There is a saying attributed to H. G. Wells, “in the country of the blind, the one eyed man is king”. Not so! The one eyed man is probably the most miserable of beings. The truly blind have heightened senses that enable them to accomplish miracles of dexterity. The poor one-eyed guy is one dimensional and as prone to miss as to hit the target.
He closely resembled me, upgrading my computer with an SSD drive, a fantabulous video card and a more powerful power supply. Specifically a Samsung 500 mb SSD drive, a Nvidia GTX 960 (2GB) video card and a Corsair 650 Watt PSU. Ambitions of the innocent, ganging aft agley over and over again!
The SSD drive came first. The installation had to wait until Samsung leisurely updated their software to work with Windows 10. For about a month the drive sat around gathering dust. Finally, the update came (at least the migration software). I downloaded it and proceeded. The migration software refused to work. Calls to tech support! Many! Finally I purchased a recommended third party software which eventually worked. Sort of. The partitions were messed up, but at least the drive was formatted and cloned. So I cobbled and caged the drive and put it in. Backwards. The SATA and power connections were inaccessible. Out again, in again, properly connected. I left the original drive in, also connected. Booting up, I opened the BIOS and established what should be the correct boot drive. Unbeknownst to me, it felt the best choice was the original C drive. Which it booted in.
I thought to myself, this sure doesn't seem much faster, but I was willing to wait for the further upgrade of the Samsung Magician software. Eventually, I looked in the File Directory and there were two disks with full operating systems. I assumed the C drive was the SSD. Wrong again. When I figured out that the boot drive was the old drive, I waited. No sense in doing any more until the correct software was available. Finally it came, on the last day of the month promised. I downloaded it along with a revised (by 16 bytes) migration program. I guessed that someone had a brain fart and put in an extra line of code.
I once more tore the machine down, unconnected the old C drive, reformatted the SSD drive and remigrated the drive data, which worked smoothly this time. I closed her up with the C drive reformatted and left unplugged. I rebooted and no problems. Pretty fast. I installed the Magician software and closed down. I reconnected and booted up, detouring to the bios in an excess of caution and made double sure the correct drive was the boot drive. Exiting out of the bios setup, I bent God's ear with fervent and mighty prayers. Wow! Now that was fast!
Emboldened by my success, I decided the video card was next. Several weeks went by while I waited and worked up the nerve. I had conflicting technical advice from various forums and a nice Indian gentleman from Dell. Both claimed the card would fit on the motherboard and would work, but the forums claimed the current PSU was adequate and the tech guy said no, at least 550 watts. Again in an excess of caution I went for more, a highly recommended 650 watter.
The video card did fit, barely. The tail end of it fitted under the drive shelf and blocked access to one of the SATA data cords, which I had to sneak under the video card to the motherboard SATA plugin. I had to swap the SATA cords for the two drives to get around the video card. Since the SSD drive was further in than the old boot hard drive, and I had to unplug and replug the connections, I was now in the blind from the video card and had to replug by feel. I think I negated all my previous prayers at that point. It took almost an hour of fumbling before I finally seated the data and power cords. Booted; worked. Whew!
At last the coup de gras, or the piece de resistance. The new power supply! I disconnected all the connections and gradually wormed the old power supply out. I opened the box on the new one. An inch and a half too long! Damn! I had thought in my innocence all ATX form factor power supplies were the same. Not so! I could cram it in and did, but I also discovered one connection was missing. Nothing to do but take it out, box it up and send it back to the seller for a refund. I ordered the new one, making sure all the dimensions were correct. Finally the day came for the replacement. With fear and trepidation and probably PTSD, I started. Lo and behold it slipped in, but the screw holes were misaligned. I spent another half hour trying to move them over with a nutpick. No good, it just would not align. I was almost in tears.
I sat down and collected myself, then took another look. No fan?? I had put it in upside down! Took it out, put it back in correctly, perfect! I cinched it down, connected the motherboard and video card power cables. All that were left were the SATA connections and a four pin CPU connection. Once again I went through the valley of the shadow, making connections with much fumbling and frustration. At last—wait! Where was my four pin connection!!?? So I tried to make contact with tech support. No phone I could find on the site, just a blog, FAQs, tips, etc. I desperately wanted to talk with someone who was competent besides me who was feeling fairly incompetent by then. I finally tracked the company down in San Francisco and called the company headquarters. The magic of phone menus took me to tech support and I got an actual live person. I described my situation, and then:
“Where is my 4 pin connection?”
“There is an 8 pin connection you have to pull apart.”
“That's it?”
“Yep.”
“Thanks.”
AARRGGHH!
So I put it all together, closed it up, crossed my fingers and booted. A message—no operating system disk present! Retry? Not only no, but Hell no! Apart once more—I was getting pretty good with that by now—and sure enough, the boot drive sata cable was not well seated in the power supply. Tightened up, booted up, good to go. Hallelujah!
Posted by Jeff Martyka on December 2, 2015 at 9:39 PM
Whew!! And Yay!
