Computer illiterate moron here.

Dell XPS 8930, about a year old.

Installed a Crucial MX500 1.0TB SSD drive today. Computer is much faster, but not as fast as I "thought" the SSD upgrade would make it.

The Crucial SSD software shows that my computer has 8MB of ram, and about 6-7 of it is in use at all time. Thinking I should add another 8MB?

Computer has 8MB stick, and three empty slots. If I wanted to add another 8MB, can I buy two 4MB sticks, or should I buy another 8MB stick?

Crucial website shows the following as compatible with my computer:
Ballistix Elite 8GB Kit (2 x 4GB) DDR4-3000 UDIMM
BLE2K4G4D30AEEA
Configuration ID: CT11062211
DDR4 PC4-24000 • 15-16-16 • UNBUFFERED • NON-ECC • DDR4-3000 • 1.35V • 512MEG X 64 •



I kept my last Dell XPS for like 8 or 9 years, so I hope to upgrade this one and keep it the same duration if possible. I plan on adding more memory, and likely upgrading the processor as the prices come down in a couple of years.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: bubbatime,

Did you just image the old drive or did you actually do a clean install, I am assuming it's Windows 10? Clean install will yield the best results, but there maybe reasons why you can't/won't. Did you confirm you are running the latest firmware on your SSD? If you are using a SATA III drive you should make sure you are plugging into a SATAIII port on your Motherboard.


8GB RAM is really the minimum you should be running these days. More will be better but I would check your Motherboard to see if runs in Dual Channel mode. If so you might want to buy a 16 GB dual channel kit and replace it all. Lot's of possibilities here without more info. You might be able to find out what Motherboard you have by checking Dell's website with your Service Tag or Express service code. Enter that on Dell's website and go from there. It's possible to run 1 8GB stick with 2 4GB sticks but that probably is not ideal.

This might help:




Link to original video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-D8fhsXqq4o

More ram is generally good but going from 8-16 will not produce a big improvement. Having said that any new builds I make are getting 16Gb. Did you clone your hard drive or fresh install to the SSD? Fresh install usually produces a quicker machine...for a while. Check to see if the SSD is setup of AHCI or RAID. Usually raid will provide a little better performance provided you have the proper motherboard drivers. This even if you are running a single drive.

I cloned my hard drive. All I did was unplug the cords from the old hard drive, and plug them into the new hard drive. I didn't move any cords around on the motherboard. I do plan on using the hard drive that came with the computer, eventually, once I figure out how to erase it and use it as a backup/storage drive.

I did update to the latest firmware for the SSD, and its running the latest BIOS as well. Running Windows 10.

8 gb does seem a bit low and since you're running with 90% of your ram in use (I'd check that too) you will benefit from additional RAM.

You don't want to mix ram sticks, so if you can't find the exact ram on your system, you'll need to get all new. That's not too much of a deal as RAM is pretty inexpensive these days. I'd suggest two 8 gb sticks. If you can afford more, go ahead and get it. I run 24gb on my xps8700 along with a 500 gb SSD and it's very fast. Two 8's and two 4's. You do need to install in pairs.

quote:

Originally posted by bubbatime:
Computer has 8MB stick, and three empty slots. If I wanted to add another 8MB, can I buy two 4MB sticks, or should I buy another 8MB stick?

That's likely the problem. If your motherboard is dual channel and you only have a single stick of 8gb RAM, your system isn't going to run as fast as it could. Two sticks of 4gb in the appropriate slots would likely run much faster. Given your scenario I'd suggest one stick of the exact same 8gb RAM you're currently running. Short of that, two sticks of 4gb of maybe a higher speed (check your motherboard specs) in the correct slots will get you a performance bump.

The suggestion of doing a clean install of Windows 10 is also an excellent suggestion and one that should always be implemented on a new HDD install.

First > memory does not make a computer go faster.
But IF you do insist on upgrading the RAM and you have a single stick of 8GB then get the exact same (specification-wise) module.
Example: DDR4 2400 > get the same speed, size and timing.

quote:

Originally posted by bubbatime:
I cloned my hard drive. All I did was unplug the cords from the old hard drive, and plug them into the new hard drive. I didn't move any cords around on the motherboard. I do plan on using the hard drive that came with the computer, eventually, once I figure out how to erase it and use it as a backup/storage drive.

I did update to the latest firmware for the SSD, and its running the latest BIOS as well. Running Windows 10.

It's really hard to tell if you expectations are just too high or if you actually have a performance issue without knowing more details. But I would try to find what processes are running that are using 8GB of RAM, that sounds pretty high if at idle. Might be able to shut off some unneeded background processes and see if that helps. If a clean install is an option do it. Make an image first though if possible, and backup any data that you don't want to lose. You probably know this but you never know. I like Macrium Reflect free edition for imaging. You could also run some tests on your drive and see how well it performs. I have used AS SSD and some others, not sure what is popular these days though.

quote:

Originally posted by smschulz:
First > memory does not make a computer go faster.
But IF you do insist on upgrading the RAM and you have a single stick of 8GB then get the exact same (specification-wise) module.
Example: DDR4 2400 > get the same speed, size and timing.

What????

Upgrading from HDD to SDD it should be much, much, faster. If it isn’t, something is wrong. As said clean install might help. If you don’t have enough RAM for what you are doing, your computer could feel sluggish. This day in age I would say at least 16GB.

I have used the crucial website with great success. So if you downloaded that tool and it said to buy this, you should be good. Get another 8GB stick.

As mentioned, when you copy an image of drive to the new SSD you risk bringing the old baggage with you so to speak. A clean install is ideal. Also, to clarify, memory (RAM) does come in different flavors. Memory can be increased in speed to increase the throughput, but the system bandwidth is limited by the architecture of the bus. So that's a reason why you have specific memory that only works in specific motherboards for example. Someone mentioned DDR 2400...that's a type of RAM and a speed (frequency) rating. There's also timing parameters (latency) and other memory specs specific to each type of RAM.

In a nutshell, the amount of memory (8 GB vs 16 or 32) dictates the number of virtual memory addresses available for the processor, allowing a processor to utilize those memory addresses. This in turn allows applications to be written that can take advantage of this. The speed of the memory allows those virtual addresses to be used more frequently by the process calls to the processor. There's other layers of things happening but this is the basic concept.

Someone mentioned dual channel versus single channel memory and that's a very good point here. If your motherboard is optimized to use dual channel RAM you're loosing quite a bit of bandwidth (capacity) using a single RAM module. Two 4 GB RAM modules (in dual channel) will outperform one 8 GB in the single channel. Basically there's two parallel channels (two slots each) running that allow more access to/from the system bus. High performance RAM will come in matching pairs to maximize performance. You'll also see things like DDR DDR3 DDR4 - that's basically the version of the underlying memory architecture or it's type.

Anyhow, hopefully this will give you a better context of all the information you have in the thread to digest. Much of it good, but maybe a touch confusing.

quote:

Originally posted by Nickelsig229:

quote:

Originally posted by smschulz:
First > memory does not make a computer go faster.
But IF you do insist on upgrading the RAM and you have a single stick of 8GB then get the exact same (specification-wise) module.
Example: DDR4 2400 > get the same speed, size and timing.

What????

Simple terms:
1)memory doesn't speed up a computer.
2)when using memory modules in PAIRS they should be exactly the same (specification-wise)