MOTUnation.com

Just read thru HCMarkus' thread here:

Xeon X5680s Now Under $200
http://www.motunation.com/forum/viewtop ... =4&t=58848

After an eBay shopping spree the last couple of days, I've got a 2009 2.66ghz 8-core 16gb on the way. And a pair of X5670's.

I understand that the stock processors in that machine are de-lidded.

However I am a little scared to de-lid my new (used) X5670's.

So have been researching what it takes to install processors that still have the IHS still intact.

Looks fiddly but I am patient and careful.

Best resources I've found are:

Step by Step: Mac Pro Processor Upgrade
http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/ ... or_upgrade

YouTube:

This guy makes it look easy:
2009 8-Core Mac Pro Upgrade to 2010 12-Core
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ng34AVZS8Aw

This guy makes it look scary, but it still works:
Mac Pro 2009 CPU upgrade 8 core Nehalem to 2010 12 core Westmere
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAdgT-hJuXU

If any of you have done this would love to hear how it worked out for you.

To de-lid or not to de-lid, that is the question.

I haven't done either Emu, but there are proponents of both approaches with success stories. Michael Canavan, who successfully de-lidded his Xeons, talks about it in detail in the Xeon thread. You can also pay this guy at Ebay to do it for you:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/2009-Mac-Pro-Du ... SweW5VGXm2

He has a sure-fire approach and has done a whole bunch of de-lidding jobs. $130 for a pair seems like a reasonable deal to me. He also offers the necessary 3mm hex wrench, thermal paste, and firmware update in order to install these CPU's for one-stop shopping.

If you don't de-lid, you will need to use great care when fitting and tightening down the CPU heatsinks and add extra thermal padding to thicken the existing thermal pads. Here is the original horror story:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/2800/upgr ... mac-pro/11

Don't forget to update EFI before using either method, or your new CPUs won't be recognized and your Mac won't boot.

You will love your new Mac's performance once you do the upgrade. Good luck!

IMO neither method is "safe". not delidding means trying to strike a balance when tightening down the heatsink screws between not tight enough and crushing the cpu. Delidding requires you to do some work. I'm not the most detailed and light handed person when it comes to doing things like this and I did alright.

Personally as may be expected I would delid them myself, in the end it's the safest and cheapest.

HC:

It is going to be a great upgrade for me! My current desktop is Mac Pro (early 2008) 2.8ghz 8-core. Just ran geek bench on it, 64 bit multicore score was 11494.

HCMarkus wrote:You can also pay this guy at Ebay to do it for you:

Seriously considering this after reading that anandtech article as well as some other failure stories. Funny he lives in the next town over from me, about a 1/2 hr away. Has a 1 to 2 day turnaround. Contacted him and he was up for meeting at a local coffee house to get the CPU's and then return them to me at the coffee house when done. Very good guy.

----------------------------------------------------

HOLY COW that anandtech article is indeed a real horror story. Was glad to see it had a happy ending but a rather expensive one. This is certainly giving me some pause about installing un-delidded CPUs.

OTOH This guy clarifies adding thermal pad etc in response to a question about avoiding CPU frying as described in that anandtech article:

http://forums.macrumors.com/threads/200 ... t-16463345

Also FWIW here's a couple more successful ones:

Pimp my Mac: MP 2009 Dual CPU upgrade experience
http://forums.macrumors.com/threads/pim ... e.1457999/

2009 Mac Pro 12 Core CPU Upgrade
http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/feedback/200 ... grade.html

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HCMarkus wrote:Don't forget to update EFI before using either method, or your new CPUs won't be recognized and your Mac won't boot.

