Finally added an SSD and more RAM to my Dell Studio

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After browsing all the other SSD threads here, I decided to tinker with my 3 year old Dell Studio, which had become sluggish for a while. I found that the fan would also go into overdrive all the time so I took the whole laptop apart and give it a service. It wasn't a surprise that I found half an inch of dust caked on the vents. I was also disappointed to see that Dell had used some rather cheap looking thermal compound on the CPU and GPU. So I cleaned it up and applied Arctic Silver. Although this is not fully confirmed but I believe the CPU went from 89c to 50c under normal use.

Well pleased for now and waiting for the optical drive caddy to arrive so I can house the hdd in there too.
 
If you're running Windoze you could further turboboost the performance by swapping to something like Linux Mint - you could even dip a toe in the water by running it in a partition to start with (all simple point and click stuff with the install disc). I started that way 5 years ago, and now run Mint for all my main computing, on several different computers....
 
Organnyx said:
If you're running Windoze you could further turboboost the performance by swapping to something like Linux Mint - you could even dip a toe in the water by running it in a partition to start with (all simple point and click stuff with the install disc). I started that way 5 years ago, and now run Mint for all my main computing, on several different computers....
Click to expand...

Would there be a way to run windows apps too? I need Windows apps for other work
 
On Linux you could use something like Wine to run your windows applications

Or you could just simply run a dual boot system
 
Keith W said:
On Linux you could use something like Wine to run your windows applications

Or you could just simply run a dual boot system
Click to expand...

I did Ubuntu dual boot for a while and even Ubuntu is brilliant, I couldn't get on with it permanently.
 
For 90+% of the population, Windows is a better bet than Linux

and I say that with 4 x Ubuntu, 3 x FreeBSD, 1 uClinux, 2 x FedoraCore 17, 1 x OpenIndiana, 1 x generic Linux 1 x Android Jelly Bean and 3 x (5 x if you include Ms arad85 & daughters) Win 7 installs here :eek: ;)

I also have an XP system here too, but I don't find time to use that much now :nuts: :D
 
arad85 said:
For 90+% of the population, Windows is a better bet than Linux

and I say that with 4 x Ubuntu, 3 x FreeBSD, 1 uClinux, 2 x FedoraCore 17, 1 x OpenIndiana, 1 x generic Linux 1 x Android Jelly Bean and 3 x (5 x if you include Ms arad85 & daughters) Win 7 installs here :eek: ;)

I also have an XP system here too, but I don't find time to use that much now :nuts: :D
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I enjoy reading your posts a lot and admire your technological knowledge. I get the impression that Amazon backs up it cloud system at your place! lol
 
that a 17" studio?
thinking of adding one of my old 64gb ones to the 2nd drive bay but I need to get an interconnector or something
think I know what I need but my 2x64gb are sitting raided in my desktop so would need a replacement before I go ahead with that. maybe after the new year....
 
I'd go for dual boot, that way you haven't burnt any bridges, you've got Windoze for when you want to run Windoze programmes, and you can get used to that foreign country which is Linux.
I started with dual boot, and found I was running Linux more and more - no crashes, no problems with viruses and trojans - just gets out of the way, and lets you get on with whatever you're sitting at a computer for, and sooooo much faster. Nowadays if I use a machine encumbered with Windoze I keep wondering if it's faulty as it's so slow and clonky in comparison.

My tip would be to avoid the newest incarnations of Ubuntu, it's now lumbered with an awful unintuitive interface called "Unity", Linux Mint is excellent!
 
