The highly rated HP Pavilion Slimline PC thread

@360Spider
If you make an account and make your results public they'll be up there for at least a year
 
Alright I just made an account. I'll do the benchmarks again when I get home from school this afternoon. I'm going to also give you guys a little more detials on the card now that I have been playing around with it for awhile:

As for improvements in games, I'm going to try and get Crysis in the upcomming few days and I'll let you all know how that plays. The card plays NFS: Most Wanted at full settings on a 1680x1050 resolution very well. I downloaded the demo of NFS Pro Street and it plays everything on full settings at a decent playable framerate but it does lag a bit in some areas. The biggest improvement I have noticed in this card compared to the 8600GT is the smoke and particle effects in games. The 8600GT would lag quite a bit when it came to smoke but the 9600GT doesn't seems to loose fps at all. The Sims2 plays a little better. (I can't get the res any higher than 1440x900.) I had expected a bigger increase in performance in that game but it seems to be very graphically intensive. I would like to get COD4 for computer but for $50 at Worst Buy last night I has to pass that up. (I didn't even see Crysis.)

As for the overall sound. I take back what I said before that it was only a smudge louder. It is a lot louder now that I have the case and everything put together. The fan actually has that noise you get when in an airplane and hear that ringing noise from the jet engines. (But obviously not nearly as loud.:p) Sadly thats the only way I can describe that. The fan runs at 15% when not running games and bumps up to 65% when I did the 3DMark06 tests and while playing NFS Most Wanted. I so far havent heard it any louder than that.

As for if the work is worth it? Eh, I guess it is. It is a big improvement over the 8600GT. The NFS Pro Street demo actually plays decently now and there is a definite incerase in preformance in some games. As for the dificulty to install I give it a 4/5 because it is difficult packing all that stuff in such a litle case. Not to mention if you go internal with the power supply you will need to mod the little clear plastic piece going to the HDD light because the extra power will block the little clear plastic piece and you won't be able to get the front on. An SATA to Molex conversion is needed to even get the supplemental power supply to turn on and you will also need an external CD/DVD drive. It isn't for the faint of heart and you will need some skill to put it in. Your doing more than just popping a card in and out. The additional AC power supply for the card cuts it close to the CPU fan so you need to watch that. I used a spare low profile bracket to mount the AC cable to that goes through a VGA port on the bracket. Overall for a grad project I think this will be sufficent. If you just doing it for fun it's pretty good too.

(There's a good 27min burned in 1st period study hall. lol)
 
@360Spider
Can you keep the Supplemental PSU outside the case? That way you can keep the optical drive in the case. I'm guessing one of the limiting factors in doing this is the length of the cables, both of the supplemental and the host PSU. However, I think it would be possible to get a Y cable from one of the SATA power cables and an sata to molex adapter so that it would reach outside of the case. Then perhaps you'd have to get another adaptor to extend the 6pin power cable.
 
Regional Coffee said:
Looks like we have a new contender for performance for something that will fit in the Slimline's power envelope (and certainly the Acer):

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3405

Low power draw, far better performance than 8600GT/9500GT, no external power connector needed.

Come on LP versions!
Click to expand...

It does sound decent, the one advantage to the Acer is it has 8200 onboard, so Hybrid SLI can do pretty decent.
 
Funny, if you actually try to find a non-refurbished Acer X1200 they're basically nowhere to be found. What gives? It was announced quite a few months ago and Acer doesn't even have pics on their site - odd.
 
Omjermey,

You can keep the supplemental PSU outside the case. It wouldn't look very good though and it would probably be difficult getting the cover back on the computer. You would have to run every wire through the other PCI port. Also as you said you would need a Y splitter to split the SATA power cable to another SATA cable and a molex cable. The supplemental power supply will come with a long enough PCI-e power cable for the card. The only thing you need to probably extend is the molex connector since I doubt the splitter will be long enough. Personally though I think its just better to keep it in the case and get the external CD/DVD drive. That way you can just avoid all those extra wires.
 
I ordered 9600gt yesterday...I did not realize the noise is that loud and the need of modding the case cover or I won't even place the order....Now got to return them when they come...too much trouble.
 
Here is the 3DMark06 score that will stay this time. :p I have the Crysis demo downloading right now so I'll let you all know how that goes once I got it going.
 
360Spider said:
Odds are that's probably going to be a yes. I don't actually own the game though so I can't really comment to much on that.

Here's a few preview pics of the setup. During and after. I'll comment and post more about them tomorrow as I need to get to bed since I am unbelievably tired right now.

http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d153/HornHead8898/100_1491.jpg
http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d153/HornHead8898/100_1495.jpg
http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d153/HornHead8898/100_1499.jpg

Enjoy!
Click to expand...

