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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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knightcrusader

Finally had time over the holiday weekend to make proper fan adapter cables. Woohoo!


Attilio Fiandrotti

Hello,

Those adaptors look great: may I know where did you buy the connectors, espcially the female connectors that hook up onto the mainboard ?

Attilio Fiandrotti

For those looking for a powerful but cheap PSU, I found out that Delta PSUs from HP xw8600 workstations and similars are great candidates: they come basically in two versions: the DPS-1050CB (Max 84 A on 12 V, 8 12v rails) and Delta TDPS-825AB B (Max 64 A on 12 V - 6 12v rails between 18 and 10 A each). They can be found cheap used on ebay, are fully ATX compliant, come with the 8 pin EPS connector for powering the CPUs and the 10 pin memory power connector. I found a cheap TDP-825AB on ebay and it works great with my dual x5550 setup (no overheating, very quiet even under heavy load). Only, these PSUs are a bit bigger than standard ATX PSUs  -  (21.5cm)xW(16.25cm)xH(9.75cm) roughly. Also, the memory power cord is very short, and I had to extendit to have ot reach the mainboard with ease: here are some pictures of the extension. Otherwise, I am totally happy with my new PSU :-)

knightcrusader

Quote from: Attilio Fiandrotti on July 05, 2015, 08:49:25 am
Hello,

Those adaptors look great: may I know where did you buy the connectors, espcially the female connectors that hook up onto the mainboard ?


Thank you! I'll have to get the invoices tomorrow and get you item numbers and links, I had to get the stuff from a few different places to get all the pieces necessary to make these adapters correctly... it was quite a hunt tracking these things down, especially the 4-pin shrouded fan connectors. I had to scan through hundreds of parts to make sure I found the right one because I am all new to this and had no idea what any of this stuff is properly called.

Marco Silva

Quote from: Attilio Fiandrotti on June 19, 2015, 12:53:44 am
Myself I have two X5550 on a -002 and cannot tell, but it would be interesting to know what /proc/cpuinfo or similar under Win read on an X56xx with the 002 and 003 revs respectively.


It's identified correctly and works exactly like they should.

http://i.imgur.com/CoQZHqB.png

Andy Brown

Quote from: colincoates on July 03, 2015, 06:09:20 pm
Hi Guys,
turns out it was the psu. I RMAed it for a evga 1.3kw supernova g2. It starts up and recognises both processors.

Good to hear that you got it working. It seems like the PSU specs are quite critical to get this board to boot reliably. My 1000W Superflower (EVGA in the US) is still completely stable with 2x X5680 and an ATI 7970.

It's worse than that, it's physics Jim!

Attilio Fiandrotti

Quote from: knightcrusader on July 06, 2015, 01:02:11 am
Quote from: Attilio Fiandrotti on July 05, 2015, 08:49:25 am
Hello,

Those adaptors look great: may I know where did you buy the connectors, espcially the female connectors that hook up onto the mainboard ?


Thank you! I'll have to get the invoices tomorrow and get you item numbers and links, I had to get the stuff from a few different places to get all the pieces necessary to make these adapters correctly... it was quite a hunt tracking these things down, especially the 4-pin shrouded fan connectors. I had to scan through hundreds of parts to make sure I found the right one because I am all new to this and had no idea what any of this stuff is properly called.


Great, thanks: that's much apreciated.

Vesuveus

BTW If people are looking for easy to install aftermarket CPU coolers, the coolermaster hyper t4 requires no modification. The screws go directly in the current plate for the CPU. I will be posting picture of my rig soon.

knightcrusader

July 07, 2015, 10:30:47 pm #158 Last Edit: July 07, 2015, 10:36:58 pm by knightcrusader
Okay, this is going to be a long list of parts, so bear with me!  :-\

I had to get my parts from three different vendors. But, with all these parts, I was able to build adapters for all the fans, the front firewire, and the front USB... and most importantly, I have no POST errors on startup.

