Where is the RAM ??!!

[PDifolco]

An office colleague told me her old laptop is slow etc, she's not much tech savvy, so I suggested her I can have a look

It's an Acer Aspire V15 Nitro Black from 2016, it only has 8GB RAM and that's the issue, so the solution would be to upgrade it

When I looked at YT vids about this model it showed  upgradable RAM slots, but once opened the thing I have don't look like that at all, no removable sticks !!

Is that f**g soldered RAM that should be banned ? 

 

[WereCat]

Just download more RAM?

[PDifolco]

9 minutes ago, WereCat said:

Just download more RAM?

Gimme a link  

But you confirm I'm not fully blind and RAM is soldered on this crap ?

[WereCat]

11 minutes ago, PDifolco said:

Gimme a link  

But you confirm I'm not fully blind and RAM is soldered on this crap ?

It's soldered

[Mark Kaine]

8 minutes ago, WereCat said:

It's soldered

I just woke up and can't see anything on this picture....BUT isn't there at least 1 slot for RAM besides the soldered one?  Cause that's how it is on my Lenovo.

 

Only 8GB installed btw and still going strong! (for what it is lol)

 

Mechanical hard drive too! (no noticeable issues, except it's certainly a bit slow to start up...)

[leclod]

Here they pretend the ram slot(s) is under the board

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EvUWlwwpaE

 

[Gem_Star4071]

1 hour ago, PDifolco said:

An office colleague told me her old laptop is slow etc, she's not much tech savvy, so I suggested her I can have a look

It's an Acer Aspire V15 Nitro Black from 2016, it only has 8GB RAM and that's the issue, so the solution would be to upgrade it

When I looked at YT vids about this model it showed  upgradable RAM slots, but once opened the thing I have don't look like that at all, no removable sticks !!

Is that f**g soldered RAM that should be banned ? 

 

its the greatest tech ever made

[PDifolco]

45 minutes ago, leclod said:

Here they pretend the ram slot(s) is under the board

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EvUWlwwpaE

 

Indeed it's the same model, but the guy don't open it fully and the slots aren't shown...

This laptop is a piece of dogsh*t

[PDifolco]

46 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

I just woke up and can't see anything on this picture....BUT isn't there at least 1 slot for RAM besides the soldered one?  Cause that's how it is on my Lenovo.

 

Only 8GB installed btw and still going strong! (for what it is lol)

 

Mechanical hard drive too! (no noticeable issues, except it's certainly a bit slow to start up...)

8GB under WIndows is a nogo... And really you're still on a HDD ????

[Mark Kaine]

5 minutes ago, PDifolco said:

8GB under WIndows is a nogo... And really you're still on a HDD ????

Idk what to say, it works fine??

 

The only annoying part is it takes like 1-2 minutes after booting into windows to be actually usable

 

(booting into windows itself is fast, faster than on my Ryzen PC)

 

It's a 2017 laptop and I use it a lot (for old windows/DOS games, CD ripping, video editing, etc ...)

 

I thought of updating the RAM but long abandoned that thought... It's just not necessary (even runs more demanding games like monster hunter world*, resident evil, etc )

 

*at like 600p, mind you!  

 

 

[PDifolco]

1 minute ago, Mark Kaine said:

Idk what to say, it works fine??

 

The only annoying part is it takes like 1-2 minutes after booting into windows to be actually usable

 

(booting into windows itself is fast, faster than on my Ryzen PC)

 

It's a 2017 laptop and I use it a lot (for old windows/DOS games, CD ripping, video editing, etc ...)

 

I thought of updating the RAM but long abandoned that thought... It's just not necessary (even runs more demanding games like monster hunter world*, resident evil, etc )

 

*at like 600p, mind you!  

 

 

Yeah but why suffer that ? A small SSD is like $30 and will make it way better...

As for the RAM you can't do much on WIndows with 8GB, it's fine on Linux only

[Mark Kaine]

17 minutes ago, PDifolco said:

Yeah but why suffer that ? A small SSD is like $30 and will make it way better...

As for the RAM you can't do much on WIndows with 8GB, it's fine on Linux only

It's using just 4gb on average tho...

Sure it would be worth updating for certain tasks like video editing, but then again it's not really necessary - I use windows movie maker (the original not the malware ) and it's quite fast, doesn't use that much resources and I'd be wary of compatibility issues when updating the RAM.

 

17 minutes ago, PDifolco said:

A small SSD is like $30 and will make it way better...

Pretty sure it has a m2 slot, I'd be going that route then, but cloning windows again etc...yikes, I'll do it when I think it's necessary but for now I just don't have the need*... The slow start up ain't a big issue I usually don't start using my computer right away 

 

 

*for speed purposes, I do certainly need more storage 2tb is not that much 

 

 

[PDifolco]

1 minute ago, Mark Kaine said:

It's using just 4gb on average tho...

Sure it would be worth updating for certain tasks like video editing, but then again it's not really necessary - I use windows movie maker (the original not the malware ) and it's quite fast, doesn't use that much resources and I'd be wary of compatibility issues when updating the RAM.

Won't a sub $100 upgrade be worth it ? I mean it's super slow, you're wasting your time on this 10+ years old stuff

[leclod]

That video showed up by itself on my feed (I promise):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMIJ4ABxTWc

It's not the same laptop but close enough to convince me there are Ram slots on the other side of yours.

Edited May 25, 2025 by leclod

[PDifolco]

3 hours ago, leclod said:

That video showed up by itself on my feed (I promise):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMIJ4ABxTWc

It's not the same laptop but close enough to convince me there are Ram slots on the other side of yours.

It's a different one, sure the RAM is somewhere on mine but I feel like I'll break something if I disassemble it...

[porina]

https://laptopmedia.com/gb/highlights/inside-acer-aspire-v15-nitro-black-edition-vn7-591g-gtx-960m-disassembly-internal-photos-and-upgrade-options/

Without full model number don't know if this is exactly the same, but suggests two SODIMM slots under the mobo. The "soldered ram" would appear to be VRAM for GPU.

[PDifolco]

42 minutes ago, porina said:

https://laptopmedia.com/gb/highlights/inside-acer-aspire-v15-nitro-black-edition-vn7-591g-gtx-960m-disassembly-internal-photos-and-upgrade-options/

Without full model number don't know if this is exactly the same, but suggests two SODIMM slots under the mobo. The "soldered ram" would appear to be VRAM for GPU.

Seems the same model, thanks a lot !

But really the guy that designed that deserve impalement

[porina]

35 minutes ago, PDifolco said:

But really the guy that designed that deserve impalement

That layout did seem odd, that you get in from keyboard side and not the bottom. Having to disassemble that much just to change the ram. I'd love to go back to the old days where laptops had a removable cover on the base over the ram, and another for storage. I think this was depreciated as it also made those parts easier to steal.

[PDifolco]

19 minutes ago, porina said:

That layout did seem odd, that you get in from keyboard side and not the bottom. Having to disassemble that much just to change the ram. I'd love to go back to the old days where laptops had a removable cover on the base over the ram, and another for storage. I think this was depreciated as it also made those parts easier to steal.

For sure ! Yet the thing is 10 years old, crap had already crept in...