Upgrade : Dell Vostro 220s

Tech specs

PROCESSOR / CHIPSET CPU : Intel Core 2 Duo E7300 / 2.66 GHz
RAM : 2GB DDR2 (1GBx2)
HDD : 320GB 5400RPM
Current OS : Windows 7 32 Bits

Problems

1. PC seems to be sluggish when starting Windows or even running programs.
2. Always required to update Date and Time as it seems to return to default date.
3. Limited to LAN Connection only.

Initial Diagnostic

1. Took about 1.45 minutes to boot from a cold boot into Windows.
2. Anti-Virus running in the background, causing most of the applications to stop.

Solution

1. Add 120GB SSD to resolve Issue #1, and use current HDD as a secondary storage for Documents.
2. Replace CMOS Battery to resolve Issue #2
3. Get an external USB Wifi Dongle to resolve Issue #3
4. Upgrade to Windows 10
5. Change 2x1GB DDR2 Ram with 2x2GB DDR2 to make it 4GB (Max amount of memory that this board can take) for better multitasking.

The Needed Parts

The Job

So first thing was to replace the CMOS battery which is the most easiest part to do. Doing this will remove the issue where the board will keep asking you to set the date and time as well as the settings. After that I went and replaced the 2 x 1GB DDR2 Ram with 2 x 2GB DDR2 Ram. Once that’s done it’s time to boot into my spare SSD to see if there would be any problems running it. Once I got onto the desktop everything seems to run fine, despite the fact that the board only supports till Sata II. Plus making sure that there are not missing drivers as well.

Once everything is good to go, it’s time to install Windows 10 into the SSD. First thing one need to do to make sure that we don’t accidentally overwrite the current OS is that I would unplug the power cable to the current HDD. And from there plug in my USB installer and let it install from there. For this setup I’ve went and install the 64 bits version, as it is supported by the processor. Once the installation is complete, power off the system. Reconnect the power to the original hard disk, and boot into bios, making sure that the SSD was selected.

Once that is done, things booted up quite quickly which took about 30 seconds. First order of business booted into Windows is make sure it’s updated to the latest patch. Then it’s time to do a full backup of the previous hard disk, and after that format it to be used as a secondary storage. Once I transfer back the data, I then relocate all the documents, photos, videos and download to be saved on the secondary storage (I’ll do a post on how I did that). Reason is that, we don’t really want to clutter up the 120GB SSD as that will be mainly for the applications and programs.

Last step is to sign into any cloud storage services such as Dropbox, Google Drive, but for our case is OneDrive. Main reason why we do that, is to make sure that we have another backup on the cloud should the secondary storage failed (which is less likely now since it’s not running most of the time). And that’s all it takes to upgrade the PC running like new. So with the new rams installed and SSD it should last another few more years doing documents and browsing the web. So instead of spending thousands of ringgit on a new computer, person just spent a fraction and is now happy with the results.