@360Spider

What are those on the back of the unit http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d153/HornHead8898/100_1499.jpg fans? where can I get them? Also I am very interested in modding out my slimline with the supplemental power and 9600 GT. Any words of advice? I am a little confused over some of the wiring sata/molex modifications. So perhaps you could clarify the project step by step if you wouldn't mind. Besides the 9600GT and the FSP Group BoosterX 3 300W Supplementary Power Supply What other components did the project require such as connectors and wires? Could you provide me with links to these?
 
@mosis

Yeah they are fans. I unscrewed them off a laptop cooling pad I got awhile back. That's what I am referring to as the 'frankencase' setup. (Somewhere between page 15 and 30 you'll find why. lol) It was a cooling pad by IdotConnect however I cannot seem to remember what site I ordered it off of. The best I could find which is pretty much exactly the same as what I have is here. Although mine did not cost $30. All you need to do is mount them on the back with the fans having the air blowing out the back. Make sure it isn't blowing air in the back or you won't get any results from it. It works amazing though and it doesn't make much noise at all.

As for the SATA to Molex conversion you could just get a converter adapter. I went the hard way (and very dangerous way by guessing wires but it worked. :p ) by simply using some pictures I found on the internet of some adapters. If you would like to do this it's really not that hard. All you need is a spare male molex connector. (I took one out an old junk computer I had.) I made a little diagram here that will help you out with which wires go where. Don't worry about the orange one as it's not necessary for the molex conversion. (It's not in that picture but it is in your computer.) You can actually just put come electrical tape around it and forget about it. The orange wire is actually just an extra 3.3V power source from the PSU for the CD/DVD drive. It's not necessary nor is it supported by a molex connector. Everything else you can tell pretty much by the pictures.

There is a couple things you need to watch out for. The first is that you need to watch out for is the power connector coming out the back of the supplemental PSU should you decide to put it in the computer. It cuts it pretty close to the CPU fan but I have it in there pretty tight so it doesn't. Here's a pic of what I mean:
http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d153/HornHead8898/100_1510.jpg

Also, I was very concerned with the VERY small amount of space between the wires coming out of the back of the supplemental PSU when I would have put it in correctly. I actually have the supplemental PSU in upside down from the correct way it is supposed to be in the drive bay so that the PCI-e wires won't block the airflow to the CPU fan. It leaves more than enough space with just the power and molex connector there. Plus remember there are holes in the side of the metal cover for your computer for air intake. Just don't block them! If you have the fans mounted on the back as well there will still be plenty air for the CPU. Mine is reading 61F for core 1 and 86F for core 2 as I type. (But I have no idea what process are going in the background. haha) Thats average for me and it hasn't changed since I put the supplemental PSU in.

One last thing you need to watch out for is that the supplemental PSU has 2 PCI-e wires coming out of the plug in the back. So basically I needed to find somewhere to put the other one without having it get in the way. I basically took it and tucked it in the space behind the card reader in the front. It works fine and there's still plenty space for the HP PSU air intake. (Although I still think there should be a vent in the metal case where that is considering how hot the HP PSU gets.)

EDIT EDIT I forgot to say. The 9600GT is a bit long and it does come very close to touching the metal of the drive bay. Because of that I put some electrical tape insulation there. As long as the card isn't touching any metal it'll be fine.

And one more last thing. If you decide to cut the wires and do the molex connector manually. ALWAYS solder the wires together afterwords. NEVER just twist them together. Twist them and solder them!

So that's about it. I took a bunch more pictures that should help you out. Let me know if you have any other questions. :)

http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d153/HornHead8898/100_1506.jpg
http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d153/HornHead8898/100_1507.jpg
http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d153/HornHead8898/100_1508.jpg
http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d153/HornHead8898/100_1513.jpg

You can see where I tucked the extra PCI-e wire:
http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d153/HornHead8898/100_1511.jpg

http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d153/HornHead8898/100_1512.jpg

Here's some fan pics (The fans are USB powered with a USB port on the back of the plug so it really doesn't take up any USB ports):
http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d153/HornHead8898/100_1515.jpg
http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d153/HornHead8898/100_1517.jpg
http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d153/HornHead8898/100_1518.jpg

One last thing I did tonight was to mod the HDD yellow light to a green one. Also as a side note the supplemental PSU has a plastic piece on the front that lights up blue. You can't fit the front on with that piece so you can very carefully pop it off. It does take some force so be careful. It makes the front look really cool then:

http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d153/HornHead8898/100_1519.jpg
http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d153/HornHead8898/100_1521.jpg

I hope this helps! :)
 
has anyone upgraded their onboard nic with a pci-x?

looking for suggestions. Not too many low profile. I recently upgraded to cat 6 and have a gigabit network and want to upgrade the NIC

thanks
 
Thank you for going into such detail 360Spider! About the stats, I think you need to make them public for us to see it. If you want you can just post a capture of the page or just the numbers if that makes it easier.
 
