$28 HP EliteDesk 800 G1 USDT Teardown & Upgrade

Cheap small form factor HP desktop computer, that I picked up on eBay for $28 shipped.
Tips on upgrading options - and the mysterious MXM laptop graphics card slot!

Link to $6 SSD caddy adaptor:

[RedMAGAcult]

I have an elitedesk 800 g1 usdt that I have had for several years. I too cannot get a graphics card to work. I looked in the spec manual and ordered the one it recommends. I put a heat sink on it and bought a 120 watt PS. The graphics card, once installed, is supposed to override the onboard graphics. However, I cannot get a video signal at all. It seems that this model has problems with the passive graphics card, no matter what! After years of struggling I finally gave up and just use the onboard graphics. I also installed a 256 GB mSATA drive, WiFi and a 256 SSD in the drive caddy and some Arctic Silver thermal paste on the i7 processor. I replaced both case fans with Artic PWM PST fans and plugged in a 500 GB usb hard drive for extra storage. Added 16 GB of RAM. These little machines are amazing. The design just blows me away! Running LMDE 6 at present. Prior to that I ran Linux Mint 19 to 22.1. I love this system.

[OPMayo_VR]

You're a small YouTuber with a small number of subscribers—super underrated! I hope you make it big, Todd!

[anthonybf]

I already left comments about GPU support, but I watched the video again and noticed something else:

at 2:30 you can see that the HDD cage still has plenty of room on the top side of the hard drive.

You *might* be able to fit a very specific 15MM thick hard drive in here. This HDD is known as "Seagate PS4 Game Drive" and they go up to 5TB. It's intended to be used as an external drive, but you can easily peel it from the shell to expose the actual sata hard drive.

I have already done this so I know it will work, as long as you can get it to physically fit. I stripped two of these 4TB drives and stuck them inside my 8770W laptop.

It's a much cheaper way to get mass storage vs paying for 4/8TB SDDs.

Cheers.

[laurencejohnson]

I have that same model of PC., with an mSata drive installed as the boot drive and I have a mechanical HD., fitted in the caddy for storage, which means that I'm able to keep the DVD., drive installed.
I have heard that those discreet graphics cards are not much better than the integrated graphics, however, I have not tried one, it would be best to obtain a passive heat sink as that is what was fitted originally.
I have Linux Mint Mate installed and currently the computer works well.

[RS-sdcr]

nice project and nice selection also of upgraded parts, a solid option for a budget home server. looking forward to the next video!

[MoultrieGeek]

Hey Todd thanks for this teardown, it really came in handy for my G1 USDT. To the best of your knowledge can you run the 4770/4771 with the stock 130w PSU? I have a 4770 to replace the stock 4570S but I don't want to buy the uprated PSU as they are getting expensive these days and this is just a Batocera emulation machine.

[ll_spud]

Looks great. What are u going to use it for? They are great for batocera emulation. Can eventually fit into a mini arcade machine

[RetroGamer-cnor]

Nice clear video. These HP are great for repurposing.
Perhaps the video card was defective?

[nesquik-tz]

How many watts is the external power brick I've heard it doesn't boot with one less than 180w with mxm. You can get a mxm to nvme adaptor for these too you can then use that for a nvme egpu or whatever else i have had issues with most amd cards i have used in the egpu setup though nvidia cards work great i have a 2060 in one and its amazing for the size of it

[javijavier]

Great video. Very helpful and instructive.

[patrickbreese]

Did you try the updated driver from Hp for onboard graphics? You'd have update, installing the card..

[linuxxxunil]

found one of these in the recycle bin! sadly no psu. I tried a 65W and 90W but she keeps beeping 4x. Could be the board or could be the psu doesn't have enough Wattage. The hunt continues. If i can get it to boot up, i'll buy the caddy. Is that an affiliate link?

[anthonybf]

Man, I hate to spam you so much but I am fascinated by these computers. Do you know if this system supports eDP or LVDS?

If we can confirm eDP, that means we can use the MXM-A GTX 1650 ti which is way better than the 965M and Quadro series. If the system is LVDS, we are stuck with 965M.

I tried to look for this but I cannot find any specific answers if the system uses eDP or LVDS.

[ViralVisonaries]

Super late to this but how did you access bios? I have this same computer and I can’t get bios or the manufacturer logo to display wondering if it’s because I’m using display port instead of VGA

[JohnGlen]

Do you know if the maximum ram is 16 GB (2 times 8)? A Linux command showed 4 banks but clearly there are only two. There is not a lot of info out there on this model.

[IsaacSienou-yg]

What if I put a 4 pin fan in the Sata thing I saw a video of someone doing a 2 pin on the sata

[Iseenew.]

Bro my gpu fits but it won’t go fully in and it have my pc a short w

[keatonthekoopatroopa]

what are the parts you bought for the upgrade?

[TheXbox]

I live in a third world country where these are so expensive