Scott Mueller's Upgrading and Repairing PCs Forum

My wife won a laptop. It's painfully slow and has soldered in RAM to the motherboard. Sure you can upgrade the one slot. The soldered one if 4GB though and it had 8GB total. So adding ram in pairs so it works in dual channel mode isn't possible. Correct me if I'm wrong but when adding ram you need to match the capacity and speed for the ram to run in dual channel mode. Correct?. So why limit the user to single channel mode by soldering in the RAM like this?. Maybe it wouldn't be much of a noticeable difference but it just seems dumb to limit the potential of the system like this.

To enable dual-channel mode you need to install RAM in pairs (each in separate channels) that match or exceed the speed at which they are intended to run. In other words you can install faster RAM with no consequence, but installing slower RAM will slow the memory bus down to the lowest common denominator.


Because due to first, second and third level caches in the processor the speed of RAM has very little effect on overall system performance. Having enough RAM is definitely important (and 8GB should be more than enough for most normal tasks), however how fast it is or whether it is dual-channel or not has very little effect.

From the specs I see it has a horribly slow HDD, which is probably why the system seems so slow. Installing an SSD would offer the single best performance improvement possible as compared to changing any other component. Scott.

I've been googling looking to find out if it has m2 slot or not. I even chatted with support and the guy said he didn't know. Even if I found out it had a m2 slot, I've been reading that some boards or laptop manufacturers have it there but don't allow you to boot from it for some reason. They don't provide any info about the motherboard having an m2 slot or not anywhere on the support page. What do you think Scott?. Would I just be better off getting a 2.5 inch Sata SSD?.

Found this,

https://community.acer.com/en/discussio ... windows-10

Also found a motherboard for my specific model and if you take a look at the picture you can clearly see the motherboard marked "M2.0 x4" and the m2 slot right below that, so I figure it's safe to say it does support the 4 lanes and does support m2.


https://www.ebay.com/itm/Acer-Aspire-A5 ... 2212436503

I saw someone posted that on an acer forum that I could run a Nvme m2 SSD but it would only run and have available 2 lanes. I don't understand why that would be the case because there are different models that I'm sure use the same motherboard but come with m2 ssd. The motherboard has an m2 slot and it's "M keyed"....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M.2

Actually I think those markings are for the type of screws it uses. Hahaha!

As far as it running only at 2 lanes I was told this,



Doesn't that seem silly?.

Do SSD's really generate much heat?. I mean they aren't being accessed constantly and HDD generate much more heat...

I believe the guy I talked to on a forum was just talking out his ass. Today I chatted with Acer support and told him what this kid in the forum said. He told me that it was inaccurate and there is no limitation on the m2 slot of the motherboard for my wifes laptop.

Just figured out on my own that this laptop isn't actually compatible with a pci express 3 x 4 SSD. Yes it has an M2 slot, but I don't believe it has a pci express 3.0 bus, so it would just be Sata 3.0. So it would make more sense upgrading it with a 2.5 inch Sata SSD instead.

Link to same model configured with SSD

For some reason I was confusing the m2 port and not realizing that m2 can be pci express 3.0 x4 and also Sata 3. I don't believe this laptop even has a pci express bus. Also if I use the Crucial tool for compatibility it only lists 2.5 inch sata drives.

Just have to remember that different ports can support different types of busses for those devices. M2 supports Sata 3 and also pci express 3.0 x 4.

Yet another reason to only get Thinkpad laptops. With any other brand it seems you have to be a detective to find out what your product supports. For this laptop you even have to take the bottom cover off completely just to remove the damn battery.

Scott, in your next upgrading and repairing pcs could you go into more detail on M2 slots and also different interfaces. Plus include detailed information on NVME.

I sure will, thanks for the suggestion. Scott.

I went to look up m2 and SSDs in your current U&R pcs and there wasn't much in there about it. It gets confusing with the different module "keys" or I guess different types of connections/connectors.

Scott I ordered a SAMSUNG 860 EVO Series 2.5" 500GB SATA III 3D NAND Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) MZ-76E500B/AM to upgrade the crappy HDD in this new laptop. Since the battery is on the inside, should it be disconnected just to upgrade the HDD?. I thought that whenever working on a laptop the battery was suppose to be removed. However I've not worked on or even seen a lot of laptops. The last few laptops I have seen have had easily removable batteries. This one doesn't The battery is inside the laptop.

I can take it apart and just disconnect the battery cable I guess.

This link says to remove the entire lower case. I could easily disconnect the battery while I'm in there. The link also says it's installing a "secondary" hdd. So since this will be a replacement instead of a secondary drive than some steps won't be necessary. Particularly the steps to open up the entire case and "install the hard drive cable", since obviously it'll already be installed!.

However, what I'm asking is should I do the steps to remove the lower or bottom side of the case just to disconnect the battery?.

Hard drive in there now is st1000lm035-1rk172. So since it is 7mm, than I should not need an adapter, correct?.

The physical specifications are nearly identical except the width for the Seagate says 69.85mm and the Samsung is 70mm. Unless the specs on newegg aren't exact like the ones I linked on the seagate site.

So I talked to Samsung support and he explained to me that those adapters are meant for older laptops since they had different height hard drives. So I guess I don't need one.

I recommend not buying stuff you don't need. <g> Scott.

Ok thanks!. What about disconnecting the battery?. Last I remember is it was recommended to always remove the battery from a laptop before working on it.

I didn't bother with disconnecting the battery. Everything went great. Now the laptop is amazingly faster. The difference is very noticeable. Very worthwhile investment indeed.

I'm glad the SSD installation went well and that you noticed the performance improvement. I do recommend removing the main battery before working on a laptop but in the case of a simple SSD installation it won't really matter. Scott.