Acer Nitro 5 AN515-53-52FA M.2 SSD upgrade ... (again) is PCIe NVMe drives compatible?

mormegil27

Hello,

I found this very helpful link to suggested official upgrade modules for the Acer Nitro 5 AN515-53-52FA:

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/576490/nitro-an515-53-upgrading-options

This model originally comes with an HHD:

https://www.acer.com/datasheets/2018/4876/AN515-53/NH.Q3ZAA.001.html

I have 2 friends who have this model, each has an identical laptop (they are married). BOTH friend's laptops have become impossibly slow, like it literally takes 10-20 minutes to load a program such as a game, and hours to update. I ran diagnostics and find nothing obviously wrong, not running our ram when browsing, etc. So I suspect it is the HHD drives - either the drives themselves are corrupt, or the SATA cables have gone bad, or they are just too slow for modern programs. It seems very suspicious that BOTH of their laptops have become impossibly slow; seems like a bad hardware line to me. I am assuming the M.2 will fix this (at least I can try, put one in, reinstall Win10 to M.2 as primary boot drive, look for slow performance).

My question: the link above suggests one very specific PCIe model number for an Intel M.2 drive as being compatible. But... it's only that specific drive? Really? No other M.2 drives are compatible?

Or are all 1x 2280 PCIe NVMe drives compatible???

Thanks!

[Edited the thread to add issue detail]

William_mk2

@mormegil27

I understand you say "BOTH friend's laptops have become impossibly slow, like it literally takes 10-20 minutes to load a program such as a game, and hours to update." and you say "My question: the link above suggests one very specific PCIe model number for an Intel M.2 drive as being compatible. But... it's only that specific drive? Really? No other M.2 drives are compatible?

I am going to answer each of your question one bye one.

Regarding the slow performance of computer kindly follow the steps given below

Here are some of the steps to speed up your computer.  

Try windows + r - on the run window - type msconfig - click ok  

click on services

check - hide all microsoft services 

click on disable all

click on startup 

disable all the startup items 

click on apply - ok - restart the computer.   Loading process will be very fast now..

Note: You can always enable the services and startup items later or set it to normal startup from selective startup later on the General tab  

Try windows + r - on the run window - type appwiz.cpl - click ok  

it will show you the list of programs

remove all the unwanted third party programs. 

Please don’t remove any drivers.  

If you are not sure , please don’t remove it.  

Try windows + r - on the run window type temp - click ok - it will show you the bunch of files - try ctrl + a - select all files - press the shift key and click on delete files 

Try windows + r - on the run window type %temp% - click ok - It will show you the bunch of files - try ctrl + a - select all files - press the shift key and click on delete files 

If you are not able to remove some files - click on skip and then click click on continue.. 

Try windows + r - on the run window - type cleanmgr - click ok

click on all the boxes except recycle bin and thumnail

Delete the items which are checked 

Try windows x - on the menu - chose command prompt admin or power shell admin 

click on yes 

on the blue or black window type sfc /scannow 

It will be running till 100 %

Try to do a chrome reset 

open chrome

click on three dots on top right corner 

click on settings

Scroll down - go to advanced

click on restore setting to default

you will see reset settings - cancel

click on reset settings 

Open chrome 

it will work faster now

If it is still not working then we have to do a refresh and reset

click on start - settings - update and security - recovery - reset this pc - get started 

or 

on start - type here to search - type reset this pc - click on reset this pc on the top - click on get started 

It will show you keep my files and remove everything

chose keep my files 

chose the account - type the password - click on local reinstall - click on reset 

It will be in progress.. 

login to computer and start using the computer. 

If it is still not working 

click on start - settings - update and security - recovery - reset this pc - get started 

chose remove everything 

click on local reinstall - just remove my files - click on reset

It will be in progress

Note:

If you do refresh ( keep my files ) - all your personal files like pictures, music , documents , videos will still be intact.  Only the applications will be lost

If you do reset ( remove everything ) - you are doing a factory default.  It will become like a day one computer.  It will wipe out everything and take your computer to day one like a new computer. 

You can also do the recovery in an alternative way..

There are two alt keys on the keyboard. If you look at the bottom row of keyboard you can see the one on the left side of space bar and the other on the right side of space bar. The alt key on the right side will be looking like alt, alt gr or alt car. Turn off the computer. Hold the alt key on the left and tap f10 continuously.  It will go to repair mode. It will show you chose an option, continue, troubleshoot.  If it is not going to repair mode, turn off the computer. Turn on the computer. Hold the right alt key ( alt gr or alt car or alt ) and then tap f10 continuously. It will go to chose an option continue and troubleshoot..

