Help with overclock on a Z620

[0Zang]

Can someone give me a hand please?

@SDH 

@Rhothgar

@BambiBoomZ 

.@DGroves 
.@Paul_Tikkanen

Can someone give me a hand please?

I recently got a Z620 v1 with xeon 1650 0 and am trying to overclock it.

I've tried every version of XTU I've found, from 4.2 to 7.4, fresh install of windows 10, first with 22h2 then with 21h2. I checked the BIOS config.

The CPU appears as "unlimited and true" for overclocking.

But all tuning options appear grayed out!!

BIOS J61 V03.96
Windows 10 64bit
4x8gb ecc memory
updated drivers
no Hyper-V or similar installed

3 days of trying and I'm lost here.

[SDH]

Welcome!

In my experience our friends Bambi and Brian1965 on the forum here were the most experienced with overclocking the ZX20 workstations. Things got much tougher with the advent of W10, and now W11. I'd PM both of them and see if they can hop back in and give some updates.

There is a post https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Business-PCs-Workstations-and-Point-of-Sale-Systems/Z620-XTU-on-Window... that may have some advice for you of value.

I have to admit that life got so busy with other more pressing projects that I stalled out on my overclocking attempts and will be interested to see what you discover. The one thing I'd advise to do in all cases is to disable "Fast Startup" in W10/W11. That first showed up as defaulted to being on in W8, and caused us much trouble with the control software for very expensive medical monitors that finally worked again when I made the discovery that it was the root cause of the problem. Others report that for other software and I consider it worse than worthless. I'm guessing I saved us over $350,000 by turning it off... otherwise we'd be buying new Barco monitors at about 7k per, lots of them.

Please post back with info for the group... it will be of value.

[0Zang]

thank you!

losing some battles but still in the war here!

I downgraded the BIOS to 3.91 using the green magic jumper
currently trying windows version 1809

fast startup disabled

When I have time, I do more tests. If I manage to come up with something, I'll share it with the group!

 Cheers!

[0Zang]

small update

I'm finding some information that it is not possible to overclock with the boot block date 2011, can anyone confirm?

And a little discovery I made earlier, I don't know why, but maybe it will help someone:

with this "intel(R) C600 Series Chipset SAS RAID (SATA mode)" driver I got this error message when trying to open XTU. Without it, XTU opens (still with all options grayed out).

[BambiBoom_PMD]

OZang,

To use XTU to overclock a Xeon E5-1650, -1660, or -1680, it must be a V2 and the system motherboard have the 2013 Boot Block Date.

BambiBoomZ

HP z620_2 (2017) (R11) > Xeon E5-1650 v2 (6C@ 4.6GHz) / z420 Liquid Cooling / 64GB (HP/Samsung 8X 8GB DDR3-1866 ECC registered) / RTX 2080 Ti 11GB / Samsung SM951 M.2 512GB AHCI + Samsung 970 EVO M.2 NVMe 500GB + HP/HGST Enterprise 6TB / Focusrite Scarlett 2i4 sound interface + 2X Mackie MR824 / 825W PSU / Windows 7 Prof.’l 64-bit (HP OEM) > 2X Dell Ultrasharp U2715H (2560 X 1440)
[ Passmark Rating = 6525 / CPU rating = 16256 / 2D = 882 / 3D= 12816 / Mem = 3123 / Disk = 14408 / Single Thread Mark = 2548 [6.8.22]

HP z420_3: (2015) (R12) Xeon E5-1650 v2 (6C@ 4.6GHz) / z420 Liquid cooling / 64GB (HP/Samsung 8X 8GB DDR3-1866 ECC registered) / NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070Ti 8GB/ Samsung SM951 M.2 256GB AHCI + Samsung 860 EVO 500GB + HGST 7K6000 4TB / ASUS Essence STX + Logitech z2300 2.1 / 600W PSU > Windows 7 Professional 64-bit (HP OEM ) > Samsung 40" 4K
[Passmark System Rating: = 6337 CPU = 15851 / 2D = 862 / 3D = 11147 / Mem = 3072 Disk = 13629 /Single Thread Mark = 2540 [11.29.21]

[SDH]

Bambi... and, does the OS have to be W7Pro64 as you show for your two v2 workstations running the v2 processors shown below, or have you also gotten XTU to overclock on W10Pro64?

[BambiBoomZ]

SDH,

I've only had  W10 on one system, and I never tried- never had the opportunity- to try XTU on it. 

