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HP Workstations Owners Club

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UK
I have an HPZ230 I have a 500 Gb and 256Gb SSD,s and a 2TB HDD as 2 drives. When I connected another drive it shows Raid. when trying to boot. into Win10 and hails to boot.
My question is why does it not work with the extra drive? Is there a maximum number of drives the PC can use? I got a new data cabal and thought that was the problem. But it was not. I have enough cabals, I would have thought it should work.
Everything is connected properly. I can all drives when starting up.
 
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Joined
Nov 14, 2020
Messages
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System Name HP Z440/Z460 "Franken"station purchased on Ebay for $152 w/bad motherboard, plus motherboard for $62
Processor Xeon E5-2667v4 3.2ghz/3.6ghz Turbo, 8 core (16 with hyperthreading)
Motherboard HP Z460 with Intel C612 chipset, can use Xeon V3 and V4 processors
Cooling Using stock Z440 cpucooler, Z460 dual fans the Z460 motherboard requires, using 2nd fan inside case.
Memory 64Gb DDR4 2400MHz REG ECC SERVER MEMORY $70+40 (4 16gb sticks) used on Ebay
Video Card(s) EVGA NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 3GB Gaming
Storage 1Tb Nvme SSD, 4x6Tb SAS drives=18TB RAID5, 3x8Tb SAS=16TbRAID5,3x18Tb enterprise Sata=32Tb RAID5 NAS
Display(s) TCL 65P635 65 inch 4K HDR TV via HDMI (4K@60hz) (upgraded from 55" last year,net cost $200)
Case Stock Z440 case with z640 motherboard (2nd z460 cooling fan blowing on HP P812 SAS Raid controller)
Audio Device(s) Denon AVRS730H 7.2ch AV receiver with Dolby Atmos and DTS:X
Power Supply stock Z440 700W 90+ efficient PSU
Mouse Logitech M570 trackball
Keyboard Logitech K350 Wave
VR HMD SAS drives are in 2 external 5 bay enclosures connected via the HP P812 SAS RAID controller
Software Windows 10 Pro (enterprise) OEM license that came with motherboard.
Benchmark Scores Using a HP Smart Array P812 PCI-e SAS Server RAID Controller with capacitor buffer backup, $15 Ebay
I have an HPZ230 I have a 500 Gb and 256Gb SSD,s and a 2TB HDD as 2 drives. When I connected another drive it shows Raid. when trying to boot. into Win10 and hails to boot.
My question is why does it not work with the extra drive? Is there a maximum number of drives the PC can use? I got a new data cabal and thought that was the problem. But it was not. I have enough cabals, I would have thought it should work.
Everything is connected properly. I can all drives when starting up.
I think you mean it "fails" to boot?

It could be that it is trying to boot from that new drive, and is hanging up there.

Try pressing the "ESC" key during the POST screen, and select "boot menu", and then select the drive you want to boot from (which should NOT be the new drive). Then it should boot up.

Also, unless you are actually using your drives in a RAID configuration, I recommend changing the setting for your SATA ports in the BIOS to AHCI, instead of RAID -- as that will eliminate some boot overhead.

I hope this helps,

Philip
 
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Joined
Nov 14, 2020
Messages
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System Name HP Z440/Z460 "Franken"station purchased on Ebay for $152 w/bad motherboard, plus motherboard for $62
Processor Xeon E5-2667v4 3.2ghz/3.6ghz Turbo, 8 core (16 with hyperthreading)
Motherboard HP Z460 with Intel C612 chipset, can use Xeon V3 and V4 processors
Cooling Using stock Z440 cpucooler, Z460 dual fans the Z460 motherboard requires, using 2nd fan inside case.
Memory 64Gb DDR4 2400MHz REG ECC SERVER MEMORY $70+40 (4 16gb sticks) used on Ebay
Video Card(s) EVGA NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 3GB Gaming
Storage 1Tb Nvme SSD, 4x6Tb SAS drives=18TB RAID5, 3x8Tb SAS=16TbRAID5,3x18Tb enterprise Sata=32Tb RAID5 NAS
Display(s) TCL 65P635 65 inch 4K HDR TV via HDMI (4K@60hz) (upgraded from 55" last year,net cost $200)
Case Stock Z440 case with z640 motherboard (2nd z460 cooling fan blowing on HP P812 SAS Raid controller)
Audio Device(s) Denon AVRS730H 7.2ch AV receiver with Dolby Atmos and DTS:X
Power Supply stock Z440 700W 90+ efficient PSU
Mouse Logitech M570 trackball
Keyboard Logitech K350 Wave
VR HMD SAS drives are in 2 external 5 bay enclosures connected via the HP P812 SAS RAID controller
Software Windows 10 Pro (enterprise) OEM license that came with motherboard.
Benchmark Scores Using a HP Smart Array P812 PCI-e SAS Server RAID Controller with capacitor buffer backup, $15 Ebay
I have been busy building and selling more z440 and z460 workstatiions to pay for my tech upgrades, the latest one being:

A major storage upgrade to my Z440/Z460 Frankenstation:
I am not sure why it took so long for me to realize what RAID 5 had to offer, but this year I added a 3rd matching shucked SATA 12Tb drive to my NAS and added a 3rd matching enterprise SAS 4TB drive to my internal SAS RAID, and converted both from RAID1 to RAID5. This doubled the storage on both, so my NAS now has 24TB, and the local SAS RAID now has 8TB of storage. I realize that the drives are no longer direct image copies of each other, but I can still access and can recover my data should a drive fail.

The 12TB drives are shucked Western Digital drives, and are de-rated helium filled enterprise drives that spin at a slightly lower speed. The 4TB SAS drives are also enterprise grade Seagate drives but run at 7200RPm, so are a bit faster.

