HP Z820 noise level

[Niklas_A]

Hi all,

I’ve just purshased a refurbishef Z820 with dual liquid cooled E-2687w processors. I have’nt had the chance to load test it yet, but I’m very supprised how noisy it is. 

In BIOS (latent version) I’ve currently set Idle fan speed to the lowest value. While I’m i inside the BIOS the fans are pretty quiet, but as soon as the operating system starts to load the RPM of the fans increase and the sound is in my opinion quite disturbing. 

When running HP performance advisor, the CPU drops down to the minimum 1.1Ghz, but the fans are still noisy. 

I have a couple of Z620 at work and they are much more pleasant from the noise level perspective, since I can barely hear them under the desk. 

Has any of you any experience or input on this matter?

best regards

Niklas

[Hiatus]

Is the noisy fan/fans identified? Is it the radiator fans, the front fan, power supply fan or memory fan?

The noise doesn't necessarily have to do with the workload. If the fan itself is bad it will be noisy regardless of workload...

I would suggest starting with a good cleaning of the fans. Disassemble and clean one at the time if your'e unsure about which fan is the culprit.

Hiatus

[Scoobis]

check the idle fan speed in bios. my guess is someone cranked it up

[Niklas_A]

I have been digging around this issue this weekend and made the following conclusions:

- All fans make noise since they run at high speed. 

- The fans runs low (acceptable noise level) while booting and while inside system bios (no operating system loaded)

- Unplugging all fans except the liquid coolers and the workstation is dead quiet.

- The fans run fast (noisy) when Windows 10 x64 boots and is loaded. 

- I have tried both legacy and uefi boot but no difference. 

- I have a small HP Z Turbo drive i(first generation) nstalled and tried to pull it out and run Windows from an Intel sata ssd. Now the fans run low!

The following screenshots were taken with HP Z Turbo drive mounted and unmounted:

HP Z820 with Intel SSD (no turbo drive mounted)

HP Z820 with Turbo drive mounted

So in my case the increased fan noise seems dependent on wether the HP Z Turbo drive is mounted or not. 

Not sure if this is as designen by the HP engineers, but would be great to see if anyone else had the same behaviour. 

Anyhow, I have cleaned all fans and greased them but I can’t really say that I noticed any difference in noise level. 

Right now I’m in the situation where I feel I have to choose between a noisy workstation with a fast disk or a quiet but with a normal speed disk. 

/Niklas

[Niklas_A]

I have also tested a HP Z620 with an Samsung Evo 860 mounted (no turbo drive mounted) and this workstation is much more quiet than the HP Z820 (even when the Z820 has the turbo drive dismounted)

Z620 with samsung evo 860 (no turbo drive mounted)

Maybe the Z820 just is a more noisy workstation than the Z620?

[Hiatus]

The first thing I noticed was the Z620 runs a single CPU compared to the Z820's 2. That would probably make a bit of a difference...

When it comes to your original question, It seems you've done quite a lot of troubleshooting already and managed to pin-point what makes the problem appear.
Next step is naturally to figure out why that is. What is the common denominator?

I'm just thinking out loud here.
Did you try to reset CMOS? (Can't remember if you wrote that or not and now I can only see your last post.)

What about drivers for the turbo drive?
Have you tried moving the Turbo to a different slot?

Have you noted any difference in workload on the boot drive with the different drives mounted?
Since the problems start after POST, maybe it's a problem in Win10? What version of Windows are you on?

Hiatus

[Niklas_A · Accepted solution]

Hi again,

I’ve done some extended research, considering Hiatus suggestions and have reached a working solution. 

- I tried resetting the cmos, but that didn’t change anything. 

-I swapped around the cards on the PCI bus.

When having my graphics card on the bus connected to CPU0 and the turbo drive connected to CPU1 and booting from a sata attached SSD (in MBR mode) the fans runs normal. 

After this tiny success I really wanted to boot from the turbo drive so reinstalled Windows again (probably done that 5 timmes during these tests) but now in MBR mode on the Turbo drive and voilà - it works expected now. 

So nothing beats a stubborn head 🙂

Hope this can help someone else out there...

Now as a side note has anyone tried to replace the fans on the CPU and menory shroud? The fans that cool the memory are not that common I would assume.

I think that by doing so I could get an eaven more quiter workstation. 

/Niklas

[Hiatus]

Sweet!
Good job. Nothing beats spending lots of time on something and finally solving it.

Hiatus

Ps. Extra kul att få hjälpa en svensk också. 🙂

[HiHoSilver]

Hello Niklas,

Thank you for your post and suggested solution.  I have a similar workstation configuration with the exact symptom but with a slightly different solution to share.

My Z820 :

Dual E5-2687w, liquid cooled. With all fans cleaned due to the excessive noise (no difference observed).  Fans verified working with Performance Advisor and exhibit the same behaviour with similar fan speeds.  Latest BIOS flashed.  CMOS reset. EFI enabled. GPT partition on boot disk.

My observations :

I have migrated from a Z620 by booting the Z820 with the same Intel 750 nvme U.2 drive without OS reinstallation.  The fans ramp up to a high speed immediately after POST from the point Windows 10 start to boot.  The noise was so unbareable and I always give a sigh of relief when the worstation shuts down!

I have tried a Noctua fan controller to contol the fan speeds but it does not work as the motherboard has its own fan control strategy that you cannot override unless it's manually controlled.  The motherboard will report a fault if the fan speed feedback is not present.  it's too difficult to manage the thermals manually especially those in the CPU/memory fan shroud.  HP has made sure that all the fans work together to deliver the perfect thermal control.

The Z820 is definitely louder than the Z620 (single CPU).  However, I do love the idle thermals at around high 30s to low 40s for both CPUs!

I was about to give up on the workstation when I read your post.  Resetting Windows with a fresh install is always the last resort after all other troubleshooting steps have been exhausted as it's time consuming.  But it seem to work for me.  For my case, I do not need to reformat to MBR.  There may be some previous settings, configuration or drivers that were causing the motherboard to run at a cooler temperature.

Thanks again for your post.

[Campdublanc]

Hello Niklas,

I recently got a HP Z820 and found the machine rather noisy as well. 

Cleaned the fans, applied new thermal paste but that didn't help.

Until I pulled out both HP 600GB 15K SAS drives. Now it's acceptable and comfortable, can compare the noise level to the noise my HP 8200 Elite desktop produces.

These are the values without the SAS drives: