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HP Recommended

I’m expecting my replacement motherboard to arrive this week.  Discussion around that will essentially be a different topic so I’m going to start a new topic ‘Replacement Z400 v2 motherboard’.

HP Recommended

Update

I’ve now replaced the motherboard with a refurbished one. With the original, 475W power supply, the original, W3550 processor, and 6x 4GB DIMMs it booted up fine. 😀

 

So I’m back where I was. 😐

 

I’ve calculated the power load for my planned upgrade.

GPU GTX1660Ti 132 W
CPU X5690 130 W
Main board 80 W
HDD Hitachi 2TB ×2 25 W
case fans ×2 6 W
RAM 48GB 18 W
Mouse & kbd 3 W
Optical drive 25 W

TOTAL 419W

+ 10% for bad luck … 461W

So it should be okay until I add a second graphics card, when I'll install a 600W supply

 

My upgrade path is …

  • RAM to 48GB

  • processor to X5690

  • boot drive to an SSD

  • graphics to an Nvidea GTX1660TI (that model is supported by HP)

  • RAID of 2× 2TB hard drives

Then I’ll discover whether it runs Flight Simulator fast enough to satisfy me.

HP Recommended

Take a look at this link if you have not seen it already:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9X5I3I8Wzf0

 

You can see the Z400 they're working on is a v2 (it has 6 instead of 4 memory sockets). Note the passive airflow baffle... You want one of those, plus a 92 x 25mm HP front case fan either in its black plastic official carrier, or via a ghetto mod. You might want to get the power supply upgraded early rather than later. The Z400 workstations almost all came with the "Performance" heatsink/fan shown in the video. You surely want that and probably already have one in place.

HP Recommended

Thanks.  The machine came with the passive airflow baffle and the performance heat sink.  I’ve fitted a front chassis fan.

† The opinions expressed above are the personal opinions of the authors, not of HP. By using this site, you accept the <a href="https://www8.hp.com/us/en/terms-of-use.html" class="udrlinesmall">Terms of Use</a> and <a href="/t5/custom/page/page-id/hp.rulespage" class="udrlinesmall"> Rules of Participation</a>.