Making a Pentium powered Inspiron 15 3542 run faster - how?

Question

Hey, so since my dad needed a work computer (mostly Word, Excel; sometimes Visio or some cheap CAD software) as soon as possible, purchasing the best model at a prize online was not an option. So we had to buy one locally, and although the offer in all the shops was rather poor (as expected), we finally chose Dell Inspiron 15 3542 (the one with Pentium 3558U and 4 gigs of RAM). Generally, we're not happy about how poorly does Windows 8 perform on this machine. The OS has maybe like ~10 programs installed (excluding things like Visual C++, .NET Framework etc), only one program is launched at startup (it's the antivirus from COMODO), yet the laptop feels really slow. Every single operation takes much longer than I feel it should have. Besides general slugginess, that includes: using the Windows Explorer to browse through the files starting up aforementioned programs and opening documents using these programs browsing the internet with at least 3 tabs open - the browser occasionally just freezes (tested on many browsers, incl. Opera, Chrome, Vivaldi, Firefox) It seems to run much better on Linux (xubuntu, to be precise), but most programs that need to work will not function properly even with Wine, and running a VM with Windows XP on a computer this weak is not an option (yes, I've tried). I'm aware the CPU is the major reason of my disappointment, but I was wondering how much of a boost would replacing the drive to a 128 GB SSD cause. Has anyone here with a Pentium 3558U processor done that? Also is there anything I could do to improve performance? I remember the System process used to take like ~50% of the CPU, but I've already troubleshooted and fixed that, and that's no longer the case. Any input is greatly appreciated ;)

kamild1996 · Accepted Answer

Yep, if you do not have any data you want to transfer (you can transfer the entire system fyi), you can just put the new one and install via USB.

kamild1996 · Answer

Thanks for your response, ejn63, I'll highly consider buying an SSD then. I'm sure 128 GB is going to be enough, because this notebook was bought about 3-4 months ago and the total HDD usage didn't exceed 60 gigs, so 128 should be enough. I also got an external HDD so I can always move big files over there.

Can anybody else share their experience with installing an SSD on such a notebook as well? :)

ejn63 · Answer

Your only real upgrade is to a solid state drive - which will boost performance to as good as it will get in a budget model like this one.  That said, since it'll be the only drive in the system, you'll find 128G too small -- you really need a minimum of 256G for long term use.

Philip_Yip · Answer

I would second the 250 GB as minimum... The price of SSDs has went down significantly making the 275 GB Crucial MX300 affordable:

http://uk.crucial.com/gbr/en/compatible-upgrade-for/Dell/inspiron-15-(3542)

The system will perform much better with a SSD. Even models from 2007 perform significantly better with a SSD. Before replacing the SSD.

I would however advise upgrading your UEFI BIOS to the latest version A12:

http://dellwindowsreinstallationguide.com/uefi/

And Downloading a Windows 10 RS1 .iso and making a Bootable USB:

http://dellwindowsreinstallationguide.com/download-windows-10-oem-and-retail-iso/

A clean install of Windows 10 RS1 on a new SSD will significantly improve your systems performance.

kamild1996 · Answer

Thanks for responding natakuc4, I'll make sure to update BIOS before migrating to an SSD.

Regarding the capacity, I'm already 100% certain I want to get a 120/128 GB model, even though I'm aware they're a little bit slower compared to their more capacitive versions. I want to spend a limited amount of money for upgrading it, and besides upgrading the storage I'm also upgrading RAM.

ejn63 · Answer

It isn't speed but capacity that's the issue - and you'll find 256G SSDs are less per gigabyte than 128s.

Awesome14 · Answer

You can disable all unnecessary Windows services in control panel.

Philip_Yip · Answer

I think you'll get more out of it with a 275 GB MX300 (£64) and a clean install of Windows 10 than an upgrade of RAM (from 4 GB to 8 GB) and a 120 GB SSD.

jessy.holiday · Answer

got a dell 3542 laptop.. will i need anything more then a install usb of win 10, to install this drive? my bios and everything updated. so, i can just pop out old drive and put new one in? then plug in usb for install

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