Transfering a Prebuilt HP into a regular case

[Nvidiaguy07]

Anyone did this before?

Built a friend a budget computer. Found an HP Elite 8300 SFF on ebay for 70 bucks with 8GB of Ram and an i5-3470. Put in an SSD and this thing flies. Right now were just using a crappy gt-710 for video, but if this were a full size case I could get a bigger card like the 1050ti or something like that.

Anyone have any experience transferring from a proprietary prebuilt into a regular case?

I anticipate some problems with:
- motherboard holes (can be drilled)
- power supply (might not fit - I have an extra full size - but will that even work with it?
- getting the i/o ports to line up with my case

Might need to do some weird hacking up of the case to get it to work, but I think its possible.

Anyone here have any experience with this?

 

[Burpo]

Good luck with that one. To begin with it uses a BTX motherboard so everything is backwards, expansion slots, I/O, everything is opposite of an ATX case. Then there's the power supply issue, which can be overcome with adapters, but I'd say it's a NO GO to try & use a standard case.

http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2782604/compaq-elite-8300-sff-case-swap.html

https://forums.anandtech.com/thread...hp-into-a-regular-case.2541332/#post-39358277

 

[UsandThem]

I just put a mATX HP 3rd gen Intel i3 system into a Fractal Design case a few weeks back. The power supply and front panel connections were all standard, as well as the motherboard. The only thing that wasn't was the fan connection for the exhaust fan. I've tried two different fans on it, and while the fans work, anytime I do a cold boot I get a warning message that no rear fan was detected. However, I just have to hit F1 to accept and continue to boot.

However, depending on your system, it could be proprietary and more work. I've never really played with any of their SFF systems before.

 

[Nvidiaguy07]

Good luck with that one. To begin with it uses a BTX motherboard so everything is backwards, expansion slots, I/O, everything is opposite of an ATX case. Then there's the power supply issue, which can be overcome with adapters, but I'd say it's a NO GO to try & use a standard case.

http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2782604/compaq-elite-8300-sff-case-swap.html

https://forums.anandtech.com/thread...hp-into-a-regular-case.2541332/#post-39358277

Wow not sure how I didnt notice that the motherboard is BTX. I have 2 SFF HPs, one is oriented normally, but the one I mentioned in the OP is BTX like you said.

Maybe I should consider a used motherboard from ebay? Ive seen ones pulled from old dells for around 20 bucks - im guessing theres not much difference between that and the one in the HP.

We also have another old HP that we were considering using, and that actually has a standard atx motherboard inside - but its got an E5500 in it, which is half the speed and half the cores of the i5 3470 in the one were currently using, so thats a big hit.

I just put a mATX HP 3rd gen Intel i3 system into a Fractal Design case a few weeks back. The power supply and front panel connections were all standard, as well as the motherboard. The only thing that wasn't was the fan connection for the exhaust fan. I've tried two different fans on it, and while the fans work, anytime I do a cold boot I get a warning message that no rear fan was detected. However, I just have to hit F1 to accept and continue to boot.

However, depending on your system, it could be proprietary and more work. I've never really played with any of their SFF systems before.

Yea I think the BTX is the biggest problem here like the person above said.

 

[hoorah]

Wow not sure how I didnt notice that the motherboard is BTX. I have 2 SFF HPs, one is oriented normally, but the one I mentioned in the OP is BTX like you said.
Maybe I should consider a used motherboard from ebay? Ive seen ones pulled from old dells for around 20 bucks - im guessing theres not much difference between that and the one in the HP.
We also have another old HP that we were considering using, and that actually has a standard atx motherboard inside - but its got an E5500 in it, which is half the speed and half the cores of the i5 3470 in the one were currently using, so thats a big hit.

I've swapped OEM systems into standard cases before, and the answer usually is 'you just have to try it'. Sometimes the PSU doesn't clear, sometimes the cables don't reach with the new PSU mounting, sometimes (although very rarely anymore) the motherboard holes don't line up. Sometimes it works just fine. That said, I've never swapped a BTX system before, so you're likely out of luck there.

As for a replacement motherboard, thats an option. As an added bonus, if you went with a non-OEM board, you'd be able to overclock as well.

So now at this point, you've changed the case, motherboard, hard drive, and added a GPU. You basically built a custom system except for the CPU. Put all the old components back together, put a cheap celeron or pentium chip in the HP elite case, sell the whole system and recover some of your investment.

As one more option, I built my son a system from a SFF dell optiplex and put a low profile 1050ti in there. If I wanted to go to a full size GPU, I'd have to go down your path of getting into a full size case, but since the 1050ti cut it and I was able to find a low profile version, it saved me a LOT of effort.