Repair my Z820 Dual E-5-2687W or build new PC?

Sitti_S

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Apr 11, 2017
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Hello,

My 5-year old HP Z820 just died today. This is the second time and this time it is out of warranty. After hours of attempting to revive it, I have concluded that motherboard is totally dead. I'm going to take it HP service center to see how much it will cost me to repair assuming they still have the parts. I am pretty sure repair will be costly. If it costs between $600 ~ $1000, would you have HP repair it or build a new one?

Here is its spec:
Dual E5-2687W 3.1Ghz with liquid cooling
64GB DDR3 ECC

I don't use it for work anymore, I now mainly use it for gaming (just got 1080Ti) and some photo editing. What do you think? If I build a new one with latest i7 or Ryzen, would it be a upgrade or downgrade for me? My Z820 handles everything I throw at it really well, I haven't felt the need to upgrade it. In gaming, it probably won't make any notifiable difference but in tasks that require raw processing powers I think 5 year old dual xeon would still beat the best & latest i7.

I search around the motherboard for Z820 and it is really expensive. There are unauthorized shops selling refurbished at lower price but not sure if I can trust them. I'm afraid it might fail soon after. I am also considering of buying some leftover new Asus or ASRock C602 motherboard from ebay. It won't fit in Z820 case, so I will have remove most components from Z820 and assemble them in different case. Then I will have to buy new heatsink for CPUs and PSU. That will cost me at least $500 and up.
 
Go buy a used motherboard off eBay. A repair from HP will cost a thousand dollars and unless someone else is paying for it, isn't really worth the increased reliability.
That being said photo editing doesn't scale to 16 cores unless you do loads of batch processing, so you will see less loss in performance than you think going to a 4GHz Ryzen. You could probably get $500 for the processors, which would pay for the new CPU and a decent X370 board.
 
Make sure it's actually the board before swapping parts/buying new ones. Could be the power supply or perhaps a stick of memory came slightly loose. Rule out the video card as well. Give the machine (including power supply) a good cleaning if needed as well.
 
I have taken it to HP to have them check it professionally to be sure and quote for repair cost. I checked PSU, RAM, GPU, they were all fine. I have no other compatible mother to check the CPUs, but it is unlikely that either one is busted. I have re-seated the CPUs and that wasn't the problem. I'm almost certain that it is the motherboard. It had been showing some signs for the last couple weeks. I believe I caused that problem. While back, there was a time I had problems with my Quadros. I was swapping around the graphics cards so many times. I became frustrated, I removed and inserted a graphics card without unplugging the power cord from power supply. The moment I inserted a video card, it powered up my PC then it shut down on its own a moment later. It was still working after that until I bought the new GTX1080 Ti.

This time I didn't forget to unplug the power cord. Installed 1080ti and powered it up. It booted with an error says something like I didn't connect PCIE power cable to the video card, which I certainly did. I reseated it, plugged in all power cables, powered up the PC, I still got the same error message. Then I reseated it once again, this time it booted without an error. It worked fine for couple weeks until my leg bumped the PC. It wasn't a hard bump at all, it was a very very light bump. It wouldn't even hurt a baby. It definitely wouldn't cause any damage to any component. However, this crashed the PC and restarted with an error for PCIE slot #2, where 1080ti is installed. I shut it down and powered it up. It was still working fine, booted all the way to win10.

Here is the interesting part. A few days later, My Z820 was still working fine. As I was just about to insert an USB thumb drive, I placed my hand right on the case. The exact moment I touched top of the case, a monitor went black and Z820 completely stopped responding. Shut it down and powered it up. Nothing displays, no post, no beep, only CPU fans were spinning at maximum making very loud noise. Apparently, a very tiny vibration from my hand touching the case damaged the PCIE slot #2, which led to damage the whole motherboard. Maybe weight of 1080ti was also making it worse for dying PCIE slot.

Anyway, I'll let you know as soon as I hear from HP.
 
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You might be surpised. I use to repair HP's and the board costs out of warranty were all over the place. $500-$1,000 isn't out of the question but I've seen those parts for a lot less than that. If you don't like the estimate, I'd search for one on Ebay and repair the machine that way.
 
Finally I received a quote from HP total repair cost will be $470 includes labor and new motherboard. They are giving me "60% discount" on parts. It may be a refurbished or some left over new motherboard, but I will get 90-day warranty after this repair. Definitely better than buying motherboard myself and pray that it won't be defective. Looks like I should go with HP repair. Anybody think I should spend extra few hundred dollars and build a new PC with i7 7700k? (I will also need to buy DDR4 rams, new case and PSU)
 
This is what would work for me:

1. Price out a new build;
2. Compare the cost to repair to the cost of the new build;
3. Decide if the extra cost associated with the new build is in your "comfort zone" if it is then think some more about it;
4. If you decide it's better to repair a system you like and find suits your gaming needs do that; and
5. Find a low cost bond mutual fund you feel comfortable with and use the additional money you would have spent on a new build to open an account and let that money grow so you have it when the "I NEED A NEW BUILD" bug bites so hard you have no choice! :D

In a year the next great CPU, etc. will be in the news and you won't have the associated buyer's remorse that you bought a year too early. :D

Just my 2¢.
 
Finally I received a quote from HP total repair cost will be $470 includes labor and new motherboard. They are giving me "60% discount" on parts. It may be a refurbished or some left over new motherboard, but I will get 90-day warranty after this repair. Definitely better than buying motherboard myself and pray that it won't be defective. Looks like I should go with HP repair. Anybody think I should spend extra few hundred dollars and build a new PC with i7 7700k? (I will also need to buy DDR4 rams, new case and PSU)

Check ebay, any reputable vendor has a DoA and typically 60-90 day warranty on parts, too.
 
Finally I received a quote from HP total repair cost will be $470 includes labor and new motherboard. They are giving me "60% discount" on parts. It may be a refurbished or some left over new motherboard, but I will get 90-day warranty after this repair. Definitely better than buying motherboard myself and pray that it won't be defective. Looks like I should go with HP repair. Anybody think I should spend extra few hundred dollars and build a new PC with i7 7700k? (I will also need to buy DDR4 rams, new case and PSU)
That's crazy money for the actual value, skip the z820 and go snag a barebones z620 and transplant your cpu and ram. Total cost should be $250-$300.
 
This is what would work for me:

1. Price out a new build;
2. Compare the cost to repair to the cost of the new build;
3. Decide if the extra cost associated with the new build is in your "comfort zone" if it is then think some more about it;
4. If you decide it's better to repair a system you like and find suits your gaming needs do that; and
5. Find a low cost bond mutual fund you feel comfortable with and use the additional money you would have spent on a new build to open an account and let that money grow so you have it when the "I NEED A NEW BUILD" bug bites so hard you have no choice! :D

In a year the next great CPU, etc. will be in the news and you won't have the associated buyer's remorse that you bought a year too early. :D

Just my 2¢.

This man speaks the truth. Good, logical advice in that post!
 
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