DizMatt said:
that a 17" studio?
thinking of adding one of my old 64gb ones to the 2nd drive bay but I need to get an interconnector or something
think I know what I need but my 2x64gb are sitting raided in my desktop so would need a replacement before I go ahead with that. maybe after the new year....
Click to expand...

its the 1558 version, which makes it a 15.something inch. If I understand correctly, then yes the SATA connector that the optical drive plugs into is a little different to a regular SATA connection. The caddy I've ordered has it all sorted. I'm planning to put the HDD where the optical drive is to distribute the heat better
 
Organnyx said:
I'd go for dual boot, that way you haven't burnt any bridges, you've got Windoze for when you want to run Windoze programmes, and you can get used to that foreign country which is Linux.
I started with dual boot, and found I was running Linux more and more - no crashes, no problems with viruses and trojans - just gets out of the way, and lets you get on with whatever you're sitting at a computer for, and sooooo much faster. Nowadays if I use a machine encumbered with Windoze I keep wondering if it's faulty as it's so slow and clonky in comparison.

My tip would be to avoid the newest incarnations of Ubuntu, it's now lumbered with an awful unintuitive interface called "Unity", Linux Mint is excellent!
Click to expand...

how much space does Linux Mint take up? Is it easy to uninstall if I don't get along with it?

My main PC activities are: LR3.6, browsing, outlook and connecting to work using Citrix. I'm not sure Linux makes sense to use only for outlook/mail and browsing
 
I'm about to stick a Samsung 830 onto my desktop too. My motherboard supports SATA III and has two dedicated ports on the board. Will I notice any performance improvement over a SATA II connection?
 
hsuffyan said:
I'm about to stick a Samsung 830 onto my desktop too. My motherboard supports SATA III and has two dedicated ports on the board. Will I notice any performance improvement over a SATA II connection?
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You'll get more performance, but I'm unsure how noticeable it will be. SATA III is ~600MB/s, SATA II around 300MB/s - my two SSDs are on my SATA III ports and benchmark in the 400-500MB/s mark. You have to be doing large reads/writes to be getting those speeds, but whejn I'm backing up (for example) my disk monitors say they're reading 300-400MB/sec off the drives.

I doubt you'll notice it on a day-to-day basis. It's quite easy to try and see what you think though - just swap them over and see if you notice a speed difference.

BTW: if you are asking as you have a couple of SATA III HDDs in your system which use the ports, I'd definitely move them onto SATA II ports. HDDs cannot manage more than about 125MB/sec sustained so even if you have SATA III HDDs they can't go fastsre than SATA II speeds for anything more than very small bursts (depending on how the on-disk cache is managed). The gain will be bigger having the SSD on SATA III.
 
arad85 said:
You'll get more performance, but I'm unsure how noticeable it will be. SATA III is ~600MB/s, SATA II around 300MB/s - my two SSDs are on my SATA III ports and benchmark in the 400-500MB/s mark. You have to be doing large reads/writes to be getting those speeds, but whejn I'm backing up (for example) my disk monitors say they're reading 300-400MB/sec off the drives.

I doubt you'll notice it on a day-to-day basis. It's quite easy to try and see what you think though - just swap them over and see if you notice a speed difference.

BTW: if you are asking as you have a couple of SATA III HDDs in your system which use the ports, I'd definitely move them onto SATA II ports. HDDs cannot manage more than about 125MB/sec sustained so even if you have SATA III HDDs they can't go fastsre than SATA II speeds for anything more than very small bursts (depending on how the on-disk cache is managed). The gain will be bigger having the SSD on SATA III.
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Great, thank you for that. HDD's are on SATAII. But I'll use the SATAIII for the SSD as its there anyway.

One a side note I'm getting a strange reaction from my new RAM on my laptop. The system runs incredibly slow when I boot from my old drive but runs perfectly when I boot from SSD that has a fresh install. Both OS's are W7 64bit and I ran the Crucial scanner to identify the right ram and the board recognises the 2x4gb that I have in there. I'm wondering if the RAM has an issue and I'm not noticing it because the SSD might be compensating and giving me decent user experience anyway
 
I hope you don't mind me joining this thread, I have a Dell Studio 1558, 2.8 I7, 4gb now upgraded to 8GB (max allowed) and ATI card, and this idea appeals to me!

Have you removed the optical drive and replaced it with an SSD? That would be useful for me too, so any help and advice would be appreciated. Are you able to run the software from the SSD and keep the data on the normal HD, and how are you going to connect the (external?) optical drive?

