Z400 X5690 W3690 Fastest Processors

[SDH]

Don't worry about the spelling... we all do that.  I get it.... one at a time,  So, here is a new concept:

You did boot into BIOS with your W3690.

You did not progress into the OS.

Let's assume you've got a bootable HDD or SSD drive loaded properly with W7Pro64, which is what I use mostly (or latest W10 Pro64 build).  Once you do the recommended steps if the default BIOS settings fail then PM me so I can send you a copy of my Z400 replicated BIOS that runs with the X5690.  It should be perfect also for the W3690.  You can clone my settings into your Z400 and things should work fine assuming this is the problem.  Read up on HP's replicated setup.

You booted (at least you got into BIOS)... you may have one or a number of BIOS settings that don't let you proceed beyond that.  Is your date and time in BIOS correct?  Check that too.

My experience with putting in a new approved processor is that they just work.  It may take one reboot, but generally that's all it takes.

[chwhnd]

Well it's morning.  Same thing "no boot on the w3690."  Took it out and reinstalled the w3520 and the system booted and looks fine to me.  This is the 3rd cycle of out with the w3520 and in with the w3690.  My z400 is running now with the original w3520 back installed.

Is it safe to assume I was scammed by the seller and that this is not a functioning w3690?

Would the crisis jumper have any effect?

How important is thermal grease? I have switched CPUs several times now?

Is it believable that I inserted the w3690 improperly 3 times and the w3520 properly 4 times? I checked the 2 notches and golden arrow each time.

BTW the beer didn't help, is LSD still available??

I don't understand why the BIOS displays the w3690 on the information screen, yet will not boot with it.  Could there be an issue with Win10x64 PRO?  I can not try Win7x64 because it won't boot to USB either, nor does F9 seem to work and I don't have an "any key" to hit!  Life was so simple with 6502's and 8080s and z80s.  Now I'm rambling!

It hasn't been a total loss I discovered the Ctl mouse wheel trick!

[SDH]

I took a second look at your Z400 picture.

What are those two big thngs up above in the 5.25" bays.  Those don't look like any optical drive I've seen.

There is a blue-appearing cable partially seen hooked into your SATA 0 port (far bottom right corner of the motherboard, blue plastic port and the other ones are black).  Is that blue color of the cable itself an optical illusion?  The cable that goes up to your presumed boot SSD in the bottom 3.5" bay area (with 2.5 to 3.5" adapter) is black.

Do you know your boot drive is always supposed to hook into SATA port 0, the one made of blue plastic?

One idea is to get a 3.5" HDD or another known-good SSD and install W7Pro64 onto it after you have done a long type NTFS format on it, MBR partition type (the defaults).  I'd install with only the boot drive and the optical drive attached.

Before you do that try unhooking all but the single SATA cable from your boot drive to the blue SATA0 port, and try booting from that.  I have seen a few cases where you need to brute force the OS to see a drive once and thereafter it seems to recognize the same drive with no problem.  I had to do that with getting a M.2 SSD to run in some of my HP workstations..... set it to first in the boot order was not enough.  I had to do that and restart and then F9 (from my PS2 keyboard) set it to the boot device.  Belt and suspender type of trick.

Can't get control over BIOS at all?  I only use PS2 keyboard/mouse during all my builds.

[chwhnd]

The bootable SSD booted just fine when the w3520 was installed.  I have been using Win10x64PRO and it has booted and run just fine on the w3520.   I PM’d you yesterday.  I would like to try your replicated BIOS settings. I have the 3.6 installed now and could be I have a setting wrong. I have never cloned settings before.  BTW the time is correct.  I’ve had to set it about 4 times.  I’ve also tried to boot from a USB from both the front and read USB ports.  I’ve also tried booting from the CD.  The 2 black things below the CD Drive are 2x3.5 HDDs, see the pic.  I tried uninstalling all drives but the boot SSD attached to SATA0(blue) still no good.

I contacted the guy that I bought the z400 from and he said if I seed it back he will install Win10 for me, but I’m not quite ready to give up.

Could the fact that I use a 32GB USB be an issue?  Another thing I thought about.  The Windows on my boot SSD was installed by the w3520.  Could the w3690 require different low level drivers? If so shouldn’t Windows at least try to boot and give an error msg?  I don’t have a PS/2 keyboard. But my keyboard gets me into the BIOS set up so I assume the BIOS isn’t having trouble with the USB keyboard.

[SDH]

I'll get that off to you today.... I've included a PDF for you.

