I almost always boot the computer and run a stress test in front of the buyer before selling my used hardware. That way if something happens when they are taking it home I can be like it was working when you left. I actually had a few scammers actually say I want my money back it doesn't work. When I offer to go there to see what's wrong with it or for them to come in for me to check what is wrong with it, they immediately ghost me. I feel like it's best for all parties to actually test the hardware in front of the customer.
@@-DawnZero I always meet at the designated exchange spot at my local police department, If we had to we could use an outlet there, I test everything before I buy and suggest they do the same and when I sold my old 970 the guy legit brought his PC and monitor to test it with a inverter in his truck and I thought that was great so we could be like hey it was working when you paid me.
@@-DawnZero 15 years of selling stuff online to local people on craigslist and the only time someone tried to harm me was in a public place so...🤷. Most people are decent human beings.
OOBE can still install keyloggers and whatnot ahead of time. Full wipe is 100% recommended. You can jump into the OOBE setup and install drivers and other programs while setting OOBE up and then reboot to give the first boot experience and hide anything that way too.
indeed, with second hand pc i would always reinstall the OS and full format the system. You dont know what was put on the system, even with the windows full reset option i dont trust it to remove all the junk
I recently did a budget build for my friend. Found a local 6700xt for 200$ and a 10900k for 180$. Then a used z590 asus gaming e motherboard for 100$, Air cooler for 20$, a h6 flow open box from best buy for 80$ and gifted him my old 1tb SSD for free. Crazy value IMO
Thrifty find of my PC building career: $270 for a refurbished 3070 ti. Benchmarked like new. I love my build. Thanks for the inspiration and help along the way Jay.
That's what I did too, same setup as you likely. That RAM is MoBo locked too. You cant overclocked other RAM in the Omen MoBo. It had terrible cooling too. None of the HP stuff is left in my PC.
Jay, I just want to say thank you for helping me solve a recurring issue with my PC that has plagued me for more than a year now. What you said at 5:15 made me realize that I had never thought of pulling the second channel of RAM that I had installed around the time that I started having issues with my PC. Now everything works as it should.
4 sticks of RAM is perfectly fine to have, BUT they should all be from the SAME kit. same manuf. batch, timings, etc. never mix brands of RAM, even if speed/timings match. Even same brand, timings, speed, can cause issues if they are from different batches. I too had issues when adding a 2nd pair of sticks. I thought 'speed matches, timings match, good to go". Nope. Once I bought a 32 GB (4x8) kit, the problems went away.
I have an HP Omen 30L. Apparently the RAM is stock because in the BIOS it doesn't have a tab to adjust the memory speed. If the RAM is stock you change the speed in the OMEN Gaming Hub app in windows. If the RAM is not stock, in the BIOS it shows a tab where you set the XMP profile (if it doesn't you need to update the BIOS as this option was added later).
I have that exact omen. The ram is stock 👍. I was the guy you explained early in the video. Got it as my first PC in late ‘21, got the “bug”, now I have a 4080 build and gave the omen to my son. The Omen has been great. It played most games on 2k/165 hz.
$400 isn’t bad for that set of parts at all. 5600G and 3060 used is like $300-$350 value already, and the rest of the system surpasses the value. Nice snipe!
If you are curious what it came with originally from HP. Should be able to run the serial through HP warranty support checker. I think it will also show you what the PC shipped with part wise.
I bought an omen 30L with a 5800x and 3060ti back during the gpu crisis. Now my wife uses it and I have a custom build. We’ve had the hp for almost 3 years now with zero issues.
Just FYI. You can absolutely install all the malware you want, white list in Windows security/group policy, then trigger the oob experience for next boot.
Great find and like you said Jay, there are tons of deals out there on good hardware. One I sniped recently was someone clearing out their storage unit, selling their "pc case", a white Phanteks Eclipse P360a, but it also had a Gigabyte B550m AORUS Pro-P mobo, a Corsair iCUE H100i RGB PRO XT AIO, 3 additional ARGB fans, Corsair CX600 PSU, and a 2TB WD Black (on its way out). Mystery CPU under the AIO turned out to be a *3700x*! I paid $50 CAD, snagged it up, and am currently in the process of giving it a good clean to flip it with a 2060 Super and a 1TB m.2 drive. Truly an incredible deal.
Some BIOS' now have disk wipe options which do a secure wipe of SSD/NVME drives. You might want to have a small video about the difference between a secure SSD/NVME wipe and a spinning disk wipe.
Exactly, I don't think it's necessary to insinuate people should be afraid of reusing SSD's or HDD's, you don't even need a deep wipe, you're not trying to keep from recovering data, a simple format is good enough for 99% of use cases for reusing someone else's mass storage devices. Now, if selling or getting rid of a system with storage or a storage device itself, that's when you secure wipe it to ensure no one can recover your data, although bitlocker or other drive encryption reduces that risk a little bit, I wouldn't chance it.
@@Suchtzocker that's not true at all, plenty of boot USB utils that will perform full sector level multi-pass wipes of a spinning HDD. Will take forever, but I've been doing it for over 25 years. It isn't necessary to do when reusing someone else's old drive as a format as nuking the partitions and a regular format would get rid of any potential malware, but a good habit before selling, giving away or disposing your own.
@@Suchtzocker You can use boot and nuke to overwrite a spinning disk. It's pretty safe. Formatting is not wiping. You need to overwrite the data on the disk.
@@Suchtzocker what do you mean "a stopped disk"? Like a dead hard drive? Or one that isn't plugged in? We've used industrial degaussers to wipe and destroy corporate HDD's for years. If you want to wipe your boot drive, ultimate boot CD is still a thing, makes a Bootable USB which has an insane amount of tools and utilities, including tools to secure erase/wipe HDD's. Just keep in mind that wiping SSD's is different, the traditional wipe process used for HDDs not only isn't really effective for SSD's, it also destroys their write endurance in the process.
Now there is a bios resident malware that can be installed by downloaded malware (not sure if there is one in the wild or not) You might want to flash to the latest bios with a used pc. Not only does this reduce the odds of bios malware, but can fix all sorts of bugs and glitches and enable newer tech and most common improve cpu and ram support and all kinds of nice things. And it's trivial to do with a board that has bios flash button on the back.
@@asksearchknock Needs to be a way to check that doesn't require specialized hardware and knowledge. I realize this is advantageous for your income. However in the long run the potential damage to the economy is potentially worse for everyone's livelihood.
@@asksearchknock It might be possible to ship a pc with a bios system designed to always have a backdoor. Servers kind of do this with their management interface, but that's not malware. From the factory is the only way I can making a bios setup that cannot be fixed. In the end it'd have to be in something proprietary like the CPU or the chipset otherwise some bright guy would just replace the infected chip if push came to shove. And if that's done it's game over, as we're probably looking a government level operation. One thing that could probably be done is clip a reader on the bios chip and dump if for a scan. However this could get expensive and/or impractical if we're talking several hundred office pc's and all the other infrastructure. Sure spotting the malware wouldn't rely on snagging a packed headed to pwnvill, but you still need several minutes with each pc. And if you have a bunch of personal gear and laptops and lots of variety they it gets even more of a logistical nightmare. This is why some sort of secured by hardware system to scan a bios is needed. Some hard coded asic or whatnot that does the opposite of a bios flashback in that it just spools out the entire contents of the bios to a usb stick. The resulting file can not only be a backup if clean, it can be scanned by av software on another machine. Heck you could probably build bios dump and flashback into the same controller. and as long as that controlled is effectively hardcoded your ahead of the curve and can be verified and backed up.
I would add that, if possible, you should also flash the backup bios on dual bios motherboards (after confirming that the new one works) and blank the part of the cmos that is not supposed to be holding anything to make sure malware is not hiding there. Also reset the bios configuration to defaults. The area of the bios that holds configured values sometimes is not written by the flashing software just to save the user from having to configure again (which you should reset and configure again anyway after a bios flash).
