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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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Andy Brown

Quote from: digitaltrousers on March 17, 2015, 12:07:21 am
Not a silly question - I was actually wondering if my 1333MHz memory would clock down to 800MHz for the E5504 - I had assumed it would.

PC3-10600R is the correct memory so you're OK there. No problems running it at 800MHz, that's exactly what I did early on.

QuoteI've got 3x4Gb sticks in the black slots for CPU0. It's genuine HP memory (registered I believe) with the part number 500203-061 (http://partsurfer.hp.com/Search.aspx?searchText=500203-061). I've also tried with just one stick

Same as me, I was running with 3x4Gb in those slots for the early tests.

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I have some "normal PC" memory that runs at 800MHz but I don't think one can install such memory in this one?

You're right, you can't use those.

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I have rigged up a little speaker and the HDD LED which is also involved in displaying the codes. I don't get any codes when I try to boot up, but if I turn the power supply off at its switch, it beeps/flashes four times, which is a power supply overload error. I had been chasing this, but then I thought it might be because of the hacked wiring (Chinese adaptor cable) or other differences from standard. I.e, standby lines staying active a little longer when the switch is turned off or something. It's a 1050W power supply and all voltages are normal at the connectors during "running".


That overload indicator is strange, though it may just be a symptom of the sudden uncontrolled loss of power.

Have you tried different graphics cards (the simpler the better) and in different PCIe slots? I seem to remember that when I was having trouble with my 7970 early on then the symptoms were similar to yours though I think the fan might have gone fast-slow-fast but can't remember exactly. I've never had a speaker or paid attention to any flashing that the power LED might have been doing so I can't confirm that it was identical.
It's worse than that, it's physics Jim!

Andy Brown

March 17, 2015, 02:08:44 pm #76 Last Edit: March 17, 2015, 02:13:16 pm by Andy Brown
Quote from: BenGman on March 16, 2015, 05:45:44 pm
1. How do you remove the motherboard standoffs that come with a new board and

On both the boards that I've had I simply unscrewed them.

Quote
3. How do you remove the CPU fan  brackets from the motherboard? The CM 212 Evo fan mount standoffs cannot fit.

I haven't tried, and to be honest it looks like they might be epoxied on which would make it very hard to get them off without damage. Can you explain more about which parts do not fit? For me, the screws supplied with the CNPS10X were designed to screw straight down into the holes and into the existing backplane but they did not fit well. On my first CPU I simply replaced the screws with some that did fit well. On my second CPU I'd run out of replacement screws so first I screwed 4 of those little motherboard standoffs into the CPU holes. This gave me 4 little brass 'pillars' around the CPU. I then screwed the CNPS10X down into those pillars using standard motherboard screws. If you do this then you need short motherboard standoffs to make sure you get enough downward pressure on to the CPU.
[/quote]

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This link has photos of my build log so far, including pics of the motherboard standoffs:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/ndo0kl2q4txi1v8/AAB4RlnKAWsvTB-CSYkwur9Da?dl=0.

Looks great, keep the photos coming!
It's worse than that, it's physics Jim!

digitaltrousers

Quote from: BenGman on March 16, 2015, 05:45:44 pm
How do you remove the CPU fan  brackets from the motherboard? The CM 212 Evo fan mount standoffs cannot fit.


Hi There. I also have the Coolermaster 212 Evos. My build is stalled at the moment, and I haven't tried this. But the best idea I've come up with so far, is to remove the CPU brackets (4x Torx screws for each), and drill out those holes with the incompatible threads. Reinstall the modified brackets, then use the mounting parts that come with the cooler - after drilling out the holes you would be able to put the standoff through the hole and use the nuts on the underside.
You could also do what Andy suggested, but beware, those brass standoffs are available with different threads and lengths. You might need to combine some to do what you want. I prefer the other option as I'd like to use the nice beefy mounting kit that comes with the 212 Evo, but as I said, I haven't done it yet.

As for the motherboard standoffs, mine just unscrew also. You need a Torx bit though.

BenGman

The heat sink bracket is not tall enough to reach the motherboard so there is a top level standoff to place in the bracket. This standoff is too big to fit in the built in bracket so there isn't a way to fit the heat sink to the MB.

