ARGH! I had a Compaq 5003 US way back when, I got a much better comp in January and I'm planning on upgrading it. I have a Dell Dimension 4600i, with 1 Gig of RAM and ~2.80 GHz of Processor... 380 GB of HD space, I am having a bit of trouble with the ram though. I plan to upgrade to 3 GB of RAM. It has 4 slots for RAM and each slot can HOLD 1 GB, it said on www.crucial.com that the RAM needed to be installed in pairs, so I tried to move ONE stick over but since there was so many wires I couldn't get it installed in right. When I get the two gigs of RAM, can I put 1 gig next to 1 512 MB in each pair of slots? Or does it need to be 512 and 512? Either way, I can't see through all the cords to get it clicked in on both sides. Any SUGGESTIONS? Also, I am going to install a GFX card soon and I have no idea what is the GFX card, I found a card near the back of the Dell and there was 2 other slots like the one the card was in, are these GFX Card slots?

Thanks!

~NeciFiXI'm not sure but my hunch is you should put the two 512's together and the two 1GB's together. Regarding the difficulty of accessing the slots, you just need to take the time to do what's necessary to make them accessible. If that means disconnecting some cables, then so be it. Just connect everything back the way it was; that shouldn't be very difficult. If you're going to be inside the case doing such things as installing memory, you ought to be able to do this.

Take precautions to avoid ESD (electrostatic discharge) while working inside your computer case. One technique here is to touch a metal part of the case chasis before touching any components in your computer.What is the service tag on the machine? We can help you with that information.