pastrychef's testing machine - HP Elite 8300 SFF - i7-3770 - GT 630

[pastrychef]

When you run MultiBeast, be sure to point it to your boot drive.

When I say "Mount EFI", I mean the EFI partition of your boot drive.

You can use the .sh file in Terminal to install the HDMIAudio-1.1.dmg kext or you can use one of the many kext installers such as KextBeast.

Do not get the GT 610, it stopped working with macOS Sierra. I do not know about the Quadro or ATI/AMD cards, I've never really looked in to using them. I believe some versions of GT 730 have issues with macOS.

You can take your time with your GPU search. HD4000 should work fine for now.

 

[timskrastins]

Edit: I couldn't snag that GTX750 Used. Now, there're QuadroFX 4500, Radeon HD 5770 and ATI FireGL 7200 used going for $10 each.

Also, GT 730 new off Amazon. Is there a difference between 64bit, and 128bit versions?
How's the GT 610, P400, or should I stick with HD4000?

Awesome congrats on getting it going. Yeah 30 boots sounds about right for me...I learn a little each time. Soon I'll be able to spell 'kext' ... hahah.

My i7 950 system has the Radeon 5770 in it and it's great however they recommend a 450W power supply for that + 6pin connector which you will not have in your HP8300 CMT so probably not the right card for you there.
http://www.amd.com/en-us/products/graphics/desktop/5000/5770

Right now I'm using HD4000 graphics -- which work right out of the box (no Multibeast selections or kexts needed) when I fresh-install Sierra 10.12.5. (I have a post a few pages back on how I got it to work with El Capitan).

I'm interested in dual monitors -- mostly Photoshop & Lightroom so not much graphics power needed, not sure what I'll upgrade to. Might grab the GTX 1050 just for future-proofing.

EDIT: Amazon has the MSI GTX 1050 for $100, free Prime shipping and then a $20 rebate for $80 net price
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01M67EF75/?tag=tonymacx86com-20

 

[phrozenpenguin]

Yes. You are right. I'll make the edit today.

Could you explain what this does and why it is required? I followed your guide and USB ports seem to be working although I am having issues pulling files from an encrypted USB disk. It opens ok after the password is entered, but accessing data for >5 minutes and the drive ejects without being asked to. I will try this and see if it helps, but at the moment don't understand what it is doing (and that same USB port and cable works fine with an unencrypted drive).

 

[RuleBreaker01]

I setup my 8300 SFF as a home server. loaded it up with two large hard-drives, Nvidia GT-610 and an SSD boot drive. I install the default Win-8-Pro it came with and formatted the shared storage drives in ExFAT so that I could use them with both OSX and MS-Windows.

I took out the original Intel-i5 CPU and replaced it with an Intel-G630 ( Works fine for a home server ).
reduced the ram from 8gb to 4gb.

I hardly ever use it and it is just a server so I thought I could get better use of the i5 CPU and ram in a Desktop computer.

Energy consumption should be about $5 per year. As I hardly use it and it sleeps when not in use.

I use my Mac with MS-Remote desktop to administer the 8300.

Geekbench score
singlecore = 2271
multicore = 2909

About the same as an Intel core-2-duo 8400

 

[pastrychef]

Could you explain what this does and why it is required? I followed your guide and USB ports seem to be working although I am having issues pulling files from an encrypted USB disk. It opens ok after the password is entered, but accessing data for >5 minutes and the drive ejects without being asked to. I will try this and see if it helps, but at the moment don't understand what it is doing (and that same USB port and cable works fine with an unencrypted drive).

Sorry for the slow reply. I'm out of town at the moment...

I use the patches to rename devices to what macOS expects. In some cases. The renames may not make any noticeable difference at first, but I prefer to try and make the system as compatible with macOS as possible and this goes down that path.

 

[PBL]

I tried unplugging some fans and it is clear that both the PSU fan and the front intake/CPU fan are making some noise. I was also surprised that the standard 500GB HDD was clearly audible once the fans were gone, but it will be replaced by an SSD.

So that leaves the fans. Both the PSU fan and front fan are standard 92x92x25 and can be replaced, so I will try my luck with two Noctuas and report back here.

Have you ever replaced a PSU fan before ? There is some risk of electrical shock when you open one up.

