Help with upgrading my laptop's RAM

No. RAM banks usually tell these details to BIOS that selects the best voltage automagically.
I just said that if you wanted to know, you can go in its panels and see what voltage the BIOS decided to give them.

We don't know for sure if those are 1.5 or 1.35 ram banks, and overvolting a 1.35 bank is dangerous (can destroy something), and ultimately pointless since you won't notice anything even with gaming RAM overclocked at 2800 mhz (yours is at 1333 mhz and in a laptop it's not recommended, if possible at all, to do so).

I feel like i'm learning so much about this. I was scared s***less when I put the RAM sticks in xD

Computer components are designed to be fool-proof, it's very easy to do maintenance and upgrades as most connectors can fit only in the right way.

So what's next? Swapping the HDD with a SDD? Placing the old HDD back in a drive bay caddy?

bobafetthotmail said:

No. RAM banks usually tell these details to BIOS that selects the best voltage automagically.
I just said that if you wanted to know, you can go in its panels and see what voltage the BIOS decided to give them.

We don't know for sure if those are 1.5 or 1.35 ram banks, and overvolting a 1.35 bank is dangerous (can destroy something), and ultimately pointless since you won't notice anything even with gaming RAM overclocked at 2800 mhz (yours is at 1333 mhz and in a laptop it's not recommended, if possible at all, to do so).

I feel like i'm learning so much about this. I was scared s***less when I put the RAM sticks in xD

Computer components are designed to be fool-proof, it's very easy to do maintenance and upgrades as most connectors can fit only in the right way.

So what's next? Swapping the HDD with a SDD? Placing the old HDD back in a drive bay caddy?

Ok, BIOS decision it is. Thanks :)

Oh shiz =O Better not tinker with BIOS voltage settings then, last thing I want is my laptop to die here and now. I need it to work.

And I'm glad it's way easier than I thought, makes me scareless from now on to add/remove RAM from future computers I get. I'm gonna test these 8GB with Vegas Pro, if they can handle what i'm trying to do i'll leave it as it is and save money. 16GB is very tempting, but seems pointless for now...

One thing that's bothering me is the pagefile.sys. It got even bigger with the upgrade. With 8GB RAM, do I need a pagefile this big?

Upgrading my HDD to a SSD would be a dream come true for me, since everyone says it's much faster and reliable =D I absolutely love this laptop, and i'd love to make it as fast and efficient as possible. But again, first time i'm doing it leaves me so scared it hurts xD They are EXTREMELY expensive though, which sucks
I would even dare to change the processor, but i've been told it's impossible so...xD

I see what you mean.
In laptops you can upgrade RAM, swap the hard drive, and replace the DVD burner with a second hard drive/SSD with a drive caddy. they are all easy to do.

In a desktop you can swap more or less any component after watching a quick youtube video.

In case you need desktops you can save quite a few by buying components and assemble them yourself (also in this case you can build something you can upgrade as more money comes in instead of outright replacing everything). In case you need, just ask and someone will recommend the best component for your needs.

Any hard drive or SSD can be moved to a new laptop/desktop without major issues (the drive, but windows 7 will likely need some tweaks like a "sysprep" to work without requiring a new install).

bobafetthotmail said:

I see what you mean.
In laptops you can upgrade RAM, swap the hard drive, and replace the DVD burner with a second hard drive/SSD with a drive caddy. they are all easy to do.

In a desktop you can swap more or less any component after watching a quick youtube video.

In case you need desktops you can save quite a few by buying components and assemble them yourself (also in this case you can build something you can upgrade as more money comes in instead of outright replacing everything). In case you need, just ask and someone will recommend the best component for your needs.

Any hard drive or SSD can be moved to a new laptop/desktop without major issues (the drive, but windows 7 will likely need some tweaks like a "sysprep" to work without requiring a new install).

If I were to replace my HDD for a brand new SSD (with, supposedly, nothing in it), wouldn't I need to install more things other than the OS? You can see i'm no expert on this xD

Because my HDD has another partition called PQSERVICE or something, I think that's the name. Inside it must be important stuff, like factory defaults or where the ASUS stuff that appears on boot before Windows are right?

