Added more memory but slower than ever

:confusedHi, I am new to site. Well I have trusted advise here for a while but never posted any questions. I hope I am able to get some help or advice to get me going in the right direction. I had 256 mb and recently increased memory by another 512 mb because computer was so slow. Now it is as slow as ever. Last night I defragged took all night to do also ran disc cleanup and still it is slower than ever. Do you have any suggestions? I am not real good at computer solutions, I am a nurse, I can fix people but no idea about computers. I have avast for viruses and smart defrag iobot, I don't know what else to do? Some one told me to switch memory sticks and put 512 where 256 is and vice versa? Will that do anything helpful for me? Anyone who might know how to help I sure would appreciate some advice in the right direction. Really could use all the computer help I can get, Thanks to all of you who have ever helped a computer retard like myself.
Hope 2009 is an awesome year for us all. :confused

 

Which OS are you in? What do you have running in the background? Did you install a new antivirus or service pack right after adding more RAM?

Also, what's the full make and model of the computer? Switching places on the memory might help, or it might not, depending on what motherboard you have. You have nothing to lose from trying it, of course, and older Compaqs and Dells are picky about which memory stick goes where.

 

I had 256 mb now it shows 512mb. Dell said it only can handle 1gb memory. It is slow as ever though. Unfortunately I don't know much about computers and have always had problems with it. Either it is super slow, or someone got on and got a virus, that I am no better at diagnosing than with this problem. I don't know what you mean OS I am in? In the back ground? I don't know the make and model right off but it is a dell, older ordered in 2001. This is what I know, I have not downloaded any new antivirus I have Avast, when I ordered it months ago I somehow got on wrong site and got a bogus antivirus but I deleted all of that. Now just use avast, I have iobit smart defrag, I am on cox website as far as email and no new things otherwise. Thank you for any help you can give me, I really do appreciate this website. Every product have ever downloaded to help such as antivirus or smart defrag has been after checking with major geeks website, it really is a life saver for those of us who don't know what were doing with the technical side of computers. I am a nurse so I can save your life but can't work on my computer, ha ha go figure. Anyways thank you

 

Hi,

Teams can be difficult to pick up lets see if I can help at all, the OS or Operating System is the proagram that governs... everything :-D, I can only assume you have one of the following:

*Windows 98
*Windows ME
*Windows NT
*Windows 98 SE
*Windows XP

Any of those ring a bell? Backround programs, to find them press, Ctrl, Alt + Delete in that order while holding down all, if you know what I mean :-D. Then go onto the "Processes" tab, and list what you have running for us. Also if you could tell us what model of Dell it is, as much info as you can.

As for your RAM I would suggest getting 1GB of RAM in 1 stick, you need to make sure it's the right or supported RAM, DDR,DDR2 all that jazz. Like I said before we can help you alot more with info on the model .

Good luck.

:major2-Bit-Geek:major

 

If you don't know what computer you have, look for the Dell service tag on a sticker on the back of it. You can put that in the search field on support.dell.com to get info about your system. Or you can put it here and we will do the digging for you