@@kaseyboles30 It's, I believe, still not clear whether it actually happened or not but what you describe about hardware-based malware is rumoured to have happened to Supermico, the US-based server brand (just as an aside, they make some great stuff). Bloomberg came out with a story some years ago that spy chips were found on supermicro server mainboards which were purportedly produced in China and destined for USA and EU government institutions and large companies. Something like 30 entities were claimed to have been affected. Then a whole back-and-forth of denial, examination, cross-examination, publication and litigation started up, even the NSA jumped in at some point saying it was impossible (they would of course say that) and last I heard, one or more other credible publications had come out with articles (some one or more years later) that basically stated that there was in fact more to the story than just "it was fabricated, didn't actually happen". I didn't do a deep-dive into it so can't say what the current state is or what concrete evidence (or lack thereof) has come out in the mean time, but if you're interested you should be able to find the entire thing by searching for "Supermicro spy chips" It's in response to this and like you also hint at, that multiple companies, Dell is one I know for sure, came out with a special line of servers (for Dell, they're called Dell Secured Component verification, SCV. We have some of those at work) that were fully produced in, I believe, don't quote me on this, the USA, EU or other allied nations and where all components inside, from nut to bolt to chip to case, were carefully guarded, tracked and monitored throughout the entire process from raw material to end-user and are validated and signed by Dell to be secure and unchanged from their manufacturer specifications. I believe they (or some of them) also have hardware-based checks built-in where the system will not boot if anything, either hardware or software, including component firmware, has been changed from the stock config. The CPU's for instance, are also locked to solely that model of server and won't work on any other model. Eye-wateringly expensive, of course but for some companies like the one I work for, they are more than worth the premium
@@boam2943 Fortunately when you use something like qflash or flashback it shouldn't keep old config data. That often requires software with the new bios to translate any config data that's storage format has changed (if for example they give new options or store the options differently). Though it's possible for the bios image to contain flags/markers to indicate what is and isn't' compatible to a point. but beyond some very simple basics you add complexity to the flashback asic and it starts to become a general computer itself. and that costs money. DPMI on a server could probably manage all that, it's supposed to provide a level of remote control well beyond what a home user would need, and you pay for that when you buy a server.
Best iFixit ad ever!! Found a HP Z4G4 Xeon W-2145 64GB RAM 512m.2 with GTX 1070 8GB for $450 (with $50 ebay discount code) w free shipping. Quad channel ECC RDDR4. Smooth as butter.
A lot of people these days don't understand how the "used" market should be... the asking price was 2x's higher than it should have been. Normal [OG] used pricing is 50% retail... because it is used. It is no longer new, it no longer has warranty (most the time), and has reduced life span. That's why 50% of retail has always been the mark to start for used. A lot of people just have "worth" and "cost" confused.
Hi Jay. I really appreciate your willingness to get back in touch with your viewers on what they would be buying for their own systems. Not everyone can afford the builds that are shown on your channel. Cheers! 🥰
should take note that you can build your own Windows Isos with preinstalled apps. Means even if you have that first user experience, you dont know what kind of software is preinstalled with that iso image. Best way is always, clean the SSD and make a fresh install with your own ISO you donwloaded by yourself!
I work at a wholesale club. I was able to get a Acer Nitro 50 desktop. With a i5 11400k, GTX1060, with 512 ssd and 8 gb. It was the display model.....$180 with cheap mouse and keyboard. Gave it to my 8 yo son for his first set up. What a deal.
Nice and fun video. Glad it worked out for you. Make someone a nice gift. I like to see you make a follow up video where you pull it apart, add a CPU cooler, repast CPU, and maybe even repasted GPU and see the temps. Would make a great video.
In general, I don't think you need to get rid of the drive to be safe. But as a matter of course, I would at the very least download a fresh Windows installer directly from Microsoft and install that to a flash drive. Boot into the installer and completely delete every partition on the drive using the advanced settings of the installer. Then have the installer create and format all new partitions on the drive and install a fresh copy of Windows onto the machine. It sounds like a lot, but it's actually extremely easy and quick to do and once Windows connects to the internet, it should automatically activate without the need for a serial, since Microsoft now automatically detects and recognizes and activates previously activated machines through unique hardware identifiers. So I don't think you need to get rid of the drive, but to air on the safe side, I personally would definitely wipe that drive properly (partitions and all) and do a fresh clean install of windows.
Dont forget to flash new bios. Malware is getting smarter and now can be even at level one of system, just a step away from build-in spyware chip on motherboard.
My first Computer was $800. Its actually what I'm watching this on right now. I bought it from a dude on Craigslist in 2022. He had a lot of other systems he was selling too. I was very new to PC ownership and custom builds and buying used PCs off of the internet from strangers. I brought it home, turned it on, and it booted to a fresh install of Windows 10 just like he said. I hadn't ever thought of checking to see if there was nefarious stuff on it. I don't believe there is anyways. I haven't had any strange things happen to me or any of my accounts. Its a pretty decent PC. Asrock z390 Taichi 9900k EVGA 1080ti FTW3 32gb 3200 MHz RAM 500 GB m.2 1 TB HDD Cooler Master MWE 750 Gold V2 360 AiO on the CPU I later added another m.2 with 1TB
I found this out a couple of years ago when i tried to upgrade and repurpose a workstation. The only things i could keep in the end were the cpu and nvme drive 😂
I bought this system new a few years ago. It came with the Kingston Fury RAM, Cost me roughly $1,400. It was a great PC, so getting it for $400 is crazy.
I would suggest using a DBAN USB and run DBAN on the drive. Of just toss it as you suggested. I used an online key dealer to get Windows 11 professional and had no problem at all. you could also update the CPU to a 5600x 3D if you want to kick it up a notch. Of course another option would be to sell the 3060 and use it as a NAS.
Off the Shelf parts, except the argb Hub in the 25L case - possibly other cases - proprietary plug is for an aio cooler - single fan aio fits on top above cpu socket, metal plate 4 panels punch out. Backside can be opened tool free, shift-push.
@JayzTwoCents 8:28 Jay, just wipe the existing drive. Use a bootable utility to delete the partitions and reset the MBR. Then reinstall the OS. That's it, you're done. No need to swap drives or anything like that..
Drive can be pretty beaten up however...especially cheap high-capacity M.2 SSD`s, they are most likely using big memory cells that dont last long at all.
@@alexturnbackthearmy1907 "Can be" but very rarely is. Finding out is simple. Wipe, format and test. If pass, golden. If fail, toss. It's really that simple.
@@lexluthermiester Except SMART on these drives is often incorrect and doesn't give warning to a failure. Source: have had MULTIPLE drives fail without any warning from SMART testing
@@AngelaTheSephira "SMART" doesn't matter if you do a full, sector by sector test. If each sector tests as good, the drive's SMART data can be safely ignored.
FYI - GamersNexus actually done an entire in-depth video showing Ryzen 3rd Gen aka Zen 3 gains performance by having all 4 dimm slots populated. I had a Ryzen 5600X then upgraded to the Ryzen 5800X3D on launch. I’ve been running 4x8GB sticks for 32GB total. 3600mhz CL 14 and never had a single issue with either CPU not once. My board is an Asus Prime X570 - Pro. Using all Gen 4 NVMe drives with a Seasonic 850 watt 80+ platinum PSU. Runs like a dream since I got it. Going on 3-4 years now. Ive had 3 diff GPUs running with it the 5800x3D while running 4x8Gb sticks. RTX 2070 Super, RTX 3070 Ti, and now an RTX 4070 TI Super. My system has always booted just fine with DOCP enabled and PBO set to max with all 3 GPUS overclocked basically as high as it can go while remaining stable. So not sure what the hell he’s talking about with running 4 sticks with Zen 3. It’s literally extra performance for free especially if you game at 1080P. I play at 1440P 280hz and while the performance difference between having two dimm slots populated and 4 is usually down to margin of error at higher resolutions some games do still get a boost as seen in GamersNexus entire video about it. Particularly if you play E-sports games at low settings ultra high fps at 1080P in certain games you can actually gain 15-20+ fps. So again I have literally no clue what he’s talking about.