See pictures 01-04 attached. I also put some more photos on dropbox.

To test I just rested some flat AMD heatsinks on the CPUs and my first boot was successful, but I can't run long because I need proper CPU cooling.

Thanks in advance for more suggestions.

JonMS

6-32 screws thread right in. That is what I have holding my noctua coolers in place

Marco Silva

Here is another MOD i had to do to the cpu and chipset backplate to make room to fit with standard 6.5mm standoff's

http://i.imgur.com/vAEGPFu.jpg3


digitaltrousers

Quote from: BenGman on March 17, 2015, 04:33:23 pm
This standoff is too big to fit in the built in bracket so there isn't a way to fit the heat sink to the MB.

Quote from: digitaltrousers on March 17, 2015, 03:29:23 pm
after drilling out the holes you would be able to put the included standoff through the hole and use the included nuts on the underside

Why wouldn't this work?

BenGman

Hi Guys,

Thanks for the advice on the standoffs. I scrounged together all the brass standoffs I could and doubled them up to get the height. Two slots in particular kept popping totally off the motherboard when I was screwing in the heatsink but they are put for now. I do not however trust them as yet for holding the heatsinks sideways off the motherboard if the motherboard is standing in a case.

Pictures of me installing the fans are on dropbox, as well as my intermediate cardboard box case. I do not have security torx bits at the moment to remove the standard motherboard standoffs so having the system in a proper case is on hold at the moment. https://www.dropbox.com/sh/ndo0kl2q4txi1v8/AAB4RlnKAWsvTB-CSYkwur9Da?dl=0

My first cheap 700W power supply popped and smoked when I attempted a stress test after installing the fans; I was almost certain I fried the MB as well. But the second 700W power supply which is a better quality is holding good so far with the easy swap cable.

Other than the case, all is left is finalising the host OS.

Andy Brown

Quote from: BenGman on March 19, 2015, 07:32:19 pm
Pictures of me installing the fans are on dropbox, as well as my intermediate cardboard box case.

The pictures of that case made me smile. You even did cut outs for the ports and a fan!

Quote
I do not have security torx bits at the moment to remove the standard motherboard standoffs


If you can grip the top of them with pliers and rubber padding then you might be able to get some torque on to the bottom enough to loosen them enough to remove. It's risky if you slip though, particularly with the screws in the middle of the board.
It's worse than that, it's physics Jim!

x2xx

hello, if some have original Z800 PSU please take a look inside i need PSU FAN PN or model.
Thanks

BenGman

Progress made - I'm out of the box and into a case. More pics uploaded.
But cannot install Windows 8.1 Pro with WMC. I use WMC w/ ServerWMC and Mediabrowser 2 to stream TV to devices. I like WMC best out of all media centres. The laptop that I had this on was Celeron level with 4GB RAM that couldn't keep up so the purpose of this HP Z800 build was firstly to use this as the TV server with 2+ HD streams, secondly as my RTL-SDR twin trunking decoder box streamer, scanner streamer, flight tracker(7 RTL-SDR USB devices), thirdly as a desktop with some VMs.

Is it that 8.1 Pro w/WMC doesn't like 24GB or it doesn't like the two Xeons?

JonMS

Quote from: BenGman on March 27, 2015, 04:10:56 pm
Progress made - I'm out of the box and into a case. More pics uploaded.
But cannot install Windows 8.1 Pro with WMC. I use WMC w/ ServerWMC and Mediabrowser 2 to stream TV to devices. I like WMC best out of all media centres. The laptop that I had this on was Celeron level with 4GB RAM that couldn't keep up so the purpose of this HP Z800 build was firstly to use this as the TV server with 2+ HD streams, secondly as my RTL-SDR twin trunking decoder box streamer, scanner streamer, flight tracker(7 RTL-SDR USB devices), thirdly as a desktop with some VMs.

Is it that 8.1 Pro w/WMC doesn't like 24GB or it doesn't like the two Xeons?

Im running 8.1 Pro WMC with zero issues

Andy Brown

Quote from: BenGman on March 27, 2015, 04:10:56 pm
But cannot install Windows 8.1 Pro with WMC.


