Z400 RAM

[alejon]

The guy with nickname SDH who posted long, long messages above in this thread, is the ONLY ONE in the entire internet space who claims that BUFFERED memory works in "his" Z400.

He casued A LOT of confusion around here with these false claims. Few members got trigered to buy cheaper buffered RDIMM's and naturally buffered RAM did not work in Z400.

I cannot judge whether this guy SDH was posting these false claims maliciously or simply by his deep incompetence. He does not seem to make a difference between Z400 and Z600/800 which have TOTALLY different architecture. The Z600 and Z800 do work with BUFFERED RDIMM's whereas the Z400 work ONLY with UNBUFFERED UDIMM's. Period!

I do have two Z400's at home at this very moment and none of them is accepting buffered RAM.

These are the memory sticks you should buy for HP Z400.

DDR3 ECC UNBUFFERED UDIMM's for Z400:

1GB, Spare P/N 536888-001, P/N on sticker 500208-562

2GB, Spare P/N 536887-001, P/N on sticker 500209-562 (Hynix HMT125U7TFR&C, Samsung M391B5673FH0-CH9)

4GB, Spare P/N 537755-001, P/N on sticker 500210-571 or -071

Hope it helps.

[alejon]

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@SDH wrote:

UPDATE:  THIS IS PART OF THE PROBLEM WITH DOING "UNSUPPORTED" THINGS WITH THE HP WORKSTATIONS..... SOME RISKS ARE INVOLVED.  USE OF THE MEMORY BELOW HAS RELIABLY WORKED IN THE SIX VERSION 2 Z600s I HAVE DONE THIS WITH.  I HAVE ONE VERSION 2 Z400 FOR WORK THAT THIS WORKED FOR, BUT THE OTHER VERSION 2 Z400 I JUST TESTED HERE AT HOME DOES NOT ACCEPT THESE MEMORY STICKS.  It gives 5 beeps, pause, 5 beeps, and on.  So, I must raise the concern that it may not work for all version 2 Z600s also.  Each of these workstations has the latest BIOS and updates.  No unusual high powered video cards, etc.  The Z600s have been working fine with these sticks for months now.  These same sticks also worked very well in the one Z620 version 1 workstation I tried them in.  So far we have had 100% success in the version 2 Z600 doing this, however.

It is not that simple...... The first reply gives you an old Z400 QuickSpecs that is very early, not a more recent one that covers your "version 2" Z400 workstation.  My latest Z400 QuickSpec version is v58..... the later ones focus on the version 2 Z400 that both you and I have.

There are two versions of the Z400, and the later better version has 6 instead of 4 memory slots, and also has a later boot block date that you can easily confirm in BIOS (11/10/09).  You can even see on the silver outside serial number label where a version 2 Z400 will have "HP Z400 6-DIMM Workstation" at its bottom left corner.

The differences are based on which stepping of the Intel 5520 Chipset (Intel I/O Hub) is present.  The base chipset is the 5520, codenamed Tylersburg-36D.  This has an earlier stepping (B3, which is in the v1 motherboard) and a later stepping (C2, which is in the v2 motherboard), each with individual sSpec codes. This information is from both HP and Intel documents.

Why is this important?  The v2 is later, better and lets you use unbuffered memory and in the case of the Z400 2 more memory slots, and more.  The v1 motherboards do not let you use unbuffered memory.  The v2 motherboard can support both the 55xx and 56xx Xeon processors, and thus you must have a v2 given that you're running a W3680 (the correct name for your processor).  The v1 Z400s can only properly support the 55xx Xeon processors.

Both versions want ECC memory.  The v1 wants unbuffered memory too (it wants both ECC and unbuffered).  The v2 wants ECC and can take both buffered or unbuffered.  Don't mix buffered and unbuffered.  "Buffered" = "Registered", etc.

This memory and version stuff all applies also to the Z600 and Z800 workstations.  Same boot block date for the v2 Z800, but 1/7/10 boot block date for the v2 Z600.

