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Hacking an HP Z800 motherboard into a standard PC case

Started by Andy Brown, November 01, 2014, 04:53:46 am

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dimare

Hello there! Does anybody got Speedfan working with the Z800 Motherboard?

The case fans are freaking loud, and the Bios Setting Idle Fan Mode is already set to lowest level. Or is there an option to jump over Error Message on Post if you disconnect the fan? I already tried headless mode but this is maybe only for Graphic Cards...

Regards and an nice Weekend!

JonMS

There must be something wrong with your fans as my Z800 is nearly silent but you can get speedfan working by going into advanced settings and selecting the controller. It doesnt work great but you can definitely quiet them down

dimare

I think everything is ok with my Z800...

Rear fans running with ~1600 UPM
Memory with ~ 1500 UPM
CPU about 1100 UPM in Idle

...how fast are your fans running?

I Only got CPU and the Quadro 5000 Fans controlled with Speedfan.

knightcrusader

Quote from: BenGman on April 08, 2015, 06:08:40 pm
WRT front IO connectors... I realised that the yellow USB header controls 3 USB ports instead of the regular 2, but I still have not figured out the pinouts


I'm confused about the USB headers on the motherboard. Are the two (well, 1 and a half) blue ones (P26 and P27) to the left of the yellow header not standard USB? Or are we trying to get more USB ports out through the yellow header labeled P24?

Andy Brown

April 27, 2015, 02:58:51 pm #109 Last Edit: April 27, 2015, 03:00:26 pm by Andy Brown
Quote from: knightcrusader on April 27, 2015, 12:54:53 pm
Quote from: BenGman on April 08, 2015, 06:08:40 pm
WRT front IO connectors... I realised that the yellow USB header controls 3 USB ports instead of the regular 2, but I still have not figured out the pinouts


I'm confused about the USB headers on the motherboard. Are the two (well, 1 and a half) blue ones (P26 and P27) to the left of the yellow header not standard USB? Or are we trying to get more USB ports out through the yellow header labeled P24?


OK so I need to apologise to Ben for completely forgetting how I'd set my USB connectivity up. I'll bet he never wants to see another multimeter again by now  ;)

As you can see from the attached photograph I'm running one of my front panel 2-port cables to part of the yellow P24 connector and another double port cable to the P26 header. I'm not using the single port header - P27. Unfortunately I can't remember how I knew the pinout to P24 or whether I just got lucky with a hunch  :(

I also have a USB 3.0 add-in card in one of the PCI-e slots.
It's worse than that, it's physics Jim!

knightcrusader

April 27, 2015, 04:56:06 pm #110 Last Edit: April 27, 2015, 05:10:11 pm by knightcrusader
So technically there are headers on the board for 6 USB 2.0 ports total... 1 normal 2-port header, a 1-port header, and the yellow one has 3 ports?

I also have a USB 3.0 card I plan to use as well for my USB 3.0 card reader... of course that depends on the case I get. I need 4 5.25" bays and a 3.5" bay and I am having trouble finding an HPTX case that can fit all that. The DS6 can handle 4 5.25" bays, so I might just forgo the card reader since I don't use it as much as I used to.

(Edit: I lied. I found a few just now on Newegg. This one looks the best - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811815046&cm_re=HPTX-_-11-815-046-_-Product)

Or..... perhaps I should just fab my own case instead?  8)

(btw this is Stephen from the comments section on the article - just trying to get all the technical stuff down before I start buying parts)   ;)

knightcrusader

Quote from: BenGman on April 08, 2015, 06:08:40 pmWRT front IO connectors... I realised that the yellow USB header controls 3 USB ports instead of the regular 2, but I still have not figured out the pinouts


I think I have the pinout! My buddy has a Z600 with the same connector and he was nice enough to take a multimeter to the USB ports and the connector:


Andy Brown

Quote from: knightcrusader on April 30, 2015, 10:03:57 am
Quote from: BenGman on April 08, 2015, 06:08:40 pmWRT front IO connectors... I realised that the yellow USB header controls 3 USB ports instead of the regular 2, but I still have not figured out the pinouts


I think I have the pinout! My buddy has a Z600 with the same connector and he was nice enough to take a multimeter to the USB ports and the connector:




That's good news. So from that it appears that HP's colour coding is:

Red = VBus (+5V)
Black = Ground
Green = D+
White = D-

Your diagram needs to be flipped to visualise it directly on to the motherboard header because pins 1 and 2 on the left of the yellow header are 5V (Red B/Red C on your diagram).
It's worse than that, it's physics Jim!

knightcrusader

Quote from: Andy Brown on May 01, 2015, 01:41:14 am
Quote from: knightcrusader on April 30, 2015, 10:03:57 am
Quote from: BenGman on April 08, 2015, 06:08:40 pmWRT front IO connectors... I realised that the yellow USB header controls 3 USB ports instead of the regular 2, but I still have not figured out the pinouts


I think I have the pinout! My buddy has a Z600 with the same connector and he was nice enough to take a multimeter to the USB ports and the connector:




That's good news. So from that it appears that HP's colour coding is:

Red = VBus (+5V)
Black = Ground
Green = D+
White = D-

Your diagram needs to be flipped to visualise it directly on to the motherboard header because pins 1 and 2 on the left of the yellow header are 5V (Red B/Red C on your diagram).


