Aspire 5740G upgrade

Hello folks,

I purchased this laptop in India when my Dell Studio suddenly died on me and had no time to fix it. I do not remember exact model number so I have put as much info I could gather from Speccy is in the signature.

This laptop is rarely used but now will be used regularly. Hence, an upgrade is needed over its current specs and I need some advice from the experts or the folks who have done some upgrade.

1. I would like to replace the optical drive with a small SSD, 32GB or 64GB, for budgetary constraints. For this purpose,
- I am unable to figure out if I should buy SATA-II or SATA-III interface.
- I am unable to figure out the disk bays. Newegg has only one bay but it seems generic. There are a few on ebay but not too sure if thats a perfect fit.
OR
I should just ignore all this SSD thing and get a hybrid drive. I would prefer speed and one program that I use is particularly not well coded but that is the only program thats available for the purpose.

2. RAM upgrade. I would like to put 8GB RAM. The current installed RAM is of DDR3 type and PC3-8500. What I am confused about is, if I should get the same type memory or I can use upgraded RAM modules like PC-10600 or PC-10666 or PC-12800 type as well.
Any preferred brand or model?

3. Although I ran Acer updater and it tells me that there are no updates available, the website mentions some updates. I do not remember updating anything, except the OS. Is there any other method I should use to update, BIOS etc.

Thanks in advance.

(P.S. - I have been going through owner's lounge. I found few interesting links like service manual etc, did not specifically found answer to my questions.)

 

This notebook doesn't support SATA III at all since it's Arrandale. I'm not sure if DVD drive is running SATA or SATA II (probably the latter) but the drive in HDD bay is SATA II.
So you can buy a SATA II drive but mind the fact that all recent and good drivers are SATA III anyway.

Any SATA disk bay should work fine (although you'll have to refit the bezel from DVD drive if you want to keep the looks)

As for RAM 1066MHz is max frequency for RAM unless you run a 4 core Core i7 (like 720QM). Since you do not you won't benefit from faster RAM anyway (and you wouldn't have anyway mixing two types of RAM) you can buy 1333MHz (PC-10600 and PC-10666 is the same thing anyway) which will work fine and probably cost less than 1066MHz. Going to 1600MHz has no benefit and costs more so I see no reason to do it- it should work in theory but it doesn't make sense so it wasn't tested on 5740G.

BIOS update is available at Acer website- the most recent is 1.28 which is here.

As for the drivers- important one are in the owners lounge (second post).

As for SSD vs hybrid- that's your decision based on what better fits your needs. I went for SSD but I chose 256GB since I needed more space than 128GB would offer (I would probably fir comfortably on 180GB Intel SSD but it didn't make financial sense to stop there).

BTW your sig says 5740G and Intel HD Graphics Memory 1GB at the same time. It's wither a 5740G with a dedicated ATI card or a 5740 (no-G) with Intel.

 

Thank you, truly appreciate your quick reply.

Apologies for my mistake in model number. It is not 5740G, it is 5740-333G32Mn

Few more questions,
From budgetary point of view, SSHD seems to be best bang for the buck, in terms of size and performance. What is your opinion about, Seagate ST1000LM014
It states the speed as 6GB/s and it is confuzing me between these speeds and interface standards. Is this SATA-II or SATA-III?
If this one fits in my laptop, I will go for this one. In that case DVD-drive stays as it is. I am not geek at all, so would prefer if I have to do least modding.

With the RAM, the prices are same, no matter which one I buy, so does PC-10600 and PC-10666 offer anything extra over PC-8500 for my set up? I am considering either of,
G.SKILL Model F3-10600CL9D-8GBSQ Laptop Memory - Newegg.com
G.SKILL Model F3-8500CL7D-8GBSQ Laptop Memory - Newegg.com
A-DATA Supreme Series Model AD3S1333C4G9-2 - Newegg.com
Unless, it pays to pay extra for Kingston and/or Corsair.
Which one would YOU go for this setup. (I am sorry for such question, I am totally clueless in this business. I just want it to work better than the current state).

BIOS update - Does it offer anything extra on current BIOS? I have never had any issues with it and rarely my battery goes below 20%. So should I do it or leave it as it is.

Thanks a million for your previous post and comment in advance.