Anyone Have Any PC/Laptop Upgrading Experience?

[KyCatFan]

I've been out of the computer game for a while. I used to keep up with all of that stuff. I am trying to hold off on getting a new PC/Laptop and just upgrade the current laptop I own. The only upgrades I can really do are the RAM and M.2 SSD. I currently have 12GB of RAM and only a 256GB M.2.

Current Processor - 11th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-1155G7 @ 2.50GHz 2.50 GHz
Current RAM - 12GB DDR 4 (?) 3200Mhz
Current M.2 - NVMe SK hynix BC711 HFM256GD3JX013N

According to my research, that processor supports up to 64GB of RAM. So I had this in mind.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08C4X9VR5/ref=ox_sc_act_title_3?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&th=1

This seems to be a compatible M.2.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0CJRTVLJ2/ref=ox_sc_act_title_2?smid=A35WBLVWI03KEF&th=1

Since the laptop only has one storage device (the M.2), I guess this would work to clone the current drive and swap it out.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07MNFH1PX/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?smid=A41S1C1L96T2O&psc=1

Any issues with what I'm trying to do? I appreciate any help I can get.

 

[RunninRichie]

I build gaming desktops. What laptop do you have?


Your processor has DDR4 support. So the ram should be fine. Just make sure you slot it dual channel. It also has PCIE gen 4 support. So the SSD should work as well. I recommend using clonezilla to clone the SSD with that adapter you linked. Of course, you could also reinstall windows 10/11 if there's nothing you care to lose. Just relog into your accounts and what not. But if you care about losing files you can clone the drive.

 

[KyCatFan]

I build gaming desktops. What laptop do you have?


Your processor has DDR4 support. So the ram should be fine. Just make sure you slot it dual channel. It also has PCIE gen 4 support. So the SSD should work as well.

It's nothing special. Says the model is HP 15-dy4xxx. It runs decent most of the time, but when I run some 3d printer slicing programs, it can bog down a bit.

 

[HymanKaplan]

Ditto. You should be fine.

(And second on the clonezilla)

 

[RunninRichie]

It's nothing special. Says the model is HP 15-dy4xxx. It runs decent most of the time, but when I run some 3d printer slicing programs, it can bog down a bit.

Yeah. Sounds like you just need some better ram. Not sure if the included SSD is faster than the one you linked. But I assume with only 250gs and a 400 dollar price point it's pretty slow. It doesn't even list the SSD brand on the amazon page. So I assume it's some cheap chinese SSD. If you're using 3d programs I'd recommend maxing the ram out. Since it can support 64G i'd get 64. Those programs are ram hogs and need as much memory as they can get. Just make sure you get a 2x32 kit and slot it dual channel.

 

[KyCatFan]

It actually runs pretty well most of the time. Just struggles a bit on the slicing. Sometimes it runs solid using Cura or Orcaslicer and other times it's painfully slow. Right now I got the laptop running as basically a PC with it shut and running an exterior monitor with a wireless keyboard and mouse. I have a 256GB micro sd card in it as well to help with storage. A 2TB SSD will be an awesome upgrade. I'll take a look at the 2x32GB RAM sticks as well.

If I can swing it, I'd like to try and build one of those $600 ish gaming PC's. Not really for heavy gaming. I use consoles for that. Just want it to be able to be well rounded for lots of uses. I know video cards are stupidly expensive these days. That is probably where you have to sacrifice a bit for that price. I've never built a PC before so any suggestions on a solid budget build would be great. I've only done some upgrades in the past.

 

[HymanKaplan]

A high end gaming PC is probably the only "type" that you can build and save money on. Building PC's is NOT difficult, but for general use, it's damn near impossible (in my experience) to save any money, as opposed to purchasing online/looking for sales.

 

[RunninRichie]

A high end gaming PC is probably the only "type" that you can build and save money on. Building PC's is NOT difficult, but for general use, it's damn near impossible (in my experience) to save any money, as opposed to purchasing online/looking for sales.

Yeah. Only build a PC if you want a serious workstation or a gaming platform. For general office use a prebuilt will do just fine.

 

[BC_Wader]

I remember Dad and I building our gaming computers so we could run the original Far Cry game and also Painkiller. I miss those gaming days. I haven't had a desktop in ages it seems.

 

[LineSkiCat14]

I build gaming desktops that are really just high-powered spank stations.

FIFY.

 

[KyCatFan]

Well I was able to swap out the RAM and M.2 drive. Was a bit nervous about pulling the laptop apart. Wasn't bad when I was just swapping the parts out.

Unfortunately I had a few issues. First I couldn't get the laptop to recognize the M.2 in the external drive. Tried a Samsung SSD and same issue. Tried the Samsung hooked to my phone and was able to format it and be recognized when I hooked it back up to the laptop.

Tried the same thing with the external M.2 hooked to my phone and it worked as well to get it recognized by the laptop. Then after swapping everything, it was only showing what the space I had on the old drive.

Ended up having an issue with unallocated space that had a recovery partition between it and the Windows partition. Had to do a lot of research to figure out that I had to open the command prompt and delete that recovery part and then I was able to expand it to use the unallocated space.

Everything is working now but I can't get it to create a recovery drive in case something happens. I guess that partition I deleted caused that.