Crucial.com

When i purchased my computer about 18 months ago I was assured by the salesman "you will never need more than 64 mb memory" .From a recent trip into pcworld i now see that even their base models come with 128mb and from what i understand you need 128mb if you ever want to upgrade to the windows XP just been released by bill gates`s mob.

While i was in pc world I checked out their prices for memory and was amazed that they wanted£40 for an upgrade to 128mb and a massive £90 for a upgrade to 256mb.

I remembered a piece in computeractive about crucial.com so i took a look.When you enter the site be sure to click on the uk site.

First you have to find the manufacturer of your system amongst the many listed.Then you have to find the exact model so they can pinpoint the correct memory to sell you.My particular packard bell model wasnt listed isnt that always the way.

If they havent got yours listed you are invited to fill out an enquiry form giving as much detail as you can about your system,processor speed,current memory stuff like that which you can find on the little slip of paper that came with your system when new or from your computers manual.

24 hours later there was a reply from crucial saying yes i could upgrade and giving me the exact part number required.

I had a choice of 128 or 256 mb being a greedy bugger i thought i will go the whole hog and whack it up to 256mb thatll do me for a few years with a bit of spare capacity.

I just went back into the site found the part by the number given and hit order,this process is very quick and took all of 3 minutes from start to finish via their secure server and all it cost was £32.77 inc delivery by royal mail special delivery.

The site is very detailed and has pages and pages of help and F.A.Qs and if your model is not listed dont worry just send them an e-mail and they will get right back to you.

The moment of truth will come in a couple of days when i have to open up my tower and ram the ram home fingers crossed it goes ok.