Z400 workstation & X5690 - motherboard fans - principle of working PWM - temperatures - sensors

[matroX]

Hello. At the beginning I will inform, that I was able to test Z400 version with 4 memory slots will work fine with X5690 processor, with 3.6 BIOS. There were plenty of considerations and doubts, which I want to clarify. BIOS recognizes CPU correctly.

Moreover, it will nicely use turbo feature on processor, so nominal frequency will even jump to 3.7GHz

I moved motherboard to some better PC case and I faced couple of problems-questions I want to post.

I was chceking how PWM for fans is working on this motherboard, as I couldnt find any description. When I compare service manual against what I see in BIOS, I'm confused.

1. Why in BIOS I see CPU0 and CPU1 temperatures, as this is single socket motherboard?

2. There is mismatch between FAN connectors in manual against what I see in BIOS. Please check screen:

Bios suggests there are more FAN connectors, while physically on motherboard I have only 4: CPU, front fan, rear fan and 'memory' (which is not mentioned in service manual), but this is in BIOS.

I don't undestand why there is 'chipset' fan, CPU1 fan. Also why frontal FAN is decribed in BIOS as 'PCI'? These are cosmetic questions (because I don't need these fans), but they bother me.

Also I was checking how PWM works ( I want this station to be quiet in idle), and here are some of my observations:

- when rear fan is disconnected, at POST BIOS complains about it and F1 has to be pressed to continue booting. Is this possible to deactivate this check, so BIOS is not complaining?

- when rear fan is disconnected, PWM for rear, front and 'memory' (4th FAN connector) goes to MAXIMUM. CPU fan stays as it was. Question is in general, if these principles are somewhere described, what happens to particular PWM in case some other fan is disconneced?

- I did some measurements with oscilloscope, how PWM signal looks like. In BIOS you can setup 7 levels of PWM for workstation in IDLE. So in principle, you may speed up all fans even in idle. Here are some results:

this is how PWM can be set from 'level1' to 'level7'. I will call that PWM1, PWM2...PWM7

PWM1, PWM2, PWM3, PWM4 respectively:

 

So at 'level4' can see, that PWM is almost 100%, not sure why there are still 3 levels up, which look like this:

PWM5, PWM6, PWM7. Surprisingly, when swithing between these levels I could hear fans were going still to higher speed at each level switch.

Question is, what affects PWM. Does Z400 look at memory temperature? Does it look at chipset temperatue?

Also I wonder qhat should be chipset temperature in IDLE, as this Z400 I'm testing is quite old itself and I see 55-60 degrees. Is this normal?

Regards and awating answer from some other fans...I meant: enthusiasts !

[SDH]

I am surprised that you can get a X5690 to work on that Version 1 motherboard, but that is good news if it holds up to be stable.  That remains an expensive processor, but your discovery opens the potential to use other less expensive ones that "should not work".

The BIOS may have been downsized from the Z600.... perhaps that is why you see hints of 2 processors.  Likewise for the memory/chipset entries in the BIOS temp/rpm section.  I added on a chipset fan to my V2 6-mem-slots Z400 as shown in an earlier post and its RPMs show up under the Memory section if I recall correctly.

The PCI entry is for that bottom front motherboard fan header.... it is to pull into the case cooler ambient air and blow it across the PCI cards down in that area to the rear.  Hence the name....

I'll get you some added info on my BIOS temp/rpm readout later.

[matroX]

Hi. 

Yes this is surprising especially when so many discussions are here on forum: will X56xx family run on 4-memory-slot version? Yes it will, but can be that BIOS update still has to be done with older,  supported CPU. 

I have been doing quite some video encoding and it was solid as a rock,  all cores 100%  loaded.  I haven tried any gaming yet,  but it its still to come. 

Your explanation about BIOS  downscaling makes sense,  however I haven't seen anything like this before.  Also that mismatch of naming 'front fan' used in manual and PCI fan used in BIOS is really interesting. 

At the moment I'm looking for answers:

Where memory temperature is measurement is taken from? For instance I just turn on Z400,  enter bios and already it shows 55 degrees.  Also just touching by finger I cannot find memory or any element in nearby to be significantly warm. 

I wonder can it be BIOS bug that it says memory 55 degrees,  while it's most likely chipset temperature? Tomorrow I will put heardryer on chipset while in BIOS and truth will come out. 

I'm trying to find out which factors will cause PWM to grow unnecesairly (for instance I wonder if that 'memory temperature'  is not bringing it higher).  I could determime,  that thermal sensor that goes with power button influences PWM a lot,  so just warm it by fingers and there is immediate fan response.  And the same with cooling it down,  fans immediately spin down. 

Nevertheless the lowest PWM I saw so far in this workstation was around 40 % and whole thing was surely idle.  Can it be lower?

Tomorrow I will mount all Noctua fans,  so this matter will change,  as these fans are very quiet and there is still option to limit their RPM still maintaining PWM working. 

Greetings, 

matroX

[SDH]

Below is my HWMonitor output for this Version 2 (6 memory slots) Z400 running one X5690:

From BIOS: temps of CPU0 is 26C and CPU1 is 0.  Ambient is 19C and Memory is 57C.

