Refurbishing a HP Pavillion 550-170na

[LouisGB]

 

What's up guys. 

 

I recently bought a second hand HP 550-170na for really cheap, I am aiming to get it up and running for smooth 1080p games, mostly fairly recent ones I should add (R6, DOOM Eternal). Pretty sure everything's stock but I'll list the compnents here for ease:

 

CPU: Intel Core i7-6700 3.4GHz

GPU: Intel HD 530 (Desktop Skylake) 

HDD: WD Green 2TB (2012)    

RAM: Samsung M378B5173EB0-YK0 2x4GB

PSU: 180W uATX Energy Star 6.0 internal power supply

Motherboard: Pegatron 2B47 

Case: Width 16.5 cm   Depth 37.8 cm   Height 36.4 cm 

(sorry im no expert with pc's ask me for anything else)

 

Main issue I'm facing is the horrendous intergrated graphics, that thing is awful. Equally, the case it comes in is on the smaller side so I don't know if I have much room for many of the medium or small graphics cards. My friend told me the PSU is way too underpowered for a better graphics card as well. Finally, there is very little information on the motherboard I have so I'm really not sure what to do. Any advice on what I should upgrade to would be great. I reckon the max I would spend is about £350/400.

 

My best guess would be to change the GPU and PSU, worst case scenario the case as well but I'm not sure.

 

My very small amount of research has led me to the conclusion that pairing a i7 6700 and a GTX 1660ti would be a good idea but I don't know how I would go about doing it, and most importantly if I even could. I was looking at the smaller version of the EVGA 1660ti black XC as that should fit the case to be paired with a 450w PSU which I cannot remember whilst writing this but will update later.

 

Some more opinions would be GREATLY appreciated.

 

Thanks guys.

[Radium_Angel]

33 minutes ago, LouisGB said:

HP

Good luck. 

The first thing you'll need to determine is if the motherboard uses standard 24pin power connector.

If not, forget about anything else with that PC

 

EDIT:

 

Does this look like your mobo?

 

https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c04790427

[LouisGB]

10 minutes ago, Radium_Angel said:

Good luck. 

The first thing you'll need to determine is if the motherboard uses standard 24pin power connector.

If not, forget about anything else with that PC

That's the long bit on the right side of the two ddr3 sockets, right? If so then yeah I think it's my lucky day. 

[Radium_Angel]

1 minute ago, LouisGB said:

lucky day.

Correct. So now we know it'll take a proper power supply.

But before you do that, you'll need to see how much space you have for a video card.

The heatsink on the chipset just below the PCIe slot may interfere with this, hard to tell from a top-down view.

 

If you can post a pic of your system (the mobo and PCIe slot naturally) I might be able to tell you better

[LouisGB]

1 minute ago, Radium_Angel said:

Correct. So now we know it'll take a proper power supply.

But before you do that, you'll need to see how much space you have for a video card.

The heatsink on the chipset just below the PCIe slot may interfere with this, hard to tell from a top-down view.

 

If you can post a pic of your system (the mobo and PCIe slot naturally) I might be able to tell you better

Will do! Gotta get some sleep first as it's getting pretty late but will post when I wake up.

[LouisGB]

8 hours ago, Radium_Angel said:

You'll need to see how much space you have for a video card.

The heatsink on the chipset just below the PCIe slot may interfere with this, hard to tell from a top-down view.

 

If you can post a pic of your system (the mobo and PCIe slot naturally) I might be able to tell you better

Alright, I'm back and I've got a couple photos for ya. Not sure which is best but take all 3 if it helps.

[Radium_Angel]

5 minutes ago, LouisGB said:

helps

It does. As expected, cable management and space is for shit inside that case, so what you will need (probably) is a single fan video card, something like this:

https://www.newegg.com/evga-geforce-gtx-1660-06g-p4-1161-kr/p/N82E16814487437

 

And of course, a power supply to match. I'd suggestion something fully modular (which is going to be expensive) to minimize the number of cable crammed into that case.

[LouisGB]

17 minutes ago, Radium_Angel said:

It does. As expected, cable management and space is for shit inside that case, so what you will need (probably) is a single fan video card, something like this:

https://www.newegg.com/evga-geforce-gtx-1660-06g-p4-1161-kr/p/N82E16814487437

 

And of course, a power supply to match. I'd suggestion something fully modular (which is going to be expensive) to minimize the number of cable crammed into that case.

Yeah, luckily the GPU I was thinking of getting is the same design and probably same size, albeit a fair bit more pricey for the extra power of the TI

https://www.amazon.co.uk/EVGA-GeForce-Gaming-Graphics-06G-P4-1261-KR/dp/B07NQGB82C

 

Also just remembered the PSU I was thinking would be right but if you have any other suggestions I'll go with them instead, you're clearly much better at this than me haha.

https://www.scan.co.uk/products/450w-evga-supernova-450gm-fully-modular-80plus-gold-single-rail-375a-92mm-fan-sfx-psu

[Radium_Angel]

2 minutes ago, LouisGB said:

PSU

I've always been leery of going with the bare minimum with regards to power. 450 seems very low. I'd buy a 600 watt one and give myself breathing room.

Also, and I'm sure you know this, the CPU is the best you can put into that PC.