Z420 HP liquid cooling solution

[MtothaJ]

What is your view on HP liquid cooling solution for the Z420? I noticed that new ones are still available to purchase, is it worth upgrading from the standard air cooler? Any issues you are aware of (leaks etc.)? Is this a sealed unit or is there the possibility to refill / change the liquid?

[BambiBoomZ · Accepted solution]

Mtothaj,

Fan/heatsinks are quite efficient and in my experience with the five office HP's since 2009, used for 3D modeling and rendering, there has never been a thermal problem, except temporaily during installation a new CPU on a z620.

The criterium for changing to water cooling is to know whether the air cooling is inadequate. I'd suggest HP Performance Advisor as a useful as a way to check this. It will run a CPU stress test and then produce a pass/fail report. This report has an unusual description in that the pass is based on the system " expecting" a temperature more than one degree under the rating. If the rating is 72C and the highest temperature was 71C at it's peak, the cooling is adequate. 

As a check to this and to understand how various applications stress the CPU, check the Intel rating temperature rating for the particular processor, run HWMonitor for a day or two including through all processes that will place as much stress on the CPU as will be used on the system.  I like HWMonitor - which is free as it can sit on top and it reports the current temperature and records the minimum and maximums. In my use, the maximum stress is CPU rendering. The z620 (2X Xeon E5-2690 8C@2.9/3.8GHz) the Intel rating is 72C.  In a CPU rendering that ran all 32 threads at 95-100% and the CPU's never rose over 61C.  In the more power of the two office z420's the Xeon E5-1660 v2 (6C@3.7/4.0GHz), CPU rendering pushes the cores' temperature up to a similar temperature as the z620- not a problem.

If these checks show the air system is inadequate, then using the HP liquid system seems a very good choice as it will be designed to integrate with the other cooling components- the shroud and memory cooling for example and is likely to be quieter than a third-party system.  The unit is a compact, integrated, and closed system- no reservoir- that fits into the space occupied by the standard fan/heatsink. It's designed to be very quiet.

SEE:  https://www.itcreations.com/user-manuals/Z820/liquidcooling.pdf

Auxiliary Air Cooling:  The z620 does have a bit of auxiliary cooling as there is a Tesla M2090 6GB GPU coprocessor.  That model was made for a server (the workstation version is C2075) and has a passive heatsink designed for the 75-80 cf/m air flow in a server.  A Thermaltake A1888 USB powered fan which makes 47cf/m  (about $16 in the US) was placed in the case and the M2090 idles at 41C, and will rise to 65C in GPU rendering. This is set at 42% speed at idle. When the RPM rises to maximum- 3000RPM, there is a bit of fan noise, but it's not objectionable. The other benefit of that fan is that all the other components also show lower temperatures as the ambient case temperature is dropped. The position at the bottom of the case means it's pulling additional air past the drives and they are running cooler too.  it's a bit ad hoc and I plan to make a duct that will concentrate the air flow on the M2090 heatsink, but so far the auxiliary fan has been very  good.

Cheers,

BambiBoomZ

[MtothaJ]

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@BambiBoomZ wrote:

Mtothaj,

Fan/heatsinks are quite efficient and in my experience with the five office HP's since 2009, used for 3D modeling and rendering, there has never been a thermal problem, except temporaily during installation a new CPU on a z620.

The criterium for changing to water cooling is to know whether the air cooling is inadequate. I'd suggest HP Performance Advisor as a useful as a way to check this. It will run a CPU stress test and then produce a pass/fail report. This report has an unusual description in that the pass is based on the system " expecting" a temperature more than one degree under the rating. If the rating is 72C and the highest temperature was 71C at it's peak, the cooling is adequate. 

As a check to this and to understand how various applications stress the CPU, check the Intel rating temperature rating for the particular processor, run HWMonitor for a day or two including through all processes that will place as much stress on the CPU as will be used on the system.  I like HWMonitor - which is free as it can sit on top and it reports the current temperature and records the minimum and maximums. In my use, the maximum stress is CPU rendering. The z620 (2X Xeon E5-2690 8C@2.9/3.8GHz) the Intel rating is 72C.  In a CPU rendering that ran all 32 threads at 95-100% and the CPU's never rose over 61C.  In the more power of the two office z420's the Xeon E5-1660 v2 (6C@3.7/4.0GHz), CPU rendering pushes the cores' temperature up to a similar temperature as the z620- not a problem.

If these checks show the air system is inadequate, then using the HP liquid system seems a very good choice as it will be designed to integrate with the other cooling components- the shroud and memory cooling for example and is likely to be quieter than a third-party system.  The unit is a compact, integrated, and closed system- no reservoir- that fits into the space occupied by the standard fan/heatsink. It's designed to be very quiet.

SEE:  https://www.itcreations.com/user-manuals/Z820/liquidcooling.pdf

Auxiliary Air Cooling:  The z620 does have a bit of auxiliary cooling as there is a Tesla M2090 6GB GPU coprocessor.  That model was made for a server (the workstation version is C2075) and has a passive heatsink designed for the 75-80 cf/m air flow in a server.  A Thermaltake A1888 USB powered fan which makes 47cf/m  (about $16 in the US) was placed in the case and the M2090 idles at 41C, and will rise to 65C in GPU rendering. This is set at 42% speed at idle. When the RPM rises to maximum- 3000RPM, there is a bit of fan noise, but it's not objectionable. The other benefit of that fan is that all the other components also show lower temperatures as the ambient case temperature is dropped. The position at the bottom of the case means it's pulling additional air past the drives and they are running cooler too.  it's a bit ad hoc and I plan to make a duct that will concentrate the air flow on the M2090 heatsink, but so far the auxiliary fan has been very  good.

Cheers,

BambiBoomZ

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Many thanks for taking the time to answer with such an informative and lengthy response. I run a few tests and in terms of CPU temperature I am doing fine with my current E5-1650 processor. I guess I am trying to future proof in a way since i) at some point I want to get a E5 v2  CPU (E5-1660 v2 like the one you have would be great and ii) I saw that the Z420 liquid coolers are available as new OEM on Aliexpress hence the idea to possibly upgrade.

@IN addition to standard work related tasks I do use the machine for gaming (GTX1070, 1080p @ 144hz) and it is true that the GPU is louder than the CPU fan in these scenarios. I do have the OEM front fan kit for the machine so at least that is something that is helping somewhat.

I also have both the RAM fan on the back RAM slot bank and the shroud / air duct on the front RAM slot bank.

WIth the liquid cooling I would be slightly worried about possible leaks. The HP unit looks very robust, however from time to time one reads of reports of e.g. Corsair water coolers leaking and wrecking havoc so I guess in this respect air coolers are much more dependable.