Memory upgrade

[Jon676]

Hello

My current memory is 2x 4gb  1Rx16 2666mhz

Could I change this to 2x 8gb 1Rx8 2666mhz

and would this help performance

[Paul_Tikkanen · Accepted solution]

Hi:

Yes, that would help a pretty decent amount, but what would really help the most would be to either replace the 2.5" SATA mechanical hard drive with a better performing 2.5" SATA solid state drive.

And even better than that would be to replace the drive with a much faster performing M.2 NVMe SSD which chapter 1 of the service manual indicates is supported in your notebook's model series.

HP ENVY 17 Laptop PC Maintenance and Service GuideIMPORTANT! This document is intended for HP author...

Or you can retain the 2.5" drive for extra storage, but you would have to remove Windows from the drive and use the NVMe SSD as the boot drive with Windows and your programs installed on it.

[Jon676]

Paul

Thank you for your reply. I will consider your advice Re other options

Would it simply be a case of migrating from the old drive to the m2 then re format the old drive

[Paul_Tikkanen]

You're very welcome.

Yes, that should work as long as Windows will install the proper boot drivers for the NVMe SSD from the cloned SATA drive.

NVMe SSD's run off a different drive controller--a NVMe drive controller and not a SATA AHCI controller.

[Jon676]

Thanks

Would It cause me problems if I go for a 512 m2 rather than the 256 and retain the existing hard drive

[Paul_Tikkanen]

That would be fine.

The drive capacities listed in the service manual are just what HP offered in the model series, not the maximum capacity supported.

Note that your notebook's NVMe SSD slot is PCIe Gen 3.0.

While a Gen 4.0 NVMe SSD will work, it will not run at its maximum advertised read/write speeds from a Gen 3.0 slot.

This table shows the maximum transfer speeds each PCIe slot generation can provide:

PCIe Speeds and Limitations | Crucial.com

[Jon676]

Okay  I pulled the back off and found a 16GB  M10 card in the slot. I removed it and the system reported no operating system.

I put it back in and all ok

What would be best way to proceed. I have obtained a new gen 3 1tb M2 card

[Paul_Tikkanen]

It sounds like your notebook has a M.2 Intel Optane memory device with a 16 GB cache which is used to accelerate the hard drive.

Before you remove an Intel optane memory device, you must follow a procedure to remove it.

First you disable the Intel Optane memory in the Intel RST software program.

If there is a BIOS setting to disable the Intel Optane, you also disable that as well.

See this link for the procedures to follow.

https://support.hp.com/ca-en/document/ish_9465185-9465233-16 

Then you should be able to remove the Intel Optane M.2 device, install the M.2 SSD, and you should be able to see the files on your 2.5" drive.

[Jon676]

Hello Paul

Just a note of thanks

Followed your advice and fitted M2 gen 3

Machine in now running like new

Many thanks    John

[Paul_Tikkanen]

You're very welcome, John.

.

Cheers,

Paul