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Messages - bulls4ever

16
Hardware projects / Re: Z800 Compatible RAM
January 03, 2017, 12:32:17 pm
get any PC3L-12800R or PC3L-10600R
They are low voltage. The advantage of low voltage is that you can populate all slots and it will not slow down your system to 800Mhz

the quad rank low voltage works like a dual rank for the purposes of memory configuration.

I have 96Gb installed in one CPU and will have soon 192 once I install my 2nd CPU.
17
Quote from: mtothaj on January 03, 2017, 06:06:49 am
I have no experience with the Z800 but can confirm a Samsung 950 Pro NVMe works fine on a Z420 with a cheap M.2 to PCIe adapter card from Ali Express. That said AFAIR the Zx20 bios has been updated to include the NVMe functionality, which the Zx00 line is most likely lacking.
However, there is still a high chance that this drive would also work on the Z800, since it has the legacy option roms included. AFAIR the Z800 bios is not UEFI based so there is no possibility of injecting these roms into the bios for disks which do not have these onboard, so choice of drives is very important. 

Regarding some of your other points, IMO the Z800 is still a very robust platform. There are of course areas where it is showing its age e.g. lack of USB3, no SATA 3 suport, limited suport for disks larger than 2TB but these can be easily remedied with add on cards. That said, with prices of dual CPU Z620 and Z820 dropping, going forward these should be at the forefront of interest.


If Z800 had EFI it would be possible to "hack" the Samsung SSD to allow booting. I read forums about it. Granted, I never had to deal with it with my X99 motherboard. My understanding is that NVMe requires EFI to work thus the Samsung Pro would not work on z800 regardless of having the option ROM.

My SSD, SM951, would also work on Zx20 and Zx40 as similar (but PCIe 2.0: XP941) version is used on HP Z Turbo card. Yours is used on HP Z Turbo G2

BTW, I didn't buy the SSD after the motherboard. It happens I already had it. In fact I have 2 SM951 (512gb and 256gb) simple because they are (or at least were) the fastest in the market and very cheap. I placed one in my HP Elite X2 Tablet.

Lack of USB I didn't mention cause it is not really a big deal and can be solved easily by installing a PCIe card. 2 TB disks well ..... hum didn't even know the limitation as my big disks are in external network RAID. Honestly, lack of EFI is the only big issue. Lack of SATA3 is the other one but minimized if you can live with a single PCIe SSD instead of bunch of SATA3 SSD Raid. IMO PCIe is best option than SSD Raid0

Price of "real" LGA 2011-1 cpus (v2) has not dropped yet to a point it is worth. The ones that really matter are still at $1000+ range (used). Yes, it is possible to grab a low end 12 cores or V1 CPU for $200 and a "low end" motherboard as ASROCK for another $300. But to grab a motherboard with tons of PCIe and 16+ ram slots still cost $700+

As far as Z820 nobody has yet tried to mod it, afaik. I hope it can be done as Id want it to be my next upgrade.
18
btw, my RAID card is IBM ServeRaid M5110
lsi 9260 equivalent

system will boot but causes RAM errors. always on DIMM 1 and will cause the entire channel to be disabled.
19
Quote from: Andy Brown on November 15, 2016, 02:04:46 pm
Quote from: bulls4ever on November 14, 2016, 12:03:18 am
I noticed the bios will not report any temperature and thus the fans run at highest speed. Don't need to say it is super loud!!!

Do you mean the CPU fans? With mine they run at minimum speed all the time so I run SpeedFan to dynamically control the speed based on temperature. You've probably seen my post on how to do this, but here's the link anyway.


no, I meant the case fans. they would run at max speed because there was no ambient temperature sensor present. Once I installed the one that came with the original case it solved the problem.
20
My Experiences so far ...
1. Temperature Sensor: HP has a temperature sensor in the power button thingy. Without it will report 0C room temperature and the fans will run at max speed. I modded my case to attach it in the bay cover. So now my board can read the room temperature and I don't need to mess with fan speed.

2. Ram fan: I did not experience any issue with memory temperature even though I filled all 6 slots. I decided to use the RAM fan gadget that came with the original case and it sits perfectly

3. Heatsink: because I decided to use the original ram cooler I am limited to the heatsinks. I bought a second one (performance) for cheap: $30

4. PCIe SSD. I bought a PCIe adapter for my Samsung. Did not work. it will display missing BIOS. I didn't know SSD had such thing as "option ROM". It happens that my very nice and fast SSD wont have it. I purchased a Kingston HyperX Predator that has it and should work.

5. IBM Raid. I bought a nice RAID card with battery and memory BUT it caused memory issues. I have not tried yet but will try to tape pins 5 and 6 and see if works. Regardles, as is it will cause DIMM1 and 2 error and I will be limited with ram.

6. Noise. After solving the temperature sensor the system runs very quietly.

7. Ram speed: I was right about using DDR3 low voltage. It will not cause the system to drastically reduce speed when filling all slots. Low voltage is the way to go.

