The new HP Elite Mini G9 Saga

[Patrick]

I might do a video or put this in its own. We got the 10Gbase-T Flex IO V2 module this week, and I thought, "Why not put it in the HP Elite Mini 800 G9 for that review?"

That unleashed a saga.

We put it in the HP Elite Mini 800 G9. Powered it on, and it did not accept RDP connections. Something was amiss so we hooked it up to a monitor. When we installed the 10Gbase-T Flex IO module, it booted and we got stuck at Secure Boot.
"A device added is signed with the Microsoft UEFI CA and can't be used. System administrator must re-enable Microsoft UEFI CA key to boot with this device."

We tried going into the BIOS and it has an Administrator password.

We found out that HP no longer has the clear BIOS password jumper as it did in the EliteDesk G3/G4. Here is the G3 review.

While doing that, we found that HP has decided to steal that article's cover image for its support videos (>10 of them).



It seems like if you do not have or forget your BIOS Admin password for the system setup, your option is to basically get a new motherboard at this point.

So it was physically installed in the 800 G9, but it did not work because the used unit's BIOS configuration was locked.

I then popped it in the HP Elite Mini 600 G9 and it fired right up.

So, there is now a 2nd NIC that is 10GbE available for these.

 

[Navy_BOFH]

I asked this in the review request thread but realized this might be a better spot...

Does this module work with the G6 models as well or was this specifically designed for the G9?

 

[Patrick]

Good question. Will check it out when I get back.

 

[Navy_BOFH]

Good question. Will check it out when I get back.

Out of curiosity as well - those FlexIO modules should fit the Z2 Mini as well I assume? I have been having a hard time trying to figure out if HP called them Flex IO for a reason or if its marketing lingo and each applicable model line has its own specific models. If these fit a Z2 Mini G5 as well I will be over the moon.

 

[Patrick]

Out of curiosity as well - those FlexIO modules should fit the Z2 Mini as well I assume? I have been having a hard time trying to figure out if HP called them Flex IO for a reason or if its marketing lingo and each applicable model line has its own specific models. If these fit a Z2 Mini G5 as well I will be over the moon.

The old Z2's used different modules IIRC

 

[Navy_BOFH]

I think you're right for the G3/G4 line but the lower Flex IO port in my sample G5 seems to have the same physical module layout as the EliteDesk/ProDesk models. I have attached a few pics I took. Left module is the 1GbE adapter as my company orders for all Z2 Mini G5s, the right is the 2.5GbE that has been discussed on STH (and I have in my EliteDesk Mini G6). The last pic is of the PCIe connector on the Z2 Mini G5 which is where it gets interesting - you can see the Ethernet modules have a left or right side connector and the Z2 has both. I am not sure what the EliteDesk has yet since it’s in use but it’s where I’ve been wondering if the modules are electrically incompatible between some models or not.

http://imgur.com/a/W6Gk5nw

 

[Navy_BOFH]

Scratch that - EliteDesk Mini G6 seems to have the same connector too. Slowly it is seeming like this wouldn't be a physical or electrical compatibility issue but if BIOS will allow it.

 

[SadoKitten]

Hp has a bios password reset tool for field use called shotgun, it brute forces passwords. We have it at work .

 

[Navy_BOFH]

Update:

My 10GbE module came in today. My EliteDesk 800 G6 Mini has been sitting idle, so it got the first transplant.

On Win10 it showed up as a Marvell AQtion 10Gbit Network Adapter.

Transplanting it into my HP Z2 Mini G5 it came up on Proxmox 7.4 under lspci as:
02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Aquantia Corp. Device 14c0 (rev 03)

So far so good! I am still waiting on my 10GbE NIC for my QNAP to direct-connect my "server" and NAS, so I cannot perform any throughput testing. However, the fact it physically fits, powers on, detects in BIOS/OS... that gives me hope!

 

[Zer0_C00L]

Hey, wondering if this is compatible with the EliteDesk 800 G5?

 

[HDClown]

I picked up a Mini Elite 600 G9 and was somewhat surprised to find out that I can run Intel Extreme Tuning Utility (XTU), and that is with the newest available BIOS. My unit has an i7-12700T and there isn't much available in XTU other than setting PL1/PL2 power settings and disabling short turbo boost (PL2) entirely. No ability to change voltages (that should be due to chipset limitations), but being able to modify PL1/PL2 can still be useful if you get one of these with a non "T" series CPU and want to throttle it down to 35W PL1, making it effectively run like a "T" series variant.

I also have a Lenovo P360 Tiny and XTU will not work whatsoever due to lockout in the BIOS. That box has a i7-12700 in it and I wanted to set PL1 to 65W to help it run cooler (noticeably warner to the case touch than the HP above), but it seems to be a lost cause.

 

[lumiso]

Hey I've installed the 10 Gbe Module (P/N 56Q71AA) in my Elite Mini 600 G9 which has the new Intel i7-13700t processor. The module fits perfectly but is not lighting up. It is not showing up in Windows and no Link/Act lights when I plug a cable. Do they block the Module in Bios or is there a special configuration required?
How can I identify if the module is broken or the newer Elite Mini devices are just not accepting them. Someone else tested already?

