ram upgrades

[jes]

My knowledge gets a little fuzzy around the ram area. Someone on my network was complaining that his computer was acting slow sometimes. He had 384 MB of memory and I put that up to 512.
It is an 800 Mhz proccessor with XP pro. I have been told that 512 is alot of RAM for that computer. Is that true?

I have another user on the network complaining that he wants more ram (I think that he just wants special treatment too). His is working on a 2.02 Ghz computer and has 512 MB with XP home. Is that enough for him? I don't think that he notices any problems now, it is just that a computer can't have too much ram.

I was also told that 384 MB or ram is pointless overkill and that the ram only works at exponents of 2 so my 384 was really only 256. Is there any truth to that?

[david eaton]

Well. Xp, either home or pro can use all the RAM you throw at it. That said, unless you are doing high end photo or video editing, anything over 512 is overkill. Anything up to that speeds up operation. over that the increase in performance is less noticeable. The factor of 2 problem is slightly misstated. Some varieties of RAM must be installed in pairs, but apart from that XP will read the amount of RAM OK.