RTX graphics cards do not run in Z2 G4 tower workstation

[Berthold1955]

Since a few days I have a Z2 G4 tower workstation. Now I unsuccessfully tried to install 2 different RTX graphics cards, Nvidia Quadro RTX4000 and also a loaned GTX 2070 for testing purposes.

The cards will work for 1 or 2 boot sequences at best - with an unusual boot delay of more than a minute. Afterwards a boot is no more possible, except after uninstallation of card and use of built-in graphics.

The workstation power supply with 500 watts should not be a problem - the stated maximum power drain is 160 / 175 watts. BIOS version of workstation  is 1.4.10 (dated 4/2/2019) and graphics card drivers are latest version, too (in case of RTX4000: 430.64 dated 5/9/2019).

HP service tried to help, put gave me no really helpful advice. The lady on the phone stated that the quadro RTX4000 is not supported according to her data. Come on - a relatively new and well known professional graphics card is not supported by a brand new HP workstation?

Any help to solve the problem is appreciated. Thank you very much!

[DGroves]

the quadro RTX4000 is a 160 watt card

https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/design-visualization/quadro/rtx-4000/

the Z2 G4 Tower quickspecs

http://www8.hp.com/h20195/v2/GetDocument.aspx?docname=c05987463

hp specs the quadro P5000 card as supported, which draws 180 watts so power should not be a issue

http://h20195.www2.hp.com/v2/getpdf.aspx/4aa4-6106enw.pdf

therefor i suspect that if this system came without any addin video card, that you need to reconfigure the bios to make the addin card the primary one instead of the onboard intel UHD 630 intergrated graphics

http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c06099780

[Berthold1955]

@DGroves

Thank you very much for your contribution and your try to help me.

Unfortunately for me I already knew the HP Z Workstation Graphics Card Options Quick Reference Guide dated April 2019  which confirmed my choice of a Quadro RTX4000 graphics card.

Since nothing helped, I called HP service again yesterday and they sent a service technician today. The technician checked hardware, BIOS settings and boot behavior. Then he said the graphics card is definitely not compatible. He called the statement in the Quick Reference Guide a bit premature.

Now I can only hope that a BIOS update will fix the problem in the not too far-off future. 

[DGroves]

have you installed the RTX, and seen the BIOS post screen?

have you tried another video card and seen it's post screen?

if both of the above are true, then get a spare HD, install it as the only drive in the system and install windows 10 you don't care about activation, you just want to see if the video works during install. if this is so you have a windows software conflict  on the HP OS,

[Berthold1955]

Thank you for your answer!

 I just installed the RTX4000 again and this time it resulted in repeated on/off cycles of the monitor only - without any picture.

A Pascal series card like P4000 is booting fast and running without any problems.

Under these circumstances it might be best to stay with the Pascal card for the moment and wait for the next available BIOS update. In about 2 weeks a new windows 10 version will be distributed, too.

[BambiBoomZ]

Berthold1955,

I have been interested in the Quadro RTX 4000 as VRay - which I use, is going to be optimized to take advantage of the ray-tracing capabilities.

The situation of the RTX4000 not running in the current HP Z2 is quite odd, but not unique.  There are only 3 HP systems using an RTX 4000 and these are: z420 (E5-1650 / 3D= 10205), z420 (E5-2687w/ 3D= 12184) and z840 (E5-2640 v4 / 3D= 12838)

The odd thing is that the RTX4000 appears to work in the previous generation, including z420 with Xeon E5 1600 first version and secondly, the 3D results are not spectacular for a $900+ GPU.   The Passmark average = 13801.

For comparison, the Quadro P4000 of which there are 110 tested on HP systems- mostly Z4's tested, a Z4 / P4000 has a 3D= 13085 and the mid range on Z640, z820 and etc. is about 11000.

As it's there has been some amount  that almost no software can make use of the special features of RTX, and there have been a number of posts here by users with the same problem   of even having it work. Yes,  use the P4000 until the technology- hardware and software matures, but I'd suggest not allowing the return period to lapse if it does not run after the BIOS update. The situation would not be so difficult if there were ever any definite error messages, but I've never seen any deinite answer as to incompatibility and even your visiting technician could not explain it.

BambiBoomZ

HP z620 (2017 E5-1680 v2 8-Core@ 4.3GHz) / z420 liquid cooling / 64GB / GTX 1070 Ti / SM951 M.2 + 970EVO NVMe + HGST 7K6000 4TB

[Tawfiqin]

hello,

Did you manage to solve this issue? 

[Berthold1955 · Accepted solution]

Hello,

I just found my own post when looking for another problem solution.

A later BIOS update (I do not remember the exact version) made the RTX card work - in principle. But during boot process the screen remained black until the windows screen showed up. It was not possible to enter BIOS any more.

BIOS version 1.5.5 fixed this problem. Now I saw a warning message that the frontside fan was not working or missing. After installation of a frontside fan everything was ok. 

Unfortunately BIOS update 1.6.2 caused a problem again. BIOS could be entered approximately every second try only . So I went back to version 1.5.7 ...

[Tawfiqin]

Thank you