I know more about Dell than HP but they likely do make their own motherboards. If memory serves, they even at one point had a different PSU pinout that would fry the mobo if you tried to use a standard power supply. They could easily program their PCIE chipset to reject GPUs that aren’t sold with the computer, for example, under the guise of “keeping the warranty valid” in case of “third party hardware”
I never had an HP. Back in the day, I mostly built my own computers and worked on computers that weren’t mass-produced. But I guess you’re right. There nineties were a real wild west of computer hardware before PCs were commoditized. I didn’t know HP made their own motherboards, but I can see it.
I know more about Dell than HP but they likely do make their own motherboards. If memory serves, they even at one point had a different PSU pinout that would fry the mobo if you tried to use a standard power supply. They could easily program their PCIE chipset to reject GPUs that aren’t sold with the computer, for example, under the guise of “keeping the warranty valid” in case of “third party hardware”
I never had an HP. Back in the day, I mostly built my own computers and worked on computers that weren’t mass-produced. But I guess you’re right. There nineties were a real wild west of computer hardware before PCs were commoditized. I didn’t know HP made their own motherboards, but I can see it.