Does a T5745 support a graphics card???

grimreeper132 · January 17, 2018

I have an old HP T5745 thin client I got off ebay and I want to put an old geforce 8400 GS 512MB (might be 8600 cant remeber) in it. As it is better than the onboard graphics from what I can see. I have done this and the GPU fan does spin and it wont post, leading me to think it does support GPUs but at the same time it has a full sized PCIe X16 slot (guessing 2.0 but for this GPU it doesnt matter) so why is it not posting??? Photo attached of the jankyness (its heald together by tape and papaer (so the GPU isnt resting on metal to try prevent shorts) and yes its as amazing as it looks

(32GB SSD works fine)

Crunchy Dragon · January 17, 2018

If it has a PCIe x16 slot, you can use a GPU.

The problem could be that the PSU cannot supply enough power, can you give the full specs?

DJ46 · January 17, 2018

I know that HP has some motherboards for prebuilts and similar PCs that have a whitelist of devices that will work with them.

grimreeper132 · January 18, 2018

19 hours ago, Crunchy Dragon said:

If it has a PCIe x16 slot, you can use a GPU.

The problem could be that the PSU cannot supply enough power, can you give the full specs?

atom N280

4GB of RAM

65W power supply

1GB IDE flash drive

32GB SSD

8400 GS (this one https://www.gigabyte.com/Graphics-Card/GV-N84S-512I-rev-30#ov ) which is 25W (which far as I know all PCI-e X16 can supply even servers which drop down to 25W so that should be an issue far as I can see)

19 hours ago, DJ46 said:

I know that HP has some motherboards for prebuilts and similar PCs that have a whitelist of devices that will work with them.

I was thinking that but hoping not

The front LED does come on for the PC mind when I turn it on and the graphics card still works (just tested it)

gwilkens13 · January 18, 2018

I would think so but it might not get enough power.

Biggerboot · January 18, 2018

Looking through the original manual: http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c02558392.pdf

There's no mention of the PCI-e slot. It's probably not designed for what you intend. Even if the motherboard was electrically capable of powering the card (which I don't think it is), the bios would probably disagree with an extra GPU. You could do some trial and error, but it may be a waste to buy a card specifically for it.

grimreeper132 · January 18, 2018

19 minutes ago, Biggerboot said:

Looking through the original manual: http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c02558392.pdf

There's no mention of the PCI-e slot. It's probably not designed for what you intend. Even if the motherboard was electrically capable of powering the card (which I don't think it is), the bios would probably disagree with an extra GPU. You could do some trial and error, but it may be a waste to buy a card specifically for it.

my thinking was if it can't use it why have it so decided to try it and yea I don't think from the looks of it it works so

Biggerboot · January 18, 2018

12 minutes ago, grimreeper132 said:

my thinking was if it can't use it why have it so decided to try it and yea I don't think from the looks of it it works so

Yeah, the pci-e may have had a different purpose or was an afterthought in the board design. An old thin client like that is not going to be a lot more useful with a card anyway. Even if your only intention was to get a second display on it or just run a modern OS more smoothly.