Been building custom gaming pc for 10 yrs now and I must say I’m very impressed how far consoles have come for just £300-400 amazing performance and response for the price.
Came by a couple of these when I used to work at a pawn shop, they're not a bad choice but still have their fair share of proprietary parts. IDK if anyone noticed, but it's an AM4 socket... with an LGA1151 cooler, which makes shopping for a new cooler kind of interesting.
That is a good deal. The things that are an issue for me (case, psu, memory, drives), are all things you can fix easily. Sometimes we get so caught up in the high end stuff that these older less powerful parts are still damn good.
It's still a 1TB NVMe, just format the SSD and create a windows setup USB. Sure, you'll have to pay for Windows, but keys are cheap. I don't think we need to recommend people not reuse storage drives, just show them how to format it correctly.
I agree about not recommending a new drive, but u also wont have to buy windows, even if u create a new windows USB as long as u dont change windows versions
I'm honestly surprised you left that custom HP build of Windows 11 on there. I've seen these kinds of Windows installs cause really weird issues in games and other software programs, not to mention all the bloatware that comes pre-installed. Several years ago, I had a friend buy a Dell XPS desktop computer, and I helped them set it up, and the first think I did as soon as it booted up was boot into the Windows Installer I had made on a separate USB, wiped everything on both drives, installed Windows to the SSD, and then reinitialized the storage HDD. Windows activated with no issue, and that computer has run great ever since. Pure Windows is the way to go with any kind of pre-built computer.
My rule for buying a used PC, I look at all the parts and come up with a used price total then remove the cost of one of the major components then that's my offer.
I have an HP omen 25l and I have installed an aio liquid cooler. You can mount a single fan radiator as a top outlet. It really keeps the temps in check. Downside is you’ll have to take the whole pc apart to install a different bracket. You can do it though..
Yep. Buying used can save assloads of money but it takes time, patience and sometimes out of the box hunting especially since the used market is still bonkers.
Love this Jay. I have been out of the game of buying, building, or any thing i have been watching you vids for a few years. Thank you for show me that its ok to just look around and do my home work to find a "ok" pc. and make it better with a few tweaks.
@@EtriehDishonest marketing about the high quality of their product when it’s actually low quality chicken that’s treated with extremely high levels of MSG to create an addictive chemical response in the brain to get people to crave more of it.
@@Etrieh except the levels of MSG in chick fil a are over 10 times higher than any other national chain and they don’t disclose it. The EU forced them change the ingredients in preparation for the upcoming UK locations because they test the food over here and actually hold corporations accountable to their claimed ingredients. But believe what you want, bro. 🤦♂️
With these as well as other HP, Alienware, and Dell prebuilds, for CPU cooling upgrades, note that the AMD uses Intel backplate spacing, and the backplates use M3 screws. So, you can buy some M3 screws (M3 x 20mm is good for what I've seen/used) and use the appropriate spacers included with the cooler (AMD spacers with AMD CPUs) My used PC deal was picking up an ASUS ROG Strix Pre-build including an i7 11700kf and a RTX 3080 for $550. I swapped my 3070 in for the 3080, and pulled the Strix mATX motherboad out (wanted for a mATX project) for a Gigabyte Z590 aorus master I also picked up cheap. Cleaned it up, upgraded the CPU cooler, added an extra case fan, and sold it.
Another reason to replace the drive, especially on HP or Dell systems is that the fresh install of windows gets rid of their proprietary junkware. I have to build a custom win 11 installer for work soon.
@@SaraMorgan-ym6ue problem bigger, it is for work. It has to be windows so the people I work with don't have to be retrained how to use their systems. YEs, they WILL because it really is different if you only used MS windows
Just a FYI / reminder: You can use tools like sysprep to 'reseal' the OS, but still have all the installed garbage and malware. I would never say to use the drive that comes with a system, I replace them even in brand new systems.
This is what I would do. Doesn't matter if they have a "fresh install". I would format the drive and do a fresh install. You don't know if they loaded a compromised version.
I really like videos like this that showcase older hardware. I had an older Ryzen 3600 and a 650w power supply laying around. So I paired that with a 1660 ti microw ATX b350 and ram. Found a $35 micro ATX case off of Amazon. All together spent around $200 on supplies. Put a little bit of an overclock on the GPU and it runs great.
really cool seeing you make a vid about marketplace buys! Lucked out on a system, only paid 275 and had an r5 2600x, msi rx 570 8gb, 16gb ram and threw in a 27 in 1440p monitor/mech kb no extra charge., been needing a system for another while now and wasn't expecting to find such a good deal
I got a pretty good deal on a platform, but not a full system. Back during the GPU shortage of 2021, I bought an I7-11700F with the awesome intel stock cooler, an mATX motherboard and a 2x8 gb 3000 mHz ram kit for $400 including shipping off eBay. Sure, I had to buy some other parts, and one of those was a deal too, an InWin V500 series *beige* minitower case with a 90mm exhaust fan included for $25. The case's box was stamped 2008. Made for a fun sleeper computer with some other parts I scrounged, traded for and bought new, and I still use it today!
those smaller form factor gpus sell for way more than they should. I was looking into building a small form factor build, but the cost of the smaller cards over regular/oversized was ridiculous
Jay, you can boot the system after installing and set it up for the customer... then have it reboot into the OOBE environment... I do this all the time to preinstall software, drivers and games for whoever gets the computer!
Really hope this becomes a more common theme on the channel. Maybe ever once in awhile get a random PC off the internet ebay, Facebook, or Mercari. Then fix it/ clean it/ or show us a good way to max out performance for the hardware. Thanks Jay
I actually like the wraith coolers over the huge coolers in terms of looks. For a budget pc 1080p with no over clocking, the wraith cooler is all you need. Great advice on swapping out any of the drives due to key logging, not something most of us would think to worry about.
I have one of those, but it’s the 45L and Hyper-x ram with RGB comes standard with them. These Omen start popping up on different youtube channels lately, but they are new. This is the first time I’ve seen it used. Pretty cool.
With the advice not to use the drive that comes with it, just use secure erase in the BIOS to wipe it and it's perfectly safe. No one is writing custom nvme firmware with malware that somehow persists through a secure erase
My girlfriend has that exact pre built and yes, it does ACTUALLY come with that Ram and she cannot control the RGB. I've tried to change it, but I can't find anything that works. She's not the only one to have the problem either.
The windows license key is embedded on the motherboard and should work automatically with a completely fresh install of windows. You don't need the specific OEM version of windows. That has been my experience with OEM machines, especially HP.
@15:30 Just to note the RTX 4060 uses a standard 8 pin PCI-E power cable. So there would be no need for any adapters in this case. Even most 4070's use a singe 8 pin cable. Like my Asus 4070 Dual OC for example. There are few models of the 4070 that use the 12vhpwr cable.
A weird thing about the HP Omen systems, the "Advanced" BIOS menu is only available on certain BIOS revisions, so you may need to flash the BIOS to an *_older_* version. You'd think that would be something in the latest BIOS files, but not according to HP!
i bought an Lenovo legion t5 in june 22. original price was 2000dollars for a 3700x 16gb ram 3070 with a 2tb storage. i paid under a grand because it was an returned item to the store, and they had it labled used with signs of ware. got it still with all the peels on it and new windows install,. thank u for that.
Even with the "1st" launch windows is very easy to simply use sysprep to install malicious software then restart into oobe and it will go back to this screen with all the malware already there
I totally get what JayZ is saying about smoking and PCs. Someone asked me to pull the hard drives out of some old PCs they had, and holy crap were they nasty. They definitely smelled and were extremely dirty.
