HP Desktop M01-F3214 Upgrading for Gaming

[NonSequitur777]

@DirtTrackZac,

1.) Affirmative. Let's put it this way: your HP Desktop M01-F3214 is not a full-blown gaming PC with all the OC bells and whistles you'd get with an Asus, Gigabyte or MSI gaming motherboard.

2.) May be a waste, but a 250GB M.2 NVMe SSD is altogether way too low on storage capacity, especially as a primary (boot) drive.  My recommendation: create a special parts & bits drawer where you can lovingly deposit your 250GB drive indefinitely,

I am generally budget-conscience too, I get that.  You can purchase this quality/affordable 1TB M.2 NVMe SDD for $60, the 1TB Crucial P3 Plus (p/n: CT1000P3PSSD8) as seen here: https://www.amazon.com/Crucial-Plus-PCIe-NAND-5000MB/dp/B0B25NXWC7/ref=sr_1_3?crid=3DOVP59QTZI7I&dib....

Let me know if you need guidance regarding cloning your old M.2 drive to this new M.2 drive.

In addition, I would consider getting a 1TB or 2TB secondary SATA SSD, such as this quality/affordable purchase option: https://www.amazon.com/Crucial-BX500-NAND-2-5-Inch-Internal/dp/B07YD579WM/ref=sr_1_3_mod_primary_new....

Kind Regards,

NonSequitur777

[ricemachine]

I got mine in a similar fashion! I just recently put a rtx 4060 in it, 32 gb ram kit, 1tb nvme ssd, and put another 1tb nvme ssd in the pcie x1 slot with an adapter card. Running win10 for funsies.

As far as the psu goes, my research has led me to the same part number but I have yet to verify. Right now I'm using a jumped ATX 500w psu externally to power the 4060. Its a little funky but it works great. Similar to an eGpu setup for a laptop. Going to be ordering that hp 500W psu very soon, I will let you know how things go. Gonna have to order some fans as well.

Also, the integrated graphics will get you by if you're desperate. I was playing BO6 on it for a week or so, playable for sure. 

Happy gaming!

Edit: Read the replies, I beat a dead horse there. Awesome though!!

[DirtTrackZac]

I purchased a 2TB SSD on amazon (SSD  - Gen4 PCIe, M.2 2280) with some cash from Christmas!

After purchasing I had some questions about compatibility, not fully understanding the Gen__ PCIe nomenclature and not specifically stating on the spec page. Will there be compatibility issues with my motherboard?
I would really appreciate guidance regarding cloning your old M.2 drive to this new M.2 drive. Briefly watched a couple youtube videos. Doesn't appear to be dependent on the brand of SSD. I will accept  any recommendations on how to do it right!
Also just for my learning, the secondary SATA SSD is not able to run the operating system? My thought was to get something similar in addition to the default storage. Could I get a SATA SSD and store it inside of the case? Are there SATA SSDs that fit perfectly in the optical disk drive empty space?

Also, going to drop these specs for the Erica9 because I keep losing where I found it at.

Expansion slots 

One PCI Express Gen 3.0 x16
One PCI Express Gen 3.0 x1
Two M.2 expansion slots

One M.2 socket 1, Key A (type 2230)
One M.2 socket 3, Key M, (type 2280/2242)

[NonSequitur777]

@DirtTrackZac,

The 2TB WD_BLACK is an awesome M.2 NVMe SSD!  It will make a blisteringly fast primary (boot) drive.

This is a 4th gen drive and will run at 3rd gen I/O speeds in your PC -there are no compatibility issues whatsoever.

I would use Macrium Reflect Free as your (free) cloning software.  Here is an easy-to-follow YouTube video clip how to do that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RgI2kGCvjM&t=210s&ab_channel=PhazerTech.

You'll need a USB to M.2 NVMe SSD adapter, such as this Amazon purchase example: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09FXRZ4CF/ref=sspa_dk_detail_2?pd_rd_i=B09FXRZ4CF&pd_rd_w=S1aaW&content-i..., just what I did very recently when I upgraded the primary M.2 NVMe SSD in my most recent upgrade project: https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Desktop-Hardware-and-Upgrade-Questions/Upgrading-an-HP-Pavilion-TP01-3....

Your primary drive is whatever you assigned it to be: meaning, wherever you install your OS (Windows).  Since an M.2 NVMe SSD is considerably faster than a SATA SSD, you should always select the fastest drive in your PC, hence the M.2 NVMe SSD.

Kind Regards,

NonSequitur777

[DirtTrackZac]

Ok ran into an issue. 

I purchased slightly different adapter just so they'd arrive on time.

Downloaded macrium home x free trial.  Immediately could not find a second disk.

Only one disk was shown on macrium reflect.

I went to disk management using console commands and was prompted to initialize a disk before Logical Disk manager can access it.  

Both options (GPT and MBR) resulted in error code "incorrect function"

I then attempted to use console command diskpart, list and selected new disk.

DiskPart succeeded in cleaning the disk.

Then when I attempted  "DISKPART> create partition primary" got another error code

DiskPart has encountered an error: Incorrect function.

