Legit Reviews

The last time I bought non-Dell memory for a Dell computer, it didn't work. This was a Dimension L1000R (big 1GHz yay!) and 128MB of Kingston ValueRAM. The computer would get stuck in a reboot loop. I am anxious to avoid this issue (or anything else like it) with my Inspiron E1505, and am looking at these G.Skill modules or these Corsair modules to upgrade my notebook to 2GB. Would they both work? Or should I go with one over the other? I'd prefer less expensive (college FTL), but if I have to buy the Corsair to "make sure it works" I will do that.

Dell, of course, says that you should only use Dell modules. I sure as hell am not paying $315 for Dell modules, however. Corsair's system configurator does the same thing, pulling up a 1GB DDR2-667 module that costs $179, so two of them would cost even more than Dell! I know that even though my Inspiron shipped with DDR2-533, you can order it with DDR2-667, so unless Dell makes special motherboards so that ONLY DDR2-533 modules work in E1505s, the 667 can either run at full speed or clock down.

I have a Dell Inspiron 1100 that I bought in June of 2003 and I bought a private branded 512MB memory module from a vendor in Florida and it's worked just fine.
Good luck!

I have a Dell 9300 laptop that i stuck a GB of cheap Transend memory in over a year ago and haven't had any problem. Not as picky as Dell wants you to think they are, its ridiculous how much they want for memory.

ALSO, i have had problems with Corsair Value ram

As a long-time Dell owner, I know that Dells are not as picky about memory upgrades as they once were. But the memory you can sometimes find, especially on the older models is pricey. A 512 stick for my old Dimension 8250 was twice as much as a 1g stick for my new build.

So the G.Skill should be fine?

Sovereign wrote:So the G.Skill should be fine?

Since its a notebook, Im gonna defer that answer to someone with more experience. If the motherboard accepts DDR2 667 and you're replacing both sticks, (not mixing), then in all actuality, it should work fine. But then again, we're talking about Dell here. I've upgraded Dell desktop memory, but have never tried with my notebooks.

Well, unless Dell does something whereby DDR2-667 sticks don't work in Inspirons initially configured with DDR2-533 modules, I don't think the speed should be an issue because I'm replacing 2 DDR2-533 with 2 DDR2-667.

You can order (and could when I bought the laptop) an Inspiron E1505 with 1GB DDR2-533, 1GB DDR2-533 (2x512MB), 2GB DDR2-533 (2x1GB) and 2GB DDR2-667 (2x1GB).

I've used multiple DDR2 DIMMS on my Latitude D610.
They had different SPD timings and different rated speeds and had no probs.

I'm currently running 1x 256mb DDR2 400MHz & 1x 512mb DDR2 533MHz stick............the ram is running at 400MHz but it's perfectly stable.

DDR2 seems to be less pickey than DDR1.

Apop. I still plan on getting that 1gb stick from you!

I just ordered the G.Skill memory, we'll see how this goes.