Inspiron 530, adding different size RAM

Hi SR4ever,

Thanks for posting.  Apologies for the confusion regarding the RAM location.

While there shouldn't be different colors for the dimm  (ram/memory) slots you should start with the one closest to the cpu.

If the system is under warranty, please contact me privately. Be sure to include your personal information (name, address, telephone, email) and your computer's service tag number in your message. Thanks.

If there is no warranty, then you could contact our Out of Warranty team to get a quote for a paid service call -http://dell.to/1vnT6CQ

Are the three 1-GB modules identical to each other, for speed (MHz), latency, etc?  This Inspiron supports 667/800-MHz RAM. Faster RAM will clock down to the 800-MHz supported speed.

Max supported amount of memory is 4GB in the Inspiron 530, and what you're proposing is 5 GB, total. So we need to know if this is the 530, the 530a or 530c. The "a" and "c" versions support max of 8 GB.

Even if you have a model that supports 8 GB, the manual doesn't say if 5 GB is a supported RAM configuration, and I'd say that's doubtful.

We also need to know what version of Windows you're running and if it's a 32- or 64-bit version. 32-bit Windows only supports a max of 4 GB of RAM.

Assuming PC boots with one mis-matched RAM module and 5 GB installed, keep in mind that you lose the capability of running the memory in the faster dual-channel mode which requires identical modules in each pair (indicated by color of the retention clips). The system will revert to slower single-channel mode which is going to reduce performance.

Out of curiosity, why are you doing what you've proposed? Did one of the original 1 GB modules fail and you're looking to replace it?

Yes they are identical to each other, and with one 1GB ram stick replace with the 2 GB ram stick the system is faster than what it was before. By the way, it's a Dell Inspirion 530. You did asked me "why are you doing what you've proposed? Did one of the original 1 GB modules fail and you're looking to replace it?", I done it to gain more speed and right now so far no errors or lag when playing games or surfing on the web, every thing opens faster too.

I bought this system from Walmart back in 2008, it had Windows Vista 64 pre-installed on it, since then this PC been upgraded from Vista 64, to Windows 7 64, to Windows 10 64, along with a AMD HD 6450 2GB GPU.

My Bios have been updated several times. I been running with 5GB of ram since I mentioned it but still I haven't ran into any issues.