In order to add the 3rd drive to my NAS, I had to upgrade my 2 bay dual-core Terramaster F2-221 x64 intel based NAS to their F4-421 quad-core 4 bay. This allowed my to put in the 3rd 12TB drive, and run the drives in a RAID 5 configuration. Their TNAS OS system performed the in-place RAID 1 to 5 conversion (took about 2 days). I use the NAS as my Plex server, as well as running some home automation software on it in a Docker virtual machine. I have a

I had a 5.25 to 3.5 inch bay adapter that I kept from one of the z440s I built for someone, and used that to mount the 3rd internal 4tb SAS drive.

I then found a deal on Ebay for some recycled 6tb HGST Enterprise SAS drives, and bought 3 for $30 each. I then needed a place to mount them.

I found a SAS/SATA 5 bay drive rack on Amazon Warehouse Deals for less than 1/2 price during their 20% off sale during the prime days last year for around $70.

To supply power to it I bought a 4 port molex rear power bracket for about $5 on Ebay from China that I installed in the unused PCI card bay that I connected to a spare molex power connector from the 700W HP power supply. I then bought a Monoprice Data Power Cable - 2 Feet - 4-pin MOLEX Male to 4X 15-pin SATA II Female Power Cable on Amazon for around $5.50 and a 3 pack of 18 inch 15 Pin SATA Male to Female Extender Power Cables on Amazon to allow for loose and easy connectivity to the rack.

I already had a Mini SAS SFF 8088 Male to 4 SATA 4Pin Female SAS Host/Controller to 4 SATA Target/Backplane cable that I used for testing and cloning drives that I had connected to one of the external ports on the HP P812 SAS RAID controller card.

I like the fact that by populating only 3 of the 5 bays, I provide extra room for cooling the drives (the rack has a built-in cooling fan) -- so there is a 1 bay gap between the drives.

So with those 6TB HGST SAS drives installed in the new rack, I now have an additional 12TB RAID 5 array available.

When needed, I can use the remaining SATA connection on the SFF 8088 cable to connect another drive for cloning.

So, bottom line, I doubled my NAS storage from 12TB to 24TB, Doubled my existing SAS Raid array from 4TB to 8TB, and added and additional 12TB SAS Raid5 array to the system in an external rack. My video library has lots of room to expand, and I have lots of room on the Frakenstation to mess around with virtual machines and such.


Here's a picture of the 5 bay rack I set up externally to my Frankenstation:



611EN8wNruL._AC_SL1001_.jpg
 
Joined
Jul 5, 2013
Messages
25,559 (6.52/day)
Everything is connected properly. I can all drives when starting up.
I think you mean it "fails" to boot?
Yes. When adding a new drive into a system one must be careful to make sure the BIOS does not re-arrange the boot order, which can happen. If that happens, it's as simple as pointing the BIOS to the correct drive again. 99% of the time this will instantly solve the problem.
 
Joined
Jun 14, 2021
Messages
2,095 (2.06/day)
Location
UK
I think you mean it "fails" to boot?

It could be that it is trying to boot from that new drive, and is hanging up there.

Try pressing the "ESC" key during the POST screen, and select "boot menu", and then select the drive you want to boot from (which should NOT be the new drive). Then it
Yes. When adding a new drive into a system one must be careful to make sure the BIOS does not re-arrange the boot order, which can happen. If that happens, it's as simple as pointing the BIOS to the correct drive again. 99% of the time this will instantly solve the problem.
Thanks for your valueable
should boot up.

Also, unless you are actually using your drives in a RAID configuration, I recommend changing the setting for your SATA ports in the BIOS to AHCI, instead of RAID -- as that will eliminate some boot overhead.

I hope this helps,

Philip
Thanks for that :)
Yes. When adding a new drive into a system one must be careful to make sure the BIOS does not re-arrange the boot order, which can happen. If that happens, it's as simple as pointing the BIOS to the correct drive again. 99% of the time this will instantly solve the problem.
Thanks for your valuable advice Lex:)
Yes. When adding a new drive into a system one must be careful to make sure the BIOS does not re-arrange the boot order, which can happen. If that happens, it's as simple as pointing the BIOS to the correct drive again. 99% of the time this will instantly solve the problem.
You have
Yes. When adding a new drive into a system one must be careful to make sure the BIOS does not re-arrange the boot order, which can happen. If that happens, it's as simple as pointing the BIOS to the correct drive again. 99% of the time this will instantly solve the problem.

Yes. When adding a new drive into a system one must be careful to make sure the BIOS does not re-arrange the boot order, which can happen. If that happens, it's as simple as pointing the BIOS to the correct drive again. 99% of the time this will Thanks for your info Lex instantly solve the problem.

Yes. When adding a new drive into a system one must be careful to make sure the BIOS does not re-arrange the boot order, which can happen. If that happens, it's as simple as pointing the BIOS to the correct drive again. 99% of the time this will instantly solve the problem.
Thanks once again Lex :)
 
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nootkabear

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Joined
Jul 30, 2021
Messages
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Location
Stone Mountain, GA USA
Make sure it's connected at gigabit full duplex and have a look for "MTU tuning" in your favorite search engine.
Is that for wi-fi, or hardwired as well?
I am running hardwired, and can't seem to get the MTU tuning as described in the search engines
 
Joined
Jun 2, 2022
Messages
349 (0.52/day)
System Name HP EliteBook 725 G3
Processor AMD PRO A10-8700B (1.8 GHz CMT dual module with 3.2 GHz boost)
Motherboard HP proprietary
Cooling pretty good
Memory 8 GB SK Hynix DDR3 SODIMM
Video Card(s) Radeon R6 (Carrizo/GCNv3)
Storage internal Kioxia XG6 1 TB NVMe SSD (aftermarket)
Display(s) HP P22h G4 21.5" 1080p (& 768p internal LCD)
Case HP proprietary metal case
Audio Device(s) built-in Conexant CX20724 HDA chipset -> Roland RH-200S
Power Supply HP-branded AC adapter
Mouse Steelseries Rival 310
Keyboard Cherry G84-5200
Software Alma Linux 9.1
Benchmark Scores Broadcom BCM94356 11ac M.2 WiFi card (aftermarket)
I have been looking at Z400s and Z420s recently on eBay. Initially I was actually only interested in the case because of the 3 5.25" bays and was planning to just use a "for parts" Z400 as a 5.25" drive rack but when I realized that even the old Bloomfield-powered Z400 still has a decent amount of power I became more interesting in the rest of the components. Problem is, I don't trust such an old PSU, so I don't really want to connect any of my components to it. In fact, that is why I got rid of M91p in the first place (after which I just got a laptop to use as a desktop replacement) and subsequently built my current desktop (with which I am very dissatisfied as some of you may already know by now) with a new Seasonic Focus PSU. So I am thinking would it be a good idea to just replace the PSU in such a workstation with my Seasonic? I know that they use proprietary connectors and that you need an adapter. But how reliable are these adapters (I absolutely do not want to start a house fire because of some shoddy no-name adapter) and how difficult is it to replace the PSU with a regular ATX one?
 
