Upgrading memory

Hi my computers max memory is 2gb but I am thinking of getting 1 gb because I have a 256 mb ram so I am wondering is it true that if I upgrade to the max it slows it down rather than speed it up and what are the speed increases that I will see?

Pardon? What was the question?

if i upgrade my computer to the max will it slow down my computer rather than make it faster

?? how can going from 0.25gig of RAM to 2gig of RAM make it slower?
Surley the mobo supports the same speed of memory (PC2-4300/DDR2 533, PC2-5400/DDR2 667, or PC2-6400/DDR2 800) regardless of how much memory is installed.

Umm only things I could think of off hand are:
Old motherboards that have three DDR memory slots, where using the correct 2 would give you dual channel but using all 3 dissables dual channel.
Yes that would slow it down, but by a very small amount
If you're system is that old I'd look to a more major upgrade as DDR is now so old it's not cheap and the rest of your pc is going to be slow, giveing it more memory will improve it but not but that big a margin.

Going over 2gb on a 32bit OS (eg xp home/pro/media or vista 32bit)
Using more than 2gb on these gives very limited returns and anything over 4gb is pointless as it cannot use that memory, it doesn't slow it but it'll not add much or none to the speed.

Try telling us what your pc is, spec wise and we may be able to give you an answer.
Currently your question is too vague to give any meaningful answer.

So I'll give you my stock answer.

Maybe.