Ditch the rubber gloves. I have seen TONNES of machines go through memory upgrades and if you are really 'concerned' about it, get a wrist static strap and ground it. Of course you should also make sure it is unplugged and the battery has been removed. As for performance of your laptop, you may very well be suffering from a phenomenon called 'Windows rot'. Best best is to backup your data and use your Dell supplied recovery CD to reload the machine. Then load your OS paches via Windows update, reload your applications, and restore your data. Getting someone to do this for your can be pretty expensive as it takes a fair bit of time. You might also consider an online backup tool like mozy.com. Cheaper than getting a an external drive for backing up your data. Good luck!
If I were you, I'd do a clean install of Windows or whatever OS you're using on your 600m after installing your RAM. I still have my old 600m but for my standards and usage (I'm often using VMWare and other miscellaneous programs for my major, Computer Engineering) I decided to give it to my younger brother. Doing the clean install of your OS (preferably not the restore disks) of choice should help you notice the difference in performance. Some other notable upgrades to consider are upgrading your hard drive to something faster and bigger and replacing those problematic batteries that 600m's are typically known for. Updating your BIOS while you're at it is also a great idea as well. The memory you selected is one of the best. As far as exporting your music and what not, just purchase a fairly large external hard drive (Western Digital and Hitachi are a couple of the best out there) and transfer them yourself. It's really as simple as dragging and dropping. And regarding to how long you want your laptop to last, it'll actually last quite a while if you only really use it for everyday tasks such as word processing, checking email, or viewing the web. Hope this information was somewhat helpful. It seems we have quite a bit of knowledgeable techies on our forum, hehe.
It seems to be reacting quite better to stress. I'll only have the laptop for another year or so until I get into law school, but it will suffice for that time being. Thanks again for everyone's help.
Glad to hear its performance has improved. No problem with the technical help, glad I could be of assistance.
Ex-Dell guy here! The Inspiron 600m is the same as the Latitude D600, one of Dell's most reliable machines. Actually, the entire D-line was fantastically solid. Maximum memory on the 600m is 2GB on 2 dimms. The slot is on the bottom of the laptop, not split between under the keyboard and on the bottom like the newer D-series laptops. Just take out the old memory and put the new memory in there. Just make sure you take the battery out and hold the power key down for a few second after that so that it's entirely drained of electricity. Memory is not cheap for these machines, I think it's $65 for a 1GB dimm.