No. You just need the OS for it to run fine. And you can get clean and safe win7 install iso files you can burn to a disk or place on a USB thumbdrive from this tutorial (step 1 and 2). Just need the sticker with the activation code, that is somewhere on the underside of the laptop.

That PQSERVICE is the recovery partition, that has the awesome power of being less-useful than a real install DVD/thumbdrive as it can be a safe haven for malware, if the hdd fails it is lost with everything else on it, and the windows 7 it installs is full of "enhancement" programs and suites that we call bloatware or crapware as serve little purpose but slow down the computer.
Removing that partition has the only negative effect of voiding warranty.

Point is, you may want to keep your stuff/programs and not start from scratch. There are programs that clone the drive contents on a new empty drive (bigger or smaller as long as the data can fit), this post goes more in depth.

Since you have a laptop, you may need either to find a friend with a desktop, or buy a external hard drive enclosure, a box with connectors for a normal HDD or SSD inside and a USB or eSATA port on the outside. First you put the SSD into it, clone the HDD on it, place the SSD in the place of the old HDD. Make sure that you are buying an enclosure, that is an empty box.

You can also use a drive caddy as said above to place both drives as internal in the place of the DVD reader (the reader can be then placed in a slim external DVD reader enclosure which is the same thing as a hdd enclosure, just different size of the box). This is what I'd actually do. As it makes no sense to rob a bank to buy a 500 GB SSD when you can do fine with a 120 GB one plus the older HDD filled of the bulky but dumb data (images, videos, movies, music, documents). SSDs are best used for programs and OS only. Unless you swim in cash anyway.
I doubt you need that DVD drive so often nowadays.

bobafetthotmail said:

No. You just need the OS for it to run fine. And you can get clean and safe win7 install iso files you can burn to a disk or place on a USB thumbdrive from this tutorial (step 1 and 2). Just need the sticker with the activation code, that is somewhere on the underside of the laptop.

That PQSERVICE is the recovery partition, that has the awesome power of being less-useful than a real install DVD/thumbdrive as it can be a safe haven for malware, if the hdd fails it is lost with everything else on it, and the windows 7 it installs is full of "enhancement" programs and suites that we call bloatware or crapware as serve little purpose but slow down the computer.
Removing that partition has the only negative effect of voiding warranty.

Point is, you may want to keep your stuff/programs and not start from scratch. There are programs that clone the drive contents on a new empty drive (bigger or smaller as long as the data can fit), this post goes more in depth.

Since you have a laptop, you may need either to find a friend with a desktop, or buy a external hard drive enclosure, a box with connectors for a normal HDD or SSD inside and a USB or eSATA port on the outside. First you put the SSD into it, clone the HDD on it, place the SSD in the place of the old HDD. Make sure that you are buying an enclosure, that is an empty box.

You can also use a drive caddy as said above to place both drives as internal in the place of the DVD reader (the reader can be then placed in a slim external DVD reader enclosure which is the same thing as a hdd enclosure, just different size of the box). This is what I'd actually do. As it makes no sense to rob a bank to buy a 500 GB SSD when you can do fine with a 120 GB one plus the older HDD filled of the bulky but dumb data (images, videos, movies, music, documents). SSDs are best used for programs and OS only. Unless you swim in cash anyway.
I doubt you need that DVD drive so often nowadays.

All that sounds awesome =O

I get a 120+ SSD, install W8 (which is much faster and more efficient, from my relatively small experience with it) on it and the rest of my programs. Maybe i'd keep my music, images and documents on there too since it's faster and I use them frequently. And then i'd keep everything else on my old HDD and put it in my DVD Burner's place (you're right, I rarely use it xD).

All of it sounds so awesome...but i'm scared...what if I screw up? xD

Let me ask you this: Imagine if I did all this, and wanted to use Sony Vegas Pro. It's installed on the new SSD, and the videos I want to edit are on the old HDD. Since the program is getting the files from the HDD, wouldn't it be as fast as it is now only with the HDD? Kind of a confusing question, but I wanna ground myself with this before I even consider it xD

install W8 (which is much faster and more efficient, from my relatively small experience with it)

I personally dislike 8, mainly for the touchscreen-centered interface and for the complete change of UI, dropping so much options. It is more a tablet's OS than a laptop's or desktop's imho. Isn't significantly faster or better than 7, it just integrates some programs anyone has already anyway.

