The highly rated HP Pavilion Slimline PC thread

hacad said:
ScarCrow:

Does your Motherboard have a 4-pin connector?

anyway here is the diagram link http://www.sparklepower.com/pdf/Drawing/SPI270LE.pdf
This page is pretty tough to find on their site, I found it by searching SPI270LE +12V1 http://www.sparklepower.com/proPCPS_80Plus.html

Also doubt the wattage you are listing are all being pulled at the same time, it's almost impossible....though I say almost.but get your saying, if you are burning a DVD from your HD to the DVD you would be using most of you Wattage on running the drives, ram, and CPU video card would not be pushing much but still a good pull on the supply.

What I put down was food for thought and just my way of trying to get some more input.
Click to expand...

I've not seen a slimline motherboard with the typical 4 pin connectors...none of the ones I've owned have had one. You are right about the wattage not being pulled at the same time except for startup. In BIOS/CMOS there is no power throttling, so everything should, to my knowledge be pulling full draw if only for a brief while. If there are true dual rails on a PSU, the 8amp could really pose a problem (which is my concern for the PC50 -- and my guess at why it is flaky in my situation. Your engineering blue-print diagram you found does seem to indicate I'm running completely on on 12v2 rail with the sparkle since the 4 pin supplemental power adapter isn't being used.....I'd just wager I have no true dual rail on this PSU, or they are combinable by some means??? Here's the dilema, there is only 10amp on the sparkle 270 watt PSU's 12v2 rail. The stock 180watt HP PSU has more than that and it will not work with the 9800GT...i tried just for kicks -- so I know for sure that sparkle is producing more power than the stock 180 watt PSU, despite the diagram stating I'm not using the 16 amps available on 12v1. Also noteworthy - most places will say you can't just add the 12v1 and 12v2 --- further adding to the confusion!!!

It'd be great to get some straight answers on this stuff!


By the way my sparkle 9800GT is silent. My 9500GT, and my 8600GT were significantly louder than the 9800GT! They did a great job on the sparkle 9800GT cooling solution!
 
Last edited:
Yeah Archaea I doubt they could truly fit two 12V Rails in these things, but I was under the impression that the +12V1 and +12V2 were at least limited by circuitry or that could be a bunch of garbage too....

Like most feel there should be more of a standard for PSU's just looking at it the Sparkle uses the 12V2 to power most of their connectors and Seasonic uses the 12V1...that's what worries me too.

So I figure to be safe or not safe as the case might be I was going to switch the V1 and V2 lines to the ATX 20 Pin supply that supplies the 24 pin mini, however my other thought was to connect the V2 to one of the "extra" 12V lines on the ATX 20 to 24 mini connector I would just worry that I would screw the whole thing up by doing that later....

I had read that the Sparkle 9800GT was more power conserving than other cards. But for the s3400f the PCI-e is V1.1 so I won't benefit much from the extra bandwidth the PCI-e V2.0 cards can supply.
 
I don't know the answer to your practical question about joining seperate rails - I don't think it would hurt anything, similar to the way you could run a jumper cable between two car batteries and have both cars running without creating any sort of problem - - -, but you might go post that question in the PSU sub-forum and get some of the engineering types to weigh in.

PCI-E v2.0 is kinda overrated - yes it's theoretically 2x's as fast, but in practice to take advantage of that speed on the PCI-E bus you typically need a card that is a 2 in 1 type setup. I.E. ATI 4870x2 type card. I don't think it would make much if any difference on anything we could fit in our slimlines at the current time. IIRC - I've typically read in the past you could see a 5% to 15% difference in FPS with the absolute best of hardware being tested between 1.0 and 2.0.

http://forum.beyond3d.com/showthread.php?t=45229
http://alienbabeltech.com/main/?p=2249

keep in mind that the 9800GT is basically an 8800GT in performance + physics chip, which really shouldn't be hampered much by this, and certaintly not any of the lessor cards, 9600GT, ATI 4550, etc.
 
