Question Upgrade advice for two Dell Inspirons 3671 - looking to spend $400-$600 per, last built a PC over a decade ago

[ZooSKP]

Hi Tom's Hardware forums!

I was an avid reader of Tom's Hardware way back in in 2000-2003 era, and now I'm considering doing a low effort upgrade build on two low end PCs that I bought for my kids a few years ago. My goal with the upgrade is to deal with slow boot and unresponsiveness - both kids use the PCs for education and gaming, especially Zoom for working with various tutors. Gaming applications range from sort of light-ish spec, like Minecraft/Roblox up to Paradox GSGs, but no one is playing the latest shooters with their intense graphics demands. The main problem is that the aging systems can take awhile to boot and run updates, especially when we need to get on Zoom right away.

The decision that I'd like help with is how much to upgrade to get a decent performance boost. I would have been happy to build a system from scracth many years ago, but today, I do not have the current knowledge of different form factors and connectors to know what's compatible with what, where the bottlenecks are,e tc., and I'm not too keen spendning a lot of time finding out. At my present atrophied skill and comfort level, I am happy to swap our RAM and graphics cards, and I'm probably willing to do the CPU or even the mainboard, if I have to. Not having to reinstall everything is a major motivator for upgrade vs. replace, but I'm willing to consider replacement as well.

Of the cheap-fast-good triad, I'd tend toward cheap and good at the expense of fast, which in the past I have achieved by preferring buying older hardware that was higher end when new, as opposed to newer, more budget hardware. I'd also like to take into account the risk of lost time. I'd prefer to avoid buying hardware that has a significant risk of needing to be RMA'ed or otherwise get random compatibilty problems that leaves the PCs unusable for a time after upgrade.

So, should I buy new RAM, GPU, CPU, mainboard, or multiple/all of the above? or should I just get replacement systems. What spec level should I buy? I am looking to order parts in the next few days.

I'll be using the existing monitors, which are fine, but only support VGA and DisplayPort; they do not have an HDMI or DVI-D. This is in the US midwest, and I plan to shop at Newegg or Micro Center. I do not plan to overclock or otherwise go out of spec, and I do not care about casemods or bling.

The existing desktops are Dell Inspiron 3671, specs here: https://www.dell.com/support/manual...9f07ce-626e-44ca-be3a-a1fb036413f9&lang=en-us
Summary

• CPU i5-9400
• Chipset Intel B365
• RAM 1x8GB (max is 2x16 GB)
• GPU NVIDIA GeForce GT730

Looking forward to your advice, thanks in advance!

 

[Lafong]

That CPU is no slouch.

8 RAM is adequate, if not ideal. I have 8 and have no issues.

First idea would be SSD rather than hard drive. What do they have?

 

[ZooSKP]

Thanks for answering!

They have an Intel Optane 932GB HDD - I'm really loathe to try to transfer the system to another disk or to wipe, though (time consuming); would prefer to have the system keep working in situ.

This diagnosis sounds strange to me; I have been using HDD and SSD systems for years and haven't noticed much better general performance from SDD; the performance issues on the computer in question don't "feel" like a disk speed issue, if that makes sense.

 

[Lafong]

.......The main problem is that the aging systems can take awhile to boot and run updates.....

So, should I buy new RAM, GPU, CPU, mainboard, or multiple/all of the above? or should I just get replacement systems.

"Awhile"....

Is that a new development that was not present months or years ago?

What level of traditional maintenance have you done? Disk Cleanup, examining Task Manager; hardware tests (RAM, drives); virus/malware scans; pruning startup apps; etc.

If you had an antique CPU, upgrading it would be a standard recommendation. But you don't.

Tough to just tell you to assume parts have gone bad in some way and need to be replaced UNLESS your typical workloads or gaming requirements have increased.

Any other symptoms? Any overt signs of hardware issues?

Tough to gauge your level of dissatisfaction. Upgrading CPU and a clean Windows install would of course improve performance and if you can afford it why not...but is it necessary?

I have little knowledge of Optane....it may be highly pertinent or totally irrelevant.

 

[Nighthawk117]

They have an Intel Optane 932GB HDD - I'm really loathe to try to transfer the system to another disk or to wipe, though (time consuming); would prefer to have the system keep working in situ.

