RAM or SSD upgrade for my Dell..? Pls suggest the right choice !

K

Hi All,

I own a Dell Inspiron 3521 with 4gb ram & OEM windows 8.1.. 100GB+ free space on the OEM SATA drive .

Regular usage of the laptop include

Browsing on multiple tabs & browsers
Office suites for documents/ ppt's
YouTube videos

Off late, the laptop seems sluggish In operation especially when I browse on multiple tabs & browsers (either reading article's, or YouTube videos..) & also when I revive the laptop from sleep.. it takes ages before the hard drive activity light indicator comes back to normal..

Also at times.., the HDD usage hits 90-100% and the RAM usage hits 90%..

I would like to overcome these issues & understand that either/both of RAM/HDD upgrade could minimise these issues.. My vendor suggests an additional 4GB RAM + installing a SATA SSD (no motherboard ports for M.2 or NVMe...)

Would like to have some advice on which of these 2 upgrades should I give preference to, so as to overcome the issues stated above..

Have been quoted 2k for the 4GB DDR3 and w.r.t the HDD, vendor said he would install a SATA SSD in the existing HDD slot & push the old sata HDD into a casing to have it installed into the dvd optical drive slot. (No more dvd drive).. Expense for this HDD upgrade alone (SATA SSD + casing) is approximated at around 4k.. The vendor claims issue with multiple browsing tabs will be resolved by the RAM upgrade & 100% disk usage issue will be resolved by opting for a SATA SSD..

Please could you all give me your inputs on which of these 2 is priority for now / whether both are needed to see benefits / whether even after both these upgrades, there will no big noticeable difference..?

Thanks ..

i have installed a 240gb crucial 240gb ssd in a caddy in the place of dvd drive in my lenovo having Intel Pentium N4200, 4gb ram. bought parts from amazon and did the whole thing on my own. cloned oem windows 10 home installation from hdd. it works fine with multiple tabs now.
when i asked about the same before this, a vendor wanted me to buy some unknown brand ssd which i refused.

Get Crucial BX500 240GB (2.6k) and do the upgrade yourself. Get an Orico 2.5" SATA USB 3.0 enclosure (500-600) and use the stock HDD as an external HDD after formatting it. Save ~1k and don't let vendor sell you unknown crap.
Adding RAM is easy, just install CPU-Z, go to memory tab and get another RAM stick of same frequency (probably DDR3 1333 or 1600) and capacity. Then restart the OS.

if windows 8.1 is also slowing u down , u could try any light linux oses(linux mint xfce version , zorin os lite , mx linux etc) , it would prove to be beneficial in my opinion
libre office may suffice for ur office tasks
u can get any browser of ur preference , zorin and linux mint etc are similar to windows

Your vendor is right. Issues can be resolved by upgrading RAM & adding SSD. But do this step by step (don't buy unknown brands)
1. Upgrade your SSD first and see if you find any improvement over your previous issue.
2. If Step 1 fails then install 4GB RAM

Upgrade to Windows 10 at least.

Whenever you change components of any laptop, make sure to disconnect battery, and press and hold power button to discharge from the circults.

K

Thank you all..!

just want to confirm if my decade old CPU (i3 3217U) on the Dell Inspiron 3521 will not in anyway be a bottleneck to my SSD & RAM upgrade?
looks like the vendor might charge me for the O/S installation on the new SATA SSD since they say the 'product key' from the OEM installation needs to be retrieved properly.. Hence, I'm slightly titled towards getting the upgrade done myself.. Any good resources on how to re-install an OEM OS on a different HDD ?

Further, I have no clue about cloning a HDD & whether this will work for OEM O/S installations?
- Coming to the Windows 10 part, is my laptop capable of handling Widows 10 ?

BTW, I was recommended the Adata SSD...

SATA SSD like BX500 is a "slow" SSD but still much faster than a HDD. Total 8GB RAM + OS on SSD will be good for even that CPU if you want to use that laptop.

If that laptop had Win8 pre-installed, just reset the OS & try to upgrade the OS to Win10 yourself:
Yes, you can still get a free Windows 10 upgrade. Here's how | ZDNet

Yes, it should handle Win10 with 8GB RAM & SSD.

karthik316_1999 said:
just want to confirm if my decade old CPU (i3 3217U) on the Dell Inspiron 3521 will not in anyway be a bottleneck to my SSD & RAM upgrade?

No, it won't be.

karthik316_1999 said:
looks like the vendor might charge me for the O/S installation on the new SATA SSD since they say the 'product key' from the OEM installation needs to be retrieved properly.