Maybe i'd keep my music, images and documents on there too since it's faster and I use them frequently.

bulk of the load times are due to application loading itself. You see a difference if you place programs on a SSD, but no difference for dumb data (that does not really need more speed than what a decent HDD can provide it).

what if I screw up? xD

what could possibly go wrong? Yeah, last words of a dinosaur before an asteroid wiped them all out. At most you don't find win 8 drivers for your laptop and you need to install win7 ones in compatibility mode. Go look at the support page about your model to find a driver list.
In case you don't know, drivers are pieces of code (not programs, more like "OS addons") that allow it to operate the different components in your computer. Some devices don't need drivers, but some cannot work at all without.

Imagine if I did all this, and wanted to use Sony Vegas Pro. It's installed on the new SSD, and the videos I want to edit are on the old HDD. Since the program is getting the files from the HDD, wouldn't it be as fast as it is now only with the HDD? Kind of a confusing question, but I wanna ground myself with this before I even consider it xD

While I never did such things myself, last time I asked the bottleneck was still the CPU (and a quick googling confirms that, but feel free to check and see for yourself). I mean when you are doing rendering/exporting stuff (movies or 3d images/animations) the best modern CPUs can work on the data slower than the speed it is read from a decent HDD, making a SSD overkill.
Will be snappier when you are loading a project if it is in the SSD, but not much more.

When all programs and the OS are on another device, the HDD will perform better, as it will only be asked to fetch data, not data+programs+OS at the same time like it is now.

bobafetthotmail said:

I personally dislike 8, mainly for the touchscreen-centered interface and for the complete change of UI, dropping so much options. It is more a tablet's OS than a laptop's or desktop's imho. Isn't significantly faster or better than 7, it just integrates some programs anyone has already anyway.

The interface is something that takes a little time to get used to, which can be annoying, but after getting used to it I realized it's much more convenient and the notebook I installed it in increased in speed significantly compared to when it had 7. That's why I wanted to try W8 on my machine, and if I don't notice much difference i'll go back to 7...

bobafetthotmail said:

bulk of the load times are due to application loading itself. You see a difference if you place programs on a SSD, but no difference for dumb data (that does not really need more speed than what a decent HDD can provide it).

Oh...so if I load an mp3 from an external source (like a pen or HD), with OS on SSD, would it be the same as well? Didn't know load times we're all application related...

bobafetthotmail said:

what could possibly go wrong? Yeah, last words of a dinosaur before an asteroid wiped them all out. At most you don't find win 8 drivers for your laptop and you need to install Windows 7 ones in compatibility mode. Go look at the support page about your model to find a driver list.
In case you don't know, drivers are pieces of code (not programs, more like "OS addons") that allow it to operate the different components in your computer. Some devices don't need drivers, but some cannot work at all without.

Yeah that's usually what people tell me, but I don't know. The first time you tried this, opening your laptop and start exchanging RAM and the HDD, weren't you a little intimidated? One thing that makes me extra scared is the love I have for this laptop...
Drivers don't really worry me that much, I know where to get them and know which ones I need. What worries me is the ASUS applications that came with my laptop (still have them), and if they would work with W8. One of them supposedly improves boot time...

bobafetthotmail said:

When all programs and the OS are on another device, the HDD will perform better, as it will only be asked to fetch data, not data+programs+OS at the same time like it is now.

Does this apply to games too? If I installed a game on the SSD, would it be quicker than if it were on the HDD?

What manufacturer do you reccommend? Western Digital is without a doubt the best, but since I can't find any SSD from them here in my country which would you reccommend me? Samsung? Kingston?

if I load an mp3 from an external source (like a pen or HD), with OS on SSD, would it be the same as well?

yes, it should be the same. If the player program is on the SSD as well.
The point is that the file to be played is loaded in chunks, not all at once, so as long as the external source is fast enough for smooth playback, load times are the same.

What worries me is the ASUS applications that came with my laptop (still have them), and if they would work with W8. One of them supposedly improves boot time...

