Does Z620 front panel 20pin USB3.0 cable fit into an inateck PCIe USB3.0 card?

[ThomasCh]

Hi,

Recently got a z620 and new to the forum.

My problem is that I could not get the z620 onboard TI USB3.0 to work on my currect OS and I beieve it's a OS issue.

Therefore, I would like to get an USB3.0 PCIe card with an internal 20pin connector if I could connect the z620 front panel USB3.0 to the PCIe card. Don't know if them are compatible or not? Thanks in advance.

PCIe USB3.0 card:

www.inateck.com/inateck-ktu3fr-5o2i-usb-3-0-pci-express-card.html

BR,

[SDH · Accepted solution]

I'd say yes to your question, but would advise using a HP USB3 card instead.  However, I don't think you will need to use either.

The Z620's motherboard's USB3 chipset is based on a Texas Instruments chip, and the drivers for your OS are available directly via the HP Z620 drivers download site.  Have you downloaded the SP that includes the installer (latest version) and tried running that?  A clean install of W10 on a Z620 will automatically install the correct drivers too, with the USB3 ports working fine under W10Pro64 FCU.  This tells you HP and MS worked together to make sure this hardware is supported.

The SP you want is SP65943, released by HP 6/26/14 and that installer has worked for us on our Z420/Z620 workstations with the chipset built into the motherboard, and also our Z400 and Z600 and xw4600/6400/6600 workstations using that HP USB3 card.  That has all the software parts needed.

Do the rear USB3 ports work but not the front ones?

The front USB3 ports feed back to a bottom edge motherboard USB3 header (a "20 pin" blue plastic header that actually has only 19 pins because one is a blank to ensure correct orientation).  That accepts the black dual-cable/single plug from the front USB3 ports.  It should be able to plug into the same type "USB motherboard header" that you can find on some PCIe USB3 cards (you can see that on the one you link to).

I have posted HERE recently about adding a HP USB3 "2 x 2" TI chipset based PCIe card that uses the same chip/drivers and also has that USB3 header built into it.  Thus this card is another option for you to use.  It was developed by HP to add USB3 capabilities to the ZX00 series workstations retroactively, and it also works in the xw series of workstations.  According to our favorite HP engineer on this forum HP did a lot of high level engineering to add best quality USB3 capabilities to the ZX20 series workstations (and also that card).  You can be sure they went beyond the consumer grade quality.  I'd bet that your idea will work but I'd try fixing what I believe is a driver issue first.

I have never heard of your problem before.... I don't think it is your motherboard's chipset that is the issue.  It likely is only your drivers.  Use the ones from HP directly from the HP Z620 download site..... there are several other TI variations and the Z620 version is the only one you should use, the latest one.

Another remote possibility..... under BIOS Security tab in the listing of devices in there someone in the past may have turned off that device.  In that case both the OS and the Device Manager will not see it as existing until you re-enable that.

There are some companies that turn off USB access this way for security, and some "three letter" government agencies actually fill in all the USB ports with thick epoxy glue...... that one is hard to fix!

[ThomasCh]

Thanks for the reply and will definitely give SP65943 a try as well as checking the BIOS setting (likely the problem)!! 

I appreciate!

Best,