Planning to upgrade my A515-54G-54QQ, Please share some best suggestions

Hello Forum Members,

I hope this message finds you well. I'm currently looking to upgrade my Acer Aspire 5 laptop and would greatly appreciate some guidance and recommendations from the community.

Here are the details of my Acer laptop:

Model: Acer Aspire 5 A515-54G-54QQ
Specifications:

Processor: 10th Gen Intel Core i5-10210U
RAM: 8GB DDR4
Storage: 256GB SSD
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce MX250 with 2GB GDDR5 VRAM
Display: 15.6-inch Full HD IPS

I'm particularly interested in:

RAM Upgrade: Is it possible to upgrade the RAM on this specific model? If so, what would be the recommended RAM capacity and type?

Storage Upgrade: Can I expand the storage on this laptop, and what would be the recommended SSD specifications?

Compatibility with External Graphics: Is it feasible to use an external graphics card with this model, and if so, what would be the compatible options?

General Upgrade Tips: Are there any other upgrade suggestions or considerations specific to this Acer Aspire 5 model?

Your expertise and advice on this matter would be of immense help to me. I greatly appreciate any assistance you can provide.

Thank you in advance for your time and insights!

Warm regards,Maura_Walter

[Edited the thread to add model name and issue detail]

Accepted answers

Puraw

There is one RAM slot that supports up to 14GB DDR4 3200MHz, you have 4GB DDR4 soldered on the motherboard so you are now running in Dual Channel mode by 2x4GB DDR4 modules, if you upgrade the 4GB DDR4 to 8GB or 16GB (maximum supported RAM is 20GB) RAM will not be running at 2667 MHz but much lower in single channel mode. If you want more RAM and VRAM upgrade RAM but if you don't need more RAM and speed is your goal don't upgrade RAM, Windows11 only needs 4GB RAM.

You may have a 2.5" Sata-3 mechanical HDD, that can be replaced by a faster 2.5" Sata-3 SSD like the Samsung 870 EVO V-NAND 2TB.

The PCIe M.2 slot, 2280, takes both NVMe SSD up to 2TB or an M.2 Sata-3 SSD also up to 2TB. The NVMe SSD should be about twice as fast as the SATA3 SSD. The Western Digital Blue Series M.2 SATA or M.2 NVMe SSds are perfect for this laptop. Samsung 980 Pro NVMe PCIe M.2 2TB would also be good choice.

This thread discusses an external GPU (V8.0 EXP GDC Laptop External PCIE) for your laptop, keeping in mind that the a515-54G is a laptop for casual gamers.

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/595226/graphics-card-upgrade-acer-aspire-5-a515-54-51dj

All comments

Puraw

There is one RAM slot that supports up to 14GB DDR4 3200MHz, you have 4GB DDR4 soldered on the motherboard so you are now running in Dual Channel mode by 2x4GB DDR4 modules, if you upgrade the 4GB DDR4 to 8GB or 16GB (maximum supported RAM is 20GB) RAM will not be running at 2667 MHz but much lower in single channel mode. If you want more RAM and VRAM upgrade RAM but if you don't need more RAM and speed is your goal don't upgrade RAM, Windows11 only needs 4GB RAM.

You may have a 2.5" Sata-3 mechanical HDD, that can be replaced by a faster 2.5" Sata-3 SSD like the Samsung 870 EVO V-NAND 2TB.

The PCIe M.2 slot, 2280, takes both NVMe SSD up to 2TB or an M.2 Sata-3 SSD also up to 2TB. The NVMe SSD should be about twice as fast as the SATA3 SSD. The Western Digital Blue Series M.2 SATA or M.2 NVMe SSds are perfect for this laptop. Samsung 980 Pro NVMe PCIe M.2 2TB would also be good choice.

This thread discusses an external GPU (V8.0 EXP GDC Laptop External PCIE) for your laptop, keeping in mind that the a515-54G is a laptop for casual gamers.

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/595226/graphics-card-upgrade-acer-aspire-5-a515-54-51dj

StevenGen

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/692872/upgrading-acer-aspire-5-laptop

Just to make you realize from the beginning, this laptop is NOT a gaming/editing top end laptop, and no amount of upgrades will achieve that, so take that into consideration from the start. Your Aspire A515-54G laptop has 4GB soldered onboard ram and 1x ram slot that can be upgraded with a max of 1x16GB DDR4-3200MHz CL22 type ram maximum to a total of 20GB max ram. Also, this laptop as an average gpu of the NVidia MX250 and spending any money on upgrading this laptop will not make it into a hard core gaming laptop or an editing supremo laptop, so consider those factors first, as and if you want a top end gaming/editing laptop, then upgrade to the current 13th Gen, NVidia 40 series DDR5-5600MHz ram Acer Nitro or a Predator Helios or Triton high end laptops.

My suggestion and to give you a good upgrade guide, there is a Crucial System Scan of your laptop exact model Aspire 5 A515-54G-54QQ, so have a look at what Crucial suggests as an upgrade, which are as follows:

RAM - Crucial 16GB DDR4-3200 SODIMM - DDR4-3200 • CL=22 • NON-ECC • SODIMM • 260-pin • 1.2V • 2Rx8/1Rx8 • PC4-256002.
M.2 SSD - This laptops M.2 SSD slot has a speed of PCIe Gen3 x4 that has a max read/write speed of 4000MB/s theoretically only, but its usually slower and at 3600MB/s, as getting a good PCIe3x4 like the Samsung 970 Pro or Plus NVMe drive or the WD SN750 Black NVMe (that is if you can still buy them?) is a good upgrade, but putting a PCIe4x4 drive will work also as the Gen 4 M.2 SSD drives are backward compatible and will work in this laptop to operate at you laptops read/write tops speeds.

The above are all the main upgrade options that you can do for this laptop, and of course always run this laptop on Win-11 and make sure that you have this laptops latest bios updated to version 1.24, then make sure that you update windows 11 to its latest updates, install the NVidia GeForce Experience for ultimate game settings for the MX250 gpu and to have the Win-11 MX250 gpu latest NVidia Game Ready Driver which is currently the version 537.42 WHQL driver, and also always update these NVidia gpu drivers with the Custom > Clean Install option, so as to delete all previous NVidia gpu drivers that were on your system, so that you always have the latest gpu driver up to date and also install the Intel® Driver & Support Assistant so that you have all the latest Win-11 Intel drivers up to date. Doing all these things will make sure that your Aspire 5 A515-54G-54QQ will perform to its peak performance. Good luck and hope this has helped you out.

maurawalter

Thanks both of you, I am just going to upgrade RAM in single channel mode up-to 16GB to get more speed instead of using it on dual channel mode.

KanagawaTomasu

Maura Walter,

My Aspire 5 (i-5) has 20 GB of DDR4-3200 RAM. (4 GB on the motherboard and a 16 GB so-dimm in the only RAM slot.) It works in "partial" Dual Channel mode. The 4GB built in RAM and the first 4 GB on the installed so-dimm work in Dual Channel. The rest is Single Channel. But it is still perfectly functional RAM. (Better than using "System Resources" on your drive)

Good luck on your upgrades.

Cheers!

("Partial Dual Channel" is not the correct technical term.)

KanagawaTomasu

Maura Walter,

By the way, I am going to replace the factory Gen 3 drive with a Gen 4 NVME. Don't think I will get anymore "speed" (performance) per se, but it will be a newer model drive.

Cheers!

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