Upgrading an HP Z400 Workstation

[jkomarek]

You seem to have no components with extreme power requirements, so why do you plan to exchange the existing 475 watts PSU against something stronger?

[NonSequitur777]

Esteemed Community:

Ran an intermediate benchmark before switching to the i9-990X: HP Z400 Workstation Performance Results - UserBenchmark:

Kind Regards,

NonSequitur777

[NonSequitur777]

@jkomarek,

Like I mentioned, I will install an HP RTX 2080 (at least), but since this upgrade project is also a proof-of-concept effort, switching the OEM HP power supply with an industry standard ATX power supply is part of the course.

Kind Regards,

NonSequitur777

[NonSequitur777]

Dear Forum,

Downloaded various driver updates and ran a bunch of diagnostics such as:

Also updated BIOS from version 01.17 (2009) to the latest version: 03.61 (2018) :

Kind Regards,

NonSequitur777

[NonSequitur777]

Esteemed Community,

Successfully installed the Intel Core i9-990X Processor Extreme Edition (3.46 GHz up to 3.73 GHz, 6-Cores, 12-Threads, 130-watt TDP) and 4 x 8GB of DDR3 PC3-14900, 1866 MHz RAM, running at 1600 MHz:

Link: HP Z400 Workstation Performance Results - UserBenchmark.

Kind Regards,

NonSequitur777

[NonSequitur777]

Dear Forum,

Successfully installed/cloned a 1TB SATA SSD as the primary (boot) drive and wiped the original 1TB SATA HDD to become a secondary storage drive.  Was disappointed to see that the SSD performance was lacking -in fact, worse than the HDD:

Link: HP Z400 Workstation Performance Results - UserBenchmark.

@Paul_Tikkanen, any idea how to improve the SSD's performance? Up to this point in time whenever I swapped an HDD with an SSD, I/O performance used to significantly improve, but not here and now...

Speaking of pre-UEFI systems quirks, even though the (Macrium Reflect Free) cloning worked well, after some issues I decided to reinstall Windows using a Rufus-formatted USB stick, when I was greeted with this message:

So, went back to Rufus and picked the "Non-bootable" formatting option, and all proceeded well after that.

Kind Regards,

NonSequitur777

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi, Cas:

There isn't anything I can think of to get more speed out of the SSD.

As you know, it is only running at approximately half of its maximum read/write speeds from your PC's SATA II port.

Cheers,

Paul

[NonSequitur777]

Hi Paul,

I am going to try out a number of drives to see if I can find one that runs better (faster I/O speeds) than the PNY SATA drive.

For example, I got a 512GB INDMEM DMMS mSATA (SATA III) SSD, embedded in an enclosure adapter:

Will see how this one fares.  Also, the HP Z400 Workstation ATX 24-pin to 24-pin adapter cable was delivered, and will check it out later today.

Watched these interesting YouTube videos about using ThrottleStop and setFSB to overclock the multiplier and FSB: Run a Tighter Ship - Smart Business Buying | Amazon Business (youtube.com) and: How to OVERCLOCK FSB on HP Z400 PC! 2.25% Increase (youtube.com), and my intent is to see what it does to my PC.

Kind Regards,

NonSequitur777

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi, Cas:

The Samsung 870 QVO 2.5" has the fastest max read/write speeds available on the market (560/530 MBPS).

Amazon.com: SAMSUNG 870 EVO SATA SSD 500GB 2.5” Internal Solid State Drive, Upgrade PC or Laptop Mem...

[NonSequitur777]

Hi Paul,

Thank you, I got this:

Kind Regards,

NonSequitur777