Wow, I didn't even realize there was a private option on it. I think I found the public option so it should be good now. I installed and fired up the Crysis demo last night and I was completely blown away. It played almost perfectly on all high settings at a 1680x1050 resolution. I could tell the fps would go down a tiny bit at some points but for the most part it was beyond playable.
 
Nice score! The 9600GT is definitely a good upgrade to the 8600GT... beating it with over 2000 points. Here's my 8600GT score. I was able to play Crysis demo on medium for some of it, although switched it to low for better playability.
 
wow awesome response 360spider thank you. I plan on doing the gpu/psu upgrade as soon as I can afford to spend the extra money. I just ordered the AV Lab USB notebook Cooling Pad Model AV-HMP-002 which I found for 24.95 and look forward to installing them next week. Did you use the nuts and bolts that came with the cooling pad to mount them to the case or did you need alternate mounting bolts?
 
Nope. The ones that came with the pad work just fine. Watch out though if you have a built in WiFi adapter as the device is mounted on the back from the inside and there is a screw that will get in the way of one of the fans. All you need to do then is just prop the fan up a little so it doesn't hit the screw.
 
Was on the chat with HP tech support due to HDD issue. I asked if the CPU could be upgraded from X2 4400+, which they said was no. Can anyone confirm that (would like to stick in a X3 or X4 if I can find a 65w version)?

TIA.
 
What kind of overclocking options are there in the bios? (AMD any changes to HT or Multi?, Intel: and FSB changes?)
 
There are absolutely no overclocking options in the bios. The bios for these machines have only the bare minimum settings.
 
omjeremy said:
There are absolutely no overclocking options in the bios. The bios for these machines have only the bare minimum settings.
Click to expand...

So replacing the processor in the machine is as fast as it's going to get, that kinda sucks :(

You can BSEL mod some of the Core 2 chips though I'd imagine. Any pin mods for Athlon X2 chips?
 
So i have a AMD Slimeline. If i was to buy a 2400 BE and XFX LP 9500GT, from what i seen has about 35 watt draw. Would that work fine, especially if i decide to play Warhammer Online on this pc?
 
@ 360Spider
Way sweet Slimline!!! Love the mods and especially the 9600GT low pro!

I own an HP S3323W. I stuck 4 GB of Patriot RAM in it and overclock the 4800+ with nVidia's nTune version 5.05.47.00. My box runs 100% stable @ 3.0 GHz all of the time, Everest reporting temps of 50C full load, 18C idle, 23-25C under normal use load... Onboard GPU stays between 43 and 55C.

I want to be able to stuff a 9600GT or a different very nicely-performing video card. I mostly play games like NFS Most Wanted, Carbon, Undercover (November 18th!!!), and Dawn of War. Some buddies play WoW on it too when we get together...

I plan on getting the Shuttle PC-50 and modding it to work in the Slimline. Would that standalone PS handle a 9600GT with no freeze-ups?
 
Hi guys,
The slimline I got on ubid came with a tv tuner by mistake.
i.e. the tuner wasn't on the specs. not that I need it much, but if it's already there... anyway, it's not configured in vista, and recognized in the device manager as some generic device.
When I try to get the original driver from the official hp support page, it says something strange, along the lines of "not enough resources to install the driver" or some such.
couldn't find any other driver for it.
the hardware is the following:
Fall 2007 ViXS PureTV-U 48A3

Any help will be much appreciated.

Thanks!
 
@ Redline_756,

From one NFS fan to another I cannot wait for Undercover either! It looks like it's going to be the best NFS yet! I'm so happy they went back to street racing rather then stupid Pro Street course racing.

But anyways, the PC-50 should work. You will need to convert the power to the mini-ATX adapter for the Slimline motherboard though. (Someone had done something of the sort quite a few posts back and it required some effort to do. Maybe someone else can point back to that...) You do have your PCI-e connector for the 9600gt so that's good. There seems to be SATA built into the connectors on that PSU as well is is even better. It's just the conversion you need to worry about. There's no doubt it's going to work with the 9600GT. With my Slimline, I have the 160W stock HP PSU powering the motherboard. The supplemental power supply has 2 PCI-e adapters that only support 150W per adapter. So that's only about 310W total power and it runs fine. Minus 10W I highly doubt is going to make a difference and I know the 9600gt is not pulling a full 150W from the supplemental PSU. I'm going to push out an e-mail to KFA2 and see if I can get the specs for the actual power draw from that card so I'll let you all let you know what they say when I get it back.