First of all, the firewire/usb. I got all the parts I needed for this from Polulu. I needed easy to make headers (which I found out are called DuPont connectors) and searches lead me here. They specialize in wiring for embedded systems and robotics, but it also works for us in this case. So, from Polulu, I bought:

Now, not all the connectors on these wires for the headers are straight through - it seems some of them have extra grounds split off to non-standard pins on the firewire header, and it uses this extra ground to detect if its plugged in or not to display the error on POST. So, for these, AND for crimping the wiring for the fan connectors, I got this AWESOME crimper tool:

AND... because we need to crimp some connectors, we are going to need terminals and wire, so I got the following:


So, with the wiring diagrams and those parts, you can have yourself USB and Firewire front headers and no POST error messages. But of course, that is only part of the customization. Next, we go to DigiKey to get the motherboard-side molex connectors for the fan adapters:



And, last but not least, since DigiKey didn't have the connectors I wanted for the fan-side of the adapters, I had to search high and low and finally found a company in China named modDIY that sells the shrouded housings I was looking for:



According to that page, and my order, each one of those connectors comes with the pin, but I wasn't sure how many came, so I ordered some extra just in case, which can be found here. I also want to mention while Digikey has the unshrouded versions of these, I preferred to have the plastic shrouding in the cases that the PWM wire was unused on a fan and wasn't open to making contact with anything else in the machine.

Now, although I listed the minimum amount you need for them all, I ordered a ton of extras since the shipping was flat rate for most everything I got, and I didn't know if I'd mess any of the connectors up or end up building another machine, so I have plenty extras if anyone wants me to make them a set for a small fee.

I will admit it would probably would have been cheaper just to hack the connectors in, but this gave me much more satisfaction knowing that I have semi-professional looking adapters inside my system and not ones that may fall apart at any moment (like I did when I first built it).

If anyone has any questions, let me know. Now that my system is complete, I think I will post some pictures sometime this week when I am home during the day and there is better light.  8)

Edit: Forgot to mention I got a plastic case to put all my excess connector parts in, and took a pic to share. I also have a wire stripper tool I bought at Walmart (of all places) that makes stripping cable jackets a breeze, which I put in this photo.

Andy Brown

Quote from: Vesuveus on July 07, 2015, 03:09:39 am
BTW If people are looking for easy to install aftermarket CPU coolers, the coolermaster hyper t4 requires no modification. The screws go directly in the current plate for the CPU. I will be posting picture of my rig soon.


Did you sort your hyperthreading issue out? I'll be eligible for the free upgrade to Win10 when it comes out and would like to know there's a smooth path ahead.
It's worse than that, it's physics Jim!

Vesuveus

Yes I did. After a few reboots it just started working. I don't know why it ever didn't. It was always enabled in the bios. Oh well.

LordOdin

July 10, 2015, 05:38:31 pm #161 Last Edit: July 10, 2015, 05:40:23 pm by LordOdin
@Vesuveus if only I came here sooner. I actually just ordered 2 after 2 weeks of looking for heat sinks at least I know they will work now :D

Here are some pics/specs of my current build
Case : Corsair Air 540 | Not HPTX but I made a few extra screw holes and it fits like a glove. A very very right glove.
CPU  : 2x Xeon x5570 4c|8t
MOBO : You know what it is ;)
Prices and Extra items >> https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1cTje3fwv5rIccsng_Tw6_zCu9C6rcPkYwlCD6NPt8-c/pubhtml



JonMS

Quote from: Andy Brown on July 09, 2015, 07:02:17 am
Quote from: Vesuveus on July 07, 2015, 03:09:39 am
BTW If people are looking for easy to install aftermarket CPU coolers, the coolermaster hyper t4 requires no modification. The screws go directly in the current plate for the CPU. I will be posting picture of my rig soon.


Did you sort your hyperthreading issue out? I'll be eligible for the free upgrade to Win10 when it comes out and would like to know there's a smooth path ahead.




Hyperthreading issues? I've been running 12C/24T since day one with zero issues

Vesuveus

Pretty sure the hyperthreading issue was in windows 10. It may have been fixed with an update. Definitely not related to hardware.

Vesuveus

Quote from: LordOdin on July 10, 2015, 05:38:31 pm
@Vesuveus if only I came here sooner. I actually just ordered 2 after 2 weeks of looking for heat sinks at least I know they will work now :D

Here are some pics/specs of my current build
Case : Corsair Air 540 | Not HPTX but I made a few extra screw holes and it fits like a glove. A very very right glove.
CPU  : 2x Xeon x5570 4c|8t
MOBO : You know what it is ;)
Prices and Extra items >> https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1cTje3fwv5rIccsng_Tw6_zCu9C6rcPkYwlCD6NPt8-c/pubhtml





Looks like that Motherboard connector will be tight!