HP EliteDesk 705 G4 DM 35W
Overview
From all the "Desktop Mini PCs" and "Tiny Computers" this one had to land by me :-) This (again) a flea market find that somehow landed in box of "other electronics" (probably mistaken for a digital tv box or something similar) and had a very low price tag. On the other hand this is (again) one of the sad stories where capable (and in this case modern and new) hardware are rendered obsolete: the CPU on this machine was "thrown out" in the last iterations from the Windows 11 support list :-( But let's see what we have here!
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Hardware
Specifications
| Processor | |
| Type | AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 2400GE (3.7 GHz, 6MB, 65W, 4x Core / 4x Threads) |
| Storage | |
| M.2 | M.2 PCIe x2 2280/2230 Combo Slot for NMVe Solid State Drives |
| SATA | via special caddy and proprietary connector (data and power) |
| Memory | |
| RAM | DDR4-2666 (Transfer rates up to 2666 MT/s), Max 32 GB (total), 2x SODIMM1 |
| Video | |
| Chip | Radeon RX Vega 11 |
| Ports | |
| Video | 2x DisplayPort 1.2 |
| USB | USB 3.1 Gen 1: 2 front; 4 rear / USB 3.0 Type-C: 1 front; 1 rear (option) |
| Serial | 1 rear (option) |
| Audio | 1 Headset (front), Universal Audio Jack with CTIA headset support (front) |
| Connectivity | |
| LAN | Realtek® RTL8111EPH (standard) RJ45 |
| WLAN | M.2 PCIe x1 2230 and antennas pre-built in (look for them between the case and the mainboard close to the M.2 slot...) |
| Power | |
| Power | 19.5V 3.33A |
| Plug | Coax male 7.4mm/5.0mm + centre pin |
| Off | 0.76 W |
| Sleep | 0.82 W |
| Idle | ~11 W |
| Dimensions | |
| WxDxH (mm) | 177 x 175 x 34.2 |
| Weight | 1.265 kg |
Disassembly
Disassembly Overview
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Power Supply
This is a standard HP power supply (I think I saw similar plug barrels also by the older Dells...) and my device runs very happy with a 65W one. 90W and 150W are also listed as compatible mainly for the units with a discreet GPU upgrade.
CPU
The HP EliteDesk 705 G4 DM that I have sports an AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 2400GE CPU/APU with 4 Cores and 4 Threads. This works at 3.2Ghz going up to 3.8GHz in Turbo Speed and has a TDP of 35W.
Architecture: x86_64
CPU op-mode(s): 32-bit, 64-bit
Address sizes: 43 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
Byte Order: Little Endian
CPU(s): 8
On-line CPU(s) list: 0-7
Vendor ID: AuthenticAMD
BIOS Vendor ID: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
Model name: AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 2400GE w/ Radeon Vega Graphics
BIOS Model name: AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 2400GE w/ Radeon Vega Graphics Unknown CPU @ 3.2GHz
BIOS CPU family: 107
CPU family: 23
Model: 17
Thread(s) per core: 2
Core(s) per socket: 4
Socket(s): 1
Stepping: 0
Frequency boost: enabled
CPU(s) scaling MHz: 56%
CPU max MHz: 3200.0000
CPU min MHz: 1600.0000
BogoMIPS: 6388.40
Flags: fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 ht syscall nx mmxext fxsr_opt pdpe1gb rdtscp lm constant_tsc rep_good nopl nonstop_tsc cpuid extd_apicid aperfmperf rapl pni pclmulqdq monitor ssse3 fma cx16 sse4_1 sse4_2 movbe popcnt aes xsave avx f16c rdrand lahf_lm cmp_legacy svm extapic cr8_legacy abm sse4a misalignsse 3dnowprefetch osvw skinit wdt tce topoext perfctr_core perfctr_nb bpext perfctr_llc mwaitx cpb hw_pstate ssbd ibpb vmmcall fsgsbase bmi1 avx2 smep bmi2 rdseed adx smap clflushopt sha_ni xsaveopt xsavec xgetbv1 clzero irperf xsaveerptr arat npt lbrv svm_lock nrip_save tsc_scale vmcb_clean flushbyasid decodeassists pausefilter pfthreshold avic v_vmsave_vmload vgif overflow_recov succor smca sev sev_es
Virtualization: AMD-V
L1d cache: 128 KiB (4 instances)
L1i cache: 256 KiB (4 instances)
L2 cache: 2 MiB (4 instances)
L3 cache: 4 MiB (1 instance)
NUMA node(s): 1
NUMA node0 CPU(s): 0-7
Vulnerability Gather data sampling: Not affected
Vulnerability Itlb multihit: Not affected
Vulnerability L1tf: Not affected
Vulnerability Mds: Not affected
Vulnerability Meltdown: Not affected
Vulnerability Mmio stale data: Not affected
Vulnerability Reg file data sampling: Not affected
Vulnerability Retbleed: Mitigation; untrained return thunk; SMT vulnerable
Vulnerability Spec rstack overflow: Mitigation; safe RET
Vulnerability Spec store bypass: Mitigation; Speculative Store Bypass disabled via prctl