Joined
Nov 14, 2020
Messages
12 (0.01/day)
System Name HP Z440/Z460 "Franken"station purchased on Ebay for $152 w/bad motherboard, plus motherboard for $62
Processor Xeon E5-2667v4 3.2ghz/3.6ghz Turbo, 8 core (16 with hyperthreading)
Motherboard HP Z460 with Intel C612 chipset, can use Xeon V3 and V4 processors
Cooling Using stock Z440 cpucooler, Z460 dual fans the Z460 motherboard requires, using 2nd fan inside case.
Memory 64Gb DDR4 2400MHz REG ECC SERVER MEMORY $70+40 (4 16gb sticks) used on Ebay
Video Card(s) EVGA NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 3GB Gaming
Storage 1Tb Nvme SSD, 4x6Tb SAS drives=18TB RAID5, 3x8Tb SAS=16TbRAID5,3x18Tb enterprise Sata=32Tb RAID5 NAS
Display(s) TCL 65P635 65 inch 4K HDR TV via HDMI (4K@60hz) (upgraded from 55" last year,net cost $200)
Case Stock Z440 case with z640 motherboard (2nd z460 cooling fan blowing on HP P812 SAS Raid controller)
Audio Device(s) Denon AVRS730H 7.2ch AV receiver with Dolby Atmos and DTS:X
Power Supply stock Z440 700W 90+ efficient PSU
Mouse Logitech M570 trackball
Keyboard Logitech K350 Wave
VR HMD SAS drives are in 2 external 5 bay enclosures connected via the HP P812 SAS RAID controller
Software Windows 10 Pro (enterprise) OEM license that came with motherboard.
Benchmark Scores Using a HP Smart Array P812 PCI-e SAS Server RAID Controller with capacitor buffer backup, $15 Ebay
I have been looking at Z400s and Z420s recently on eBay. Initially I was actually only interested in the case because of the 3 5.25" bays and was planning to just use a "for parts" Z400 as a 5.25" drive rack but when I realized that even the old Bloomfield-powered Z400 still has a decent amount of power I became more interesting in the rest of the components. Problem is, I don't trust such an old PSU, so I don't really want to connect any of my components to it. In fact, that is why I got rid of M91p in the first place (after which I just got a laptop to use as a desktop replacement) and subsequently built my current desktop (with which I am very dissatisfied as some of you may already know by now) with a new Seasonic Focus PSU. So I am thinking would it be a good idea to just replace the PSU in such a workstation with my Seasonic? I know that they use proprietary connectors and that you need an adapter. But how reliable are these adapters (I absolutely do not want to start a house fire because of some shoddy no-name adapter) and how difficult is it to replace the PSU with a regular ATX one?
@mplayerMuPDF
With the price of the z440s coming way down over the past few months, I would recommend you go up a a generation and get something that supports the newer xeon e5-xxxx v3 and v4 processors, which have also come down in price. You'll also get a boost by being able to use faster ddr4 memory (DDR4-2400T aka PC4-19200R ecc server memory). This generation workstation is also capable of running Nvme SSDs, which offer a huge increase in IO over SATA drives. The 700watt power supplies on these machines are >90% efficient, and has enough power for most purposes.

I am running 6 SAS hard drives, a blu-ray drive, the slim format original dvd rewrite drive, a power hungry HP p812 server raid controller, an Nvidia GTX 1600 video card, and an Nvme SSD, with a 135W 8 core Xeon E5-4665 V4 processor, with 4 16Gb sticks of ddr4-2400T memory, and it is still not taxing the power supply. With this configuration it uses 170 watts of power, so there's lots of power left....

 
Joined
Jun 2, 2022
Messages
349 (0.52/day)
System Name HP EliteBook 725 G3
Processor AMD PRO A10-8700B (1.8 GHz CMT dual module with 3.2 GHz boost)
Motherboard HP proprietary
Cooling pretty good
Memory 8 GB SK Hynix DDR3 SODIMM
Video Card(s) Radeon R6 (Carrizo/GCNv3)
Storage internal Kioxia XG6 1 TB NVMe SSD (aftermarket)
Display(s) HP P22h G4 21.5" 1080p (& 768p internal LCD)
Case HP proprietary metal case
Audio Device(s) built-in Conexant CX20724 HDA chipset -> Roland RH-200S
Power Supply HP-branded AC adapter
Mouse Steelseries Rival 310
Keyboard Cherry G84-5200
Software Alma Linux 9.1
Benchmark Scores Broadcom BCM94356 11ac M.2 WiFi card (aftermarket)
@mplayerMuPDF
With the price of the z440s coming way down over the past few months, I would recommend you go up a a generation and get something that supports the newer xeon e5-xxxx v3 and v4 processors, which have also come down in price. You'll also get a boost by being able to use faster ddr4 memory (DDR4-2400T aka PC4-19200R ecc server memory). This generation workstation is also capable of running Nvme SSDs, which offer a huge increase in IO over SATA drives. The 700watt power supplies on these machines are >90% efficient, and has enough power for most purposes.

