Help with upgrading my laptop's RAM

Hey, I told you to use the startup applications panel to disable something from there, not the panel to uninstall stuff. Not the same thing! Tutorial linked above!
The programs that slow down the machine are the ones activated at startup that run 100% of the time. As I said they are components of programs you don't want to uninstall, like auto-updaters or preloaders (they shorten load times of a particular program by pre-loading it, this of course degrades performance for everything else, and slows boot times), uninstalling stuff is useful but not what I said.
Whatever is installed but not running does not have any effect (otherwise I'd have already killed this rig with the crapload of Steam games I have on it).

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?

Yes, there are some ways, but I'd say it's unnecessary. All modern SSDs are SATA III. Even if your laptop has a SATA II, the SSD will run at SATA II speed (usually automatically, but check if there are jumpers to set). SATA I is way too old for your laptop so I'd rule it out.
Of course it will be a bit worse in theory, but unless you run benchmarks you won't notice it. The main effect is being snappy, and that's because of very very low waiting time before it finds the data it was looking for. SATA II speed is more than enough as it can fill that much more than HDDs can.
This article goes more in depth with benchmarks and their conclusions are just that.

As for the size, 2.5'' is the same size as your laptop's HDD (any laptop HDD for that matter) and they say it is only 7mm thick. Check your current HDD thickness, but I think the SSD is thinner. At most you may have to put some paper or whatever into it just to make sure it does fit snugly. If your HDD is in a metal frame screwed on the HDD, then you're probably ok as the SSD will be screwed to that frame anyway.

bobafetthotmail said:

Hey, I told you to use the startup applications panel to disable something from there, not the panel to uninstall stuff. Not the same thing! Tutorial linked above!
The programs that slow down the machine are the ones activated at startup that run 100% of the time. As I said they are components of programs you don't want to uninstall, like auto-updaters or preloaders (they shorten load times of a particular program by pre-loading it, this of course degrades performance for everything else, and slows boot times), uninstalling stuff is useful but not what I said.
Whatever is installed but not running does not have any effect (otherwise I'd have already killed this rig with the crapload of Steam games I have on it).

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?

Yes, there are some ways, but I'd say it's unnecessary. All modern SSDs are SATA III. Even if your laptop has a SATA II, the SSD will run at SATA II speed (usually automatically, but check if there are jumpers to set). SATA I is way too old for your laptop so I'd rule it out.
Of course it will be a bit worse in theory, but unless you run benchmarks you won't notice it. The main effect is being snappy, and that's because of very very low waiting time before it finds the data it was looking for. SATA II speed is more than enough as it can fill that much more than HDDs can.
This article goes more in depth with benchmarks and their conclusions are just that.

As for the size, 2.5'' is the same size as your laptop's HDD (any laptop HDD for that matter) and they say it is only 7mm thick. Check your current HDD thickness, but I think the SSD is thinner. At most you may have to put some paper or whatever into it just to make sure it does fit snugly. If your HDD is in a metal frame screwed on the HDD, then you're probably ok as the SSD will be screwed to that frame anyway.

Yeah I knew what you meant, but I unninstalled them anyway. I realized they didn't really do anything and I never used them, I was just afraid because of what I said in the other post. Unninstalled some of them, and disabled some startup apps, and now my boot time is shorter. Thanks =D

Oh. I searched for my chipset, and it said SATA 3GB so yeah it must be only I and II. And Samsung says it's compatible with I, II and III so yeah I guess i'm ok...right? xD

I think this is my drive, if it isn't the specs are basically identical and here's the dimensions:

WD Blue 640 GB SATA Hard Drives ( WD6400BPVT)

Physical Dimensions
English
Height 0.374 Inches
Depth 3.94 Inches
Width 2.75 Inches
Weight 0.26 Pounds
Metric
Height 9.5 mm
Depth 100.2 mm
Width 69.85 mm
Weight 0.117 kg

It's 9.5, which is kinda worrying me now...and looking at this video i'm not sure if it has that frame where you slide the disk in, just some metal cover you unscrew which is kinda worrying me also...
And is that paper thing safe for the disk? If it heats up would it be ok for it to be there supporting the disk? Man, I thought it would be simpler

Once again, thank you so much for the attention and help =D

Sorry for late reply, had issues needing my attention.

Oh. I searched for my chipset, and it said SATA 3GB so yeah it must be only I and II.

SATA 3Gb/s is SATA II. Is reverse-compatible with SATA I but in case of a laptop it's kind of hard to find a SATA I hdd that physically fits as most SATA I are desktop drives, 3.5'' disks not 2.5''.

The drive's electronics are also reverse-compatible, so they will switch to SATA II as that is the best the chipset supports. As I said it's not a big deal.

I think this is my drive,

What about opening the panel and pulling it out? To pull it out you usually need to slide it to the opposite direction of the connector to detach it from the connector, then flip the laptop and have it fall down on your hand. If it does not slide out with a medium-strenght push don't go berserk and start looking for screws or mechanisms that lock it in place.

It's 9.5, which is kinda worrying me now

heh, was kinda expecting it. It will connect fine but there will be space under it (between the drive and the laptop's cover) or over it (more rare).

No fire risk. Paper (printer paper or similar book-grade paper) auto-ignites at over 230 C (or 451 F, like that old film Fahreneit 451) and no component in that laptop is ever going to reach more than 100 without triggering safeties.
If you somehow have flames in your laptop, paper or not it will burn down anyway as the plastic casing will ignite.
I saw a laptop that burned down becuase of a battery failure (plenty of videos on youtube) but I was still able to recover the hard drive and the data on it. Admittedly it's rare.