Intel Optane is used as a fast solid state cache to accelerate slower storage like hard drives. Do you know what size the Optane component is and what it's paired with?

Cloning your Windows installation to a new drive is easy with something like Macrium Reflect or Samsung Magician.

This diagnosis sounds strange to me; I have been using HDD and SSD systems for years and haven't noticed much better general performance from SDD; the performance issues on the computer in question don't "feel" like a disk speed issue, if that makes sense.

I'm surprised you haven't noticed the difference. Assuming there is nothing wrong with your current software setup, your symptoms of slow boot, slow updates and general unresponsiveness do sound storage related to me. The i5 9400 is not the fastest CPU on the block but it's more than capable of providing a good Windows experience.

So, should I buy new RAM, GPU, CPU, mainboard, or multiple/all of the above? or should I just get replacement systems. What spec level should I buy? I am looking to order parts in the next few days.

If you start replacing the CPU, GPU and RAM then you might as well build two brand new machines from scratch and then you don't have the limitations of upgrading a Dell prebuilt. The i5 9400 is more than capable of the use case you've outlined so I wouldn't upgrade that. However your GPU isn't very strong and you would likely need a new PSU if you wanted to upgrade that, often pre-built's use proprietary PSU's which makes things more difficult.

Do you have specs for the PSU in these systems? In fact you could run userbench on them and post the results:
https://www.userbenchmark.com/Software

That would give us a better idea of your system setup.

 

[geofelt]

Looking at the options:

The motherboard will support up to I7-9700.
The slightly faster I7-9700K is not one of the spec options.
No matter while a upgrade to i7-9700 is easy, the cost would be about $200 if you bought used on ebay. That does nto seem much worth it.

Looks like you have the optiona 32gb optane chip which used as a cache to a underlying HDD Sounds good, but 32gb is not big enough to hold what you normally use.

Sluggishness can be fixed by replacing the 988kb HDD with a
Samsung 970 EVO(about 98$)
https://www.newegg.com/samsung-1tb-870-evo-series/p/N82E16820147793?quicklink=true
If more than 90% of the space on the hdd is used, or you need more storage, buy the 2tb version, about $200.
I assume that is your C drive.

Use the samsung ssd migration app to move your c drive to the ssd.
Disconnect the old hdd and optane device.
Repurpose the hdd as an external backup device.

The supplied psu is not strong enough to support a very strong graphics card.
But most anything is stronger than a gt730.
A GT1030 can be bought with both dp and hdmi. About $130
Here is one:
https://www.newegg.com/msi-geforce-gt-1030-gt-1030-2gd4-lp-oc/p/1FT-0009-002E3?quicklink=true
The power draw is only 30w, no aux power needed.
If the kids play games, they are likely to want faster action from graphics.

Lastly, dual channel ram operation is a bit faster.
CPU-Z will tell you what you now have.
If you go to the crucial ram site, it will give you ram upgrade options.
If in doubt, $50 will buy you a 2 x 8gb kit of 2666 ram which is the fastest supported.

 

[ZooSKP]

Thanks to all of those who have replied - I have come around on the notion that a storage upgrade will help - planning on opening the box to visually inspect, but both PCs are in use this Saturday afternoon!

Did a storage check on both PCs; one - the one where the kid was complaining of long boot times was low on space - I removed some Steam games and got boot time and responsiveness in line with the other one - boots in just over 1 minute, Windows responsiveness is usable, but not great. I thin this is in line with the computers from new, so not really a degradation issue.

So, what is this drive, the the system reports a "Intel Optane+932GBHDD"? Dell service manual (https://www.dell.com/support/manual...f81cb7-332b-4d7b-b21b-b0e4c9d907c8&lang=en-us) shows an "solid-state drive/Intel Optane" in a PCIe slot, and also a 2.5" drive and a 3.5" drive.

Assuming there is both an Optane device and at least one HDD in there (not an SSD, which is unlikely since the system says HDD and the system makes disk sounds), and I want to go to the Samsung SSD, do I disable/remove the Octane or do I let it keep doing its thing?

Right now leaning toward doing SSD and upgrading the GPU to the GT1030 that will keep the power draw modest, then RAM if it's cheap.

 

[Nighthawk117]

Assuming there is both an Optane device and at least one HDD in there (not an SSD, which is unlikely since the system says HDD and the system makes disk sounds), and I want to go to the Samsung SSD, do I disable/remove the Octane or do I let it keep doing its thing?