Well I did not get to look at it yesterday but this morning I took a quick look, I did not open up the PSU but it looks like the yellow lines are not marked either way (usually they say the +12V2 should be yellow with a black stripe.

So probably a single rail acting as two I may still switch them out but think I will stick the video card in when it arrives and put the PC through it's paces to see if it get too hot and/or crashes.

When I fired the PC up initially the PSU was dead quiet when I loaded Windows XP on it the DVD was louder than the fan, the PSU got a little warm but the set up seems to be pretty efficient at getting rid of the warm air, and I think the fan did kick into high for about a minute then right back down to almost in audible. I like the PSU if it runs my system I will be more than happy.

Thanks for the input....I too wanted to get the 9800 but I am building more of a budget office type PC not a heavy gamer here so the fps ratting does not mean much for my purposes...
 
Well I got the 4400+ CPU and hard drive today, works a treat.

I have the Slimline up and running at the moment running Ubuntu off a USB stick to backup an old hard drive to another new drive. Onboard VGA is working okay which is good. When the backup is complete I'll whack the PCI-E card in and see if I get the same problem as before.

Rob
 
Sounds good Rob...good luck let us know how that goes for you.

On another not I found a good place for power supplies these guys spec them out pretty well
http://bicker.de/eng/programm/index.php

I was wondering if anyone out there has modified their case such that they were able to install a PSU that was 100mm(3.9") wide in their case I looked at attempting this but would have to cut out the pressure plate that limits the size inside the case.

If so there are a lot of PSU's out there at this width that have a lot more power.
 
Hi,

I was thinking of installing a 300GB Raptor drive and using Acronis clone drive to clone my orignal drive. I think I read somewhere that HP put some sort of software link on the drive and it will only work with the motherboard it was installed with is this correct?

Has anyone used Aronis to clone their orignal drive along with the restore partition?

Regards

Phil Newman
 
I really would look at drive benchmarks before going with the Raptor. The high-density 640GB and 1TB drives are very close in performance for far, far GB per $. I personally don't think it's worth it after using a Raptor for a while vs. a 640GB, but opinions vary.
 
I am looking to upgrade my HP slimline pc, this is the model
http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4421641&sku=H50-0567 CA

I already upgraded hard drive but I need to upgrade a processor and install a blu ray drive. My current processor e5200 chokes up when reading 1080p blu ray video and encoding hd video is very slow. I think I should upgrade to quad core but the question is which one and how. E5200 is rated at 65W but most quad cores are 95W so is that a problem or should I strictly go for 65W ? Now there are some quad cores that are rated 65W like Q8200S but they are very rare and I can't find them where I live , they are much more expensive and going by only reviews they are hardly better in watt consumption and heat , maybe 10 watts and 5 C degrees. Should I stick with dual core or move to quad core and is there some restrictions ? Should I let professionals install it since it is SFF ?
 
Last edited:
SerbianSensation said:
I am looking to upgrade my HP slimline pc, this is the model
http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4421641&sku=H50-0567 CA

I already upgraded hard drive but I need to upgrade a processor and install a blu ray drive. My current processor e5200 chokes up when reading 1080p blu ray video and encoding hd video is very slow. I think I should upgrade to quad core but the question is which one and how. E5200 is rated at 65W but most quad cores are 95W so is that a problem or should I strictly go for 65W ? Now there are some quad cores that are rated 65W like Q8200S but they are very rare and I can't find them where I live , they are much more expensive and going by only reviews they are hardly better in watt consumption and heat , maybe 10 watts and 5 C degrees. Should I stick with dual core or move to quad core and is there some restrictions ? Should I let professionals install it since it is SFF ?
Click to expand...

I think what would be better is to put in a video card if you are looking for a HTPC then try the Radeon HD 4650 or better the HD 4650 has an HDMI out w/sound. I just put the 4650 in my new setup which is an older s3400f and it works great!
I found even in windows the video was not very good using the on-board video.
 
