Laptop Upgrade Advice.

Hi Guys,

I'm thinking about upgrading my laptop.
I have an ASUS VivoBook F510UA.
This page kind of details my plans.

My questions are:
1. Any advice on the brand of RAM to buy... I'm thinking just as on the page, to buy another 8 GB stick, but unlike the page, my stick of RAM from CPUZ is SAMSUNG DDR4-2400 (1200 MHz).
2. If I buy a faster stick, will it cause any conflicts? Or should I try to get an identical stick?
3. Will dual-mode have any issues with 2 different sticks of RAM?

4. What type of M2 slot does my machine support? - Asus doesn't exactly have this info on their website,... that I could find.
5. Is it just M.2 or can nvme be used?

I did a little research and came up with this info:
If you look at your M2 interface on your Motherboard and you see a single notch ONLY for the M Key, then it will support both NVME and SATA M2 drives. Otherwise,If you see a notch for BOTH the M + B Key then it a SATA SSD storage Only slot.

From the page above, it appears that my machine can take both M2 and nvme. Can anyone confirm this information? I am a bit out of touch with this new tech.

Thank you guys, any help will be greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks for the reply plodr. I had found this update from Crucial before, and was considering either Crucial, Samsung, Corsair Vengence or G.Skill RIPJAWS for the RAM stick. But I think maybe Crusial or Samsung, because if I go for the last 2, I may want to change both sticks.

Also this Crucial page gives me a bit more confidence to mix the speeds and go for either a DDR4-2666 or DDR4-3200.

If anyone can help with identifying the M.2 vs the NVME port on the board I would be most grateful.

 

https://www.asus.com/us/Laptops/ASUS-VivoBook-S15-S510UA/specifications/

 

M.2 SSD’s length is currently available in 30mm (2230), 42mm (2242), 60mm (2260), 80mm (2280), and 110mm (2210) form factors to accommodate assorted motherboard designs.

 

Thanks guys,

I was all but convinced up to yesterday that my laptop can only take M.2 SATA, and not the NVME, but then I dug a little deeper and found on Wikipedia (I know, not a very credible source), these snippets of info:

1. Computer bus interfaces provided through the M.2 connector are PCI Express 4.0 (up to four lanes), Serial ATA 3.0, and USB 3.0 (a single logical port for each of the latter two). It is up to the manufacturer of the M.2 host or module to select which interfaces are to be supported, depending on the desired level of host support and device type.

2. The M.2 specification supports NVM Express (NVMe) as the logical device interface for M.2 PCI Express SSDs, in addition to supporting legacy Advanced Host Controller Interface (AHCI) at the logical interface level.

3. Buses exposed through the M.2 connector are PCI Express 3.0 & newer, Serial ATA (SATA) 3.0 and USB 3.0, all these standards are backward compatible. As a result, M.2 modules can integrate multiple functions, including the following device classes: Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, satellite navigation, near field communication (NFC), digital radio, WiGig, wireless WAN (WWAN), and solid-state drives (SSDs).[6] The SATA revision 3.2 specification, in its gold revision as of August 2013, standardizes the M.2 as a new format for storage devices and specifies its hardware layout.[1]:12[7]

The M.2 specification provides up to four PCI Express lanes and one logical SATA 3.0 (6 Gbit/s) port, and exposes them through the same connector so both PCI Express and SATA storage devices may exist in the form of M.2 modules. Exposed PCI Express lanes provide a pure PCI Express connection between the host and storage device, with no additional layers of bus abstraction.[8] PCI-SIG M.2 specification, in its revision 1.0 as of December 2013, provides detailed M.2 specifications.

What this tells me, if I can verify this info... and I'm hoping you guys can help (much appreciated)... is that once your MOBO was manufactured after, say 2014, giving about a year after the standard to be integrated by manufacturers, then if your MOBO has an M.2 port, it should accommodate either M.2 SATA or M.2 NVME... or even USB.

Right now I'm trying to verify this info and I hope you guys can help?

What that would mean for me, is that since my laptop is a 2018 model, 5 years after this standard, I assume that it would have included this standard.

 

I am in contact with the manufacturer for this information, so far I was told any brand of RAM can work as long as it is meet these specs DDR4 2400 SO-D 8G 260P.

I should hear back from them in a couple of days about the M.2 port.