Rollingstone06 <no@spam.invalid> wrote

> I'm thinking of getting an upgrade to my hard drive. I now
> have 160 GB. Was thinking of getting 160 GB more added.

Better value to replace the existing 160G drive with a 400G drive.

> Should I also increase my tower drive's memory, to 1 GB, while I'm at it?

Depends on what you do on the PC. Probably worth doing for most PC use.

> Here's what I have at present:

> AMD Athlon XP 3000+ Barton V 2167 MHZ
> ASUS A7N8X-E Deluxe NForce2 LAN DDR400, sata
> Samsung 160 GT S-ata 7200 rpm
> Memory: 512 Mt 400 MHz DDR CL 2.5 DIMM
> Antec Sonata Piano 380W

> Plz let me know what advantage will I get, if any, by increasing my
> PC's memory to 1 GB if I increase to a hard drive power of 320 GB?

The two are independant. You need more hard drive
space if you dont have much free hard drive space.

You need more memory if the system uses the swap file much. You can
see how much memory it currently uses in the Task Manager with XP,
after you have been using the system for a while with the bigger tasks.

> Or will there be no tangible difference?

There will obviously be more free hard drive space with more hard drive space.

Whether the difference in memory is tangible depends on what you do on
the PC. You wont notice any difference if you say just browse the web etc.

> In any case, plz advise whether 512 Mt memory
> is compatible with a 320 GB hard drive in total?

Yes, they are completely independant.

> PS. Please pardon the noobishness of this, but what exactly is the
> function of that memory card. (I.e. what memory function does it control?)

Its where the PC keeps what its running when the PC is running programs.

> PS. One more Q: if I decide to upgrade memory, is it simply
> a matter of adding it to the motherboard's slot, or would I
> have to discard the 512 Mt chip, i.e. not an add-on?

You can add another 512M module fine.

> And what about my OS -- would I have to reload XP again?

Nope.