But yeah the PC-50 should be good with the conversion. Good luck!:)
 
churban said:
the hardware is the following:
Fall 2007 ViXS PureTV-U 48A3
Click to expand...
The tuner card in my s3400t is "AVerMedia M792 PCIe", and I believe the driver on the s3400t download page is for my AVerMedia card. Google for the card name and you should find drivers available for download (there is one on the s3000y driver page). Good luck!
 
chklin said:
The tuner card in my s3400t is "AVerMedia M792 PCIe", and I believe the driver on the s3400t download page is for my AVerMedia card. Google for the card name and you should find drivers available for download (there is one on the s3000y driver page). Good luck!
Click to expand...

This is a tuner card that comes with 3200, don't know how it made it's way into my order, but I don't mind. :)

The hardware I quoted is both from the driver download page and the physical box itself.
Couldn't find any driver using google. seems like it's something made exclusively for HP.
 
Quick newbie question. Looking to get a slimline. The s3400t's on Ubid dont mention a DVI or HDMI. Most just say VGA. Does the 8500GT have any other video outs than just the VGA? Or do I need to update the video card?
 
^ s3400t's 8500GT typically has a DVI and HDMI. -- Several I've bought and sold have. You can be assured it should at least have DVI which is convertable to HDMI with a 3$ passive connector from monoprice.com
 
I received the 9600GT on Monday, have been experimenting in on my S3323W. Modded the sata power cable to a Mole Plug, used the Mole Plug to video card power cable to test if the 160W power supply works without using any power booster. It works! My system originally consumes 44W while idle, after adding the 9600GT, it goes to 67W. Installed Alone in the Dark, played the first three levels while monitoring the kill-a-watt display, the maximum power draw is 163W for a blink second, most of the time it hovers between 150W to 130W. About the noise, it is not as loud as I think in the beginning. When the system is idle, there is noise but not particularly noticeable. While gaming, it is like a small vacuum!

If you are worry about the power supply, come on, if it fails, just go to ubid to get the cheapest slimline then you are done!

I can play Alone in the Dark at 1920x1200 high setting, the picture quality is amazing! It is hard to believe that the system is able to deliver such a smooth and high quality video at this resoultion! However, the system is very hot after two hours of game playing. I then used a 2W 12 cm fan with a conduct(made by cardboard) attach to the back of the system, the temperature drops significantly. At idle, video card is 57 degree, at load, it is around higher 70s, not too bad!

Still debating whether to keep it or not as it costs so much and sacrifices slimline's quietness -- the reason why I purchase it. Maybe will return it today.
 
@ Joseph_Lin

Thats great!!! Boy that's running about the max that psu can put out! :eek:

About the noise, do you think it would be possible to mod or get an aftermarket cooler for that 9600GT to maybe increase the quietness and hopefully cool better, yet still fit in that little case? You have the same model Slimline as me, and I hope to upgrade to a 9600GT as well.

Anybody tried using nTune to overclock a 5600+ in their Slimline, or any processor in their Slimline for that matter?
 
Redline_756 said:
@ Joseph_Lin

Thats great!!! Boy that's running about the max that psu can put out! :eek:
Click to expand...

Due to inefficiecies in converting from A/C to D/C and then measuring back in A/C again as I've read -- Kill-a-watt power meters typically measure up to 20% low when measuring computer loads. SO -- he's actually running over the max - meaning that little PSU is most likely destined a short life. I would NOT recommend this configuration, most certaintly to new people who just come onto the forum, understand it can be done, but don't look down the road at the reprocussions. System life will surely suffer.

Once again I'll recommend a reality call here. I understand this is [H]ard Forum, and that must be considered --- given that this forum is all about moding your PC past it's normal performance levels....but consider:

1. That PSU is actually outputting past maximum capacity and PSU's are only designed to run long term at about 80% of max output ratings.
2. The System is getting so hot that he has an 12" external fan setup with a surely attractive cardboard cutout to keep it from self destructing. Even if it lasts a couple months before the PSU bellies up and the motherboard bursts capacitors because of heat and stress...Ultimately the investment still gets lost and you get a bad taste in your mouth about HP hardware.
3. The noise on the 9600GT "sounds like a vacumm cleaner"
4. Most likely this configuration will introduce system instabilities --- Consider that several people with the 8600GT on this forum and other forums (saw it at slickdeals.net before I saw it here) had the plastic heatsink housing and fan on their 8600GT actually MELT because it got soo hot in the slimline. The 9600GT drawing more power than the 8600GT will get hotter and as such maybe it won't just be the plastic on the video card that melts but some other component inside the case.