Happily the Mac Pro coming has already had the firmware update done. But what do you think about this post about Apple Hardware Tools? This is reply #976 by fdog in the Mac Pro firmware update thread http://forum.netkas.org/index.php/topic,852.0.html

fdog wrote:<snip>In addition to updating the firmware to (5,1) level, be sure to update the Apple Hardware Tools correspondingly. Github website has pertinent information:

https://github.com/upekkha/AppleHardwareTest

Otherwise you may very well end up with the following error: 4VDC/3/40000003 : VideoController
<snip>
So there's a possible fix for those of you getting that error with Apple Hardware Test. If you've upgraded your firmware, make sure the test software has been upgraded as well. Could save you from replacing a perfectly fine board or graphics card to no avail.

Did you need to do that AHD update?

FWIW Apple Support doc on AHD:
Using Apple Hardware Test
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201257

Michael Canavan wrote:Delidding requires you to do some work. I'm not the most detailed and light handed person when it comes to doing things like this and I did alright.

Personally as may be expected I would delid them myself, in the end it's the safest and cheapest.

Was fascinated to read about your experience in HC's main thread. I gotta say that took BALLS.

I'm still considering doing it myself. . .I am a cheap bastard. . .

A long step-by-step video about the razor blade/heat method:

Delid Soldered CPU Guide
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WoLkniC ... tml5=False

So he says something about putting clear nail polish on the de-lidded CPU? That seems weird.

Apparently, per this article, the rubber mallet/vise method is "safer" than the razor blade method:

Delidding your Intel Haswell CPU (Vise and Rubber Mallet Method)
http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Editorial/ ... aswell-CPU

While this method seems much more prone to CPU destruction than the razor blade method, it is actually a much safer method and much less prone to pitfalls.

Do have a lovely rubber mallet, but don't have a vise and cheapest I can find is $70.00 . . .may be able to hit up a friend though.

emulatorloo wrote:

Michael Canavan wrote:Delidding requires you to do some work. I'm not the most detailed and light handed person when it comes to doing things like this and I did alright.

Personally as may be expected I would delid them myself, in the end it's the safest and cheapest.

Was fascinated to read about your experience in HC's main thread. I gotta say that took BALLS.

I'm still considering doing it myself. . .I am a cheap bastard. . .

A long step-by-step video about the razor blade/heat method:

Delid Soldered CPU Guide
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WoLkniC ... tml5=False

So he says something about putting clear nail polish on the de-lidded CPU? That seems weird.

Apparently, per this article, the rubber mallet/vise method is "safer" than the razor blade method:

Delidding your Intel Haswell CPU (Vise and Rubber Mallet Method)
http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Editorial/ ... aswell-CPU

While this method seems much more prone to CPU destruction than the razor blade method, it is actually a much safer method and much less prone to pitfalls.

Do have a lovely rubber mallet, but don't have a vise and cheapest I can find is $70.00 . . .may be able to hit up a friend though.

I don't agree that it's safer, using an iron is going to be the safest, besides people in labs with heat plates that stay at a certain temperature. I wouldn't use the fireplace lighter method he uses either, because you're more likely to go well beyond the limits heat wise of what the CPU can handle. You gotta figure these things can get up to 200ºF, but a lighter can put out a lot hotter than that.
The nail polish idea also seems like a bad idea to me, you're putting heatsink paste on it when you instal it, and as far as I know nail polish isn't a high heat substance.

The main thing to remember I think when doing the razor blade method is to look at your old CPUs as guides three sides if I recall correctly are exactly the same glue and distance to the chip inside, but one side is closer. Also although it's easier to use, one sided razor blades are significantly thicker, it's easier to use the two sided ones for old fashioned razors in the sense that they cut through the glue a lot better, just watch cutting yourself.

Did you need to do that AHD update?

I didn't on any of the machines I updated (three so far) and hadn't before heard of any AHD issue.

Michael Canavan wrote:I don't agree that it's safer, using an iron is going to be the safest, besides people in labs with heat plates that stay at a certain temperature.

Michael, do you remember what your iron was set to? (Mine has settings from 1 to 7, with 1 to 3 being "permanent press."

I totally screwed-up a hack to my old windows machine yesterday. 771 to 775 adaptor project to put a quad core Xeon in a core2 motherboard. Had to cut tabs off the processor socket to get Xeon to fit. Slipped w exacto knife and messed up pins in socket. Tried to get them straightened out but no joy. Seems to work but just not stable. Oh well.

