I always wanted an XU800 maybe a 1ghz CPU. I just never found tghe one I liked for the right price.
The Kayak XU was my Daily driver back in 1990’s
Mine had Dual Pentium-II @400mhz with matrox g400 with Dual Sony 20-inch monitors.
I was running WinNT 4.0
And later Win2000
I later upgraded the CPUs to Dual Pentium-III@500mhz
512mb RAM
And Dual Seagate Cheetah SCSI hard drives.

I still have a two of these computers in my Garage.

But I loved that computer. It helped me in my work
I liked it so much I ended up purchasing about 5 more for my Family members too.
Great computers.
I mainly use HP workstation today because of the HP Kayak workstations performance, reliability and HP Support.
I use HP Z Class workstations today.

I really liked the keyboard with the LED light that would blink when ever you received an email. That was a great keyboard feature
I most liked.

Intel486dx33 wrote on 2024-06-23, 09:34:

The Kayak XU was my Daily driver back in 1990’s
Mine had Dual Pentium-II @400mhz with matrox g400 with Dual Sony 20-inch monitors.

I almost acquired a XU 7/500 last year, talked with the seller but missed auction by a few dollars - it was ending during my night time.

Still looking to get minitower or minitower-on-pedestal in the future. Most interesting machine would be Visualize X550 or XL550,
but even Kayak would be good. There is one XL550 on eBay right now, but with scratched case and this ruins the aerography aesthetics.

My love for HP machines comes from my work where we used a lot of Vectras. Hence why I had Vectra MT and then XU800 at home.

I mainly use HP workstation today because of the HP Kayak workstations performance, reliability and HP Support.
I use HP Z Class workstations today.

Wow, you kept true to HP! I did switch to Macs at work during the Windows Dark Ages and as a consequence didn't use a PC for a long time.
Now that I have Windows 11 since last year at home I didn't return to HP workstations (yet at least).

So for me Kayak/Visualize is the golden era for PC workstations.

I really liked the keyboard with the LED light that would blink when ever you received an email. That was a great keyboard feature
I most liked.

That was still the era where you weren't get like 10 messages per hour. 😀

P.S. If you had so many Kayaks, do you have any service manuals? The only ones I have are June 2000 (4th edition) and unfortunately
they don't describe 1GHz XU800 version so I don't know if I can reasonably upgrade to 1GHz or I'd need another MB revision for example.

No, I don’t have any physical service manuals.
I bought my HP Kayaks new and they came with Drivers CD, WinNT 4.9, and HP Kayak user guide.
But I think on the Drivers CD there are also Manuals and Docs in PDF format.

But you use to be able to download Manuals from HP
I use to have these manuals on my WD MyCloud NAS but it died and I lost access to all those old files.

But you should be able to download from the internet.

Today I use the HP z400 which is Fully supported by HP and Microsoft in Win-10 and Win-11
Works great and all the Drivers automatically install.
Supports Nvme and bifurcation too.
I mainly use MS-Windows today because of PC Hardware support, MS-Office, Printer support, and Amazingly it runs very good today.
I had a MacBook Pro and I had installed the latest MacOS and Win-10 using Apple Bootcamp.
I ran a lot of Benchmark programs in both Operating systems and Amazingly MS-Win-10 scored better benchmark scores on the Macbook than MacOS…… I was in shock !
Win-10 was about 10-15% percent faster on the MacBook Pro than MacOS.
I posted the results on Apple community support forum and they were surprised too.

So, I just stick with the MS-Windows computers today because of hardware support.
Drivers, and Printer support.

Its NOT like back before Win-10
There appear to be NOT many driver issues today and Windows is very stable and reliable today.
My HP z400 has never locked up, hung, or crashed. It’s so reliable and dependable.

Very nice rig but it's crying out for a second CPU!
is it useless mostly, but is it cool? most definitely!

Holy cr*p! SD-RAM on an 840 chipset? Is there some kind of MTH on the memory riser board?

And I must agree with chinny22 - that board screams for an extra CPU (but probably will need a VRM as well?)

