Upgrading HP EliteDesk 800 G3 SFF

[NonSequitur777]

Doing my best to expedite this Legacy HP Desktop Upgrade project: purchased an Intel i7-7700K.

[NonSequitur777]

Esteemed Forum,

This rig is slowly taking shape.  In the upper-left corner is a new 2.5/3.5 inch hard drive adapter bay to seat the ordered and in-transit 1TB SSD, the ancient Western Digital Blue 500GB HDD in the upper-right corner is only temporary: I needed a secondary drive -any drive- in combination with the M.2 SSD, which I installed/intended as my primary (boot) drive.

You see, I wanted to make sure that this rig would actually boot from the M.2 SSD.  And what do you know: initially upon startup/restart, the PC stubbornly wanted to boot from the secondary drive, ignoring the M.2 SSD where I had installed a new, clean OEM copy of Windows 10.  Took me a little while searching online for fixes to remedy this.

Interestingly, Windows Disk Management still lists the M.2 SSD as "Disk 1", and not as "Disk 0", as would be the case if no M.2 SSD is installed as primary drive.  If anyone knows how to change this (short of reinstalling W10), please let me know.

Looking at my picture reminded me to remove the GT 730, as I have temporarily switched back to the i5-6500T which has integrated graphics.

Waiting for the i7-7700K shipping from a US Seller.  Got a message that the PCIe 6-pin powered PCIe X16 to PCIe X16 ADT cable/dock arrived at SFO today.  That leaves the eGPU.  All things being equal, I decided to stick with AMD Radeon.  Mind you, just a personal preference -not "gospel" or being über-orthodox.

Got a new 500 watt PSU standing by to be synced aka daisy-chained aka synchronized by the HP OEM 180 watt PSU using an ATX PSU 24-pin to SATA power supply adapter to power the eGPU as discussed earlier in this thread.

[NonSequitur777]

Decided to order a "Dual M.2 PCIE 4.0 Adapter for NVMe / SATA SSD, NVMe (m Key) and SATA (b Key) SSD to PCIe x4 Slot With Low Profile Bracket" to be fitted in the white PCIe X16 (wired as an X4) motherboard slot.

There are many different brands to choose from, I picked the card that is fitted with vented double-sided copper heatsinks.

[NonSequitur777]

The Samsung 870 QVO 1TB SSD was delivered today and installed as a secondary (dynamic) drive.

Performed the usual benchmark analysis (e.g. Samsung Magician Diagnostic Scan & UserBenchMark), and all is nominal:

[EDIT:] 01/17/22: Waiting for the Intel i7-7700K and the powered ADT PCIe X16 to PCIe X16 extension cable/dock to arrive. The i7-7700K should arrive on Wednesday, January 19th.  The PCIe X16 extension cable is taking longer than usual to arrive as ordered through AliExpress.  However, the specific PCIe X16 extension cable I needed was not available through any mainstay US vendor.

[NonSequitur777]

[UPDATE:] As a backup plan, I purchased a "GPU Riser Cable PCIe 3.0 X16 High Speed Flexible Extender Card Universal 90 Degree Adapter Card (Black, 40cm)".  This PCIe X16 extension cable is not powered like the one I had ordered, but it should still function adequately on the HP EliteDesk 800 G3 SFF.

The PCIe X16 extension cable has to exit the chassis to the left over the internal HP power supply unit, because the cable cannot go over/block the desktop's CPU heatsink/fan situated to the right of the chassis -looking at it from the front.

The picture below shows the PCIe X16 exit orientation reversed from the rear's perspective of the computer case.

In order for the PCIe X16 extension cable to exit the HP EliteDesk 800 G3 SFF desktop chassis, I'll have to create a rectangular exit slit in the top access panel cover, approximately 12 cm by 8 mm.  Exact position to be determined, preferably as close to the edge as possible depending on access panel fit.

[NonSequitur777]

[UPDATE:] The Intel i7-7700K is supposed to arrive tomorrow -other than in potential events of force majeure.

[NonSequitur777]

Dear Forum,

The Intel i7-7700K did arrive in excellent condition and summarizing: IT WORKS.

However, not without some heavy-duty troubleshooting and BIOS interventions which I am going to explain now. 

Firstly, upon installing the i7-7700K, I was greeted with repeating three, long red LED light blinks/beeps and then six, short white LED light blinks/beeps.  Then the HP EliteDesk 800 G3 SFF just 'died' after a minute or so. Monitor screen remained black.

...

So, I wondered: what does this mean?  -Fortunately, HP has a great "Customer Support - Knowledge Base" library where I could at least figure out the specific error description, and I quote: "This condition indicates the processor does not support an enabled feature." Link: HP Desktop PCs - Computer Does Not Start and Emits an LED or Beep Code | HP® Customer Support

The support document then goes on to instruct clearing/resetting the CMOS, which I reluctantly did. [Only had to do this twice before over the years, and even so it didn't fix the issue -but I digress.]

