Samsung 970 Evo Plus makes screen go blank

[Studio1059]

Hi There,

I have an HP Envy x360 15t w-100 that had the hard drive completely fail. The disk is no more and not repairable and I am using this opportunity to upgrade the drive to an m.2 since I do a fair amount of video editing and the added speed would be a bonus.

My new m.2 drive arrived today (Samsung 970 Evo Plus). I Installed the drive and booted the computer but no display. Fan kicks In and power light turns on, but no display. If I remove the m.2 I’m back to the “no bootable device” message. I looked in the Bios and see no settings that need changing for the m.2. I suspect I need to update the Firmware / Bios but upon checking the HP product page I see that  the most recent Bios installer they have is F.10 Rev A. My Bios already has F.15. I attempted to download and install the HP Firmware Pack F.36 Rev A, but it looks like this is trying to update the hardware on the Win 7 Toshiba laptop that I’m downloading from - rather than allowing me to creat a USB stick. It returns the error “insydeflash application has stopped working”. 

Any idea if it’s possible to somehow update the firmware / bios to F.36 Rev A using a USB stick? Is there something else I could be trying to get this m.2 drive to work? 

I just attempted to boot from by Windows recovery USB which is did just fine, if I insert the m.2 while the screen is displaying the setup screen it will immediately go blank. Upon removing the m.2 it immediately comes back. Not sure if that helps.

Many thanks in advance for any help you can offer - it’s been a rough couple of days figuring this out!a

Andy

[Huffer · Accepted solution]

It's is not compatible with the 970 Evo Plus. It is only able to use SATA M.2 SSDs. 

Manual 

Upgrading the BIOS will not help. 

[Studio1059]

Thanks so much Huffer - that would explain it. What would be the best recommendation for a fast and reliable

sata m2 ssd drive for my machine? The Evo 860 like this perhaps?

Samsung SSD 860 EVO 1TB M.2 SATA Internal SSD (MZ-N6E1T0BW) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07822Z77M/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_tai_uUqNDbHNDWGF0

Is it worth spending the extra than buying something on the budget side that claims the same sort of speeds, say:

Micron 5100 ECO 960 GB Internal Solid State Drive - SATA - M.2 2280 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07HHJRQP3/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_tai_1ZqNDbWZXTK4B

Many thanks again,

Andy. 

[Huffer]

The Samsung 860 Evo is the cream of the SATA M.2 crop but with SATA M.2 SSDs there is not as much difference in performance from the bottom of the pack to the top as there is with NVMEs. I have had fairly good luck with off brands...not that particular one (Micron) but would say you can safely shop on price. 

Please accept as solution if this is the info you needed. 

[Studio1059]

You sir, are a tremendous asset to this community!

Sincere thanks,

Andy.