Z400 Case Swap

[_TheLegend27_]

I'm looking into swapping the case on my friend's HP Z400 build. I was thinking something like this:

https://www.amazon.com/Cooler-Master-MasterBox-Micro-ATX-DarkMirror/dp/B0842TKK19/ref=sr_1_4?dchild=...

My question is - What kind of extenders will I need, and how will the front panel connectors work? Will I only need to get 1 USB 2.0 to USB 3.0?

Thanks in Advance!

[BambiBoomZ]

TheLegend27,

Consider the internal configuration of a z400:

And compare the layout with The Cooler Master MB311L:

And by size limitation (notice that the z400 has seven PCIe slots and the CM MB311L has four) and layout (notice the positions of the power supply in each). Sorry, the verdict = impossible.  With workstations, there is a balance of airflow with quiet running.Modifications to proprietary systems are very limited, usually to plug-in components: CPU, RAM, GPU, drives and changing the fan speed in BIOS.

However if the goal is to improve CPU cooling, there was a special AIO liquid cooling solution for the z400:

While, I have no experience with the z400 design, the two desktop WS in this office, z420 and z620 use the successor HP AIO liquid cooler which is effective enough to allow the Xeon E5-1650 v2 and E5-1680 v2 to run at 4.3GHz on all cores. Along with the E5-1660 v2, there are three Xeon E5's that may be overclocked. The E5-1680 v2 4.3GHz all-core idles at 36 C and under 100% load in rendering runs at about 72-74C, well under the 85C recommended thermal limit.

What are the goals with z400? What are the applications?

BambiBoomZ

HP z620_2: (2017) (R7) > Xeon E5-1680 v2 (8C@ 4.3GHz) / z420 Liquid Cooling / 64GB (HP/Samsung 8X 8GB DDR3-1866 ECC registered) / Quadro P2000 5GB _ GTX 1070 Ti 8GB / HP Z Turbo Drive M.2 256GB AHCI + Samsung 970 EVO M.2 NVMe 500GB + HGST 7K6000 4TB + 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 = 6280 / CPU rating = 17178 / 2D = 819 / 3D= 12629 / Mem = 3002 / Disk = 13751 / Single Thread Mark = 2368 [10.23.18]

HP z420_3: (2015) (R11) Xeon E5-1650 v2 (6C@ 4.3GHz) / z420 Liquid cooling / 32GB (HP/Samsung 4X 8GB DDR3-1866 ECC registered) / NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6GB/ Samsung 860 EVO 500GB + HGST 4TB / ASUS Essence STX + Logitech z2300 2.1 / 600W PSU > Windows 7 Professional 64-bit (HP OEM ) > Samsung 40" 4K

[Passmark System Rating: = 5644 / CPU = 15293 / 2D = 847 / 3D = 10953 / Mem = 2997 Disk = 4858 /Single Thread Mark = 2384 [6.27.19]

[_TheLegend27_]

Thanks for reaching out. I actually forgot about the number of slots, but I gave my friend multiple options. He said this would work fine, and has 7 pcie slots:

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1472832-REG/deepcool_matrexx_55_mid_tower_atx.html

I was thinking the power supply could just be mounted on the bottom of the case.

The whole reason for the case swap is because he wanted to add RGB fans which he already has, in hand. He also wanted more case fans for better airflow.

So if the case swap is possible, would the front panel connectors need special modification? And what kind of extenders would be needed?

[BambiBoomZ]

_TheLegend27_,

I would not consider the Deepcool MATREXX 55 case to have acceptable airflow as the front panel is solid with only small intake openings on the sides.

The z400 motherboard is a non-standard shape and it's possible that the stand-off's and I/O shield will not align with a standard case.  Even the M/B power connector is not standard and if the PSU were mounted anywhere more than a couple of inches from the original relative position, the custom cables would not reach.

In my view, using the z400 internals in a current, standard case will not be successful or would require considerable expert effort and modification.  To be blunt- it's not worth the effort.

The z400 is capable of upgrading to a quite good standard. It's LGA1366 and in the 2nd version, can accommodate 4 and 6-cores CPU's of reasonable clock speeds.  HP spent considerable effort and cost to develop the system for reliable, continuous full load use, including sufficient cooling. There is for example the special z400 AIO liquid cooler. Remember too, that the RAM is ECC error correcting  up to DDR-1333.

Consider an alternative that does not require significantly more effort or expense but with far better performance:

The easiest, fastest, and least expensive alternative may be to sell the z400 and parts and buy an HP z420 second version with a Xeon E5-1650 v2, a z420 AIO liquid cooler, overclocking the E5-1650 v2 to 4.1 or 4.3 GHz on all 6- cores using the Intel Extreme Tuning Utility (XTU), adding 4X 4GB or 4X 8GB  HP labeled  DDR3-1866, and a fast SATA SSD boot/programs drive. The z420 will support up to 8-core processors instead of 6-core, have 1866 MHz RAM instead of 1333, PCIe 3 instead of PCIe2 , USB 3.0 instead of 2.0, and SATAIII instead of SATAII.  An E5-1650 v2 will not be significantly more expensive than the Xeon W3690 6-core, but miles faster in every parameter. And the hot-rodded z420 will be useful further into the future  longer than the fastest z400.  In Passmark baselines, the highest rated z400 has a system Rating of 4077 whereas the highest rated z420 is 6227 (which happens to have been mine).

BambiBoomZ

[SDH]

I'd like to chime in and second Bambi's advice.  These are custom engineered workstations that HP put a lot of time and testing in to optimize for speed, cooling and reasonable noise reduction.  These were never built to ATX standards; they were built to higher standards.  I've done a fair amount of mods and ghetto mods with the HP workstations, and it is not easy.  They seem to significantly improve with each generation and those improvements are custom, and not generally backwards compatible even in the same HP lineage.  I did what I thought was going to be a simple motherboard swap of a Z400 v2 motherboard into the previous analog... the xw4600.  I pulled it off but almost nothing was easy, from front panel interfaces to the rear. 

Another example... one might think the Noctua PWM fans would be best to use in a HP PWM fan spot... not so.  The custom PWM motherboard fan algorithm HP uses will down-RPM those Noctua fans too much.  HP workstations even cool better with the case cover on than if off.

So, the project in my mind should focus on is it a v1 or v2?  If v2 does it have the optimized v2 processor that was so very expensive back in time but is very reasonably priced on eBay used now?  Does it have a nice reasonably big SSD as boot drive, and even perhaps a larger SSD for a documents drive?  Does your friend want to overclock?  If so then follow Bambi's processor cooling advice.  Is the memory optimized for max speed the new processor can run?  Are all memory slots filled with identical matched memory?  Does your friend want USB3?  If so read my posts in this forum on the HP "2x2" USB3 PCIe card in the correct slot to optimize for that, based on the same Texas Instruments chipset and drivers used in the ZX20 next generation of HP workstations.

You must be a good friend for your buddy to have..... tell him to buy a cheap mirror disco ball off eBay for the bling, and buy parts that will really make a difference (tongue in cheek....).