Question Inspiron 1525 Max Ram 6 gb or 8 gb?

[SubZero DJ]

I am attempting to upgrade my ancient (and favorite!) Dell Inspiron 1525 laptop from 6 gb RAM to 8 gb RAM, but haven’t had much luck. I don’t know whether or not this is even possible; I found a few older, similar threads but with no definitive answer. The official specs on the Inspiron 1525 say that max ram is only 4 gb, but I know this to be incorrect, since I’ve had 6 gb installed for quite some time (and the machine runs great, by the way!). Here’s my setup:

Hardware

2.60 ghz Intel Core Duo T9500 SLAYYX Processor
500 gb Crucial MX500 Solid State Drive
Intel Mobile Express 965 Chipset
6 gb DDR2 SDRAM occupying two slots of two in the following configuration:
(1) 4 gb PC2-6400 800 MHz stick / A Tech brand
(1) 2 gb PC2-5300 667 MHz stick / A Tech brand

Dual Boot OS

64 bit Windows 10 Home Version
64 bit Ubuntu Studio 19.04


Does anyone know if 8 gb can be installed in this machine, and what the required ram config. would need to be in order for bios to accept? I seem to recall that when I originally upgraded from 4 gb to 6 gb some time ago, the bios would not load with a 2 gb stick of PC2-6400 800 MHz (combined w/ the 4 gb PC2-6400 800 MHz stick), but when I swapped in a 2 gb stick of PC2-5300 667 MHz instead it loaded just fine, accepting all 6 gb.

 

[Lutfij]

If I had money to throw around I'd give it a go with a second 4GB stick of ram, though please keep in mind to find the same stick of ram. Prior to the ram upgrade you might want to see if you have any BIOS pending.

You might want to read through this material as well before stepping forward. So in short, more ram, lower frequency and your memory controller won't go bust.

Oh look, it has a Wikipedia page as well.

 

[SubZero DJ]

If I had money to throw around I'd give it a go with a second 4GB stick of ram, though please keep in mind to find the same stick of ram. Prior to the ram upgrade you might want to see if you have any BIOS pending.

You might want to read through this material as well before stepping forward. So in short, more ram, lower frequency and your memory controller won't go bust.

Oh look, it has a Wikipedia page as well.

Thanks for the reply. Yes, strangely enough I had actually previously read the thread from the link you posted; I’ve also previously checked out the wikipedia page as well.

I tried yesterday to install a 4 gb module (in replace of the 2 gb module) identical to the working 4 gb module that’s installed — same speed of 800 mhz, same density as well (High Density)...no luck! After about ten minutes of the bios loading at a snail’s pace, the bios progress bar reached somewhere around 85 to 90%, and then just sat there. I let it sit for about 45 minutes, and it didn’t budge at all; so I gave up and powered off...

I gave it another shot after removing/switching ram sticks in slots, powered on, and the same exact process occurred (slow loading of bios, progress bar reached about 85 to 90%, and then just stopped loading).

I tried again w/ a 4 gb of PC2-5300, 667 MHz, combined with the PC2-6400, 800 MHz and got the same exact result: bios loaded to about 85% and then just stopped. I guess that 6 gb may be the maximum.