I just put my system together last night and been stress testing it. It seems like my PSU is the loudest thing in the case and the fan is going non-stop. Is there anyway to keep it quiet Archaea?
 
Well it's together. Here is how it went.

I had the Seasonic 250W PSU fit perfect 3 screws had to drill 1 hole slightly larger but went in without a hitch. I did switch the +12V1 and +12V2 lines just in case.

I got XP Pro loaded but driver problems for the chipset, so got the drivers via Realtek & Nvidia, once I got those loaded I was able to get online and update everything else.

Once I put all the updates I wanted on the system I installed the Sapphire Radeon HD 4650 and crossed my fingers. It fired up without a hitch, the system is extremely quiet the loudest fan on it is the CPU fan.

I have mostly done updating and software loading with it and it's not completely tweaked the way I like but no fans have kicked up into high yet. I was surprised the video card was so quiet but that was one thing most reviewers had said that this was a very quiet card. I can't wait to hook it up to my 22" Widescreen (just using my little 17" setup screen right now 800x600 yuck).

My specs if anyone wants to know

CPU AMD 5050e (45 Watt)
Seasonic 250 W (SS-250SU) (I got it here in case someone wants the link) its rebranded to Travia but it's a Seasonic.
2GB Crucial DDR2 6400 (may opt for 4G if I upgrade to Windows 7)
Hitachi 320Gb "Green Drive"
Sapphire Radeon HD 4650
I added two 40mm "mini kaze" fans one the back and mounted on on the chipset heatsync (these little guys are inaudible)
the rest......stock
 
Last edited:
athenas said:
I just put my system together last night and been stress testing it. It seems like my PSU is the loudest thing in the case and the fan is going non-stop. Is there anyway to keep it quiet Archaea?
Click to expand...


You are the one that purchased all your parts seperately right? Which PSU are you using? What parts did you end up with?
 
SerbianSensation said:
I am looking to upgrade my HP slimline pc, this is the model
http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4421641&sku=H50-0567 CA

I already upgraded hard drive but I need to upgrade a processor and install a blu ray drive. My current processor e5200 chokes up when reading 1080p blu ray video and encoding hd video is very slow. I think I should upgrade to quad core but the question is which one and how. E5200 is rated at 65W but most quad cores are 95W so is that a problem or should I strictly go for 65W ? Now there are some quad cores that are rated 65W like Q8200S but they are very rare and I can't find them where I live , they are much more expensive and going by only reviews they are hardly better in watt consumption and heat , maybe 10 watts and 5 C degrees. Should I stick with dual core or move to quad core and is there some restrictions ? Should I let professionals install it since it is SFF ?
Click to expand...

I don't think an e5200 should be chocking on Blu-Ray. I agree that you should try upgrading the video card first. The E5200 is a decent chip - not a quad core, but should be fine for 1080p playback. You do want a 65 watt CPU for the sake of the motherboard, there is no 4 or 8 pin header on it to supply the additional wattage to the CPU. You'll also want the lower power consumption chip for the reduced heat output in these small cases. All this being said - you'll be in uncharted waters again evey buying a quad core and ensuring it works. I have a quad core in my s3600t - it is a Q9300 - which is a 65 watt quad core. Somewhere in this thread it was determined by somebody that a quad core didn't work if the motherboard didn't come with a quad core!!! Even if you updated the BIOS to the newest revision. When that person called HP it was determined that a specific and non-released BIOS was used on the slimlines with the quad core and you couldn't upgraded to a quad core unless you started with a quadcore or could somehow obtain the firmware/BIOS update that HP wouldn't release. If that still holds true or not I don't know. You don't need to let a professional install it - if you upgrade anything you can handle it all easily yourself. Check out the first post for a link to the PDF file related to updating your HP slimline that has very easy to follow instructions about everything you could possibly need to remove/replace. Instead of upgrading your CPU I'd first try to upgrade the video card. Perhaps try a 9500GS, or an equivalent ATI card.
 
