Installation of M2 SSD and configuration

[RogerGaston]

Installing 16 GB M.2 SSD drive from HP Pavillion 590-p0033w (my PC) in HP Slimline 290p0043w (kid's PC). Spec 's show available m2 slot.  Upgraded RAM to max 8 GB and got marginal improvement. Going to install Samsung 970 EVO Plus M.2 drive in my PC. The Kid's PC does not have Optane enabled, and I would like to use Optane to speed up the kid's PC. Is there a step by step guide

[BeemerBiker]

You should be able to move your Optane memory to your kids system.

Detailed info is here

https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c05591811

You may need a bios upgrade.  Please run HP Support Assistant and lookup the Board model and Bios version and compare to the bios that are available here

https://support.hp.com/us-en/drivers/selfservice/hp-slim-290-p0000-desktop-pc-series/19390524/model/...

Select Device Specifications to see something like the following (from my HP Pro 3400)

I would not bother to update the bios unless the Optane does not work.  There is always a chance of a bios update failing.

Note that Intel wants out of the Optane business

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-kills-optane-memory-business-for-good

[RogerGaston]

@BeemerBiker

290-p0043w has motherboard H370. Without a bios update will not be able to run Intel Optane. HP does not have a bios update available. Have the Intel Optane Module installed but get error message "Platform not supported."  when installing the software. Upgraded RAM to the max 8 GB and installed a Samsung EVO SSD 500 GB.

[BeemerBiker]

---

@RogerGaston wrote:

@BeemerBiker

290-p0043w has motherboard H370..

---

that is the chipset. You can get the board id (rom id) by booting into the BIOS and looking at info

Or run HP Support Assistant like I mentioned earlier.

I looked at the spec for your  motherboard

https://support.hp.com/us-en/product/hp-slim-290-p0000-desktop-pc-series/19390524/model/23205936/doc...

There was no mention of Optane memory being supported.

I suspect updating the bios will not enable Optane.

However, that m.2 memory should still be recognized as an SSD and if initialized by Disk Manager it should show up as "E" or "F" etc.   it will be 16gb of high speed memory suitable for a disk cache using a 3rd party app.

Try PrimoCache.  I used it on a Dell system, Win11, for a year before I upgraded.  It will speed up the HDD.  It is not free but there is a trial period to see how good it works.   Initialize the 16gb as "F" and assign PrimoCache to use all of "F" to speed up "C"  They are strict with licensing and I had to email them to get permission to move it from my Dell to my HP Z400.

[RogerGaston · Accepted solution]

@BeemerBiker

Hi, confirmed Kid's PC cannot use Optane Memory without an BIOS update. HP doesn't have the update listed for this model. The drive is installed and was initialized. Shows as a 13 GB SSD drive. Due to it's small size don't think it will help much in optimizing the system, but put the pagefile.sys on it. With the RAM increase and replacing HDD with SSD, the kid's have an upgraded system suitable for school use and light gaming.

[BeemerBiker]

Thanks for sharing that information.  I am going to put that file on my M.2 in addition to using it with PrimoCache.

You might have a problem with the small optane depending on the amount of RAM on the computer and if a Windows memory dump (Iblue screen) occurs.

There is a good discussion of pagefile, swapfile and hiberfile here

https://www.thewindowsclub.com/hiberfil-pagefile-swapfile-sys-windows#:~:text=The%20Swapfile.,or%20R....