Toaster upgrades!

[owegner75]

So I have the "opportunity" to get a couple of HP Compaq 8000 Elite SFF PCs for basically nothing, and I'm wondering what the best way to go about upgrading them for maximum memage would be. I have limited practical experience building PCs, though its something I've wanted to do for a while and I figured this could be fun(ny). I'd just rather not waste money on parts which turn out not to be compatible. I'm fine spending a bit to upgrade the obviously quite shite (or plain missing) hardware in these things. 

 

Budget (including currency): $300

Country: Canada

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Gaming if it doesn't spontaneously combust, general purpose if it starts melting

CPU: Intel® Core™2 Duo E8400 3 GHz

Graphics: Intel® GMA 4500M (discrete)

RAM: None at the moment, I think it takes DDR3

Motherboard: No clue

Storage: Also none at the moment, I believe it originally had a 320GB HDD

 

 

[BiotechBen]

7 minutes ago, owegner75 said:

So I have the "opportunity" to get a couple of HP Compaq 8000 Elite SFF PCs for basically nothing, and I'm wondering what the best way to go about upgrading them for maximum memage would be. I have limited practical experience building PCs, though its something I've wanted to do for a while and I figured this could be fun(ny). I'd just rather not waste money on parts which turn out not to be compatible. I'm fine spending a bit to upgrade the obviously quite shite (or plain missing) hardware in these things. 

 

Budget (including currency): $300 per

Country: Canada

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Gaming if it doesn't spontaneously combust, general purpose if it starts melting

CPU: Intel® Core™2 Duo E8400 3 GHz

Graphics: Intel® GMA 4500M (discrete)

RAM: None at the moment, I think it takes DDR3

Motherboard: No clue

Storage: Also none at the moment, I believe it originally had a 320GB HDD

 

 

So with being business prebuilts, you are gonna want to check what the maximum validated chip is for the platform.

[DEADPOOLSMOM]

13 minutes ago, owegner75 said:

So I have the "opportunity" to get a couple of HP Compaq 8000 Elite SFF PCs for basically nothing, and I'm wondering what the best way to go about upgrading them for maximum memage would be. I have limited practical experience building PCs, though its something I've wanted to do for a while and I figured this could be fun(ny). I'd just rather not waste money on parts which turn out not to be compatible. I'm fine spending a bit to upgrade the obviously quite shite (or plain missing) hardware in these things. 

 

Budget (including currency): $300 per

Country: Canada

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Gaming if it doesn't spontaneously combust, general purpose if it starts melting

CPU: Intel® Core™2 Duo E8400 3 GHz

Graphics: Intel® GMA 4500M (discrete)

RAM: None at the moment, I think it takes DDR3

Motherboard: No clue

Storage: Also none at the moment, I believe it originally had a 320GB HDD

 

 

I just don't get the point. For $300, you already have a Ryzen 5600, AM4 board, and DDR4 Ram

[Needfuldoer]

7 minutes ago, BiotechBen said:

So with being business prebuilts, you are gonna want to check what the maximum validated chip is for the platform.

HP has a technical guide available:

 

http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c01960471

 

The part about processor support starts on page 30 of the PDF. Since it's running the Q45 Express chipset, you basically have your pick of the Core 2 Duos and Core 2 Quads, up to a 95 watt TDP.

 

Luckily all the parts for these things should be dirt-cheap at this point. You can have plenty of fun with those, so long as your expectation is "pair of high end XP machines".

[jaslion]

Sell em and get a decent pc. These things are slow even for office work and suck for webbrowsing even when upgraded to the max.

 

There is a reason these systems are being dumped. They are like what pentium 4 computers were in 2015. Barely useable machines.

 

I know exactly the kind of systems these are and they SUCK to upgrade and are just a pain to work in. That and no matter what you do any money spent is wasted as no matter what you spend on its gonna be slow. For 300 cad you can get lucky and get a decent used computer.

[DEADPOOLSMOM]

12 minutes ago, jaslion said:

Sell em and get a decent pc. These things are slow even for office work and suck for webbrowsing even when upgraded to the max.

 

There is a reason these systems are being dumped. They are like what pentium 4 computers were in 2015. Barely useable machines.

