SSD to breathe new life into old Dell 530s?

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CMadki4

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Feb 3, 2011
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[H]ello all,

I've got an auxiliary office PC I keep around for misc. putering in the office. I'd like to freshn' it up. I've already upgraded the CPU from a E2140 to a E8400, which helped.

Current spec:
Dell 530s
E8400
2GB RAM
300GB + 1TB HDDs
PNY GT 430
Win7 64 bit

Would I benefit from even the most humble 30-60GB SSD for the OS? I'll keep all my media and import data on the two HDD (also backed up to an external HDD).

If I would benefit from an SSD on this machine, what model would you recommend? I'm looking at the sub $50 range NEW, less if used.
 
Anyone care to weigh in?

I ran over the PC with a fine tooth comb, clearing out the registry, removing unnecessary programs, etc. trying to milk a little more speed out of it (it bogs down some at times).

But still looking at an SSD.
 
You will see better performance upgrading it to 4gigs ram, the 2gigs ram with win7 is very limiting.

After that, you can look into an ssd to help it. Yes an ssd will work, you won't get the best read/write speeds formit, but those speeds don't matter often. The main gain will be program loading times.

Just without the ram increase, there isn't really anywhere for those programs to load into currently.
 
patrickdk said:
You will see better performance upgrading it to 4gigs ram, the 2gigs ram with win7 is very limiting.

After that, you can look into an ssd to help it. Yes an ssd will work, you won't get the best read/write speeds formit, but those speeds don't matter often. The main gain will be program loading times.

Just without the ram increase, there isn't really anywhere for those programs to load into currently.
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I was hoping that wouldn't be the case. Maybe it's just me, but RAM seems to be hard to find and expensive for these older systems. Good call, though.

Note: now looking for unbuffered Non-ECC DDR2, ideally 800 MHz, but 667 MHz will do.
 
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Making an offer on some Samsung 4x1GB DDR2-800 PC2-6400 non-ECC Unbuffered CL6 on fleabay. Here goes nothing...
 
For Office computing (i.e. no gaming or heavy graphics work) 2GB of RAM is fine, although it's a cheap upgrade. You won't notice near as much of a change by adding RAM as you would transitioning to a SSD for the OS. As this is an older machine that I'm sure doesn't have SATA3 ports, you won't get absolute top performance from the SSD, but the upgrade is more than worth the price of admission. Get the SSD and don't look back.
 
an office machine that uses less than 2 gigs of ram? my office users, use around 3gigs of ram, normally, just having outlook open.

winxp + office 2007 is ok in 2gigs, but win7 + office 2010, 4gig should be the smallest.

I could look, I have lots of the type of ram you need, but have to make sure it's the size you need, as I think most of mine is 2gig sticks, instead of 1gig.
 
Nate7311 said:
For Office computing (i.e. no gaming or heavy graphics work) 2GB of RAM is fine, although it's a cheap upgrade. You won't notice near as much of a change by adding RAM as you would transitioning to a SSD for the OS. As this is an older machine that I'm sure doesn't have SATA3 ports, you won't get absolute top performance from the SSD, but the upgrade is more than worth the price of admission. Get the SSD and don't look back.
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I still haven't counted out an ssd. I do a little solid works from time to time so, it does bog down at times.
patrickdk said:
an office machine that uses less than 2 gigs of ram? my office users, use around 3gigs of ram, normally, just having outlook open.

winxp + office 2007 is ok in 2gigs, but win7 + office 2010, 4gig should be the smallest.

I could look, I have lots of the type of ram you need, but have to make sure it's the size you need, as I think most of mine is 2gig sticks, instead of 1gig.
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That'd be awesome! Keep me posted, thanks :)
 
I have 2 or 3 Core2Duo machines getting trashed as no one wanted to buy any parts (my for sale thread).

But, I was thinking i can check for RAM if you want? Shoot me a PM, you can have it for cost of ship.
I may have better CPUs even too, and I know some PSUs. (All going in trash here soon)


Anyway, I stuck a Intel SSD into a Core2Duo and it made it much faster.
 
I'd say go for the ram. I'm currently making a new build and had to take out some of the ram from my current computer, going from 8gb to 2gb and it does lag ALOT more when just doing general computeing (ie. word document open with windows media and web browser).

I already have an ssd so, taking away the ram to 2gb was a big impact... go for the ram upgrade over the SSD if you have to pick one.
 
ToddW2 said:
I have 2 or 3 Core2Duo machines getting trashed as no one wanted to buy any parts (my for sale thread).

But, I was thinking i can check for RAM if you want? Shoot me a PM, you can have it for cost of ship.
I may have better CPUs even too, and I know some PSUs. (All going in trash here soon)


Anyway, I stuck a Intel SSD into a Core2Duo and it made it much faster.
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PM sent, thank you kindly!
lilneel12 said:
I'd say go for the ram. I'm currently making a new build and had to take out some of the ram from my current computer, going from 8gb to 2gb and it does lag ALOT more when just doing general computeing (ie. word document open with windows media and web browser).