I am running 6 SAS hard drives, a blu-ray drive, the slim format original dvd rewrite drive, a power hungry HP p812 server raid controller, an Nvidia GTX 1600 video card, and an Nvme SSD, with a 135W 8 core Xeon E5-4665 V4 processor, with 4 16Gb sticks of ddr4-2400T memory, and it is still not taxing the power supply. With this configuration it uses 170 watts of power, so there's lots of power left....

I know that there are nicer workstations out there but I would actually not be using this as my main system (and therefore I am looking to not spend too much on it). Just something to put ODDs in and ssh into when I need some extra power. If I replaced the PSU, I would put my HGST UltraStar in there as well, so it would be kind of like a home server except I would only power it on as needed since it is quite thirsty. Also, I am very happy with the SATA SSDs that I have had so far in my computers, so I will only get an NVMe drive in the future if the motherboard requires it. It is more important to me that an SSD has modest power consumption and runs cool, to be honest. I am also not worried at all about the capacity of the PSU, just the age.
 
Joined
Nov 14, 2020
Messages
12 (0.01/day)
System Name HP Z440/Z460 "Franken"station purchased on Ebay for $152 w/bad motherboard, plus motherboard for $62
Processor Xeon E5-2667v4 3.2ghz/3.6ghz Turbo, 8 core (16 with hyperthreading)
Motherboard HP Z460 with Intel C612 chipset, can use Xeon V3 and V4 processors
Cooling Using stock Z440 cpucooler, Z460 dual fans the Z460 motherboard requires, using 2nd fan inside case.
Memory 64Gb DDR4 2400MHz REG ECC SERVER MEMORY $70+40 (4 16gb sticks) used on Ebay
Video Card(s) EVGA NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 3GB Gaming
Storage 1Tb Nvme SSD, 4x6Tb SAS drives=18TB RAID5, 3x8Tb SAS=16TbRAID5,3x18Tb enterprise Sata=32Tb RAID5 NAS
Display(s) TCL 65P635 65 inch 4K HDR TV via HDMI (4K@60hz) (upgraded from 55" last year,net cost $200)
Case Stock Z440 case with z640 motherboard (2nd z460 cooling fan blowing on HP P812 SAS Raid controller)
Audio Device(s) Denon AVRS730H 7.2ch AV receiver with Dolby Atmos and DTS:X
Power Supply stock Z440 700W 90+ efficient PSU
Mouse Logitech M570 trackball
Keyboard Logitech K350 Wave
VR HMD SAS drives are in 2 external 5 bay enclosures connected via the HP P812 SAS RAID controller
Software Windows 10 Pro (enterprise) OEM license that came with motherboard.
Benchmark Scores Using a HP Smart Array P812 PCI-e SAS Server RAID Controller with capacitor buffer backup, $15 Ebay
I know that there are nicer workstations out there but I would actually not be using this as my main system (and therefore I am looking to not spend too much on it). Just something to put ODDs in and ssh into when I need some extra power. If I replaced the PSU, I would put my HGST UltraStar in there as well, so it would be kind of like a home server except I would only power it on as needed since it is quite thirsty. Also, I am very happy with the SATA SSDs that I have had so far in my computers, so I will only get an NVMe drive in the future if the motherboard requires it. It is more important to me that an SSD has modest power consumption and runs cool, to be honest. I am also not worried at all about the capacity of the PSU, just the age.
@mplayerMuPDF , I just looked on Ebay, and found barebones z440s being sold for $99 including shipping, and here are COMPLETE ones with free shipping selling for $119!:
HP Z440 Workstation Tower Xeon E5-1603 V3 2.80GHz 8GB RAM 500GB HDD
 
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Joined
Jun 2, 2022
Messages
349 (0.52/day)
System Name HP EliteBook 725 G3
Processor AMD PRO A10-8700B (1.8 GHz CMT dual module with 3.2 GHz boost)
Motherboard HP proprietary
Cooling pretty good
Memory 8 GB SK Hynix DDR3 SODIMM
Video Card(s) Radeon R6 (Carrizo/GCNv3)
Storage internal Kioxia XG6 1 TB NVMe SSD (aftermarket)
Display(s) HP P22h G4 21.5" 1080p (& 768p internal LCD)
Case HP proprietary metal case
Audio Device(s) built-in Conexant CX20724 HDA chipset -> Roland RH-200S
Power Supply HP-branded AC adapter
Mouse Steelseries Rival 310
Keyboard Cherry G84-5200
Software Alma Linux 9.1
Benchmark Scores Broadcom BCM94356 11ac M.2 WiFi card (aftermarket)
I just looked on Ebay, and found barebones z440s being sold for $99 including shipping, and here are COMPLETE ones with free shipping selling for $119!:
HP Z440 Workstation Tower Xeon E5-1603 V3 2.80GHz 8GB RAM 500GB HDD
looks like it has one less 5.25" bay though. That is a no go for me considering its intended purpose. Thanks for the effort though. I am fine with leaving the nicer, more modern and powerful ones for other people. I just need something that meets my requirements, doesn't matter if it isn't as fancy as it could be.
 
Joined
Jun 14, 2021
Messages
2,095 (2.06/day)
Location
UK
Yes. When adding a new drive into a system one must be careful to make sure the BIOS does not re-arrange the boot order, which can happen. If that happens, it's as simple as pointing the BIOS to the correct drive again. 99% of the time this will instantly solve the problem.
The thing is a lot of the time I can,t get into the setting utility I think it is F2 to get in there.
 
