"If only EssExTee could be so grossly incandescent" (essextee)
09/11/2019 at 13:05 • Filed to: None
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"If only EssExTee could be so grossly incandescent" (essextee)
09/11/2019 at 13:05 • Filed to: None | 0
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They’re pretty cheap on eBay too. My brother is looking for a desktop and I think I might pick one up and lightly up grade it. What do we know about these? Is it a standard motherboard layout or some weird proprietary thing?
facw
> If only EssExTee could be so grossly incandescent
09/11/2019 at 13:15 |
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Time to send up the Nibby signal I think...
Aremmes
> If only EssExTee could be so grossly incandescent
09/11/2019 at 13:16 |
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Compaq... That's a name I have not heard in a long time. A looong time.
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If only EssExTee could be so grossly incandescent
> Aremmes
09/11/2019 at 13:19 |
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Well, HP Compaq.
lone_liberal
> If only EssExTee could be so grossly incandescent
09/11/2019 at 13:19 |
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I think I have 4 similar units in the storage room (they are probably HP 8200 Elite SFFs) but I don’t know what format their motherboard is since they were work machines that weren’t going to be updated other than maybe some RAM.
ITA97, now with more Jag @ opposite-lock.com
> If only EssExTee could be so grossly incandescent
09/11/2019 at 13:21 |
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I’m not sure about the board form factor itself being proprietary, but lots of other things inside these kinds of office boxes are. Plenty of connectors and pinouts will be proprietary, and certainly some of the physical mounting hardware even if the interfaces are standard.
The other other thing to really keep in mind is that the BIOS of these machines is usually locked down pretty hard. Aside from boot drives and date/time stuff, there may not be much else open to playing with in there. Given the boards and firmware on them, they not be able to do take much upgrading beyond possible original factory configurations. There are a few SFF GPUs that can be fit to these machines, but the limitations of usually having to run something that will work on power over PCIE only is going to keep capabilities pretty modest. Think like a GT 1030 or less.
For cheap enough, you can get an internet browsing/youtube viewing/light workstation type machine of out one of these. For much else, it would probably be way better bang for the buck to build something like a basic Ryzen 3 build.
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ITA97, now with more Jag @ opposite-lock.com
> lone_liberal
09/11/2019 at 13:26 |
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Pretty much this. Lots of these are like 3rd to 5th gen Core I 3/5/7 machines, which are pretty dated at this point. You might be able to throw in 12 or 16GB of RAM, but most likely DDR3 speeds and maybe a GT 1030. This is to say you probably end up with something only slightly more capable than a modern mid-range phone, but with a keyboard attached.
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If only EssExTee could be so grossly incandescent
> ITA97, now with more Jag @ opposite-lock.com
09/11/2019 at 13:30 |
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It’ll just be for web browsing and schoolwork. He doesn’t game much and he has an Xbone for those needs anyways. The small footprint is more important than compute power.
My real question is, will another MoBo fit in the case? Do the mounting points and I/O panel match up to conventional layouts?
I don’t mind a low power GPU. In fact I have a 1030 in my personal SFF desktop (the good one with the GDDR5, not the crappy revision)
jimz
> If only EssExTee could be so grossly incandescent
09/11/2019 at 13:33 |
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I think they were modified BTX form factor.
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lone_liberal
> ITA97, now with more Jag @ opposite-lock.com
09/11/2019 at 13:41 |
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Out of curiosity I just looked and I guess I got rid of the SFFs at some point. We do have three 8300 Elite towers still hanging around. They have i7s so they’re not bad for office work.
Nibby
> If only EssExTee could be so grossly incandescent
09/11/2019 at 13:45 |
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the SFFs are BTX but the Elite 8200 and 8300 towers are ATX with proprietary power supplies. That being said you can get power supply adapters for them and they’ll play nice with beefier GPUs.
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If only EssExTee could be so grossly incandescent
> Nibby
09/11/2019 at 13:48 |
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It won’t be an all- out build. He games on Xbox. Th is PC would just be for web browsing and schoolwork. I can buy one of these for like $50 o n eBay and just throw in more RAM and an SSD.