Awesome way of putting attention to a bit of security there and at the same time showing that there are real good deals out there on the used market. Especially liked you not pluging it into any network before you knew what was going on. Personally i would always just format all the drives before doing anything and then install a new OS from a stick while everything is still offline, but thats just me. Although with windows 11 afaik installing it without internet connection is sadly impossible, wich is just such an unnecessary security risk.
I'll take it. I've been stuck in Claremont Care Center, of Pomona CA. for 5 years. I get no money the state takes it all. All I have is a real old laptop 4 Gigs max. I3 at least it plays youtube videos. You can make a video if you want. I know you wont that's ok. You and your crew Rock. :)
I got a used overbuilt pc around a EVGA ftw3 3070 for 500 bucks last year. had stuff like a 1000w gold psu for no reason and tons of rgb fans, lianli, corsair. pretty good deal
Now it would be interesting to see the cooler mounting. I have an HP which uses the case itself as the backplate so the cooler screws directly into the case, which makes it pretty much impossible to replace the cooler unless I'd dremel away the part of the case, which might make it impossible to reuse the original cooler then. But maybe this is a more standard setup.
Back in the GPU shortage days, I almost bought a 30L HP OMEN... not only you can't get to the back of the mother board , there is a notch in the MB and a dimple in the case , you can't drop a standard ATX board in there (without cutting)
I hope whoever sold that PC is doing ok. I know a couple of people who didn’t make the best monetary decisions and have had to pawn off items to pay debts. This reminds me of that. Just taking whatever $$ they can get even when it isn’t the best deal for them.
My OMEN 25L new came with 8GB Fury w/RGB but it only came with a 1660 Super GPU. I have upgraded a little bit, but I am still running it and play games just fine. I do plan on building one eventually when I can afford it. Plus you can add a 120mm fan on the top. There is a bracket that comes out and you can attach a fan to it. They actually made it fairly easy to do.
Back in the day, end of 2019, I got GTX1070 for £200. Just few weeks later due to stock shortages that card was over twice that price. Served me very well over the years.
Last computer I built for someone, I went into the OEM user, and set up everything for them just so that the out-of-box experience would still be there, specifically reactivating the out-of-box experience, even with the requested extras preinstalled
I remember back in the day when it was much more difficult to setup a computer. Having to use Dos to Fdisk and format the disk drive. Having to use dos commands to run your computer. Then along comes windows 1.0 which still was more difficult to setup things then today's software does.
I bought a cyberpower prebuilt from best buy back in 2020. It was just over $1k. It worked pretty well for a long while for playing 1080p games and even a few 1440p games at low and medium graphics. I actually still have some of the same parts in my build. Just replaced parts as they stopped working or for upgrade reasons. Considering maybe doing a rebuild in the next year using a smaller case.
There is a screw under the motherboard ot the omen 30l case so you can take of the back panel to get easy access to change the cooler. There is also a space at the top for a 140mm aio but you might need a custom bracket if it's has been removed from the case already. There also use a custom board which looks like a sata ssd that controls the led lights. You can only change rams speed by using the omen software not the bios. I previously owned a hp omen l30 and know if you put much more powerful components in, it will cook itself to death because of restricted airflow. I would like to thank you for all the work that you and the team put in to the content you provide, keep up the great work and fun.
I purchased a Windows license for 1$ a year ago lol. Also, I can confirm, that's most likely the default RAM, had a 30L HP OMEN pre-build a year ago, mine was slightly fancier with a 3080 and a AiO liquid cooler on the CPU but it had the same Hyper Fury X RGB RAM sticks.
I owned one of these myself. HP does include the HyperX Fury RGD RAM sticks. One thing I found interesting was the Bluetooth antenna is installed into the front of the tower. Also, the Micro ATX is some sort of Hana Edition. I didn't like the lack of customizability you get with it. Seems like you got an off-the-shelf 30L here, but for $1000 off the MSRP 👍 ..also, there is a removable backplate to get to the wiring and such.
I would really think about installing your own OS install. You can create your own OS install with MDT, SCCM and other tools to make it look like a OEM install. There are also tools to modify existing OEM installs. Nice rig for the price!!
Great advice on a new ssd. Aside from security risks, you don't know how the old storage had been used/abused. Whilst unlikely, a new ssd is a small investment for piece of mind that you won't lose everything 6 months down the track...
I don't know if Jay did or not but don't blow/spin the fans without disconnecting them first. You can generate current that could damage the motherboard fan headers. And it's always advised to blow air than to suck air (vacuum) for static reasons.
My brother gave me a omen pc just like this. It had a 1660 super and a 3600x. Not bad for a free PC. But I liked the case so much I decided to rip out all the internals and upgrade everything. With a little modification it now has a gigabyte rx 6750 xt, rysen 5700x being cooled by a cooler master AIO and two lianli infinity front fans. Overall very happy how it turned out.
Formatting the drive and doing a fresh install, I'm all for. But taking the drive out is unnecessary. The update screen is standard for all windows 11 versions, it just usually doesn't do that. A reliable way to trigger it is by doing the "restore settings from other PC" while installing. A 4060 wouldn't require an adapter for the power, since they use the regular 8-pin. 4060 Ti is the first card with 12VHPWR.
They are not very pretty, but ex-business computers have a lot of advantages for a self-refurbishing project. Even 5-10 year old systems usually have: (i) full maintenance documentation online; (ii) regular firmware updates that include security and compatibility patches; (iii) Windows licence keys built-in to the firmware; (iv) easy sourcing of replacement parts.
I almost always boot the computer and run a stress test in front of the buyer before selling my used hardware. That way if something happens when they are taking it home I can be like it was working when you left. I actually had a few scammers actually say I want my money back it doesn't work. When I offer to go there to see what's wrong with it or for them to come in for me to check what is wrong with it, they immediately ghost me. I feel like it's best for all parties to actually test the hardware in front of the customer.
ok enough talking have a cookie
Inviting complete strangers into your home is moronic. Meet in public and if they insist otherwise, find someone else willing to buy it.
@@-DawnZero I do that and then they cry on kijiji about how bad I am for doing that to them🤣🤣🤣
@@-DawnZero I always meet at the designated exchange spot at my local police department, If we had to we could use an outlet there, I test everything before I buy and suggest they do the same and when I sold my old 970 the guy legit brought his PC and monitor to test it with a inverter in his truck and I thought that was great so we could be like hey it was working when you paid me.
@@-DawnZero 15 years of selling stuff online to local people on craigslist and the only time someone tried to harm me was in a public place so...🤷. Most people are decent human beings.
OOBE can still install keyloggers and whatnot ahead of time. Full wipe is 100% recommended.
You can jump into the OOBE setup and install drivers and other programs while setting OOBE up and then reboot to give the first boot experience and hide anything that way too.
Sounds clever but can't imagine:) Any video link please?
It’s just true. Not everything that is factually correct has a video to prove it lol
Can also confirm this is true.
indeed, with second hand pc i would always reinstall the OS and full format the system.
You dont know what was put on the system, even with the windows full reset option i dont trust it to remove all the junk
Well, his first recommendation was to get a new drive. So I would just do that.
I recently did a budget build for my friend. Found a local 6700xt for 200$ and a 10900k for 180$. Then a used z590 asus gaming e motherboard for 100$, Air cooler for 20$, a h6 flow open box from best buy for 80$ and gifted him my old 1tb SSD for free. Crazy value IMO
Great little chip compared to current day.
Thrifty find of my PC building career:
$270 for a refurbished 3070 ti. Benchmarked like new. I love my build. Thanks for the inspiration and help along the way Jay.
11:15 The RGB HyperX ram does come stock in the Omens. I bought a 3080 Omen 30L during the great GPU shortage.
HP purchased Kingston HyperX product line in 2021.
That's what I did too, same setup as you likely. That RAM is MoBo locked too. You cant overclocked other RAM in the Omen MoBo. It had terrible cooling too. None of the HP stuff is left in my PC.