I already have an ssd so, taking away the ram to 2gb was a big impact... go for the ram upgrade over the SSD if you have to pick one.
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Good example. And actually if the price is right I'll do both and ssd.
 
I don't think the 530 have AHCI support, just IDE. That will be a performance hit. Personally I wouldn't go for it.
 
It think those 530s have G33 boards with ICH9, which does support AHCI.

I went from a 750gb HDD to a 2x500gb Stripe to a 120gb SSD. Its a perceived quickness. My Array was nearly as quick in raw speed, but the latency is what makes SSDs feel so much snappier. Click IE, and its up, no 1-2 second delay. That's nice, but overall the system isn't that much faster.
 
Jorona said:
It think those 530s have G33 boards with ICH9, which does support AHCI.

I went from a 750gb HDD to a 2x500gb Stripe to a 120gb SSD. Its a perceived quickness. My Array was nearly as quick in raw speed, but the latency is what makes SSDs feel so much snappier. Click IE, and its up, no 1-2 second delay. That's nice, but overall the system isn't that much faster.
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I believe you are correct. It's either the G33M02 or M03. I believe M03 because I know for a fact I don't have quad core support.
patrickdk said:
Yep, AHCI is an option, requires a bios update though to gain support.
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I'll have to check what BIOS version I have. I do believe I updated it when I changed the CPU.
 
CMadki4 said:
I believe you are correct. It's either the G33M02 or M03. I believe M03 because I know for a fact I don't have quad core support.

I'll have to check what BIOS version I have. I do believe I updated it when I changed the CPU.
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If I'm not mistaken there are modded bioses for that series with Quad core support. theres no reason other then Dell for that board not having quad support. That's like my HP board in my HTPC. I flashed it with the bios of the revised board and gained 45nm support that was disabled so HP could sell you a new PC rather then let your upgrade your existing one.
 
even wouldn't more ram help even more if you didn't have to page?

0ms is better than 1ms, is better than 11ms

And if you need to page a gig of ram, cause you need 3gigs, at 150mb/sec max speed on that motherboard, the ssd is going take 8seconds? 8seconds is a very long time to wait for something that could have been instant.
 
While you've lost me on the technical-science of the ram vs. ssd discussion, I can say this: while working on a very basic SolidWorks 3D assembly my CPU usage peaked at 46% and the ram peaked at 84%. I had no other applications running.

Okay, as you were. You were saying...?

Oh, and has anyone dug up and dusted off any DDR2 that equates to 4GB? :)
 
Id go with the SSD, a customer of mine knocked over his Dell E521 while moving furniture at the office, I replaced the failed HDD with an SSD and he thought it was a new PC, he only had 3GB ram

DId you get ram yet I have 1GB DDR2 667mhz sticks @ $5 each
 
I'm actually looking at throwing in SSD in our Optiplex 755's (Core2Duos) as a cheap upgrade to keep them going longer since we have to go to Windows 7 (from XP) and can't afford new computers. All of them have 3-4GB of ram. I have one on my desk I threw a 64GB crucial SSD in to test.

So far it feels fine, the system boots in seconds and is generally quick with my users workflow.
 
Generally Core2Duo era is my threshold in terms of whether to upgrade an older computer with an SSD or not, although I've had cases where I've put an SSD in an Athlon X2 or even a Pentium D system and the owner has been extremely satisfied with the performance increase.
 
G33/ICH9 is SATA 2, so 300mb/s over someone mentioning 150 earlier.

4gb of ram, a 64/128gb boot drive and a near line storage drive. That's your best bet solution to make that thing quicker.
 
Jorona said:
G33/ICH9 is SATA 2, so 300mb/s over someone mentioning 150 earlier.

4gb of ram, a 64/128gb boot drive and a near line storage drive. That's your best bet solution to make that thing quicker.
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Good to know. This is encouraging, especially with the offers for DDR2 from members and the low cost of a little SSD boot drive.
 
Still looking for 4GB of non-ECC unbuffered DDR2 ram if anyone has any, as well as a small ssd. I think it has been well established that both will help freshn' up this still worthy machine.
 
I'm possibly gutting the TVPC as I don't run a personal minecraft server anymore and I got a chromecast, and it just works. I'm also pretty sure it has more then 3gb of ram in it ATM. I wanna say 6gb.

Lemme talk it over with the wife and see if she ever intends on playing minecraft again.

Also, one of the Shell shockers to day is a 128gb Sandisk for 69.99. Pretty solid price.
 
Jorona said:
I'm possibly gutting the TVPC as I don't run a personal minecraft server anymore and I got a chromecast, and it just works. I'm also pretty sure it has more then 3gb of ram in it ATM. I wanna say 6gb.

