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HP Recommended

Hi, all of you Z600 users.

Let me share here my own Z600 experience, I think it might help some of you.

I bought for less than $200 an old Z600 with two E5520 CPUs (4c @ 2.26 GHz) / 24 GB RAM / 300 GB 15K drive.

My initial goal was to build a cheap VMware sandbox.

The Z600 I bought was working fine, even if dual socket, I expected to boost it a little.

I initially intended to make it work faster by replacing the slow E5520s with a spare X5687 (4c @ 3.6 GHz) I had aside.

Before anything, I First I upgraded the Z600 BIOS to the most recent version.

My BIOS data is now the following : v3.60. Bios block date : 01/30/09. 786G4.

To be complete, the PSU is 650w one.

Unfortunately, I could never fire up the Z600 with this fast CPU, even with strapped 1-5 fan pins (see below).

I guess it's because my motherboard is a too old revision (it reads "PCB FAB v1.0" ).

I read somewhere that only recent revisions could run "more than 95W TDP CPUs". This probably explains that.

So I sold my X5687 ($100), and bought instead ($150) a pair of X5675 (95W TDP, 6 core @ 3.06 GHz).

New disappointment : Couldn't make them start : symptom was fans running all together at max speed, like meaning  "please, stop me ASAP, I'm getting hot".

During my many X5687 boot tries, I had strapped pins 1 and 5 of the first CPU fan connector.

(this is just a trick to fool the motherboard, making it think the standard CPU fan/heatsink is a high performance one, instead of the basic one - the one that was sufficient to cool the E5520).

This was a good idea, as the next try I did with the X5675 was to give another chance with a single CPU.

And guess what : it booted, nicely showing it's name in the BIOS.

So one CPU was happy home alone, but both of them were'nt good together.

I remembered that only one of my CPU heatsink/fan was strapped.

So I decided to make the 1-5 strap trick on the second second one.

And guess what ? it started. So if you want to boost your old Z600, I guess the best you can do is to buy a pair of X5675, fool the heatsink/fans, and ignite it ! 2x 6c @ 3.06 GHz is a nice revival for this old, but good and reliable workstation.

Good luck everybody !

 

HP Recommended

Please do us all a favor and go into your BIOS and find out the boot block date of your Z600, and post back with that.

 

I'm thinking that you have Fab version 1.0 of the version 2 motherboard, which would be great for you.  We don't want a bunch of people thinking you have Fab version 1.0 of the version 1 motherboard if that is not the case....

 

So, please take a moment...... Thanks

HP Recommended

I completed my post with all the BIOS info I found.

(786G4 - v3.60. Bios block date : 01/30/09)

So is it a v1 or a v2 motherboard ?

If it's a v1, I'm interested in the answer to "why didn't it start with the X5687 ?"

Have a nice day !

 

HP Recommended

You do have a version 1 Z600.... the version 2 has a boot block date of 1/7/10.  I remember way back that one of our favorite HP engineers, Dan_WGBU, said you might be able to get a 5600 series processor to run in a version 1 motherboard, but that it should be expected to be unstable.

 

Over my head on why one 5600 series might work in your version 1 and another won't......

 

Thanks much for the followup.  It will be neat to hear if your system stays stable over time with those processors in place.

 

 

HP Recommended

Thank you for your precision, SHD - that's why the x5687 didn't work.

About stability,  I'm not sure it's so stable (2x 5675 installation is recent).

If I had to change for a more recent MoBo, what ref. should I aim for ?

Thank you for your answer !

Denis

 

† The opinions expressed above are the personal opinions of the authors, not of HP. By using this site, you accept the <a href="https://www8.hp.com/us/en/terms-of-use.html" class="udrlinesmall">Terms of Use</a> and <a href="/t5/custom/page/page-id/hp.rulespage" class="udrlinesmall"> Rules of Participation</a>.