Upgrading an HP Z240 Tower Workstation

[NonSequitur777]

@DGroves,

Yea, I was thinking to use the PCI to PCIe x1 adapter card for a WLAN/Wi-Fi card only -we'll see how it works out.  Just having fun to see what can be done and how well it performs.

I haven't yet ordered a name brand power supply, since the dual power supply config is working just fine. Not so good in terms of carbon footprint, but I'm doing other things to offset.

Kind Regards,

NonSequitur777

[NonSequitur777]

Dear Forum,

The HP PCIe expansion slot/extender card with p/n: 696971-001 came in and installed.  Also, turned the back-panel's 90mm cooling fan 180° around to blow air in the chassis, instead of exhausting air out, and added an additional high performance 90mm cooling fan on the inside of the top panel, centered above the primary CPU cooling fan blowing air in:

Thus improved air-cooling dynamics inside the case.

Kind Regards,

NonSequitur777

[DGroves]

there are three issues to consider  with your fan setup

1. with the fans blowing air inside the inside of the case will become a dust magnet unless you have filters on the intake

2. if the exhaust location(s) total airflow  limits  the exhaust compared to the intake volume , then the intake fans airflow will also be reduced

3. changing the cooling setup  will also possibly cause dead zones inside the case where the air is stagnate and not moving resulting in higher temps the these locations

last the pci to pci-e card should support most x1 pci-e WIFI cards without any issue or speed limiting

[NonSequitur777]

@DGroves,

Thank you for your feedback -and yes, I considered the potential issues you brought up:

1.) The dust as it is, will either be blown in, or sucked in.  Which either way, once a month I use compressed aka canned air to clean out my PCs.

2.) The only "exhaust" fan in this rig is situated/confined in the stock HP power supply, which actually benefits from more air supply on the air-intake side.

3.) So far, my empirical experiences with changing/upping the internal air dynamics/velocity -the idea is to increase air pressure inside the chassis, is that there are no dead zones anywhere.  I closely monitor(ed) the processor, graphics card and drives temps before & after my mods, and all available readings suggests an overall temps decrease.

4.) Excellent: if I move the triple-slot RTX 3080 into this case, it will eliminate the first PCIe (x1) motherboard slot, and I will need the PCI to PCIe x1 adapter card for my PCIe Wi-Fi card.

Kind Regards,

NonSequitur777

[NonSequitur777]

@DGroves,

FYI: the PCI to PCIe x1 adapter card showed up, and just for the heck of it decided to try it out with an M.2 NVMe SSD mounted on an M.2 to PCIe adapter card:

The HP Z240 Tower recognized the 1TB Samsung 980 without any issues:

But as expected, the limited PCIe x1 speed forced its drive performance way down:

Removed this setup, as I am waiting for this PCIe 90-degree extension cable in order to (re)use the motherboard's PCIe x4 slot to regain full read/write M.2 NVMe SSD performance:

Kind Regards,

NonSequitur777

[NonSequitur777]

@erico, @DGroves, dear Forum, et al,

Repeated the same experiment with my Wi-Fi card (model: FebSmart FS-AC85SE Wireless-AC 5GHz Dual Band 1200Mbps PCIe Wi-Fi card), tested my internet speed using Speedtest by Ookla - The Global Broadband Speed Test, first as installed in the first PCIe x1 Z240 Tower motherboard slot ("PCIe3x1"), and then fitted onto the PCI to PCIe adapter card on the PCI extension card as depicted/shown in these pictures:

And the internet speed performance/results:

And as you can see, the PCI to PCIe x1 adapter card works just as well -if not better for uploading, compared with the Z240  mobo's PCIe x1 slot. 

Kind Regards,

NonSequitur777