Can you give more detail about the problem? I'm running 8.1 pro (without WMC) on an SSD attached to a 3rd party SATA-3 card as you can see in the main article.
It's worse than that, it's physics Jim!

BenGman

Quote from: Andy Brown on March 28, 2015, 01:54:33 am
Quote from: BenGman on March 27, 2015, 04:10:56 pm
But cannot install Windows 8.1 Pro with WMC.


Can you give more detail about the problem? I'm running 8.1 pro (without WMC) on an SSD attached to a 3rd party SATA-3 card as you can see in the main article.


I kept using a Professional key instead of a Pro WMC key so WMC was never an option, got it working now.

Re: AliExpress cable

I have been using under powered PSUs so I made the ATX (24 pin + 2 molex input) to generic (10 voltage/line screw terminal output) cable, I wired it so all the 12V lines are combined, ground lines, etc, hopefully combining all the rails if I used a multi-railed PSU for input. I am in the process of providing additional support for 2x 6 pin + 1x4 pin as input to make sure I got all the output rails of a PSU. With this cable my 700W PSU with only 26A combined on 12V was powering the MB, + 4 molex fans + 2HDs, 3/4 addin cards + 2/3 USB devices well (resets when I start prime95 but Turbo Boost worked under ~load).

I got the AliExpress cable and I tried to use the same PSU with it instead of my made ATX cable. I still needed modifications because my PSU does not have an 8pin CPU connector that the AliExpress cable did not have. The memory power with the AliExpress cable is supplied by 2 molex. When I used the AliExpress cable with the same PSU I got many memory errors on boot such that the same PSU could now only power the board (MB+CPU+Memory) and not any addin card, fan, nor Hard Drive. To continue using the AliExpress cable I am using a second 500W PSU (24A @ 12V) to power everything else, with it ~permanently jumpered on (still fails at prime95 though). I'm thinking now I should have bought a PSU instead of the SSD and Graphics card and continue using my 2 old 80GB HDs and 256MB GFX!

No additional funds to purchase a PSU for at least 4 months so I will try to make a multi ATX input cable to terminal block/bus bars to combine my best 4 PSUs (26A, 24A, 24A, 18A on 12V) without destroying those PSUs so some time later I could still use them in other systems. Power consumption and noise ~covered.

Re: Fans

Front fans are good.

I kept connecting different fans to the system/chassis fan and was annoyed by still getting fan not found then I saw that the MB wants 2 fans connected to the same pin. I think I could get 2 fans working by joining 12V and ground.

Anyone has the pinout for the memory fans? I want to make sure before I connect the wrong pins.

Re: Front I/O connectors/Startup messages

I kept trying different connectors, even bought a new 5.25" front controller and kept getting no front USB, no Audio and No Firewire, then I realised the MB has a different pinout for those. Anyone knows them so I could put together proper cables?

I also have no MB serial number so I get that invalid serial number message on startup. What is the format for the serial number?

I am really annoyed at those startup messages, I need this computer to be able to restart and login without me being there to press F1 to boot. Anyone with a hacked case solved these issues?

Andy Brown

Quote
I kept connecting different fans to the system/chassis fan and was annoyed by still getting fan not found then I saw that the MB wants 2 fans connected to the same pin. I think I could get 2 fans working by joining 12V and ground.


You don't mean shorting 12V to ground do you? I'm sure you must mean something else!

Quote
(still fails at prime95 though)


Have you watched the temps using "CPUID HWMonitor" while it's running? It'll show memory temperatures. Before I installed a fan above my memory it was running at 65C under load. Now it's down to 50C under full load for 20 minutes of video compression using Handbrake.

Quote
Anyone has the pinout for the memory fans? I want to make sure before I connect the wrong pins.


It should be safe to test the pins with a multimeter while the PC is on to find 12V and GND. I bet you find 2 pairs of 12V/GND adjacent to each other with the remaining two being shared PWM and TACH pins.

Quote
I also have no MB serial number so I get that invalid serial number message on startup. What is the format for the serial number?


If you do some googling for the serial number error message you can find someone who's posted theirs into a forum. It'll silence that warning.

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