Vulnerability Spectre v1: Mitigation; usercopy/swapgs barriers and __user pointer sanitization
Vulnerability Spectre v2: Mitigation; Retpolines; IBPB conditional; STIBP disabled; RSB filling; PBRSB-eIBRS Not affected; BHI Not affected
Vulnerability Srbds: Not affected
Vulnerability Tsx async abort: Not affectedThe Linux lspci reports
00:00.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Raven/Raven2 Root Complex
00:00.2 IOMMU: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Raven/Raven2 IOMMU
00:01.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-1fh) PCIe Dummy Host Bridge
00:01.2 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Raven/Raven2 PCIe GPP Bridge [6:0]
00:01.6 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Raven/Raven2 PCIe GPP Bridge [6:0]
00:08.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-1fh) PCIe Dummy Host Bridge
00:08.1 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Raven/Raven2 Internal PCIe GPP Bridge 0 to Bus A
00:08.2 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Raven/Raven2 Internal PCIe GPP Bridge 0 to Bus B
00:14.0 SMBus: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] FCH SMBus Controller (rev 61)
00:14.3 ISA bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] FCH LPC Bridge (rev 51)
00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Raven/Raven2 Device 24: Function 0
00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Raven/Raven2 Device 24: Function 1
00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Raven/Raven2 Device 24: Function 2
00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Raven/Raven2 Device 24: Function 3
00:18.4 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Raven/Raven2 Device 24: Function 4
00:18.5 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Raven/Raven2 Device 24: Function 5
00:18.6 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Raven/Raven2 Device 24: Function 6
00:18.7 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Raven/Raven2 Device 24: Function 7
01:00.0 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] 300 Series Chipset USB 3.1 xHCI Controller (rev 02)
01:00.1 SATA controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] 300 Series Chipset SATA Controller (rev 02)
01:00.2 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Device 43b2 (rev 02)
02:00.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] 300 Series Chipset PCIe Port (rev 02)
02:01.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] 300 Series Chipset PCIe Port (rev 02)
02:04.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] 300 Series Chipset PCIe Port (rev 02)
02:05.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] 300 Series Chipset PCIe Port (rev 02)
02:06.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] 300 Series Chipset PCIe Port (rev 02)
02:07.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] 300 Series Chipset PCIe Port (rev 02)
05:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 0e)
05:00.1 Serial controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111xP UART #1 (rev 0e)
05:00.2 Serial controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111xP UART #2 (rev 0e)
05:00.3 IPMI Interface: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111xP IPMI interface (rev 0e)
05:00.4 USB controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL811x EHCI host controller (rev 0e)
06:00.0 Network controller: MEDIATEK Corp. MT7922 802.11ax PCI Express Wireless Network Adapter
09:00.0 Non-Volatile memory controller: Samsung Electronics Co Ltd NVMe SSD Controller SM981/PM981/PM983
0a:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Raven Ridge [Radeon Vega Series / Radeon Vega Mobile Series] (rev d6)
0a:00.1 Audio device: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Raven/Raven2/Fenghuang HDMI/DP Audio Controller
0a:00.2 Encryption controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 10h-1fh) Platform Security Processor
0a:00.3 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Raven USB 3.1
0a:00.4 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Raven USB 3.1
0a:00.6 Audio device: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h/19h HD Audio Controller
0b:00.0 SATA controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] FCH SATA Controller [AHCI mode] (rev 61)Note: the MT7922 WiFi Module listed above is added by me, details below.
