I managed to buy a second-hand HP Z2 G9 W680 motherboard for less than €100 and within the last 3 months had gained enough experience to share. Cons

A cost-effective Intel W680 ECC server

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2024-04-26 20:00:09

I managed to buy a second-hand HP Z2 G9 W680 motherboard for less than €100 and within the last 3 months had gained enough experience to share. Considering all other W680 motherboards cost upwards of USD 500 at this point, this turns out to be a fairly attractive solution to get a modern Intel system with low idle power consumption, PCIe Gen 5, and, most importantly, ECC memory support.

HP, Dell, and Lenovo all use proprietary PSUs, which at least in case HP are actually conformant to ATX12VO. That means the PSUs themselves only deliver 12V to the board, which then handles the 5V supply by itself. This also means that using off-the-self PSU is very limited, especially because the board expects +12VSB (stand-by voltage), as opposed to the standard 5V. There are workarounds available (google it), but I resorted to using an HP power supply.The G5 system 450W PSU I use, with three 18A 12V rails

For the record, while the HP Z2 G9 can be configured with 3 different PSUs, you can use PSUs from other compatible systems. Notably, the PSU must have a 7-pin PWRCMD connector, as opposed to a 6-pin That is, however, not enough, as not all PSUs have enough wires in the connector, and my conclusion at this point is that any PSU with black cabling and a 7-pin PWRCMD connector will work with this system. I am myself using it with an HP G5 450W PSU, which has Gold certification — although Platinum ones are also available. 7-pin connector with 7 black wires, plus three 12V connectors