Use this for recovering the product key.

*www.nirsoft.net/utils/product_cd_key_viewer.html

karthik316_1999 said:
Any good resources on how to re-install an OEM OS on a different HDD ?

Just install windows normally using a bootable USB. Youtube/google for tutorials.

karthik316_1999 said:
- Coming to the Windows 10 part, is my laptop capable of handling Widows 10 ?

It should work fine for most parts but you might run into some driver related issues.

K

Well . Thank you then!

well cloning a HDD - the OS part worked for the lenovo OEM O/S installation on my laptop.

K

Anything that didn't work?

karthik316_1999 said:
Anything that didn't work?

well cloned it first. it worked. then thought of a clean install but that generated some error 2 times during the installation and there was not much time so i cloned it again. works fine now. sometimes on restart it shows an error message on boot - something like to select other windows. shows F9 key to press for that, pressing which it boots properly. its getting updates regularly and there is no issue in the regular heavy working. i will try clean install again after we shift in few months and buy a new laptop. i will then remove existing HDD to avoid any conflict.

K

Okay, so I will not be able to take such a risk !

I shall begin with the installation of windows 10 first after formatting the drive. Will then check for any issues/slowness/driver compatibility issues..

If in case, windows 10 does not work out, I shall format the drive again & install 8.1 to activate it with the OEM key..

Shall get back here if needing any help during these processes.. Wish me luck !

karthik316_1999 said:
Okay, so I will not be able to take such a risk !

I shall begin with the installation of windows 10 first after formatting the drive. Will then check for any issues/slowness/driver compatibility issues..

If in case, windows 10 does not work out, I shall format the drive again & install 8.1 to activate it with the OEM key..

Shall get back here if needing any help during these processes.. Wish me luck !

Don't mess up. Just login with your microsoft account on your laptop which will link your activation key with your account. Then, download all latest drivers and prepare a bootable windows 10 USB drive. Keep the drivers on a separate USB drive. Replace the HDD with a SSD and only after that continue with a fresh intall.

karthik316_1999 said:
Okay, so I will not be able to take such a risk !

I shall begin with the installation of windows 10 first after formatting the drive. Will then check for any issues/slowness/driver compatibility issues..

If in case, windows 10 does not work out, I shall format the drive again & install 8.1 to activate it with the OEM key..

Shall get back here if needing any help during these processes.. Wish me luck !

best of luck. you can always ask for help here in case of any issue.

SaiyanGoku said:
Don't mess up. Just login with your microsoft account on your laptop which will link your activation key with your account. Then, download all latest drivers and prepare a bootable windows 10 USB drive. Keep the drivers on a separate USB drive. Replace the HDD with a SSD and only after that continue with a fresh intall.

will doing that register windows 10 as op has oem 8.1 or op needs to upgrade it to 10 first and then perform a clean install?

vidhubhushan said:
op needs to upgrade it to 10 first and then perform a clean install?

Yes, this is how it should be done.

K

So is it like my 'oem product key' is associated with win 8.1 single language for now.. & will be associated with win 10 post me upgrading the current OS to win 10?
Will I then not be able to install win 8.1 at all on the laptop with this oem key?

(I remember Dell / Microsoft offering me a free win 10 upgrade at the time of its launch..) When I tried doing it few months later, I remember seeing something like the 'free upgrade timeline' has closed & that I would have to pay for it..

many people have upgraded it after that also and iirc its still possible.

K

alright.. I shall try & update here... So my product key will be associated with win 10 if & when I upgrade?

i think it is associated with the hardware, the motherboard specially and the windows version. imho upgrade is just some incentive / offer to keep customers on windows.

K

SaiyanGoku said:
Don't mess up. Just login with your microsoft account on your laptop which will link your activation key with your account. Then, download all latest drivers and prepare a bootable windows 10 USB drive. Keep the drivers on a separate USB drive. Replace the HDD with a SSD and only after that continue with a fresh intall.

Ok so I have backup up all my data and ready to test the upgrade to windows 10 on my existing hard drive before I could install my new SSD and have windows 10 installed on to it.

I visited the Microsoft website as advised and logged in but I cannot find any option where I can register my current version of windows 8.1 to my laptop or to a specific product key. When I click on windows 10 upgrade option, it asks me to pay money to obtain the o/s..

Am I missing something here? kindly advise...

karthik316_1999 said:
Ok so I have backup up all my data and ready to test the upgrade to windows 10 on my existing hard drive before I could install my new SSD and have windows 10 installed on to it.

