Old Laptop Upgrade - bring it back to life

[izy]

Hi , i want to upgrade an old laptop for a relative (for cheap) , mainly used for office (world , excel) , little photoshop and youtube, i feel that i can bring it back to life.

This is the main configuration: ASUS X550VX-XX015D - Intel® Core™ i5-6300HQ 2.30GHz, Skylake™, 15.6", 4GB, 1TB, DVD-RW, nVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 950M 2GB

What i dont know:
1) i want to upgrade the RAM , it has 2133mhz 4GB , 1 stick Micron , what i can do is to find another 4GB stick or i found 2x 4GB sticks at 3200Mhz Samsung , will it work at 3200mhz, worth doing it (the speed make a difference?) , worth only getting 8GB (2x4)? This laptop should do dual channel right? CPU-Z says it has 4 ram slots , but if i use 3 sticks with this 2133 stick all the ram will run @ 2133 i guess, it has no settings in BIOS for RAM.

2) I see there are some cheap 256GB ssds , are they decent? What cheap ssd ~256GB would you recommend? The HDD inside is SATA II , the SSDs are SATA III.

3) I couldnt if this laptop has space for 2 x HDDS so i can keep the old HDD and just add an SSD. (ill find out after i open it but yeah)

I installed WIN11 on it and works decent but its very slow on this OLD HDD with only 4GB of ram single stick, im guess doing what i want to do will speed it up considerable.

The ssds i found on offer are ~20E-25E for 256GB.
This is the ram i found at ~ 20E , 2x4GB 3200Mhz

 

[dgianstefani]

Don't buy a 25 euro SSD. Go for a Samsung TLC/SLC 2.5".

3200 will either work or not, either way it will have JEDEC fallback so just buy a matched 16 GB kit.

I would skip keeping the HDD, just drains battery and makes noise.

 

[izy]

Don't buy a 25 euro SSD. Go for a Samsung TLC/SLC 2.5".

3200 will either work or not, either way it will have JEDEC fallback so just buy a matched 16 GB kit.

I would skip keeping the HDD, just drains battery and makes noise.

Its not my money and goal is to be cheap, like 50E for all the upgrades and i dont want to buy parts that dont work , the RAM ill will buy will be second hand.

Cheap ssds ive found:

 

[R0H1T]

Well you can also get cheap(ish) used enterprise SSD's for sale, my first SSD from about a decade back is still alive & kicking! It was a Liteon plucked from a Dell laptop, got it from fleabay.

 

[izy]

If found this on the web but the CPU-Z is reporting 4 slots?? Guess ill have to open it.

"The Laptop has 1 slots to install memory, already with 4 GB / 8 GB OnBoard Memory standard memory installed. For best X550VX Laptop performance use the maximum amount of 20 GB or 24 GB, fill all the slots with the max allowed memory per slot for your Laptop."

ASUS X550VX Memory Upgrade - ASUS X550VX Laptop Memory

Memory Upgrade for ASUS X550VX Laptop, Upgrade X550VX Memory with 100% compatible X550VX ASUS Laptop Memory RAM modules from memorystock.com.

www.memorystock.com

 

[R0H1T]

Four slots is extremely unlikely, CPU-Z just reporting it wrong.

 

[izy]

Four slots is extremely unlikely, CPU-Z just reporting it wrong.

I was thinking the same , i dont want to buy a kit if it doesnt have 2 slots I am going to open it now.

I cant see the installed RAM and i only see this SLOT, is that a second ram slot?

Edit: Googled stuff and it seems that: "It came with 1 on-board 4gb ram, and 1 empty additional slot, DDR4, 2133.", what are my options here? Will it do dual channel? If its onboard i think is soldered to the MB i guess. Good if i get an 8GB stick for this slot? Guess max speed will be 2133 anyway. Can i add any ddr4 module?

 

[Luke357]

If it has 4 gigs of soldered RAM just buy the cheapest 8 gig SODIMM you can find so you'd have 12GB which will greatly improve your experience. I personally wouldn't get anything lesser than a 500GB SDD as they are too cheap not to these days (besides with a GTX 950 in there you might want to play a few games anyways). Team Group makes cheap but good SSDs if you need a suggestion.

 

[izy]

If it has 4 gigs of soldered RAM just buy the cheapest 8 gig SODIMM you can find so you'd have 12GB which will greatly improve your experience. I personally wouldn't get anything lesser than a 500GB SDD as they are too cheap not to these days (besides with a GTX 950 in there you might want to play a few games anyways). Team Group makes cheap but good SSDs if you need a suggestion.

