memory

 two slots, one slot (the other is soldered.) or, 4 slots.
The amount of misinformation I would need to cut paste is ridiculous...

maximum ram is typically higher...I sense boilerplate salesmanship
(more ram, more money)

Sure, it could be their wording,
"two" (empty available) "slots"

Not everyone can be right.
Max 64 GB, Max 32GB.
5600, 5200, cas 46, cas 42

And I don't know why, but Amazon keeps warning me that people want more money than the RAM is worth.
The limitations of RAM could possibly be whatever cheapo memory controller they are using;
regardless, "32GB" sounds ok.

(possibly 64 and the OEM is playing it safe)

Speak confidently on Reddit and Google AI will quote you.

I don't know if this is a bad thing yet.

The point of confusion now is, are my 16GB all soldered in?
Fine, I say, 2x8 soldered.
Or maybe, 4 slots, two filled.
I seriously need to take this apart and hunt down the memory (no one apparently knows where or what it is)
But *I* have determined, it's 2-channel ddr5-5200-cas-42.

Or (more likely)

It's 5600 per the spec, being run at 5200,

and "CAS 46" being run (at 5200) at "42"
But that doesn't mean much, one-SODIMM upgrade or a kit-upgrade?
Does the CPU and the other memory prefer a brand?
(I swear I had a ram number a few days ago)

Speed is there and type, but no one online could tell me if I would need to buy a pair.

If I only have one-something (chip or dimm) installed, fine but if I already use two, I'd need two more.

2gx8 refers to (ideally) a dimm with 8 2-Gig chips. (All this is educated guessing)

so...um...one single 16gb dimm sounds nice, unless I open it and find TWO dimms, 8G each.

and two empty slots, which would mean another 2 8-gig sodimms.

I refuse to capitalize their acronyms, this would look like some hostage letter or a Trump post.

My nagging question then becomes, 

Can I possibly use a kitchen knife to unscrew the screws?

And what about prying off the cover after using the knife?

Without being able to modify BIOS, the memory must slip in like a ninja and pretend that it was always there, but (summarizing)

2x8, 1x16, or take a biggie chance and get 2x16??

No. A guy has to ignore all the vague advice givers and see for himself.

Let me tell a freaking story...

A Sony Laptop (The exact brand is irrelevant) needed a memory upgrade, probably from 2GB

to 4. The memory I purchased was faster than the OEM memory, but the computer refused to boot with it..

FASTER memory, non-bootable (nothing, nada)

So now I can't afford experimentation, I must buy as close as possible to the OEM.

5200? So don't get 5600.

Cas 42? don't buy 46 or 40.

With no BIOS-timings access, I'm restricted.