It will show you chose an option, continue, troubleshoot

Go to troubleshoot - click on reset this pc

click on keep my files ( only applications will be lost )  chose your account and type your password  - click on local reinstall - click on reset

It will be in progress 

If the keep my files option is not working 

Go to troubleshoot - click on reset this pc – click on remove everything – click on local reinstall – just remove my files – click on reset 

It will reinstall windows. 

If the just remove my files is not working.. 

Go to troubleshoot - click on reset this pc – click on remove everything – click on local reinstall – Fully clean the drive – click on reset 

It will reinstall windows. 

Note: You can also go to chose an option , continue , troubleshoot by holding the alt key + tapping f10 or alt gr + tapping f10 on the keyboard while turning on the computer.  Once you see the troubleshoot option, you can stop tapping the f10 and stop holding the alt key.  Then you can try the keep my files and remove everything ( just remove by files and fully clean the drive ) by following the steps which was mentioned above. 

Answer 2

Regarding your next question - "My question: the link above suggests one very specific PCIe model number for an Intel M.2 drive as being compatible. But... it's only that specific drive? Really? No other M.2 drives are compatible?

I would like to provide some additional info which will really help you. 

Kindly go through the details given below. The info provided below will be very helpful to get the current memory and ssd details of your computer and the options to upgrade it.  

Please visit the website given below. There is an option to "start your scan " and " select your computer " . Please chose the options and try it. It will show you the memory and SSD’s details and the best upgrade options for you.. 

https://www.crucial.com/

It will tell you what you currently have and what you can add for memory and SSD's. 

Note: If you decide to buy you can always compare the prices by visiting other websites or stores and then you can decide. We are providing the info of scan app just to show you the upgrade options. You can even download similar scan apps from other memory upgrade websites too.      

To check the compatibility of ram which you can use on your computer.. Get CPUz and check it with that in SPD section of all the RAM and specs that you have, its a quick and simple way to check all OEM specs and what you have in your system. 

mormegil27

William_mk2:

Thank you so much for all of this detailed help. I will go through the steps you have provided, however, I do not live with my friends so I will need to attempt these things over the USA thanksgiving holiday when I will next see them, which is in 3 days. After that, I will post back what happens.

Really appreciate all of this, awesome!

mormegil27

I had a typo in my original comment, I meant to say:

"I ran diagnostics and find nothing obviously wrong, not running OUT OF ram when browsing, etc."

mormegil27

Ok - I did a number of these things, though not exhaustively as I cannot remove all the programs from my friend's computer arbitrarily.

One major issue: after a lot of testing I realized that the slowness is being caused by 100% HHD usage (as shown in Task Manager), while Ram usage was typically only between 50-60% at all times (except in games where it goes to 70-80%). However, the list in Task Manager typically showed almost all apps at 0 transfer speeds. I don't know what to expect for typical HHD transfer speeds.

Things that worked:

• (1) sfc /scannow ... did find corrupt files and repaired them.
• (2) Turning off all services and startup apps did speed up app performance in Chrome, for example, on testing. So whereas with services/apps on normally, Chrome would constantly send the HHD to 100% when on a single site (I used the Washington Post as a test), after turning all these services off Chrome would no longer bottleneck the hard drive.
• (3) I deleted the Page File and then reconfigured it to the automatic system suggestion. This changed the Page File from 500 MB to 2 GB, so 4x larger. This then did create less HHD bottleneck usage immediately. Clearly the Page File was not large enough. I did this based on the following tech guide (Item 9):
• https://www.avg.com/en/signal/fix-100-disk-usage-windows

The system is a bit faster now, but when it initially starts any program and loads from the HHD (for example at OS or game startup), it still bottlenecks to 100% HHD usage even with the new Page File, making game load times on the order of 4-5 minutes in test. For comparison, I have an old i5-750 desktop that I built *12 years ago* that loads the same games in 30 sec or less.

While the list provided above is helpful, I believe it will be way less time to simply reinstall Windows and only install drivers / apps that are desired. Therefore, I still desire to know a list of compatible M.2 SSD drives. I looked all over Acer's site, and they can't be found. Why?

I tried the Crucial scan program, and it claims there are no compatible M.2 drives available (from Crucial). But I know that hasn't been true in the past. For example:

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/606113/adding-m-2-ssd-to-my-acer-nitro-an515-53-52fa

However the listed drive on Amazon above is no longer available.

My plan is to reinstall Windows on an M.2 drive, if I can. If a compatible list of drives can be supplied here, that can also be purchased now, that will solve my question in this forum thread. I realize that there is a possibility that these drives no longer exist.

Thank you again for all the suggestions, it was helpful!