HP Z8 G4 Xeon Silver 4114 issues with Windows 11

[Sakenskiy]

HI. We've migrated a lot of computer in our organization. And know we've started to migrate HP Z8 G4 Xeon Silver 4114 to Windows 11. There are 5 such workstations migrated to Windows 11 and all of them having below issues:

1. After going to sleep desktop doesn’t response.
2. Desktop doesn’t response, freezes.
3. Frequently loses ethernet connection.
4. Because of 1 and 3 case users can’t connect via Remote Desktop Connection most of the time.

Could you please help me?

[SDH]

One of the many things DGroves has advised us to do regarding W11 upgrades is to set BIOS specifically to Factory Defaults first, and to then do a clean install. Yes, I have gotten away with doing upgrades from W10Pro64 to W11Pro (always x64). However, when I was having some weirdness and took his advice I noticed a good percentage of the drivers installed by a clean install were different from what my "in place upgrade" had. It turns out that those drivers had been dragged along from W10 into W11. So, you could just try what a clean install gives you. MS and HP work closely together so the end result is usually fine for newer HP workstations.

Another approach is to check HP's Cloud Recovery Tool system for whether HP has a downloadable installer for your workstation. Some of those are available for W11 but many for the older workstations are just for W10. Some HP workstations have both available. You'll need to enter your product ID from the case labels to download but that should be easy. Once you get one it should work for all the others your company owns assuming that they all were Windows licensed. Those installer builds were fine tuned by HP specifically for your workstation at a prior time, and the install will then be upgraded by Windows Update to the latest. They'll be older W11 installs to start with, of course, and then get to W11 23H2.

Your workstations, assuming Win licensed, will have a "digital license" for use of W10/W11 on the MS W10/W11 licensing servers based on their UUID in the motherboard's firmware.

Regarding doing a clean install starting from a MS official iso... both DGroves and Paul Tikkanen here recommend the Rufus approach for getting an easy install (even if you don't have hardware that is MS certified to run W11). I agree. Download the latest iso from MS, get the latest Rufus, read up on how to use Rufus a bit, and when you're ready I like to disconnect from the internet, set BIOS to factory defaults, and use the boot USB drive Rufus made from your iso. When you make that USB drive at the last step after you clicked on Start a Rufus window opens and a whole list of checkboxes is presented to you... I check all of those and proceed.

[SDH]

Update:

First, it turns out that the HP Cloud Recovery system wanted the serial number rather than the product ID. I just looked up a serial number from a Xeon Windows-licensed box that had its ad's pictures including a shot of the top label on the case. The process requires you insert a 32GB thumb drive (or larger) to proceed even though the download will likely only be a little over 16GB. I did that for a Z4 G4 project I'm working on and it was painless. You don't need to do the download on your Z8 G4 but to use it the workstation does need to be Windows licensed from HP.

Second, for my Z4 G4 project and for your Z8 G4 Xeon workstations there are two Recovery downloads available (for a recent W10Pro64 and also a recent W11Pro64). Example:

Two different Recovery downloads available

The link to a long webpage that lists all the available Cloud Recovery downloads is HERE . Use CTRL + F and enter Z8 G4 to see your listing. There are no active links for the download(s) on that page. For that you go download the app and use it. Have the thumbdrive handy... it will clear everything off that during the process. A W11 22H2 clean install subsequent upgrade (via Windows Update) to the latest (23H2) is not a big jump up so that won't take a large amount of time.  There is added info on this whole HP Cloud Recovery process HERE .

The benefit of using these builds is that they were each hand tuned by HP exactly for your hardware. You also may have additional hardware that will need independent software driver installs too. You can fine tune BIOS later, but I'd keep it at Factory Defaults at this early stage.

Note that if your hardware, processor, and TPM don't meet MS requirements for running W11 this download likely will not work. In that case just go the Rufus approach.

p.s. I always turn off Fast Startup via the Power app in Control Panel. It has been defaulted to on in system settings by MS and has caused us significant grief borking some software we need to run. Once turned off that critical software works perfectly. Read up on it... in my mind no value to it and significant downsides. And it also is not "fast".