HP Z400: CPU FAN Noisy after BIOS update

[SDH]

No, the Noctua adapters don't do what the HP fan does to tell the motherboard that a proper fan is attached for your fast and valuable processor.

[theOne77]

Thanks a lot SDH. U really a big help on this forum. Long time back your information help a lot of HP Customers. 

So the main solution is change the fan to the original one right? 

[SDH]

You have not told us whether you looked at the heatsink for the side labels that you can see on eBay.  Maybe you should take a good picture.

If you look in eBay there are Chinese sources for HP replacement fans that look official.  There is a difference between the "Performance" heatsink/fan for the Z600/Z800 versus the Z400 Performance heatsink/fan.

Good luck on your project.

[theOne77]

Here it is. totally different

[SDH · Accepted solution]

That looks like it would make quite a racket even before your BIOS upgrade.  That clearly is not a HP heatsink/fan, and has a push/pull set of two fans that look like 80mm ones.  Can't tell if it is even plugged into the motherboard header meant for that.

Regardless, I'm recommending you spend the 27.00 to buy an official HP Performance heatsink/fan made for the Z400.  Look in eBay for 463981-001, and the lowest price including shipping is 27.00 from a seller who has more than 10.  My recall is that uses a 92 x92 x25 mm fan, and I use those heatsinks in all of our Z400 builds.  They run so quiet that I cannot hear them from about 4 feet away.  It is running at 1292 RPM per free HWMonitor, from CPUid.com.  It has the proper pin 1 to pin 5 ground jumper wire, shown:

                                   

A tip:  when you screw down the 4 screws for the heatsink, assuming you do this, be very careful to not over tighten.  The sheet metal threads those go into are under engineered and you can strip the threads easily.  Stop when you feel the beginning of things bottoming out.  You might want to even put a tiny bit of fine quality thread lubricant on, wiping off almost all of it before starting the process.  Who has a micro-torque wrench?  Just be very careful. 

Some of the fans I mentioned you can buy on eBay are listed as for the Z400 and Z600 performance heatsinks, but that is incorrect.  Those fans are thinner and made for the Z600/Z800 performance heatsinks.  The Z400 heatsink fan is thicker.  Both are 92x92mm square.  Buying only a HP fan is a moot point seeing your current heatsink... just get the real heatsink/fan combo.  

[theOne77]

Great SDH. THANKS

[SDH]

Found my old notes.... 

The Performance heatsink/fan combo for the Z600/Z800 had to be very tightly engineered to fit in the limited space for those workstations because two had to fit (if the owner had specified two 130W processors).  The Z400 can only accept 1 processor so there was more spare room.

The Z600/Z800 only rarely were ordered with the 130W processors so those Performance heatsinks/fans are rare and expensive.  In contrast, the large majority of the Z400s were ordered with 130W processors and thus there are many more of the Z400 Performance heatsinks/fans available, at a reasonable price.

Those two major types of Performance heatsinks/fans for this series of HP workstations both use 92 x 92 mm fans, but due to the tighter space available in the Z600/Z800 their fans are only 15mm thick, whereas the 92mm fan on the Z400 Performance heatsink is 25mm thick.  The Delta specs on these two types of fans show the 25mm thick one to run quieter than the 15mm one at the same 12VDC input.   

AFC0912DB-F00 versus AFB0912HH-F00

Note that these follow the usual HP approach.... They choose a fan that normally runs quite fast (if it was running at full 12VDC with no PWM braking).  Then the HP motherboard applies a lot of PWM braking to get to the intended lowest speed.  Reducing that PWM braking (either by the BIOS setting you can adjust, or by the motherboard's firmware directives) results in increased speeds from that baseline.

There is the little hypenated modifier on the Delta fan labels that specify the type of plug/wiring for HP.  For example, -7M89 for the AFC version.  Two pics, one of each:

15 mm, 92 x 9225 mm, 92 x 92

[DGroves]

just a quick followup for those who looked at the heatsink/fan the original poster had installed

while the heatsink shown is a large cooler that looks like it should cool the 130 watt cpu with no problems, looks can be deceiving!! while there are some quality heatsinks from known major heatsink makers that will cool 130 watt cpu's you can also find cheaply engineered crap all to often that use substandard parts/build methods that result in a large flashy cooler that in reality has issues cooling a 80 watt load much less a 130 watt one. couple this with a cheap fan and you have a cooler thay may cause thermal throttling at best or cpu damage at worst

hp goes to great lenghts to insure that the cooling subsystems on their workstations will work without issues on a base system up to one fully loaded with optional hardware 24/7 at reasonable decibel (sound ) levels

don't be fooled into thinking that the hp coolers from hp are crap because they are small, as hp takes a lot of time selecting quality parts for their heat sinks and quality fans, the stock hp heatsinks will usually last the lifetime of the system

here are some links that cover in detail what goes into desigining a heatsink:

http://semi-therm.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Heat-Pipe-Vapor-Chamber-Heat-Sink-Design-Guidelines...

http://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1135&context=imesp

[drejtori69]

Can i see more photos of the heatsink.What kind of heatsink is because hp normally have proprietary heatsinks. Thanx !

[SDH]

You can see all the pictures you want of the various related heatsinks/fans using the search function of this forum, eBay and especially Google.  There are posts in the forum here where I've discussed the differences in great detail.  Use a search term like "Z400 heatsink".  Even better.... below are the part numbers you can enter to see many pictures, and the current lowest price to expect to pay:

Z400 Performance                              463981-001 (about 30.00 USD)

Z400/Z600/Z800 Mainstream       463990-001 (about 40.00 USD)

Z600/Z800 Performance                 463991-001 (about 220.00 USD)

The Performance heatsinks/fans are larger, have more heat tubes, have higher cooling capacity, and can be used for both the lower (95W) and higher max TDP processors (such as 130W processors).  The Z400/600/800 all use the same processor sockets but the internal engineering of adjacent electrical/metal/plastic parts resulted in the Performance heatsink/fans that fits in a Z400 not fitting in a Z600/Z800 without modifications.  In contrast, the smaller Mainstream heatsink/fan fits in all 3 of those workstations.

All of these heatsinks have the same white 5-hole fan plug ends.  The difference between the wiring for both the Performance heatsinks versus the Mainstream heatsink is that there is a ground jumper wire going from hole 1 (ground) over to hole 5 so that the motherboard can see ground at the 5th pin of the motherboard's heatsink fan header if a Performance heatsink is present.  If it does not see ground at that pin then it knows a Mainstream heatsink is in place. 

You'll see two HP versions for the Z400 Performance heatsink/fan..... one has more metal (the earlier version) and the newer version has more black plastic components, but they both have the same HP assembly part number and overall performance.  Each of the two Z400 Performance heatsinks below has a 92x92x25mm fan; the Z600/Z800 Performance heatsink has a 92x92x15mm fan: 

Z400 Performance heatsink/fan, later version

Z400 Performance earlierZ600/Z800 Performance heatsink/fan