Z820 Make Use of Front Drive Bays

[peterbata]

Good morning @SDH (it is where I am located at least). When you say "And don't turn your video card into a compute card just yet." Did you mean as in the case of the Plex Media Server that I was discussing in an earlier post? I think that I have the page numbers sorted out.

The heading on page 89 reads: HP Z820 Workstation slot identification and description

The heading on page 90 reads: HP Z820 Workstation installation sequence recommendations

The load order is a bit confusing. I can clearly see that my GPU is installed in slots 2 & 3

Load order #9 in that diagram on page 90 shows "Controller card with battery" which is what I will be receiving. If I understand that diagram correctly I should be installing the controller card in slot #6.

When it is time to complete the install I will reach out to @DGroves. You have all been incredibly helpful and generous with your time. I am so thankful for that.

[SDH]

Peter,

On your question... no, just that people have boxed themselves into a corner by dinking with that PCIe slot option. You have enough on your hands without going down that rabbit hole. Below is a layout of slots/lanes/links for your workstation that might help a bit to grasp the architecture. Note that slot 3 is really just a PCIe3 x8 with more plastic at one end. Have you found appendix B starting on page 161 in that manual?

Slots/Lanes/Links

Search with google for adding a raid card to a Z820. Also to a Z620 because of the overlap. Our search engine here is not as effective as google is but may get you some of DGroves' prior related posts. He is a good and very helpful guy and also quite busy. I'd recommend doing a lot of homework so you can PM him a few critical questions from a good foundation of knowledge.

You'll master this with his help..,

[peterbata]

I just located the section titled HP Z820 Workstation system board architecture. It actualy appears on page 34 of my PDF. Thanks for pointing that out. I had also read an interesting post on another forum. It said that installing the controller card too close to the GPU's cooling fan was never a good idea. I am now in the midst of sorting out the controller card cooling fan issue that @DGroves brought to my attention. Not that crucial at the moment as the Z820 is sitting on a table in our garage where it's a balmy +13C. But, come spring/summer that situation is sure to change

[peterbata]

@DGroves @SDH The Adaptec ASR-71605 arrived earlier today along with the cooling fan extension cable. The fan and mini male to male connectors should be arriving shortly.

[peterbata]

Unfortunately, I waite a week for these screws to arrive. Obviously, they are about 5mm too long. Looks like it's back to the drawing board.

[DGroves · Accepted solution]

clear silicone on fan mounting edges will securely attach it to the raid cards heatsink

 DO NOT EVER ENABLE THE PCI-E/PCI COMPUTE OPTION!!! it's only used if you have a second video card

(or a video card that lacks video out jacks) enabled as a dedicated coprocessor card

[peterbata]

Thank you @DGRoves. I will heading out today to find a few M3 x 25mm Pan Head Machine Screws. I think that length should do the trick.

You asked that I PM you if I should have some questions once the ASR-71605 was installed. Would that be alright? Much appreciated as always.

[peterbata]

Another issue that I have run into is the 4-Pin power connector on the cooling fan. If I understand correctly it should be plugged into either power Auxiliary fan connector 23 or 24. However, that doesn't seem possible given that the two plastic guides that are molded into the power cable do not align with the MOBO connector. Should I shave those guides down?

 

[DGroves]

look at the bottom left of your z820 motherboard almost at the edge, by the board mounting screw you will see the white 4/3 pin PWM fan header it's the last white connector on the bottom left use this to power the raid cards fan which will then be shown in the bios fan speeds or the HP monitoring software (if installed)

if free, i recommend the pci-e slot numbered 21 (which is just above the PCI slot) for the raid card as it's inline with the front cooling fan which allows the cards small fan to have a steady flow of cool air to push onto the raid cards heatsink

if you want "PM" me for a custom win 10 or 11 z820 install recovery  key method i've created

my day to day system is now a lenovo p520 which is close hardware wise to the HP G4 systems, the z820's are used for multi cpu based projects nowadays

[SDH]

Peter,

That fan plug end you showed is a "standard" PWM type and HP uses a modification of that with two ridges only on the sides of the fan plug. Every HP PWM fan I've worked with uses the same PWM standard wire order... ground/12VDC/Tacho/PWM control. The colors of the wires used to be standardized but that is no longer the case... most of HP's now are all black.

Shave off the one more central ridge and leave the one ridge on the side. Be careful... that is hard plastic and it will take a bit of work and caution to get most of that central ridge off. The one side ridge is enough to orient the plug and keep it in place on the 4-pin header.

Here's what HP case cooling PWM fan plug ends look like:

HP PWM case fan shape...