Question Upgrading an HP Z2 G9 Tower ?

[98Martin]

I recently purchased a second hand, box-sealed HP Z2 G9 Tower that I got a for great price from a seller on eBay. It is a relatively basic configuration with an i7 13700, 16GB ram and a 512GB M.2 SSD. Importantly it has the 700w power supply that gives me enough headroom for a GPU upgrade up to a RTX 3080 according to the supported options in the quickspecs.

Anyway, the PC arrived yesterday and I dove straight in to looking at the upgrades that I had planned after taking a good first look at the computer as the ad only showed a picture of the sealed box so everything other than what I could get from HP PartPicker site using the serial number was new to me. Wonderfully and unexpectedly it came with the larger 125w CPU cooler although having as far as I'm aware a i7 13700 which would normally come with the smaller 65w cooler but I'm happy. Likewise it has the front fans installed but no dust filter on the front bezel so I've ordered the HP part 141L3AA which is a complete new magnetic front bezel and dust filter from Amazon to slow down the dust inhalation of the tower.

As it didn't come with Wi-Fi installed I have ordered a universal Intel AX210 desktop kit which does come with a PCI-E bracket for installing the antennas, however, if the cables are too short or stretched diagonally across the motherboard from the WLAN M.2 slot I will remove the motherboard and drill out the original mounting points at the top of the motherboard I/O shield so that the cables have less distance to travel and won't interfere with the GPU slot.

I've also ordered two sticks of Crucial 16GB DDR5 4800MHz RAM so that I won't have to upgrade anytime soon and hopefully it should be compatible as it cost far less than the cost of an original HP stick. Likewise I intend to replace the existing single 512mb M.2 SSD with a 2TB version from Crucial again that I ordered at the same time. The current card is located underneath the GPU PCI-E with a fairly tall heatsink which I am unsure I can carry over onto the Crucial stick as clearance to the GPU could be a problem but I will wait and see.

Lastly, I'm currently bidding on an OEM HP RTX 3080 and am aware that it is a card that runs notably hot on a case even with fantastic airflow, this makes me worry that with the G9's somewhat limited intake and exhaust it might thermally throttle somewhat often. This has lead me to investigate a punched hole in the PCI-E support bracket that I can only imagine was designed for a fan and after some quick research I found a part number (2B1D4AA) which is the same bracket with a blower fan installed. It seems that this was only available on the G5 tower and for many caused problems after installing a GPU and not having it installed as it threw a code on boot for a missing fan.

I've had a thorough look over the G9 motherboard and there is no additional 4-pin fan header for the blower to connect to, however I feel that it could be a worthy upgrade if it's possible to increase the airflow over the GPU and hopefully aid in cooling it. My thoughts are to purchase the bracket complete with blower and a Noctua Y-split fan cable and connect both the rear case fan and blower to the motherboard's CHFAN2 header using the split cable. I'm hoping someone could give me advice on this as I know there is warnings about overloading fan headers on the motherboard but I'm not sure these two fans would do it, or if it would be worthwhile fitting the new bracket at all. For reference the stock Foxcom rear chassis fan uses a maximum of 1.2A however I won't know the draw of the blower fan until the bracket arrives in a few days time.

 

[98Martin]

Figured I would come back to this thread and update it to show the parts that I fitted in case anyone in the future looks to do the same.

I installed 2x16GB DDR5 Crucial memory sticks that are running at the motherboards maximum of 4800Mhz. I also installed a Gen4 2TB M.2 SSD again from Crucial as I knew that there wouldn't be any incompatibility issues with the HP bios as others have fitted the same. For the Wi-Fi I purchased and fitted a PCI-E Wi-Fi card that uses Intels AX210 chip and was supported by the Windows 11 ISO installer from the get go and would highly recommend as it was a much simpler install that using the motherboards onboard M.2 Wi-Fi card slot and routing antenna cables in the case. In the end I won the HP RTX 3080 and it sure is a beast of a card especially since I'm upgrading from a GTX 1050ti that served me well for many years. To complement it I did fit the blower fan to HP's PCI-E support bracket using a Noctua branded Y-splitter cable that takes power from the rear chassis fan header on the motherboard. The two fans together have a maximum draw of 2.08A but being a workstation motherboard I'm pretty confident that HP built some headroom into all it's components for reliability. I also replaced the original front panel for one with an integrated dust filter to hopefully make future cleaning much easier and keep the fans and heatsink clean and free from dust.

Here is some pictures of the PC that I uploaded to Imgur if anyone wants to take a look.

 

[jonaskeid12]

Thanks for the detailed explanation. I plan on doing something similar but with a RTX 4080. Do you know if this will be possible? Thanks in advance.

 

[98Martin]

If it is a Z2G9 you've got or are looking at make sure it has the 700W PSU to power the card, there should be two 6+2 PCI-E connectors at the bottom of the case for the GPU. Also of course check for clearance but I wouldn't think there will be a problem as the RTX 3080 I have fitted is pretty large.

Also this case does suffer from poor airflow as I'm experiencing, the front intake is largely blocked by the HDD cage that is riveted in position and therefore not something I can move until it is out of warranty. I have upgraded the rear case fan to a Noctua one and also changed the CPU cooler to a Noctua U9S which required some modifications to the mounting hardware to make work due to HP using threaded inserts attached to the case back panel to hold the cooler in place.

 

[BastianW]

Wonderfully and unexpectedly it came with the larger 125w CPU cooler although having as far as I'm aware a i7 13700 which would normally come with the smaller 65w cooler but I'm happy. Likewise it has the front fans installed but no dust filter on the front bezel so I've ordered the HP part 141L3AA which is a complete new magnetic front bezel and dust filter from Amazon to slow down the dust inhalation of the tower.

Do you have some more info's (links, pictures, Sparte Part Numbers, etc) regarding the 125w vs. 65w cooler? This was quite new to me and I would like to check which cooler I have as a bigger one would help to keep the system cooler (and more silent).

I have upgraded the rear case fan to a Noctua one and also changed the CPU cooler to a Noctua U9S which required some modifications to the mounting hardware to make work due to HP using threaded inserts attached to the case back panel to hold the cooler in place.

That sounds quite interesting. How did you performed the modifications? Can you maybe give more details and some pictures?

 

[98Martin]

The Noctua NH-D9S is far superior to the 125W HP cooler that has been around for many years and is long overdue an upgrade for modern high wattage processors. The fitting of the D9 is a little involved but if you're hands on it's certainly possible. Here is an Imgur link with some pictures of the fitting and a little explanation which each step.

 

[BastianW]

@98Martin , great thanks so much. I thought you modified the mainboard (another board there is a thread which mentioned that he drilled bigger holes in the PCB, which I would really avoid) to fit the cooler. However from the pictures it looks like if the standard mounting points can still be used.

I personally like the Z2, however the cooling components aren´t that great in my eyes and there are some better options around which keep the system quite and cooler.