On Our Bench: Slow Custom PC Brought Back to Life With a SATA SSD to NVMe Migration (NJ)
A real repair from the bench at Dave's Computers in Somerville, NJ. A custom PC came in slow during gaming and even sluggish running basic programs. The fix was already sitting inside the case.
What came in
A customer brought in their custom PC because it felt slow overall. Games dragged, and even basic programs took too long to open.
What we found
Windows was running from a Kingston SATA SSD that was on its way out. A failing drive drags down everything the PC does, because Windows and every program load from it. The surprise: the PC already had a much faster Samsung NVMe SSD installed, but it was only being used as extra storage.
What we did
- Migrated Windows to the Samsung NVMe. We moved the customer's Windows installation, programs and files off the failing Kingston SATA SSD and onto the Samsung NVMe drive, so the PC now runs from its fastest drive. See our SSD upgrade service for how drive upgrades and migrations work at our shop.
- Updated the BIOS on the MSI Z370-A PRO motherboard while we were in there.
- Re-applied thermal paste on the Intel Core i7-8700 with MX-6 to keep the processor running cool. More on that on our thermal paste replacement page.
- Ran a 2-hour stress test on our bench with SENTINEL, our in-house stress testing tool, to confirm everything was stable before it went home.
The result
| Measurement | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| Average drive read speed | About 400 MB/s | About 2,000 MB/s |
| Boot time to the login screen | 15 seconds | 5 seconds |
| Opening programs | Slow | Instant |
Same PC, same parts the customer already owned, and it now feels like a new machine.
Parts on This Job
The brands and models in this custom PC.
| Part | Brand / model | What we did |
|---|---|---|
| Motherboard | MSI Z370-A PRO (MS-7B48) | BIOS updated |
| Processor | Intel Core i7-8700 (6 cores, 3.20GHz) | Thermal paste re-applied with MX-6 |
| Memory | 16GB | No work needed |
| Old Windows drive | Kingston SATA SSD | Failing; Windows moved off it |
| New Windows drive | Samsung NVMe SSD | Windows, programs and files migrated to it |
Need to Speed Up Your PC? Bring It to Dave's in Somerville, NJ
We will migrate it to a faster drive, re-apply thermal paste to keep it cool, and you will leave with speed. Call to schedule or send a repair request.
📞 (908) 428-9558