What I don't like:
Lack of PCIe 3.0 and more important: unable to boot PCIE SSD without option ROM. the ssd will work, just wont boot from it.
I miss M.2 socket.
Crap LSI onboard raid (HBA) and issues with addin RAID card.
slow boot, but much faster after disabling onboard lsi raid

What I like: 192Gb RAM pretty cheap. Able to reuse those ddr3 memory for the next xeon generation (LGA 2011)
More CPU cores


21
The memory assembly sits nicely.
I was able to use the original back fans (so no need to mess up with the the fan pins.
however .. I noticed the bios will not report any temperature and thus the fans run at highest speed. Don't need to say it is super loud!!!

I will need to investigate it. I will also take a picture of the setup soon
22
Took almost a month for the cable to arrive. If I knew it would be that late I'd make myself...

Well, it works. Going to build this week. I'm thinking on using the holiday memory cooler assembly. It sits fine. Id likely to have to use different CPU cooler for 2nd cpu
23
Quote from: Andy Brown on October 17, 2016, 11:47:47 am
If you've already modded the motherboard tray with holes to accept the screws from the odd positions on the Z800 motherboard then the hard bit's out of the way in my opinion. By the way I forgot to mention that with all memory slots full you will need a fan directing airflow through the memory slots. When there are so many so close together they tend to heat each other up.


No kidding. It was a pain. none of the positions matched. You can see I missed one in the bottom cause there is a hole in there and I can't drill on it.

My memory my not heat as much as they are Low voltage: 1.35v instead of 1.5v. I'm not sure how i will setup my fans but there are space for tons of them ;)

Waiting for my PSU cable (and CPUs) to arrive to complete the project.


24
This is the case I bought (900D) with z800 on it. Previous owner modded it for mad watercooling and removed all drive bays.

before ...

and here is my mod to add a 5.25" bay from an old cooler master case.
25
looks like the seller messed up on description .. LSI Raid didn't come but we ended up agreeing on $75 discount. So I paid $225 for the computer. Its confirmed to be V3 motherboard. cheaper I found on ebay was $170. I can still sell the memories and cpu (and luckily the case) but it wasn't the great deal I expected.

96 gb ram installed and working!!!

Now I'm waiting on my cpu, heatsink and the psu cable to arrive to install on the 900D. z800 case is smaller than my define R5!! I was expecting a huge case. its very heavy though.
26
Yeah, ill wait till the xeons v2 (or v3 with ddr3) are cheaper and its motherboard. Those r very powerful.
27
Side note about Memory

16gb 850R all uses 4 ranks. After reading many documentation about memory on 1366 motherboard the assumption is that each channel can only have 4 ranks. If more than 4 ranks are used then ALL memories will run at the lowest speed. And that speed is pretty crap.

so .. I bought faster modules using only 2 ranks!!! They will run at their original speed. I think .. I hope ...
28
Well ... about the memory ... I'm still bidding on ebay for the rest to net 192gb ;)

I currently own a 5820K rig with 64Gb RAM. I could expand it to 128Gb if I sell all my modules and buy 8x16Gb. Those are very expensive. $80 for the slowest one to $120 to fastest. Id also have to change the CPU as the 5820 only supports 64gb. A 6800K for example would cost $450 or so. Dual x5675 has about the same multi core passmark than 6800k. They cost me around $150.

In average I am buying $16Gb for $30 each.

I use Photoscan and it uses  lot of RAM. For some projects, 64gb is not enough!!

I also wanted to setup a remote desktop to fully use OpenGL. It happens HP has one that costs $250 but it is free for Z machines.

So I thought .. I buy one machine for the cost of this software and could put more, and cheaper, memory. And .. the Z800 was the answer :) Eventually I will migrate to Z820 and all I will need would be a new mobo and cpus. And someone to figure it out the PSU cable as I am not the right person to do the job.

After selling my z800 psu, LSI 9260-8i, x2645 and 12gb RAM I will end up having a free motherboard :)

Bought the x5675 instead of x5680 or x5690 cause they are not much better than the x5675 and uses less power (95 instead of 130) making some room for more video cards and less heating issues.

I don't have the photo of the case anymore. I will get it from craiglist. The owner removed all the bays for hardcore water cooling. I probably will leave as is as I will not need HDD cages. Case I need, I can still buy a cage from corsair for around $30.I will place a PCIe to M.2 card and install my 512gb M.2 on it. I have external RAID for my storage.

I will sure post when I build my machine.

saves from going z800 instead of upgrading my rig
CPU: $300
Memory:$250 to $500
Remote Desktop: $250

case and motherboard will possibly be free after I sell my z800 components.

After selling my rig I could end up having the upgrade for free!!!
29
And found a corsair 900D locally for $50. Made arrangements to pick up this weekend. He modded the case for watercooling so drive bays are missing. It was just perfect for my needs.
Im set now and soon will be a new member of modded z800 :)
30
Has anyone tried water cooling the CPU with AIO?

While I can wait to buy a new case (till I find a cheap one) I need a cooling solution ASAP. Computer arrive in a week :)
----------------------------

Edit: found one ENERMAX ETS-T40F-RF for $20. Will try that one. TDP is 200W. Plenty for a 95W cpu. hope it fits well