How to fix Acer Nitro 5 AN515-57-53SB slow down/performance decrease after installing a 2nd SSD?

Newbie here. My friend sent me a brand new Sabrent Rocket NVME 4.0 1TB SSD. After installing it, my laptop began to slow down whenever I download from steam or other platform. I tried troubleshooting and did every steps I got from the web and nothing worked. I got tried and just formatted the PC, transferred the new SSD to the main slot (left slot) and started over again. It went better except a bit slower boot time compared to when I only have 1 SSD. The issue no longer randomly occurs but whenever the laptops process high loads like downloading from Steam and gaming at the same time or any heavier loads of tasks (which normally the laptop can handle), the issue happens again where it stutters and slows down and needs to be restarted. The issue doesn't happen on all games. Just call of duty in my experience. I tried playing other games and AAA games, the issue doesn't show up. I also tried downloading from steam or other platform without playing games, the issue also doesn't happen.

I'd appreciate any help just to make it work or get it to process normally. Thank you in advanced!

Accepted answers

All comments

StevenGen

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/687630/how-to-fix-acer-nitro-5-an515-57-53sb-slow-down-performance-decrease-after-installing-a-2nd-ssd

Your Nitro AN515-57-53SB model has the GN20-P1 GPU (which is the model NVidia RTX3050 GPU) and has the following Storage Subsystem Specs, as you can see the boot Storage 1 slot M.2 SSD (which is the left slot as you look at the laptop when its back lid is opened) is the only PCIe4 x4 slot as the right Storage 2 slot is a PCIe3 x4 type M.2 SSD slot, so if you had the Sabrent Gen 4 x4 M.2 drive in the Storage 2 slot PCIe 3 x4 you wouldn't have gotten the full Sabrent Rocket NVME 4.0 1TB SSD Gen 4 speeds of read/write and that is why it was slow.

AN515-57 GN20-P1 GPU specs

Also, when you formatted an d reinstalled Win-11 did you do a Clean Install and completely deleted the boot drive and then installed the "IRST (Intel® Rapid Storage Technology) Driver Version: 18.6.1.1016.2" as you need to do that and after that continue the Win-11 installation and then install all the Win-11 drivers and updates and also install the NVidia RTX3050 latest driver and install the Intel® Driver & Support Assistant and install all the latest Intel drivers, as that is probably why your AN515-57 is laggy and slow, try all that and let us know if it speeds it up.

Kael025

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/comment/1212358#Comment_1212358

Hey Steven, that's what I thought. I transferred the Sabrent SSD to slot 1 and it seems a lot better. However, the laptop would still slow down on heavy loads like my frames would drop single digit in game and I can't operate anything for example I download a game on steam then play at the same time but I can do normal stuff like play game, multi-task a bit and such.

I only have Windows 10 Home, should I upgrade to Windows 11? About formatting, I just did the reset from the settings and wiped everything except I didn't manually deleted the boot drive if that's what you're asking. I was expecting it would ask me where to install the OS but it didn't. The boot drive is still in my 512GB SSD (first SSD) and it reinstalled Windows 10 Home automatically to it. Thank you for your help! Looking forward to your response.

StevenGen

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/comment/1212425#Comment_1212425

Hey Kael025, your laptop was designed for Win-11, why are you using the inferior Win-10 OS? You need to do a Clean Install of Win-11 and do all that I've described above, which means you need to completely format the Sabrent Rocket NVME 4.0 1TB SSD M.2 drive and use this M.2 Gen 4 drive in Storage 1 Slot that is a PCIe4x4 and the Acer supplied oem M.2 512GB M.2 drive use it in the Storage 2 Slot (make sure that you back all your personal files on Win-10, if you have any?) when you get to "where do you want to install Windows" section of Win-11 installation, delete the Sabrent boot drive and then install the Intel IRST driver (so that the m.2 drive is properly formatted) and Win-11 is installed cleanly. Then continue the Win-11 installation to appropriately install all the windows updates and drivers for your laptop fully, and your AN515-57 will operate with the OS that it was designed for, as using Win-10 is the reason why you are having all these lagging problems and the slow down/performance decrease after installing a 2nd SSD. Good luck and hope this helps you out.

Btw, I've done all this on an AN515-56 which is basically the same laptop with the i7-11370H cpu and the RTX3050 8GB gpu and this laptop has a 32GB kit 2x 16GB DDR4-3200MHz CL22 type ram and my laptop works perfectly, yes its only got a PCIe 3 x4 boot drive slot and a second M.2 slot at PCIe 3 x2 but it still works really fast and without any lag, slowness for the games I play on it like Battlefield V, F1-22, Assetto.Corsa.Competizione which are pretty demanding games and it seems to handle them pretty well.

Quick Links

Top Members

Weekly

Puraw 420

StevenGen 235

GAMING6698 70

RenanVilela 65

Jack22 65

Swift Series Intel^® Evo™

Game Pass

Acer Corner

Gaming on Chromebook

Swift Series Intel® Evo™

Game Pass

Acer Corner

Gaming on Chromebook

Swift Series Intel^® Evo™