@@disguiseddv8ant486I currently work at HP and can confirm. They also switched to HyperX backlit keyboards for the Omen laptops
Jay, I just want to say thank you for helping me solve a recurring issue with my PC that has plagued me for more than a year now. What you said at 5:15 made me realize that I had never thought of pulling the second channel of RAM that I had installed around the time that I started having issues with my PC. Now everything works as it should.
4 sticks of RAM is perfectly fine to have, BUT they should all be from the SAME kit. same manuf. batch, timings, etc. never mix brands of RAM, even if speed/timings match. Even same brand, timings, speed, can cause issues if they are from different batches. I too had issues when adding a 2nd pair of sticks. I thought 'speed matches, timings match, good to go". Nope. Once I bought a 32 GB (4x8) kit, the problems went away.
I have an HP Omen 30L. Apparently the RAM is stock because in the BIOS it doesn't have a tab to adjust the memory speed. If the RAM is stock you change the speed in the OMEN Gaming Hub app in windows. If the RAM is not stock, in the BIOS it shows a tab where you set the XMP profile (if it doesn't you need to update the BIOS as this option was added later).
ive also seen a hp system at BestBuy with a single 16gb stick of that RAM
I have that exact omen. The ram is stock 👍. I was the guy you explained early in the video. Got it as my first PC in late ‘21, got the “bug”, now I have a 4080 build and gave the omen to my son. The Omen has been great. It played most games on 2k/165 hz.
$400 isn’t bad for that set of parts at all. 5600G and 3060 used is like $300-$350 value already, and the rest of the system surpasses the value. Nice snipe!
Thats a steal for sure its like the cost of a new cpu alone. Buy a used 5800x3d in a few yrs and a 6800xt
he talked about the parts where the 3060 was, the cheapest one, 299 dollars
@@lego_max8999That's crazy. A few months ago you could get 3070s and some 3080s for $300.
I hope he didnt actually only give him that low-ball amount considering he's making money off this.
EXACTLY 100%
If you are curious what it came with originally from HP. Should be able to run the serial through HP warranty support checker. I think it will also show you what the PC shipped with part wise.
I bought an omen 30L with a 5800x and 3060ti back during the gpu crisis. Now my wife uses it and I have a custom build. We’ve had the hp for almost 3 years now with zero issues.
they are pretty good computers
Just FYI. You can absolutely install all the malware you want, white list in Windows security/group policy, then trigger the oob experience for next boot.
Would love to see a video where you go through and show where to look for malicious software (or hardware mods) and what some of those may look like
Great find and like you said Jay, there are tons of deals out there on good hardware. One I sniped recently was someone clearing out their storage unit, selling their "pc case", a white Phanteks Eclipse P360a, but it also had a Gigabyte B550m AORUS Pro-P mobo, a Corsair iCUE H100i RGB PRO XT AIO, 3 additional ARGB fans, Corsair CX600 PSU, and a 2TB WD Black (on its way out). Mystery CPU under the AIO turned out to be a *3700x*! I paid $50 CAD, snagged it up, and am currently in the process of giving it a good clean to flip it with a 2060 Super and a 1TB m.2 drive. Truly an incredible deal.
Some BIOS' now have disk wipe options which do a secure wipe of SSD/NVME drives. You might want to have a small video about the difference between a secure SSD/NVME wipe and a spinning disk wipe.
Exactly, I don't think it's necessary to insinuate people should be afraid of reusing SSD's or HDD's, you don't even need a deep wipe, you're not trying to keep from recovering data, a simple format is good enough for 99% of use cases for reusing someone else's mass storage devices.
Now, if selling or getting rid of a system with storage or a storage device itself, that's when you secure wipe it to ensure no one can recover your data, although bitlocker or other drive encryption reduces that risk a little bit, I wouldn't chance it.
@@Suchtzocker that's not true at all, plenty of boot USB utils that will perform full sector level multi-pass wipes of a spinning HDD. Will take forever, but I've been doing it for over 25 years. It isn't necessary to do when reusing someone else's old drive as a format as nuking the partitions and a regular format would get rid of any potential malware, but a good habit before selling, giving away or disposing your own.
@@Suchtzocker You can use boot and nuke to overwrite a spinning disk. It's pretty safe. Formatting is not wiping. You need to overwrite the data on the disk.
the question is how do you wipe a stopped disk ......
@@Suchtzocker what do you mean "a stopped disk"? Like a dead hard drive? Or one that isn't plugged in?
We've used industrial degaussers to wipe and destroy corporate HDD's for years.
If you want to wipe your boot drive, ultimate boot CD is still a thing, makes a Bootable USB which has an insane amount of tools and utilities, including tools to secure erase/wipe HDD's.
Just keep in mind that wiping SSD's is different, the traditional wipe process used for HDDs not only isn't really effective for SSD's, it also destroys their write endurance in the process.
Now there is a bios resident malware that can be installed by downloaded malware (not sure if there is one in the wild or not) You might want to flash to the latest bios with a used pc. Not only does this reduce the odds of bios malware, but can fix all sorts of bugs and glitches and enable newer tech and most common improve cpu and ram support and all kinds of nice things. And it's trivial to do with a board that has bios flash button on the back.
@@asksearchknock Needs to be a way to check that doesn't require specialized hardware and knowledge. I realize this is advantageous for your income. However in the long run the potential damage to the economy is potentially worse for everyone's livelihood.
@@asksearchknock It might be possible to ship a pc with a bios system designed to always have a backdoor. Servers kind of do this with their management interface, but that's not malware. From the factory is the only way I can making a bios setup that cannot be fixed. In the end it'd have to be in something proprietary like the CPU or the chipset otherwise some bright guy would just replace the infected chip if push came to shove. And if that's done it's game over, as we're probably looking a government level operation.
One thing that could probably be done is clip a reader on the bios chip and dump if for a scan. However this could get expensive and/or impractical if we're talking several hundred office pc's and all the other infrastructure. Sure spotting the malware wouldn't rely on snagging a packed headed to pwnvill, but you still need several minutes with each pc. And if you have a bunch of personal gear and laptops and lots of variety they it gets even more of a logistical nightmare. This is why some sort of secured by hardware system to scan a bios is needed. Some hard coded asic or whatnot that does the opposite of a bios flashback in that it just spools out the entire contents of the bios to a usb stick. The resulting file can not only be a backup if clean, it can be scanned by av software on another machine. Heck you could probably build bios dump and flashback into the same controller. and as long as that controlled is effectively hardcoded your ahead of the curve and can be verified and backed up.
I would add that, if possible, you should also flash the backup bios on dual bios motherboards (after confirming that the new one works) and blank the part of the cmos that is not supposed to be holding anything to make sure malware is not hiding there.
Also reset the bios configuration to defaults. The area of the bios that holds configured values sometimes is not written by the flashing software just to save the user from having to configure again (which you should reset and configure again anyway after a bios flash).
@@kaseyboles30 It's, I believe, still not clear whether it actually happened or not but what you describe about hardware-based malware is rumoured to have happened to Supermico, the US-based server brand (just as an aside, they make some great stuff). Bloomberg came out with a story some years ago that spy chips were found on supermicro server mainboards which were purportedly produced in China and destined for USA and EU government institutions and large companies. Something like 30 entities were claimed to have been affected. Then a whole back-and-forth of denial, examination, cross-examination, publication and litigation started up, even the NSA jumped in at some point saying it was impossible (they would of course say that) and last I heard, one or more other credible publications had come out with articles (some one or more years later) that basically stated that there was in fact more to the story than just "it was fabricated, didn't actually happen". I didn't do a deep-dive into it so can't say what the current state is or what concrete evidence (or lack thereof) has come out in the mean time, but if you're interested you should be able to find the entire thing by searching for "Supermicro spy chips"
It's in response to this and like you also hint at, that multiple companies, Dell is one I know for sure, came out with a special line of servers (for Dell, they're called Dell Secured Component verification, SCV. We have some of those at work) that were fully produced in, I believe, don't quote me on this, the USA, EU or other allied nations and where all components inside, from nut to bolt to chip to case, were carefully guarded, tracked and monitored throughout the entire process from raw material to end-user and are validated and signed by Dell to be secure and unchanged from their manufacturer specifications. I believe they (or some of them) also have hardware-based checks built-in where the system will not boot if anything, either hardware or software, including component firmware, has been changed from the stock config. The CPU's for instance, are also locked to solely that model of server and won't work on any other model. Eye-wateringly expensive, of course but for some companies like the one I work for, they are more than worth the premium
@@boam2943 Fortunately when you use something like qflash or flashback it shouldn't keep old config data. That often requires software with the new bios to translate any config data that's storage format has changed (if for example they give new options or store the options differently). Though it's possible for the bios image to contain flags/markers to indicate what is and isn't' compatible to a point. but beyond some very simple basics you add complexity to the flashback asic and it starts to become a general computer itself. and that costs money. DPMI on a server could probably manage all that, it's supposed to provide a level of remote control well beyond what a home user would need, and you pay for that when you buy a server.
