Upgrading e1405/640m to 4gb?

I'd like to get suggestions on what's the max I can upgrade this laptop to? It's just too sluggish with vista, thrashing the hard drive constantly, halting for minutes at a time (the beauty of windows).

RAM: has anyone successfully installed 4gb of ram in these? I understand I'll only see about 3.5 under the 32bit os but I'm more than happy with that, if it works. Does brand matter?

CPU: I have the lowest core2 duo 1.6ghz T5200 in there. What's the fastest cpu I can slap in, and will it make a difference in everyday use?

Hard Drive: I'm guessing any large 7200rpm drive with a large cache will do well. I already have the 80gig 7200rpm stock from dell, but I'm not impressed with its speed. Any suggestions?

Graphics: I have the builtin intel gpu, I guess I can't upgrade the video card at all in this particular model?

Thanks a lot in advance. Sorry for the long post, but my most important question is about the RAM, not worried so much about the rest.

 

According to the e1405 specification Maximum installable memory is listed as 2GB. How much RAM do you have now ? If you already have 2GB then a little bit of tweaking and cleaning up (getting rid of unwanted background applications) will help speedup Vista.

 

Official specifications have been known to lie about maximum supported RAM. (In some cases this has been because 2GiB DIMMs were not generally available when the model initially shipped, but later became common.) I have in the past successfully upgraded laptops beyond their officially specified 2GiB limit. The E1405 uses the Intel 945 chipset which can support 4GiB, so there's a very good chance that the notebook would in fact cheerfully accept two 2GiB DIMMs (subject to the usual 32-bit OS diminution).

 

If you look at the spec, it says 2GB modules are supported, therefore I wouldn’t completely disregard what it has to say. Maybe there is some sort of a hardware limitation. Unless someone can confirm otherwise, safer to assume the spec is correct.

 

Fair enough. My point is that manufacturers have fudged this often enough that the only way to really be certain is to put in a pair of 2GiB DIMMs and try it. Printed documentation is untrustworthy on this score.

 

So no first hand experiences?
Any input on the cpu and other questions?
Thanks

 

No firsthand experience here, no. If you can get 2 GiB SO-DIMMs from a retailer with a generous return policy, buy a pair and try them.

Dell are currently offering the E1405 with up to a T7400 CPU (2.16 GHz, 4 MiB) so we know you should be able to upgrade to at least that speed. Whether it will make a difference in daily use depends entirely on whether you're frequently CPU-limited now. If you're running Vista, use the CPU Meter sidebar gadget and keep an eye on it through the day. But unless you already have at least 2 GiB of RAM, it is very highly likely that adding memory will offer a more immediate, significant improvement than a CPU upgrade.

The Hitachi Travelstar 7K200 is very highly rated for performance. It's 7200 RPM, got a 16 MiB cache and available in up to 200 GB.

You won't be able to upgrade your graphics.

 

So the motherboard is definitely the same, they never change that around?

I ordered two 2gig sticks of Kingston ram, I'll let you guys know how it works out.

Thanks for your help!

 

I said "are currently offering". My mistake. Discontinued model! Dell's site silently redirected me to the 1420 and I didn't notice. Sorry. However, a bit of Googling confirms that Dell did sell the E1405 with a T7400.

They do occasionally make behind-the-scenes revisions to their motherboards, but they don't change the fundamental design save in extraordinary cases. CPU support is mostly a function of chipset and BIOS, so it would be surprising if your laptop could not take a T7400 (assuming you've got the latest BIOS installed).

(In theory, the best CPU your machine should accept is the 2.33 GHz T7600 - that's the fastest 667 MHz Merom. Dell doesn't seem to have ever offered that chip in the E1405, but that might well have been just a matter of marketing position - i.e., the E1405 wasn't a sufficiently high-end machine to rate that kind of CPU.)

 

More RAM can speed things up in Vista, but a new CPU wont. Any Core 2 Duo is fast enough to handle Vista, what you experience is not related to having a " relatively slower" CPU. If you already have sufficient amount of RAM (2GB: you never told us how much RAM you have right now) then the problems are probably,due to having resource consuming background applications and services.

 

Thanks guys. I have 1gb right now, obviously that's the major bottleneck.

 

Ok, the upgrade to 4GB was a success. I only get 3.3GB reported in Vista 32, but that's good enough for me! I got Patriot RAM off ebay. Tested good with Dell's builtin memory tests, and runs great!

 

Just curious because as steel_36 mentioned, he succeeded in instlaling 4GB's to his Inspiron E1405, even if it shows 3.3, it is still better than 2 which is the max.

I mean I called Tech Support and they verified only 2 is max... And I want to purchase

Crucial, which seems compatible with my model.

So curious if anyone else has had success in this, as i don't want to purchase it to find out it is useless, as I already have 2GB's in my system.

Sorry to bring up this Thread again but it is the only one that i can find that actually has had a reply that says it can go over 2GB's.

Thanks.
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EDIT:
I currently use XP, but if it goes over 2GB's I might consider Vista, as currently I am just using it for Encoding Video's and anything to help speed it up would help.

 

In case nobody else replies, I'll just re-confirm this for you, it's still working great! Very worthwhile upgrade. I run with no swap file, never run out of ram.

I don't think the OS matters, I don't think the brand of RAM matters as long as it's decent, you should be good to go. I have the latest bios (which is already pretty old).

Think of it this way, even if I'm lying, you can always sell the extra stick

 

@steel_3d: Thanks for the reply ^_^

And I changed my mind and goign to go with 2 sticks of This one.

Friend says still good... Thanks for the re-confirmation of this.