Problem upgrading memory on Dell Inspiron 5100

[Ben Scott]

On Sat, Aug 2, 2008 at 2:52 PM, Greg Rundlett <greg.rundlett at gmail.com> wrote:
> According to 3rd-party websites, crucial.com
> (http://www.crucial.com/store/partspecs.aspx?imodule=CT12864X335), and
> newegg's own 'comments' section, this memory should be compatible

  Well, careful, now.  You're comparing two different products, saying
"they have the same advertised specs, so they must be
interchangeable".  That's not always the case.  For example, I know
with some motherboards, the "density" of the modules matters.

  Crucial's "Memory Finder" claims the Inspiron 5100 is limited to 512
MB modules:

http://www.crucial.com/store/listparts.aspx?model=Inspiron+5100+Series

  According to Dell's own product specifications, the Inspiron 5100 is
limited to 1 GB max system memory:

http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/ins5100/en/i5100-om.pdf

  You're looking at a support forum, and finding some information from
people who managed to get it to work.  The problem with that is that
the spec's say what you're trying to do *won't work*.  So according to
all the authoritative information, what's happening is exactly what
should happen.  This is the problem when one exceeds the area of the
supported and well-defined.  You pays your money and you takes your
chance.

  I suspect you're SOL.  NewEgg has a very strict return policy.  If
something is defective, they'll get you a new one, but if you bought
the wrong thing, that's your problem.  If I'm at all unsure about a
purchase, I always go through a reseller with a more liberal return
policy.  It usually costs about 10% more, but I'm getting something
for that.  Then again, you paid $16 for a RAM module; at that price,
it's almost disposable.  :-)

> Dell's support site gives no information about the upgrade of the
> BIOS.

  If I go to pull up the BIOS downloads for an Insiron 5100, I get
offered a .EXE and a text file.  The text file contains revision
history going back to A20, which is labeled "Initial release".  No
mention of "RAM" or "memory" is made.

  You state you updated from "A06", which obviously contradicts the
release notes.  Is it possible you have some other model of laptop?
For example, I know Dell had both an "Inspiron 5000" and an "Inspiron
5000e"; despite the similar names they had very different internals.

> Since I don't have Windows on this machine, I used an ISO found online for the
> BIOS rather than Dell's .exe installer.

  Where did you find this ISO?  From a trusted site, like Dell's Linux
site?  Or some random website?  There's a lot of malware out there;
I'd be careful if I were you.  Linux's much-talked about better
security won't help you if you willingly boot someone's malware on
your machine.

> I could retry installing the BIOS - either by using a Windows XP boot
> CD or actually installing Windows to a partition.

  Windows NT install CDs are only good for installing Windows NT.
(Windows XP is Windows NT version 5.1.)  Unlike most Linux distro
install CDs, they can't run arbitrary programs.

  The Dell .EXE BIOS updater says it can run from an MS-DOS boot
floppy.  If you don't have one, let me know; I'm sure I can find a
legit disk and just give it to you for free.  Not much call for
Windows 95 these days.  (Windows 95 (which is still the "classic
Windows" product) still booted and ran on top of MS-DOS.  So their
install CDs are useful for running arbitrary MS-DOS programs.)

-- Ben