Best iFixit ad ever!!
Found a HP Z4G4 Xeon W-2145 64GB RAM 512m.2 with GTX 1070 8GB for $450 (with $50 ebay discount code) w free shipping. Quad channel ECC RDDR4. Smooth as butter.
I am impressed by your lowballing skills, 50% off starting price is crazy
I wouldn't really call it lowballing. That's a 5600G and a 3060, that's about what the PC should cost.
Not really, you could ask $1200, then negotiate to $400, that doesn't mean the system was ever worth $1200
A lot of people these days don't understand how the "used" market should be... the asking price was 2x's higher than it should have been. Normal [OG] used pricing is 50% retail... because it is used. It is no longer new, it no longer has warranty (most the time), and has reduced life span. That's why 50% of retail has always been the mark to start for used. A lot of people just have "worth" and "cost" confused.
You never know who needs the money now
@@MrTwisted003 Fair enough. I think I'm guilty of that myself.
Hi Jay. I really appreciate your willingness to get back in touch with your viewers on what they would be buying for their own systems. Not everyone can afford the builds that are shown on your channel. Cheers! 🥰
should take note that you can build your own Windows Isos with preinstalled apps. Means even if you have that first user experience, you dont know what kind of software is preinstalled with that iso image. Best way is always, clean the SSD and make a fresh install with your own ISO you donwloaded by yourself!
Best way is to not use Windows at all, and put Linux on it.
I work at a wholesale club. I was able to get a Acer Nitro 50 desktop. With a i5 11400k, GTX1060, with 512 ssd and 8 gb. It was the display model.....$180 with cheap mouse and keyboard. Gave it to my 8 yo son for his first set up. What a deal.
Nice and fun video. Glad it worked out for you. Make someone a nice gift. I like to see you make a follow up video where you pull it apart, add a CPU cooler, repast CPU, and maybe even repasted GPU and see the temps. Would make a great video.
In general, I don't think you need to get rid of the drive to be safe. But as a matter of course, I would at the very least download a fresh Windows installer directly from Microsoft and install that to a flash drive. Boot into the installer and completely delete every partition on the drive using the advanced settings of the installer. Then have the installer create and format all new partitions on the drive and install a fresh copy of Windows onto the machine. It sounds like a lot, but it's actually extremely easy and quick to do and once Windows connects to the internet, it should automatically activate without the need for a serial, since Microsoft now automatically detects and recognizes and activates previously activated machines through unique hardware identifiers.
So I don't think you need to get rid of the drive, but to air on the safe side, I personally would definitely wipe that drive properly (partitions and all) and do a fresh clean install of windows.
Dont forget to flash new bios. Malware is getting smarter and now can be even at level one of system, just a step away from build-in spyware chip on motherboard.
My first Computer was $800. Its actually what I'm watching this on right now. I bought it from a dude on Craigslist in 2022. He had a lot of other systems he was selling too. I was very new to PC ownership and custom builds and buying used PCs off of the internet from strangers. I brought it home, turned it on, and it booted to a fresh install of Windows 10 just like he said. I hadn't ever thought of checking to see if there was nefarious stuff on it. I don't believe there is anyways. I haven't had any strange things happen to me or any of my accounts. Its a pretty decent PC.
Asrock z390 Taichi
9900k
EVGA 1080ti FTW3
32gb 3200 MHz RAM
500 GB m.2
1 TB HDD
Cooler Master MWE 750 Gold V2
360 AiO on the CPU
I later added another m.2 with 1TB
HP and the like are normally using nonstandard garbage components that only fit in the case they came in
I found this out a couple of years ago when i tried to upgrade and repurpose a workstation. The only things i could keep in the end were the cpu and nvme drive 😂
I bought this system new a few years ago. It came with the Kingston Fury RAM, Cost me roughly $1,400. It was a great PC, so getting it for $400 is crazy.
I like hairy men
I would suggest using a DBAN USB and run DBAN on the drive. Of just toss it as you suggested. I used an online key dealer to get Windows 11 professional and had no problem at all. you could also update the CPU to a 5600x 3D if you want to kick it up a notch. Of course another option would be to sell the 3060 and use it as a NAS.
Off the Shelf parts, except the argb Hub in the 25L case - possibly other cases - proprietary plug is for an aio cooler - single fan aio fits on top above cpu socket, metal plate 4 panels punch out. Backside can be opened tool free, shift-push.
@JayzTwoCents
8:28 Jay, just wipe the existing drive. Use a bootable utility to delete the partitions and reset the MBR. Then reinstall the OS. That's it, you're done. No need to swap drives or anything like that..
Drive can be pretty beaten up however...especially cheap high-capacity M.2 SSD`s, they are most likely using big memory cells that dont last long at all.
@@alexturnbackthearmy1907
"Can be" but very rarely is. Finding out is simple. Wipe, format and test. If pass, golden. If fail, toss. It's really that simple.
@@lexluthermiester Except SMART on these drives is often incorrect and doesn't give warning to a failure. Source: have had MULTIPLE drives fail without any warning from SMART testing
@@AngelaTheSephira
"SMART" doesn't matter if you do a full, sector by sector test. If each sector tests as good, the drive's SMART data can be safely ignored.
@@lexluthermiester I have done that. The drives passed. And then they failed a few hours later.
Since its an HP, you can throw the serial number into HP's sire, try the warranty section, to get the original specs
FYI - GamersNexus actually done an entire in-depth video showing Ryzen 3rd Gen aka Zen 3 gains performance by having all 4 dimm slots populated. I had a Ryzen 5600X then upgraded to the Ryzen 5800X3D on launch. I’ve been running 4x8GB sticks for 32GB total. 3600mhz CL 14 and never had a single issue with either CPU not once. My board is an Asus Prime X570 - Pro. Using all Gen 4 NVMe drives with a Seasonic 850 watt 80+ platinum PSU. Runs like a dream since I got it. Going on 3-4 years now. Ive had 3 diff GPUs running with it the 5800x3D while running 4x8Gb sticks. RTX 2070 Super, RTX 3070 Ti, and now an RTX 4070 TI Super. My system has always booted just fine with DOCP enabled and PBO set to max with all 3 GPUS overclocked basically as high as it can go while remaining stable. So not sure what the hell he’s talking about with running 4 sticks with Zen 3. It’s literally extra performance for free especially if you game at 1080P. I play at 1440P 280hz and while the performance difference between having two dimm slots populated and 4 is usually down to margin of error at higher resolutions some games do still get a boost as seen in GamersNexus entire video about it. Particularly if you play E-sports games at low settings ultra high fps at 1080P in certain games you can actually gain 15-20+ fps. So again I have literally no clue what he’s talking about.
Props to HP for including actual VRM heatsinks.
pointless anyway at that level of system.
@@kaimojepasltnot necessarily, they probably ship the same motherboard with the higher spec models with the 5800x.
Bought my wife the 3080 version of these back when they came out. It runs really well! I don't see a lot of people talk about these systems.
I am pretty sure you can reset the OOBE even without reseting windows - there could defo be nasties on there still.
