Hi all, I am wondering if someone can tell me whether my Dell Inspiron 1420 has sufficient RAM and processing speed to handle the work I NEED to do. I need to be able to run several windows of the data analysis software SPSS 16.0 (the size of this program is 433 MB), and simultaneously have Firefox running, plus Microsoft Word 2007, plus Microsoft Excel 2007 (the excel files I work with are large, e.g., 6.82 MB). My current system is running slow and sometimes crashing when I try to do this, so I am wondering whether I need to upgrade the system (or possibly purchase a new one as I have had this for 3 years). Here are my current specs.

Dell Inspiron 1420
Windows Vista (Genuine) 32-bit
Intel Core 2 Duo CPU T7250 at 2.00 GHz
1014 MB RAM

Thanks so much for any advice you can offer!!Definitely add an extra gig of RAM, maybe two, and you should be fine.
What is your HD size/free space? Video card specs? It looks like for HD size I have 61.9 GB with 29.3 GB of free space.

I'm not 100% sure this is the video card info, but I'm SEEING that I have:
Generic PNP Monitor on Mobile Intel(R) 965 Express Chipset Family with adapter string Mobile Intel(R) GMA X300.
Intel Video BIOS.
Total available graphics memory: 251 MB
Dedicated video memory: 0 MB
System Video Memory: 128 MB
Shared System Memory: 123 MB

Thanks so much!!Yeah. In my opinion Vista needs 2 gig of RAM to run well.
Since it's laptop, and you have to share that RAM with on-board video (128MB), I'd add just 1 gig of RAM, and you should be all set.
Your laptop takes up to 4 gig of RAM, so if you want to add 2 gig, that's even better.
You have to be aware, that anything over 3 gig of RAM is a waste of money, because 32-bit Vista won't use anything over 3 gig.Quote

because 32-bit Vista won't use anything over 3 gig.

mine uses 3.25gb's of 4