HP Thunderbolt 3 PCIe 2-Port I/O Card on Z840

[rob265]

 

 

 

 

 

Hi,

I’ve bought a HP Thunderbolt 3 PCIe 2-Port I/O Card for my workstation Z840. I’ve installed it on Slot1 PCIe3 but I can’t connect the power adapter on the motherboard because the pins place is plain . Is it possible to connect it on a different power pin supply? please see attached photos

[BeemerBiker]

I suspect this card will not work in Z840 as explained by @NonSequitur777 

https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Desktop-Hardware-and-Upgrade-Questions/STill-can-not-get-the-HP-Thunde...

[SDH]

HP had to do significant custom engineering to get their specific HP Thunderbolt cards to work with specific HP motherboards.  That included creating multiple different custom cables to interface with custom header(s) on the motherboards.  BIOS needed to be just right.  Drivers needed to be just right.  The way to do what you want is to get the custom made kit HP offered for your workstation.  This kit could be ordered later or installed at the factory during a custom build.  Finding an unopened kit would be virtually impossible but buying a kit from a seller who an expert and is parting out end of life workstations is a reasonable option.

You need to find a late version Z840 Quickspecs.  Download it HERE :

https://zworkstations.com/site/assets/files/1044/hp-z840-quickspecs.pdf

Search that for "Thunderbolt" and you'll see there is an Option Kit F3F43AA listed.  You could look to see if there was a same-alphanumeric part number kit for the Z640 and the Z440 in which case it should work in all 3.  You need the whole kit... the custom cable needs to be included.  This won't come cheap... ITCreations claims to be able to get them.

If you had the card in hand and could copy down its HP part numbers from its labels that still would not necessarily get you the correct cable.  The same card might have been used in several workstations but it takes the right card and the right cable and the right BIOS (the latest will do) and correct drivers for it all to come together.  Some people have tried to figure out the pinouts for the multiple different cables but I would only trust a few people for that and even the plug ends would be very hard to source.

[DGroves]

the z840 (unlike the z820) had TBolt in mind when the motherboard was designed, however as i recall like the z820 you MUST install the TBolt card in slot number #5

both TBolt 2/3 cards are based of off the Intel reference design, and both have the exact same 5 pin header on the card only the header orientation is different between the cards, the pinout is the same on both cards

if you use the TBolt 3 card you need driver for that card ,not the TBolt 2 driver

i do recall that early systems with dual cpu's had to move the "E3" jumper from pins 2-3 to 1-2 E3 should be near the bottom of the motherboard not sure this was required for later bios revisions (i think not)

you need to run the HP 5 pin cable from the TBolt card to the 5 pin header  "E72" on the motherboard this is where people get tripped up as each computer maker's TBolt header on their motherboard is wired differently due to this a HP cable will not usually work on another makers board also as "SDH" pointed out the HP card has specific HP firmware so even though a dell card is the same physically it's firmware may not work in the HP system and you may not be able to apply any dell updates to the card if it's in a HP system

http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c04514095.pdf