Intel486dx33 wrote on 2024-06-23, 15:07:

But you use to be able to download Manuals from HP

Not anymore apparently for those old machines. Kayaks/Visualize/X-NNNN no longer there. Everything starts with xwNNNN apparently on support.hp.com.

These machines are still in partsurfer though. There are assorted bits and pieces here and there and maybe even manuals I need if you happen to know the direct URL.

But you should be able to download from the internet.

I am asking because I failed to find so far. The only thing I found is June 2000 Version 4 service manual version. I know
there are 1GHz XU800 models out there but I don't have the service manual for that.
See my plea here: https://www.amibay.com/threads/hp-kayak-and-v … dbooks.2446640/

Today I use the HP z400 which is Fully supported by HP and Microsoft in Win-10 and Win-11
My HP z400 has never locked up, hung, or crashed. It’s so reliable and dependable.

Wow, that one must be retro as well by now. You don't need anything newer for a daily driver?
I would think it would lack TPM to be fully supported by Win11 but I didn't research Z models
enough to be sure.

chinny22 wrote on 2024-06-24, 00:03:

Very nice rig but it's crying out for a second CPU!
is it useless mostly, but is it cool? most definitely!

I know.

I am yet to perform the Vogons' sacred rite of making Win NT 4.0 say '2 System Processors' during boot.

I love where there is more than one CPU in the system - just check my signature.

H3nrik V! wrote on 2024-06-24, 08:00:

Holy cr*p! SD-RAM on an 840 chipset? Is there some kind of MTH on the memory riser board?

Yes, here it is:

Looking at service manual I can judge that you would pick rdram if you didn't care about the price or didn't need max possible memory.

Largest modules for SDRAM were 512Mb (for total of 2Gb system ram)
Largest modules for RDRAM were 256Mb (for total of 1Gb system ram)

And I must agree with chinny22 - that board screams for an extra CPU (but probably will need a VRM as well?)

Yes, I need VRM P/N 0950-3633. Don't have one yet.

Also I need to understand if my system can have 1GHz CPUs. And I am unable to find the service manual for 1GHz models described to understand!
Hence my initial post in the first place, I wanted to try finding people with knowledge about Kayaks and XU800 in particular.
If someone with XU800 1GHz responds, it would be helpful.

If I manage this symbolic 1GHz, it would be great!

I have a gut feeling I will need to check PSU as well given that 2 cpus of higher frequency are likely to draw even more from 12V rail, which I am not happy about.

Now you have me wondering if I can put faster CPU than Pentium-III@500 in my XU computer
I have a Intel BX440 chipset motherboard with motherboard jumpers for 400mhz or 500mhz

Dwaco wrote on 2024-06-24, 17:45:

I love where there is more than one CPU in the system - just check my signature.

Your right I didn't see your signature, shows that this machine is with the right owner.

Never even seen a Kayak myself but this link may be interesting
https://hardforum.com/threads/hp-kayak-xu800.1029734

and especially this link in the last post
http://www.chris-winter.com/Digressions/HP_Ka … k/My_Kayak.html
The "question of power" section has a good statement
"1100MHz Coppermine uses less power (if only slightly less) than a 600MHz Katmai"

So you should be good, finding a pair of 1Ghz CPU's on the other hand

HP workstations are sexy AF, but their use of proprietary parts is a problem.

Dwaco wrote on 2024-06-23, 13:11:

P.S. If you had so many Kayaks, do you have any service manuals? The only ones I have are June 2000 (4th edition) and unfortunately
they don't describe 1GHz XU800 version so I don't know if I can reasonably upgrade to 1GHz or I'd need another MB revision for example.

There's nothing on the old Kayak support portal re. 1GHz processor support being tied to particular XU800 SKUs or system board revisions. Anyway, BIOS support for these processors wasn't added until July 2000 (v IA.11.08) and your model (D8021N?) is listed for this version. Latest version (v IA.11.10 / June 2001) is attached...

Come to think of it I don’t think there was ever a ‘service manual” for my Kayak XU.
There was a user guide, parts list, jumper settings, error codes, etc.