 

I know exactly the kind of systems these are and they SUCK to upgrade and are just a pain to work in. That and no matter what you do any money spent is wasted as no matter what you spend on its gonna be slow. For 300 cad you can get lucky and get a decent used computer.

Yup, pointless. He is looking at spending $900. $300 on each one. For that kind of money, you could get a whole machine with a Ryzen 5600 and Radeon RX 6600xt

[jaslion]

8 minutes ago, ShawtyT30beTHICCC said:

Yup, pointless. He is looking at spending $900. $300 on each one. For that kind of money, you could get a whole machine with a Ryzen 5600 and Radeon RX 6600xt

Oh boi yeah thats a BIG mistake. Can barely even sell these for 50 cad a piece when they have a quad core, max ram and a ssd.

[Needfuldoer]

25 minutes ago, ShawtyT30beTHICCC said:

Yup, pointless. He is looking at spending $900. $300 on each one. For that kind of money, you could get a whole machine with a Ryzen 5600 and Radeon RX 6600xt

They're hopelessly obsolete in 2022, but there's plenty of fun to be had in 2007.

 

That said, I'd struggle to spend $300 total on these things. They've already got E8400s, just throw 4 gigs of secondhand RAM, a cheapo low profile Radeon, and a used 250 gig SSD into each one, reinstall Windows XP, and go to town with head-to-head Halo CE and Unreal Tournament 2004 matches. There you go, for about $100 and an afternoon of tinkering, you've got a throwback LAN party waiting to happen.

[jaslion]

13 hours ago, Needfuldoer said:

They're hopelessly obsolete in 2022, but there's plenty of fun to be had in 2007.

 

That said, I'd struggle to spend $300 total on these things. They've already got E8400s, just throw 4 gigs of secondhand RAM, a cheapo low profile Radeon, and a used 250 gig SSD into each one, reinstall Windows XP, and go to town with head-to-head Halo CE and Unreal Tournament 2004 matches. There you go, for about $100 and an afternoon of tinkering, you've got a throwback LAN party waiting to happen.

Of course do mention that sellign them for even 50$ is gonna be near impossible then.

 

Also ddr2 is like legit kinda expensive now. Rip getting 4x1gb sticks for like 6€ :p. (op ecc ram DOES NOT WORK)

 

There is a reason that in the recycling plant I visit core 2 era systems are common. Nonlonger very common thatbis starting to be first to 4th gen intel core systems and those are many times better. Core 2 era stuff has either been mostly disposed off, shipped to developing markets or sits in a storage room unused as its basically become unusable for todays technology market.

[Needfuldoer]

1 hour ago, jaslion said:

Of course do mention that sellign them for even 50$ is gonna be near impossible then.

Oh yeah, they're worth "here, you throw this away" and I'm under no illusion they're worth more than that. The most expensive part I linked to was the SSD, which is just a SATA 3 device that can go into just about anything. (You could spend even less by picking up used SATA hard drives instead, but you're more likely to get a dud and the extra shipping cost eats into the savings to the point they're not worth it in my opinion.)

 

Recouping the cost isn't the point. Having fun is the point!

 

1 hour ago, jaslion said:

Also ddr2 is like legit kinda expensive now. Rip getting 4x1gb sticks for like 6€ :p. (op ecc ram DOES NOT WORK)

At least the HP Elite 8000 takes DDR3, which is near the bottom of its depreciation curve right now. (There are a bunch of lot listings that work out to around $1.50 per 2 gig DIMM, shipped. You're only going to beat that digging through the trash.)

 

1 hour ago, jaslion said:

There is a reason that in the recycling plant I visit core 2 era systems are common. Nonlonger very common thatbis starting to be first to 4th gen intel core systems and those are many times better. Core 2 era stuff has either been mostly disposed off, shipped to developing markets or sits in a storage room unused as its basically become unusable for todays technology market.

Exactly. They're in that dead zone where they're too new to be really interesting, but too old to still be useful. My homelab is all Broadwell, and I won't even touch anything pre-Sandy Bridge nowadays unless it's actually old. (Pentium or older, PowerPC, 68k...) There isn't much a Core 2 can do that a much newer CPU can't.

 

OP already got them for free, and wants to do something with them for laughs. I wouldn't buy them, or waste my time dragging them into the present day kicking and screaming, but building a small XP LAN setup on the cheap is a fun way to spend a couple weekend afternoons.