Dell Latitude gets a boost

A friend of mine asked me to upgrade his memory in his laptop. The patient is a Dell Latitude D600. It had been running with 512mb of RAM with Windows XP Professional. He decided it was time for a boost. I thought I’d show here just how easy it is to upgrade your memory in your laptop.

First step was purchasing the RAM. A common question for computer is what kind of RAM (or memory) do I get. With all the different types of RAM out there and not to mention the technical jargon it can be confusing. I don’t even understand many of them either. My favorite place to purchase RAM is Crucial.com. If you you go to there website they have a memory configurator which helps you out. They have a manual method which you look up your make, model of your machine. They also can scan your computer which takes any guess work out of the equation.

The parts and tools needed:

• RAM – Crucial Part # CT12864x335, 1GB 200-PIN SODIMM 128MX64 DDR PC2700
• Small Phillips head screwdriver

Obviously you need the Dell Latitude D600 too. The first thing you’ll have to do is locate where the memory goes. Well you flip over the Dell and it’s located in one of the secret compartments. Dell was nice enough to mark the door with a “M” just to side of it. It’s the 2” x 3” door just off center. It’s just located beneath the COA sticker in the picture . Located on the bottom is a small screw. Now is when you’ll get to use your Phillips screwdriver.

Once you open the door you’ll see your two banks of memory cards. Gently pull the two tabs alongside the memory bank.

Lift up and pull it out.

Insert your new new memory chip. Don’t worry they are notched so it only goes back in one way. Reassemble in reverse order. After all is put back together I rebooted the computer to make sure everything went well. It now has a healthy 1.25 Gb’s of RAM. This only took about 15 minutes to do. Next up will be removing the keyboard so stay tuned. Thanks for coming by!

Sources:

• Dell Latitude D600 Service Manual
• Crucial Technology

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PC shuts off randomly

For a few weeks now my computer had been just shutting of randomly. I would lose video but fans and hard drive would still be running. At first I thought it was a quirk.  Unfortunately it didn’t get any better. When it did happen I’d have to manually shut off PC (unplugging it). Wiggle wires inside and and usually would boot back up fine. At first I thought it may be the video card being overheated. Then the other thought that it was a power supply problem. Either overloaded or something else. It happened today and I finally got off my butt changed out the power supply. When I pulled all the plugs out I noticed that the 4-pin plug were singed black . Obviously I found my problem. I had pulled and reseated this one before and I had never noticed the discoloration. So my lesson for today is do a thorough check when reseating stuff. Don’t get impatient like I did and not examine a little closer. Hopefully this will solve the problem.

Hardware Specs:

• HP Pavilion A705W
• 250 watt power supply(old)
• 450 watt power supply(new)

 

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PC World Previews Windows 7

Denny Arar shows some of changes in Windows 7 which Microsoft is promoting the leaner meaner aspects of the upcoming operating system.  I haven’t personally used Vista much so I can’t comment too much about the complaints about it. It’ll be interesting to see how Microsoft responds to the criticisms of Vista.

 

Technorati Tags: windows,7,pc,world,video,denny arar

History: 40 years computer mouse

The mouse is almost as old as I am. Ughh! Anyway I found this story of the history of the mouse interesting in this article by SolarLife at NowPublic .  What made it more interesting is that Rod Holt has commented on the story. You might say who is Rod Holt. He was Chief Engineer and Vice President of Engineering of Apple during the Apple II era.  An actual tech celebrity! Anyway what makes this particularly amazing is the stunning photograph’s they used in the story(like the one to the right). Yep that’s my mouse from my Macintosh Classic. Ok it a shameless act of self promotion but what the heck.  Well have a great weekend and I’ll talk to you later.

Technorati Tags: history,mouse,40,apple,macintosh,classic,rod holt,apple II,computer

Learning Linux

In my upcoming adventures with Free Geek Providence I’ll be encountering the operating system installation of a Linux based Xubuntu. To be honest I’ve only touched upon Linux as far as usability and real world testing.

I have tried some of the more popular ones like Ubuntu, Kubuntu. Xubuntu, Puppy Linux and Backtrack. Some have more of a learning curve than others. For someone used to a windows environment it can be intimidating. Terms such as KDE, Gnome, terminal server, command line, can be baffling to the new person(as they are to me to be honest). My goal is to try and weed through the jargon and understand Linux better.

I’ll be back with more about Learning Linux.

Technorati Tags: linux,ubuntu,xubuntu,kubuntu,free geek,providence,puppy linux,learning

Happy New Year!

I’d just like to wish everyone a happy New Year!  2009 will certainly bring new challenges ahead for me and for all of us. I wish all of you the best.