[Guide] HP 6300 Pro / HP 8300 Elite - A 100 percent Working and Easily Affordable CustoMac

[andwhy81]

Thanks to everyone in this thread for helping me and i just wanted to tell everyone my experience with the 8300 SFF i got:
Upgraded to the i7-3770 from ebay for $150
Upgraded the CPU fan to the Noctua 92mm and wow is it quiet.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00RUZ059O/?tag=tonymacx86com-20
New thermal paste applied.

For the install i took a chance and just moved over my main SSD (upgraded from El Cap to Sierra first) from my other PC. I did a lot of reading before hand and made a CCC back to an external in case i needed to go back.

It went way easier than i expected;
Before moving, I updated clover, installed only FAKESMC, rebooted and all i had to do was follow this guide from the multibeast install section and forward, and actually sound already was working out of the PC speaker.

Once i injected intel (using the HD4000 for now), it booted super quick.

Right now i have a geekbench multicore score of 13k.

A few things that i may need to address that i wanted some opinions:

1. I played a few 4k demo files i had expecting them to play smoother than my previous rig, there was still a lot of stuttering and buffering with VLC but Plex locally seemed OKish but took a while to buffer. This may be i went from an older Nvidia 9600 GT to the HD4000.

Is it possible i have a driver conflict or am i expecting more from this i7 than i should?


2. The PSU fan is a little bit noisy, has anyone else swapped that out in the SFF? should i just buy a refirb or should i just try cleaning and oiling the bearings (i have done this many many years ago on another pc).

3. I noticed a little bit of gradient "banding" on some wallpapers i have, it this also the HD4000, is it my budget 1080p monitor and i never noticed it before on the 9600 GT.

4. I ran a cpu stress test on all 4 cores and used HWMOnitor to watch temps, Core 4 always seems to be about 10F higher than the other 3. Top temp during stress test was 120F, does that seem right (brand new thermal paste and Fan).

Once i again i cant thank @trs96 and @pastrychef enough and everyone else that contributed to this.

 

[pastrychef]

Thanks to everyone in this thread for helping me and i just wanted to tell everyone my experience with the 8300 SFF i got:
Upgraded to the i7-3770 from ebay for $150
Upgraded the CPU fan to the Noctua 92mm and wow is it quiet.
New thermal paste applied.

For the install i took a chance and just moved over my main SSD (upgraded from El Cap to Sierra first) from my other PC. I did a lot of reading before hand and made a CCC back to an external in case i needed to go back.

It went way easier than i expected;
Before moving, I updated clover, installed only FAKESMC, rebooted and all i had to do was follow this guide from the multibeast install section and forward, and actually sound already was working out of the PC speaker.

Once i injected intel (using the HD4000 for now), it booted super quick.

Right now i have a geekbench multicore score of 13k.

A few things that i may need to address that i wanted some opinions:

1. I played a few 4k demo files i had expecting them to play smoother than my previous rig, there was still a lot of stuttering and buffering with VLC but Plex locally seemed OKish but took a while to buffer. This may be i went from an older Nvidia 9600 GT to the HD4000.

Is it possible i have a driver conflict or am i expecting more from this i7 than i should?


2. The PSU fan is a little bit noisy, has anyone else swapped that out in the SFF? should i just buy a refirb or should i just try cleaning and oiling the bearings (i have done this many many years ago on another pc).

3. I noticed a little bit of gradient "banding" on some wallpapers i have, it this also the HD4000, is it my budget 1080p monitor and i never noticed it before on the 9600 GT.

4. I ran a cpu stress test on all 4 cores and used HWMOnitor to watch temps, Core 4 always seems to be about 10F higher than the other 3. Top temp during stress test was 120F, does that seem right (brand new thermal paste and Fan).

Once i again i cant thank @trs96 and @pastrychef and everyone else that contributed to this.

1. I haven't tried to play any 4K videos on my 8300 but I think it may be asking too much from the old HD 4000. I'll try some 4K content later tonight and report back.

2. On my 8300, the power supply fan is inaudible to me. Given a choice, I would probably opt to replace the power supply fan with a higher quality one than try a refurbed power supply since there's no guarantee that the refurbed power supply will have a quiet fan.

3. I haven't noticed any banding but I am using a dedicated graphics card (GTX 745).

4. From what I've seen, cores running at different temps is the norm and it's not something to be concerned about. I see the same behavior on al my systems. 120F is ridiculously cool if the CPU is running under full load. My CPU reaches 162F and another user reported 142F under full load.

 

[phrozenpenguin]

Upgraded the CPU fan to the Noctua 92mm and wow is it quiet.

Can I ask what exact fan you used and if it plugged straight in or did you have to modify cables / use adaptors?

 

[andwhy81]

Can I ask what exact fan you used and if it plugged straight in or did you have to modify cables / use adaptors?

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00RUZ059O/?tag=tonymacx86com-20

The only thing i had to do was to shave the tiny "connector guide" that connects to the motherboard, the fan comes with any adaptors you may need.

the connector on the new fans have a little tab/guide on them that is like a mm too close and i read onlline that is common and to just use a knife to trim it, took 20 secs and fit fine.

 

[andwhy81]

4. From what I've seen, cores running at different temps is the norm and it's not something to be concerned about. I see the same behavior on al my systems. 120F is ridiculously cool if the CPU is running under full load. My CPU reaches 162F and another user reported 142F under full load.

what did you use to stress test it?

 

[pastrychef]

what did you use to stress test it?

Directions for the stress test I used can be found at: Stress Test a Mac by Maxing Out CPU

I ran "yes" 8 times. One for each thread.

 

[andwhy81]

Directions for the stress test I used can be found at: Stress Test a Mac by Maxing Out CPU

I ran "yes" 8 times. One for each thread.

yep this is what i did but only 4, i was thinking for 4 cores, not threads; i7 should hit 8, ill try that later today.

Edit: I ran it with 8 threads for about 20 mins, Temp topped out at 130F.

 

[itwas]

Thanks to everyone in this thread for helping me and i just wanted to tell everyone my experience with the 8300 SFF i got:
Upgraded to the i7-3770 from ebay for $150
Upgraded the CPU fan to the Noctua 92mm and wow is it quiet.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00RUZ059O/?tag=tonymacx86com-20
New thermal paste applied.

1. I played a few 4k demo files i had expecting them to play smoother than my previous rig, there was still a lot of stuttering and buffering with VLC but Plex locally seemed OKish but took a while to buffer. This may be i went from an older Nvidia 9600 GT to the HD4000.

HD4000 do not has the hardware decoder (HEVC / H.265) for 4K video. Don't expect it can play 4K smoothly. You may try mpv player. If you want to play 4K efficiently, macOS High Sierra and Core gen 6th, 7th, 8th CPU is required.

What You Need to Know About HEVC Video in macOS High Sierra and iOS 11
https://www.macrumors.com/guide/hevc-video-macos-high-sierra-ios-11/

 

[cripstak]

It should be a high Sierra Unibeast installer. If you have another SSD or HDD available you could install Sierra on that and then make a new High Sierra installer.

forgive me, but I can not understand what you mean

 

[cripstak]

are you telling me to make a usb with high sierra and to reinstall? but is not that risk of erasing everything?