The HP power supplies are so inexpensive on Ebay I would buy a new/unused one and the stock fan should be much quieter.

Here's an example.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-HP-Powe...277013?hash=item4b08ce2d95:g:6SYAAOSwXYtYyaoI

I managed to change the fans. Noctua was in backorder, so I went with Arctic PVM 92mm fans. Seems to be working fine, and the fans themselves are virtually silent now. The airflow can still be heard though.

In the pursuit of less noise, I have also opted to use a GT 1030 fanless instead of a GTX 1050. It is working fine with the Pascal drivers.

10.12.4 is installed, graphics and sleep is working, so I am off to migrating my data, fix the audio and get a compatible wifi/bt-module.

Thanks for the help so far!

 

[TheFhd]

It took me a week to get everything set up, had to do additional 20 boots to get RAID0 set up. Nonetheless, It seems I'm all set for now. Except for the system profile, I choose iMac 13,2 using MultiBeast; however, it does not show up in "About this Mac" is it just cosmetics? or does really matter? It did show up with the same process on a previous boot.

I've placed the ssdt.aml file, and ran clover config with patches mentioned.
The Ethernet doesn't work, although it worked on a previous boot, before adding RAID 0. My wifi card should arrive soon anyway.

I'm glad I went with this "easy" set up, I probably would've not managed to build something more complicated.

My final set up:

Intel Core [email protected]
500GB Samsung EVO x2 RAID0
1TB HDD
24GB Ram
Gigabyte Radeon RX460

Thanks everyone for the support!

Awesome congrats on getting it going. Yeah 30 boots sounds about right for me...I learn a little each time. Soon I'll be able to spell 'kext' ... hahah.

My i7 950 system has the Radeon 5770 in it and it's great however they recommend a 450W power supply for that + 6pin connector which you will not have in your HP8300 CMT so probably not the right card for you there.
http://www.amd.com/en-us/products/graphics/desktop/5000/5770

Right now I'm using HD4000 graphics -- which work right out of the box (no Multibeast selections or kexts needed) when I fresh-install Sierra 10.12.5. (I have a post a few pages back on how I got it to work with El Capitan).

I'm interested in dual monitors -- mostly Photoshop & Lightroom so not much graphics power needed, not sure what I'll upgrade to. Might grab the GTX 1050 just for future-proofing.

EDIT: Amazon has the MSI GTX 1050 for $100, free Prime shipping and then a $20 rebate for $80 net price
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01M67EF75/?tag=tonymacx86com-20

Yeah, it's not my cup of tea, but we'll manage.

I ended up purchasing RX460, because of their so claimed performance with FCPX, and no additional powering needed. Gigabyte version worked OOB! I got it off Newegg for $100 OTD, before $20 rebate that ends on 5/31.

I'll be using for editing too. Glad things worked out for you as well.

 

[trs96]

I ended up purchasing RX460, because of their so claimed performance with FCPX, and no additional powering needed. Gigabyte version worked OOB! I got it off Newegg for $100 OTD, before $20 rebate that ends on 5/31.

Did you get the 2GB or the 4GB version ? The former is selling for 70 AR right now at Newegg.com The 4GB will be much better for gaming and editing but for general use the 2GB version would suffice. Not much more than a 2GB GT 710 costs.

 

[TheFhd]

Did you get the 2GB or the 4GB version ? The former is selling for 70 AR right now at Newegg.com The 4GB will be much better for gaming and editing but for general use the 2GB version would suffice. Not much more than a 2GB GT 710 costs.


View attachment 257827

I did get exactly that, 2GB. My total came to about $98 before $20 Rebate.

I probably should've got the 4GB version; however, I wasn't sure about its compatibility (RX460, not the VRAM), and that is not on rebate factored into my decision choosing the 2GB.

I guess it'll do for now.

 

[karoli9]

Hey Guys,

I finally bought an Elite 8300 SFF with i3-3220 CPU, 4 gigs of RAM and 500GB HDD for 103.20 GBP with shipping. Does the GPU have to be single slot or not. I know it has to be low profile, but 1050 or RX 460 GPUs in my country are dual slots and low profile or single slots and normal profile types. In the official maintenance and service guide I can see, there is a lot of space for the dual bracket. Does anyone tried this configuration (no, I don't want to buy a CMT or MT )?

Thanks in advance.