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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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malefic

HP P410 works fine, i used it on my build with the 512MB and battery backed cache, also used a HP P400 and the standard LSI controller...all worked with my SAS 15K HDD's.

There was no need to buy backplates if you studied the standard backplate design and the cpu cooler retention system, mine was pretty much plug and play just didn't' have to install the standard plastic backplate worst case scenario you would have to use different screws because of the thread.

If the heatskink is getting hot is actually a good thing, it shows that there is good thermal conductivity between the chips and the heatsink, problem with that piece is that those 2 chip's have a TDP of 27W each.... http://ark.intel.com/products/36783/Intel-5520-IO-Hub

LambdaFox

Update:  The DELL PERC H310 Can Be Hacked Into the Z800!  :)

Quote from: malefic on December 04, 2016, 04:51:49 am
HP P410 works fine, i used it on my build with the 512MB and battery backed cache, also used a HP P400 and the standard LSI controller...all worked with my SAS 15K HDD's....


While waiting for my new P410, I installed Windows on my hard drive RAID using the on-board controller.  That was slow slow slow.  Noticably slower than the H310 had been.  Did I mention it was SLOW???

This made me leary about using the P410 since it drops SATA down to SATA2.  So, I did a little more digging on the H310.

I found this discussion about the H310 preventing machines from booting.  Covering pins B5 and B6 with electrical tape solved my problem.



Some people in several discussions I saw were trying to change the firmware to LSI or other versions.  I am using the standard latest firmware and drivers from Dell.

The errors regarding the bad memory are now gone.  When I installed Windows 7 in spite of the errors, I noticed that the Intel controller did not show up in Device Manager.  I originally thought this was probably because I had all the SATA ports and the option ROM for the controller disabled in the BIOS.  This turns out not to be correct.  With this hack the Intel Controller now shows in Device Manager, where I have Windows disable it after boot.

I will report any glitches I find, but so far it looks good!


denj

Has anyone tried adapting M.2 drive for use as a boot drive on the Z800? 

I plan on approaching this using two different methods:

Method 1:  http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=12K-017B-00001
Purchase a fast m.2 drive, use the adapter (or an equivalent). 
Potential issue, z800 Bios is non-UEFI.  if it doesn't work, switch to Method 2. 

Method 2:  http://mrlithium.blogspot.ca/2015/12/how-to-boot-nvme-ssd-from-legacy-bios.html
Using hardware from Method 1, follow steps from link or use a USB to boot to nvme ssd

Any thoughts?

knightcrusader

Quote from: denj on December 14, 2016, 03:50:18 pm
Has anyone tried adapting M.2 drive for use as a boot drive on the Z800? 


Yes, I am currently using an M.2 PCI Express SSD as my boot drive in my machine, however, my SSD came already installed with the PCI Express adapter card. It's a 240GB Kingston HyperX Predator. Since the Z800 board doesn't know what M.2 is, it can't boot from it, so the SSD or the card (I am not sure which) has a boot option ROM that the bios reads like its a regular storage controller, and lists it as a bootable device.

Been using it for over a year and its worked perfectly well for me.

knightcrusader

Also - I finally found me a Revision 003 board at a great price. www.ebay.com/itm/132031033325

I offered $80 and they accepted. Now I will probably get 2x X5680's to replace my 2x W5590's.

I would get 2x X5690 but jeesh why the huge price jump from 3.33Ghz to 3.47Ghz? $200 for a 0.16Ghz bump is insane.

denj

Quote from: knightcrusader on December 15, 2016, 12:17:40 pm
Quote from: denj on December 14, 2016, 03:50:18 pm
Has anyone tried adapting M.2 drive for use as a boot drive on the Z800? 


Yes, I am currently using an M.2 PCI Express SSD as my boot drive in my machine, however, my SSD came already installed with the PCI Express adapter card. It's a 240GB Kingston HyperX Predator. Since the Z800 board doesn't know what M.2 is, it can't boot from it, so the SSD or the card (I am not sure which) has a boot option ROM that the bios reads like its a regular storage controller, and lists it as a bootable device.

Been using it for over a year and its worked perfectly well for me.


Could you post your make and model of your pci card please?

knightcrusader

Quote from: denj on December 15, 2016, 03:03:05 pm
Could you post your make and model of your pci card please?


