Hot Rod Dell?

[newbie in Hawai]

Dell Inspiron 530 desktop with Vista loaded
A friend, who lives on another island, would like to soup up this system somewhat, so far I have suggested that we up the RAM from 2 Gb to 4, but I recently read in a Dell feedback forum that this upgrade was unnoticeable, can anyone tell me why?
It is, I am almost certain the 32 bit version of Vista.........Home premium
I also suggested that we increase hard drive capability, it now has just 1 hard drive of 250 Gb capability, I am looking at least doubling this.....
Another upgrade I am considering is installing a media card reader/USB port device in an available flex bay space in the tower. I had problems before with a Dell system where the USB section of this reader would work, but not the card reader and was told by the reader manufacturer that because of proprietary Dell rights that I would need to install a USB card into an available PCI slot, does anyone concur on this?
System specs are:

PROCESSOR..., E6420, 2.13, 4M, CORE DUO-CONROE...,
DUAL IN-LINE MEMORY MODULE..., 1G, 667M, 128X64, 8, 240, 2RX8
HARD DRIVE..., 250G, S2, 7.2K, 3.5, WD-HAWK

Any input/suggestion are most welcome, Thanks in advance
!

[beachbumfromoz]

As you can see I have a 530 with 4 gig of RAM.

However, under the 32bit OS limitations only 3.069Gb is addressed. Dell does not sell or support a 64bit OS so the machine in question will be 32bit also.

You probly wont get a major increase in performance with added RAM but as RAM is cheap why not boost it.

With regards to the card reaser I am not expert enough to comment. Eveything except for the 2nd 22" monitor came pre-built from Dell and I am stoked with it.

Cheers
Col

[sealbee]

What little I could find on it said that the sound and video are integrated. If so, you could get a good sound card and video card..

[oracle128]

A friend, who lives on another island, would like to soup up this system somewhat, so far I have suggested that we up the RAM from 2 Gb to 4, but I recently read in a Dell feedback forum that this upgrade was unnoticeable, can anyone tell me why?

An upgrade from 2GB to 4GB could be unnoticeable because the average user does not use that much memory.
Also, the amount of usable RAM in a 32 bit system is 4GB minus the total memory of your other devices - things like graphics devices (anywhere from 64Mb to 2GB itself), sound devices, PCI/AGP/PCI Express bus controllers, some reserved memory for old protocols etc all contribute to the amount you lose.

I also suggested that we increase hard drive capability, it now has just 1 hard drive of 250 Gb capability, I am looking at least doubling this.....

This will obviously do nothing for performance, but if you need the space why not, it won't hurt anything.

Another upgrade I am considering is installing a media card reader/USB port device in an available flex bay space in the tower. I had problems before with a Dell system where the USB section of this reader would work, but not the card reader and was told by the reader manufacturer that because of proprietary Dell rights that I would need to install a USB card into an available PCI slot, does anyone concur on this?

This is BS. Dell has a few proprietary components, mostly this is the case/motherboard connections and the power supply connections. But not USB, it's a standardized connection. The only reasons it wouldn't work was if the USB connection was faulty, or the device itself was.

[beachbumfromoz]

Yes would DEF go for dedicated video & sound cards....the ones I have were upgrades I did at the time of purchase.

Col