HP Z8 G4 and DCPMM/Optane DIMMs

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TL;DR version:

Intel Optane DCPMM modules on my Z8 G4 don’t work, citing errors 13-C and 7-11 for those specific modules. The BIOS will detect the Intel DIMMs and show them as disabled. I’m using 2nd gen modules with the blue heat spreader (NMB1XXD128GPS). RAM and CPU are upgraded and compatibility shouldn’t be an issue. Help, tech wizards! You’re my only hope!

Long, campfire version:

So, I got a great deal on an HP Z8 G4. It was pretty basic with dual Intel Xeon Silver 4108 CPUs and 4x 8GB RAM (The P4000 was a nice quick-start for my AI stuff since I’ve not run Team Green in a while) . One of the things on my wishlist of things to do was play with Intel Optane DCPMM, but I’m not having any success. I got 8x 128GB Optane DCPMM modules (NMB1XXD128GPS); these are second gen with higher throughput versus first gen, and are visually different by having a blue heat-spreader instead of black.

I’ve beefed up the specs to prepare for DCPMM:

  1. As per Intel’s Ark and HP’s documentation, the 4108 isn’t compatible with DCPMM, so I scrounged eBay and got a decent deal for dual Xeon Gold 5218. Higher base clocks, double the cores, more cache, and DCPMM is supported as per both HP and Intel Ark.

  2. I upped the paltry 32GB total to 256GB/320GB Micron RDIMMs. Since I have 8x DCPMM modules, I thought I might have to keep parity. In any event, HP recommends a 1:8 ratio, I’ve got a 1:3 or 1:4 ratio easily.

I intend on starting with memory mode and loading it up with Kubernetes and tons of simulated containers, trying to get cheap 1.25TB of RAM (or 1.3TB). Eventually I might try storage mode and try to make a big RAID0 of Optane connecting to the CPU directly via memory channels instead of PCIe like my 905p and 5800X.

The problem is, no matter how I load the DCPMM modules, the Intel sticks are always failing with error codes 13-C and 7-11 for each module. The BIOS detects the sticks as Intel (DISABLED) without fail. BIOS is up-to-date, but the NVDIMM BIOS features stay grayed out and these errors keep coming.

If anybody can help me out further, I’d be much obliged!

Gracias!

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Bump. Halp plox!

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incompatible combo
you need 3rd gen Xeon scalables to use 2nd gen Optane DIMMs

You’re runnin a second gen scalable
second gen is compatible with first gen Optane DIMMs

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He’s correct. Look for first generation modules with the black heat spreader on eBay. They’re very cheap.

I run a Z6 G4 with Optane DCPMM, and it works great.

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