See the system event log for more information.

Please help!

[NonSequitur777]

@DirtTrackZac,

There are a number of different approaches to address your issue.

Let's try this one first.

The objective is to find your Windows 11 product key by using a so-called VB (Visual Basic Script).

Step One: Open up WordPad in order to create a new text document on your Desktop. Open it and copy/paste the command code below and save it as: ProductKey.vbs

After that you will have a file. Just double click to open it. Once opened, it will show you the product key of your operating system, like I just did on my PC:

Mind you, even though it says "Windows 10 Pro", I got Windows 11 Pro, but that is irrelevant. Jot down your product key & installed key.

Here is the vbs code:

Set WshShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")

MsgBox ConvertToKey(WshShell.RegRead("HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\DigitalProductId"))

Function ConvertToKey(Key)

Const KeyOffset = 52

i = 28

Chars = "BCDFGHJKMPQRTVWXY2346789"

Do

Cur = 0

x = 14

Do

Cur = Cur * 256

Cur = Key(x + KeyOffset) + Cur

Key(x + KeyOffset) = (Cur \ 24) And 255

Cur = Cur Mod 24

x = x -1

Loop While x >= 0

i = i -1

KeyOutput = Mid(Chars, Cur + 1, 1) & KeyOutput

If (((29 - i) Mod 6) = 0) And (i <> -1) Then

i = i -1

KeyOutput = "-" & KeyOutput

End If

Loop While i >= 0

ConvertToKey = KeyOutput

End Function

Step Two:

Plug in an empty USB flash drive with at least 8 GB of space in your computer. Next, create a Windows 11 bootable USB flash drive: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/create-installation-media-for-windows-99a58364-8c02-206f....  This will download a little file called "mediacreationtool".  Right-click on it and Run as administrator.  Follow the instructions to create a bootable Windows 11 USB flash drive.  Will take a while.

Step Three:

Power down your PC, disconnect from power, and push/hold the power key for three seconds in order to discharge any residual power.  Open up your PC, remove your M.2 NVMe SSD, and replace it with your new M.2 NVMe SSD.  Close up your PC, and with your newly minted W11 USB flash drive plugged in, start up your PC.

Normally, what would happen is this: your PC will recognize both your new (blank) M.2 NVMe SSD and the W11 flash drive, and will endeavor to install Windows 11 onto the new M.2 NVMe SSD. One of the first things that should happen is that your PC will show you the contents of your new drive, sometimes showing up to three files.  What you must do first is the 'delete' all these files using the little menu that shows up.  Once only one destination file shows up, select it, and do "next".  Should be pretty self-explanatory from there.  The whole W11 installation process takes a while.

Step Four:

Assuming the W11 installation process completed successfully, type in windows activate in your Windows search bar, and click on the See if Windows is activated. If it is, you'll see this:

If it does not, click on Change product key, and enter the Windows key you retrieved:

Step Five:

Using the USB to M.2 NVMe SSD adapter, install your old drive, and plug it into your PC in order to retrieve whatever files you want to transfer to your new drive.

If you get stuck anywhere during this process, let me know, and we'll figure out a way to deal with it.

Kind Regards,

NonSequitur777

[DirtTrackZac]

In attempting to create a bootable OS on a flash drive I realize that the flash drive was also not showing up in files.

I attached a screenshot showing device manager, disk manager, and file explorer.

Does this mean there is a problem with the driver? I read that I can uninstall ... but I am very hesitant to uninstall  "SCSI\DiskNVMe_________________________KBG50ZNV256G_KIOXIAHP01AN00"  which is the hardware id for my store bought SSD.

Very scared to move forward. Also, using the product key vba code you provided it only shows the product ID. There are no words or dialogue on the prompt just the product ID. there is no installed key provided.

[NonSequitur777]

@DirtTrackZac,

I guess I am a bit confused: all you need to do is plug in a USB flash drive and start the "mediacreationtool", which should immediately recognize your USB drive which it needs to create the bootable W11 drive.  Are you telling me that the plugged-in USB drive is not 'seen' once you start the Microsoft "Create installation media for Windows" program?

Kind Regards,

NonSequitur777

[DirtTrackZac]

The usb drive is not seen, that is correct.

To clarify, any flash drive plugged into any of the front USB ports do not appear in "File explorer."

While they are not found in file explorer, I am able to locate the flash drives with "Device manager"

Attempts to automatically update any of the drivers for the flash drives state "The best drivers are already installed."

Aside from installing the PSU, GPU, and RAM I have only downloaded steam, two games and Radeon software. Not sure what could have caused this issue.

I have tried uninstalling each individual Universal bus controllers, with no success.  

[DirtTrackZac]

I've also tried to assign the flash drive a letter doing the following:

Right-click "Start" -> Disk Management -> Select the partition of the USB drive -> Right-click -> Change Drive Letter and Paths -> Add a drive letter -> Save -> Check File Explorer

When doing this I get the following error code:

 The operation failed to complete because the Disk management console view is not up to date....