Z400 Workstation Performance Upgrade

[ravenly]

Hello HP experts,

I would like to Max out / Upgrade the performance of my Z400 Workstation (6 Dimms) Please provide recommendation in terms of hardware and software.

Thanks in Advance. . . . .

[DGroves]

personally i think yellow and red stickers provide the maxumim visual hardware  performance, as they are so much brighter than the other colors

as for software i recomend you buy the most expensive piece of software you can find

now that you have read the above statements, perhaps you would care to tell us what your specific needs are,.. so we can recomend something that is perhaps of more practical use to you

such as cpu/video/ram/storage/sound/perphical upgrades along with recomendations on software you  will  actually be able to  make use of

[ravenly]

Thanks for the update.

Currenlty I have Z400 Workstation 6 dimms with the following spec:

- Intel Xeon Processor W3505 2.53 GHz, 4MB cache, 1066 memory, 4.8GT/s QPI, Dual-Core

-2 stick of 4GB ECC Unbuffered RAM total of 8GB

-Nvidia Geforce GTX 550ti OC Edition 1gb 192bit DDR5

-500GB HD

-Windows 7 Pro 64 bit

Purpose if for my Online Jobs:

-I want my Z400 to be able to handle muliple application open at a time and can handle large MS Office files e.g large excel file around 60,000 rows without crashing.

-Can open multiple browser and tabs without crashing.

Software that I'll be using:

Nero 2018
Microsoft Office 2013
VLC Media Player 3.0.1 (64-bit)
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe After Effects

Total Video Converter

Firefox
Google Chrome
Opera

Also It will be great if I can also run some AAA PC games (not necessary)

My thoughts about upgrading the performance of Z400 is by filling all 6 dimms and get a total of 24 GB of RAM and upgrading Processor from W3505 to W3690 and to use an SSD. I don't know what other option's Z400 has.

[DGroves]

your excel crash issue is most likely due to excel 2013 itself 

If you are truly working with over 50-60K records you may want to import into Access or another database tool.

Also note that Excel is pretty bad about handling more than a couple hundred thousand rows, goes into endless loops and memory errors and never throws an error message.  Figure out a way to partion your data and work in batches (typically, CreateDate is a good place to start...)

as for recomended  system upgrades

 i would add at least 2 more 4GB memory sticks of the same type that is allready installed or fill all slots with 4gm ram

turn off system remove one stick (note slot it was in) and write down ram info from label, then replace stick

the needed ram is usually ECC Unbuffered RAM 1333mhz  (which will run at 1066mhz)

adding memory will help excel/windows to perform better

as for games, the video card needed is dependant on the type of game(s) you want to play

with the fastest cards costing 600.00 or more (that's before the card shortage, that 600 card is now 900 or more)

i would recomend a nvidi gtx 1060 with 6gb ram for a all around card that can game at 720p with most visual effects set to their middle settings check ebay/newegg/amazon for current prices

i would also consider replacing the current drive with a "SATA" based SSD of 500gb in size doing this will give the entire system a much faster overall responsiveness note that the SSD must be AHCI/SATA you can not use a nvme based drive as a boot ssd

last remember that due to how photoshop works, it simply wants ALL AVAILABLE MEMORY ON STARTUP, so if you run it before any other app that app will have no free ram and have to page open application data onto the HD and then back to ram numerous times slowing down the system to a madding molassas type speed

if photoshop has to be open with other apps, open it LAST, but in general keep it closed untill you actually need this app!! doing this will go a long way to speeding up your system

also if you buy a SSD to boot from, you can then use the orig 500gb drive as a photoshop scratch drive, which will further increase the systems overall speed yet again

[ravenly]

I'm not sure if high end Video Card's is still supported in Z400 like the GTX 1060.

Also just to confirm is it really not possible to use a Non-ECC Unbuffered RAM 1333mhz

I'm seeing some topics here in forums that non ECC RAM will work.

what can you say about this topic from forums :

z400 - 6 slot memory configut=ration

https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Business-PCs-Workstations-and-Point-of-Sale-Systems/z400-6-slot-memory...

Its seems that non ECC will work with  Z400..

[DGroves]

go back and re-read carefully what i wrote about ram i stated ECC-Unbuffered Ram DOES WORK and is usually the 1333mhz speed instead of the slower 1066 speed you currently have,

i then noted that the faster 1333mhz speed ram can also step down/run at the slower 1066mhz speeds

nowhere did i state that ecc-unbuffered ram does not work in the z400

while you may not be sure that a gtx1060 card is supported, i am and i can support that by asking you to simply do a google search for "hp z400 with nvidia 1060 "or 1070 or 1080 cards as the search keywords

[SDH]

Agree with DGroves.

Getting wrong memory/memory that is not HP specs is opening yourself up to unnecessary grief, unless you love surprises at the most inopportune times.

SSD:  These are SATA II workstations.  Go to eBay and search for "Intel 320 600GB" and get one, or a 300GB one.

USB3:  This is a worthwhile addition that was created by HP to bring USB3 to the ZX00 workstation series.  Only get the TI chipset "2x2" card, not the NEC/Renasus card.  I've posted in here all about that including all the pictures and part numbers.  If you don't use USB much then ignore that upgrade.

W3690 vs X5690.... either will work equally well.  I'm using X5690 personally, and they both run at 130W Max TDP.  So, you need the Performance larger heatsink/fan.

Memory airflow baffle.... When you ramp these up you should add one of those and a front fan to boost airflow through the case.

You even can add a fan to the Southbridge heatsink as some of the pics in here show.

[ravenly]

apologies for the confusion.

What I actually want to confirm is, If a NON-ECC RAM will work with Z400?

I know that the ECC Unbuffered RAM is recommended but I'm seeing some topics saying that NON-ECC RAM will also work.

[DGroves · Accepted solution]

read SDH's post above this one, it covers my thoughts on ram exactly. (and also his fans recomendations!)

trying to use non ECC ram, is NOT RECOMENDED for this workstation and in most cases it will not even allow the system to boot

(just read some of the many posts from people on that link you provided having problems with no ECC ram installed!!)

why you are trying to make things even harder for yourself by asking if you can do this , when you have posted here asking for help baffles me 

[theOne77]

[edit]

i found in ebayseller has an option to use 6x8GB RAM (48gb) on HP Z400. I asked him how he do it. Hope he response.