Envy X360 upgrade to NVME 970 Evo stuck in Pcie gen1x4 mode

[thatsleepydoc]

After purchasing this laptop I noticed that the OEM NVME SSD listed as sk hynix model was not as fast as I expected and paused randomly during some tasks. I had recently upgraded my wife's two year old acer with a Samsung Evo 970 NVME ssd and was very pleased with the speed, especially considering it was running in pcie gen 3x2 mode as her laptop only has two pcie lanes on the 7200u acer motherboard. Read write was still in the 1300 range.

I assumed, based on the model info specs, the application software HWinfo64, and communication with HP technical support  that the newer Ryzen 2700u in the HP Envy X360 would definitely do pcie gen 3x4 mode and improve my response. I noticed that the original NVME ssd was only running at 1x4 mode but figured it was just a  crappy drive and verified the drive performance with crystaldiskmark showing read write in the low 800 range with poor randoms.

I installed 16gb of kingston hyper x 2400ddr ram and the new 970 Evo NVME SSD after cloning the drive. I followed all precautions using my trusty ifixit kit, a grounding strap, and disconnecting and removing battery. Everything went smoothly, windows booted on first start, but I didn't notice improvement in responsiveness. I started up samsung magician and again the ssd was only running in PCIE 1X4 mode. I ran performance tests and again obtained very similar speeds to the stock disk when I should be seeing well into the 2500s read write speeds.

I contacted customer support and they tried to tell me that the 970 Evo is unsupported and I have to buy their brand NVME. That's ridiculous as I've seen the 13 inch model 2500u ryzen with an Evo performing without issue. I explained that the new drive works fine in 3x4 mode in my Dell desktop after they try to blame the new drive. Then they try to blame the cloning software which I have used on evey other ssd in my house (4 other drives) without issue. Then they say they want me to pay for their premium support to access the advanced settings in the BIOS to check if that's the issue.

The reality is the laptop has never performed in PCIE 3x4 mode even with its original 256GB sk hynix drive and 8 gb of ram and I'm starting the think that it may not be able to as there are not settings to change to force this mode. If anyone has any ideas I would greatly appreciate it. I'm trying to avoid a complete windows reinstall as this seems like a Bios issue. Also, my original ssd drivers are uninstalled and I freshly installed the Samsung drivers from their website.If anyone has any ideas I would greatly appreciate it.

Still running in Gen 1x4 mode 😢