Hi Douglas,

Ok, I removed the post as requested due to the info it contained.
Also I'm sure it doesn't really matter if you use either slot A or B but if you feel happier using the B slot then do so. If you do get any problems then you can always change things around. I'd also try leaving the 512 in but again it's up to you and as I said if you thinks it's causing problems then just remove it...

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Thanks Kemical, I know what I am going o do now. Youv'e been a great help
Douglas

Great... Let us know how you get on..

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Hi Douglas

Must have been a RAM salesman you spoke to at Dell.!!!
I do not see any point in spending money on 4GB of RAM if your OS cannot use this much.
Yes, you will get the benefit of increasing from 1GB to 2GB,but going above that is not really going to give you value for money.
As Kemical says, your 32bit OS can only read between 3-3.5GB of RAM, so putting in more is throwing money away.

Hi superbill,
I think your right about the salesman lol.. The only thing is he confused Douglas into thinking he could get away using 4GB of RAM with a 32bit os...tut tut..
What these people will do to get a sale is beyond me at times....

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Progress report
The 2GB stick is in slot B and one of the 512s in slot A. System shows 2.5GB Ram so I assume both are in use but no longer dual channel. (I have no idea what dual channel is for, so far not missing it). Peformance base score is 3.1 which is the 3D gaming and buisiness graphic score, all the ohers are now over 4.5.
MS Office word and excel now leap on to the screen so I am much happier about that. Start up and shutdown times have improved to my satisfaction. I will run it as is for a while and then I may get a 1 GB stick for slot A and use the 3GB till I decide to upgrade the system to 62 bit. Anyway, back at the fun farm I have MS F SimX and set all settings to default levels, previously quite low, and they all went to max. Let me know if you think I should just settle for what I have now or get another stick to bring me up to 3GB
thanks guys
Douglas

Well with RAM being so cheap at the moment I'd go for the extra 1GB but obviously you won't see the same leap in performance as you did with putting the 2GB stick in.
Dual channel memory was created to give a larger 'bandwidth' to allow more data to be moved from the memory to the CPU. For a far better explanation than I could ever give, try here:
Dual-channel architecture - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Hi Kemical, thanks for the link, enlightening, bookmarked Toms Hardware for reference