Archaea said:
You are the one that purchased all your parts seperately right? Which PSU are you using? What parts did you end up with?
Click to expand...

Sparkle 270W PSU
Foxconn Irvine-GL6E MB
Intel Core 2 Duo E8400
Crucial Ballistix 4GB PC2-6400
SAMSUNG Spinpoint F1 HD103UJ 1TB 7200 RPM SATA
SAMSUNG SH-S223Q SATA
SPARKLE SX98GT512D3L-NM GeForce 9800 GT

- - -

I wouldn't recommend this MB with this video card unless you have slim SATA cables. I'm currently having a company make me a custom left-angled SATA cable to specific lengths. There's not enough clearance for standard SATA cables to be plugged in. Luckily, I borrowed a 2' cable from the Dell out in the living room and another off a spare PC. Currently looking at a way to cool this thing down so I won't have to hear the lawnmower go off in the case. Might do the mod that Archaea did to the PSU with some silent PC fans or a blowhole at the top of the case. Will probably use Scythe, Noctua, or Acousti Products fans. Would it be possible to splice the 12v wires that go to the fan and have two fans for the PSU? I'm not very knowledgeable when it comes to electrical stuff.

I'll be linking a few pictures as soon as I have time out of my busy schedule.
 
Last edited:
I have been running HP Slimeline smoothly since Aug. 2008, last week I decided to remove the power booster and replace the stock power supply with an In Win 300W PS. As some of you know that my system has a 9600GT installed, previously the wattage measured from Kill A Watt shows around 110 Watt combined at idle, now it only shows 84watt at idle! I am surprised to see such a difference.

The new power supply works great in Slimline, very quiet, with 12cm fan mod the system is cool too.

By the way, windows 7 RC works great on Slimline too, 80% of the time the CPU speed is throttled down to 1Ghz, may be this explains why the lower idle power consumption.
 
Well I got my Pavillion back today, I must say I was VERY impressed with the service. Picked up Friday afternoon and returned to me on Wednesday morning, so technically they've only had it 2 days. Even better HP actually re-imaged the hard drive with Vista and a recovery partition too (was nice of them considering the hard drive wasn't the original one).

I've now set the machine up in my TV cabinet but it is a tad noisy. I'll live with it for now as I'm going on holiday on Friday for a week but I think I'll certainly invest in some fans. I did wonder too if some rubber matting underneath the system will make it a bit quieter (I've put it horizontally in the cabinet).

Anyway, initial impressions are good. PCI Express slot is now working, the Geforce 7300 is outputting fine to the TV via DVI to HDMI and the audio is working fine through my home cinema system via SPDIF. Not had to install any drivers (yet).

Rob
 
Just wanted to check to make sure: has anyone had luck getting the newer 45W AMD processors (4850e, 5050e) to work with the s3020n mobo? Like others, I am getting the "unsupported CPU" error, even with the most recent BIOS update (5.07). Anyone know of a work-around?
 
Wish I could be telling you it works but every post I have read on it says it won't work. I know that up to around the s3200 series they used the M2N51 boards and they do have a recall on HP's site that there are "possible" problems with the motherboard, not sure it that would be one of them.

Maybe you could chat with an HP tech via their site, but I am sure they will probably just step you thru their canned procedures. Then again you never know.

It's too bad too because these CPU's are dirt cheap!
 
EnglishRob said:
Well I got my Pavillion back today, I must say I was VERY impressed with the service. Picked up Friday afternoon and returned to me on Wednesday morning, so technically they've only had it 2 days. Even better HP actually re-imaged the hard drive with Vista and a recovery partition too (was nice of them considering the hard drive wasn't the original one).
Click to expand...

That's good news about the imaged hard drive. I hope that generosity carries over to HP in Texas. I sent in an "orphaned" machine, that a friend's father had given to me after the motherboard failed (his tech didn't know about the extended warranty), with a bare drive. Should receive it on Monday.
 