It use to be that all you had to do was call HP Support. If you needed replacement parts HP would send it out to you
No questions asked. Thats another reason I really liked these HP Kayaks.
But my Kayaks were built very good and Never had hardware problems.
Actually, Once a motherboard broke and a video card too because of a power surge. HP Support sent me out a New one.
I think HP support would handle all trouble shooting of your computer.
Also HP had a program called “top tools” that would perform basic diagnosis of your computer.
HP called it a “Service Handbook”

In this manual there is a section for XU600 and XU800
see attachment

Based solely on the release dates, there was a PDF (521km104en.pdf) version of the 'XU800 Service Handbook' dated Sep 2000 and then Sep 2001. Can't find it online, and since HP locked out browsing on their ftp servers, the only way to download from there is to know the exact filename and url.

chinny22 wrote on 2024-06-25, 00:33:

Never even seen a Kayak myself but this link may be interesting
https://hardforum.com/threads/hp-kayak-xu800.1029734

Oh, yes, this is where I initially learned that there is 1GHz XU800.

and especially this link in the last post
http://www.chris-winter.com/Digressions/HP_Ka … k/My_Kayak.html

And these are Kayak holy scriptures. 😀

The "question of power" section has a good statement
"1100MHz Coppermine uses less power (if only slightly less) than a 600MHz Katmai"

So you should be good, finding a pair of 1Ghz CPU's on the other hand

I am on Coppermine already (600EB), which draws ~15w. Couple of 100EB will draw ~60W, which is plus 45.
If this all comes from 12V rail (I don't know how this era VRMs work) then it is almost +4 amps on 12V rail, which
already gives 11.6-11.7 volts which already is close enough to -5% limit. This is basically like +4 hard disks at 10k rpm.

It is not necessarily relates to Xu800 in general but to my PSU specifically.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_P … _III_processors

Intel486dx33 wrote on 2024-06-25, 12:27:

Come to think of it I don’t think there was ever a ‘service manual” for my Kayak XU.
...
HP called it a “Service Handbook”

Yes, service handbook, sorry!

Exactly I was looking for version later than June 2000 (4th edition), which is available on many manuals sites.

So far I have found the following sections for (all except 6 are June 2000 version, 6 doesn't have title page):

1 - XU800,
2 - XU/XW Series 004XX ,
3 - XU Series 03XX XW u3/w3 ,
6 - XU up to 333 MHz,
7 - XA-S DT Series 02XX ,
8 - XA-S MT Series 02XX,
10 - XA Series 05XX

PC Hoarder Patrol wrote on 2024-06-25, 16:20:

Based solely on the release dates, there was a PDF (521km104en.pdf) version of the 'XU800 Service Handbook' dated Sep 2000 and then Sep 2001. Can't find it online, and since HP locked out browsing on their ftp servers, the only way to download from there is to know the exact filename and url.

Wow, this is something to work with.

How do you know the file name?

Which are the ftp sites?

Errius wrote on 2024-06-25, 03:44:

HP workstations are sexy AF, but their use of proprietary parts is a problem.

I know that many people (don't know where this comes from) call those machines 'prebuilt' and frown upon any proprietary stuff.

When proprietary stuff is to shave off a couple of dollars from the cost it is one thing (such as putting front USB ports on motherboard which is longer at one specific place).

If proprietary thing is to try to do something special (like LCD screen on front bezel or controlled cooling flow) - it is completely different.

Those machines are special and parts being proprietary is the price.

Dwaco wrote on 2024-06-25, 18:24:

I am on Coppermine already (600EB), which draws ~15w. Couple of 100EB will draw ~60W, which is plus 45. If this all comes from 1 […]
Show full quote

I am on Coppermine already (600EB), which draws ~15w. Couple of 100EB will draw ~60W, which is plus 45.
If this all comes from 12V rail (I don't know how this era VRMs work) then it is almost +4 amps on 12V rail, which
already gives 11.6-11.7 volts which already is close enough to -5% limit. This is basically like +4 hard disks at 10k rpm.

It is not necessarily relates to Xu800 in general but to my PSU specifically.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_P … _III_processors

But could it run with e.g. Katmai 600? They would be a lot more power-hungry than the Coppermines, maybe equivalent to 1100s?