I really don't care if the enthusiast pushes their PC to the limits and it implodes because hopefully the enthusiast knows the risks and accepts them. My fear is that these new folk to the forum that are drawn to the site because of a recent slimline purchase read a couple threads and see how it's possible to put a 9600GT in their slimline, but cut a few corners that some of you enthusiast haven't to avoid the noise and expense --- and then their PC dies....

The reality check ends with this statement, as mentioned several times through this lengthy thread. The Slimline is a great HTPC, or causual use PC, capable of moderate gaming. If you want a full performance rigg why even start here? A Q6600 system, or e8400 system with a current generation full size graphics card will slaughter the slimline in gaming, overclocking, and general performance in the hardware dept. for not much more money. I don't care if people push the limits --- it's actually cool that they do! -- I just hope new people don't get disappointed who didn't do their homework and haven't the background in the technology.
 
Archaea you beat me to the punch. :p

That is definitely putting way too much load on that 160W PSU. The reason I added the 300W is so that I would NOT be stressing out the original 160W PSU. I don't have another $420 burning a hole in my pocket to go ahead and buy another slimline off ubid just so I can replace my blown out PSU. Not going to happen. Also for the heat dispersion, I added those extra fans on the back of my mine so it would not overheat as well, and as Archaea said, melt anything else in the computer. I like pushing the limits of my Slimline, but at a safe level. Joseph_Lin, unless you get some extra power in that Slimline of yours, your going to blow out that PSU continue keeping on blowing out PSUs and buying more Slimlines just to replace it. Completely pointless. I would highly consider getting more power in the Slimline of yours.

My configuration is stable. Yours is like putting a 4-cyclinder engine in a semi tractor trailer. Not going to work, and if it does, it won't for long.
 
Ha ha, I did purchase a 450W power booster. Maybe I did not state it clearly, I was experimenting to see if no power booster is used, would it still be possible to use 9600GT? I thought I was sharing my findings to my friends in this forum instead of asking people to blow out their own computer. What good can I get from doing it? Besides at the end of my post, I did ponder why bother doing it as my Slimline was for surfing and listening to my collection of classical music, not for gaming.

If I tell you I did even more experiments on the slimline you will be amazed! I tried setting up a RAID 5 system in slimline(it works perfectly), I did multiple TV cards to see if I can capture more than one HDTV programs at the same time(it worked too if you have my RAID system, my boot disk is an external SATA one with RAID 0. My 12 cm fan actually is very nice if you have a 8600GT installed, it makes the whole system quiet and cool, I got the idea from XBox 360 external cooler! If you worry about your slimline's temperature, do the 12 cm fan thing, it is very easy and efficient. Oh, you should dare to mod the sata power cable otherwise just forget about it.

By the way, I did find the 9600GT's build quality is very good, at least the temperature is much lower than my low profile 8600GT.

My slimline only costs me $250, I don't know why you are paying more than that. You actually can get an even lower price by purchasing those the lowest end slimeline, that won't cost much.

I like to do experiments as I do a lot of research in my university, that's my job. No experiments, no findings...
 
Mmmm.. about kill-a-watt, I tried a two watts setup and it did show 2watts instead of showing 1.6watt if the efficiency is a problem? I did not say it is 100% accurate but it is very close to reality. Try to setup an experiment and see it by yourself.
 
Yeah I see what you mean, but the problem is that lots of new people are coming on and viewing this thread all the time. This is probably the 2nd biggest archive of HP Slimline information with the first being the HP site itself. If I were to read your first post and I was new I would definitely have gotten it in my head that a 9600gt really didn't require any extra power and I could go ahead and order the card. Obviously that's not what you meant but that's how it would have come off. ;)

But anyways, the KFA2 9600GT is a very good build quality. I was surprised to see the fan was actually encased in metal rather than plastic. I would say it's worth the $130 for sure. Also you mentioned the wattage's earlier on. Is that entire system power consumption with the 160W PSU? If so that's interesting to see the 9600gt won't entirely max out the PSU.

Also, could you by chance find out what the wattage's are the card pulls from the PCI-e port and the extra PCI-e power connector under full load? I had said I was going to email KFA2 about 2 days ago and I did get a response but all they would tell me is that it consumes 95W under full load. Told me nothing because I already knew that. :p
 
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