Can I Add an NVMe Drive? No Maintenance and Service Manual Available!

[Morash]

Hi,

A friend of mine is extremely disappointed with the performance of his recently purchased HP laptop, which got Intel i5-10210U processor. I explained to him that this is due the slow mechanical HDD, and he needs to put an SSD, and the best choice is M.2 NVMe. I wanted to confirm if this model supports it, so I looked for the Service Manual in the product page, but it's not there. Also, couldn't find it by internet search.

Are there other HP documentations which show if the motherboard has an NVMe socket, or a physical inspection is required?

[Paul_Tikkanen · Accepted solution]

Hi:

Unfortunately, HP does not have a service manual for the 15-da2xxx model series, but here is the one for the 15-da1xxx model series, which does indicate that M,2 NVMe drives are supported.

HP 15 Laptop PC Maintenance and Service Guide

I have to assume that the newer models in the series (15-da2xxx, 15-da3xxx) would also have M.2 slots that support NVMe drives.

They wouldn't go backwards in technology with the newer products.

There is also a service video gallery for opening up the notebook for the older models...

https://www.youtube.com/c/hpsupportadvanced/search?query=15-da0000

[Morash]

Thank you very much Paul for your spot on answer as usual 👍. I have greatly benefited from your posts and others’ in the forum. We are really lucky to have experienced people like you with us.

As I don’t have physical access to this laptop, I inspected it with the marvelous HWINFO free tool thru TeamViewer. Indeed, there is one PCIe x4 slot, but unfortunately it’s already occupied by the Nvidia Graphics card. So I believe we’re out of luck here, and we’ll need to replace the HDD with a SATA SSD.

[Paul_Tikkanen]

You're very welcome.

I'm not so sure about that.

For some reason the HWINFO does not report good info on notebook motherboards like it does with desktop PC's.

For one thing, the graphics adapter is not a 'card.' It is a GPU chip that is an integral part of the motherboard and definitely is not in any PCIe x4 slot.

I am very confident that there should be a free M.2 slot for a M.2 SSD.

[Morash]

Thanks. I really hope this is the case!

Since this laptop is still under warranty, I'll also do one more thing before getting a physical inspection. I'll call the local HP Support Center, and see if they have a definite answer, but frankly I don't think they will. I've never had good experience with them regarding technical clarifications before 😕

I'll report back on this probably in few days or maybe weeks, as this laptop is with a friend who lives in another city.

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Anytime.

Glad to have been of assistance.