Vostro 1000: anyone have issues with AMD processor or video card?

i'm about to buy a Dell Vostro 1000, and i dont need anything extremely fancy, as i spend most of my time doing simple things like cruising the internet and downloading music.

I was wondering if anyone has any serious gripes against the AMD AthlonTM 64 X2 Dual-Core processor TK-55 (1.8GHz/512KB), or the ATI Radeon® Xpress 1150 256MB HyperMemory™ (integrated) video card?

I'm also wondering if this is the correct memory that i'd need to buy to upgrade the ram? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820134058 on dell's website, the memory is listed as 1GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHZ, 2 Dimm.

thanks for any help

 

That ram should work fine.


I have an ATi Xpress 200m 128MB card, very similar to the 1150 except the 1150 is a bit more powerful. You might find that ATi's own drivers won't install. I get round that by using Omega drivers, but to be honest that shouldn't be as issue for you as the stock drivers (the ones that come with it) will be all you need for your usage.

Kudos on not buying something overly powerful that you don't need. Are you getting windows Vista or XP?

 

I love your signature moon angel....Vista is like Paris Hilton - very pretty on the outside but ugly and dumb on the inside.....SP1 RC is like rehabiliated Paris Hilton....but as u know celebs need more than one rehabiliation visits

 

I was originally going to get vista, but last weekend i used my parent's work computer that has vista on it to re-organize my external hard drive, which included moving and deleting a ton of files. most of which were moved one at a time, and i became very upset very quickly with how stupid the little pop ups were asking TWICE for authorization.

SO, definitely going with xp home.

and from the looks of it, several people around here are using the AMD processors, so i shouldnt have any worries about choosing that over an intel?

 

For what you're going to use your computer for, you should be fine. It will probably get a little warmer and have a little less battery life, but that's about it.

 

AMD's do run hotter and not as good batt life but work fine. If upgrading RAM have you checked if 800Mhz RAM will work? Your FSB (Hyper Transport) is 1600Mhz and memory bus is likely 800Mhz like mine.

 

I'd highly recommend to upgrade to 2GB. You could try faster ram which your cpu might be able to use, if not, the ram will automatically downclock to pc2-4200 533mhz. The faster ram is 200-Pin DDR2 SO-DIMM DDR2 667 (PC2 5300)

 

I am saying the faster RAM might be PC6400 800Mhz. That might be the one thing AMD has on Intel, don't take it away!

 

As long as the battery last longer than my IBM G41's battery did (maximum of an hour), I wont be complaining. i'm also not too concerned about it getting too hot, as my G41 got quite hot to the touch after sitting on my lap for a good half hour.

How long should I expect the battery to last while only cruising the internet and having the screen's brightness turned down? I'm going with the 53 WHr 6-cell Lithium Ion battery.

oh, and of course, right as i was about to buy it, dell revised their "base" version of the vostro 1000 to include a Mobile AMD Sempron Processor 3600+ as the base processor, and a 29 WHr 4-cell Lithium Ion as the base battery, costing me extra to upgrade to what i had originally wanted. GRRRR

 

Typical... you can configure the same pc twice on one day then again the next day and the price is different...

 

I fully intend on upgrading the RAM, even though 1gig would probably be sufficient for me. I'm used to running on machines with no more than 512mb.

I havent a clue what any of the RAM specifications you're talking about mean. I might as well go with a 2gig instead of 1, since there's not a huge difference in price. so do i want to look at PC2 5300 or PC2 6400?

 

5300/5400 to be safe I'd say. There are no garuntees the 6400 (800MHz ram) will work.

 

When you get it SiSoft Sandra is a free application download. When installed go to the "hardware" tab open, second icon is "mainboard" click it. Down a little ways is info on your memory, it will tell you what speed RAM you have and the maximum supported speed. Mine is 800Mhz. 800Mhz will work just will not run at 800Mhz if not supported so not much risk, just might pay more than needed.

 

i just ordered the laptop a couple hours ago. i'll wait for it to show up and check out the specs with that program, and order the appropriate ram.