Also from BIOS: CPU0 fan RPM is 1266, Memory is 3210, Chassis is 1590, CPU1 is 0, chipset is 0, PCI is 0.

I don't have a PCI front fan in this Z400 because the video card is a blower type, exhausting the case in addition to the Chassis fan at 1590, plus the power supply adding more exhaust out the rear.   I never see the power supply fan RPMs show up anywhere, by the way.  "Memory" is actually my add-on HP 4-wire chipset fan, attached to the header you saw, and which I've posted about.  I add in a Noctua 4-wire LNA (or better yet a Noctua ULNA which are hard to find) to that chipset fan I get from a xw6600 or a Z600.

You'll find your Noctua fan plan will go too slow if the fans are PWM (and they need to be to respond to the HP motherboard's feedback) because that will take the slow Noctua PWM fans and then the motherboard adds its HP PWM throttle restriction, and the combination is too much slowing down going on.  Done that.

Keep going, though, because no one has ever fully figured out the HP cooling strategy.  Personally I have found I get what I want with what I have posted about, and even have gotten some added 4-wire Noctua adapters from Austria to dink with.  Nice people.

Front fan (if you want to add) is nice with a Noctua non-PWM 92 x 25 mm running at about 900 rpm, via 3-wire Noctua and three wire LNA or ULNA.  Just use the first 3 pins of the motherboard header there.  You can shave off the side ridge on the RPM sense side of the plug, or swap in a 4 wire plug end onto the 3 noctua wires with a "stunt" wire end in the 4th hole of the plastic plug.   It holds on to that motherboard header better that way.

[matroX]

Hello. 

As You nicely called that my 'Noctua plan'  must work -  I invested some money in that and I will make it working well. As You said HP coling strategy is unknown and thus I'm making some reverse engineering. I believe Noctuas will fit.  Reason: there is still that option in BIOS to 'add' fiixed value to PWM. So if I find fans working too slow,  I can boost them.  At the moment I have cheap Arctic fans,  which have very bad PWM curve,  if you look on their website.  I mean when PWM changes from 50 to 100%,  fan itself changes speed from 1000 to 1300 RPM.  I'm unhappy to see fans working almost at full speed,  what is in my case.   

Soon I will post photos,  also I will use ice to cool down ambient sensor, as I want to see how low PWM can be on this motherboard.  And in final,  I want cooling system to be reactive,  so when load/temperature grows,  it speeds up.  And vice versa. 

Your chipset fan goes full speed because You don't have frontal fan connected.  Once you connect anything,  chipset fan will slow down significantly. Just chceck it. 

Do You know any official/dedicated HP tools to show temp/RPM/etc in Windows?  So far I have been also using HWinfo,  which shows values,  however with incorrect names.  

Regards, 

matroX 

I want to know your opinion.  How do You think will be the best? 

I have in ma case place for 4 fans: one rear,  one front,  two up.  So far my philisophy was : frontal blows into the case,  rear blows outside case, both  upper blow outside case.  

Upper fans i thought 

[SDH]

I don't see the option to add to PWM value in my 3.60 BIOS.  How do you navigate in BIOS to that?

I can't hear my Z400 with the HP fans as I have tuned them, but will add in a front HP PWM cooling fan to see if that drops the HP PWM chipset fan speed just by that act.  As noted that shows up in the BIOS listed as the "Memory" fan.

That is a 40x40x20mm official HP PWM chipset fan that is used in the xw6600 and the Z600, and it would be nice to have that run at about 2000 or 1500 RPM given that HP never had an official chipset fan on the Z400's chipset heatsink, to my knowledge.

Keep us posted..... your work will be appreciated.

[matroX]

Hello,

Please look at my initial post at the top: ENTER BIOS > POWER > THERMAL. There you can 'add' fixed value to PWM, so all works with faster RPM. I tested it and it works as expected in 70%, abut also I described that in initial post, including photos from scopemeter.

I have seen your post about 'ghetto mod'. So now I understand why You wrote, that my 'noctua plan' will not work, as it seems with older stations XW.... they worked too slow. In my case its opposite, they still work too fast.

According to what I was able to find, there was never stock fan for Z400 chipset. And 'yes', when we are talking about chipset temperature or fan, we think of 'memory', how it's presented in BIOS. By the way it's just bug, even if BIOS is downscaled from Z400. But I can forgive, as long as it accepts X56xx family.

My Noctuas arrived and I'm during experiments. I will come back with results, I almost found cooling scheme of Z400.

[SDH]

I understand now.... I thought you might have discovered how to change things for one fan at a time, to individually tune them.  Rather, you are changing all via the BIOS at once, and thus having all be Noctua fans makes sense for this experiment.

This will be interesting.... I'm looking forward to seeing where you use those each and how you mount them.  I see you have 4 that are bigger than stock, the one 92mm fan, and then also that nice little one.

[matroX]

Hi. I wrote long story: Z400 cooling strategy revealed