Hi Folks ,

I recently purchased this machine as needed something with a big screen and quad core i7 , Octo core is out of my wallet reach just now  

Initially I looked up the specs but didn't do any research on users experiences and or upgrades they had done.

I had no idea that the MSATA socket was not recognized as a bootable drive by the BIOS ( Shame on you DELL ) , my intention was to make this a 32Gb SSD drive for the OS . The original 1Tb drive I suspect is on its last legs as gets extremely hot so it was to become a redundant drive just for backup.

I duely installed the 32Gb SSD and quickly found it was no good as a boot drive ! Then the search began lol 

Thankfully a member on here had done a detailed " walkthrough " on how to make it happen , I followed the instructions and " presto " Win 10 64bit is running off this new SSD   Using the original HDD to guide the system to the MBR on it. However , I reckoned I could speed things up more if drive 1 was SSD to , so I got myself a WD Blue 500gb NAND SSD to slot in . This is where the fun begins !!

I slotted it into drive 2 for Win10 not to see it , the BIOS said it was there , so off with power cable , remove battery and cover once again. This time I shoved it into drive one and of course I was back to a non functioning computer as nothing to direct the system to the MSATA lol So back in with the HDD , remove the MSATA and put the WD back in drive 2. Win10 running on HDD , format the new SSD and make it discoverable. Then clone the MBR from the HDD onto it now making it the master drive to kick the MSATA into life.

MSATA plugged back in , WD SSD in drive one and HDD into drive 2 - lightning fast boot up but no HDD !! Aaargh , forgot to delete the MBR of it , so out with WD SSD put HDD back into drive one , WIn10 running off MSATA and format HDD then make discoverable.

Remove HDD , fit WD SSD , HDD into drive two and finally I have Win10 running off the 32Gb SSD , the WD SSD has the MBR to kick it into life and the HDD is now a backup drive - success !!  

Was certainly well worth the effort as it has transformed the lappy and feels like a new machine.

Now onto the WiFi , 100Mbps , yikes !! I have a 1Gb optical connection going to waste  

Had a scout about for WLAN units , many names not known to me and a wee voice in the back of my head saying stick with Intel . So I installed a intel dual band wireless ac 7260 + bluetooth 7260hmw x, wi-fi + bluetooth 4.0 adapter.  I can confirm that is plug and play but you do need to download the latest driver package for it . 

When I first started up the machine it hooked into my 2.4Ghz signal and I just needed to put in the password again. I instantly noticed that the bluetooth wasn't working ( It had stopped when I put in Win10 and downloaded the driver again no problem ) . When I looked at available connections there was no sign of the 5Ghz ?? So I went onto the Intel sight , found the two driver packages , installed and all is good  

With the USB 3 ports you do have the option of just getting a 1Gb LAN dongle but I kinda just liked the idea of shoving another card in. Internet browsing is almost instant now so well happy , start up and shut off is as much as I need it to be.

I had considered jumping the memory up but overall I don't think it's lacking performance so for now will leave it be and sit back and enjoy it.

The DVD drive works perfectly but I really don't use discs anymore , however , if it had read problems I planned to put a Panasonic Blu ray drive to substitute it with.

As a used laptop , fantastic purchase for what I paid , although it was running Windows 8 and everything working the battery was stuffed to the point of taking no charge and i replaced with a 5500 Centrino unit , the 130W adapter charges it up no problems. After nine years I do believe the 1Tb HDD is well past its best but the items I bought to upgrade weren't " big money " and well worth doing , just took a bit of time and figuring out. Hope you managed to keep up with what was going on and somewhere in the above text you can work out the shortcut to doing it quicker lol

Unless it has a critical failure I'm pretty much set up for the next five years of computing. I don't game on it , I don't use as a media server. The biggest use of storage is photos and video off my camera. 

ATB...