It can be used with SATA SSD's but not NVME (except certain Intel ones). I'm not sure you would see much benefit though if you have an SSD. Personally I would replace the Intel Optane with an NVME drive like this:
https://www.newegg.com/samsung-1tb-...ung_980-_-20-147-804-_-Product&quicklink=true

 

[geofelt]

First, use my computer to see what is attached to windows.
You should see a dvd drive and a C drive of some 998mb.
If the C drive is no more than 90%full you can replace it.
I might suggest you replace it with a 2tb drive.
The end result will be your C drive with an extra 1tb of free space.


When doing this, just leave the pc on it's side and remove the side panel so it looks like the link to the service manual.
For the copy, no need to screw the ssd in place;
just lay it down out of the way.
You may want to buy a mounting kit like this which should have all you need:
This would allow you to mount in the 3.5" space if you wanted.
More likely, you would only use the screws to mount to the case as shown.

The samsung aid is a logical C drive mover. Unlike most other apps which are a bit for bit clone. You will install the 2.5"ssd in one of the spaces and connect it up to the motherboard.
You may need some mounting screws for the ssd, a sata data cable and a sata power lead from the psu. If need be, you can temporarily use the connectors from the dvd drive to do the copy.
You download and start the app.
It should recognize your C drive as the source and the samsung 970 as the target.
You ok this and the copy starts.
For a full 900mb source, expect this to take perhaps 5 hours.
A scan is done first to verify that the source is logically correct.
You might think that copying to a ssd is fast, but not really so.
The buffers on the target drive quickly get filled and the drive slows down to the native nand write capability.
At the end, the drives are compared to verify correctness.
Patience is in order.
When done, disconnect the original 3.5" HDD as well as the optane device.
You should be able to then boot from the new ssd.
Whatever happens, the original drive remains the same.

 

[DavidM012]

The Optane memory drive occupies the m.2 port so if you use an nvme ssd like the 980evo you'll have to take out the Optane memory. There's only 1 m.2 port on the mobo.

Don't have to do anything yet. Obviously remember to power off and switch off the mains when you start uninstalling hardware.

Hwinfo will read all your system info so you can see what's installed in it.

The 3.5" drive bay is probably occupied by the 982gb hdd and you have 2 x 2.5" drive bays.

Sata 3 ssds are in 2.5" form factor. A mechanical hdd could also be 2.5".

So you could have 4x drives overall and with 4 bays you could have any combination of large drives so you could have 1x4 terabyte nvme + 2x 4tb sata 3 ssd and 1 x 8tb hdd. Not that you'd probably ever want 20 terabytes of storage.

n.v.m.e drives - are in M.2 2280 form factor or there are some shorter ones too. 2240 and 2260, There are also sata 3 variety m.2 drives that look similar but aren't n.v.m.e drives - don't get confused.

I would simply buy the 1 Terabyte 980evo and use the 982gb hdd for storage after migrating the OS with samsung magician.

This 2tb intel is $154.

Well there's upsides and downsides - storing all your data on one drive that when it kaputs means all your data is gone. Several drives is more expensive for less capacity. You only have 1 n.v.m.e port though. Could use 2 more Sata 3 ssd's for more storage if/when.

Maybe it would be cheaper and simpler to stick to 1tb and clear up as much junk as possible.

A Hdd for storage is slower than sata 3 ssd or n.v.m.e drives but hdd is cheaper and larger capacity.

You're only going for a 1 terabyte nvme to make the migration process easy so you don't have to resize partitions. However 1 Terabyte is optimal, since a cheaper 500gb n..v.m.e variant would be $75 rather than $50.

If you trimmed 500gb of data to migrate to a 500gb drive you'd probably have to resize the partition too, of your source 982tb drive.

So basically, migrate and then trim the junk for what else you want. (If poss). If you can't possibly delete anything then 2 terabytes is more space for more stuff. After the migration you might have to resize the partition to make the free space available.

And also, Samsung Magician has an 'overprovisioning' facility that can reserve 10% of the drive as free space to extend the life of the drive - it is very durable though. They have a 5 year warranty. Also the 1tb version is 2x as durable as the 500gb version. It might go beyond 5 years if not used heavily. Or 600tb written. It's alot. The entire capacity of the drive 600x.