These sophisticated builds can be tricky, and that is why the initial load of an OS, I believe, should be done on a freshly long-type NTFS reformatted target SSD (or test HDD).  Clean installing is a whole other topic, as is conversion of a clean W7Pro64 properly licensed build (which can still be W10Pro64 updated from MS, gratis).

So, the best-practice approach would be to have no other drive than the target attached to the motherboard, and the optical drive.  Update and set the BIOS settings before the build...... you can either use replicated setup from the cpqsetup.txt file I'll send, or hand enter from the PDFs.

I avoid big thumb drives for this type of work..... I use 8GB fat 32 formatted thumbdrive.  The .txt file is tiny.  It goes on the top level of the thumb drive (not in a folder).  You don't boot from the thumb drive..... You cold boot with it in place during the boot and you just F10 into BIOS and go down to Replicated Setup under the first tab.  Never use a USB3 port if you've added that.... only USB2.  I always use the top front one, but USB ports mounted on the motherboard directly are supposedly the best to use.

My advice is to simply try these BIOS settings first.  Then maybe you'll need to try a clean install if you have a spare small SSD or small HDD.  I think you are close.... to have a processor functioning for BIOS boot but not for OS boot does not make sense.  I think your OS build is missing something needed for this new processor to boot into OS.  I've seen stranger things, for sure.

[SDH]

I did get your messages.... PM me your email address so I can send you the PDF and the cpqsetup.txt file you can use to clone my BIOS settings to your Z400.  You can use that same method to save yours first.  Keep them in organized folders because they all have exactly the same name.  Can get confusing quickly!

[Tsukasa73]

SDH, could I also get a copy of your BIOS settings please. My son has Z400 with 6 ram slots and we are going to pick up an x5690 CPU today. I am hoping the upgrade will be smooth but if not having your BIOS settings to reference would be super helpful.
We also have Win10 x64 installed.
I've gone ahead and updated the bios to v3.60.
We came across this forum post while searching for a suitable CPU upgrade for his Z400.
Are you running Win10 or Win7 on your x5690 z400 rig?

[SDH]

Happy to help..... you'll need to PM me your email address.  Read up on Replicated Setup..... it works very well, and lets you clone my settings but if you save yours first you can always go right back to them.

I have both W7Pro64 and W10Pro64 running under the X5690.... there now are multiple of these builds, and the W3690 will be virtually as fast.  With eBay it is all supply and demand for cost now.  I've seen each one be more expensive than the other depending on market whims.

I think it was Bambi or Brian in a very recent post (very experienced guys, both) post about best performance from more speed vs more cores.  The post notes that many of the programs we use benefit more from raw speed than number of cores.

What Jim is going throught righ now with his W3690 is not an indicator that it is a bad processor to use versus the X5690.  There is another issue that we need to figure out.  My instinct is that it is an issue with an incompatible OS install rather then an incompatible BIOS setting.  When I come up against something like this I tend to start over with a clean install (using the new processor).  However, there are BIOS settings that result in an installed OS that is suboptimal and requires starting over or deep fixes to correct.

[Tsukasa73]

Well I popped in the X5690 processor and it worked like a charm! Still need to go through the BIOS settings to make sure they are optimal, but I was lucky enough to have it be just plug and play.
This is a great way to get some life out of an older system.
My son has turned the Z400 I gave him a couple years ago into a gaming rig. He basically wants to upgrade it as much as possible. So next in the sights is to max out RAM which I believe on these can take up to 24GB. He currently has 14GB. Then of course lastly he wants to put in a much better video card. I had got him a Radeon HD7700 a while back, but that card now struggles a bit with high end games. The Z400 has two video card slots so hopefully running SLI or Crossfire won't be too difficult.
Unfortunately with the way cryptocurrency mining has driven up video card prices lately the card upgrade will have to wait for a bit.
So for anyone considering putting this processor into their Z400, take the plunge, it does work and works quite well!
Thank you SDH for all your help. The BIOS notes you sent are great!

[chwhnd]

The replicate BIOS worked fine.  I got the green successful screen. Still will not boot.  I replicated again with the same results.  She seems to complete the POST but will not Jump to the boot loader.  She hangs with the blinking curser in the upper left corner of the screen.  She will not boot to USB, CD, or HDD.  Would a video clip of the POST help?

Two new questions. Is there a backup copy of the BIOS on board and if so how do I restore it?  Second question can I download from HP the latest BIOS on their site and re-flash.  The warning with the 3.6 was that you could never go back but it didn’t say you couldn’t re-flash the 3.6.  I have tried to flash other (not JP) system and got warnings that I was trying to flash an older or the same BIOS.

I have a copy of Win7x64 HP OEM but have no way to install because of the boot issue.