Thanks for any help, it will save me changing the laptop and probably speed it up as well.
 
On the RAM: unlikely. No idea what that would be though :s
 
david357 said:
I hope you don't mind me joining this thread, I have a Dell Studio 1558, 2.8 I7, 4gb now upgraded to 8GB (max allowed) and ATI card, and this idea appeals to me!

Have you removed the optical drive and replaced it with an SSD? That would be useful for me too, so any help and advice would be appreciated. Are you able to run the software from the SSD and keep the data on the normal HD, and how are you going to connect the (external?) optical drive?

Thanks for any help, it will save me changing the laptop and probably speed it up as well.
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This isn't a wedding thread, no need for formalities :)

I'm getting rid of the optical drive altogether. I might see if I can get a SATA to USB or e-sata.connector so I can turn the optical drive into an external drive. My installation process involved swapping the old hdd for the ssd, installing win7 from the optical drive and then to replace that drive with the HDD and caddy. I'm planning to format the HDD completely and then transfer my data back onto as I don't want the remnants of the old OS getting in the way. I've a few external drives to help me with this.

Whilst your in there, find the disassembly manual on the Dell site and give the fan a good clean and replace the crap thermal compound Dell use on the CPU and GPU with some Arctic Silver. It's a bad design to begin with, its boxed in and too insulated to dissipate heat in an effecient manner.
 
arad85 said:
On the RAM: unlikely. No idea what that would be though :s
Click to expand...

I might stick my old RAM in to see if I can identify anything
 
hsuffyan said:
This isn't a wedding thread, no need for formalities :)

Thanks!!!!

I'm getting rid of the optical drive altogether. I might see if I can get a SATA to USB or e-sata.connector so I can turn the optical drive into an external drive. My installation process involved swapping the old hdd for the ssd, installing win7 from the optical drive and then to replace that drive with the HDD and caddy. I'm planning to format the HDD completely and then transfer my data back onto as I don't want the remnants of the old OS getting in the way. I've a few external drives to help me with this.

Whilst your in there, find the disassembly manual on the Dell site and give the fan a good clean and replace the crap thermal compound Dell use on the CPU and GPU with some Arctic Silver. It's a bad design to begin with, its boxed in and too insulated to dissipate heat in an effecient manner.
Click to expand...

So.....use the onboard win7 install from the backup petition to make a bootable win7 cd/dvd, then replace the hd with the ssd and install win7, then copy all the data to the hdd which will be moved to the optical drive bay (in a caddy), after formatting it first?

Relatively trouble-free apart from time?

Suggestions for a suitable SSD?

Thanks.
 
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re the standard thermal compound its more than likely a thermal pad which is the same as what stock intel heatsinks will use. should be fine for normal use.

re the slow old install, have you changed the hard drive mode in the bios at all?
 
Not quite the route I followed, but I believe that may be possible too. Heres what I did:

1. Backup HDD data onto external HDD
2. Swap HDD with SSD, straight forward to do.
3. Leave Optical Drive untouched
4. Install Win7 from a Windows7 DVD onto SSD (30mins unattended once installation options selected)
5. Boot SSD with new Win7, run all necessary updates, set up Wifi, change language to UK English (damn yanks!) etc..
6. Optical Drive is now obsolete for purpose of installing Win7
7. Replace optical drive with replacement hdd/optical drive caddy.
8. Format internal HDD
9. Transfer data from external HDD back to internal HDD
10. Install my required programs to SSD i.e. LR3.6, CS5, Chrome, Outlook, Avast.

This way is very clean and gives you a fresh system to play with. Profiles and catalogues from LR are extrememly easy to backup and transfer over, so no need to create a clone if your old HDD.

Lastly, I'm looking for an external enclosure or caddy to stick the Optical Drive into, to turn it into an external drive. The 1558 has a few options, like USB, Firewire and eSata that the drive could connect to if an enclosure is available.

As for a good SSD, how long is a piece of string? I bought the OCZ Vertex 3 for the laptop as it's just a plaything for me as the desktop does the lions share for me. 256gb cost £115 from Amazon. For the PC I bought a Samsung 830 256 for £145 as it has a better rep, again from Amazon.
 
