The highly rated HP Pavilion Slimline PC thread

Wade88 said:
Cut that blower off and anything past 2 slots and install a waterblock, problem solved.
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Water block to reservoir and radiator .... where? I guess you're probably talking something completely external in most situations. Maybe better to look to Thunderbolt and an external GPU at that point??
 
cjcox said:
Water block to reservoir and radiator .... where? I guess you're probably talking something completely external in most situations. Maybe better to look to Thunderbolt and an external GPU at that point??
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If you have a 42u rack already and it's not full why not put the reservoir, pump, and radiator in it below the rest of your [H]oard? They make air conditioned water radiator things too. I thought for many years that I'd never get a free 42u rack like I'd seen people get repeatedly here due to living in Arkansas but thanks to idiots trusting the cloud 3 miles down the street one day last year some dude advertised it for free and 10 minutes before the left to take it to the dump I showed up with 2 of my friends and a comealong and we loaded it up and carted it down into the basement. Since then I've been gleefully filling it up with things.
 
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RTX 4060 low profile just released. I think it's a bit to large for this case if you still want to keep the pocket drive bay though.
 
Hello Slimline enthusiasts, I have just finished a major overhaul of my 2009 chassis. For those wondering, the RTX 4060 does fit with the pocket drive bay, and LGA 1700 motherboards will work with large CPU coolers and the 5.25 bay filled. Clearance is mere millimeters for everything.

Here are the specs:
  • ASRock B660m ITX/AC
  • Intel Core i3 13100f
  • Gigabyte RTX 4060 LP
  • 32Gb of DDR4 3600mhz CL18
  • 500Gb Gen4 NVMe SSD (boot)
  • 1Tb 2.5" SATA SSD (games)
  • LG Blu Ray 4k drive
  • Thermalright AXP120-67 with slim ARGB fan
  • Silverstone FX-350g with Sunon MagLev fan mod
  • Windows 11 Pro

And here is a pic:

Inside.jpg
 
dogDAbone said:
scrunch, scrunch, sizzle, sizzle, poof poof...

been there, done that, neva again !

get ready....

you're welcome :D
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Haha, you're half right, I'll admit.

Stock airflow in this case is, well... there isn't any airflow. I've done some mods to help this and I'll explain below.

HP did do a decent job putting ventilation holes around the GPU on the bottom of the case and the side, but the stock case feet are arranged such that the front of the case is tilted up, and the back of the case (near the GPU ports) is basically touching the desk surface, blocking the vents. I've added 0.5" case feet at all 4 corners to alleviate this and allow the GPU fans to pull cool air into the chassis from underneath. I've also cut a hole and mounted an 80mm fan on the side of the case using a plain black Silverstone fan grille, directly over the GPU core, to suck hot air out of the GPU heatsink and remove it from the case.

Here's a photo of the side panel mod with the fan and case feet. My goal was to do as little as I could aesthetically, to maintain as much of the original design as possible, keeping with the "sleeper" motif:

IMG_3366.jpg


And here's some temperature logging under load with the new mods. Ultimately the configuration I've gone with has the 80mm fan set to exhaust, which yields load temperatures commensurate with running the case totally open open (side panel removed).

Screenshot 2024-04-27 215805.png
 
jamesman32 said:
Haha, you're half right, I'll admit.

Stock airflow in this case is, well... there isn't any airflow. I've done some mods to help this and I'll explain below.

HP did do a decent job putting ventilation holes around the GPU on the bottom of the case and the side, but the stock case feet are arranged such that the front of the case is tilted up, and the back of the case (near the GPU ports) is basically touching the desk surface, blocking the vents. I've added 0.5" case feet at all 4 corners to alleviate this and allow the GPU fans to pull cool air into the chassis from underneath. I've also cut a hole and mounted an 80mm fan on the side of the case using a plain black Silverstone fan grille, directly over the GPU core, to suck hot air out of the GPU heatsink and remove it from the case.

Here's a photo of the side panel mod with the fan and case feet. My goal was to do as little as I could aesthetically, to maintain as much of the original design as possible, keeping with the "sleeper" motif:

View attachment 650520

And here's some temperature logging under load with the new mods. Ultimately the configuration I've gone with has the 80mm fan set to exhaust, which yields load temperatures commensurate with running the case totally open open (side panel removed).
Click to expand...

Yea, I've some of the same types of mods over the years to some D(h)ells, HP's and even some older Compcraqs too, and it helped some but the temps were never really was as good as they should have been :)

Looks like you did a nice job on yours, so congrats !
 
Another update from me here. Now that I've got airflow and temperatures mostly figured out, I wanted to find a way to reduce noise. I was running the 80mm exhaust fan at 100% which was around 2200rpm and while it wasn't exactly loud (I measured about 37 dB from my seating position), it was a little annoying at idle when not gaming. My motherboard will allow me to set the accessory fan curve based on CPU temperature, but that really doesn't track the way I want with GPU temperature under load. So, I've set a custom curve that ramps up appropriately during gaming load, but to achieve this I needed a little more ventilation and an undervolt on the GPU.

I used a 3/8" drill bit to open an 8" long section of vents below the GPU's 3 fans, which isn't seen when the case is turned upright for normal operation. It's a little hack-y but since nobody will ever see it, I don't really mind. I also removed the mesh filter from inside the 80mm fan grill since the fan is set to exhaust and this only serves to block airflow, not prevent dust from entering the case.

unnamed.jpg


Next I booted up MSI Afterburner and was able to achieve a game-stable undervolt to 0.970v (down from 1.070v max) on a core clock of 2750mhz. This tracks with what I've seen other RTX 4060 LP users achieving. This achieved a significant temperature reduction with the exhaust fan running 100% which gave me good headroom to reduce operating RPM while staying comfortably below thermal throttling temperatures.

1714499697386.png


And finally, I purchased a $6 Thermalright NVMe heatsink and installed it, since the backside of the GPU is so close to the NVMe and tends to heat it up significantly during gaming:

1714499800522.png


The result is a 4c reduction in NVMe temperature, 6-7c reduction in GPU peak temperatures (at full fan speed), and a few extra dB of noise reduction (under fan curve use). I've also been able to set locked speeds on the CPU and case fan to prevent the annoying "ramping" noise as the fan curve chases changes in core temperatures. For now I'm using 1200rpm (40%) on the CPU fan and 2000rpm (80%) on the case. This keeps things about equal in terms of dB with the PSU fan and the GPU fans.
 
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