[SOLVED] Z400 board not posting, keep trying or trash?

[Deihman]

Edit: After some looking around on the interwebs and the HP Quickspecs pages for the Z400 v2, I determined that the Z400 v2 can’t run single non-registered 4GB DIMMs and can’t run any 8GB DIMMs officially. Thanks for your help!

Hi all, I’m trying to get an HP Z400 Rev 2 (6 DIMMs) motherboard to boot in an ATX case, but nothing’s working. I made a sufficient motherboard adapter according to the Z400 pinout using a 24 pin extension and a molex Y splitter, but no success so far. Fans are spinning up, power light on the motherboard is turning on, but I’m not getting any signal on my monitor. I’ve tried two different CPUs, a Xeon W3520 and an E5620, no luck with either. The W3520 was included with the motherboard and I used it for a good couple weeks till I got a W3570, and the E5620 was working in a Supermicro X8DTi-F recently.

Update 1
I tried moving the GPU, a Quadro K2200 BTW, to the other 16x slot on the board, but still no boot.

Here’s a few possible answers.

1. RAM incompatibility.
I tried to boot with an 8GB stick of DDR3 non-ECC I took from a working AM3+ machine. According to HP the Z400 only supports up to 4GB ECC DIMMs.

2. CPU socket death.
I had this running in my little brother’s PC until one day the screen went black in the middle of him playing some roblox and wouldn’t turn back on. He got a new Z400 motherboard, thinking it was the board that died, and the X5670 he’d been running was dead, so I gave him my W3570. A possible explanation is the socket died, killing the X5670.

3. Incorrect soldering.
It’s possible I accidentally cut and soldered the wrong pins on the power adapter I made. I doubt this is the reason though, since I triple checked to make sure I was cutting the right wires.

Anyways, what do you guys think? Should I keep trying to resurrect the board, or should I give up and buy a new one? If you can think of other stuff you might need to know, definitely ask.

Edit: One more thing I forgot to add, I know the motherboard isn’t posting because I have to hold down the power button on the case to get it to turn off after a failed boot, even though I don’t have any drives plugged in.

 

[rgd1101]

and what gpu?

 

[Deihman]

and what gpu?

Trying a Quadro K2200. It’s worked for years before this in my other little brother’s PC.

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

Z400 uses ECC

 

[Deihman]

Z400 uses ECC

I’m aware, I’ve heard of people using non ECC aftermarket kits in the Z400. I’ll see if I can grab a 4GB stick from my little brother’s PC and try booting with that.

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

Not saying it's the issue , but I only ran ECC in my old Z400.

 

[Deihman]

Not saying it's the issue , but I only ran ECC in my old Z400.

All right. I’m probably going to be buying a 24GB kit of ECC RAM soon for the Z400, I just wanted to see if I could get it to boot before buying all that to have it not work.

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

Did you try a standard ATX PSU with an adapter:
https://www.moddiy.com/products/ATX...dard-ATX-Pinout-Main-Power-Adapter-Cable.html

 

[Deihman]

Did you try a standard ATX PSU with an adapter:
https://www.moddiy.com/products/ATX-to-HP-Z400-24%2dPin-Non%2dStandard-ATX-Pinout-Main-Power-Adapter-Cable.html

That’s what I’m doing, I’m basically running a homemade version of that with a molex supplying the extra needed 12V pins on the +4 part of the connector, using this chart.

 

[TrashPanda007]

You need the original power button out of the original case. It has a thermal sensor that it will not boot without.


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