You should not be getting low memory warnings with Vista and 2GB. I have never gone above 1.8GB in my M1530.

Check the Processes Tab of Task Manager to look for programs that are using too much RAM. You need to go to Select Columns in the View Tab and select Working Set (Memory) to be displayed. You can download a Gadget for the Side Bar which will show the amount of RAM is being used.

Yes, you should upgrade to 4GB RAM, which will preserve the faster dual channel RAM performance. Any RAM Vista does not use for the OS kernel and programming is used as fast cache RAM, so overall responsiveness will increase with the larger RAM.

As they've mentioned, you could upgrade to 4GB RAM, but just to answer your question, yes you could. You could put in 1 stick of 1GB and another stick of 2GB RAM. Just ensure that they are both running at the same speed to ensure optimum performance.

Using everest I found:

DIMM1: Hynix HYMP512S64CP8-Y5    1 GB DDR2-667 DDR2 SDRAM  (5-5-5-15 @ 333 MHz)  (4-4-4-12 @ 266 MHz)  (3-3-3-9 @ 200 MHz)

I dont know what half of that stuff means haha. how would i find the exact same type of ram except 2gb rather than 1?

Hello,

Just go to the Crucial memory web site and have it look at your system. It will tell you what you have and then tell you what you can install. Crucial is the most recommended memory in this forum. If you want to know why Dell memory upgrades are so picky, you can read about it at my memory upgrade page.