Btw, Where will you put the HDD/SSD? seems like you want to replace the internal drive with an SSD and put it in an external enclosure. Since your laptop has a e-sata port i'd warmly recommend to buy an enclosure with an e-sata port as that is basically a rewired internal disk connector (so it will go as fast as if it was internal, this should make a difference if you plan to use it in video-editing and A LOT if you move around dozens of GB at once like when you are unloading raw video from a camera, what I said above applies to media players and office programs). Seems like a combo port, so it should be able to power the device as well, so it is a e-SATAp.
Enclosures for that are a bit more expensive than cheapo USB 2.0 ones, This one from Delock has all cables as well.
This from startech is more expensive and requires you to purchase a e-satap cable as well.

You also have a USB 3.0 port, which is a good second choice. It has USB 2.0 as well but that's the worst choice (the slowest).

bobafetthotmail said:

Sorry for late reply, had issues needing my attention.

Oh. I searched for my chipset, and it said SATA 3GB so yeah it must be only I and II.

SATA 3Gb/s is SATA II. Is reverse-compatible with SATA I but in case of a laptop it's kind of hard to find a SATA I hdd that physically fits as most SATA I are desktop drives, 3.5'' disks not 2.5''.

The drive's electronics are also reverse-compatible, so they will switch to SATA II as that is the best the chipset supports. As I said it's not a big deal.

I think this is my drive,

What about opening the panel and pulling it out? To pull it out you usually need to slide it to the opposite direction of the connector to detach it from the connector, then flip the laptop and have it fall down on your hand. If it does not slide out with a medium-strenght push don't go berserk and start looking for screws or mechanisms that lock it in place.

It's 9.5, which is kinda worrying me now

heh, was kinda expecting it. It will connect fine but there will be space under it (between the drive and the laptop's cover) or over it (more rare).

No fire risk. Paper (printer paper or similar book-grade paper) auto-ignites at over 230 C (or 451 F, like that old film Fahreneit 451) and no component in that laptop is ever going to reach more than 100 without triggering safeties.
If you somehow have flames in your laptop, paper or not it will burn down anyway as the plastic casing will ignite.
I saw a laptop that burned down becuase of a battery failure (plenty of videos on youtube) but I was still able to recover the hard drive and the data on it. Admittedly it's rare.


Btw, Where will you put the HDD/SSD? seems like you want to replace the internal drive with an SSD and put it in an external enclosure. Since your laptop has a e-sata port i'd warmly recommend to buy an enclosure with an e-sata port as that is basically a rewired internal disk connector (so it will go as fast as if it was internal, this should make a difference if you plan to use it in video-editing and A LOT if you move around dozens of GB at once like when you are unloading raw video from a camera, what I said above applies to media players and office programs). Seems like a combo port, so it should be able to power the device as well, so it is a e-SATAp.
Enclosures for that are a bit more expensive than cheapo USB 2.0 ones, This one from Delock has all cables as well.
This from startech is more expensive and requires you to purchase a e-satap cable as well.

You also have a USB 3.0 port, which is a good second choice. It has USB 2.0 as well but that's the worst choice (the slowest).

It's ok, I understand :)

Great, so the Samsung 840 Pro SSD is compatiblie at all. Awesome =D

No need, I have the SIW report here. I said that because I couldn't find the specs for the exact one I have, but they're virtually the same. Here's my HDD's real specs:

SIW said:

Property Value
JOAO-PC (ASUSTeK Computer Inc. N53Jq)
Disk 0
Manufacturer - Western Digital
Model - WDC WD6400BEVT-80A0RT0
Size - 640.1 GB
Firmware Version - 01.01A01
Serial Number - WD-WXB1A3079876
Rotational Speed - 5400 RPM
Form Factor - Not Available
Interface - Serial ATA
Standard - ATA8-ACS | ----
Advanced Format Supported - Not Available
Transfer Mode (Current / Max) - SATA-300 / SATA-300
Features - S.M.A.R.T., APM, 48bit LBA, NCQ, AAM (Disabled)
Power Cycle Count - 1672
Temperature - 31 C (87 F)
Drive Letter(s) - C: D:
Controller Buffer Size on Drive - 8192 KB
Queue Depth - 32
Removable - No
Cache Enabled (Read / Write) - Yes / Yes
SMART Support - Yes

In this page there's a guy that had the same question, and the best answer says that it would fit perfectly. From the pics, it's thinner but the places where the screws are give it kinda the same thickness. But does this apply to all drives? I'm guessing not, and if I need I just put printer paper anyway...

Glad to know it's safe, was getting kinda worried of that. Thanks for the info there :)

Yeah my plan was to put the new SSD in the internal HDD's place, and then either get an enclosure like you said and plug it like an external drive OR I would do like you said the first time and replace my DVD Burner and put the HDD in so I can have 2 internal Drives =D
Still not sure what i'll do though...

The lateral screw holes matter if you have a metal tray (like the images in that thread) for the hdd OR for a desktop, or if you mount it in a caddy. If they use their own mounting system or if it is just kept there by the back panel, you may have to use some paper.

Btw, you can place the SSD in the caddy too. The connections and speed are the same, and you save the hassle of removing the old HDD.

bobafetthotmail said:

The lateral screw holes matter if you have a metal tray (like the images in that thread) for the hdd OR for a desktop, or if you mount it in a caddy. If they use their own mounting system or if it is just kept there by the back panel, you may have to use some paper.

Btw, you can place the SSD in the caddy too. The connections and speed are the same, and you save the hassle of removing the old HDD.

I see. If I notice that it needs some space to fill, i'll put the paper in then.

I know, but I prefer this way. If I could put the old HDD into the DVD Burner's place would be a perfect setup for me, just need to ground myself on how to do it properly...