Also if you use the 2tb Intel drive you'll have to use disk genius rather than Samsung Magician to migrate OS. The Intel migration software doesn't appear to support the model 670p nvme. All the other (formerly free in the windows 7 days, Aeomi, minitool wizard, easeus todo) are now subscription products.


The samsung 980 makes it on to the charts of performance drives anyway. The actual review reveals it has way more efficient power consumption than gaming nvme ssds.

a 2TB Samsung 980 pro is $219 if you want the easy Samsung Magician Migration for a larger capacity drive. So it's worth $120 to simply delete as much unnecessary data as possible.

 

[ZooSKP]

OK - hooboy, I opened the case up and found some surprises.

First - no graphics card - it's not the GT730; it's the Intel 630, based on what the system reports in the graphics settings (I had initially concluded it had to be the GT730 because they connect to the monitor using VGA, and that is the only option documented with VGA, so the documentation is wrong, who knew!). - Definitely adding a dedicated GPU!

Which goes to second - PSU is confirmed 290W, is that still enough for the 20W power draw on the MSI GT 1030? If not, it looks like Dell 365W PSUs are out there on eBay

So 3rd, storage: confirmed the optane device is the 32GB M10 and the drive is a 3.5" Seagate Barracuda Compute 1TB 7200RPM, which is mounted in the one 3.5" bay at the floor of the case.

So, proposed procedure for cloning to an nvme, is this correct?

1. Disable Optane device
2. Shutdown
3. Remove optane
4. Install SSD, leaving HDD attached to SATA
5. Boot from HDD, expect performance to be degraded in this configuration
6. In regular Windows environment, use Samsung migration tools to clone all partitions on HDD to SSD
7. Shutdown and boot from SSD
8. Verify system on SSD (e.g. by disconnecting HDD)
9. Remove HDD and/or wipe and use a secondary disk

All data is disposable; everything is well backed up to Google Drive and home NAS, so if I lose the system, it's just an inconvenience

4th, RAM: Used the tool at Crucial and ordered 4x16GB from them, maxing both systems

Thanks again for all the advice!

 

[Nighthawk117]

4th, RAM: Used the tool at Crucial and ordered 4x16GB from them, maxing both systems

Since your already on 8GB, you will probably find 16GB perfectly fine. If it's 1 x 8GB in each then you could just drop another 8GB stick in each machine.

Which goes to second - PSU is confirmed 290W, is that still enough for the 20W power draw on the MSI GT 1030? If not, it looks like Dell 365W PSUs are out there on eBay

290W should be fine for the 1030.

1. Disable Optane device
2. Shutdown
3. Remove optane
4. Install SSD, leaving HDD attached to SATA
5. Boot from HDD, expect performance to be degraded in this configuration
6. In regular Windows environment, use Samsung migration tools to clone all partitions on HDD to SSD
7. Shutdown and boot from SSD
8. Verify system on SSD (e.g. by disconnecting HDD)
9. Remove HDD and/or wipe and use a secondary disk

All sounds good to me, I think that's what your saying, but in step 7 you need to go into the bios and change the boot device to the new SSD.

 

[DavidM012]

A GT 730 would be 25w power draw vs 30w power draw for the 1030. Should be fine. Cpu power consumption under load is 150w. If you get the 365w psu then you might as well get the gtx 1050 or ti.

They are $145 a piece on newegg but you get more for your money that way. The 1030 is $120 and 25% the power. The 1030 has limitations at 1080p but not a problem if you never want to use 1080p.

2nd hand power supplies however, can't be relied on. No idea of the usage and no warranty if it goes wrong.
So probably ditch all that.

There is a youtube on the case mod to install a modern Power supply on a Dell. Basically only needs some ventilation holes, The thing to be wary of is metal filings - have someone hold a hoover while drilling done. *Also voids warranty.

Yes after migration set the boot order in the bios so you don't boot off the hdd instead of the nvme.

 

[DavidM012]

Gt 730 on newegg. Basically way cheaper. However it is even less of a GPU than the intel 630. 730gt vs uhd 630 . So 1030 or 1050 for any improvement. Links to bench scores.

 

[ZooSKP]

Alright, parts are ordered; thanks so much for all the help!