The CMOS reset, not terribly unexpected, did NOT fix the issue.  Same-old-same red/white LED blinks & beeps, and I had to go back to the proverbial drawing board. Actually, I took a break at this point, and thought it over: ". . . the processor does not support an enabled feature." (emphasis added)

Aha!  -It was one of those epiphanic moments when I understood what had happened.

Immediately compared the i5-6500T and i7-7700K processors features side by side, and indeed: it became clear that there were two i7-7700K incompatible BIOS features enabled because the i5-6500T supported these enabled features and I enabled them, but they are NOT supported by the i7-7700K:

1.) Intel vPro Platform Eligibility

2.) Intel Stable IT Platform Program (SIPP)

Thus, reinstalled the Intel i5-6500T, accessed BIOS (F10), and disabled TXT, vPro and SIPP.

Powered down again, reinstalled the i7-7700K and the HP EliteDesk 800 G3 SFF started up smoothly.

Then restarted this rig, accessed BIOS with the i7-7700K on board, and re-enabled useful disabled features.

Little ways to go, among other steps, once again need to reinstall aka flash updated BIOS versions: the hard CMOS reset returned the PC to its cradle factory settings, that is v. 02.35, but this is no big deal, just a little arduous.

[EDIT:] Updated BIOS to 02.38 and then to 02.39, the most recent (11/17/21) version.

I am convinced that this information should be helpful to at least a few Forum members. You see, my initial web search info I retrieved to fix this issue were only indirectly helpful to make this LED/Beep error go away and to make this processor work.

According to UserBenchMark [dot] com, my rig is only the third of more than 3,100 HP EliteDesk 800 G3 SFF's submitted globally fitted with an Intel i7-7700K. This is my first i7-7700K UserBenchMark: HP EliteDesk 800 G3 SFF Performance Results - UserBenchmark

Stay tuned!

[NonSequitur777]

Esteemed Forum,

Let's talk about RAM for a moment, that is: RAM-speed in particular.  I bought 4 x 8GB G.SKILL Ripjaws V Series Dual Channel PC4-19200 DDR4 RAM, with a factory memory speed capable/designed to run at 2400 MHz.

However, as many other prior Forum discussions have mentioned ad nauseam, 2400 MHz RAM most often runs at 2133 MHz on HP PCs, even though, for example, according to HP's specs for the HP EliteDesk 800 G3 SFF (https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c05369814), both 2400 MHz supporting processors (such as the i7-7700K) combined with 2400 MHz qualified DDR4 RAM should run at 2400 MHz -except, it doesn't: my 2400 MHz RAM runs at 2133 MHz.

The problem is that HP doesn't provide the means to manually adjust XMP in BIOS.  In my opinion, it is most unfortunate that HP doesn't provide the software tool to make 2400 MHz RAM actually run at 2400 MHz.

The G.SKILL RAM does show that the XMP profile is active, but still only shows speed clocked at 2133 MHz.

[NonSequitur777]

During CPU stress tests, not unexpectantly, the Intel i7-7700K had to automatically throttle down several times due to high temperatures.  It appeared that the stock CPU heatsink even with the upgraded "Iceberg Thermal IceGALE Xtra 80mm PWM High Performance Case Fan" did not provide adequate cooling/heat transfer to handle the heat this 91 watt TDP CPU produces.

That's going to be fixed forthwith: at a minimum upgraded heatsink + fan and will install additional cooling fans in the chassis.

I already ordered a new heatsink which I am pretty confident I can fit in this rig:

[EDIT:] Also ordered the Intel Fan Heatsink Assembly Air LGA 1151 (BXTS15A).  It is likely that I will have to modify the top access panel to make this or another higher performance heatsink/fan assembly fit. No worries here: I have had experience making similar modifications on the chassis of my HP Elite 8300 USDT and HP Pro 6300 SFF Upgrade projects with satisfactory results.

And I already have plenty of capable fans available to pick from to add to the chassis.

[NonSequitur777]

Dear Forum,

Happy to report now expecting to receive the powered PCIe 6-pin ADT PCIe X16 to PCIe X16 extension cable/dock next week, so that I can connect the HP EliteDesk 800 G3 SFF to a high end eGPU, separately powered by a desktop synced secondary standard ATX 500 watt ePSU.

In the meanwhile, continued prepping/fine-tuning this HP rig to optimize performance.

Quite successfully, I should add, please check out my second UserBenchmark: HP EliteDesk 800 G3 SFF Performance Results - UserBenchmark