Ram Upgrade Aspire 5 A515-56-77J7

I am interested in upgrading my Aspire 5 A515-56-77J7 but cannot find out what the limits are on the Ram Upgrade. Its currently 12gb, and everything I can find says that 4gb is soldered on so if I open my laptop up there should be a slot with a 8gb stick in it (I assume it is a PC4-25600 DDR4 3200 SO-DIMM, but I cannot find this information without actually opening up my laptop to look at the stick in there currently). I can assume I can upgrade to 16gb, but if I can go higher I will, and need to know the limit my model can handle. There are variations in the Aspire 5 A515 models that allow for only a 16gb stick inserted but others allow larger. I don't want to buy a stick of RAM that won't work. I am trying to futureproof it... so the max will be good to know. Does anyone have this information?

Accepted answers

brummyfan2

Hi,
Download and install CPU-z, run it and find out the specs of the 8GB module in the slot available for upgrade, then buy a 16GB module with same specs and install to make the total maximum memory of 20GB.
https://www.cpuid.com/softwares/cpu-z.html
https://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/47074392

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyU_d25LKYY&t=462s

JackE

It should take 16gb sodimm 2666MHz or faster for a total of 20GB max, Max buss speed is 2666MHz so dont pay extra for 3200MHz sodimm

StevenGen

Also and as an addition, use the Crucial System Scanner that will tell you and suggest the best RAM and SSD's for your laptop.

All comments

brummyfan2

Hi,
Download and install CPU-z, run it and find out the specs of the 8GB module in the slot available for upgrade, then buy a 16GB module with same specs and install to make the total maximum memory of 20GB.
https://www.cpuid.com/softwares/cpu-z.html
https://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/47074392

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyU_d25LKYY&t=462s

JSunsurn

Thank you for this information, though do you have any idea if it could accept a 32gb or larger SO-DIMM?

JackE

It should take 16gb sodimm 2666MHz or faster for a total of 20GB max, Max buss speed is 2666MHz so dont pay extra for 3200MHz sodimm

StevenGen

Also and as an addition, use the Crucial System Scanner that will tell you and suggest the best RAM and SSD's for your laptop.

JSunsurn

Okay I wanted to post an update in case anyone is curious. Because the upgrade surprised me in a good way.

Everything online seemed to say that of the two types of RAM in the Laptop (Acer Aspire 5 A515-56-77J7) that 4GB was soldered and then the remaining RAM was on a reasonably easy swapable SO-DIMM, which would be 8GB as my model came with a total of 12GB. This particular model I have, this is not the case. It has 8GB soldered on, and a 4GB easily swapable SO-DIMM. So when I upgraded my RAM with a 16GB SO-DIMM, which gives me 24GB instead of my expected 20GB. I am certainly not complaining.

I also put in a 1TB SSD into the SATA Bay... I thought maybe 2TB would be better but I have a pretty good NAS for Storage, and extra stuff that stays on the Laptop is really only good in times where I am travelling and don't have internet or something (almost never). I wanted it to be a little roomier than the slightly constricted 512GB. 512GB is not bad, just worried about needing more for some reason or another... my former Laptop had a 1TB spinning HDD and I rarely used more than 250GB, but there was the occasional time it did go above that. 250GB is still pretty minimal on 1TB drive, and only half on a 512GB one. But I still feel constrained with only 512GB. I could have upgraded the NVMe Drive itself to 1TB or more, by cloning it.. but for the moment I felt leaving it alone for the moment is the better option. So I have C: NVMe at 512GB (ish... Acer partitions it for recovery purposes) and a D : SSD at 1TB.

The real only difficulty in the upgrade process for me was trying to open up the base, after removing the screws... you really need a good spudger tool (or whatever you call it) to pop the base off. The rest of the upgrade process was very simple and didn't take very long.