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    Dell 3521 provided by school

    Discussion in 'Dell' started by jbachandouris, Jul 17, 2014.

  1. jbachandouris

    jbachandouris Notebook Geek

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    It has a dual core 1.6GHz Celeron and 1 stick of DDR3 4GB 1.6 speed memory.

    We do virtual machine work on these PC's and its really slow. The question if will an upgrade to 8GB speed it up or is that just a waste of money?

    The school will sign ownership over to me in a few weeks and I wonder if its worth it. I know retail for this PC barely breaks $500 even when new.

    And yes, I know an SSD will provide the best performance increase, I doubt its worth it given the anemic processor included.
     
    jbachandouris, Jul 17, 2014
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  2. Dellienware

    Dellienware Workstations & Ultrabooks

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    4gb on that cpu. 8gb is overkill for that cpu.
     
    Dellienware, Jul 18, 2014
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  3. jbachandouris

    jbachandouris Notebook Geek

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    If it's overkill, then why does it run so slow?

    Remember even 1 virtual machine uses almost 2GB.
     
    jbachandouris, Jul 18, 2014
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  4. Dellienware

    Dellienware Workstations & Ultrabooks

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    Probably slow HDD and cpu. That cpu is just too slow..
     
    Dellienware, Jul 18, 2014
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  5. jbachandouris

    jbachandouris Notebook Geek

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    Which means I shouldn't waste any money on it. No way I'm putting an SSD in this and the processor is soldered onto the board.
     
    jbachandouris, Jul 18, 2014
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  6. Dellienware

    Dellienware Workstations & Ultrabooks

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    Buying an SSD and RAM is always a good idea. As long as you get SATA III and DDR3L types, you can use them in your later notebooks. Unless if they come with them.

    I think at this point you need a better laptop, especially if you are talking VMs... use that as backup if everything crashes or even sell for cash
     
    Dellienware, Jul 18, 2014
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  7. jbachandouris

    jbachandouris Notebook Geek

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    That's the conclusion I was coming to.
     
    jbachandouris, Jul 18, 2014
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