Yep. Sysprep reseal. You can even put nasty stuff and then reseal the oobe. That's how oem do that.
Been building custom gaming pc for 10 yrs now and I must say I’m very impressed how far consoles have come for just £300-400 amazing performance and response for the price.
Could be the original system RAM. HP owns Hyper X
HP only bought the peripherals not the storage and memory, Kingston still owns that.
@@johnhudson7055hp is putting hyperx stuff in their pcs now tho
HP Omens do typically ship with HyperX RGB Ram, I have a Omen 30L with an AMD 5800X and it came with the same style HyperX ram.
But you would still expect the lighting to be synced with the rest of the lights.
@@rightwingsafetysquad9872 What other lights?
I picked up a similar system as a secondary for my office. It was an HP Victus with a 5600G and Radeon 6400. Works great and only cost me 300€.
That ifixit ad spot never EVER gets old, one of the best ever.
Got that exact same one for my daughter. It does come with a colorful rainbow ram. Total selling point for the kid
"Helldivers is not demanding"
LOL.
LOL
LOL
LOL
is not incredibly demanding... a 1660 will run it fine
And a 14900K will bottleneck a 4090 at 4K or 5120x1440 with super sampling.@@jesusbarrera6916
Great vid. I bought an open box PowerSpec prebuilt with an i9-10900k and 3080 from Microcenter during the peak of Covid for around $800 off MSRP.
Or the pc is stolen.
Either stolen, Jay lied about what he paid, or he used his influence and swapped some parts to get it
some people really dont care when they selling and want to get rid of the pc asap, there are plenty of them around god bless them 😂
No one cares about if the street PC is stolen. Have you gamed online lately on any platform!?!
Came by a couple of these when I used to work at a pawn shop, they're not a bad choice but still have their fair share of proprietary parts. IDK if anyone noticed, but it's an AM4 socket... with an LGA1151 cooler, which makes shopping for a new cooler kind of interesting.
Omen comes with that RAM
That is a good deal. The things that are an issue for me (case, psu, memory, drives), are all things you can fix easily.
Sometimes we get so caught up in the high end stuff that these older less powerful parts are still damn good.
It's still a 1TB NVMe, just format the SSD and create a windows setup USB. Sure, you'll have to pay for Windows, but keys are cheap.
I don't think we need to recommend people not reuse storage drives, just show them how to format it correctly.
I agree about not recommending a new drive, but u also wont have to buy windows, even if u create a new windows USB as long as u dont change windows versions
I'm honestly surprised you left that custom HP build of Windows 11 on there. I've seen these kinds of Windows installs cause really weird issues in games and other software programs, not to mention all the bloatware that comes pre-installed. Several years ago, I had a friend buy a Dell XPS desktop computer, and I helped them set it up, and the first think I did as soon as it booted up was boot into the Windows Installer I had made on a separate USB, wiped everything on both drives, installed Windows to the SSD, and then reinitialized the storage HDD. Windows activated with no issue, and that computer has run great ever since. Pure Windows is the way to go with any kind of pre-built computer.
My rule for buying a used PC, I look at all the parts and come up with a used price total then remove the cost of one of the major components then that's my offer.
I have an HP omen 25l and I have installed an aio liquid cooler. You can mount a single fan radiator as a top outlet. It really keeps the temps in check. Downside is you’ll have to take the whole pc apart to install a different bracket. You can do it though..
Why did u blow out the dust from the pc inside in ur studio? That's just wild. How about doing it outside?
LOL
Yep. Buying used can save assloads of money but it takes time, patience and sometimes out of the box hunting especially since the used market is still bonkers.
I never came this early. I swear, ladies.
right i saw posted 24 seconds ago and jumped at the chance to be an early ass
Love this Jay. I have been out of the game of buying, building, or any thing i have been watching you vids for a few years. Thank you for show me that its ok to just look around and do my home work to find a "ok" pc. and make it better with a few tweaks.
Please don't eat chick fil a
Why
Why?
@@EtriehDishonest marketing about the high quality of their product when it’s actually low quality chicken that’s treated with extremely high levels of MSG to create an addictive chemical response in the brain to get people to crave more of it.
@@lc7ka7 welcome to every single fast food joint with chicken bro.
@@Etrieh except the levels of MSG in chick fil a are over 10 times higher than any other national chain and they don’t disclose it. The EU forced them change the ingredients in preparation for the upcoming UK locations because they test the food over here and actually hold corporations accountable to their claimed ingredients. But believe what you want, bro. 🤦♂️
With these as well as other HP, Alienware, and Dell prebuilds, for CPU cooling upgrades, note that the AMD uses Intel backplate spacing, and the backplates use M3 screws. So, you can buy some M3 screws (M3 x 20mm is good for what I've seen/used) and use the appropriate spacers included with the cooler (AMD spacers with AMD CPUs)
My used PC deal was picking up an ASUS ROG Strix Pre-build including an i7 11700kf and a RTX 3080 for $550. I swapped my 3070 in for the 3080, and pulled the Strix mATX motherboad out (wanted for a mATX project) for a Gigabyte Z590 aorus master I also picked up cheap. Cleaned it up, upgraded the CPU cooler, added an extra case fan, and sold it.
Just built my new PC. Thanks jayzTwoCents for explaining everything and giving me the confidence to do it! 😀
Another reason to replace the drive, especially on HP or Dell systems is that the fresh install of windows gets rid of their proprietary junkware. I have to build a custom win 11 installer for work soon.
meh just restart from scratch with linux problem solved🤣
@@SaraMorgan-ym6ue problem bigger, it is for work. It has to be windows so the people I work with don't have to be retrained how to use their systems. YEs, they WILL because it really is different if you only used MS windows
@@jonathanwessner3456 meh they will learn kid they will learn
Just a FYI / reminder: You can use tools like sysprep to 'reseal' the OS, but still have all the installed garbage and malware.
I would never say to use the drive that comes with a system, I replace them even in brand new systems.
just secure erase the SSD in the BIOS/UEFI and you are good.
This is what I would do. Doesn't matter if they have a "fresh install". I would format the drive and do a fresh install. You don't know if they loaded a compromised version.
I really like videos like this that showcase older hardware. I had an older Ryzen 3600 and a 650w power supply laying around. So I paired that with a 1660 ti microw ATX b350 and ram. Found a $35 micro ATX case off of Amazon. All together spent around $200 on supplies. Put a little bit of an overclock on the GPU and it runs great.
really cool seeing you make a vid about marketplace buys! Lucked out on a system, only paid 275 and had an r5 2600x, msi rx 570 8gb, 16gb ram and threw in a 27 in 1440p monitor/mech kb no extra charge., been needing a system for another while now and wasn't expecting to find such a good deal
I got a pretty good deal on a platform, but not a full system. Back during the GPU shortage of 2021, I bought an I7-11700F with the awesome intel stock cooler, an mATX motherboard and a 2x8 gb 3000 mHz ram kit for $400 including shipping off eBay. Sure, I had to buy some other parts, and one of those was a deal too, an InWin V500 series *beige* minitower case with a 90mm exhaust fan included for $25. The case's box was stamped 2008.
Made for a fun sleeper computer with some other parts I scrounged, traded for and bought new, and I still use it today!
those smaller form factor gpus sell for way more than they should. I was looking into building a small form factor build, but the cost of the smaller cards over regular/oversized was ridiculous
Jay, you can boot the system after installing and set it up for the customer... then have it reboot into the OOBE environment... I do this all the time to preinstall software, drivers and games for whoever gets the computer!
Really hope this becomes a more common theme on the channel. Maybe ever once in awhile get a random PC off the internet ebay, Facebook, or Mercari. Then fix it/ clean it/ or show us a good way to max out performance for the hardware. Thanks Jay
I actually like the wraith coolers over the huge coolers in terms of looks. For a budget pc 1080p with no over clocking, the wraith cooler is all you need.