Joined
Jun 2, 2022
Messages
349 (0.52/day)
System Name HP EliteBook 725 G3
Processor AMD PRO A10-8700B (1.8 GHz CMT dual module with 3.2 GHz boost)
Motherboard HP proprietary
Cooling pretty good
Memory 8 GB SK Hynix DDR3 SODIMM
Video Card(s) Radeon R6 (Carrizo/GCNv3)
Storage internal Kioxia XG6 1 TB NVMe SSD (aftermarket)
Display(s) HP P22h G4 21.5" 1080p (& 768p internal LCD)
Case HP proprietary metal case
Audio Device(s) built-in Conexant CX20724 HDA chipset -> Roland RH-200S
Power Supply HP-branded AC adapter
Mouse Steelseries Rival 310
Keyboard Cherry G84-5200
Software Alma Linux 9.1
Benchmark Scores Broadcom BCM94356 11ac M.2 WiFi card (aftermarket)
Found a video on replacing the PSU with a regular ATX one and I would prefer to not do that but then I realized I could perhaps just install a new HP proprietary (Delta) PSU and I found one from a non-shady seller on eBay for a very good price, so I think I will be going that route. I will keep the old one as a spare. Pretty excited as I could get a very nice system for very little money (reminds me of when I got my first desktop, a refurbished M91p with i5-2400) and also be confident that it is not going destroy my components. So I guess I will be returning to Sandy Bridge for the third time :laugh:
Don't get me wrong, I would love to get a Haswell system; I have been fond of Haswell ever since I got my 2014 MacBook Air (sold years ago with damaged keyboard). Of course the PCIe SSD of the MacBook probably did help the overall perception (I came from a Sandy i3 laptop with 5400 RPM HDD)... Don't like Skylake and derivatives (although Comet Lake is ok as they have fixed the worst issues by then) and I think it is theoretically at least a big upgrade over Ivy but then I have never had an Ivy system. But anyway, it is not worth it to me to get a Z440 as I checked and it is hard to find a new replacement PSU and on top of that you lose one 5.25" drive bay and then there is the additional cost. 22 nm, AVX2 and higher IPC is nice but not that nice.

F2, Del, F10 and even Esc are the common keys to enter the BIOS.
Yep on newer EliteBooks (G3, G4), for example, it is Esc to enter the UEFI. While on my ProBook 645 G1 (Richland) it is F10 to enter the UEFI (and F9 to go directly to the boot menu). I think I have come across laptops that use F2 as well. I think on my Biostar Ryzen desktop it is also F2.
 
Joined
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Messages
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Location
UK
Found a video on replacing the PSU with a regular ATX one and I would prefer to not do that but then I realized I could perhaps just install a new HP proprietary (Delta) PSU and I found one from a non-shady seller on eBay for a very good price, so I think I will be going that route. I will keep the old one as a spare. Pretty excited as I could get a very nice system for very little money (reminds me of when I got my first desktop, a refurbished M91p with i5-2400) and also be confident that it is not going destroy my components. So I guess I will be returning to Sandy Bridge for the third time :laugh:
Don't get me wrong, I would love to get a Haswell system; I have been fond of Haswell ever since I got my 2014 MacBook Air (sold years ago with damaged keyboard). Of course the PCIe SSD of the MacBook probably did help the overall perception (I came from a Sandy i3 laptop with 5400 RPM HDD)... Don't like Skylake and derivatives (although Comet Lake is ok as they have fixed the worst issues by then) and I think it is theoretically at least a big upgrade over Ivy but then I have never had an Ivy system. But anyway, it is not worth it to me to get a Z440 as I checked and it is hard to find a new replacement PSU and on top of that you lose one 5.25" drive bay and then there is the additional cost. 22 nm, AVX2 and higher IPC is nice but not that nice.


Yep on newer EliteBooks (G3, G4), for example, it is Esc to enter the UEFI. While on my ProBook 645 G1 (Richland) it is F10 to enter the UEFI (and F9 to go directly to the boot menu). I think I have come across laptops that use F2 as well. I think on my Biostar Ryzen desktop it is also F2.
I am there with you about the PSU for the Workstation i have the z230 it is a good machine but that hack job you have to do to put a ATX PSU is a step to far for me.
i don,t know why they did not put a standard size PSU in there workstations. :(

Good video from our old mate PHIL with an ATHLON and using a SSD.
t=10 never headed of the motherboard. :) And talking about the 5v rail.
 
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Messages
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F2, Del, F10 and even Esc are the common keys to enter the BIOS.
The thing is I could not see them mentioning how you get into the setup utility in the manual. The only one they mention on youtube about it is the F2 for Asus.
3DMARK03 889 on the Athlon 2400 PC on the drive that is failing.
And the £5 PC with a Pentium 4 2.8 892.
 

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The thing is I could not see them mentioning how you get into the setup utility in the manual. The only one they mention on youtube about it is the F2 for Asus.
3DMARK03 889 on the Athlon 2400 PC on the drive that is failing.
And the £5 PC with a Pentium 4 2.8 892.
For ASUS it's most common for it to be the Del key. As soon as you power on start tapping that key until you see the bios screen.
 
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System Name HP Z440/Z460 "Franken"station purchased on Ebay for $152 w/bad motherboard, plus motherboard for $62
Processor Xeon E5-2667v4 3.2ghz/3.6ghz Turbo, 8 core (16 with hyperthreading)
Motherboard HP Z460 with Intel C612 chipset, can use Xeon V3 and V4 processors
Cooling Using stock Z440 cpucooler, Z460 dual fans the Z460 motherboard requires, using 2nd fan inside case.
Memory 64Gb DDR4 2400MHz REG ECC SERVER MEMORY $70+40 (4 16gb sticks) used on Ebay
Video Card(s) EVGA NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 3GB Gaming
Storage 1Tb Nvme SSD, 4x6Tb SAS drives=18TB RAID5, 3x8Tb SAS=16TbRAID5,3x18Tb enterprise Sata=32Tb RAID5 NAS
Display(s) TCL 65P635 65 inch 4K HDR TV via HDMI (4K@60hz) (upgraded from 55" last year,net cost $200)
Case Stock Z440 case with z640 motherboard (2nd z460 cooling fan blowing on HP P812 SAS Raid controller)
Audio Device(s) Denon AVRS730H 7.2ch AV receiver with Dolby Atmos and DTS:X
Power Supply stock Z440 700W 90+ efficient PSU
Mouse Logitech M570 trackball
Keyboard Logitech K350 Wave
VR HMD SAS drives are in 2 external 5 bay enclosures connected via the HP P812 SAS RAID controller
Software Windows 10 Pro (enterprise) OEM license that came with motherboard.
Benchmark Scores Using a HP Smart Array P812 PCI-e SAS Server RAID Controller with capacitor buffer backup, $15 Ebay
@mplayerMuPDF , good luck with your build. Glad to hear you found the new power supply you wanted.