Expansion
Storage M.2: The M.2 PCIe Slot is reported to be x2 and to accept 2280 or 2230 NMVe Solid State Drives. Any other mounts/sizes (like a 2242) do not have a proper holder so you will need an adapter.
Storage SATA: a data and power proprietary connector is available and the case has fittings for a HDD/SSD. My device came without it but luckily I found one on Aliexpress and ordered it. The Maintenance and Service Guide mentions a plethora of preconfigured options as HDDs and SSDs for this model. This makes this even more interesting for a small home server! The caddy was easy to connect and install and is a worthy update in case you are wondering.
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WLAN: again a M.2 PCIe Slot, this times only x1 and accepting only 2230 sizes. I had a WLAN card lying around from another laptop, a Mediathek MT7922 that worked without problem in Windows. It might be that wired connection is required in order to install the driver (at least for this card...).
Extension Board Connector: my machine came with a VGA extension.
Discreet GPU: this is an interesting one! :-) On the mainboard there is a "J41 MXM" connector where a discreet GPU can be installed. As far as I have understood installing such a card would block both the place for the SATA-Caddy as also the Extension Board Connector output as there is not much space here available... :-) This seems not to be a very interesting option as both the machine and the card do not offer any spectacular features.
Firmware
BIOS
Hit "Esc" during boot to bring the startup menu with all boot options (system information, BIOS, self test, boot order and so on). Alternatively F10 is the shortcut for the BIOS Menu. This is your regular HP BIOS Setup, nothing spectacular here and pretty easy to use.
Boot
For a one-off selection you can hit F9 at power-on to get straight into the boot screen menu without having to mess about in the BIOS.
BIOS Update
Standard OS
The system had originally Windows 10 Pro (x64) installed. Unfortunately as mentioned above on one of the last update iterations of supported hardware for Windows 11, this CPU was taken out. I nevertheless managed to install it using the Rufus version that is not checking the TPM.
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Linux
The device has no problem running Linux. Do not forget to disable "Secure Boot" in BIOS as most of the distros still do not support this.
Personal notes
I picked this device on a flea market, on a day when I was not looking for anything special. It was just in a box with other electronics, most probably mistaken for a digital-tv-box or something similar. I got it for 10€ but I didn't knew what was inside or if it actually works.
At home I discovered that 16GB DDR4 were still there, but no SSD and no WLAN-Card. I also discovered that the "docking station power supply" from my HP Elitebook 820 G3 is a match! Luckily this was a model without a discreet GPU so the 65W charger was enough.
I have installed a M.2 Nvme SSD and a WLAN-Card and tested the machine with Linux. At 4 Cores and 4 Threads this should still be a decent machine to run a small (ProxMox) "containerization" with either LXC-Containers or with Docker or a mix of the two.
I also got curious about Windows and got Windows 11 Pro installed using the Rufus trick to avoid TPM. OS got also automatically activated and seems to work. This will be most probably the configuration in which this machine will be sold, because as I have mentioned, I was not looking for it, it was just a too good deal not to make.
In order to make it more appealing for a small home server I have ordered the SATA HDD/SSD Caddy from Aliexpress which allows for extra internal storage and makes it more interesting for someone who needs the storage but does not want necessarily to have a storage redundancy. Or one can mirror the M.2 with the SATA drive... or one can mirror the SATA drive with a USB drive (USB3.0 is offering pretty good transfers nowadays...).
On a personal note I would also like to add that the device is a bit noisy for my taste. I do not know if this is biased but I find the Lenovo ThinkCentre to be more quiet and therefore I prefer them over the ones from HP and Dell (but again, I do not have extensive experience with all the models out there).
