Improving paths from HP Elite 8300

[Kyatto]

Hi guys, a few weeks ago i bought a prebuilt HP Desktop PC in hopes of pulling off the good ol' drop a power supply and GPU to an old system and get some decent gaming rig in a budget....unfortunately, it didn't come out as planned. 

 

I found a couple "peculiarities" to say the least when it came to the overall pc build, first being the PSU, a 240w unit with only 3 connectors that power the MoBo which then supplies energy to the rest of the components, then i found that of course the MoBo itself had none of the usual headers like 24-pin and stuff and last but not least my cpu was labeled as "s" which makes me kinda afraid that it will only fit in special MoBo's like the original HP, at first i thought about swapping out whatever didn't fit in a normal case (due to sff HP case) but i got into the endless process of changing something and messing everything else, i don't quite have the budget to ditch everything aside and start over again, so i figured out the following 3 potential solutions.

 

1.- Put up with it.

Just throw some GT 1030 and call it a day, i'll be able to play low requirements games and drop everything to the lowest settings on modern titles to get barely decent fps.

 

2.- Try fixing it.

Attempt a Frankenstein by pulling everything out and getting it into another cheap case i have laying around along with a kemex 450w psu that i also have, try to get a compatible MoBo and fit everything together hoping it will work.

 

3.- Risking my arse.

I saw a guy attach a GTX 1050ti sff into one of these PC's and he said it worked, many people still ask him about the obvious power supply issue and some others say that some of those PCI 3.0 slots are not capable of delivering enough power (75w) to a GPU, anyway i'm still considering buying one, risking to at the very least fry my psu and pray to good Lord Zeus it won't kill any other component in the process.

 

4.- Fucking kill myself.

Self explanatory.

 

I'm quite lost at this point, i'd never seen this kind of hardware and know nothing about compatibility issues, i'll leave you my specs hoping that you can give me the best advice on how to get the best and most safe possible experience out of this huge mess i brought upon myself.

 

Core i5-3330s (this bastard makes me really uncomfortable with that "s" thing)

Ram 8Gb DDR3

500 HDD

 

I still have the money i wanted to spend on my GPU which is around 250 USD. Thanks in advance, happy easter to everyone.

 

[Radium_Angel]

Let me save you some trouble here

We have several thousand of these systems where I work. They are *intentionally* crippled from the BIOS to the power supply. They were never designed to be upgraded and any parts you put in will be saddled with a fucked up BIOS.

Save yourself the money,. dump it.

[Kyatto]

On 3/31/2018 at 11:05 AM, Radium_Angel said:

Let me save you some trouble here

We have several thousand of these systems where I work. They are *intentionally* crippled from the BIOS to the power supply. They were never designed to be upgraded and any parts you put in will be saddled with a fucked up BIOS.

Save yourself the money,. dump it.

 

Thank you for your honesty, i think i'll start saving to build a new rig.

[clarkbaker]

Hi guys... I was totally able to install a msi - GTX 1050 ti video card into a HP 6305 sff - the older cousin to the HP Elite 8300 . Only one system tweek.. is you go to your windows power advanced settings under power options in the control panel.. and set your PCI power settings to MAXIMUM..  that way the pci board doesn't go into rest mode.. and cause a power spike on the system when the video card goes into high gear.. causing blue screen of death..  as admittedly your running with all items.. just below 90% of the power supplies maximum recommended wattage output. 

 

Here is my setup. It is very stable - very stress tested with no crashes with the above system power setting and running all games at 60 fps on advanced settings to a very large degree. Running the CPU at 4Ghz.. no bottleneck on the CPU.. the card and the CPU play nice when the load is 'on'

 

• HP 6305 sff
• Upgraded CPU to AMD A10-5800B - can turbo up to 4Ghz. Overclocking 2% to 5%.. you match the video card speed of the 1050 TI (but you don't need too). No bottleneck. on the newest and biggest games. I think an A8 might work just as well.
• This upgraded CPU and board uses 100W of your 240W. The video card draws no more than 75W. (so you still have 50W - 65W for fans CD / USB ect).
• MSI low profile GTX 1050 Ti DDR5 (slightly faster and less power usage than its cousins.)  NO 6 pin power required. (you just can't overclock the video card)
• Upgraded ram to 4 - 8GB or a total of 32GB (I do video.. speeds it up a lot) - I'm sure 2 - 4GB chips is fine for maximum gaming
• Blueray CD Player
• 5TB Drive
• 1TB SD Card

 

You cannot have any other PCIe or PCI cards installed... you can however keep all the bells and whistles with the original system.... basically HP implied you can power 3 - 25W cards.. but if you just have one 75W card.. and set the Windows advanced power setttings to - PCI power to maximum it overrides and sends the voltage to the PCIe slot uninterrupted at the necessary voltage. It has been my experience the video card only draws around 35 Watts..  however the key is the power spikes up and down.. so setting the PCI board to maximum power in windows...  System is stable.. and the PSU is not hot at all... and the system is now completely stable.

 

I'll post my benchmarks soon.. but basically.. its a decent budget gaming and video crunching machine that gets the job done. On the edge of the window.. but it works.. and under $370 all in.

[clarkbaker]