This are my options for the budget she wants to spend if you want to take a look, its not in EN but its intuitive:

https://www.emag.ro/search/solid-state_drive_ssd_/filter/form-factor-f2656,2-5-inch-v7296/capacitate-f9940,240-gb-v-12164296/capacitate-f9940,256-gb-v-12163882/pret,intre-84-si-150/ssd/sort-priceasc/c

100LEI = ~20E
Edit: This 2 with 512GB
--Solid State Drive (SSD) AGI AI178, 512GB, 2.5", SATA III --- im going for this i think. (has good reviews)
--Solid State Drive (SSD) Hikvision E100, 512GB, 2.5", SATA III

EDIT: Only question is now that if a different RAM speed/ manufacture will just work or might have problems, 8GB sticks i found are mostly from SAMSUNG @ 3200mhz.

 

[Luke357]

If is has to be around 100 i'd get this https://www.emag.ro/ssd-team-group-...&X-Section=search&X-MB=0&X-Search-Action=view
I strongly suggest getting something a bit bigger though.

EDIT: you added to it since I read it I'd probably get the Hikvision as i've never heard of the other brand.

 

[izy]

If is has to be around 100 i'd get this https://www.emag.ro/ssd-team-group-...&X-Section=search&X-MB=0&X-Search-Action=view
I strongly suggest getting something a bit bigger though.

100 - 150 , but i think im going for this: --Solid State Drive (SSD) AGI AI178, 512GB, 2.5", SATA III. (has good reviews, some guy said that is basically an old intel, 3D TLC)

https://www.amazon.com/AGI-AI178-Caching-Flash-Internal/dp/B07TZN93QF?th=1 -- GI Technology 512GB AI178 SSD Drive, 2.5", SATA3, Intel TLC NAND, R/W 538/486 MB/s, 7mm

Only question is now that if a different RAM speed/ manufacture will just work or might have problems, 8GB sticks i found are mostly from SAMSUNG @ 3200mhz.

 

[SL2]

Yeah, it's a good idea to have an extra look at customer reviews before buying off brand. Not that it says everything, but at least it might say something, and maybe points out the bad ones.

Festplatten & SSDs Solid State Drives (SSD) mit Kapazität (dezimal/SI) ab 400GB, Schnittstelle: SATA Preisvergleich Geizhals EU

Preisvergleich und Bewertungen für Festplatten & SSDs Solid State Drives (SSD) mit Kapazität (dezimal/SI) ab 400GB, Schnittstelle: SATA

geizhals.eu

RAM modules are usually capable to run at slower speeds to match the other RAM in the system.

Arbeitsspeicher (RAM) Speicher mit Typen: DDR4/SO-DIMM, Einzelmodulgröße: 8GB, Module Anzahl: 1x Preisvergleich Geizhals EU

Preisvergleich und Bewertungen für Arbeitsspeicher (RAM) Speicher mit Typen: DDR4/SO-DIMM, Einzelmodulgröße: 8GB, Module Anzahl: 1x

geizhals.eu

That CPU would never go beyond DDR4-2133 in a regular laptop anyway, that's the max speed. Not really surprising since it's from 2016.

Intel® Core™ i5-6300HQ Processor (6M Cache, up to 3.20 GHz) - Product Specifications | Intel

Intel® Core™ i5-6300HQ Processor (6M Cache, up to 3.20 GHz) quick reference with specifications, features, and technologies.

ark.intel.com

 

[Frick]

Just get any SSD, and pretty much any 8GB stick. For avarage use higher end models will not matter much. I have the Kingston A400 i several computers, and it's fine.

 

[izy]

Thanks guys , i found an 8GB stick 2133 micron at ~ 15E second hand and ill tell her to buy the AGI AI178, 512GB, 2.5", SATA III @ ~ 25E, this should bring it back to life with WIN11, it seems that win11 now takes like 2.8GB without anything opened but probably it has some memory management and will use more when it will have more.

Edit: One more question , will this battery fit in this laptop? - Green Cell A41-X550A Asus X550/X550C/X550CA/X550CC, Li-Ion 4 cells ( Green Cell is a high-quality laptop battery dedicated for A450 A550 R510 R510CA X550 X550CA X550CC X550VC) , this is X550VX (i dont have the old battery)
Edit2: Nvm found it!