XP Memory advice and tweaking

[Tiger-Heli]

My wife got a HP 4420 Notebook with 256M RAM (64M shared with the onboard ATI 320 Video) and Win XP home.  The notebook supports up to two sticks of 512M ram for 1GB total.  I am considering adding more memory, but not sure whether to go with 256M of Ram (for about $30), or 512M for about $100 (probably later on).  (Hopefully it has one stick in the first slot and not two 128M sticks installed currently.  Haven?t opened it up yet.).

The price is better on the 256, but if I needed more memory, I would have to discard this stick, which is a bummer.  The 512M is the max that the slots will accept, so it will always be used.

BTW, it is mainly for internet and The Sims, so memory isn?t a big concern, AFAICT.

Also, I have read on the boards about tweaks to XP to make the OS less bloated/perform better.  Could someone summarize this or recommend a website on this?

[BobA]

I'd go for the 512 as memory is never wasted. Also no worries about getting rid of a 256 later if that is all you buy now.

A good site to deal with XP bloat is listed below.

http://www.blackviper.com/

BobA

[Howard_Casto]

Yup black viper will describe it perfectly.  Basically he describes every process for you.  If you don't need it turn it off.  It's as simple as that.  And as it's only temporary, you can go turn it back on again if you have some wierd goings on.

[Tiger-Heli]

I'd go for the 512 as memory is never wasted. Also no worries about getting rid of a 256 later if that is all you buy now.

A good site to deal with XP bloat is listed below.

http://www.blackviper.com/

BobA

Thanks BobA and HC!  That BlackViper page is great.