Upgrading an HP Z420 Workstation (v2 motherboard)

[NonSequitur777]

Dear Forum,

Also purchased a 1TB Lexar NM620 M.2 PCIe 3.0 3D TLC NAND NVMe, which is built on the SATA connectivity technology, rather than the modern NVMe connectivity technology:

@SDH, my thinking is that this M.2 NVMe PCIe SATA drive, like the better-known Samsung 950 / Samsung 950 Pro, will be compatible in the HP Z420 Workstation as a (fast) boot drive.

Other options I have in sight are the 1TB WD_Black AN1500 M.2 NVMe Internal SSD Black WDS100T1X0L-20, 2TB Intel SSDPEDMX020T7 SSD DC P3520, and of course the Samsung 950/Samsung 950 Pro.

Kind Regards,

NonSequitur777

[NonSequitur777]

Dear Comunity,

Well, that was disappointing: in order to try out beefier graphics cards, installed a larger (ATX) power supply using the special 24-pin to 18-pin power adapter cable, first a quality fully modular Corsair RM850x (850-watt), which my HP Z420 Workstation apparently didn't like: 4 angry beeps/red light, which according to HP signifies a "power supply overload" of some kind. (What???)

All right, plan B: switched over to a 750-watt power supply which caused no problems.

First, I installed an RTX 3090, and to make a long story short, no matter what I tried, the graphics performance was atrocious, ditto with an RTX 2080 Super:

Links: HP Z420 Workstation Performance Results - UserBenchmark and: https://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/70203417.

Doggonit, it almost looks like that this PC is fighting me. Then again, @SDH's prophetic words resonated, and I quote: "you're hitting the wall of older technology".

Yea, no kidding.

Kind Regards,

NonSequitur777

[SDH]

Need a break you might... sense a new project I do. Quality and quantity of spare parts you have.

Prophecy:

Plus, added tips I have.  🙂

[NonSequitur777]

@SDH,

Yes, definitely looks like a more promising platform to obtain worthwhile upgrade results.

If I were to make this an upgrade project, from what I gathered after a little research, I would choose either the i9-10900X or the Xeon W-2145 (based on combined single thread and max turbo frequency speeds) as a preferred gaming processor for this Workstation.

Kind Regards,

NonSequitur777

[SDH]

Yes. Those lower cost eBay buys are showing up a bit more frequently now. That is a good deal. I keep waiting for the Xeon processors which have the Intel Turbo Boost Max feature to come down, but the W-2235 has been a pleasant surprise. Note that all above that will need the Premium heatsink/fan mod as will all the Core X ones. You know how to do that.

A few tips re the Core X some miss seeing. Only 1 on-motherboard M.2 SSD socket vs 2 for all the Xeon versions. Single on-board "NIC" vs 2 for all the Xeon motherboards. Different memory Xeon vs Core X.

The HP TB3 card with dual TB3 ports works on these. Bifurcation from within BIOS works well, so I'm running a ZTD Dual Pro G1 in the PCIe3 x8 slot with boot and documents drive side by side - very fast. Quality PCIe4 M.2 sticks run even faster in these PCIe3 slots than PCIe3 M.2 sticks do. Memory to the level I need was easy and inexpensive to get at the highest speeds all the Xeons can run. There is a magnetic dust bezel and filters kit still reasonable in cost and also used in the Z4 G5. Memory cooling saddle works great over the Premium heatsink/fan conversion. W11 HP Cloud Recovery downloadable software kit available. I believe that includes the TB3 software, and HP has an updater for the original software that likely is in that download. Overall TB3 results/effort were my least worthwhile but at least it is finally working. Oh, HP PCIe wireless card project was much more fun.

[NonSequitur777]

Dear Forum,

Here is an -I believe helpful tip: I tried the i7-3970X one more time before BIOS flashing and such, but the HP Z420 Workstation didn't boot -no beep codes though.  However, a little bit of Arctic MX-4 thermal grease fell onto the LGA 2011 socket, and I used compressed ("canned") air to blow it away, but a tiny bit remained.  I thought that this wouldn't cause an issue, in part because this thermal paste is non-conductive.  However, upon starting up the PC with the E5-2667 v2, I was greeted with 5 Short Beeps, signifying "processor failure". 

Since I realized that the thermal paste probably had something to do with it, I removed the processor and used high quality 99.9% Isopropyl Alcohol with a soft brush to thoroughly but cautiously clean ('flick') the socket.  Repeat if necessary. Don't worry if isopropyl alcohol is spilling over a bit: it will not harm your electronics.

Use compressed air (or wait 10 minutes) to allow evaporating any remaining isopropyl alcohol before reinstalling a CPU.

Also cleaned the processor's business end carefully with a Q-Tip dipped in isopropyl alcohol and used compressed air to thoroughly dry the CPU before installing it.

IMPORTANT: when you use isopropyl alcohol, use 99.9% grade, NOT 91% or even 99% grade as the water contained in these products can cause irreversible damage to your processor if not fully evaporated!

However, upon start-up, the PC wouldn't boot.  Based on prior experience, I reset CMOS, which made the PC at least boot into BIOS (tap-tap-tap F10), but no further.  The reason, as it turned out, was that the "Mass Storage Option ROMS" under the BIOS Advanced tab, was switched back to the default "Legacy", which resulted in the PC not "seeing" the Intel M.2 PCIe NVMe boot drive as discussed in an earlier post.  This was fixed, of course, by switching the BIOS option to "EFI".

Once this was done, the HP Z420 Workstation once again cheerfully booted up in Windows.

Kind Regards,

NonSequitur777

[NonSequitur777]

@SDH,

The Xeon E5-1680 v2 (8-Cores, 16-Threads, 3.00 GHz up to 3.90 GHz, 130-watt TDP) showed up, and installed flawlessly in the HP Z420 Workstation:

Userbenchmark link: HP Z420 Workstation Performance Results - UserBenchmark.

Kind Regards,

NonSequitur777