Upgrading HP Elite 8300 SFF

[NonSequitur777]

Dear Forum,

This is quite frustrating.  Added several more hours to get the Silicon Power M.2 NVMe SSD to show up in BIOS, to no avail -yet.

It is clear to me now that I was a bit too optimistic how easy it would be to make this M.2 NVMe SSD the primary boot drive for this HP Elite 8300 SFF.

-Should really work, though.  This PC/Microsoft recognizes and identified the M.2 NVMe SSD for what it is, and even automatically installed the "Standard NVM Express Controller" driver:

What the heck?

Kind Regards,

NonSequitur777

[NonSequitur777]

@DGroves,

I just found the following topic thread authored by you, named: " Updated "Add NVME as Boot Drive using DUET/REFIND method" ": Updated "Add NVME as Boot Drive using DUET/REFIND method" - HP Support Community - 7745966, which I am going to try to get an M.2 NVMe SSD using a PCIe to M.2 adapter card, to work on an HP Elite 8300 SFF.

Spend too much time already, for example, trying to figure out how to make the switch from AHCI to IDE in BIOS "Storage Options" work. The hope was, if this were to work, that the M.2 NVMe SSD would 'magically' appear as a bootable drive option in BIOS. Even though the switch is an option in BIOS -my hⓔll, no such luck. It will not work.

Kind Regards,

NonSequitur777

[NonSequitur777]

Dear Forum,

The M.2 NVMe SSD performed very well in the UserBenchMark performance tests: it scored an "Outstanding" 185% -if only I could utilize it as my primary (boot) drive...

Link: HP Compaq Elite 8300 SFF Performance Results - UserBenchmark

Kind Regards,

NonSequitur777

[BeemerBiker]

Another possibility is using the m.2 for both the pagefile.sys and swapfile.sys 

This idea came from a user I was trying to help get his "spare" optane memory to work on his kids computer.

Apparently the bios did not support Optane although he had two m.2 SSD slots on motherboard.

[NonSequitur777]

Dear Forum,

Moving forward, hooked up an AMD Radeon RX 6600 to this HP Elite 8300 SFF, and making the 1TB Samsung 870 QVO the primary boot drive -for now, while leaving the 500GB Silicon Power M.2 NVMe SSD as a (very fast) secondary drive.

Here are the latest UserBenchMark performance scores:

Link: HP Compaq Elite 8300 SFF Performance Results - UserBenchmark

Kind Regards,

NonSequitur777

[DGroves]

you NEVER EVER WANT TO ENABLE THE "IDE" option it's the slowest and supports no enhancements 

best results happen when leaving the bios setting at RAID/AHCI, 

even though the 8300 is a UEFI bios it lacks the nvme boot code

if you have a eprom burner, you can modify the existing bios to include the missing nvme module

https://www.tachytelic.net/2022/01/hp-compaq-8300-nvme/

the softloader option i posted on is much easier/safer

just remember you need to follow the section on setting up duet/refind for a system that has a uefi bios  not legacy

[NonSequitur777 · Accepted solution]

@Paul_Tikkanen, @DGroves, @BeemerBiker,

Thank you very much for your tips and insights!

I will work on the softloader option as suggested.

In the meanwhile, I just submitted the fastest HP Elite 8300 SFF yet on UserBenchMark: UserBenchmark: HP Compaq Elite 8300 SFF Compatible Components

And in more detail:

Link: HP Compaq Elite 8300 SFF Performance Results - UserBenchmark.

Kind Regards,

NonSequitur777

[NonSequitur777]

Dear Forum,

Added an additional (rear) cooling fan -blowing out, in line with the (front) CPU cooling sink/cooling fan combo which brought down CPU temps from a max 87°C average to a max 80°C degrees average with an 82°C peak temp for any of the Cores:

Kind Regards,

NonSequitur777