To retrive the 25 digit product key for Micosoft Windows 7, 8 or 10, in the search bar, type:
cmd
At the command prompt, type:
wmic path softwarelicensingservice get oa3xoriginalproductkey
Or from the search bar, type:
powershell
(get-wmiobject -query ‘select * from SoftwareLicensingService’).OA3xOriginalProductKey
I purchased a HP Elitedesk mini G6 i7-10700T from Ebay in Sept 2023. The first time, I booted the system, it started installing Micosoft Windows 11. I am not sure if it installed the Pro, Enterprise or IoT Enterprise.
After running a few performance benchmarks, I wanted to do a clean install of Windows 11 Pro. I used the same USB thumb drive that I had used numerious times before, but this time, at the very beginning, it prompted me for a 25-digit product key. I exited out of the install program. I retrived the 25-digit product key in the UEFI/BIOS and tried again to do a clean install of Windows Pro 11. When I entered the 25-digit product key, it said that the entered key did not match any Windows OS that were available for downloading.
I contacted the ebay seller and asked how to do a clean install of Windows 11 Pro. The seller sent me a screenshot from a "message" on their iPhone. The message consisted of the three instructions below. Having never used the slmgr command before, I looked at some of references, and added comments to the three instructions:
Change the Product Key:
slmgr /ipk W269N-WFGWX-YVC9B-4J6C9-T83GX
Set the Volume Licensing Key Management Sevice (KMS) server and/or the port used KMS activation:
slmgr /skms kms8.msguide.com
Activate Windows license and product key against Microsoft server:
slmgr /ato
In Microsoft's article on KMS [4], I learned that the above 25-digit product key is Microsoft's (Semi-Annual) Generic Volume Liciensing Key for Windows 11 Pro. To use this key, there has to be KMS server on your local network. Futhermore, I believe that this liciense has to be vertified against the local KMS server every six months.
The seller is obviously not technical and because the seller sent me a screenshot of a message on thier iPhone, I believe the seller is getting help from an IT person. The seller said that at one time, they were the CFO of an engineering company.
I did finally manage to do a clean install of Windows Pro 11 using my USB thumb drive. You can do this in two ways. When it prompts for the product key, enter the above Generic key or click on the button, you do not have a product key. In either case, it will install Windows 11 Pro, but it will not be activated. If I activated with the 25-digit product key that was (is) in the UEFI/BIOS, it will activate, but the OS will change from Windows 11 Pro to WIndows 11 Iot Enterprise.
The good news, is that when I check the expiration with the folowing command:
slmgr /xpr
It says indefinate.
I beleive that an Enterprise edition of Windows 11 was installed on this pc, and it may not be possible to now recover the old 25-digit product key.
References:
| G4 | 4CB16UT#ABA | MXL92030CN | NVCCM-RJ7DT-GGVF3-HG248-82QGP |
| G4 | 4CB16UT#ABA | MXL92030F8 | 47J4N-YTYDD-D22PJ-BPT96-6F4C2 |
| G4 | 4CB16UT#ABA | MXL94641F2 | WVG4N-HGW7G-4GP83-T7H3M-MY49C |
| G6 | 20J48UT#ABA | MXL12840BH | YQNPW-HBJKW-MKCMC-DHDGJ-Q7CMQ |
Solid State Disk (SSD) and Hard Drives can determine their own health. Build into them is, Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology (SMART). HP's computer have diagnostics build into the BIOS. The SSD on one of the HP mini 800 G4's I purchase off of Ebay reported that the SMART SSD failed.
To view primative SMART data with the Windows OS, from the command line:
wmic diskdrive get status
To view detailed SMART data use the free program, CrystalDiskInfo.
References:
Crystal Disk Mark:
Crystal Disk Mark only runs on Microsoft Windows OS. However, if you are dual-drive, dual boot, it can check both drives.
| Gen | Seq. Read 1 | Seq. Write 1 | Seq. Read 2 | Seq. Write 2 | Ran. Read 1 | Ran. Write 1 | Ran. Read 2 | Ran. Write 2 | |
| MZVL2256HCHQ Samsung $30 | 4x4 | 3,532 | 2,663 | 3,523 | 2,654 | 1,211 | 673 | 60 | 97 |
| WD Gen | 3x4 | 3.465 | 2,589 | 1,943 | 2,130 | 555 | 250 | 51 | 180 |
| Samsung 980 | 3x4 | 3,166 | 2,268 | 1,381 | 2,159 | 475 | 389 | 53 | 120 |
| WD Gen #1 | 3x2 | 1,728 | 1,296 | 1,734 | 1,294 | 875 | 612 | 44 | 118 |
| Old 128 | 3x4 | 3,222 | 721 | 2543 | 704 | 578 | 389 | 42 | 100 |
| WD 570 | 4x4 | 3,553 | 2,487 | 2,515 | 2,439 | 529 | 431 | 51 | 136 |
Samsung Magician
| Serial Num | Description | Sequential Read | Sequential Write | Random Read | Random Write |
| $35 | New 980 Gen 3x4 | 3,166 | 2,250 | 159,179 | 113,769 |
| MXL94641F2 | WD Gen 3x2 | 1,730 | 1,302 | 157,470 | 115,722 |
| MXL92030CN | old 128GB Gen 3x4 | 2,984 | 169 | 163,085 | 35,400 |
DDR - Double Data Rate
One of the three HP mini 800 G4's I purchased from Ebay only had one 16 GB memory card. THe HP G4 supports duel channel memory. When I run the bios diagnostic short memory test, it takes 11 minutes to complete - compared to 6.5 minutes for the G4's with two memory cards. All of the memory cards were 2400 instead of 2666. That is an 11 percent decrease in performance.
| Computer | Type | Size | Speed | Time |
| HP 800 mini G4 | Dual | 16 GB | 2666 SA2-11 | 6:38 |
| HP 800 mini G4 | Dual | 16 GB | 2400T SA1-11 | 6:51 |
| HP 800 mini G4 | Dual | 16 GB | 3200 cl 22 | 7:58 |
| HP 800 mini G4 | Single | 16 GB | 2400T cl | 11:00 |
| HP 800 mini G9 | Dual | 16 GB | 4800 | 4:20 |
References:
| Gen. | CPU | Serial No. | Model No. | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| G4 | i7-8700T | MXL92030CN | 4CB16UT#ABA | $230 |
| G4 | i7-8700T | MXL92030F8 | 4CB16UT#ABA | $230 |
| G4 | i7-8700T | MXL94641F2 | 4CB16UT#ABA | $230 |
| G4 | i7-8700T | MXL94123BX1 | 4CB17UT#ABA | $200 |
| G5 | i7-9700T | MXL04150TH | 7LJ66UT#ABA | $200 |
| G6 | i7-10700T | $350 | ||
| G9 | i7-12700T | MXL3132C4R | 6B384UT#ABA | $500 |
The G5 UEFI/BIOS has considerably more diagnostic. This includes PC Stress tests of 15 ninutes and 30 minutes.
| CPU Stress Test for 15 Minutes | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | |
| 0 | 26 | 24 | 22 | 23 | 23 | 22 | 25 | 23 |
| 15 | 55 | 56 | 55 | 55 | 57 | 54 | 56 | 55 |
| 30 | 56 | 56 | 56 | 56 | 57 | 55 | 57 | 56 |
30 day free trial
30 Day Free Trial. The Pass Mark 11.0 benchmark takes less than 15 to run.
| Pass Mark | HP-G5 | HP-G4 | % Diff |
| Overall | 2,271 | 2,060 | 9.3 |
| CPU | 11,156 | 7,824 | 29.9 |
| 2D | 370 | 293 | 20.8 |
| 3D | 1,273 | 1,246 | 2.1 |
| Memory | 2,971 | 2,302 | 22.6 |
| DisK | 20,672 | 19,201 | 7.7 |
Underwriter Laboratory (UL), in 2014, acquired Futuremark, which owned PC Mark 10. They did this to accelerate their expansion into benchmarking services.
This is a large program; the zip file is almost 3 GB. When it is running, it shows on the screen Libra Office Writer, Libra Office Spreadsheet, and Gimp. It could be installing and uninstalling these programs or parts of them.
According to UL's website: PCMark 10 is now available for everyone . Futhermore it states, it is free for home users and available on their website and Steam. It looks like that was in 2017. I could not find the free basic edition at either location. However, I did find PC Mark10v2-1-2574.zip, which is acturally PC Mark10 version 5.50.1092.0 at: https://www.techspot.com/downloads/6986-pcmark-10.html".
The free basic edition of PC Mark10 takes about 30 minutes to run.
| PC Mark 10 Version 5.50.1092.0 | ||||
| Generation | HP-G6 | HP-G5 | HP-G4 | % Diff |
| Processor | i7-10700T | i7-9700T | i7-8700T | |
| Overall | 4,085 | 3053 | 25.3 | |
| Essential | 8,133 | 6,701 | 17.6 | |
| App Start-up | 10,540 | 7,370 | 30.1 | |
| Video Conferencing | 6,836 | 6,612 | 3.3 | |
| Web Browsing | 7,468 | 6,176 | 17.3 | |
| Productivity | 6,376 | 3,955 | 37.9 | |
| Spread Sheest | 6,751 | 4,252 | 37.0 | |
| Writting | 6,023 | 3,679 | 38.9 | |
| Digital Contents Creating | 3,569 | 2,911 | 18.4 | |
| Photo Editing | 5,062 | 4,103 | 10.9 | |
| Rendering & Visalization | 2,211 | 2,247 | -1.6 | |
| Video Editing | 4,062 | 2,677 | 34.1 | |
If 5,000 or above, the PC is good for that task. Hence, the HP 800 EliteDesk G5 i7-9700T is good for Essential and Productivity, but is not good for Digitial Contents Creating. This is not surprising, since it does not have discreate graphics.