Hmmm, your post makes me think your Win 7 is underperforming vs win8 so much because the win 8 you tried was a clean install, while atm you say your win7 is still full of bloatware.

We call it bloatware because it does very rarely add something on a laptop (the suites for a desktop tend to be more useful). More often than not they are redundant as they display options and info that is accessible from Win7's own control panels. What do those programs do in your laptop exactly? Do they have a name?

Now, "improving boot time" is a pretty straightforward affair, and is achieved 2 ways:
-remove any non-critical program from the "open at startup" list. You will likely have a bunch of auto-updaters (adobe, flash, java, some other program), plus such ASUS utilities.
This tutorial (especially method three but check the first two as well) allows you to prevent stuff you don't like from being started at boot, and change your mind easily (as long as you are just unticking the boxes). Untick all stuff that isn't from microsoft or of your antivirus, or from Intel or NVIDIA.
I suggest you to try measuring the difference in power-on to ready-to-use before and after.
In case you don't know what some entry is, google it and you will find someone talking about it.
You can also post a screenshot or ask if you are still unsure.
Depending on how much nonsense is in that list, you can speed up boot by 30 seconds or even a full minute.

-installing more performing hardware, as during boot a ton of stuff (around 2 GB) is copied to RAM. Hard drives are of two kinds: 5400 RPM (rotations per minute) or 7200 RPM, the more RPM the better. SSDs usually cut boot times in half or something like that.

Does this apply to games too? If I installed a game on the SSD, would it be quicker than if it were on the HDD?

An SSD drastically decreases "game loading, please wait" time as that is the time stuff is moved from the storage memory (HDD or SSD) to main memory (RAM). But of course cannot make your CPU or graphic card run faster than they already do as once stuff is into RAM it's job is ended.

What manufacturer do you reccommend?

I have too little experience with SSDs to recommend a brand over another, but this forums has some heavy SSD users, so read this thread for their recommendations.

BTW, we have quite a few tutorials about using win 7 on an SSD, feel free to check them as they likely work for 8 as well.

bobafetthotmail said:

Hmmm, your post makes me think your Win 7 is underperforming vs win8 so much because the win 8 you tried was a clean install, while atm you say your Windows 7 is still full of bloatware.

We call it bloatware because it does very rarely add something on a laptop (the suites for a desktop tend to be more useful). More often than not they are redundant as they display options and info that is accessible from Windows 7's own control panels. What do those programs do in your laptop exactly? Do they have a name?

Now, "improving boot time" is a pretty straightforward affair, and is achieved 2 ways:
-remove any non-critical program from the "open at startup" list. You will likely have a bunch of auto-updaters (adobe, flash, java, some other program), plus such ASUS utilities.
This tutorial (especially method three but check the first two as well) allows you to prevent stuff you don't like from being started at boot, and change your mind easily (as long as you are just unticking the boxes). Untick all stuff that isn't from microsoft or of your antivirus, or from Intel or NVIDIA.
I suggest you to try measuring the difference in power-on to ready-to-use before and after.
In case you don't know what some entry is, google it and you will find someone talking about it.
You can also post a screenshot or ask if you are still unsure.
Depending on how much nonsense is in that list, you can speed up boot by 30 seconds or even a full minute.

Never heard of that term before. Reason I keep my ASUS apps is because I have trust in the company, I don't really use them at all (except for Power4gear, which monitors my high performance power setting). But I guess you're right, the more software installed on the system the slower it gets. Here's what ASUS gave me:

http://img197.imageshack.us/img197/3038/asusapps.png

I thought the reason for my laptop to boot so fast was because of FancyStart and SmartLogon, that's why I haven't unninstalled them. But that was in 2011, I know much more about PC's now compared to back then (which is not saying much xD). Other than Power4gear, never used a single one of them.
I'm gonna try unninstalling them and removing some of my startup apps, and see what it does...

Now that I was so hyped to buy this amazing SSD, I started to wonder...is this even compatible? I can't believe this question hasn't come to me sooner, it was the first one that came to me when I was looking for RAM. After some research, i've heard of SATA I, II and III and some PC's not being compatible with III. Is there a way I can know?