The prices on those z440's I found on Ebay and suggested to @mplayerMuPDF were just too good to pass up. I negotiated with the seller of the "complete" ones to sell 2 of them at $100 each including shipping, and I'll build them up and sell them locally to fund an E-bike I am going to build with a brushless 1500W kit I got on the black friday amazon warehouse deals 20% off sale for $280 (not including the battery, which I am intending to build from scrap li-ion batteries and a charge controller).

It's been nice to be able to leverage my experience with these z440s to build them up (with good components) and completed with valid OEM windows 10 Pro x64 OS and a suite of free and open source software installed and ready-to-go. (On these workstations the OEM wiindows key/license is programmed into the workstation's NVRAM so Windows 10 pro automatically activates.) This has enabled me to pay for my tech upgrades from the profit I made selling them, (including my z440/z460 "Frankenstation"), and the folks who get them are delighted with their workstations.

I thought it might be interesting for some forum readers to know what I do to improve and add value to these machines, allowing me to sell them locally for more than what the basic machines with similar capabilities are selling for on Ebay.

A story of two workstation upgrades:
While these two workstations I bought are "complete" functioning machines, the hardware in them is really basic and not very useful as is, and they contain no os or software. The only things I am re-using are the case and fans, power supply, motherboard, cpu cooler, DVD RW drive and the the two 8Gb sticks of server Ram. But I got these machines for the price of a bare-bones machine so I'm not complaining....

Here's how I plan to upgrade the hardware in these :
1. The processors in these "complete" z440s are just 4 core e5-1603 2.8ghz processors with 8gb ram, so I'll upgrade them. I found a pair of 10 core e5-2660 v3 processors (2.6ghz, 3ghz turbo) on Ebay for $18 (best offer accepted).
2. I'll upgrade both to 16gb of ram. I found 2 matched 8gb sticks of ddr4-2400 server ram for $15 on Ebay (best offer accepted). I'll take the 8gb stick from one unit and put it in the other to give it 16gb, and then put the matched pair I bought in the other unit.
3. The 500gb sata drive in them is pretty much worthless. I'll add a new 256gb HP Nvme SSD for the OS and programs for $25 (including $5 for a pci-e Nvme adapter card) to each, and a refurbished hgst 4tb sata enterprise drive for a data drive for $39 each.
4. The video cards in these are also pretty minimal -- Nvidia nvs310 with only 512gb of ram. I found a set of three amd radeon r240 1tb video cards for $24 on Ebay, so I'll have a spare in case one of them turns out to be bad. These r240 video cards can't really handle 4K well (only at 30hz), but they do 1080P just fine, and they support UEFI secure boot. Anybody wanting a good 4k experience on a 4k monitor or TV will need to upgrade to something like a nvidia gtx 1060 to get a nice smooth 4k experience (I use an nvidia gtx 1060 3gb card and it works fine on the 4k tv I use as my HTPC monitor). If they want to do serious gaming they'll want to get something even better (and more expensive) than an nvidia gtx 1060. New Video cards are still outrageously expensive due to crypto-mining, IMO.
5. I also will supply an "active" 4k capable displayport-to-hdmi adapter cable. These sell for around $7 on Ebay. I like these short adapter cables over the hard adapters that plug into the displayport because they don't require as much space behind the machine (the short adapter cable bends). The fixed adapters don't flex or bend, requiring the back of the workstation be pulled away from a wall by not only the length of the fixed adapter, but also the HDMI plug that's plugged into it which adds up to almost 5 inches given an allowance to make sure the plugged in HDMI cable doesn't get a crimp in it. I've also broken one of these non-cable adapters by accidentally hitting it sideways while it was plugged in. The short cable adapters solve all of these issues.

Aside: If anyone here is interested in any of the parts I am replacing (cpus, graphics cards, sata drives), I'll be selling them cheap -- contact me via PM and make me an offer....

So my total cost for each upgraded machine will be: $100 for the z440 + $9 (better cpu) + $7.50 (8gb ram added to make 16gb) + $25 (256Gb Nvme SSD and pci-e adapter for the OS drive) + $38 (4tb HGST refurbished enterprise grade Sata drive with 5yr warranty for the data drive), + $8 (1tb AMD Radeon R240 display card), + $7.50 (displayport to HDMI adapter cable) = $195 total hardware cost.

The open source and free software suite I install includes:
1. Libre Office (a complete full-featured replacement for Microsoft Office, that can read and write to it's own native file types as well as MS office file types.)
2. Bullzip PDF printer and Bullzip PDF reader (a much lighter and more capable set of PDF utilities than Adobe Acrobat Reader. Among things it can do that Adobe reader won't is to concatenate a pdf to an existing pdf.
3. Greenshot screen shot utility. This is a very powerful complete screenshot utility that can output to multiple file types, can do full or cropped screen shots and more.
4. VLC media player (can play just about any format of media file (sound or video) you throw at it, and with just a few extra additions can even play blu-ray disks.
5. 7zip file compression/archive tool that can compress/decompress/add-to just about any compressed format from RAR to zip.
6. HWINFO64 a free Hardware information tool that shows you just about every part and real-time sensor status in the system.
7. Macrium Reflect (a drive image backup/restore tool, that also allows you to "mount" an image and access individual files on it.)
8. Firefox (an open source web browser that doesn't track your activities and monetize them like Chrome does). I pre-install the following add-ons for Firefox:
. Ublock Origin (in my opinion, the best current open source browser add-blocker and anti-tracker).​
. AdBlocker for YouTube™ (aka Clean YouTube™) This add-on not only seems to block most ads in in the browser version of Youtube, but it also seems to work in browser version of Hulu.​
9. Ocean reader (a reader/browser/search engine/text extractor/audio reader of the sacred religious texts of most all of the major world faiths).
10. Zoom meeting software (the pandemic isn't completely done, and lots of meetings are still happening on Zoom).