 

[helloworld]

Hey I've installed the 10 Gbe Module (P/N 56Q71AA) in my Elite Mini 600 G9 which has the new Intel i7-13700t processor. The module fits perfectly but is not lighting up. It is not showing up in Windows and no Link/Act lights when I plug a cable. Do they block the Module in Bios or is there a special configuration required?
How can I identify if the module is broken or the newer Elite Mini devices are just not accepting them. Someone else tested already?

Same here, it won't show up in my built to order 800 G9 with 12900 (65W) + 2.5GB flex io and 2 usb2 flex io, either in windows or proxmox, even after disabled the bios secure boot and hp sure boot/start. No link light either. Swapped in the 2.5 module, it works no problem.

Swapping the 10G module in to my prodesk 600 G6 without any option, had to punch out the steel plate, it shows up in windows 10 as unknown device, had to get the older chipset driver from marvell to have the device working, shows up as a netwrok device in proxmox as well.

Swapping the 10G module into my friend's same G9 800 65W came without any option, had to punch out the steel plate, not a built to order, just the regular one order directly on site, upon booting, bios complain un-authorized device access, boot loop, had to get into bios to disable secure boot/hp sure start, then it boots up into windows, shows up and same driver set up as my prodesk 600.

Very very strange, I think if I ordered to build, I shouldn't select any flex port options at all, maybe that selection will lock anything out if not on the orderable list?

@Patrick, if you know anything, please help us out.



Was going to order another one built to order 13th gen 800 G9, but now seeing you having the issue as well, I dont't think I will.

 

[ms264556]

I bought one of these (an i7 600) based on the positive review, and a quick check in Ark to make sure it'd do 5k@60Hz over DP. But it's only driving my 5k2k screen at 30Hz or 6bit colour. I tried a bunch of different driver versions & enabling DSC in the registry, but no joy.

Has anyone had luck driving a >4k hi-res display with one of these? Otherwise I guess I'll buy a 10Gbe card & it'll be my new VM host.

 

[Marsh]

If your monitor is using hdmi input,

Then , You need an active DP to hdmi adapter.
Few years back, that was my desktop setup.

 

[ms264556]

If your monitor is using hdmi input,

Then , You need an active DP to hdmi adapter.
Few years back, that was my desktop setup.

Sorry, wasn't explicit enough - I disconnected all my cables from my existing PC and plugged them into the Elite mini, including the DP cable. So I know the DP cable is capable of 10 bit 5k2k@60Hz when connected to an NVIDIA card.

 

[Stephan]

So some social media bloke at HP just googled the product and took STH's image, thinking it must be stock HP? Because who else would photograph such products, right.

This machine has a bug that will flood the network with IPv6 ICMPv6 messages. And a really feisty flood, about 20 kpps. Enough to irritate any and all wifi clients in the segment. Similar to here: ICMPv6 'Multicast Listener Report' messages are flooding the local network Looks like the bug has existed for years.

Have to turn off AMT in BIOS to get rid of it. Hope you didn't need that. Machine fully patched up was no use, also disabling several Windows features like connected standby or fast boot or standby or hibernation. Buy something without Intel networking chips...

 

[edan]

Not sure where else to post this, but I made the same mistake Patrick appeared to make. I thought I was buying an HP Elite Mini 800 G9 on ebay for not much more than $400. It had an i5-12500T, which was totally fine by me.

But instead I also got a 600 G9. On the plus side, after disabling Secure Boot, and getting a custom ISO from the awesome XCP-NG team, I was able to boot it up with XCP-NG 8.2 with no issues. Their 8.3 beta also installed right away too.

The HP Flex IO V2 10 GbE NIC M58644-001 also showed up right away for me, in the BIOS (to netboot or do a BIOS upgrade) and in XCP-NG after I installed a beta driver. I don't have a multigig switch yet to test multigig speeds, but it does gigabit easily.

One question--is it normal for the case to be pretty warm? I'm not running the CPU very hard at all. I did add 2x 2TB Samsung 980 Pros, but I didn't think they were particularly hot.

 

[legit]

Was able to source a brand new Elite Mini 800 G9 12700T from hp.com with educational discounts for less than the used price they were going on Ebay at the time. This was a base model with 256gb nvme/16gb ddr5. Already dumped a 2TB NVME drive in it, a SATA enclosure (no disk in it yet, deciding what to throw in there) and looking for the cheapest reasonable 96gb DDR5 option available (only mushkin, crucial and some brands that have zero reviews :\).

Put the 10gbe module in and running proxmox 8.02 on it at the moment with no issues thus far. It was a heckuva journey trying to administrate the thing initially with PiKVM and then disabling all of the security/DMA stuff that got in the way of using it as a server over some corporate desktop.

 

[NickKX]

Just wondering from the people with experience here, is there any reason to go with the elite mini 800 G9 over the Z2 Mini G9?
I have a few Promise thunderbolt DAS boxes that I want to put on my 10Gb Ethernet network.
I would think the Z2 mini would be better, since you get a PCIe slot?
Was thinking of getting the thunderbolt 4 FlexIO module and then just getting a dual channel 10Gb Base T PCIe NIC. Or the 10Gb FlexIO module and then a thunderbolt PCIe slot, whichever I can get for less $$ ‍
If anyone has any other ideas I am all ears