Upgrade 6-year-old PC with SSD?

R

rachow

Member
I bought the PC described below from PCSpecialist in 2015. It's done me well, but it's getting a bit slow to boot lately and I was wondering if an upgrade to an SSD system drive (and perhaps a new, larger storage drive as well) would give it a new lease of life. Unfortunately the upgrade tool on the website doesn't seem to think this is possible. Is there any way around this, or should I just start saving for a whole new system? It's used mostly for Office, some light scientific computing, fractal rendering, and the inevitable Zoom meetings, and it still does all of those just fine once it gets going, but waiting fifteen minutes for it to sort itself out after a reboot is getting tedious and occasionally inconvenient.

Although it shipped with Windows 7, the machine is currently running Windows 10 Home. Here's the spec:

CaseCOOLERMASTER ELITE 311 BLUE CASE
Processor (CPU)Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Processor i7-4790 (3.6GHz) 8MB Cache
MotherboardASUS® H81M-PLUS: Micro-ATX, LG1150, USB 3.0, SATA 6GBs
Memory (RAM)16GB KINGSTON DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card2GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 750 Ti - DVI, mHDMI, VGA - 3D Vision Ready
2nd Graphics CardNONE
1st Storage Drive2TB 3.5" SATA-III 6GB/s HDD 7200RPM 64MB CACHE
2nd Storage DriveNONE
DVD/BLU-RAY Drive24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
2nd DVD/BLU-RAY DriveNONE
External Hard DriveNONE
Memory Card ReaderINTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT
Power SupplyCORSAIR 450W VS SERIES™ VS-450 POWER SUPPLY
Power Cable1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Processor CoolingSuper Quiet 22dBA Triple Copper Heatpipe Intel CPU Cooler
Thermal PasteARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND
Sound CardONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Wireless Network CardWIRELESS 802.11N 150Mbps PCI-E CARD
Wireless Router/HomePlugsNONE
USB/Thunderbolt OptionsMIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 4 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
FirewireNONE
TV CardNONE
Operating SystemGenuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit w/SP1 - inc DVD & Licence
Windows 10 UpgradeFREE Upgrade to Windows 10 with all Windows 7 & Windows 8.1 Purchases
Windows Recovery MediaWindows 7 Home Premium (64-bit) DVD with paper sleeve
Office SoftwareFREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft® Office® 365
Anti-VirusNORTON SECURITY 2.0 IN 1 USER, 5 DEVICE CARD - 1 year subscription
BrowserFirefox™
 
SpyderTracks

SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
The motherboard is fairly limited, it has 2 x 6Gbps Yellow SATA ports and 2 x 3Gbps Brown SATA ports.

It may take some shifting about but I would move the HDD over to one of the brown ports and then you should be able to fit a new 2.5" SATA drive to one of the faster Yellow ports.

A Samsung 860 Evo would be a good buy. Then you'd need to install windows to it.
 
R

rachow

Member
SpyderTracks said:
The motherboard is fairly limited, it has 2 x 6Gbps Yellow SATA ports and 2 x 3Gbps Brown SATA ports.

It may take some shifting about but I would move the HDD over to one of the brown ports and then you should be able to fit a new 2.5" SATA drive to one of the faster Yellow ports.

A Samsung 860 Evo would be a good buy. Then you'd need to install windows to it.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the quick reply! It's been a while (about 30 years) since I occasionally had to swap boards and drives in IBM PS/2 boxes, but I might be willing to give it a go if I can't have it done professionally. I should probably have a look inside, though -- the cooler is quite bulky and I'd want to be sure it wasn't blocking where the drive needed to go ...

(Apologies if I'm doing this wrong. I can't seem to edit the quote.)
 
A

Ash_

Master Poster
The cooler shouldn’t be in the way. Can you take a picture of the inside of your case though anyway.

I would assume it is just unplug one sata and plug it in above and then put your ssd in and plug it into the existing sata power cable and then plug the data cable into the bottom sata board slot.
 

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SpyderTracks

SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
So the SATA ports are on the bottom right hand corner of the motherboard. Those are the data ports for any SATA devices like HDD / SSD and DVD drives.

line.jpg


The drives will have a SATA data cable that plugs into those ports:

dm04400-01-thumbnail-1080x1080-70.jpg


Additionally, the drives will have a SATA power cable that runs from the PSU and also attaches to the drives to supply power. There will be one supplying the current drives that will likely have a spare connector that you can use for the new drive:

s-l1600.jpg



sata-connector.jpg
 
R

rachow

Member
Ash_ said:
The cooler shouldn’t be in the way. Can you take a picture of the inside of your case though anyway.

I would assume it is just unplug one sata and plug it in above and then put your ssd in and plug it into the existing sata power cable and then plug the data cable into the bottom sata board slot.
Click to expand...
inside2.jpg

Thanks, it looks as though the cooler is well out of the way and there is one yellow port free -- the optical drive is on the brown one?
 
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