Lemme talk it over with the wife and see if she ever intends on playing minecraft again.

Also, one of the Shell shockers to day is a 128gb Sandisk for 69.99. Pretty solid price.
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Thanks for the heads up in the shell shocker. I almost bit.

And what did the wife say? Anymore diggy diggy hole for her? Or can I haves the rams!? Haha, I appreciate the offer.
 
Got another 2gb of matching ram for a total of 4gb and just placed an order for a 120gb crucial m500 ssd. I'll do a fresh install this weekend and report back.
 
Blerg, sorry man, Completely forgot about this thread, need to start subscribing.

Sounds like your square though. Let us know how it works out.
 
SSDs can breathe new life into PCs with chipsets as old as G3x (Intel Bear Lake) - a chipset that doesn't even support AHCI. (Remember, it hasn't been until recently that portable-computer chipsets supported AHCI - and SSDs primarily targeted laptops and notebooks initially.) Corporate-stable/consumer-stable chipsets (such as G31, G41, etc.) will certainly have lower ceilings than newer performance-oriented chipsets (even ones as old as Z68, let alone newer Z chipsets such as Z77/87) - however, that doesn't mean that there is no benefit at all. It still depends on bang for buck.

The dilemma is at the 120GB/128GB size range - such drives are now less than $1.00USD/GB. These drives are not only faster than practically any platter drive of their capacity, they have absolute pricing on par with platter drives of the same form-factor (2.5"); I'm not talking second-tier brands (SanDisk or OCZ or even Toshiba), but top-tier (Plextor, Samsung, Intel, Crucial). Even more telling, these same drives are also larger than is typical for an ex-corporate desktop - Mom's HP is an ex-corporate PC, and came with a mere 80GB HDD. In short, we are talking about SSDs that are not merely faster than the drive it would replace, but larger besides. Take such an SSD and tag-team it with a significantly-larger platter drive (anywhere from 500GB to 2 TB) and you have a Mondo Combo of speed and capacity that doesn't cost even half a mint - MAYBE $250USD for the tag-team. (It should last through several upgrade cycles besides - Intel SSDs have five-year warranties.)
 
PGHammer said:
SSDs can breathe new life into PCs with chipsets as old as G3x (Intel Bear Lake) - a chipset that doesn't even support AHCI.(Remember, it hasn't been until recently that portable-computer chipsets supported AHCI - and SSDs primarily targeted laptops and notebooks initially.)
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This is just inaccurate.

Boards as old as 915 chipsets (First gen 775 Prescott P4 and Cellys, and Banias core Pentium Ms). It wasn't the MCH series that determined AHCI settings, it was the ICH. ICH6R and ICH6M were the first intel ICH's to have a AHCI mode. Notice how the ICH6M, a mobile chipset is included there. You're analysis is simply incorrect.

So a 965 with ICH8 won't have AHCI, but a 915 board with ICH6R will. A G41 board with ICH7 wont have AHCI, but a G33 board with ICH9 will.

Catching the drift now?
 
To further iterate the consensus on this thread, SSD upgrade over 2gb --> 4gb upgrade any day. My 2GB HTPC on a 30GB SSD astonishes me with its snappiness when running steam games on it, alongside browser windows with several tabs open in each. 4GB + SSD is optimal, and it sounds like the OP has already done that judging from the post above.
 
I've installed SSDs into two older systems, one an old HP Paviliion Q6600 that someone got frustrated with and threw out (this was about 4 years ago). I found it in a snowbank, parts scattered everywhere. I brought it in, dried it out, bought a new 750W power supply and 8GB of memory for it. I installed two 256GB Corsair P256 SSDs (Samsung based) in a RAID 0, rather than the 750GB Seagate POS it came with. It ran VERY well. I added a 1TB drive I had kicking around and ended up giving it to my Grandma so that she could put her family pics on it.

The second was an old HP, AMD-based laptop my mother uses. It ran like crap, slower than molasses. I added another 4GB of RAM (for 8GB total), installed Windows 7 Professional and installed a Samsung 840 Pro 512GB SSD I had kicking around. It only has SATA II, but the improvement is still night and day. The laptop is now very usable and performs the required tasks quite well...at least fast enough for her and fast enough for me not to want to throw it out the window when I visit.
 
Update: So far it's great. It seems to be an all new PC. More snappy all around. Still won't play Crysis though ;) I haven't put Solidworks back on, still need to figure that one out. But overall I'm very pleased with the increase in performance and user experience. AHCI was not an explicit SATA option. Just IDE and RAID. Turns out RAID does it and does not require you to actually setup a RAID config.

And there you go. SSD does breath new life into a Dell 530s. And doubling the RAM doesn't hurt either.
 
And I bet you can use those SSD down the road when the machines kick the bucket..,maybe some users have laptops,or even in the next desktops if they don't come with SSD.

Glad it worked out
 
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