M.2 SSD Upgrade

[GT_46L]

I FINALLY got a chance to order my new SSDs last Saturday, from Newegg.com - I ordered a 500GB Samsung 850 EVO M.2 SSD, and a 1TB Samsung 850 EVO 2.5" SSD. My hope is to use the M.2 SSD as my boot drive, and the 2.5" SSD to store all my pictures; videos; music, etc on.

FedEx shows tomorrow as the expected delivery date. I'm not sure, because of my job, if I'll get a chance to install them tomorrow or not, but as soon as I get them in, I'll report back on whether or not I can get the notebook to even recognize the M.2 SSD.

[GT_46L]

So, I installed my 500GB Samsung 850 EVO M.2 SSD, and my 1TB Samsung 850 EVO 2.5" SSD yesterday, and I'm happy to report that BOTH were immediately recognized by the BIOS, and then by Windows (after going into Disk Management; initializing both drives, and then creating MBR partitions that I formatted in NTFS).

I even installed Windows 7 on the M.2 SSD, and Windows boots up just fine - although super-speedy, now! 🙂

I'll post the exact steps/order I followed when installing everything, maybe tomorrow.

[GT_46L]

Forgot to mention that's on an Envy 17t-n000!

[soundprizm]

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@GT_46L wrote:
So, I installed my 500GB Samsung 850 EVO M.2 SSD, and my 1TB Samsung 850 EVO 2.5" SSD yesterday, and I'm happy to report that BOTH were immediately recognized by the BIOS, and then by Windows (after going into Disk Management; initializing both drives, and then creating MBR partitions that I formatted in NTFS).

I even installed Windows 7 on the M.2 SSD, and Windows boots up just fine - although super-speedy, now! 🙂

I'll post the exact steps/order I followed when installing everything, maybe tomorrow.

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Thanks for sharing, GT_46L. It's good to hear at least some models will work with an after market M.2! 

On another note, does anyone have any idea what a JME1 jumper is used for? It seems like it has something to do with Intel ME, but I can't find any documentation anywhere on how to use it properly (please see attached image).

[soundprizm]

Hey guys... so, I've finally come to an end with this issue. I have received confirmation from HP that this notebook (Envy m7-n109dx) is shipped with the M.2 SSD port disabled.

Without any progress after trying to get it to work on my own, I called customer service and they had me ship it out to a service center. The service center did not find any issues with the notebook; so after calling the service center they escalated my case to an HP case manager. The case manager is the person who confirmed that the M.2 SSD port is disabled and there is no way to enable it after it ships from factory.

What do you guys think... is it unethical for HP to ship products with disabled components?

[Heero]

When choosing a laptop to purchase, one of the first things I read up on are the service and maintenance guides to check for future-proofing options in terms of upgradeability, modular board design, etc.

If the maintenance guide for the Envy m7-n109dx indicates that a M.2 SSD can be installed, then I would expect that to be a working feature.

I would definitely consider it unethical for HP to ship products with disabled ports when the guides hint otherwise.

[soundprizm]

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@Heero wrote:

When choosing a laptop to purchase, one of the first things I read up on are the service and maintenance guides to check for future-proofing options in terms of upgradeability, modular board design, etc.

If the maintenance guide for the Envy m7-n109dx indicates that a M.2 SSD can be installed, then I would expect that to be a working feature.

I would definitely consider it unethical for HP to ship products with disabled ports when the guides hint otherwise.

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Thanks, Heero! You and I are on the same exact page. I research every tech product I buy, and all the guides of notebook state that the device can be upgraded with an M.2 SSD. It's like I bought a house and the previous owner locked me out of one room! lol Anyway... bad on HP for this. 

[lexandorf]

Same here,

I used to like HP for the posibility to upgrade, but after a laptop with over-heating problem, another one that died few after warranty expired and now this... I think this one was my last HP laptop 

[Cloud_1]

So what course of action do we have? It was given to me as a present for Easter by my daughter who wanted dad to be able to play WOT on a larger screen computer. I assume there is some class action suit pending against HP for this charade as again I agree, doing the research shows that there an M.2 SSD slot in that system. HP if you are monitoring this I didn't really like you in the Compaq days with your proprietary hardware( buy this $100 memory module for $500 and it will work) and I see you haven't changed a bit. What do you intend to do to help all us that bought into your brand thinking it was a different somehow. Hell even my old lenovo had an operational msata slot that i got to put a 256gb SSD in and make it fly.

HP please respond to this 

Respectfully

[soundprizm]

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@Cloud_1 wrote:

So what course of action do we have? It was given to me as a present for Easter by my daughter who wanted dad to be able to play WOT on a larger screen computer. I assume there is some class action suit pending against HP for this charade as again I agree, doing the research shows that there an M.2 SSD slot in that system. HP if you are monitoring this I didn't really like you in the Compaq days with your proprietary hardware( buy this $100 memory module for $500 and it will work) and I see you haven't changed a bit. What do you intend to do to help all us that bought into your brand thinking it was a different somehow. Hell even my old lenovo had an operational msata slot that i got to put a 256gb SSD in and make it fly.

HP please respond to this 

Respectfully

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Officially, none; we are SOL. I've had my case escalated three times, and the final word from HP is that since everything is working according to the specs at the time of purchase, they will not do anything for us with any hardware that is not listed in the specs at the time of purchase. 

So we are on our own. It has been confirmed that the issue is what I originally thought: the M.2 port is disabled within the BIOS--the port is working, it's just not turned on (enabled). We could either mod the BIOS or flash an entirely new BIOS like coreboot, but that is beyond the scope of my abilities. 

I'd love to speak with an HP software engineer, or if there are any knowledgable programmers out there, feel free to send me a message. I've tried every which way to get this thing to work, and I just keep banging my head against the wall due to the all the encryption and signature checks HP has implemented with their BIOS'.