I did find this on another form not sure if it fixes the problem with the CPU but if you want to risk it might be worth a shot then again I don't know the source or who hacked it or why.


Pavilion Slimline s3020.nl Desktop PC (asus M2NC51-AR Motherboard) : phoenix or award
Try this SLIC = ASUS mod BigErnM, tested by medey
http://rapidshare.com/files/110203680/sp35102.exe.html
Alternate methods SLIC = ASUS
 
Hey guys, after reading this long long long thread I decided that I should join in on the action. I personally bought one of these S3120n Slimlines a while back, (not with the intention of modifying it) but just last week it coughed up its very last movie flick and just died. I am looking for motherboards to replace the M2NC51-AR that's in there, but I'm not sure which one is the more "reliable one" to get.

One thing I did notice was the M2NC51 is the board everyone criticized, and it got bad enough for HP to put up a recall program for the boards.

I don't want to buy another one if I don't have to.

so I have 2 questions:

1) AMD AM2 Sempron 3400+ 65W SDA3400IAA3CN, does this chip actually work with any of these ITX boards? Just to check if my mobo IS dead and not my CPU, I stuck one of these in the board, but no post no beep no boot so I suspected either incompatibility or dead board completely. I want to make sure that's all.


2) what is a reliable substitution? well, something more reliable than the M2NC51.

Either Intel or AMD is fine, I bought mine used and the Sempron that it came with isn't really that fast anyway. I would be grabbing new board + CPU whichever choice I make. 3rd party boards are okay too. Of course, price is an issue, don't want to pay for boards like the Zotac 9300. I would PREFER to have the PCI-E to watch 1080p content though:(!

Oh yeah, and my unit has the minimalistic 160W psu. curse the mini power plug.
 
Mike,

You can find the M2N61-AR used on Ebay for about 75 shipped from Hong Kong. It's another HP board but I like it. It also recognizes the new dual core (45W) e processors the 51 does not.

The Zotac 9300 is a nice board but you may have problems with the heat sink since the slimlines heatsink has a slight shift toward the back of the case otherwise it would be in the way of the DVD Drive. I did see this board on Amazon for $107 not that bad considering the HP boards can be hard to come by.

I put a seasonic SS-250SU PSU in mine it's dead silent the only fan I hear is the CPU another if you are not planning on doing much to it is the Enhance 220W (about 40 bucks shipped from www.ewiz.com via shopping.com) I think the standard PSU is fine with no video card but even with the HP supplied video cards you can stress the 160W to failure. I would recommend changing the PSU. I have the Sapphire Radeon HD 4650 which has HDMI out and uses less power too.
 
Last edited:
I'm debating on which one to buy to upgrade my slimline s3620f's measly 170W psu. I'm also doing this upgrade so i can install a better graphics card which would be the Radeon HD 4650 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102829
I've read through this thread and i keep seeing that the pc 50 is unreliable at times or during first installation and now i don't know which to buy to.
I also watched Archeas youtube video about this and it says i needed a Molex to SATA Power Adaptor(Buying) and a Molex to 6-pin PCI-E adaptor(can't find). Any sites where i can find the molex to 6-pin?
 
A newbie here and a potential purchaser. In the UK I can get an S3821 Slimline with Intel E5200 2.5Ghz processor but would like to upgrade in a year or so to say an E8200. I've seen that higher spec UK units use the same Irvine motherboard and in HP support section they have the same BIOS version 5.23 and same Nvidia chipset. It seems to me that this means I could upgrade but I've seen several topics in this thread suggesting the BIOS is different for different processors. Any views appreciated.
P.S. I'm nearly won over by the compact HP but the Dell Vostro offers better spec but is bigger. Decisions, decisions...
 
