Modding the $600.00 Inspiron 5402

Ahhh Ok. My buddy is. But if you can't buy the modules then meh. no point. Cool.

 

To see memory modules for upgrades, the best bet is having the gamer dudes, and AMD fan boys start being active in demanding cooler and faster memory. I have been overclocking my android devices on both CPU and memory for some time.

I bet these LDDR4X modules can kick some arse over clocked with a wee voltage bump. Just have to use very good multi layer memory cards to keep cross talk noise to a minimum. It's probably one reason why they are mounted on main boards.

As for some higher priced laptops, like the Acer that state Thunderbolt 4 and LPDDR4X, probably have the 400 series chip set that can be overclocked. Crossing fingers that most of the mid range laptops with 11th gen Intel i5 and i7 have them overclocking chipsets as well.

Also the LPDDR4X uses the same voltages, but has an extra lower voltage option for standby. Though can be run without the standby voltage. They are efficient within their design not by voltage limits. I assume, DDR5 or LDDR5X may be another option if cross compatible, being designed around the LDDR4X. Problem is bios detection. On speed setting and acceptance. Speed can be adjusted, but acceptance another story.

Bios are too smart for their own good. Gone are the days where jumpers controlled just about everything on a mother board. Though when Abit introduced a smart bios, it was user adjusted, so jumpers were obsolete.

 

I don't think you're going to see LPDDR4X-4266 memory modules ever. First most laptops won't support those speeds, and those that do already have the BGA ram soldered to their motherboard. Second DDR5 is only a few months away, no one is going to go down this rabbit hole when that is happening.

Your quest for 4266mhz memory will likely not work anyway. Dell bioses are locked and encrypted, you're not going to do any modding there. Gone are the old days of setting FSB speeds through tools.

Not sure what you have against people who like AMD, but you stating in every post things about AMD fanboys when they aren't even commenting is curious.

 

Well LDDR4X is cheap and tonnes available, DDR5 will be expensive and limited to higher range laptops. As for need to solder on main boards, it's not a requirement, unless there is issues with speeds on the bus. I noticed that the soldered rams are close to the cpu. But that could just be board layout.

I think low to mid range laptops will have LDDRX4, while the more robust ones will have DDR5. Look at how old Celeron development has gone. I doubt LDDR4X will just fall of the market any time soon, when low cost handhelds are so pentiful, and CPUs have the capabilities for it. The only thing that may not pan out, is the possibility for LDDR5 variants to be cross compatible for early design requirements.

 

You wont really get 4266Mhz out of modules rated for 3200Mhz, laptops motherboard aren't made with the goal of having the best eye pattern on the RAM interface, they are made to meet the minimum spec and be as small as possible, and if you want faster RAM, find if there is an external EEPROM with SPD timings and mod that, or hire a guru, reverse the Dell BIOS and OC the RAM, no point in having faster rated memory if your CPU will run them at what the BIOS tells it to run..

 

That's what I am learning. After further review of all the laptop's that carry LDDR4X ram, that they are too expensive for what they are. Not one has full potential abilities, even though they are Thunderbolt 4.

Only one PCI-E slot for NVME. Only PCI-E 3.0 spec, even though Thunderbolt 4 requires PCI-E 4.0. Either typo or fudging the spec.

No ram upgrade options, though you do get a nicer keyboard and display. So if one wants full Thunderbolt 4 capabilities it will be done on the next Intel release slated next year.

At least I have two PCI-E slots, and ram upgrade options. Even though I can't get any further than SSD upgrades to maximize disk speeds, and adjust ram for dual channel, I doubt having the faster ram option would bring much more to be happy with on this product.

I searched through many other models and found no reason to change my plan. A wee disappointed but, for the price for starters, and the few expected upgrades, made the overall purchase worth while.

I did manage to knock off some cost on my purchase. Dell released a 10% off on select models, so I canceled my original order, and reordered it. With the 5% discount on Dell's credit, which I will pay before my 6 months. It knocks it down to $556. Tax pops it back up a wee bit over the 5% discount, around $589.00

Wil probably sell the Evo Plus after testing. I have a funny feeling it will be a bit warm in its location. The 980 Pro should stay cool, since it is not over driven with PCI-E 3.0.

Oddly enough Samsung direct sells the two NVME drives, still on sale, and is faster than Amazon. Free Fedex.

Well that's it in a nut shell... must wait it out for my Laptop to arrive, around the 11th.

 

Dell shipped my laptop today, and the nice thing is they are located in Tennessee. Smack daub in the midwest. So it's a matter of a day or two, since Fedex takes that to deliver to me from there. I guess Fedex is standard shipping. Ha!