Sure! Here it is at Newegg: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?item=N82E16820104544

Man, I'm jealous that its $160 now. I paid $250 for it.

Dan

Hello guys!

I was was impressed with the capabilities of the HP Z800/820  in video production. At first, I was looking on ebay for a barebone Z820 to build up.  After some Googling I came across Andy's Z800 build blog, which is amazing. Now I'm leaning toward going this route--using a Z820 motherboard and 2x E6-2670.    I saw some ES version CPUs on ebay, should I stay away from them? TIA

Andy Brown

Quote from: Dan on December 16, 2016, 05:37:33 pm
Hello guys!

I was was impressed with the capabilities of the HP Z800/820  in video production. At first, I was looking on ebay for a barebone Z820 to build up.  After some Googling I came across Andy's Z800 build blog, which is amazing. Now I'm leaning toward going this route--using a Z820 motherboard and 2x E6-2670.    I saw some ES version CPUs on ebay, should I stay away from them? TIA


I haven't heard any good reason to not use the engineering samples. As long as there are no critical bug fixes in the later steppings you should be fine.

I am monitoring the ebay prices of C612 chipset boards. They are still expensive and the Z820 board is not yet a bargain amongst them, plus you have to mod your case to fit it. If I were to buy right now then I'd probably get a Gigabyte MD70 or Asus Z10PE.

The E5 V3 CPUs are starting to fall in price and there's some great deals around from HK/Chinese sellers on the 12/14/16 core models. If the motherboards weren't holding their prices so well then I'd be sorely tempted myself.
It's worse than that, it's physics Jim!

Dan

Quote from: Andy Brown on December 17, 2016, 01:05:18 am
I haven't heard any good reason to not use the engineering samples. As long as there are no critical bug fixes in the later steppings you should be fine.

I am monitoring the ebay prices of C612 chipset boards. They are still expensive and the Z820 board is not yet a bargain amongst them, plus you have to mod your case to fit it. If I were to buy right now then I'd probably get a Gigabyte MD70 or Asus Z10PE.

The E5 V3 CPUs are starting to fall in price and there's some great deals around from HK/Chinese sellers on the 12/14/16 core models. If the motherboards weren't holding their prices so well then I'd be sorely tempted myself.


Last night I was also looking at this Dell T7810 barebone, at $468 USD shipped; its motherboard supports E5 V3 and has chipset C612. ( EBay: http://www.ebay.com/itm/DELL-PRECISION-T7810-Barebone-Workstation-build-your-own-gaming-computer-/182225542500?hash=item2a6d7d1d64:g:2agAAOSwTZ1XnTYR )The downside is it only have 8 memory slots. Video encoding is CPU intensive, so I am still entertaining various options.  I am also monitoring some 12-Cores E5 V3's; I am not sure which stepping is the ones right before production release.  Thanks for pointing out the Gigabyte MD70 board & Asus Z10PE, it's quite enticing, especially with the 2x 10GbE, unfortunately it's no longer budget build :-)


mtothaj

December 17, 2016, 11:03:39 pm #295 Last Edit: December 17, 2016, 11:05:59 pm by mtothaj
Quote from: Andy Brown on December 17, 2016, 01:05:18 am
Quote from: Dan on December 16, 2016, 05:37:33 pm
Hello guys!

I was was impressed with the capabilities of the HP Z800/820  in video production. At first, I was looking on ebay for a barebone Z820 to build up.  After some Googling I came across Andy's Z800 build blog, which is amazing. Now I'm leaning toward going this route--using a Z820 motherboard and 2x E6-2670.    I saw some ES version CPUs on ebay, should I stay away from them? TIA


I haven't heard any good reason to not use the engineering samples. As long as there are no critical bug fixes in the later steppings you should be fine.

I am monitoring the ebay prices of C612 chipset boards. They are still expensive and the Z820 board is not yet a bargain amongst them, plus you have to mod your case to fit it. If I were to buy right now then I'd probably get a Gigabyte MD70 or Asus Z10PE.

The E5 V3 CPUs are starting to fall in price and there's some great deals around from HK/Chinese sellers on the 12/14/16 core models. If the motherboards weren't holding their prices so well then I'd be sorely tempted myself.