You are correct that it is mirrored - I assume my buddy laid it out in order from looking straight into the plug itself when it was disconnected, which would make sense since the plug is mirrored from the header on the board.

I am going to order some of my parts to start on the project today - when I get it all going and can verify the pin outs I will clean up my diagram for the motherboard side. I'm so excited to get this started!  8)

knightcrusader

May 12, 2015, 01:05:53 pm #114 Last Edit: May 15, 2015, 02:45:12 pm by knightcrusader
Good news everyone! I got my system built!  8)

Z800 board - $88.95
2x Xeon W5590 - $99.90
24GB (6x4GB) DDR3-10600R - $108.00
2x Intel LGA 1366 DBX-D heatsinks* - $39.00
Premade Power adapter cord - $8.36
Cooler Master HAF X Full Tower Case (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119225)* - $189.99
5-pack Xeon stickers for the case  ;) - $4.44

Total cost of project: $538.64

Other items were recycled from my current computer: 750W EVGA SuperNOVA PSU, 2x EVGA GeForce 630 GT x16 video cards, USB 3.0 Card, Kingston 120GB SSDNow V300 SSD, 1x Icy Dock 3-bay tool-less hot swap hard drive bay, LG Bluray Burner and LG DVD Burner, and a few hard drives.

The only thing I have left to do is to find the pinout of the Firewire and memory fan plugs so I can use them, and wire up things to the front panel 3-port USB header.

*Heatsink Notes = These heatsinks came with the Core i7 Extreme Edition and they are beasts, and I got them for $20 each brand new. But, like everything else on this build, they had to be modified. The screws that are built into them do not fit the brackets that HP uses. So, I was able to use a pair of pliers to break off the screw assembly (it was riveted to the feet of the heatsink) and then used thumb screws to hold the heatsinks on the board. In two places (one foot on each processor) the feet are way too big and actually hit surface mount components on the board. I had to use small little cardboard laminated washer things I found in a screwdriver kit to raise the metal off the board in those two places, and they work great! The only other thing I did was grind down the fan connector a little to help it slide into the motherboard ports easier.

**Case Notes = This is not an HPTX case, but it DOES work. I took a leap of faith after looking at many pictures on Newegg and was convinced it would work, and my gamble paid off. I was going to go with the DS6 case but I REALLY do not like cases with doors, plus I have always been a fan of Cooler Master case designs. My uncle has a metal machine shop and he fabricated special drill bits to make threaded holes in the case to line up with the Z800 board, and it came out PERFECT. The only other thing we had to do was use a Dremel to cut a small square hole in the hard drive cage to open up access to the power plug on the motherboard... its just a cosmetic thing.

BenGman

Memory fan is from top left to right:

PWM, PWM, TACH
TACH, 12V, Ground

knightcrusader

Quote from: BenGman on May 12, 2015, 01:24:07 pm
Memory fan is from top left to right:

PWM, PWM, TACH
TACH, 12V, Ground


Awesome! Thanks! Now just the firewire port to figure out.  8)

Attilio Fiandrotti

Hello,

About the 5th pin "TACH2", it is reported [1] that by grounding it rather than leave it floating, the mainboard will recognize the heatsink as "high performance".
Now, I assume that when a high TDP CPU is detected at boot, the bios checks if the heatsink is a high performance one: if not, the bios wil display a warning message.
Now, by grounding TACH2 that warning should never display regardless of the installed CPU.
Could anyone with a high TDP cpu experiment and report here if my guess is correct ?

Thanks,

Attilio

[1] http://h30499.www3.hp.com/t5/Workstations-z-series-xw-series/Workstation-CPU-Temperatures/td-p/6456466#.VVNlK

Andy Brown

Quote from: dimare on April 25, 2015, 06:23:05 am
Hello there! Does anybody got Speedfan working with the Z800 Motherboard?


Yes I got speedfan working in so much as I was able to disconnect the CPU fans from automatic control and could ramp them up and down using the controls on the main screen. You have to go into the advanced tab and disconnect the fans from automatic sensor control. It was quite easy to guess the sensor names from the list. Apologies for the vague description but I'm away from my PC at the moment but can post replies here.
It's worse than that, it's physics Jim!

knightcrusader

Quote from: Andy Brown on May 15, 2015, 07:43:59 am
You have to go into the advanced tab and disconnect the fans from automatic sensor control.


Yeah, that was the hardest part for me to figure out... that and figure out which fans were which in the list. I had a PWM1, PWM2, and then another PWM1 and PWM2 coupled with a PWM3. The ones that control the CPU are the second set of PWM1 and PWM2.

Right now I have Speedfan set to respond only to CPU0's temp for both fans, since the only time I stress them is when I transcode and that usually works both processors, but I really should set the fans to respond to their appropriate CPU... does CPU0-3 = Physical CPU 0 and CPU4-7 = Physical CPU 1?