Another memory question . Advice please

Price of memory now is good. I’m thinking of replacing the 2.99 gb of memory on my computer .
I see that memory now seems sold in 4gb , 8 gb sticks. Etc
Am I right in thinking my system, being XP needs only a max of 4gb, anything else is wasted, or undesirable?
My present motherboard uses three sticks.
Would it be able to use just one stick of 4gb, and ,if so, is it important which slot the 4gb stick goes in ?
(. If so, I’m hoping the Mobo manufacturer can help on that one, as well as the details of which memory specs)
Cheers

 

I don't know what motherboard you have but since your motherboard supports 4GB it probably supports dual channel mode. If it does, memory should be bought in pairs so that you can benefit from it. The memory bus would be 128 bit instead of 64 bit. The memory should be same size and speed.

I forgot to say that XP 32 will only see 3.5GB of ram. It would work fine if there is more than that. It would just be wasted memory. If you want to use it all you have to use XP 64 bit instead.

 

Thank you
Yes, in System Information it says I have 2048mb of memory (?). Another part of computer says 2.99gb
Whatever,! .?
In any event I have 3 X 1gb sticks in three slots.
So, I reckon if I get 4gb I’ll get a fair percentage more memory, which will help, I’m sure.
And it’s cheap enough now.
Hopefully the motherboard manufacturer will advise. They were brilliant last time I sought their help.

 

If your mother board has 4 slots for ram you have to use 2 slots or 4 slots to get dual channel. You can check how much memory you have in the bios or with cpuz.