My desktop PC is in a perpetual state of torn apart so I feel your pain. I've been building my PCs since 1990ish. Currently if I slide the power supply in, the computer won't boot so it has been hanging out the back for months. I'm just too lazy to figure it out since it works fine when its out. On a plus side, having the PC already open made adding another 6TB drive a couple weeks ago quite simple. ;)
It sounds like you had an epic. Your story is nicely written, I must say. I am glad you got it working.
Once you're certain eveything is working from your new SSD, you can safely reformat your old drive and use it for archive storage, or for a system image back up. There's a nice little free backup program called Macrium Reflect that has very good marks for reliability and ease of use.
Now that you have a new video card, you might want to make sure temperatures aren't running high. There's a nice little application called CoreTemp that will tell what the various temperatures are. It's a good idea to check at idle and then put a pretty hefty work load onto the machine. CoreTemp will tell you if things are getting too hot.
One quick note about SSD's: They don't like being full. They typically need about 25% free space for best performance.
Thanks, Preston. I did format the old HD. I will use it for storage. I already have a 5 TB external for system image backup and disk backup. The current used size of the SSD is right at 105 GB, a little more that 20% of it's size, Should last me a good long time. I will probably have a new PC in two years, so no way will I approach 75% full.
The current used size of the SSD is right at 105 GB, a little more that 20% of it's size, Should last me a good long time. I will probably have a new PC in two years, so no way will I approach 75% full.
Wanna bet! Storage is like Oreo cookies--the more you have, the more you eat.
Here's another program I recommend. It's called CCleaner, from Piriform. It will clean up browser caches, temp files, Recycle Bin, etc.. It also has other useful tools. Be sure to download it from the Piriform site. I use it regularly.
--P
Posted by Dennis Plank on December 3, 2015 at 9:38 AM
Well written and hilarious description of a typical upgrade process, Phil. I'm happy to hear that it's all working together properly now. Now that the SSD prices are coming down so nicely, I've been thinking of installing one for the operating system and Photoshop.
Since your SSD is new, you should check to see if TRIM is enabled. Here's why: The TRIM command has been designed to counter the performance drops of Solid State Drives over time. TRIM basically allows the operating system to notify the SSD about data blocks that are no longer in use so that they can be wiped.
Here's how to check if TRIM is enabled on Windows 10...
Right click the Start button
Select Command Prompt (admin)
Type the following command (without the quotes. Note the spaces) and press Enter
"fsutil behavior query DisableDeleteNotify"
If the result is 0 then TRIM is enabled. If the result is 1, you'll need to enable it.
To enable TRIM, type the following command and press Enter
"fsutil behavior set DisableDeleteNotify 0"
That's it. Your Samsung Magician software should have enabled TRIM for you, but it's always a good idea to check.
Dennis, since you're interested in SSD's, take a look at this article from Anandtech for some recommendations.
Discussion
8 repliesThere is a saying attributed to H. G. Wells, “in the country of the blind, the one eyed man is king”. Not so! The one eyed man is probably the most miserable of beings. The truly blind have heightened senses that enable them to accomplish miracles of dexterity. The poor one-eyed guy is one dimensional and as prone to miss as to hit the target.
He closely resembled me, upgrading my computer with an SSD drive, a fantabulous video card and a more powerful power supply. Specifically a Samsung 500 mb SSD drive, a Nvidia GTX 960 (2GB) video card and a Corsair 650 Watt PSU. Ambitions of the innocent, ganging aft agley over and over again!
The SSD drive came first. The installation had to wait until Samsung leisurely updated their software to work with Windows 10. For about a month the drive sat around gathering dust. Finally, the update came (at least the migration software). I downloaded it and proceeded. The migration software refused to work. Calls to tech support! Many! Finally I purchased a recommended third party software which eventually worked. Sort of. The partitions were messed up, but at least the drive was formatted and cloned. So I cobbled and caged the drive and put it in. Backwards. The SATA and power connections were inaccessible. Out again, in again, properly connected. I left the original drive in, also connected. Booting up, I opened the BIOS and established what should be the correct boot drive. Unbeknownst to me, it felt the best choice was the original C drive. Which it booted in.
I thought to myself, this sure doesn't seem much faster, but I was willing to wait for the further upgrade of the Samsung Magician software. Eventually, I looked in the File Directory and there were two disks with full operating systems. I assumed the C drive was the SSD. Wrong again. When I figured out that the boot drive was the old drive, I waited. No sense in doing any more until the correct software was available. Finally it came, on the last day of the month promised. I downloaded it along with a revised (by 16 bytes) migration program. I guessed that someone had a brain fart and put in an extra line of code.
I once more tore the machine down, unconnected the old C drive, reformatted the SSD drive and remigrated the drive data, which worked smoothly this time. I closed her up with the C drive reformatted and left unplugged. I rebooted and no problems. Pretty fast. I installed the Magician software and closed down. I reconnected and booted up, detouring to the bios in an excess of caution and made double sure the correct drive was the boot drive. Exiting out of the bios setup, I bent God's ear with fervent and mighty prayers. Wow! Now that was fast!
