HP z400 memory upgrade?

[cyberdave]

TO: HP Community from Cyberdave who is “slowing down in Florida”

Hi folks, I too have an older HP z400 workstation which I am trying to nurse through for at least another year. My question is about RAM, this machine is slowing down, I have checked everything else- there are 8 mb on board so I think there is room to upgrade. The question is whether to REPLACE what I have with say 2 8 gb sticks or what? I am also thinking about getting an SSD based on what that did for my laptop but hey, I don't want to throw money away and I no longer have the time to research everything to the degree I used to. What do you think?

Maybe I am just “getting old” but I could use a brief consult.

Oh yeah, almost forgot, it would help if you knew what I was using the machine for. I do a lot of on-line research and writing but my primary memory deficit shows up working with very large satellite photos which are integral to my work. I am also exploring an upgrade in my GPU but as I was saying...

Thanks for your input. You know I was thinking, we never had this kind of problem before we had things like full color monitors, but then again, it is hard to get into ANY trouble at a slow crawl isn't it, so, never mind! Must be getting late, sonny.  Peace-out!

David L. Brown aka Cyberdave at  [edit]

[SDH]

https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Business-PCs-Workstations-and-Point-of-Sale-Systems/Highest-End-Z400-B...

The link above will get you to a thread that includes some HP memory part numbers.  You need to know if you have a version 1 or version 2 Z400.  The processors that these two can run best are different.  If version 2 then I'd recommend getting the X5690 and upgrading your processor to that.  Search eBay for SLBVX (the processor's sSpec code) and expect to pay about 100.00.  These cost about 1700.00 new.  A faster processor can run faster memory, and the X5690 can run memory at the fastest speed that the Z400 can, 1333. 

No doubt at all that you need a SSD.... I recommend a 300 or 600GB Intel 320 series SATA II SSD off eBay.   We like the Quadro cards from nVidia.  For that workstation I very much like the Quadro 2000 card, or the Quadro K2000 card depending on your budget.  You always can spend more, of course.

Memory.... best to fill all 6 slots of the version 2 Z400 with identical memory sticks..... you may be very happy with 6 sticks of 4GB ECC unbuffered HP memory.  Read up on all pages of the link  HERE, and there is much more about the Z400 in the forum here reached via its search box.