today we're gonna open the case of an HP
Pavilion model 690 - 24 this Rison 5
based gaming desktop is compact in size
but we'll see if it has some room for
upgrade ability I'll dismantle the case
and the inner cage to assess how much
you can upgrade in terms of processor
graphics card memory and storage on
paper the HP contains an AMD Rison 520
400 G running at 3.6 gigahertz with 8
gigabytes of ddr4 memory running at 26
66 megahertz it includes an AMD Radeon
rx 580 graphics card and three drives a
128 gigabyte SSD a one terabyte hard
drive and a DVD CD burner the case
itself is black brushed metal with green
LED highlights and it's really compact
it measures approximately thirteen and a
half inches high by 6 and 3/4 wide by 10
and 3/4 deep which means there's not a
lot of room in there so I'm curious how
upgradeable this system really is let's
open the case and find out the tools you
need are a flathead or Torx screwdriver
an old credit card or gift card and
finally an ESD strap or ESD mat if you
plan to touch any of the electronics
inside the first thing you'll need to do
is remove the single screw that secures
the cover you can use either a flat head
or Phillips head screwdriver so I'll
just use my flathead bit the screw
itself isn't meant to be detached from
the cover so you can leave it in place
after loosening it let's then remove the
side panel and set it aside and take a
look inside the case at first glance it
looks very clean the cables are well
organized at this point to avoid any
electrostatic damage I'll put on my ESD
wrist strap before touching any internal
components to get to the memory m2 slot
and the storage devices we'll need to
remove the cage which is held in place
by these four screws there are Torx
flathead hybrid so you can use either
screwdriver bit I'll just switch over to
my Torx bit to unscrew them
when I try to slide the cage there's
some resistance and that's because the
front bezel of the cd/dvd drive is
preventing its removal all you need to
do is take a plastic card and wedge it
in the spacing between the bezel and the
front cover when you pry it it'll pop
right off here you can see the tabs that
held it in place the cage then simply
slides off like this make sure not to
yank it off because there are plenty of
cables attached appearing inside the
case there's the processor which is an
AMD Rison 520 400 G it's an AM 4 socket
so you could upgrade to arisin 7 2700
according to HP's website HP has decided
to pair this APU which has integrated
Radeon rx Vega 11 graphics with a
discreet graphics card the AMD Radeon rx
580 with 4 gigabytes of memory note that
if the graphics card ever breaks down
you won't be able to use the integrated
graphics anyways as the motherboard
doesn't support it it's a very short
card so you'd need to find one with
similar dimensions if you wanted to
upgrade it there's a little more space
toward the front of the case but not
much keep in mind that the power supply
is only 400 watts so you'll need to
consider the power requirements of any
graphics upgrade there are two din slots
for ddr4 memory and one is already taken
that one is an 8 gigabyte module you can
add another one in the extra slot or if
you want to go large it'll accept two
sticks of 16 for a total of 32 gigabytes
next to the memory is the m2 SSD in its
slot it's an nvme SSD that's 128
gigabytes so it's not very large you can
always upgrade the SSD to a larger
capacity panning over to the expansion
slots there's one single open PCIe slot
so you could possibly add an audio card
the HP comes with a mechanical 1
terabyte hard drive as its secondary
drive as well as a cd/dvd drive both of
which reside inside the cage I'll go
ahead and remove the SATA power
and the SATA data cable that's attached
to the hard disk the disk itself is
fastened to the cage by these four
screws which again are the Torx flathead
hybrid the same size as the cage screws
I removed previously the disc will slip
right out it's a Western Digital blue
running at 7,200 rpm you can swap this
out with a larger hard drive or an SSD
but keep in mind that HP stores its
recovery partition there so you'll want
to either make an image of that
partition or create a set of recovery
discs so you can get rid of that
partition altogether there's one more
SATA port on the motherboard so you can
add another hard drive or two and a half
inch SSD if you want to expand your
storage options you can mount the
additional drive on the cage where a
spare SATA power cable is conveniently
within reach if it's a two and a half
inch disc you may need an adapter to
mount it now all we need to do is
reverse the steps to reassemble
everything back together this is a very
capable gaming machine that could see
some immediate benefits with some minor
upgrades even in this compact space
there are options to upgrade the
computer including its processor and
graphics card but more easily its memory
and storage I hope you enjoyed thanks
for watching
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