Dell latitude d520 questions and errors

I don't think there's a CPU option available for the D520 that supports more than 4GB of memory.  It's possible that the motherboard chipset is the limitation there.  But even if it WERE available, it would probably cost as much or more than just buying a newer used laptop from somewhere like Discount Electronics if you're in the US.  The D520 is ancient.  You should really consider getting something newer, which would probably come with a newer OS and even an SSD.  And as for that PCI slot, that's Legacy PCI, not PCI Express, which means it's over a decade old.  Anything you would want to install into that slot would probably have a much more capable equivalent today.  Out of curiosity, what ARE you trying to install in there?

And eBay is our best friend for cheep upgrades our sometimes Amazon is

Maybe, but the chipset in this system won't support more than 4G of RAM, so no matter where you get the memory from, the system isn't going to recognize it.

Unlike current-generation CPUs, the memory controller in this system is part of the chipset - not the CPU -- and that's permanently part of the mainboard, so no matter what CPU you install, the system won't recognize more than 4G of RAM.

https://www.dell.com/community/Laptops-General/Latitude-D520-CPU-Upgrade/td-p/3182549 this link right here a guy said he did a successful RAM and CPU upgrade to his latitude d520 so don't tell me it can't be done

That's not very helpful and I have seen others on here say the d520 can support more RAM and better cpu once the bios is updated to the latest version of the bios and I got this laptop for free 

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@Kcak547mopr wrote:

https://www.dell.com/community/Laptops-General/Latitude-D520-CPU-Upgrade/td-p/3182549 this link right here a guy said he did a successful RAM and CPU upgrade to his latitude d520 so don't tell me it can't be done

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Well then best of luck following the advice in that thread.  Sounds like you don't need this one then, since that thread names some CPUs and the only other question you asked here was about the PCI slot in the dock, but you didn't provide any more detail about the PCI device you're trying to use.

Even if you got the laptop for free, my point was that even the cost of finding a CPU might exceed the cost of getting a much more recent used system, and the latter will give you a far superior result. And that assumes you don't place any value on your time doing this research, finding a CPU, installing it, potentially having it not work at all, etc.

If someone can tell me how to fix the PCI slot errors on the **bleep** that would be great so I can use the PCI slot for a full giabit nic or hard drive controller our a pci video card

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@Kcak547mopr wrote:

If someone can tell me how to fix the PCI slot errors on the **bleep** that would be great so I can use the PCI slot for a full giabit nic or hard drive controller our a pci video card

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The D520 has a Gigabit NIC built in, as does the D-Dock.  I seriously doubt you will get that system to accept an external video card.  What version of Windows are you even running?  I don't think dual graphics cards were even supported until Windows 7, but you're more likely to have hardware-level issues there.  Not sure about compatibility prospects for the hard drive controller, but the 32-bit Legacy PCI bus maxes out at just 133 MB/s, so from a convenience standpoint you might prefer to just get a USB hard drive, or a $20 USB enclosure for an existing hard drive.  The USB 2.0 ports you have on that D520 may not be as fast as PCI, but your hard drive will be more versatile, and any enclosure/drive you buy today would support USB 3.0, so whenever you connected it to a USB 3.0 port you'd be able to run much faster than PCI, or at least the hard drive would be the bottleneck rather than the data bus.