HP Z820 CPU Upgarde

[Techguy777]

HI Folks

Am looking to upgrade the CPU's in my HP Z820 workstation.

Currently am running 2 x Intel Xeon E5-2643.

My Boot Block Date is 3/6/2013

BIOS:  J63 v03.16

My question is can I install the 8 core Xeon E5- 2680 V1 ?

I know I can install the the 10 core E5-2680 V2 but my budget does not stretch that far 😒

Any help greatly appreciated.

Thank you

[DGroves]

all z820 systems can run v1 cpu's however only the later revision boards with Boot Block Date is 3/6/2013 can run the v2 "Ivy Bridge" cpu's

next, before upgrading the cpu's you should update your bios from 3.16 to the current 3.96 and if running windows 8/10 the bios update should be done from within the z820 bios (use the bios update option,  have the DOS folders xxxxx.bin file on a formatted fat32 usb key or update from a usb key using the DOS flashing cmd

your selected 130 watt cpu(s) require the upgraded 3 heatpipe coolers

you can not use the existing 95 watt 2 heatpipe coolers with 130 watt cpu's

HP also states the stock 800 watt power supply is not suitable and the 1115 watt supply must be used

you may want to simply buy a barebones z820 that has the high power heatsinks/pwr supply and possibly cpu's

and xfer over your drives and then sell your original system on ebay

[Techguy777]

Hi

Many thanks for your quick reply.

I have the larger 1115W psu and my PC has the CPU water cooling kit installed.

Am running Win10.

With regard to the BIOS is it essential  to do the update ?

Reason I ask is that the last BIOS I done was on a Dell Precision Workstation and it failed to complete resulting in a bricked motherboard.   A very expensive mistake  😢😢😢

[DGroves · Accepted solution]

no bios updates are not required HP/dell/lenovo only release bios updates because they have nothing else to do..........

and if you believe that line, then i have a bridge to sell you!

in reality, motherboard makers release bios updates to fix issues that have been found that they feel warranted the time to isolate the flaw/problem develop a fix, test the fix document the fixe(s) .....think they are spending all that time/money for nothing?

you can read what new features, and what items were found/fixed by reading the doc file that accompanies a HP bios update which details all changes

last, no bios update is 100% safe,    same for turning  on a system there is no 100% guarantee that a power on will be trouble free

in general bios updates when performed according to the mfg steps is a trouble free thing and if something should go wrong these HP workstations have a failed/corrupted bios recovery mode that can be invoked if something should go wrong

[Techguy777]

Thanks for all your help.  Really appreciated.