I visited the Microsoft website as advised and logged in but I cannot find any option where I can register my current version of windows 8.1 to my laptop or to a specific product key. When I click on windows 10 upgrade option, it asks me to pay money to obtain the o/s..

Am I missing something here? kindly advise...

*answers.microsoft.com/en-us/window...-account/e02cfbd6-cb85-480f-8d34-adf6220c14fe

*www.digitalunite.com/technology-gu...n the Start button,password and click 'next'.

Scroll down to "How to link your computer to your Microsoft account"

K

okay, so this is getting tougher than I expected...

I've downloaded the media creation tool from Microsoft & attempted to install Windows 10 thrice since morning but the installation fails abruptly in the middle.. (somewhere around 73%).. I've attached the screnshots.. This happens at around 3:10 timestamp on the above youtube video.. when the pc is supposed to restart after a successful install..

Tried various correctional steps mentioned online in several websites but still in vain..

Screenshots are attached.. and some info below as detected by "Setupdiag" is as below..

Error: SetupDiag reports abrupt down-level failure.
Last Operation: Finalize
Error: 0x80004005 - 0x50015
LogEntry: 2022-03-03 18:35:05, Error DISM DISM Provider Store: PID=2300 TID=5112 Failed to get the provider DISM Package Manager from the remote provider store. - CProxyProviderStore::GetProvider(hr:0x80004005)

Refer to "Tutorial - Debug system error codes - Win32 apps" for error information.

Any help is appreciated...

don't remember whether i encountered an error like this or not.
when i upgraded my old computer running windows 7 prof., i downloaded win 10 iso from ms site, used rufus to create a bootable installation usb drive and then upgraded it. it worked.

K

Yep.. that's what I would do for a normal installation..
In my case though, am I not aiming to get a digital license ?
Else, the point of this entire discussion is lost..!

well if i would have the same issue, to check, i would simply clone the disk to ssd and then use the bootable usb drive to upgrade with Internet connectivity on.

K

Hmm.. I really doubt if the hard disk is a reason behind this error...
& your experience with cloning is also not that smooth...!
I've chosen the usb drive option & attempting the upgrade installation (from within windows) just now... Will keep posted

karthik316_1999 said:
Hmm.. I really doubt if the hard disk is a reason behind this error...
& your experience with cloning is also not that smooth...!
I've chosen the usb drive option & attempting the upgrade installation (from within windows) just now... Will keep posted

my cloning experience is ok. windows works through that ssd without any issue. only occassionally after restart it shows an error message and asks to press F9 to select another windows. pressing F9 loads it again from ssd and it works without any issue. sister uses it regularly except when we are sleeping so i haven't found the time for a clean reinstall.
this could also be due to same original hdd with windows intact present in it and cmos battery issue.

K

Thanks to all the contributors.. Typing this on Windows 10..! The USB drive installation worked & the OS is activated with a digital license it says..

Will be replacing the HDD with a SSD in a few days and attempt to install win 10 with the same USB drive that I had used now.. Hope things will be smooth without any further actions from my side...

karthik316_1999 said:
Thanks to all the contributors.. Typing this on Windows 10..! The USB drive installation worked & the OS is activated with a digital license it says..

Will be replacing the HDD with a SSD in a few days and attempt to install win 10 with the same USB drive that I had used now.. Hope things will be smooth without any further actions from my side...

Unplug the HDD before trying to install OS on the SSD.

K

Sure thing...

good to know it worked

K

Zangetsu said:
Your vendor is right. Issues can be resolved by upgrading RAM & adding SSD. But do this step by step (don't buy unknown brands)
1. Upgrade your SSD first and see if you find any improvement over your previous issue.
2. If Step 1 fails then install 4GB RAM

Upgrade to Windows 10 at least.

As seen from the picture, the RAM usage peaks to 85% with just 6 tabs on my edge browser.. Should I upgrade the RAM first or still stick to the 'SSD first' advice?

karthik316_1999 said:
As seen from the picture, the RAM usage peaks to 85% with just 6 tabs on my edge browser.. Should I upgrade the RAM first or still stick to the 'SSD first' advice?

Why not both? You'd be opening the laptop either way.

K

Budget concerns..
Plus someone told me, each penny that you put into this 8 yr+ old lap is not worthy..

Not that I'm interested to invest a new laptop now though... hence, some picky questions... i'm sorry !

karthik316_1999 said:
Budget concerns..
Plus someone told me, each penny that you put into this 8 yr+ old lap is not worthy..
Not that I'm interested to invest a new laptop now though... hence, some picky questions... i'm sorry !