Will say makes me nervous about ••••ing up a Mac Pro 2009! (have done processor swaps/upgrades before though)

Another delidding video:

Delidding a Soldered CPU (X5690s)
https://linustechtips.com/main/topic/51 ... dered-cpu/

Current thinking is to practice on one of the CPUs from my botched Windows machine upgrade. (have a bid in on an already modified gigabyte mb with Xeon installed)






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Theses li'l capacitors worry me. I'd pay the $130 to your neighbor Box 185. If you can avoid EBay, he'll probably give you a locals discount.

HCMarkus wrote:Theses li'l capacitors worry me. I'd pay the $130 to your neighbor Box 185. If you can avoid EBay, he'll probably give you a locals discount.

Probably the least stressful option, huh.

Found another guy on eBay who will delid them for $100.00 or if I send tray will do install for $150.00. That is a pretty good deal but not too worried about doing the install into tray if processors are de-lidded (have 2009 service manual.)

However by the time I ship stuff to him, the local guy's price is very competitive. Plus local guy can do it in 1-2 days.

Mac arrives tomorrow! Processors on Thursday! Already have used 32gb ram upgrade in hand and OWC SSD drive tray. Removing SSD from my early 2008 today, installed in optical bay.

Will run Tech Tool 7, etc. and play with it some before I get to the upgrade.

THANKS! Will update once I've got this all done . . .

Will run Tech Tool 7, etc. and play with it some before I get to the upgrade.

What do you plan to do in TTP?

mikehalloran wrote:What do you plan to do in TTP?

Just standard suite of tests. Mostly interested in memory and processor tests. I have a 30 day return on the Mac so wanna make sure all is good.

Also that new package of 32gb used ram that needs testing too.

Any other ideas of what I should look at?

emulatorloo wrote:

mikehalloran wrote:What do you plan to do in TTP?

Just standard suite of tests. Mostly interested in memory and processor tests. I have a 30 day return on the Mac so wanna make sure all is good.

Also that new package of 32gb used ram that needs testing too.

Any other ideas of what I should look at?

No, that's pretty much it. Use the last build of TTP 7, of course (7.07?)—some of the early builds were weird. It's the best tool for finding bad RAM and VRAM that I have ever used.

Likewise, checking the S.M.A.R.T. Status of a drive is one of of the reasons to own TTP. Disk Utility just says Pass/Fail. TTP will show you why a "good" drive should be replaced ASAP. I don't care what Disk Utility had, this drive was giving me major grief and TTP showed why:




Other than S.M.A.R.T. Status, TTP is fairly useless for disk issues anymore. It can't fix anything unlike Disk Utility. At least the later builds of TTP 7 know not to attempt to optimize an SSD. The crapware says that's not recommended in very fine print—then does it anyway, a process that will slow down or cripple a solid state drive. HHD optimization is pointless on an SATA drive but it makes people feel good.

For the drives, use Apple Disk Utility. Check the entire drive, not just the volumes. If anything pops red, the drive is no good. HHDs are dirt cheap. I certainly wouldn't return a Mac because you find a bad one. OTOH, a small refund for bad components? Never hurts to ask, right? Hopefully, you won't find any. Write to Zeros will find a bad HHD just as fast (don't do that with an SSD—not necessary) or faster than TTP.

TTP will run Optimize Files on an SSD but not to worry as TRIM and Garbage Collection will have them completely scattered within 24 hours. It's not as harmful as Optimize Disk but it does absolutely no good either.

I have TTP 8. This adds a few more RAM tests and can check fans etc. I'm not going to say it's worth the upgrade $ but I won't say it's not. I'm pretty certain that I'm unlikely to upgrade again, however.

Mike: Thanks a million for all that great advice! Especially regarding the SMART check and when you decide a drive needs to be replace.

Mac arrived, have run those tests and everything is looking great!