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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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bulls4ever

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.

bulls4ever

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.

Andy Brown

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

bulls4ever

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.



bulls4ever

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

bulls4ever

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

Andy Brown

November 15, 2016, 02:04:46 pm #276 Last Edit: November 15, 2016, 02:07:28 pm by Andy Brown
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.
It's worse than that, it's physics Jim!

LambdaFox


WARNING / CAUTION:  Dell PERC H310 Will Probably Not Work With HP Z800

I am hacking together my system as Andy did. I do not see a way to search within this thread for h310.  I did search the forum and it came back with nothing; so, sorry if this is a duplicate post...

I am wanting to run 3 large SAS disks in RAID 5.  The on-board SAS controller does not support RAID 5; so, I bought a Dell PERC H310 raid controller.

Running Memtest 4 from a usb dvd drive, my 12 sticks of ecc memory pass with flying colors.

When I install the H310, though, I get a series of boot errors from the BIOS about Slots 1 & 2 on both CPUs:

207--Incompatible DIMMs detected
203--Memory module failed self-test and failing rank was disabled
204--Memory module failed and user rank was disabled

Slots 1 & 2 on both CPUs

The power of google shows me that I am not the first to have this problem.  This German thread documents the same problem.

I can report that this problem occurs on my Rev 3 board.
I can report that upgrading the firmware on the Dell PERC H310 to 20.13.0-0007 does not fix this problem.
I can also report that upgrading the BIOS on the Z800 to 3.6 does not fix the problem.

MemTest 4 reports that the RAM is only running at 533.  I let it run for several passes with no errors.  The German thread noted that the original error changes to an invalid memory configuration detected if you remove the 4 dimms noted.  MemTest shows exactly the same info with or without them.  To clarify, any DIMMs in those slots are not counted in your total RAM. 

Now, the weirdest thing:

If I remove all of the DIMMs in the white slots (2,4,6) on each processor, I get exactly the same series of errors, including the squawks about DIMM2 on each CPU that are now empty.

Andy Brown

Quote from: LambdaFox on November 16, 2016, 12:42:07 pm
When I install the H310, though, I get a series of boot errors from the BIOS about Slots 1 & 2 on both CPUs:

207--Incompatible DIMMs detected
203--Memory module failed self-test and failing rank was disabled
204--Memory module failed and user rank was disabled

I'm assuming that you've disabled the onboard SAS controller and it made no difference. If you don't need to boot from this card, can you try going into the BIOS 'Advanced' menu and select the PCIe slot containing your card. There will be an option 'Download option ROM'. Try disabling it.

I also assume that the Dell card has its own BIOS that you can get into during bootup. Look for anything in there related to how it interacts with the computer BIOS during the boot phase that you can change. This option ROM setup will not be visible if you've disabled 'download option ROM' as my first suggestion.
It's worse than that, it's physics Jim!

LambdaFox

Quote from: Andy Brown on November 16, 2016, 01:51:53 pm
I'm assuming that you've disabled the onboard SAS controller and it made no difference. If you don't need to boot from this card, can you try going into the BIOS 'Advanced' menu and select the PCIe slot containing your card. There will be an option 'Download option ROM'. Try disabling it.

I also assume that the Dell card has its own BIOS that you can get into during bootup. Look for anything in there related to how it interacts with the computer BIOS during the boot phase that you can change. This option ROM setup will not be visible if you've disabled 'download option ROM' as my first suggestion.


Hey, Andy.  My OS is on sata hard drives running RAID0.  I have had them connected to the h310, but I will try moving them over to the Intel controller on the motherboard and try the tweaks you suggest.  It will be a couple of days before I can set aside a big chunk of time.  Thank you for the ideas, I will report back early next week!

LambdaFox

Following up on my Dell PERC h310 ...

I had disabled the on-board SAS controller using the Security menu in the BIOS.

I re-enabled it, checked do not download option ROM on it, then rebooted and disabled it again.

I then disalbed download option ROM on the h310.

Then I powered down, waited 30 seconds and powered back up.

The bad behavior is the same.

I wiped my SATA drives and did a fresh install of Windows 7 using the on-board SATA controller.


LambdaFox

Hoping the HP Smart Array P410 RAID Controller will work.

It will use the same cables I bought for the H310.  I was able to buy one with 512 MB write back cache on ebay for $16 US.

I googled before buying and found one server supplier that offers it as a "premium" upgrade for the low low price of $550 US, LOL...

I will post back to report success and/or glitches with the P410 when I get it...




LambdaFox

Guard Your Sockets

This is my first motherboard with a gazillion microscopic pins on the board instead of the CPU.  At age 53, "microscopic" is not an overstatement, LOL... I am on my third motherboard with this build, raising my cost a lot.  I hope this cautionary note will help someone avoid my naive mistakes!  All three of the motherboards I purchased arrived with zero protective caps on the sockets, like the socket on the left in this picture:



I dropped my heatsink on the socket for CPU0, and bent pins in it:



I tried, but failed to get it to post with only 1 CPU in the second socket.

You can buy the Socket LGA-1366 caps very cheap.  I bought 2 before I started fiddling with motherboard #2...

I replaced the backs on both of my sockets.  When I did, I worked on only one at a time.  I let the clamp keep the protector on one.  I was VERY carefull to keep the other in place with my hand whenever I moved the motherboard.

LambdaFox

A Little Clarity on Socket LGA-1366 Cooling

Technical specs for the socket list two different backplate part numbers.  The document shows an image of 1939739-1 Desktop Backplate:



They are not so kind as to show one of the 1981467-1 Server Backplates.  This is a picture I took of the parts separated:



I took a lot of time trying to find a cooling solution designed to fit the 1981467-1 Server Backplate.  I did not find any.  The notes here in Andy's forum about modding for heat sinks / fans are, really only necessary if you keep the Server Backplates in your build.

I bought two Desktop Backplates.  I was then able to install 2 ARCTIC Freezer 7 Pro Rev 2 into my system.

LambdaFox

Chips Overheating

I have seen many people mention the chips getting really hot.  You should consider replacing the thermal compound on them.

I have gotten three boards in the process of my build.  All three, after unscrewing the four screws on the chips' heat-sink took almost zero force to remove the heat-sink from the chips.  This was because the thermal compound was completely desiccated.



I used 90% rubbing alcohol to clean both chips and the back of the heat-sink.  Then I used the same thermal compound I bought for my cpu's to tint the back of the heat-sink.  I then applied a thin coat to each chip.  Finally, I screwed the heatsink back in place.