Z420 Documnetation

[Belcraig]

HI Guys,

My work has just replaced their z420's with new z440's. So i have a z420 that i want to move my homeserver to which is currently running on an old Athlon 64.

The Old athlon is sitting in a full size tower. with around 12 drives.

I want to move the motherboard out of the chassis of the z420 and into my currrent chassis (a Cosmos-S)

but i cannot find any documentation on the layout of the motherboard for the z420, specifically how to plug in the power switch and HDDD lights etc.. on the z420 Motherboard.

Thanks in advance for any help.

[DGroves · Accepted solution]

Unless you have previous experence in case modding, this is not a beginers project, as you will need to make custom cables for the USB and front panel I/O, you will also need to rewire the ambient temp sensor from the power cable, and then adapt the non standard power supply pinouts to a ATX supply, you will also need to make  custom motherboard mountig points in a ATX case to securely mount the board, and then you will need to make a custom backplate for the rear I/O as the HP case has the I/O stamped out of the case, it's not a removable item

can it be done? sure it can........ is it easy? no,.......you need experence in case modding wiring skills and metal working slills

there is nothing wrong with the z420 case, it's designed for proper cooling, low noise using a 24/7 duty cycle you will be best served keeping the stock case

[Belcraig]

I've already managed to fit the motherboard into the case there was only one mounting point i needed to correct in the case.

i the connections for the usb and the front panel i/o are all seperate already so i just needed to know which way around they went. DIdnt realise about the temp sensor or altering the atx cable....

My homeserver is made out of old spare parts (only replaces if absolutly necessary) and so is currently running with 7 disks there is not enough space inside the z420 case to fit all the disks. meaning that i need to upgrade some of the disks which defeats my first objective on saving money.

but thanks for the tips on what i will need to do