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hsuffyan said:
7. Replace optical drive with replacement hdd/optical drive caddy.
Click to expand...

id bet that the optical drive sata is running in a different mode to the normal hard drive sata (IDE/AHCI or visa versa). might be worth seeing if you can change it, would be my starter for 10 for diagnosing the speed issue on that drive.
 
neil_g said:
re the standard thermal compound its more than likely a thermal pad which is the same as what stock intel heatsinks will use. should be fine for normal use.

re the slow old install, have you changed the hard drive mode in the bios at all?
Click to expand...

could be that. it was flaking and crumbling like old compound, so I replaced it and both seem happier

BIOS was already in ACHI mode. System runs slow with HDD attached in original configuration.
 
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hsuffyan said:
BIOS was already in ACHI mode. System runs slow with HDD attached in original configuration.
Click to expand...

okay so different hard drives in the same slot with the same install and same memory but the mechical hd runs slow.

got to be a software thing, if it was faulty memory it be running slow on both installs. presumably chipset drivers have been installed (i know that should effect both installs too but im wondering if the SSD is masking the problem)?
 
neil_g said:
okay so different hard drives in the same slot with the same install and same memory but the mechical hd runs slow.

got to be a software thing, if it was faulty memory it be running slow on both installs. presumably chipset drivers have been installed (i know that should effect both installs too but im wondering if the SSD is masking the problem)?
Click to expand...


By chipset, you mean drivers for GPU, sound, etc? Or mobo bios?

Thank you for your help!
 
hsuffyan said:
By chipset, you mean drivers for GPU, sound, etc? Or mobo bios?
Click to expand...
If mobo BIOS, it would likely affect both drives. Worth updating the HDD drivers from the manufacturers site (either laptop or chipset).
 
I'm on my laptop and I've got the old RAM in and it's flying using the HDD and no SSD plugged in. This is really bizarre!!
 
Open the BIOS pre boot and see what the PC thinks is in there - and at what speed....
 
arad85 said:
Open the BIOS pre boot and see what the PC thinks is in there - and at what speed....
Click to expand...

I spoke too soon, it actually happened to both. It works ok for a short while and then screen goes black and only mouse point moves, but can't get anywhere and have to cold shutdown. Both RAM look ok on SSD configuration without HDD plugged in. I'm thinking its local to the HDD and the old OS, so I'm going to do a format now and hopefully the new OS will just treat the HDD as a storage medium with no system settings or OS related data on there.
 
Sometimes you need to clear the BIOS first, when going back and forwards between two drives with OS on them.
 
hsuffyan said:
I spoke too soon, it actually happened to both. It works ok for a short while and then screen goes black and only mouse point moves, but can't get anywhere and have to cold shutdown. Both RAM look ok on SSD configuration without HDD plugged in. I'm thinking its local to the HDD and the old OS, so I'm going to do a format now and hopefully the new OS will just treat the HDD as a storage medium with no system settings or OS related data on there.
Click to expand...

I'd run some memtest on both sets
 
Thanks I'll have a look at the memtest. Also I know you mentioned that the standard thermal compound on these laptops won't be too bad, but I cannot begin to explain how cool and quiet this laptop has been running since I applied some Arctic Silver and gave the fan a clean. The underside of the laptop is barely even warm, before it would be enough to almost burn you!

I've also got the Samsung 830 fully installed in the PC and so far it's flying :)
 
Or the heatsink wasn't properly installed and the rework now has it seated nicely
 
guys, I did something extremely moronic. I thought I had a partitioned hdd backed up, but one folder didn't fully copy over. I've subsequently deleted the partition and formatted the hdd. The missing data isn't super important but would be good to get access again if I can. most recovery tools i've tried cannot see past the formatting and into the old partitions. Any suggested methods or routes I could try?

lol, you wouldn't believe it but the following tool (photorec) from link just showed me my old file structure and I'm trying to retrieve it now.
 
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