Emboldened by my success, I decided the video card was next. Several weeks went by while I waited and worked up the nerve. I had conflicting technical advice from various forums and a nice Indian gentleman from Dell. Both claimed the card would fit on the motherboard and would work, but the forums claimed the current PSU was adequate and the tech guy said no, at least 550 watts. Again in an excess of caution I went for more, a highly recommended 650 watter.
The video card did fit, barely. The tail end of it fitted under the drive shelf and blocked access to one of the SATA data cords, which I had to sneak under the video card to the motherboard SATA plugin. I had to swap the SATA cords for the two drives to get around the video card. Since the SSD drive was further in than the old boot hard drive, and I had to unplug and replug the connections, I was now in the blind from the video card and had to replug by feel. I think I negated all my previous prayers at that point. It took almost an hour of fumbling before I finally seated the data and power cords. Booted; worked. Whew!
At last the coup de gras, or the piece de resistance. The new power supply! I disconnected all the connections and gradually wormed the old power supply out. I opened the box on the new one. An inch and a half too long! Damn! I had thought in my innocence all ATX form factor power supplies were the same. Not so! I could cram it in and did, but I also discovered one connection was missing. Nothing to do but take it out, box it up and send it back to the seller for a refund. I ordered the new one, making sure all the dimensions were correct. Finally the day came for the replacement. With fear and trepidation and probably PTSD, I started. Lo and behold it slipped in, but the screw holes were misaligned. I spent another half hour trying to move them over with a nutpick. No good, it just would not align. I was almost in tears.
I sat down and collected myself, then took another look. No fan?? I had put it in upside down! Took it out, put it back in correctly, perfect! I cinched it down, connected the motherboard and video card power cables. All that were left were the SATA connections and a four pin CPU connection. Once again I went through the valley of the shadow, making connections with much fumbling and frustration. At last—wait! Where was my four pin connection!!?? So I tried to make contact with tech support. No phone I could find on the site, just a blog, FAQs, tips, etc. I desperately wanted to talk with someone who was competent besides me who was feeling fairly incompetent by then. I finally tracked the company down in San Francisco and called the company headquarters. The magic of phone menus took me to tech support and I got an actual live person. I described my situation, and then:
“Where is my 4 pin connection?”
“There is an 8 pin connection you have to pull apart.”
“That's it?”
“Yep.”
“Thanks.”
AARRGGHH!
So I put it all together, closed it up, crossed my fingers and booted. A message—no operating system disk present! Retry? Not only no, but Hell no! Apart once more—I was getting pretty good with that by now—and sure enough, the boot drive sata cable was not well seated in the power supply. Tightened up, booted up, good to go. Hallelujah!
My desktop PC is in a perpetual state of torn apart so I feel your pain. I've been building my PCs since 1990ish. Currently if I slide the power supply in, the computer won't boot so it has been hanging out the back for months. I'm just too lazy to figure it out since it works fine when its out. On a plus side, having the PC already open made adding another 6TB drive a couple weeks ago quite simple. ;)
Once you're certain eveything is working from your new SSD, you can safely reformat your old drive and use it for archive storage, or for a system image back up. There's a nice little free backup program called Macrium Reflect that has very good marks for reliability and ease of use.
Now that you have a new video card, you might want to make sure temperatures aren't running high. There's a nice little application called CoreTemp that will tell what the various temperatures are. It's a good idea to check at idle and then put a pretty hefty work load onto the machine. CoreTemp will tell you if things are getting too hot.
One quick note about SSD's: They don't like being full. They typically need about 25% free space for best performance.
--P
Here's another program I recommend. It's called CCleaner, from Piriform. It will clean up browser caches, temp files, Recycle Bin, etc.. It also has other useful tools. Be sure to download it from the Piriform site. I use it regularly.
--P
Since your SSD is new, you should check to see if TRIM is enabled. Here's why: The TRIM command has been designed to counter the performance drops of Solid State Drives over time. TRIM basically allows the operating system to notify the SSD about data blocks that are no longer in use so that they can be wiped.
Here's how to check if TRIM is enabled on Windows 10...
- Right click the Start button
- Select Command Prompt (admin)
- Type the following command (without the quotes. Note the spaces) and press Enter
- If the result is 0 then TRIM is enabled. If the result is 1, you'll need to enable it.
- To enable TRIM, type the following command and press Enter
That's it. Your Samsung Magician software should have enabled TRIM for you, but it's always a good idea to check."fsutil behavior query DisableDeleteNotify"
"fsutil behavior set DisableDeleteNotify 0"
Dennis, since you're interested in SSD's, take a look at this article from Anandtech for some recommendations.
--P
I got my Samsung Pro 850 500 GB SSD for $249.
Temperature ranges under PS/LR loads are ranging from 73° to 89°.
Your temperature range looks really good.
I am so glad you got everything working!
I would like to upgrade my video card and add 16GB of RAM, for a total of 32GB, in 2016. Your GTX 960 sounds like a good bet.
--P