Recently dug up an old HP desktop out of storage, as my main PC has been blowing chunks for quite a while now. It had a Phenom 9150e running at 1.8GHz (Yikes.), 4GB of RAM, and a 500GB 7200rpm HDD. The previous owner seemed to have used this as a VNC server, since it had VNC login details taped up on the top of the case. Hell, it even had a printed XP Pro COA on the side panel. Talk about err... piracy? Eh, who pays for Windows anyway...
So I went to test it. It didn't turn on. To my (un)surprise, it had a dead power supply. A Bestec 300W, to be exact. Of course it was dead, Bestec is not like what it says on the tin.
Next thing I did was CLEAN. IT. Dear god, this thing looked like it had been through several competitive Roblox sessions err, intervals of running 24/7. Seeing as how no one really wants to take their time to clean up their computer, I wasn't that surprised. I replaced that god awful Bestec (more like worstec, heh heh heh..) with a 400W Dynex unit I had around. Seems to be a similar one to what was in my grandparents' family desktop and I knew that it was going to be a good PSU. I went and washed each part of the front panel, and wiped down every surface of the case that I readily could.
Now this is where it gets fun. I thought "How could I make this suck LESS?" A 9150e would be a horrid daily driver chip, even with a lightweight linux distribution with all of my stuff installed. Once I got everything cleaned, I set out to reassemble the system. I replaced the existing drives with a couple of 2TB drives from the post I wrote nearly last week along with a 500GB SSD from my main system, I slotted in a GTX 750 Ti (My 1080 wouldn't fit, and it would be rather impractical anyway. I just need the interim PC to get shit done), and I tried an Athlon II X4 620. Results are in, and...
AMD Processor model unknown. Updated to 5.29 aaaand...AMD Processor model unknown.
It would run fine, but I felt as if the system wouldn't take full advantage of the chip. I stumbled across an old post from bios-mods.com, and they had a BIOS image for this board that supported pretty much any AM2/AM2+/AM3 chip you could think of. So I flashed it.
AMD Pro-I mean, AMD Athlon II X4 620.And it felt faster. But then I thought, "What if I dropped in my Phenom II X4 955?" Yes, the board is really only designed to support up to 95W chips. But seeing as I like taking risks, I didn't give 2 fucks about it, and gave it a shot.
AMD Phenom II X4 955. This computer is flying now and I am typing from it. I went from a 1.8GHz Agena chip to a 3.2GHz Deneb chip. I never thought I was able to upgrade a system that CNET called "slow" when it came out in 2008 to a system that would have felt butter smooth, even in today's world. I tested a Vista install for fun on this computer before I flashed a new BIOS, and when I did flash the BIOS, it felt a lot faster when I had the Athlon II installed. I wish HP would have tried to take more advantage of these toaster desktops, as a lot of them end up getting thrown out, and one of the reasons would be the upgrade path not being too expansive. I know one system that shipped with an Athlon 64 X2 4200+ in 2008 could only be taken up to a 4800+, yikes. It's unlikely that HP would ever want to update a 13-15 year old system here in 2021, but if they did it earlier, these would have lasted a long time, even with the slowdowns that Meltdown and Spectre have brought to the table a few years back.
As for drivers, these computers only really got them for Vista. Yes, it is possible to install Windows 7/8.1/10 on these computers, but I feel as if HP didn't really care. They also don't host drivers for their systems that are 10 years or older. Compared to Dell, I can still find drivers for my 21 year old CPi. I felt as if HP didn't care about giving any more support for these systems past what they shipped with. I can kinda see why, but it just does not make sense. I'm grateful for the community who finds ways to make these systems work so much better than intended, especially bios-mods.com. Lots of mods have been taken off the face of the earth, leaving few hobbyists to just give up on their projects. I can still find attachments on bios-mods pretty easily. However, it seems as though you will need to sign up before downloading anything. I'll put a link to the BIOS, which is really just a BIOS for an ECS nForce board.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/7ixhtmhb5ivu30s/61M27604.bin?dl=0To install it, you need to have a Nettle3 board (MCP61PM-HM REVISION 2.1/2.2) and a Linux live CD (I used Xubuntu 20.10). You also need to have a flash drive formatted as FAT32 and the image you downloaded.
-Open a terminal and install flashrom: sudo apt-get install flashrom
-Go into the directory of your flash drive: cd /media/yourname/XXXX-XXXX/
-Back up your original BIOS image in case shit goes wrong: sudo flashrom --programmer internal -r bios.bak
-Flash the new BIOS image: sudo flashrom --programmer internal -f -w 61M27604.bin
-Enjoy freedom.
Update 1/12/2021: System still works great, although I did have to replace the PSU (fan went bad) and the rear case fan. I also upgraded the 750Ti to a 1050Ti I had around. System is still solid and I am currently running Windows 7 at the moment, although I am thinking of putting Xubuntu Linux or Windows 8.1/10 on here at some point.
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