Upgrading CPU & RAM on Inspiron 1545. Is it worth it?

[Chinnay]

Hello guys. So I own an inspiron 1545 that's almost 4 years old. I don't want to buy a new laptop until about 4 years from now so I'm looking into upgrading it. Will an upgrade to 8gb of ram from 4 and to the T9600 from the Pentium dual core one be a worthwhile investment to extend the power & life of my laptop? (The ram would cost me 175 on amazon and the processor 30 on eBay)
Thanks.

Edit: Ok, thanks for the input so far but I must clarify some things. I don't have 4gb, I have 3gb of ram. Also, my pc can run 8gb of ram (it has been done) as long as it has 64 bit os, which it does. Normally I have chrome launched with many tabs (30+ lol), rainmeter running, gimp and word open. Idk what type of usage that constitutes as. Whenever I saw my activity, the ram was what ran low (it was used up) while my processor was ok. From the feedback and additional research I've done, I'm considering instead 4gb of ram, a 256 ssd, and the processor (only because it's so cheap). What do yall think?

 

[SteveCo]

Welcome to Tom's!

According to this:
http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/category.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=dhs&cs=19&category_id=4325&mfgpid=201357&chassisid=-1&stype=1&Tab=Parts
that laptop only supports a total of 4GB of RAM (2x2GB), so your plan to increase the ram will not work. While the CPU upgrade will help, I don't think that it will improve much because you can't add more RAM. Sorry!

 

[hydrologic]

I just retired a 7 year old 1545 because of dead spots on the display and sketchy keyboard. Before I retired it, I purchased another from ebay for $25. Before the LCD and keyboard gave up I upgraded to 8GB RAM, 223GB SSD, and a T9600 CPU running Win 10 Pro. It ran beautifully with very quick start up. I had never seen Photoshop start so quickly! Swapped all of my upgrades to the new old 1545 with the same result. Crucial is on point with the RAM and SSD, though I did have a little trouble fitting the drive properly. Anyway, it works and will continue to work. Just for comparison, my wife bought a Toshiba with 4GB RAM, 1TB HDD, and duo core processor loaded for $600 brand new. My inexpensively upgraded (6 year old) Dell outperforms hers on every level except graphics and sound. Not a bad deal.

 

[Drranderson]

I recently had my ATI card die on my 6 y/o 1545. This laptop has done and continues to do all i need. I bought a referb motherboard on ebay for $75, upgraded to 8 gb ram, and upgraded from the P8600 to the T9900. My next step is to add in a 250gb SSD and use an optical drive HDD caddy to move my 500gb WD so I can run the OS and Programs on the SSD and the file storage on the old HDD where the DVD used to be.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00F6K9M4E?colid=1B9ZR28BRD0W3&coliid=I3NDPUFZ0EWMDM&ref_=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_ttl

So far my 1545 barely underperforms my 2 year old desktop at work. although Im upgrading that to an i73770s so that wont last long 😉

 

[mythbuster]

Yeah read that specs wrong. Its ok to put 2 by 4 gb in there. As long as there is 2 slot each can have a 4gb card in it. Unless u have one slot like an older model(1525) than its 4gb total. It caped out at 8gb but 4 to 8 isnt a big change and it's not worth 120$.
Another thing is to consider a cpu upgrade it's easier and better solution because 4gb is enough to run program its 3 more gb than the pc remember the pc only require 1 gb for some to work. I disagreed with the guy who said cpu wasn't a good one because it can run a t9800 cpu which is just as fast as any new cpu.
Update : I found a 500gb Uefi drive sitting in my Hp 2000 so I pull it out to put in my 1545. Why? Because my hp isnt working, it need driver to work and disc for installation. Working on it. Also I found 4gb ram sitting in my sony laptop which fit perfectly. I have 3 laptop only dell is working so I say it's worth the upgrade. Well I have all the upgrade at home. It accept the new drive yes. Currently it's running on window xp dont tell people it can't just because u never done it. I already build several computer so I say it's possible, don't pretend to be a tech if u never fixed a computer.

 

[mythbuster]

Welcome to Tom's!

According to this:
http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/category.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=dhs&cs=19&category_id=4325&mfgpid=201357&chassisid=-1&stype=1&Tab=Parts
that laptop only supports a total of 4GB of RAM (2x2GB), so your plan to increase the ram will not work. While the CPU upgrade will help, I don't think that it will improve much because you can't add more RAM. Sorry!

 

[Christopher_98]

well i have this laptop aswell the inspirion 1545 with a t6400 windows 10 pro 32bit and 4 gb ram and 2 hdds it works so fast its unbelievable im thinking of upgrading cpu but keeping it at 25 watts

 

[AboutToRegenerate]

Hello guys. So I own an inspiron 1545 that's almost 4 years old. I don't want to buy a new laptop until about 4 years from now so I'm looking into upgrading it. Will an upgrade to 8gb of ram from 4 and to the T9600 from the Pentium dual core one be a worthwhile investment to extend the power & life of my laptop? (The ram would cost me 175 on amazon and the processor 30 on eBay)
Thanks.

Edit: Ok, thanks for the input so far but I must clarify some things. I don't have 4gb, I have 3gb of ram. Also, my pc can run 8gb of ram (it has been done) as long as it has 64 bit os, which it does. Normally I have chrome launched with many tabs (30+ lol), rainmeter running, gimp and word open. Idk what type of usage that constitutes as. Whenever I saw my activity, the ram was what ran low (it was used up) while my processor was ok. From the feedback and additional research I've done, I'm considering instead 4gb of ram, a 256 ssd, and the processor (only because it's so cheap). What do yall think?

I got my RAM upgrade here, second one down, two modules. It's running on the laptop I'm typing this on, a Dell Inspiron 1545 I was given years ago. Despite the irritating things Dells do, such as not picking up an external optical drive as a boot device unless you physically rip the internal one out, it's outlasted newer computers I've bought. I've installed 8GB of RAM, which has made a very significant difference in performance. Crucials and Offtek both tell you that you can double your RAM, don't believe a word Dell tells you - they aren't supporting older machines for Win 10 (no biggie, it's malware of the worst kind) and barely support it properly for Win 7, despite shipping later issues of this model with that pre-installed. Offtek are way cheaper - the total cost, including 95p for Royal Mail signed for (it came the next day), was £128.15 just one week ago. It takes a minute or two for the BIOS to pick up the extra hardware, so don't panic about the first boot being unusually slow, be patient. I'm running Win 7 Pro 64-bit and looking at upgrading the CPU next

https://www.offtek.co.uk/dell/laptop-memory-upgrades/inspiron-notebook-series/inspiron-1545-ram