 2006 at 3:38 pm, BRAD FLANDERS wrote: >We have a Dell 4300 with ME, 128MB ram and a 60GB hard drive (we use 20GB of it). >Thinking about upgrading to 512MB ram to impove performance and adding another 60GB >hard drive to backup present hard drive. Computer is used for email, internet surfing >and downloading pixs and mpgs. No gaming. >Is this a good plan for the next 2-3 years? >Your thoughts are appreciated. >Thanks >Brad Flanders [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Adding memory and hard drive? Sunday, March 5, 2006 at 11:09 pm Posted by Jack Gulley (5917 messages posted) Additional RAM will help it run a little better. 128MB is all that is necessary. But if you have the empty memory socket(s) and can get the memory used or at a reasonable low price, go ahead and add it. Windows ME supports up to 640 MB of memory and can run with up to 1GB with a simple SYSTEM.INI patch. But you have no need for that much memory. In fact, you will see little advantage in having more than 256MB of RAM. Just adding a 256MB module would be the best thing for you to do. As far as adding a new disk drive. New 60GB drives are hard to find now. You can find 80GB drives that will work well as well as 120GB drives. But be aware, Windows ME does not support partitions larger than 137GB. And that Model of DELL computer does not support drives larger than 137GB. There are ways to use larger drives, but that is a risk on those old DELL computers. Seems some of the system boards hardware have problems and will get random errors if you try using an internal disk drive larger than 137GB. So stay with a drive of 120GB or less. I would also recommend checking the BIOS version level in your machine if it does not seem to support a drive larger than 60GB and get DELL's BIOS flash update for your machine so it can use drives up to 120GB. Just cleaning up and checking your disk drive might do almost as much for that old machine as adding memory. See: page [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Adding memory and hard drive? Sunday, March 5, 2006 at 11:45 pm Posted by BRAD FLANDERS (50 messages posted) How can I check the BIOS version level on my machine? Thanks Brad On Sunday, March 5, 2006 at 11:09 pm, Jack Gulley wrote: > Additional RAM will help it run a little better. 128MB is all that is necessary. >But if you have the empty memory socket(s) and can get the memory used or at a reasonable >low price, go ahead and add it. Windows ME supports up to 640 MB of memory and can >run with up to 1GB with a simple SYSTEM.INI patch. But you have no need for that >much memory. In fact, you will see little advantage in having more than 256MB of >RAM. Just adding a 256MB module would be the best thing for you to do. > As far as adding a new disk drive. New 60GB drives are hard to find now. You can >find 80GB drives that will work well as well as 120GB drives. But be aware, Windows >ME does not support partitions larger than 137GB. And that Model of DELL computer >does not support drives larger than 137GB. There are ways to use larger drives, but >that is a risk on those old DELL computers. Seems some of the system boards hardware >have problems and will get random errors if you try using an internal disk drive >larger than 137GB. So stay with a drive of 120GB or less. I would also recommend >checking the BIOS version level in your machine if it does not seem to support a >drive larger than 60GB and get DELL's BIOS flash update for your machine so it can >use drives up to 120GB. > Just cleaning up and checking your disk drive might do almost as much for that >old machine as adding memory. See: >target="_blank" title="Windows ME Fixes web page"> >border="0">page [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Adding memory and hard drive? Monday, March 6, 2006 at 2:58 pm Posted by Jack Gulley (5917 messages posted) You will have to boot the system board into its BIOS CMOS Setup. Normally the DEL key just after powering it on before or when the DELL logo first come up. Or you can run a program like CPU-Z and on its MainBoard tab it should show you that information. [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Adding memory and hard drive? Saturday, March 11, 2006 at 7:40 am Posted by Mike (31 messages posted) Adding more memory .... make sure u get the right one. My old DeLL had the original memory stick labelled as 133 MHZ but I found out that it was only 100 MHZ. The new 133 MHZ stick I bought was only being recognized as 32 MHZ. Most places will not allow u to return memory sticks ..... make sure you don't have that happen to you. I got lucky, I finally talked em into taking it back for an exchange. On Sunday, March 5, 2006 at 3:38 pm, BRAD FLANDERS wrote: >We have a Dell 4300 with ME, 128MB ram and a 60GB hard drive (we use 20GB of it). >Thinking about upgrading to 512MB ram to impove performance and adding another 60GB >hard drive to backup present hard drive. Computer is used for email, internet surfing >and downloading pixs and mpgs. No gaming. >Is this a good plan for the next 2-3 years? >Your thoughts are appreciated. >Thanks >Brad Flanders [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Adding memory and hard drive? Sunday, March 12, 2006 at 8:32 am Posted by Mike (31 messages posted) Sorry about the mistake on my earlier post. When I said it was recognized as 32 MHZ, I should have said 32 MB of RAM. On Saturday, March 11, 2006 at 7:40 am, Mike wrote: > >Adding more memory .... make sure u get the right one. My old DeLL had the original >memory stick labelled as 133 MHZ but I found out that it was only 100 MHZ. The new >133 MHZ stick I bought was only being recognized as 32 MHZ. Most places will not >allow u to return memory sticks ..... make sure you don't have that happen to you. >I got lucky, I finally talked em into taking it back for an exchange. > > > [Reply or follow-up to this message] Tip: Use one of the [Reply or follow-up to this message] links above to add a message to this thread Search this forum Start a new thread on a different subject Report abuse of the forum Return to the Windows Me Discussion Forum