 

number of memory slots: 2
maximum installable memory: 4gb

under memory module 1 AND 2, they both say speed: pc2-5300U DDR2-333 and are listed as type: 512mb ddr2 SO-DIMM

is this saying that there's already two chips installed?

 

Yes that is how they save money, smaller chips are cheaper. So you would have to remove at least one to upgrade. Have you run SiSoft to see what your FSB/HyperTransport is and maximum supported memory speed is? Refer to previous post.

 

yessir, thats where i got the stats i listed, but there's so much that comes up i didnt know exactly what i should have been looking at.

does this make it easier?

 

Yes, click the scroll on the left once and post! So far your FSB is 1600Mhz. Looking good!

 

you mean scroll bar on the right?

 

Yes I meant right (oops) see where it says maximum memory speed 800Mhz? If your buying all new Ram I would buy PC6400 it does not cost much more. And if you do please share your benchmarks?

Edit: Are you running on batteries or have power saving feature on? says memory speed 2X257 (514Mhz), but says you have PC5300? mine will downclock on batts.

 

nope, that's running with the power cord plugged in, although the battery's charging.

so if i'm only going to replace one chip, since i've seen so many people posting how when trying to put in two 2gig chips one or the other doesnt work, i'll want to get a 2gig, DDR2 SO-DIMM pc2 6400 correct?

 

Intel supports different size chips and speed and will run in Dual Channel (Flex Memory). In all my searching I have not come across any documentation that says AMD supports anything like this. I will also tell you that while Intel suffers about a 10% drop in RAM bandwidth (John Ratsy) my AMD suffers 30%drop running single channel 10% or less I could handle, 30% seems a bit more than I would accept. Look at Dual Channel RAM Guide. The reason 2X2GB sticks does not work as 4GB in 32bit OS has nothing to do with "bad" RAM. It has to do with limitations of a 32bit OS, they will both work just not report 4GB more like 3GB. I am concerned as to the reported speed your RAM runs at (514Mhz) with PC5300/ should be 667Mhz. I hope someone else posts. Mine will report slower when I use the power/heat saving features if that is why get it to report properly. Maybe run the memory bandwidth benchmark in SiSoft see what memory speed reports. I want to see 667Mhz. If so I think PC6400 would work.

 

i'm looking at the build sheet, and maybe this has something to do with it?

1GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHZ, 2 Dimm
ATI Radeon® Xpress 1150 256MB HyperMemory™ (integrated)

and when i go to system, it reports as 896mb of ram

 

Yes the reason reports less than 1GB is GPU so that is fine.

You should install CPU-Z because SiSoft says you are not running Dual Channel, and the speed is odd. And SiSoft does say you are running Power Saving features. Also benchmark your bandwidth, if you stress it and gives good results than slow speed is just power saving feature not a problem.

 

benchmark results:
multi-media int x4 aEMMX/aSSE: 32847iit/s
multi-media float x4 iSSE2: 37166fit/s

performance vs speed:
multi-media int x4 aEMMX/aSSE: 18.25iit/s/MHz
multi-media float x4 iSSE2: 20.65fit/s/mhz

performance test status:
run id: amd athlon 63x2 dual-core processor tk-55 (dual core 1.8ghz, 2x 256kb l2)
platform compliance: win23 x86
(and right about now im gonna start skipping the crap that seems unrelated)
ores per processor: 2

processor:
speed: 1.8ghz
cores per processor: 2 units
type: low power, dual core
L2 on board cache: 2x 256kb synchronous, write-back, 16 way, 64 byte line size

 

ATI cards have not supported XvMC and I think they still don't, so just beware that your system might not be able to smoothly display HDTV. ATI cards also used to not play well with 64 bit but I think the situation has became better. Nvidia is still superior, however.

 

SO, am i going to want to be safe and get the 5300 or can i go with the 6400?

 

Get the PC2-6400 RAM if you want. It'll be automagically downclocked to PC2-5300.

Speaking of which, I've got a 2GB stick of PC2-6400 RAM running in my ThinkPad T60 which is designed for PC2-5300 RAM and the new memory works perfectly fine (as downclocked PC2-5300). I got the RAM hella cheap so that's why I'm running it.