I also got my Evo Plus in today, from Samsung. They too are using Fedex as standard shipping. Now I wish I just went to Samsung online to order the 980 Pro. I would have gotten it 3 days ago.

At least I can do the stock base tests done sooner, to compare each mod with newer tech installed. This way we see how much difference the mods make.

I presume memory being on dual channel will make the biggest difference. Since memory is the bottle neck.

For apps that move data around as primary use, the ssd changes will be a major change. So together all around performance should be a major pickup.

Also the big mod that is visible will be the keyboard. I will swap the top bezel and keyboard from a 5401 with finger print option. I prefer having a nice layout, the mini full sized don't cut it, with offset touch pad.

Here are my procedures as I go through the mods on my laptop.

Testing the initial oem setup, with optimized SSD system settings, and removed bloat applications & limited background startups.

1st test, stock hardware (initial base speed tests).

2nd test, 8GB added to enable dual channel memory.

3rd test, added 500GB 980 Pro as secondary drive. (work folder, cache and temp file location)

4th test, 500GB 970 Evo Plus Fresh install of OS, reconfigured for dual SSD optimization

 

I received my Inspiron 5402 today. Just had enough time to check out the overall appearance. Having a thin frame and narrow bezel, makes the laptop smaller in foot print and overall size. You would think it is a 13" model. Though a 13" is for kids not work related stuff. It's actually the minimum for any modern techy work to be done.

I did obtain the Samsung 870 Evo Plus, as well. Still waiting on my automotive DDR4 RAM, and Samsung 980 Pro, along with a USB-3 external enclosure for my thin tray RW Blu-ray.

The only issue I have as for finish is aluminum. Had that, been there and it sort of sucks. Once you use it for travel or portable work, you will know what I mean. Time to obtain laptop skins. Ha!

Its funny to hear reviews and trolls state aluminum is high end. If you want high end, its titanium baby! Well done plastics and polymers wear better. Frame structure being rigid helps keep cracks from forming.

This laptop seems more rigid than the 17 heavy weight I once had. The lid is solid and is fluid in opening and closing.

If you have a plastics company near by, you can have them vacuum form a clear poly covering like how the old Mac G3 was made.

One great thing is that the power plug is a standard barrel type. Beats HP multi-prong barrel on the G6. Gone through 3 power supplies now, as they all fail at the plug after time. At least I can replace the plug if the wire breaks from stress.

I will eventually replace the keyboard or swap keys with the grey version used on like Dell laptops of similar builds.

I decided to end this thread here, as it's goes in various directions, and start a new. More or less about its performance and enhanced features, like Linux, which Dell seems to support in the support documentation. I bet it would sell more if they advertised it as Linux ready. It should have some config in the BIOS, once I go into it.

 

I beg to differ. My 13 inch version of your computer makes me income every month. From photo, video and website creation and editing to selling and designing products that I sell.

I agree the build quality of the 5000 series inspirons are awesome considering it's "plastic". My son's "premium aluminium ipad air" is scratched to crap and has dents, chunks and other dings in it, my dell has been all over north america, via plane, tossed in the back of jeeps, atvs and more and still looks brand new. Also, my notebook is "space grey" which looks much better than lighter silver aluminum color.

Hell, I am even getting work done on my wife's inspiron 11 3000 2 in 1, so size don't matter.

 

To button up this end of my mod thread, I have disabled just about everything relating to cache and system speedup from page file.

The only thing running cache wise is image, font and thumbnail.

As it sounds true system speed is 10 seconds from Dell image pop up from blank screen startup to desktop, without a login or lock screen enabled. It took 60 seconds for CPU to idle from boot, using performance counters.

As for memory and disk IO, I see no hindrance, in fact seems very calm cool and collected with booting up fresh to desktop.

I may enable prefetch, as the system will corrupt the thumbnail cache when removing shortcut arrows on shortcuts. Prefetch enabled should keep it in check, if not, I may swap by disabling and enable write cache buffer clearing. I think windows is relying too much on cache in its subsystem. Some where there seems to be a wee bottleneck within writes to SSD. Maybe once Samsung releases a driver for its PCI-e 4.0 devices, that may clear up.

Anyway, I am to obtain my second 980 Pro today, so sometime this week I will be moving system files and folders to the secondary SSD.

Here is a list of system files and folders being moved.

Prefetch folder
Temp folders
Hibernation
Pagefile
Roaming profile

I assume when I make various options permanent, my boot from Dell logo to desktop will be around 3 seconds or less. Seems that prefetch has more to do with boot and application speed up than anything, when 16GB of ram is available.