Hi yall,
Been a long time lurker, and have gotten quite a bit of very useful info from here over the years. So it's time for me to return the favor.
I've got an HP Z440 with an E5-1650v3. Since I had a spare AIO laying around, I figured I'd throw it on and try to solve the "overclocking an HP motherboard" puzzle. Obviously the CPU itself is easily overclocked in an aftermarket board. And rumor and anecdotal evidence of *some* ancient bios versions being capable of turning up the wick. Honestly don't have time to try a dozen different bios, and I'd certainly lose my m.2 boot drive support doing that. So no thanks.
Anyways, the solution isn't elegant, it requires keeping the installation file for the version of XTU someone else had posted somewhere as the one they'd used with some success. So I'll list the versions of everything I'm running. And hopefully everyone who picks up this wonderful black bricks of a computer can enjoy ruining the benchmark standings, and their thermal paste much easier now.
HP Z440
Bios version - M60 v02.54
Bios date - 06/12/2020
Windows 10 21H1
Intel XTU 6.0.2.2
Throttlestop 9.4.2
That's it. That's all you need. We'll, and a much better cooling solution. I've got a 110mm radiator on my cooling loop for the CPU, and it keeps it around 42 degrees at 4ghz under full load. But the stock cooler well, wouldn't do that lmao.
So first off. If you have XTU, Uninstall it. And make sure to click Uninstall options and remove all profiles.
Put computer to sleep. This is *the* most important step. Several reasons why this process may not work (other tuning software running when XTU fires up, maybe a different bios? Idk, didn't try any others) but without putting it to sleep, the code intel had HP put in to lock the processors will be active.
Wake computer up.
Install throttlestop. Go in and unlock overclocking, and move the OC thread/core numbers up as much as you want. Doesn't matter, it's controlled in XTU i got bored of clicking around 65. Again, doesnt matter as long as its higher than the speed you want. I went and unlocked all the voltage controls in FIVR too. Don't bother changing anything. Again, only use XTU to make applicable changes.
Once that's done, close throttlestop, make sure it's not in the tray.
Install XTU. And hey presto, all the sliders are active. (Well enough to dial up the juice and have some fun!)
I've ran mine at 4.3 for a bit, using a CPU crypto miner to load it up, and it ran happy as can be. Then I decided it needed a lot more voltage. Which it disagreed strongly with, and froze. Once you reboot, you gotta Uninstall XTU, and reinstall, to get OC control back.
So now it's just sitting happy as can be at 4ghz, mining away on some coin that I'm sure isn't going to exist in a year, for 45 minutes now. When I get some time I'll start fine tuning and do a benchmark I can link to. But for now, a picture of the OC will have to suffice.
Happy free ghz
![Smile]( "Smile")
and enjoy melting your once rather expensive xeon processors!
Cheers,
Robin.
and enjoy melting your once rather expensive xeon processors! 
