Upgrading Storage/Hardrive

[randomnerdposts]

Hi there!

So, I have been having issues with a slow computer lately and I was told a ram stick would help a little, but it would not be the cure all. I have a HP 85EF (U3E1) model motherboard/baseboard and I have a 931GB TOSHIBA MQ04ABF011 (SATA) hard drive/stoarage. The issue is, I have a spinning hard drive, which is causing my computer to be super slow. I was wondering which SSD hard drives would be good to switch out and still be not super costly.

[WAWood]

@randomnerdposts

First of all, unless you are struggling with 2GB  of RAM, if you already have 4GB of RAM, installing more is not going to produce any noticeable performance gain in routine tasks.  Yes, it will do better in benchmarks, but those are artificial.

Second, a spinning drive will not slow down the PC.  While an SSD is faster, if the PC is running SLOW, then there are problems with the drive -- which replacing it with an SSD will certainly address, but that is not actually fixing the problem.

This issue is often due to a failing drive. So, let's check that first, because if it is failing, it would need to be replaced and there is no point then in doing anything else until we confirm that.

If your PC is new enough to support UEFI, you can use these steps to test the hard drive: http://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c00439024

If not, to check the drive you have to follow these steps:
1) Press Esc key repeatedly, several times a second, while rebooting the laptop. Do NOT hold the key down, just press it over and over.
2) Eventually, you will see an HP Startup Menu
3) Press the Function key for testing the hard drive (usually F2) and let it run.
If the drive checks out OK, then report that and I can provide you options for reinstalling Windows on your PC.