2011 XPS8300 issues

I got my system back in May 2011. For the most part I have been happy with it. However, I have 2 issues.

1) It only has 8mb of ram

I have tried to upgrade my ram but cannot get a definitive answer as to how much the machine can use. When I run the Dell PC Support app it tells me maximum ram is 32mb but when I went online and ran the configuration app it said maximum is 16mb. I know there are 4-2mb chips in the machine now but as I understand it the ram slots are paired so that if I put an 8 in one slot I have to also put an 8 in the second slot.  So what I need to know is if I replace the 2mb cards in the first two slots with 8mb cards will need to remove the other 2 2mb cards in slots 3 & 4? Or can the machine really hold 32mb of ram? When I talked to the sales rep I was not very confident with the expertise.

2) did not come with internal bluetooth so I purchased an io gear gbu421 external dongle from Dell that does not work most of the time.

I keep getting an error message at startup telling me the "bluetooth software license cannot be found". Also, when it does seem to be installed I cannot pair my Windows 7 phone HTC surround to the dongle. I have spoke to Dell techs many, many, many times and spent many a late night trying to allow the the techs to fix the issue without any resolution. Now they won't even give me my money back for the dongle. In the spirit of full disclosure I also have Dell wireless keyboard and mouse that connect to a dedicated usb dongle. I do not know if the usb keyboard/mouse dongle is usb. Does any one else have this issue and if so have you been able to solve it?