You can either choose to buy a new laptop for >=50K or spend just ~5-6k for SSD and RAM (and HDD enclosure)
Also, if you want to sell it off, what is your asking price?

K

New laptop is out of the question...
Amongst SSD & RAM - I'm trying to figure out which is more vital to my requirements...
Just trying to learn which component would give me more bang for the buck.. for now..
Or do you mean to say that without upgrading both these components 'at the same time..' , I would not see any difference ?

karthik316_1999 said:
New laptop is out of the question...
Amongst SSD & RAM - I'm trying to figure out which is more vital to my requirements...
Just trying to learn which component would give me more bang for the buck.. Or do you mean to say that without upgrading both these components.. I would not see any difference ?

Replacing HDD with SSD would take more work than simply upgrading RAM. For RAM upgrade, unless you are running a 32 Bit OS, you won't need to reinstall it. But SSD would make it more responsive and it'd feel almost like a new laptop.

K

Off I go.. to get my 'Crucial' !

karthik316_1999 said:
As seen from the picture, the RAM usage peaks to 85% with just 6 tabs on my edge browser.. Should I upgrade the RAM first or still stick to the 'SSD first' advice?

85% RAM consumption isn't bad if that's your normal use case. Upgrade only if you hit 100% usage on regular basis and struggling to work day to day tasks. Same goes for HDD. If you see in Task Manager that your HDD is always working at 100% for simple tasks and freezing your system then better get SSD.

K

Well, I don't think my RAM has hit 100% so far...
w.r.t the HDD, I have seen it hit 100% several times when multi-tasking .. (Things like browsing / opening files, etc) when there are certain other unstoppable/mandatory background activities going on such as [services like service host 'xyz' / service host 'abc' / system / windows explorer / task manager / AV updates, file transfers, other browser windows open] etc... At times, the OS would freeze as well and I would have no option but to close the browser tabs/windows to get the disk activity down... by some % at least...
Sadly, most of the times.. my hdd hits 100% due to "system processes / services" only.. I would no clue how to and whether I can 'end / stop' them abruptly without harming the OS. Not sure if windows 10 would have a different story to tell me? (in terms of some process optimizations so as to reduce the interference with the user activities...?)

Thanks !

Buy SSD first and check.

SSD will make your OS, Apps & Copy/Pasting faster.

only ssd upgrade has increased performance of my laptop.

u can set ur windows 10 to performance mode , removing all effects(like when u click windows icon there i an animation effect when it comes up , this would go instead u'd get a snappy pop up of windows drawer) , then also check settings to disable auto starting of apps(disable everything IMO) , there maybe tutorials to further increase performance.

K_akash_i said:
u can set ur windows 10 to performance mode , removing all effects(like when u click windows icon there i an animation effect when it comes up , this would go instead u'd get a snappy pop up of windows drawer) , then also check settings to disable auto starting of apps(disable everything IMO) , there maybe tutorials to further increase performance.

Software settings tweaks will only give 1~2% improvement than hardware changes

K

Now that the upgrade priority is very clear.. just want to confirm this out :
(I had earlier created a windows 10 bootable flash drive while upgrading from Windows 8.1 to 10)
Once I get my primary SSD..

1. Install the SSD on the same sata port as the old HDD
2. Insert the bootable flash drive
3. Have BIOS boot from the flash drive
4. Format & install a new copy of Win 10 onto the SSD (planning to have 2 partitions on the SSD ~ 120 GB each...)
5. Fix up all drivers, ignoring the ones downloaded & installed by Windows automatically

Sounds good?

looks fine except the partition part. i am not using any - neither on desktop (mx500) nor on laptop (bx500). without having any games or large software, around 100gb is filled up on my desktop.

karthik316_1999 said:
4. Format & install a new copy of Win 10 onto the SSD (planning to have 2 partitions on the SSD ~ 120 GB each...)
5. Fix up all drivers, ignoring the ones downloaded & installed by Windows automatically

Partitions can be ignored.
Download drives from Dell for Windows 10/8.1 for your laptop before attempting to install anything.

K

Just tried removing and inserting my old HDD from its slot.. just to ensure that the process is an easy diy...but

Now upon booting, I'm faced with a bsod!

Tried 'startup repair' from the bootable win10 usb
Tried booting into safe mode

& I'm now stuck with a boot loop as soon as the user login page comes up..
With safe mode, as soon as I give an input with keyboard/mouse.. the system restarts in the same manner..

