Z600 with dual X5680 CPU

[c0la]

Hey there!

I got a later spec Z600 WS here that came with dual X5650 (TDP 95W).

I made a good deal and got two X5680 (TDP 130W), and tryed to install those to the WS.

System tells me, that the CPU installed needs too much power, and the System got halted.

Is it a Problem with the Heatsink, because of the fact, it is to small (for TDP <95W), or is it

realy the mainboard, that just can't take the X5680 Xeons?

I googled a lot and found some Z600 running on those CPUs, so what's the deal?

I already tryed to bridge Pin 1 and 5 of the Heatsink-Fan Connector to simulate a Performance Heatsink,

just to test if it would boot, but that did'nt work.

[SDH]

First, I don't see your new processor type listed in the latest QuickSpec for the Z600 I looked up this morning..... version 51, which lists your current X5650 but not the X5680.  There is a hot X5647 listed (at 130W max TDP) but the other higher performance processors are all 95W.  So, there must have been a 130W cooling option for the Z600, and I'd presume it is the same as used for the Z800 (see below).  Also, the Z600 must be able to provide 130W to each of its two processor sockets.

I checked with the Z800 QuickSpecs (v56) and don't see the X5680 listed there either.  The latest QuickSpecs, however, often do not list all processors that were listed previously.  The now-unlisted ones will still work, and you can go back through the HP QuickSpec archives for your Z600 to see if the X5680 was ever officially listed.  If it was then it surely should work.  A HP engineer I trust fully has let me know that there are some cases in which a processor that was never officially listed will work.  Let's just say that will be a rare exception.  Maybe you have found one of those processors?

The X5680 processor has only one sSpec code, SLBV5, and can be bought new now from Intel for $1663.00 each.  On eBay you can buy that processor today for about $200.00 each, USD, used.

It is encouraging that you can get to the point of boot that the motherboard rejects your heatsink/fan combination, because my experience with truly non-listed processors is that they won't even get to that level.  Flat zero progression into boot.

So, I'd buy one of the "Performance" heatsink/fans from eBay, and the Alan guys there have almost 450 in stock at a fair price, new.  That is a US source, and  I have bought from them in the past many times, with never a problem.  Buy one for about $50 and test with that and a single X5680 in place.  The wiring trick..... that jumper wire should work if HP is using the same motherboard sensing method for detecting presence of a performance heatsink/fan as was used in the xw8600, but who knows?  This performance boost is worth spending $50.00 more on at this stage of the game to get an official Performance heatsink/fan to experiment with.  For example, perhaps HP added to the motherboard the ability to detect the larger 92x92x15mm heatsink fan rather than the regular heatsink's 80x80x15mm fan.

Take a look in this forum for more details on the Performance heatsink/fan that I believe you need.  Those have been available on eBay for a fair price, new and you can find that via searching for part numbers 463991-001 and 535588-001.

Here's a picture of the performance heatsink/larger fan for the Z800, and likely exactly what you need for your Z600 project.  All my references indicate these are identical, but the Z400 performance fan is different.  Note how this heatsink/fan is shifted leftward on its mounting plate, when viewed from front (the fan side).  The Z400 performance heatsink/fan is not shifted leftwards because it is a single socket motherboard and has a fair amount of room around it on both right and left sides.  Thus, the performance Z400 heatsink/fan will not fit on the primary socket of a Z600 but this one below will.  The performance Z400 heatsink/fan will however fit on the secondary socket of a Z600 with a little bending down of its rear air deflector plate at its bottom.  You can see pictures of that Z400 performance heatsink/fan elsewhere in the forum.

EDIT:  THE Z400 PERFORMANCE HEATSINK HAS HEAT TUBE TIPS THAT PROJECT UPWARDS ENOUGH TO KEEP THE SIDE LID OF A Z600 FROM FULLY CLOSING IN MANY CASES.  IT DOES NOT SEEM WORTH THE TROUBLE TO FIND A WORKAROUND TO THIS ISSUE.  RATHER, SEARCH OUT THE OFFICIAL Z600/Z800 PERFORMANCE HEATSINK/FAN WHICH DO NOT HAVE THIS PROBLEM.

Below are two pictures of the official "Performance" heatsink/fan rated to 130W max TDP cooling capacity which will fit in the Z600/Z800 correctly.  This is a significantly larger heatsink/fan than the normal "Mainstream" heatsink/fan for those two workstations, rated to 95W max TDP cooling capacity.  The ground jumper wire you see on the fan plug is the only way the motherboard knows it has a Performance heatsink plugged in.  The Mainstream fan uses the same white plug but there is no pin 1 to pin 5 jumper present for that one:

I'd make sure you have the latest BIOS installed, and also confirm in BIOS that you have the latest revision of the motherboard by checking the boot block date.  It sounds like you'll have already done all that.  If one of those X5680 processors works then the other will too, assuming you have two good processors.  You'd just need to buy another of those Performance heatsink/fans.

Finally, if you get this to work please do contribute back to the forum by letting us all know what happened.

Thanks

[9Designs]

How did this work out?

I've just done similiar, bought a pair of X5690's  the Z600 stop with message CPU requires to much power is fitted. 

The Heat sinks only have the 80mm 4 wire fans....    Will the new Heatsinks solve the issue...

The power supply fitted I believe is the 850Watt model...  Bios is latest. 

Thanks

[mkastinger]

hi,

were you able to solve this issue?

thanks!