HP's UEFI/BIOS setting will effect benchmarks. The table below shows the effect of enabling/disabling realtime power management in the UEFI/BIOS.
| HP 800 EliteDesk G5 i7-9700T - 16KB | |||
| Real Time Power Management | |||
| On | OFF | % Diff | |
| Overall | 2,271 | 2,006 | 11.6 |
| CPU | 11,156 | 7,028 | 37.0 |
| 2D | 370 | 275 | 25.7 |
| 3D | 1,273 | 1,257 | 1.3 |
| Memory | 2,971 | 1,980 | 33.4 |
| Disk | 20,672 | 19,962 | 3.4 |
| PC Mark10 | On | Off | % Diff |
| Overall | 4085 | 2,806 | 31.3 |
| Essential | 8,133 | 5,702 | 29.9 |
| App Start-up | 10,540 | 6,157 | 41.6 |
| Video Conferencing | 6,836 | 5,210 | 23.8 |
| Web Browsing | 7,468 | 5,782 | 22.6 |
| Productivity | 6,376 | 3,355 | 47.4 |
| Spread Sheest | 6,751 | 3,650 | 45.9 |
| Writting | 6,023 | 3,084 | 19.8 |
| Digital Contents Creating | 3,569 | 2,861 | 19.8 |
| Photo Editing | 5,062 | 4,032 | 20.4 |
| Rendering & Visalization | 2,211 | 2,174 | 1.7 |
| Video Editing | 4,062 | 2,674 | 34.2 |
Ideally for a computer that sits on your desk, you want it to be silence. More precisely, you don't want to hear the fan humming or turning at a high spead.
The quietest replacement fan for the HP mini G4 or G5 is the AVC fan, Model BAZA0813R2.
it states on the lable that it has a hdryic bearing. It is the only fan that I have found that has a
manufacturers lable on it. The label has www.AVC.com.tw on it (Twian). There is a listing
for a fan that depicts this lablel on Amazon: but the fan I received was
had no lable on it.
CPU Cooling Fan for HP EliteDesk 800 G4, 705 G4, 705 G5, 800 G3, ProDesk 405 G4,
600 G4 Desktop Mini PC L19561-001
,
and it cost $44!.
The only place that I have found that you can purchase the fan with the lable is off of
EBay:
Ebay - New For HP EliteDesk 800 G4 35W Desktop Mini PC CPU Cooling Fan L19561-001
,
It cost only $20, but it has a long delievery time.
References:
Some people, including me, have had problems with the HP mini 800 G4/G5 and the audio service "CxULUSvc.Service" consuming large amounts of CPU and memory resources. All I did to stop this was, to stop the service and reboot. Other say the service needs to be perminently disabled.
Although this seems counter intutive, to dramically reduce the fan noise, disable "Runtime Power Managent" in the BIOS - under Adavanced | Power Management Options.
There are two heatsinks:
The HP Z27 monitor has a number quirks. It often says that the Display Input is inactive and the screen is blank. This is not an OS problem. It occurrs with Windows and Linux. The only way that I have found to fix this problem is:
Linux Work Arround
In most Linux distro's you can put the pc in sleep or hibernation before
you put the screen to sleep.
Windows 11 Work Arround
Under Settings | Power set Screen and Sleep to "Never".
Under Settings | Power | Energy Recommendations use the blank screen savor.
net use * \\server\shared_folder /p:no
It will prompt use for your user_name and password. You can put the net use command in a batch (.bat) file.
References:
To get the fn-delete key to perform a forward delelte. You have to install the bootcamp driver for an apple keyboard. More precisely, copy the file T://BootCamp6/AppleKeyboardInstaller64.exe to the local machine and double click on it
Right click the taskbar.
Geometry tap - Position: top; Aligment: left, and adjust taskbar size.
Appearence tap: Background: System Theme; Font: Custom Color: Black, and adjust font size.
You have install bluetooth and its manager:
sudo apt install bluetooth
sudo apt install blueman
A bluetooth icon should appear in the taskbar on the right side.
The magic code that enables sound through hdmi and displayport:
References:
References:
Secure Boot:
© Copyright Dr. Ray Franco, PhD, PE | 2006-2023. All rights reserved.
