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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

My system is almost completed.
Waiting for 2x16gb RAM arriving Monday and my PCIe SSD

Other thing to mention is that video card placement is .. tricky .
I had to sandwich my Quadro K2200 between the GTX 1080 and the Titan X as it will not fit into the 1st slot and the last one causes issues with the plugs.

Also, the GTX 1080 on the bottom made the sata connections pretty hard.

I will resell my RAID card and buy a USB 3.1 card instead for the last slot.

Note 2: I bought the performance heatsink for the Z400. It fit nicely but I think its a bit wider making the RAM fan not sit as nice as it was before. Before it was very tight secured. Now it is a bit loose.

I will take a pic of the system this weekend.



bulls4ever

I saw a z820 motherboard on ebay for $280. not too bad. then I read the seller comment ..

HP Assembly Part Number: 618266-001
Please note: per this HP part number, this system board does not support V2 Processors 

Is the z820 motherboard the same as z800 where some wont take V2 and some will?

mtothaj

Quote from: bulls4ever on January 07, 2017, 11:20:33 am
I saw a z820 motherboard on ebay for $280. not too bad. then I read the seller comment ..

HP Assembly Part Number: 618266-001
Please note: per this HP part number, this system board does not support V2 Processors

Is the z820 motherboard the same as z800 where some wont take V2 and some will?


Yes, all Z420, Z620, Z820 share this 'feature'.
In essence, hardware wise they are all the same. To run the V2 CPU's you would need to update the bios with an external programmer, taking both the ME and bootblock code from the latest version of bios (AFAIR its v. 3.91). The ME update is also needed, since from v. 3.88 HP added a 'functionality' where even if you have the 2013 boot block but the older 7.xxxx ME firmware the machine will fail to boot.

Dan

Quote from: bulls4ever on January 07, 2017, 11:20:33 am
I saw a z820 motherboard on ebay for $280. not too bad. then I read the seller comment ..

HP Assembly Part Number: 618266-001
Please note: per this HP part number, this system board does not support V2 Processors

Is the z820 motherboard the same as z800 where some wont take V2 and some will?


there's a seller from Taiwan has new Rev.3 z820 MB at same price; it should take v2 CPUs



denj

Quote from: Chris on April 13, 2016, 02:39:56 pm
Quote from: Andy Brown on April 13, 2016, 01:26:49 pm

Hi Chris, check out the new post in the comments section from user "ujt 80".


Much obliged! Fingers crossed (s)he is using the original hp 850w power supply.

Edit: Hopefully this will help others in the future - I went out and bought a Radeon R9-380 video card. The original 850w power supply runs it just fine.


I got an R9-290x on 2x 5675 + 96 gigs of ram.  No matter what I do (just 1 cpu/1ram/1gpu) it won't post.  but it posts fine with a 7850

I have everything in an original z800 case plus PSU.  Is the TDP on the r9-290x (250W) the issue?

Edit:  I tested the R9 290x out in my old system and it works flawlessly with a 650W PSU
Edit2:  The 850W isn't providing the 75W across the molex connectors provided
Edit3:  I will try to get sata to pci 6 pin adapters and try connecting it via the hardrive cage sata
Edit4:  No luck   :(

The r9 290x works perfectly fine in my old system but in the z800 it won't even post.  the 290x has a 8 pin to 2x 6 pin + 6 pin to 2x molex connectors which I plugged in.  In my old computer, my PSU already had dedicated wiring for a card like this. 

bulls4ever

What is your CPU? With one 95w CPU a GTX 1080 was working on the original case

denj

my CPU is an X5675.  I don't know if this matters or not but the GTX 1080 has a TDP of 180W. 

The R9 290X has a TDP of 250W. 

I'm assuming your GTX 1080 is only using the 8 pin or 2 x 6 pin since PCI interface provides 75W, 8 pin pci provides 150W and 6 pin pci provides 75W.   

Question for you all: Is it possible for me to run a 250W GPU (like my r9 290x) on 850W? 

mtothaj

Quote from: denj on January 13, 2017, 10:45:41 pm
my CPU is an X5675.  I don't know if this matters or not but the GTX 1080 has a TDP of 180W. 

The R9 290X has a TDP of 250W. 

I'm assuming your GTX 1080 is only using the 8 pin or 2 x 6 pin since PCI interface provides 75W, 8 pin pci provides 150W and 6 pin pci provides 75W.   

Question for you all: Is it possible for me to run a 250W GPU (like my r9 290x) on 850W? 



What you are quoting is peak power draw figures. Even if the PSU was not man enough for the job (which I doubt is the case), the machine should still POST since power draw at that point is next to nothing.

denj

January 15, 2017, 04:45:47 pm #326 Last Edit: January 16, 2017, 02:19:27 pm by Andy Brown
You're absolutely right!  But when I press the power button, the fans spin up to the highest rpm, it does a system check and just hangs...I don't see the bios load up as usual.  All I know at this point is that it's not receiving enough power to power the gpu. 

When I used the connectors from the gpu card box (2x 6 pin into and 8 pin pci + 2x molex into 6 pin), I noticed that one of the 6 pin molex connectors was loose.  I made sure it was firmly in place and plugged the molex connector into the wiring hanging by CPU 1.  A few of the times the PC turned on, it immediately shutdown and the molex connector with two (12V + ground) was extremely hot to the touch. 

My old card the 7850 would post and load up the bios after a little bit of delay which I assume is for checking the system stability





Andy Brown

Quote
A few of the times the PC turned on, it immediately shutdown and the molex connector with two (12V + ground) was extremely hot to the touch. 

That actually sounds like a short to ground which definitely results in immediate shutdown (done it myself while messing with a modified USB connector and accidentally shorted 5V to ground. Oops.). If you have a multimeter you could probe the resistance from 12V to ground as a check.

Quote
My old card the 7850 would post and load up the bios after a little bit of delay which I assume is for checking the system stability

Yes a fairly large startup delay is normal with this board. I guess it's belt-and-braces checks for workstation-class boards.
It's worse than that, it's physics Jim!

denj

Well I've tried everything I could possibly think of... DPS-850DB /// 850W cannot support a 250W GPU....no matter how many kinds of connectors I throw at it. 

:( >:( >:( :( :( >:( :( >:( :( >:( :( >:( :( >:( :( >:( :( :( >:(

bulls4ever

On a hacked system I run GTX 1080, Titan X Pascal and a Quadro K2200 without any issues. System load isn't that much. I measure the watts and 850W should be fine. My PSU is 1000W but it doesn't even come close to it on usage.

The original PSU has different amps than my "hacked" one . I believe the 850W cant power dual 100W+ CPU
I think the problem is the GPU Power and PSU incompatibility: the connector wont give enough power to the GPU.