How to Upgrade Video Display Adapter on Dell Inspiron 4150

[junebug]

I currently have a 16 MB Mobility Radeon 7500 display adapter, but it doesn't work well with some of the games I am running which require at least 28 MB, so I would like to upgrade to a better one. How do I go about this? I'm pretty good about doing these things myself, at least on my PC, so any tips would be apreciated. I'm running XP SP3.

[ReRun]

Your laptop video uses the system ram so... Looked up the specs for your machine and it will use up to 1 gig of ram, max stick size of 512mb per slot. I would get to sticks of 512 myself but one would do the trick with the 256 you already have. These sticks are cheap... buy a decent name brand like PNY,Crucial,Kingston, just avoid the really cheap stuff and read user feedback if your unsure.
Your machine uses PC2100 DDR SDRAM SODIMMs, you can use 2700 or 3200 ddr SODIMMs because they are backwards compatible.
If the computer does not up the amount of video ram you have after you install the new ram enter the bios and see what options the onboard video has for shared memory.

[junebug]

Thanks for the quick reply. I now have 512 of ram, so what is the best way to go? Should I just go with the 256, or if I go with another 512, will the computer ignore the extra ram?

[ReRun]

If you already have 512mb, reboot the computer, tap the F2 key to enter the bios, not sure which bios that one has, but you can expand the menus until you see onboard video and the share amount, at the bottom of the screen it tells how to change the value. The link below shows a basic bios screen and a video share of 256mb, once you find yours you should be able to highlight it and hit enter and see what options you have.

http://common.packardbell.com/itemnr...pset_setup.gif

[junebug]

Just wanted to update the post. I only have 2 memory slots, both with 256, so I ordered a 512 from Dell and had it put in today. It made a HUGE difference in my video display. Thanks a million!