Regarding buffered ECC RAM, you can search eBay for 500203-061 and 500203-561 to see the sticks I'm using that are buffered and ECC in my Z600s and my Z400s.  I've even seen a bit faster memory performance results from the buffered ones, but only by a bit.  More important is to fill all 6 slots with identical RAM.  The buffered RAM is cheaper, however.

I like to only buy HP memory with the HP holographic sticker if buying from eBay.... some vendors get other stuff and put on their own plain white sticker using the HP  part number, but this is not from a trustworthy vendor (in my view).

I always have to add..... update to the latest BIOS version.

---

I think you should seriously consider to delete your posts with false claims that the BUFFERED memory works in HP Z400 workstations. You casue A LOT OF confusion with these false claims. Nobody cares of your experience with Z600/620, this thread is for Z400.

The BUFFERED RAM does NOT work in Z400. Do not fool people.

PERIOD.

[Ziggygt]

I have 2 version 2 Z400. Neither will work with the buffered ram I have from another server. The boards are labelled pc fab 1.01. They are both the 6 ram slot "Version 2". I spent a lot of time chasing the false hope that they might. bummed  

[rangid]

I regret not reading your post Alejon about SDH saying buffered ram works in the 6 slot. I bought exactly what he said to buy and all I get are the 5 beeps. Running 3.61 BIOS and my W3690 will only boot past the Win7 SPLASH screen if Hyperthreading is disabled. What a disappointment.

Did anyone else run into the hyerthreading issue as well?

[BeemerBiker]

Have pair of z400 working and you are correct about that ram.

However, I do not have a problem with hyperthreading.  If a ram problem it would not boot at all.  Something is wrong.  I have bios 3.60 dated 2/24/2016  as shown below and run hyperthreaded in Ubuntu 18.04 and also windows 10 with the latest 1903 feature.  The only problem I had was with the Xeon X5680 cpu as it ran too hot (even with liquid cooling) and I downclocked the multiplier as shown in picture.  I did have a problem with too thin adapter wiring  but that was fixed. 

You should be running Windows 10 using the still free upgrade.  My Z400 fully supports even the 1903 release and I have a liquid cooled gt1070 which works fine.

wiin10 & gtx1070 all liquid cooled systemubunntu 18.04 and RX570

[Ziggygt]

I wasted time chasing that dream. At least I did not waste any money

[rangid]

Thanks for sharing your setup along with photos. I seem to be the only one on the 03.61 bios which make me wonder if that's my problem.  

I really only rescued this machine from work because it had a Xeon and was licenced  for Win7 Pro. I don't really care for Win10 much.

I have another machine running Mint which I actually prefer but somethings are easier on a Win machine.

[BeemerBiker]

You might try running memtest86 on your Z400 to check both memory and cores.    You may have a copy of it with your mint install.  When memtests starts, press F2 to select the multi-threaded test.

You might want to try deleting all the CPUs in the  win7 "device manager".  Select processors then delete every one and shut system down.  Enable hyperthreads then reboot.

  I did not know there was a more recently bios but I don't want to try it unless it fixes the "press F1 to continue" problem.  I got around that problem by using jumpers to fool the z400 into thinking I had genuine HP system.

[rangid]

Those are all good idea's. I was working on creating a bootable USB to install windows 10 to make sure that wasn't the problem.

This Z had the 4 slot MB that died. Ordered a used 6 slot and with the w3220 I would also get the F1 to boot. Updated the BIOS to what was available and now it boots without pressing F1.

I'll will try booting into Linux with a DVD to try running memtest86 then try the device manager trick. If none of that fixes he hyperthreading i'll install win10.

Thanks for the pointers BeemerBiker.

[BeemerBiker]

I found that 3.61 bios and read this thread

spectre attack 

seems it was released last year to mitigate that hack

As I recall specter allowed a process on one thread to look in the cache and see what the other thread was doing. A quick fix would be to disable hyperthreads but that is just a guess.  

I downloaded it, sp84161.exe but have not decided to install it or not.   I used 7z to look inside the exe but did not see any release notes.  If it messed with hyperthreading there should be a warning.