Last edited:
To Archaea:
Thanks for the link in new egg. One more quick question before i buy the stuff i need. Which of these two psu's are more reliable? Thanks again
 
I'd steer clear of the shuttle PC50 myself because of the extra cost and potential unreliability that some of us have found since I made that video. The IN WIN is a decent power supply, and folk have had good luck with it here - but if it were me I'd prefer going for a namebrand like seasonic or sparkle for just a bit more -- maybe it's not necessary, but I'm somewhat cautious in the world of power supplies, since it's the one component outside of motherboard that can affect everything about the computer including longevity and reliability.
 
Destruc2 with that Video card you don't need the 6 pin connector, that's the exact one I purchase from newegg and installed in my S3400F install went very well. I could not get the driver to work for the Hi Def Audio but don't use it so did not bother with it, I am sure I could have found a solution but like I said it's not used.

This PSU is a rebranded Seasonic and has a 6 pin connector it also came with an extra SATA adapter which you will need for the drives (at least mine did). You will get a little more Amps via the InWin but at 70% it can be iffy at when you pull more power.

This PSU is also more efficient and for me inaudible, if the TV is on I can even hear my PC. I guess it would depend on what your max system power is, with InWin at 70% I would not pull over 210W.
 
hacad said:
Destruc2 with that Video card you don't need the 6 pin connector, that's the exact one I purchase from newegg and installed in my S3400F install went very well. I could not get the driver to work for the Hi Def Audio but don't use it so did not bother with it, I am sure I could have found a solution but like I said it's not used.

This PSU is a rebranded Seasonic and has a 6 pin connector it also came with an extra SATA adapter which you will need for the drives (at least mine did). You will get a little more Amps via the InWin but at 70% it can be iffy at when you pull more power.

This PSU is also more efficient and for me inaudible, if the TV is on I can even hear my PC. I guess it would depend on what your max system power is, with InWin at 70% I would not pull over 210W.
Click to expand...

To hacad,
So the one that you are mentioning would run the new Radeon Hd 4650 right?
 
Destuct My specs are below:

CPU AMD 5050e (45 Watt)
Seasonic 250 W (SS-250SU) (I got it here in case someone wants the link) its rebranded to Travia but it's a Seasonic.
2GB Crucial DDR2 6400
Hitachi 320Gb "Green Drive"
Std DVD that came with the system
Sapphire Radeon HD 4650
I added two 40mm "mini kaze" fans one the back and mounted on on the chipset

The PSU and cooler have yet to kick into a higher speed. The Radeon Card is not really a heavy gamers card but is perfect and actually more built for HD/BluRay viewing. plus it uses less power than most of the cards out there. I think the 9600 GT with DDR2 uses even less but not much lower. I opted for the Radeon because it was around 50 bucks less.
 
aleicgrant said:
hmmm might have to keep an eye on this and see if it works in the slimline. Would love HD audio !!!

http://www.asus.com/News.aspx?N_ID=5KqyuL93cmEFZF0w
Click to expand...

I'm just wondering how would that sound any better than a video card that has native HDMI output w/ 7.1 sound, like an ATI 4550? :confused: However, I don't know if those video card's HDMI is 1.3 or lower. BTW, that Asus sound card sure looks long. :eek:
 
im not sure but can the 4550 handle True HD sound tracks?

The Asus is supposed to handle all of the latest HD Audio codecs with ease.
 
aleicgrant, do some research for the new Auzen X-Fi Forte 7.1 from Auzentech. It's EAX 5.0 compatible and has digital output too. Seems a lot better option.
 
Hi,

Has anyone install ubuntu 9 on their slimline 3700s? does it automatically detect all the drivers/hardware?

thanks..
 
hi,

i recently brought an hp s3750 that came with vista 64bit . i need to reinstall vista 32bit because my work cisco vpn client doesn't run on vista 64bit. i made the restore dvds and was wondering if it will give me an option to select 32bit? if not, how can i reinstall 32 bit vista without having to buy the sw again.

thanks..
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top