*ibb.co/10G2Rrf

K

Did I screw something up ? (the silence here......)

Anyways, I ran CHKDSK & it asked me to restart so as to fix some errors. Did the same and errors were fixed.
Also ran SFC \scannow & no corrupt entries was found.
Additionally, ran DISM & no integrity failures were detected..

Assume that the OS is free of corruption & the issue has been resolved.
(The only thing that I did before getting this error was to install a software "Mediainfo")

Anyways, coming back to the discussion,

vidhubhushan said:
looks fine except the partition part. i am not using any - neither on desktop (mx500) nor on laptop (bx500). without having any games or large software, around 100gb is filled up on my desktop.

Is this for real ?!! If so, the 240GB would definitely not suffice for me and I will have to forego my optical drive in order to make the current SATA HDD as an internal drive..! by investing in an internal casing..

SaiyanGoku said:
Partitions can be ignored.
Download drives from Dell for Windows 10/8.1 for your laptop before attempting to install anything.

When you say "before attempting to install anything"-- are you referring to any additional software or the OS itself?
Normally, I install the OS and then only go about with the drivers. (& this I believe is highly minimized in Win 10 where I was told that the drivers are fetched automatically)

karthik316_1999 said:
Did I screw something up ? (the silence here......)

Anyways, I ran CHKDSK & it asked me to restart so as to fix some errors. Did the same and errors were fixed.
Also ran SFC \scannow & no corrupt entries was found.
Additionally, ran DISM & no integrity failures were detected..

Assume that the OS is free of corruption & the issue has been resolved.
(The only thing that I did before getting this error was to install a software "Mediainfo")

Anyways, coming back to the discussion,

Is this for real ?!! If so, the 240GB would definitely not suffice for me and I will have to forego my optical drive in order to make the current SATA HDD as an internal drive..! by investing in an internal casing..

When you say "before attempting to install anything"-- are you referring to any additional software or the OS itself?
Normally, I install the OS and then only go about with the drivers. (& this I believe is highly minimized in Win 10 where I was told that the drivers are fetched automatically)

240gb is sufficient unless you start storing large software or videos etc. on it. what are the software that you use? you can remove optical drive and use hdd after the installation.
to be on the safer side, before installing windows on ssd, get drivers from dell site. sometimes windows uses some generic driver which might not be optimized for the hardware so its better to try the actual driver.

K

Got it w.r.t drivers..

And w.r.t storage space, I would indeed store a good amount of videos only.. but as you said what to do with the old HDD can be decided afterwards also..

Further, I unfortunately ran into the same error as depicted above & it is a continuous boot loop now.

Any suggestions? I was quite careful in handling the drive previously & no physical damage could have happened..
Could this need a fresh install? (Considering the fact that I have tried chkdsk, sfc & DISM as well ..)
Note: There was a thin plastic film folded over the length of the HDD when I tried to pull it out.. I had reinstalled the film over the round metallic center portion of the drive as it was .. when inserting it back..
What's this plastic film & does it matter for this issue?

Or whether this issue needs to be posted in a different section? Pls opine!

karthik316_1999 said:
Got it w.r.t drivers..

And w.r.t storage space, I would indeed store a good amount of videos only.. but as you said what to do with the old HDD can be decided afterwards also..

Further, I unfortunately ran into the same error as depicted above & it is a continuous boot loop now.

Any suggestions? I was quite careful in handling the drive previously & no physical damage could have happened..
Could this need a fresh install? (Considering the fact that I have tried chkdsk, sfc & DISM as well ..)

Or whether this issue needs to be posted in a different section? Pls opine!

never faced this so can't comment on this. if it would have been my case, i would have left any trial n error on the hdd and would proceed with a clean install on the ssd. when that would start working properly for few days, i would go ahead and add the hdd in place of odd.
store videos on hdd only.

K

Hi all, just to update.. I would be getting an SSD today & can I ask your opinion in choosing between:
- Kingston KC600 256Gb
Or
- Samsung 870evo 256gb

Both these have the same TBW rating & 5 years warranty.. with the Samsung expensive by close to 1k..

Note : The above booting issue was resolved with a clean install of windows 10..

K

Hello all, thanks for sharing your suggestions & helping me out.. I had installed a WD Blue SSD on my dell a couple of days back & satisfied with the difference in performance !

I purchased the Samsung 870 EVO 250GB SSD and the performance of my HP laptop has significantly improved. Everything feels butter smooth now. I still use 4GB RAM (2x 2GB in dual channel mode) but I’m on a Linux OS.