FYI below is a dump of the microcodes contained in the latest (v3.91) bios for the Z420/620/820:

CPUID=306E4 Rev=427 2014/04/10 CRC=A73DF352 Off=580060 Size=3000 Plat=0,2,3,5,6,7
CPUID=206D7 Rev=710 2013/06/17 CRC=30EAA2E5 Off=583060 Size=4400 Plat=0,2,3,5,6
CPUID=206D6 Rev=61A 2013/01/25 CRC=BC4B0272 Off=587860 Size=4000 Plat=0,2,3,5,6
CPUID=206D5 Rev=513 2011/10/13 CRC=BDB805CB Off=58B860 Size=4800 Plat=0,2,3,5,6

If the ES sample is covered under these then you are good to go, if not then it may be necessary to inject the appropriate microcode into the UEFI bios (tools such as UEFI BIOS Updater). Obviously to run the 306E4 Ivy Bridge chips you need a machine with the newer 2013 bootblock (or to change the bootblock from 2011 to 2013 with an external programmer).

Andy Brown

Quote from: Dan on December 17, 2016, 03:37:12 pm
Video encoding is CPU intensive,

It certainly is. For fun I recently wrote a Premiere Pro VP9 exporter plugin that drives the libvpx encoder in a novel way so as to get 100% CPU usage out of it and it still takes much longer to export than H.264.
It's worse than that, it's physics Jim!

mtothaj

Quote from: Andy Brown on December 17, 2016, 01:05:18 am
I am monitoring the ebay prices of C612 chipset boards. They are still expensive and the Z820 board is not yet a bargain amongst them, plus you have to mod your case to fit it. If I were to buy right now then I'd probably get a Gigabyte MD70 or Asus Z10PE.



The Z420/620/820 boards use the C602 / X79 chipset. To be honest they are very cheap as compared to the prices of X79 boards from Asus, Gigabyte etc. which - if at all available new and most often used - go for far more than the more current new X99 chipset boards.
The only new X79 boards which appear to be widely availalbe at the moment are two China made 'no name' boards - an ATX and mATX version but I would be hesistant to purchase either of these.

The X99 boards generally work with Xeon E5 V3/V4 CPU's and ECC RAM e.g. http://www.cpu-upgrade.com/mb-Gigabyte/GA-X99-UD4(rev._1.0).html but its best to do some research on a given board to see if there aren't any issues specific to a given board.

denj

I bought an original case z800 case/mobo with a PSU and I got everything work.  After 2 days, http://www.digikey.ca/product-detail/en/power-integrations/TOP249YN/596-1080-5-ND/865356 blew up.  I didn't even know this was possible.  Luckily, I can get another PSU, but now I'm debating of buying a regular PSU's and adapting it to the z800 mobo/case. 

I'm running 2x 5675 with 96 gb of ram, ati 7850 and 2 ssds so I think I need 850W.  Online calculators show I need 300-350W?  I'm not sure that's correct though. 

A new standard PSU is 140-180 CDN and I'm not sure if they're all compatible. 
A z800 PSU would cost me $200-$400 CDN at 1110W.   

Budget is $200 CDN :(

Any suggestions?

Dan

Quote from: denj on December 24, 2016, 02:41:58 pm
I bought an original case z800 case/mobo with a PSU and I got everything work.  After 2 days, http://www.digikey.ca/product-detail/en/power-integrations/TOP249YN/596-1080-5-ND/865356 blew up.  I didn't even know this was possible.  Luckily, I can get another PSU, but now I'm debating of buying a regular PSU's and adapting it to the z800 mobo/case. 

I'm running 2x 5675 with 96 gb of ram, ati 7850 and 2 ssds so I think I need 850W.  Online calculators show I need 300-350W?  I'm not sure that's correct though. 

A new standard PSU is 140-180 CDN and I'm not sure if they're all compatible. 
A z800 PSU would cost me $200-$400 CDN at 1110W.   

Budget is $200 CDN :(

Any suggestions?



I ended up buying the barebone Z820 and a pair of E5-2670 to be my primary editing workstation.Hopefully your situation doesn't happen to mine. Fingers crossed.
Also purchasing a V3 Z800 motherboard for $80, and a pair of E5-2650 for $60-- so I can hack it into a standard case and ATX PSU, this will be a replacement to my old FreeNAS. I found some pre-made ATX-Z800 power adapter on Ebay. Hope to have all this rigged up soon.