[SDH]

The X5690 is a 130W max TDP processor, and yet there are posts here indicating that it can run in the Z400, despite not ever being listed by HP as an approved processor for the Z400 or the Z600.  It has been listed as approved for the Z800.  My Z400, a version 2, does work fine with the X5690.

At a minimum you would need the later 2010 boot block date version 2 motherboard of any of these 3 workstations because you need the later chipset (C2, not the B3) to run a 56XX processor reliably.  The original earlier version 1 motherboards can only run the 55XX processors.

A second issue is that the motherboard is programmed to demand a higher cooling capacity heatsink/fan for any processor over 95W max TDP.  It may be possible to spoof the motherboard by adding a ground jumper from the first socket to the empty 5th socket on your 5 socket 4 wire regular performance heatsink/fan plug, but I'd only do that for a brief test given the value of those processors and that workstation.  You don't want to spoof for too long and burn out the processor.

I have no idea whether the Z600 version 2 motherboard would detect two X5690 processors in place and refuse to run 2 but allow 1 to run even if you had the right heatsinks/fans in place.  I doubt it because there were some 130W official Z600 processors that never had that limitation of only 1 at a time.  

I also have not personally proven yet that a X5690 can fire up a version 2 Z600, but do have several of our version 2 Z400s working with the X5690 already.  I always make sure to have the latest BIOS in place for such projects, and the latest for the ZX00 family of workstations is 3.60 having been released in April of this year.  Note that the X5690 has never been listed as a HP approved processor for the Z400, yet it works fine.

EDIT:  I now have several version 2 (later boot block date Z400 with 6 instead of 4 memory sockets) running perfectly with the X5690 130W max TDP hexacore processor.  Rock solid for over a year each now.  The Z400 workstations usually came with the larger higher capacity (130W rated) Performance heatsink/fan, which has the ground jumper wire in place from pin 1 to 5.  I still have not seen a single post here documenting that the Z600 version 2 workstation can run with 1 or 2 of the X5690 processors as of 2/18.

[Tom_Galenson]

---

@c0la wrote:

Hey there!

I got a later spec Z600 WS here that came with dual X5650 (TDP 95W).

I made a good deal and got two X5680 (TDP 130W), and tryed to install those to the WS.

System tells me, that the CPU installed needs too much power, and the System got halted.

Is it a Problem with the Heatsink, because of the fact, it is to small (for TDP <95W), or is it

realy the mainboard, that just can't take the X5680 Xeons?

I googled a lot and found some Z600 running on those CPUs, so what's the deal?

I already tryed to bridge Pin 1 and 5 of the Heatsink-Fan Connector to simulate a Performance Heatsink,

just to test if it would boot, but that did'nt work.

---

According to HP Support. The way HP Zxxx figures out if you have a "high performance" heat sink/fan is a jumper between pin 1 and pin 5

I have a stock Z400 heatsink/fan that has that jumper. I have just confirmed that the jumper is electrically active with an ohm meter.

I have previously installed the X5680 cpu and plugged in that cpu cooler.

The Z600 bio's complained about the cpu requiring "too much power" and halted there.

I hear by officially call the guess that an X5680 cpu should run on a stock Z600 motherboard with the latest bios and a "high performance" heatsink/fan to be wrong.

Ordering the X5675 cpus next.

Tom

[Gizmo28]

I have the same issue with my Z600, I bought 2 X5680 and the bios keep saying that the cpu fan is week.

But I found a shop who is selling the same Z600 with these same CPU's:

https://www.brandcomputers.ro/workstation/refurbished/workstation-hp-z600-2-x-intel-xeon-hexa-core-x...

So I imagine there is way to mount them so they work.

Anyone foud it ?

[DGroves]

i think the shops listing the 5680 are either listing the cpu model wrong or perhaps they have a cpu(s) that are drawing less than the 130 watt max

from what i know about HP bios's (which is not that much) hp usually uses a simple table in the bios,... listing cpu's that draw to much wattage and when the bios see's one of these cpu's in the to high wattage list they halt and display the message to that effect

i can't confirm the z600 does this since this workstation bios is checksumed and hard to extract using common bios tools

the z600 is a very, very compact dual cpu box unlike the z400 so i can see HP doing the extra work in it's bios to prevent people from installing cpu's that would overheat the case if the system was fully loaded with cards/ram/drives/ dual cpu

[SDH]

DGroves.... agree fully.

The Z400 can only run one CPU, but the Z600 was built to run two, and HP knew some would load them up with heat producing stuff.  Of interest, with the Z400 it turns out you can run processors certified for the Z600 (95W X5675 and X5672 are the two fastest ones from the Z600 I've run in the Z400 v2).

I was checking to see if the on-processor memory controller would allow registered ECC memory that worked in my Z600 v2s  to also work in the Z400 v2s.  No success.

With memory there are so many variables that I've pretty much stuck with exactly the memory that HP specifies to ensure that this part of the system is as reliable as I can get it.

[Robbie86]

I got mine working after messing up the other two Motherboards CPU socket. Here are my specs
https://valid.x86.fr/g9aixx

I still have the other two Motherboards, but they can only take 1 CPU now do to doping the cpu, because I would keep taking it out and putting it back in all the time and doped one of my CPUs on the socket.

P.S. When I power down or restart. sometimes it's hard to get booting again. The system will hang on the blank screen and sometimes all the fans will be on max, But I did manage to get it working again by pressing the power button a couple of times till I could see something on the monitor.