Upgrade RAM and Drive

[falcondfw]

I am possibly going to buy a used HP-17ar050wm. It has the standard features and hardware, from what I can see. I have 2 questions. 1. It has the standard 1TB 5400rpm SATA drive. I want to upgrade to a Firecuda 2TB SSHD. Will the machine have any problems with this upgrade? 2. You can never have enough RAM (I am a developer by profession and by hobby). The machine comes with the standard 8GB DDR4-2133 SDRAM. I want to upgrade to the fastest Corsair Vengence that this beast can handle. Do I have to stick with 2133 or can I go up to 2400, 2933,  or 3333, or 3600, or (preferred) 4600? Thanks in advance.

[iomare · Accepted solution]

Hi,

The PC supports max 16GB of DDR4 2133Mhz RAM (2x8GB). It comes with one stick of 8GB and one empty slot. You can insert faster RAM, however it will still only run at 2133MHz.

Yes you can use the Firecuda without any problem. You could also use a 2.5" SSD such as the Samsung 860evo or similar.

On page 30 of service manual you can see the steps to upgrade the RAM.

On page 28 of service manual you can see the steps to replace the drive.

http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c05541747

Hope it helps,

David

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[falcondfw]

Iomare,

Thanks for your reply. I suspected that would be the answer on the memory and am glad to confirm about the cuda. I have heard very good things about them. I wish laptop manufacturers would do the same thing their desktop divisions have done for years and allow people to change out standardized parts. I have never quite understood why everything in the laptop realm has to basically be a proprietary part. Oh well, shuch is life. Thanks again for the help.

[iomare]

Your welcome. Yes it is always getting harder to upgrade/repair notebooks, smartphones etc... CPU/GPU are integrated on motherboard.

I think we are heading towards a time where everything is on a single chip CPU/GPU/RAM/Storage. Naturally it will make all much faster and efficient.

You mention you are a developer, maybe you should consider a PC with a Intel Core processor or AMD Ryzen which will have a much greater performance.

Anyway, let me know if you need any further help.

All the best,

David