Some Windows 10 settings I changed from defaults to make it easier to use:
1. I enabled the windows 7 quick-start toolbar, and place shortcuts for commonly used programs and utilities there.
2. I installed a copy of the "old" windows 7 style calculator, which many people prefer over the "modern" version shipping with windows 10. Both are available on the workstation.
3. I removed of most of the bloatware that comes pre-installed with windows 10.
4. I cleaned up the desktop to only include icons for frequently used programs, and added shortcuts for the command prompt and control panel, and turned off the option to have wallpapers move desktop items around.
5. I turned off the intrusive "suggestions" that windows has baked into it to suggest unwanted upgrades, as well as unnecessary voluntary data submissions to Microsoft and others, and turned off Microsoft's windows update "sharing" feature with other computers.
6. I turned on local private trusted network sharing and discovery, and enable the "public" data stores (which allows easy, but secured data sharing across the local trusted private network. Others on the local network can't see into any directories on the workstation except the shared public folders, and these "public" folders are not accessible from non-private untrusted networks.
7. I set the windows explorer view options to default to "details", "show known file type extensions", "show hidden files", and had this applied to all directories.

My method for loading the OS and software is this:
1. I'll install all of the hardware upgrades in the workstation.
2. I'll do a fresh install of windows from the HP windows 10 image onto one of the 500gb sata drives they supplied with the machines.
3. I'll install the free "magical jelly bean" cd key decrypter/reader and use it to get the automatically generated OEM CD key from that installation, and save it to the hard drive.
4. I'll install the free disk imaging utility Macrium Reflect so I can do full image restores of drive images backups taken from the last z440 I built and sold. I find this utility to be more reliable and easier to use than most other freeware utilities, and much better than the free versions of Acronis True Image that Western Digital and Seagate provide to do disk cloning -- those are restricted to only work if you have their drives in the system, and also don't have full functionality.
5. Then I'll restore/load the data drive image from one of the previously sold z440s onto the 4tb data drive. That drive image contains copies of these drive images and also has directories of all the z440 manuals, drivers and utilities, has copies of all the open source installation software installers, and has the windows data folders and swap file already on it.
6. Once the data drive restore is done, I'll save the cd key from the utility in step 3 onto the documents folder of that data drive, for the owner's reference..
7. Then I'll restore/load the ssd os-drive image from one of the previously sold z440s onto the Nvme ssd, which will become the new boot drive. That image contains the Windows Pro x64 OEM OS, which has all the updates applied and all drivers installed, has a full suite of freeware and open source software installed, and is fully configured with all data folders and swap file pointing to the 4tb data drive. I have the data directories and swap file on the data drive to minimize the writes being written to the SSD which will lengthen it's operating life.
8. I'll shut down the machine, remove the 500gb drive, and reboot using the 256Gb Nvme SSD.
9. Then I'll use the windows activation tool to change the cd key to the one from step 3 so the machine has the unique OEM cd-key that belongs to it.
10. I'll do a quick check to make sure that all is functioning and the data directories and swap file are pointing to the 4Tb data drive.
11. I'll upgrade the Bios if necessary, and will upgrade the TPM module to 2.0 using HP's utility,
12. I'll run the windows update utility and make sure all updates are applied. I'll update any of the programs that have been updated since the last backup was done.
13. I'll use the Macrium Reflect utility to take an image of the new OS drive, putting that onto the 4tb data drive as a backup and copy that to my NAS for the next machine.
14. I'll use the Greenshot screen shot utility to capture the HWINFO64 summary screen for the upcoming Craigslist posting.

Once all of this is done, I'll post an ad for the upgraded machine on Craigslist, and repeat the process for the other machine.

Time investment:
It takes about 1-2 hours each time I do a batch of these machines to source and order the parts (often requires doing best offer negotiation) and about 1 to 1.5 hours of my time to do the upgrades (I can do other stuff while images are loading and updates are being applied), and about 15 minutes to post the craigslist ad (I re-use the text from my previous ads). I spend about 1/2 hour responding to CL ads, and another 1/2 hour doing the sale and demonstration/orientation to the purchaser. So that's a total time investment of around 4.25 hours spent on each machine. Of course, if I was doing all of this from scratch each time it would be many more hours, but leveraging off of previous work minimizes this, and the customers get a lot for their money.

Ending thoughts:
When I started doing this a couple of years ago I was able to sell these machines for between $550-$600 (but the barebones systems and components cost more then too). I can't demand that much for them any more, but I sold the last two I had prior to this purchase about a month ago for $450 each -- so there is still demand for these workstations in this configuration, with everything loaded, legal and ready-to-go. I figure I probably save the purchasers at least 20 hours of research and labor that would be involved to get these machines built to this capability and ready-to-go. That's time I spent when I got my original machine getting it going and set up.

I enjoy meeting the buyers:
The people who buy these workstations are pretty interesting, and not your "average folks" -- some are engineers doing cad design, others are doing gaming, others lots of media editing, one guy is a professional pilot wanting to run good flight emulation software. Curiously, I've only sold one to a woman -- I'm not sure why that is.

No warranty, but do provide some support:
I don't provide a warranty as this is used equipment and I don't have any control over what they do to it after it leaves my hands. These are really robust machines, so I have not had any fail on me or on a buyer. However, I tell the buyers they can call me for "limited" support if they need it. I have helped some find more memory for a good price, recommended video card upgrades, and helped them with video power adapters (the guy didn't know that 6 pin to 8pin video power adapters existed -- he had thought he might have to replace the power supply), and one fellow had a situation where it wouldn't boot that I diagnosed over the phone to be a dead cmos battery -- he had left it idle and unplugged for a couple of months and his bios settings had gotten corrupted when the battery died.

Interesting custom build:
One of the more memorable customers was one I met this year that I did a custom build for with one of these workstations. I built it with redundant OS and data drives and a server raid controller to run a theater pipe-organ for a local non-profit that shows silent films in a restored 1920's era movie theater.