Great advice on swapping out any of the drives due to key logging, not something most of us would think to worry about.
The newer Omen PC use off the shelf parts. I had an earlier one that used proprietary mainboard and power supply. Glad they changed
There are deals out there. I've been having a lot of fun deal hunting, building and selling pc's at a pretty leisurely pace.
I have one of those, but it’s the 45L and Hyper-x ram with RGB comes standard with them. These Omen start popping up on different youtube channels lately, but they are new. This is the first time I’ve seen it used. Pretty cool.
With the advice not to use the drive that comes with it, just use secure erase in the BIOS to wipe it and it's perfectly safe. No one is writing custom nvme firmware with malware that somehow persists through a secure erase
My girlfriend has that exact pre built and yes, it does ACTUALLY come with that Ram and she cannot control the RGB. I've tried to change it, but I can't find anything that works. She's not the only one to have the problem either.
The windows license key is embedded on the motherboard and should work automatically with a completely fresh install of windows. You don't need the specific OEM version of windows. That has been my experience with OEM machines, especially HP.
Not sure how it is for newer versions but I remember having to download OEM Windows as the Retail version wouldn't activate using the embedded key.
@15:30 Just to note the RTX 4060 uses a standard 8 pin PCI-E power cable. So there would be no need for any adapters in this case. Even most 4070's use a singe 8 pin cable.
Like my Asus 4070 Dual OC for example. There are few models of the 4070 that use the 12vhpwr cable.
Love this video. I buy used systems on a regular basis. I'm not scared as long as the proper questions are asked.
A weird thing about the HP Omen systems, the "Advanced" BIOS menu is only available on certain BIOS revisions, so you may need to flash the BIOS to an *_older_* version. You'd think that would be something in the latest BIOS files, but not according to HP!
i bought an Lenovo legion t5 in june 22. original price was 2000dollars for a 3700x 16gb ram 3070 with a 2tb storage. i paid under a grand because it was an returned item to the store, and they had it labled used with signs of ware. got it still with all the peels on it and new windows install,. thank u for that.
Even with the "1st" launch windows is very easy to simply use sysprep to install malicious software then restart into oobe and it will go back to this screen with all the malware already there
I totally get what JayZ is saying about smoking and PCs. Someone asked me to pull the hard drives out of some old PCs they had, and holy crap were they nasty. They definitely smelled and were extremely dirty.
Gotta say, that iFixit ad you guys made is still the best ad I've seen in a really long time.
Awesome way of putting attention to a bit of security there and at the same time showing that there are real good deals out there on the used market. Especially liked you not pluging it into any network before you knew what was going on. Personally i would always just format all the drives before doing anything and then install a new OS from a stick while everything is still offline, but thats just me. Although with windows 11 afaik installing it without internet connection is sadly impossible, wich is just such an unnecessary security risk.
I'll take it. I've been stuck in Claremont Care Center, of Pomona CA. for 5 years. I get no money the state takes it all. All I have is a real old laptop 4 Gigs max. I3 at least it plays youtube videos. You can make a video if you want. I know you wont that's ok. You and your crew Rock. :)
I got a used overbuilt pc around a EVGA ftw3 3070 for 500 bucks last year. had stuff like a 1000w gold psu for no reason and tons of rgb fans, lianli, corsair. pretty good deal
Now it would be interesting to see the cooler mounting. I have an HP which uses the case itself as the backplate so the cooler screws directly into the case, which makes it pretty much impossible to replace the cooler unless I'd dremel away the part of the case, which might make it impossible to reuse the original cooler then. But maybe this is a more standard setup.
Back in the GPU shortage days, I almost bought a 30L HP OMEN... not only you can't get to the back of the mother board , there is a notch in the MB and a dimple in the case , you can't drop a standard ATX board in there (without cutting)
I hope whoever sold that PC is doing ok. I know a couple of people who didn’t make the best monetary decisions and have had to pawn off items to pay debts. This reminds me of that. Just taking whatever $$ they can get even when it isn’t the best deal for them.
My OMEN 25L new came with 8GB Fury w/RGB but it only came with a 1660 Super GPU. I have upgraded a little bit, but I am still running it and play games just fine. I do plan on building one eventually when I can afford it. Plus you can add a 120mm fan on the top. There is a bracket that comes out and you can attach a fan to it. They actually made it fairly easy to do.
Back in the day, end of 2019, I got GTX1070 for £200. Just few weeks later due to stock shortages that card was over twice that price.
Served me very well over the years.
Last computer I built for someone, I went into the OEM user, and set up everything for them just so that the out-of-box experience would still be there, specifically reactivating the out-of-box experience, even with the requested extras preinstalled
I remember back in the day when it was much more difficult to setup a computer. Having to use Dos to Fdisk and format the disk drive. Having to use dos commands to run your computer. Then along comes windows 1.0 which still was more difficult to setup things then today's software does.
I bought a cyberpower prebuilt from best buy back in 2020. It was just over $1k. It worked pretty well for a long while for playing 1080p games and even a few 1440p games at low and medium graphics. I actually still have some of the same parts in my build. Just replaced parts as they stopped working or for upgrade reasons. Considering maybe doing a rebuild in the next year using a smaller case.
Got revo today and I brought back to life a 8 year old laptop. Love the program.
There is a screw under the motherboard ot the omen 30l case so you can take of the back panel to get easy access to change the cooler.
There is also a space at the top for a 140mm aio but you might need a custom bracket if it's has been removed from the case already.
There also use a custom board which looks like a sata ssd that controls the led lights.
You can only change rams speed by using the omen software not the bios.
I previously owned a hp omen l30 and know if you put much more powerful components in, it will cook itself to death because of restricted airflow.
I would like to thank you for all the work that you and the team put in to the content you provide, keep up the great work and fun.
I purchased a Windows license for 1$ a year ago lol. Also, I can confirm, that's most likely the default RAM, had a 30L HP OMEN pre-build a year ago, mine was slightly fancier with a 3080 and a AiO liquid cooler on the CPU but it had the same Hyper Fury X RGB RAM sticks.
I owned one of these myself. HP does include the HyperX Fury RGD RAM sticks. One thing I found interesting was the Bluetooth antenna is installed into the front of the tower. Also, the Micro ATX is some sort of Hana Edition. I didn't like the lack of customizability you get with it. Seems like you got an off-the-shelf 30L here, but for $1000 off the MSRP 👍 ..also, there is a removable backplate to get to the wiring and such.
I would really think about installing your own OS install. You can create your own OS install with MDT, SCCM and other tools to make it look like a OEM install. There are also tools to modify existing OEM installs. Nice rig for the price!!
Great advice on a new ssd. Aside from security risks, you don't know how the old storage had been used/abused. Whilst unlikely, a new ssd is a small investment for piece of mind that you won't lose everything 6 months down the track...
I don't know if Jay did or not but don't blow/spin the fans without disconnecting them first. You can generate current that could damage the motherboard fan headers. And it's always advised to blow air than to suck air (vacuum) for static reasons.
My brother gave me a omen pc just like this. It had a 1660 super and a 3600x. Not bad for a free PC. But I liked the case so much I decided to rip out all the internals and upgrade everything. With a little modification it now has a gigabyte rx 6750 xt, rysen 5700x being cooled by a cooler master AIO and two lianli infinity front fans. Overall very happy how it turned out.
Formatting the drive and doing a fresh install, I'm all for. But taking the drive out is unnecessary. The update screen is standard for all windows 11 versions, it just usually doesn't do that. A reliable way to trigger it is by doing the "restore settings from other PC" while installing. A 4060 wouldn't require an adapter for the power, since they use the regular 8-pin. 4060 Ti is the first card with 12VHPWR.
They are not very pretty, but ex-business computers have a lot of advantages for a self-refurbishing project. Even 5-10 year old systems usually have: (i) full maintenance documentation online; (ii) regular firmware updates that include security and compatibility patches; (iii) Windows licence keys built-in to the firmware; (iv) easy sourcing of replacement parts.