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

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@HackaShaq You should remove that AMD graphics card from the MXM slot. Those draw a good amount of power even at idle. Great to see the adapter works for your mechanical 2.5" drive.
JW8UraU.jpg


Great suggestion, and I know phrozenpenguin suggested this as well. I'm new to this motherboard and MXM slots, etc. So it took me a sec to figure out how to remove it. (Just remove the two screws that screw into the motherboard and it just pops right out.)

So here's the setup with the AMD graphics card removed. Again, works like a charm, and big thanks again to phrozenpenguin for that adapter suggestion, and to you trs96 for creating this fantastic thread in the first place. Such a great resource. Awesome.
 
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This is something that I don't personally recommend anyone do with their 8300 USDT, but there may be someone out there with the USDT that wants to game with their 8300 mini pc. I just discovered today that you can run an external AMD or Nvidia GPU (macOS compatible) from the mini PCI-e slot. Gaming with HD4000 graphics is very limited at best.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/GDC-Beast-...775381&hash=item2f17fabde5:g:l~QAAOSwbgpar49v

I've seen one Youtuber (modstek) modify his 8300 USDT (AMD version) and use an external GTX 1050 via the mini PCI-e slot. He probably used a much more powerful external power brick than what HP sells for the 8300. It looks like a proprietary 220W Dell branded power brick with an 8 pin power connector. Dell power brick on Ebay This powers just the graphics card. If you look closely he's using another external power brick that powers the motherboard and CPU. He doesn't mention that in the video.

Screen_Shot_7.jpg
Again, if you want to game the easiest way is to just buy the 6300/8300 SFF or CMT instead. The PSU in those can handle a 1050 Ti or RX560 quite easily. The PSU and graphics card are internal and the built in cooling is much better too. That being said, you could do the following mod and use this as a portable X-box like gaming system. It's not a very elegant solution and by the time you buy all the extra adapters it will cost about the same or more than one of the SFF HP desktops.

 
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Great suggestion, and I know phrozenpenguin suggested this as well. I'm new to this motherboard and MXM slots, etc. So it took me a sec to figure out how to remove it. (Just remove the two screws that screw into the motherboard and it just pops right out.)

So here's the setup with the AMD graphics card removed. Again, works like a charm, and big thanks again to phrozenpenguin for that adapter suggestion, and to you trs96 for creating this fantastic thread in the first place. Such a great resource. Awesome.
I'm pretty sure you can sell that AMD graphics card you removed and get a fair amount of money for it on Ebay. Would help recoup some of the cost of your 8300.
 
Has anyone tried using the eSATA port on the motherboard? I couldn't find anything in the HP documentation specifying whether it is SATA 2.0 or 3.0. It also doesn't show up in my system report, but that may be because nothing is plugged in to it.
 
This is something that I don't personally recommend anyone do with their 8300 USDT, but there may be someone out there with the USDT that wants to game with their 8300 mini pc. I just discovered today that you can run an external AMD or Nvidia GPU (macOS compatible) from the mini PCI-e slot. Gaming with HD4000 graphics is very limited at best.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/GDC-Beast-...775381&hash=item2f17fabde5:g:l~QAAOSwbgpar49v

I've seen one Youtuber (modstek) modify his 8300 USDT (AMD version) and use an external GTX 1050 via the mini PCI-e slot. He probably used a much more powerful external power brick than what HP sells for the 8300. It looks like a proprietary 220W Dell branded power brick with an 8 pin power connector. Dell power brick on Ebay This powers just the graphics card. If you look closely he's using another external power brick that powers the motherboard and CPU. He doesn't mention that in the video.

Again, if you want to game the easiest way is to just buy the 6300/8300 SFF or CMT instead. The PSU in those can handle a 1050 Ti or RX560 quite easily. The PSU and graphics card are internal and the built in cooling is much better too. That being said, you could do the following mod and use this as a portable X-box like gaming system. It's not a very elegant solution and by the time you buy all the extra adapters it will cost about the same or more than one of the SFF HP desktops.

Posts like this are exactly what I love, actually. Not should it be done, but can it be done, and people sho go out there and use some creative setup to make it work. Great info.

This is actually my second HP 8300 CustoMac that I've built (thanks to your help and your guide), and my other machine is the SFF. So as you said, it would be much easier to just use my SFF, but I love learning this type of stuff just to know if it can't be done on the Ultra Slim. Thanks for sharing this great info.
 
phrozenpenguin, just wanted to follow up on this and give you a HUGE thank you for the heads up about that adapter.
It works like a charm! Thank you, thank you, thank you!
No worries, I've got a lot out of these forums so glad I could give something back :)
Thanks for reporting back and enjoy your 8300!
 
Switching back to my Small Form Factor HP 8300 Elite for a moment, I'm also happy to report that the Firewire card I installed worked right out of the box. No edits needed in clover, no system tweaks, just true plug-n-play. I've seen reports of conflicts and oddities with certain firewire cards and some motherboards, but this install was smooth as silk.

Popped it into the PCI-x slot on my HP 8300 Elite SFF:

2yfgNTt.jpg


It already came with the low profile bracket attached, but an optional standard bracket is also included.

Just in case anyone else wants to add Firewire to their HP 8300 Hackintosh, I got the 3 port version of this exact card:

Syba Low Profile PCI-Express 1394b/1394a (2B1A) Card, TI Chipset, Extra Regular Bracket SD-PEX30009




On that page, there's a 2-port version and the 3-port version. I got the 3-port version.

Works great and I connected my laptop, then booted my laptop into the FireWire disk mode and it mounted right up on the desktop. (This is why I want Firewire for seamless integration with firewire disk mode with my laptop and some older computers.)


End result is this in the back:

kpVWrKG.jpg


I'm not sure why I post photos of the install, but I'm a super visual person, and these types of photos always help me when I see them elsewhere, so I'm carrying on the tradition in case this helps anyone else. And As always, thanks to everyone and especially trs96 for this guide.

4k Video card for my SFF is up next. :)
 
@HackaShaq thanks for the update and the photos are good. What do you do for wifi / bluetooth? Thats the slot I have used for a card in my tower version. I was using wired ethernet and USB bluetooth but then wanted handoff..
 
Hey guys, I made sure to go back several pages to see if this question had already been addressed so please forgive me if it has and I just didn't go back far enough.

Has anyone successfully updated to 10.13.4? If so, what challenges did you face on your machine that you needed to overcome, if any?

My machine:
HP 8300 full size tower
i7-3770
HD4000
Kingston 250GB SSD
 
Hey guys, I made sure to go back several pages to see if this question had already been addressed so please forgive me if it has and I just didn't go back far enough.

Has anyone successfully updated to 10.13.4? If so, what challenges did you face on your machine that you needed to overcome, if any?

My machine:
HP 8300 full size tower
i7-3770
HD4000
Kingston 250GB SSD

The only problems I've seen are with the latest Nvidia drivers not working well, mostly with Haswell or newer systems. I'm using GTX 1050 with my HP 6300 and don't have any problems with them so far. Since you are using HD4000 it should be routine.
 
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