This was an interesting build with both the OS and data drives in raid-1 using an LSI server raid controller, and configured to automatically boot and run their pipe-organ software on power-up from a non-administrator account. Because it is a true production environment, they needed the redundancy to get the shows up and going regardless of a drive failure -- hence the two raid-1 mirrored arrays.

I had originally thought I would use one of the native Windows software raid methods to accomplish this, which I knew of, but had not personally used. In the process I learned a lot about how the native raid in windows works (or rather, doesn't work for NVMe boot drives). Windows has multiple ways to do their native software raid, but none of them worked well enough to be reliable, and the onboard motherboard Intel chipset raid capability is also not robust enough for a production environment. All of these solutions have no provision for write cache protection -- meaning that data could/would be lost if the system hung or there was a loss of power.

The solution was the use of an enterprise grade hardware raid controller with a capacitor backed up write cache, which a used LSI 9270-CV 8i server raid controller had. The card was reasonably priced on Ebay, and came with Dell OEM firmware on it, which I overwrote with the original LSI firmware so the card could be managed using the LSI Megaraid utilities. I was familiar with how these server raid cards work because I have an HP P812 server raid card in my media "Frankenstation" controlling a couple of external raid-5 arrays. I chose the LSI controller because it is a simpler card to manage, is less power hungry, and the customer didn't need external ports.

Down the "rabbit-hole":
So, what at first seemed a straight-forward addition of a couple of drives and the use of one of the software raid methods, turned into a bit of a "rabbit-hole" into which, like the proverbial Alice, I fell. After many hours of researching and trying varying options, I consulted with the buyer, and we agreed upon the robust server raid controller solution. Due to the issues with getting any raid to work with the Nvme boot drives, we swapped them for a pair of SATA SSDs, which work with the raid controller. I donated my hours getting all this figured out and working to their non-profit as an in-kind contribution -- they may give me some passes to see some of the movies, which will be fun.....

Aside: Interestingly, LSI doesn't have any raid controller that offer the mixed ports or the number of ports the HP P812 has -- I am not sure why that is. A guess is that maybe LSI's philosophy is that you should have separate raid controllers for internal and external uses, or maybe by limiting the number of ports, they reduce the stress on the hardware? I do know that my HP P812 is power hungry and generates a lot of heat probably because it has circuitry and processing power to handle the 2 internal and 4 external ports -- I use one of the z460 dual case fans to blow air across it to help keep it cooler.

About capacitor backed write cache raid controllers:
The way the capacitor backed write cache works on these raid controllers is that when the card sees a loss of power or a system hang, using the power in the capacitors it writes out the current write cache and destination address to the card's non-volatile memory and then shuts down. When using these controllers, you turn off the hardware write caching on the drives themselves so that the controller handles this, and thus prevent data loss. Also, because the write cache in the raid controller card isn't cleared until the drive signals a successful write has occurred, if the power fails when the drive is writing data, it isn't lost -- it is re-written out to the same logical address by the raid controller.
This is how the cache data recovery works:
When the computer reboots, the raid card first looks to see if there is something in its non-volatile memory, and then writes it out to the drives before completing it's boot processing. The benefit of this over the older battery protected raid controllers is that there is no time limit for this recovery. With the older battery protected controllers, if the computer/server wasn't rebooted quickly enough the battery would become exhausted and the data would be lost. This newer method prevents that. The capacitors also don't typically wear out and almost instantly recharge, unlike the batteries which take time to recharge, and wear out over time, so the newer method is more reliable and requires lower maintenance as well.

I hope the details of my z440 workstation hardware and software upgrade choices and reasons have been interesting to some of you.

Thanks for reading,

Philip

 
Joined
Jun 14, 2021
Messages
2,095 (2.06/day)
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UK
Is a
ATX
305mm x 244mm
9 mounting holes
Is this a full-sized motherboard
I have looked it up and it is A full-size ATX board that has a height of 305mm and a width of 244mm, or 12 x 9.6 inches. When you’re planning a build, if you’re picking up an ATX motherboard, you’re going to want to pair it with an ATX-compatible PC case. These can either be super-towers, full-towers, middle-towers, or mini-towers. As long as they’re built to support the ATX format, then the board will fit 10/10 times.


As I want to get a case for it, see my post here

A case for. MSI P45D3 Platinum (MS-7513) motherboard

 
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What do people think of this case ?Does this case come with all the leads needed for a motherboard i see it has the motherboard headers and off course the fans but what about the other leads and conecter.s for the Motherboard?
1669577846041.png


The reason i am asking weather the case comes with all the leads needed to be connected to the Motherboard, i see there are about 10 connections ? o_O on the Motherboard see 910.Dell Motherboard only has 3 connections 911o_O.Do all those 10 connections on my new Motherboard need to be used, ?o_Oand why does Dell only have 3 connections on theres?. I can,t see that the case would have 10 leads for connecting to the Motherboard.as you are all aware I have never built a PC before.One good thing on the Motherboard is that there is a switch that i can be used with out putting it in a case.I see that a lot of PC,s don,t have that switch. I wish someone can answer this, if the case has all the leads needed to make the Motherboard work I will buy it.

Just watched this video so you don,t have to use all those connections on the board.o_OI see it has USB3 :( that will be no good for me because the my board only has USB2. :(
1669647956535.png
Why are there so many connections on my Motherboard when you only have to connect what he has connected.? o_O
1669647998821.png
I have just got in touch with the guy
1669647861501.png
1669647908419.png
I take it the

case
1669648101559.png
have all these leads for the motherboard.
1669648066731.png
 

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There this;
That case is newer than I thought it was. Still, easily solved with an inexpensive adapter.
I thought it looked older myself. I have just looked at that adapter
USB 3.0 20 pin to 9 pin Motherboard Male Header to Female USB 2.0 Cable Adapter
£2.50 and that,s all i need.
1669650325311.png


Can,t get this crap heatsink on the motherboard. :( I was looking forward to building a PC. :( At least I know how to do it now.:)
 
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