I think that XTU addresses the microcode of the CPU and BIOS, and the operating system is lesser factor to the BIOS. My sense is that having the release date of the XTU version as nearly as possible contemporary or somewhat after to the CPU and motherboard- and therefore BIOS characteristics,  provides an enhanced chance of good results. I hope others will comment.

The W10 system was an ill-fated HP zBOOK 17 G2 (17.3"):

HP ZBook 17 G2: (2015 ) i7-4940MX Extreme (4C@3.1/ 4.0GHz) / 32GB / Quadro K3100M 4GB / Kingston 480GB SATA SSD > 17.3" LCD 1920 X1080 panel > HP docking station> video externally to HP 2711x 27" LCD + Dell 17" (2007) / Logitech 533 _2.1 speaker system
[Passmark System Rating: = 3980 / CPU = 10140 / 2D = 618 / 3D = 2779 / Mem = 2559 Disk = 4662 / Single Thread Mark = 2387 [1.3.20] 

Unfortunately, the motherboard of this system- my first laptop- melted down as soon as the software was loaded.  The motherboard, CPU, and GPU- the power connection sockets are melted  - a $X,XXX loss.  I think- not absolutely certain- that any i7-Extreme is overclockable but I never had even one use of the ZBook  nor a chance for refining the performance.

That was to be the live sound recording system.  Instead it's probably going to be the pristine, unmelted  2007 Dell Precision 390:

Dell Precision 390 (2007) (R9_T2): Xeon X3230 (4C@ 2.67GHz) / 8 GB DDR2-667 ECC / Quadro K2200 4GB / Samsung 850 EVO 250GB + HGST 7K4000 1TB / Creative Audigy 2ZS S/C > Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit
[ Passmark PT9: Rating = 1989 / CPU = 3402 / 2D= 398 / 3D=3300 / Mem= 845 / Disk= 2691] [STM= 1021] 12.3.20

For two-track recording, it's fine running a Focusrite Scarlett 2i4 interface.

In other HP Z news, the z620 may become  an i9-13900KF / W10 system using the z620 's RTX 2080 Ti 11GB. Carefully specified and configured, that system could have a Passmark rating of 12,000-18,000 as compared to z620_2's 6525.  I'm just finishing a large 3D CAD project; the main document is 1.1GB, the largest document file I've done- and it's only 11 pages, but the  z620_2 was barely able to run it: 20-30sec plus regen times.  The z620 will become the secondary system for 2D /4K (Monitor is 40" 4K), putting back the E5-1680 V2 8-core and using the GTX 1070 Ti now in z420_3.  z420_3   could become the sound recording system, but probably will go on ebahhh, possibly parted out, along with the four or five other "spare systems"- the oldest being 1997! and piles of parts.  It's too bad in a way, as z420_3 was one of only three systems I purchased new and it's like new with the original box.

Good to hear from you!

BambiBoomZ

HP z620_2 (2017) (R11) > Xeon E5-1650 v2 (6C@ 4.6GHz) / enhanced z420 Liquid Cooling / 64GB (HP/Samsung 8X 8GB DDR3-1866 ECC registered) / RTX 2080Ti 11GB / ZTurbo (Samsung SM951 M.2 512GB AHCI) + Samsung 970 EVO M.2 NVMe 500GB + HP/HGST Enterprise 6TB / Focusrite Scarlett 2i4 sound interface + 2X Mackie MR824 / 825W PSU / Windows 7 Prof.’l 64-bit (HP OEM) > 2X Dell Ultrasharp U2715H (2560 X 1440)
[ Passmark 9.0 Rating = 6525 / CPU rating = 16256 / 2D = 882 / 3D= 12816 / Mem = 3123 / Disk = 14408 / Single Thread Mark = 2548  [6.8.22]

Z620_2 running all cores @ 4.7GHz: Passmark 9.0 Rating = 6558 / CPU rating = 16420 / 2D = 854 / 3D= 13835 / Mem = 3159 / Disk = 14786 / Single Thread Mark = 2606  [6.8.22]  This, however was running the 1650 v2 too near and hitting the overvolt time limit at 1.51V.   _Note: the average Passmark Single thread Mark for the E5-1650 V2 = 2,021

z620_2 running an E5-1660 v2 all cores at 4.4GHz: [ Passmark Rating = 6410 / CPU rating = 15750 / 2D = 831 / 3D= 15018 / Mem = 3075 / Disk = 14055 / Single Thread Mark = 2410 [6.23.22]  This is instructive; that the 3D @ 4.4GHz of 15018 is higher than the E5-1650 V2 @ 4.6GHz (3.5 /3.9 GHz) of  demonstrates the higher IPC of the E5-1660 V2 (3.7 / 4.0GHz).