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ITA97, now with more Jag @ opposite-lock.com
> If only EssExTee could be so grossly incandescent
09/11/2019 at 13:53 |
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It sounds like one of these would work. Nibby could probably answer for sure, but I would expect the I/O pin outs to be custom. The form factor may or may not be. In other words, planning to swap out a main board on one of these machines is probably not a worthwhile endeavor. The power connector pinouts also may or may not be proprietary. Given the limitations of size, airflow and PSU’s that will fit in one of these boxes, I don’t see the payoff of going to the trouble to rig up a new board into one.
I would look at them from the perspective of if you’re fine running whatever board and processor they come with when you pick them up for $150 on ebay, or where ever. If you can live with a 3rd generation core I5, they might make sense to pickup and throw some cheap DDR3 ram at them.
I could see the use case for purchasing one of these as a throwaway internet browsing machine. Use it until it dies or become completely , intolerably obsolete, and then move on.
If you really had to plan on upgrading one of these, I’d go for a full tower model instead of the SFF stuff . There will still be proprietary pinouts and such, but the towers at least may present the possibility of t aking full-size ATX power supplies and standard form factor boards.
Wacko
> If only EssExTee could be so grossly incandescent
09/11/2019 at 13:53 |
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i don’t think you can fit anyother mb in there.
and if your plan is to changer the inside, you might a well build a complete system from scratch.
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ITA97, now with more Jag @ opposite-lock.com
> lone_liberal
09/11/2019 at 13:57 |
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I could see that. We’re using SFF 3rd gen Core i5 machines at work with 8gb of ram . ...they struggle with more than a few thing open at once, but otherwise are usable. I could see a hyper-threaded core i7 of the vintage working and playing better, especially with 12 or 16gb of ddr3 inside. I think the spectre and meltdown patches really hit this vintage of machines hard, in addition to be so damned old.
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Nibby
> If only EssExTee could be so grossly incandescent
09/11/2019 at 13:58 |
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yeah then just get one with an i5 quad core and nab 8 or 16GB DDR3 RAM + SSD and done
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lone_liberal
> ITA97, now with more Jag @ opposite-lock.com
09/11/2019 at 14:12 |
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I’m not actually sure why those are still in the storage room other than I couldn’t be bothered to get rid of them. I used to keep old machines around as test units but these days it’s easier just to spin up a VM. Since we started letting people work from home we have gone almost entirely to laptops. The only desktops around are mine and a couple of workstations for video editing.
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Nibby
> lone_liberal
09/11/2019 at 14:33 |
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send them to mercedes sans hard drives!
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Nibby
> facw
09/11/2019 at 14:33 |
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you rang
?
Yowen - not necessarily not spaghetti and meatballs
> If only EssExTee could be so grossly incandescent
09/11/2019 at 14:53 |
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I bought a D ell equivalent of these as my HTPC. There’s thousands of these being sold by corporations that are perfectly fine and they can be picked up for a song.
I simply did some research on the particular models I liked, that came in the size and processor generation i was targeting and placed my order. I even found one with 16gb of ram, which I yanked 8 out of it and put it in my gaming PC at the time. I was also able to add an SSD just fine. It’s been a great HTPC so far.
CoolGuy
> If only EssExTee could be so grossly incandescent
09/11/2019 at 15:35 |
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Went this route before. Essentially not a good value unless you get a crazy deal. You end up replacing or buying adapters for so many parts that the cost savings quickly evaporates, and also forces you down an equipment path that is worse than had you bought budget new. The only things in the end of true value are the ram, CPU, and drives. The Windows license is OEM and can’t transfer to a new motherboard most times either.
Weigh the cost of this vs buying the cheapest ram and drives and a similar or better performing CPU and it won’t make sense. You could get all those parts cheaper individually anyways on eBay as these systems get parted out quite frequently as well.
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Master Griff
> If only EssExTee could be so grossly incandescent
09/11/2019 at 22:45 |
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Lakka TV these mother f uckers, flip for profits.
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Master Griff
> If only EssExTee could be so grossly incandescent
09/11/2019 at 22:45 |
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These can game. Lakka TV, can play Dreamcast and GameCube as well.