IT Queries: Computer problems answered

I’ve got a 5+year old Dell PC – everything is fine but performance is a bit slow – I expect this is due to upgrades of software (XP and Norton) without upgrading the hardware. Its a 2.4G Pentium with 384M of memory.

I think upgrading memory will improve performance. I can expand the memory to 1G. But is this much memory ineffective with a 2.4G processor speed. For example, would i cap out with 512M of memory?

If there is a limit on memory it won’t be so much the processor limiting it as the motherboard. The easiest way to check the limitations of your system is to log onto the support section of the Dell website and enter your service tag number which normally appears on a sticker on the top or back of the system.

You’ll probably find a computer of that age will probably support up to 2Gb of RAM however it will probably be an older type so it will be more expensive than the current models.

Generally it’s best to buy memory for these sort of systems from the manufacturer. While you’ll pay more, you’ll avoid strange bugs and incompatibilities.

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