Welcome to our community

Be a part of something great, join today!

Register Log in
  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

HP Z840 and Thunderbolt

Dimitri Boschma

Dimitri Boschma

Well-known member
Joined
Feb 16, 2011
Messages
284
Reaction score
0
Points
16
Location
The Netherlands
Does anyone have experience with the Z840 and the thunderbolt. Is it dependable? (With raid connected)
 
I have both a Z820 and Z840 with Thunderbolt installed. Definitely need Windows 8.1 or better yet, Win 10, installed to fully use TB2. Most everything works OK, but I've had some connection issues with some first-gen TB v1 devices like the Promise Pegasus R6. Most current TB2 devices work just fine.
 
Jeff Kilgroe said:
I have both a Z820 and Z840 with Thunderbolt installed. Definitely need Windows 8.1 or better yet, Win 10, installed to fully use TB2. Most everything works OK, but I've had some connection issues with some first-gen TB v1 devices like the Promise Pegasus R6. Most current TB2 devices work just fine.
Click to expand...
exactly my experience, pegasus 2 promise r8 sometimes wouldnt wake up and i had to cycle boot. t2 though is so awesome, i prefer it over 10g network disk except when i need to share.
 
Sorry, this is an old topic but I'm in a bind here.

We have a Z840 with the HP Thunderbolt 2 card.

It was running fine till it was removed to test on another HP Z240.

That was a fail so decided to put it back.

Well here is the dilemma.

I didn't remove this card so I have no idea which PCI bus.

The HP manual states Slot 5 but that's always been taken up by the K5200 display card.

I tried it on all slots and I get the RED blink of death :P

Googling the damn thing is useless.

Does anyone have this same setup and do you recall which slot it's in?

Next move would be to take it into HP service but they would just love to replace the motherboard.

The unit is fine without the card.

Help me Obi-Wan...
 
Hmmm... Are you properly connecting the special USB cable that goes with the card? It won’t properly communicate with the system and can cause the system to stall or hang at boot time (red blinking death) if you don’t have it. As for which PCIe slot, IIRC I think it will work in 2 and 5. If you have it in the wrong spot, the system should still work. If it wouldn’t work in the other Z840 and now won’t work here in the system it was pulled from, and if that cable is properly connected, then the card may have been damaged somewhere along the way.
 
Jeff Kilgroe said:
Hmmm... Are you properly connecting the special USB cable that goes with the card?
Click to expand...

The only cable I was given is attached to the card and have it plugged into the right port marked as TB.
I can see on both systems where it plugs into so there is no second guessing.

Thanks, Jeff, as usual, you're there for us :)
 
Last edited:
Yep that’s the one. IIRC, the card ships with two different cables and the difference is the end that connects to the system, but I don’t recall which systems use which one. I think the Z820/Z840 use the same cable. It’s a USB “key” cable. I’m not sure what the purpose is of that design, but Intel came up with that nonsense and most Thunderbolt add-in cards use the same methodology. Yet they’re all manufacturer specific so you can’t just grab an ASUS one and put it your HP.

I’m thinking a faulty or damaged card is most likely and HP service can probably help you out there. If you get a competent technician, that is...
 
You could certainly TRY an asus one. Supermicro, for instance, didn't bother to make a TB3 card and instead qualified the Asus one for their boards.

Everyone says the new TItan Ridge card from Gigabyte is the second coming but i have yet to test it out.

Or call up HP and leverage that warranty you paid for!
 
If you do get it working, I found that the TB2 on the Z 8x0 workstations was always half-baked. I never considered it that reliable. Hot-plugging never worked consistently. I could reliably use it with a TB RAID like the Pegasus if it was powered on then the system powered on next. And I had to turn off the sleep functionality on the RAID and not chain anything.

That was still the state of things back in March. I no longer have a Z workstation here to look at...
 
DJ Meyer said:
Everyone says the new TItan Ridge card from Gigabyte is the second coming but i have yet to test it out.

Or call up HP and leverage that warranty you paid for!
Click to expand...

Running the Gigabyte card on a non-Gigabyte motherboard seems to have its drawbacks — hot-plugging not working and such, but it does offer a certain level of functionality. Pretty cool that people are up and running with them on AMD motherboards.
 
Jeff Kilgroe said:
I’m thinking a faulty or damaged card is most likely and HP service can probably help you out there. If you get a competent technician, that is...
Click to expand...

I ordered a new one just in case.
I have a feeling it might have been my fault.
The card was taken out of the Z840 for me to use on a Z240.
Placed the card in the system and nothing worked.
TB services shows that TB is working but nothing in Windows 10 specifies the actual card.
Even in Device Manager (the older one).
Then HP tech supplied me with drives for the Z240 but I dont believe its flash rom stuff.
I could be wrong.
The card never worked on the Z240 so it went back to the Z840 where I am now...boned :(

Think I killed it.
 
Eric Santiago said:
I ordered a new one just in case.
I have a feeling it might have been my fault.
The card was taken out of the Z840 for me to use on a Z240.
Placed the card in the system and nothing worked.
TB services shows that TB is working but nothing in Windows 10 specifies the actual card.
Even in Device Manager (the older one).
Then HP tech supplied me with drives for the Z240 but I dont believe its flash rom stuff.
I could be wrong.
The card never worked on the Z240 so it went back to the Z840 where I am now...boned :(

Think I killed it.
Click to expand...

I've never used TB on an HP box but you probably have to go into BIOS to enable it once you physically plug it in and the GPIO cable. At least thats the way it is on other boards.
 
Enabled in the BIOS or not, it shouldn’t be giving the red blinking power button. I don’t recall what [if any] BIOS settings there were for the TB add-in card. But definitely worth a check if he can get there. He may not be able to access the BIOS with the TB card installed. That is, if the system fails during PCIe initialization and doesn’t post.
 
@Eric — I looked in my old config notes for my Z840 and see that I determined the card would only work in slot-5 [as the install guide says] and I had to relocate a RAID card. The Z820 would let the TB2 card work in slot-2 as well [undocumented] — required dual CPUs for full PCIe lane distribution for slot-2 to work with the card apparently. So is your Z840 a single or dual CPU setup? It’s rare to see a Z840 as only single-CPU, but they’re out there.

Have you tried relocating your K5200? If not, move it to another proper slot and boot the system making sure all the PCIe stuff is sorted out and working properly. Then shut down and try to install the TB2 card in slot 5. I don’t have any notes on BIOS changes and there’s no mention of any of that in the HP docs for the TB2 card.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top