Z400 Aftermarket Upgrades

[gabornico]

afaik the only difference between X5690 and W3690 is the number of QPI links, 2 vs. 1 because the 5690 was made for dual processor machines like Z600, Z800 etc.

If you need more power, the good old Delta DPS-650 LB B power supply is your friend.

626322-001

626409-001

[Niarfe]

Yes thank you!

that info will come in handy!

after I install the 850 EVO, I will remove the SAS raid card, 3 SAS HDDs and one Of the two Quadro FX580 cards.... I actually hope my power consumption will be low enough to be OK with the 475w PSU I have. Now if I get me later on a cool Radeon RX-480 card... Well, then I have to take a closer look.

still no update on the shipping for the w3680 cpu!  SSD is supposed to arrive Thursday! 

[gabornico]

You're welcome.

I forgot to mention that your SSD won't run in AHCI mode.

Of course the integrated S-ATA controller is capable to run in advanced mode which is very important when a user plans to hammer his HDD/SSD with many commands simultaneously, but for some reason HP disabled it in this generation of workstations (Z400, Z600, Z800).

The BIOS offers only two choices, RAID+AHCI or IDE mode.

RAID+AHCI means harddisks are always managed by RAID BIOS and only optical drives use the AHCI protocol.

If you plan use the Samsung Magician software, it will complain.

Anyway, I had a 120 GB 840 EVO in my Z400 for almost two years, it worked fine.

The DPS-475 CB 1A is a very good PSU from my personal experience, all my machines (three xw4600, one Z400, one d530 CMT) have this inside.

For the Radeon card the 650W is a better choice, especially cause it has two 6-pin PCIe power connectors.

Keep in mind that gaming cards are officially unsupported in these workstations.

[Niarfe]

Ok so I leave the 850 evo is sata only?

[gabornico]

keep the RAID+AHCI setting, as this is still better than IDE mode which is primarily intended for legacy operating systems (XP and earlier) which cannot handle SATA drives.

If you cannot go without AHCI, you could get a PCIe S-ATA controller (preferably 3rd  gen) and connect the SSD to the card.

As I wrote, the SSD is going to run fine when connected to the onboard S-ATA, but without advanced features due to lack of AHCI mode.

[Niarfe]

That's my fear. I only have either IDE or Raid+AHCI.  Right now it is at Raid+ AHCI...So I leave it like that then..

[SDH]

Most of the HP workstations I work with do not offer "AHCI" as an isolated BIOS setting.  Rather, AHCI is included in the advised setting.   Both the BIOS settings of  "RAID + AHCI" or "RAID" result in getting both the RAID and also the AHCI drivers installed.

That is how HP sends them from the factory, and that is the recommendation of Intel.  You may never ever plan to use RAID, but that is the BIOS setting recommendation.  You'll get AHCI drivers included automatically unless you choose the IDE setting.  This is one of those unusual situations in which what you choose in BIOS before the OS install actually affects the drivers that get installed.

There are some circumstances where I need to drop down to an IDE Separate setting to accomplish some odd project, but I always attach a post-it note to remind myself to reset BIOS back to "RAID + AHCI".

In XP if you did not have BIOS set to that before a clean OS install you would be stuck.  With W7 and above if your BIOS settings were set to IDE during the OS install you'd at least have a method to layer them in later.  It's all in here......

Remember to do your install correctly so you get the special "system reserved" small partition installed along with the main W7Pro64 install.  Also, if you get that taken care of before the end of this month you should W10Pro64 activate your workstation for free.  Even if it is a stunt quick and dirty W7Pro64 activated install make sure to not lose out on that 200.00 savings.  Your UUID will then be registered at MS and you'll be able to shift over to W10 anytime in the future.

[Niarfe]

Today I finally received my 850 EVO and can tell it's fast. But I am confused since the Samsung software says the drive is not setup in AHCI when the BIOS clearly says RAID+AHCI..

[SDH]

The Samsung Magician software has been reporting that HP workstations using Samsung SSDs are not using the AHCI drivers for years, incorrectly.  Use this forum's search box and type in Magician and you'll see lots of posts.  This carelessness and inability to correct such a basic mistake is one reason I choose to not be a proponent of Samsung.  It is one thing to create a mistake.  It is another to leave it in place for years on end.

There is another piece of software, AS SSD, that is used widely in speed testing of SSDs that does correctly report use of the AHCI drivers... you can do your research on that and download it for free.

I've posted in this forum about helping a friend who is very good with computers but who did not know the need to set the HP BIOS in his workstation to "RAID + AHCI" before the clean install of his W7Pro64 OS.  So, he was running his SSD with only IDE drivers.  I helped him layer in the correct RAID + AHCI drivers after the fact (Microsoft released a way to do that).  Rebooted, changed his BIOS to Raid + AHCI for SATA Emulation, and his SSD speeds immediately jumped remarkably and AS SSD changed its reporting to affirmative that he was now using AHCI drivers.  Samsung Magician still reported incorrectly.

I'm not saying that Samsung SSDs are not good..... make sure to download the latest Magician and update your new SSD's firmware with that, and don't expect Magician to correctly report the AHCI driver status on HP workstations.

[Niarfe]

Thank you about the AS SSD software. Downloaded it and it reported that all is OK. It pointed to the registry value that states it is running in AHCI. In Device manager it shows under Raid drive controller driver and since AHCI and Raid go hand in hand here.. I felt better afterwards!

New CPU should be here soon!  Is it a drop-in replacement or is there something else to it?  I am rather confortable working computers but I've never replaced/upgraded a CPU...