SUCCESS: 2006 MacPro upgraded - 2 x Xeon 5355 Quad-cores!

[JPamplin]

Guys,

Just wanted to let everyone know that I just did a "drop-in" replacement of CPUs in the 2006 Mac Pros to two Xeon 5355 2.66Ghz/8MB/1333 quad-core CPUs, and the beast is humming along without a hiccup. I got them used from a Australian dealer off eBay for $300 US each. You can find them (rarely) on eBay or Googling for a bit less used, a bit more new.

The trick was a) finding 5355s at a decent price on eBay (not easy - be patient), and b) getting the Eklind 3mm hex wrench, which is 9-10" long ($4 at ACE Hardware). It was so simple at that point to get off the heatsinks.

Speed increases are most apparent in Handbrake (h.264 - 175 FPS) and Power Fractal (78 Gigaflops/s, I think). SL 10.6 build 402 seems very responsive with them. Temps are 90 idle, and never go above 130 degrees F or so when stressed continuously.

Mike at xlr8yourmac.com (http://xlr8yourmac.com) put it on the front page this weekend, which was nice.

German Youtube video that helped a lot: click here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOF435jCg8E)

Will include pics of the Pro disassembled, and the hex tool with old CPUs. I just added some pics of my ATI 3870 with the Accelero S1 (fantastic product) - I set up a pictorial guide to assembly (with descriptions in slide show view) here: http://picasaweb.google.com/pamplin/ATI3870Cooler


JP

[lannister80]

[SIZE="2"]Guys,

Just wanted to let everyone know that I just did a "drop-in" replacement of CPUs in the 2006 Mac Pros to two Xeon 5355 2.66Ghz/8MB/1333 quad-core CPUs, and the beast is humming along without a hiccup. I got them used from a Australian dealer off eBay for $300 US each. You can find them (rarely) on eBay or Googling for a bit less used, a bit more new.

The trick was a) finding 5355s at a decent price on eBay (not easy - be patient), and b) getting the Eklind 3mm hex wrench, which is 9-10" long ($4 at ACE Hardware). It was so simple at that point to get off the heatsinks.

Wait, this WORKS? I thought the 5355s required a completely different machine architecture (no FSB, different memory controllers, etc).

[bozz2006]

nah, you're thinking of the nehalem(5500)-based mac pro. lannister is talking about the 2006 mac pro with the woodcrest(51xx) -> clovertown(53xx) processors.

[noiceT]

Congrats on your upgrade :)
I've been wanting to tinker as well, however I'm too scared to remove the fan module... How did you remove it? Brute force I'm guessing? Everytime I try to remove it, I feel as though I'm going to break something.

[bozz2006]

it's held in by one screw. it's pretty resilient.

[bearcatrp]

Congrats and welcome to the club. I was hesitant at first myself but with patients, its worth it.

noiceT, you won't break it. Just watch what your doing.

Wish I could find a pair of 3ghz ones without breaking the bank.

[JPamplin]

The 3.0 Ghz 5365s were barely even released, if memory serves me. I'd be very surprised if you find any. I looked.

Yeah, I did this for preparation for 10.6, and so far, everything seems very snappy on it. I haven't installed iStat Menus in my 10.6 test environment yet to see if it's truly distributing load across the cores. I'll do that and report back.

The latest Pro's are smokin fast, true. But I got this 2006 Pro with a 23" Apple LCD for $1000 at a corporate fire sale (they had no idea what it was worth, I guess), and with the ATI 3870, 8GB total RAM, 5 HDs, and the new CPUs, I've got maybe $2000 in it. I think it'll last me a long time compared to buying a $4500-5000 new Pro. I'm quite proud of it (and it's my first Intel-based Mac, so it's great to see how far they've come).

You'll see me here quite a bit from now on - any really good Pro-related threads I should catch up on here?

Thanks,

JP

[bearcatrp]

I have found some for around 5 to 8 hundred a piece used. Newegg was selling them for over a grand new but discontinued them. If you want to see all cores in action, download handbrake and rip a dvd. Looks cool watching all cores working.

[noiceT]

it's held in by one screw. it's pretty resilient.

Yeah, I unscrewed the top screw, but it's still very stuck in there. When I was installing the 5th drive in the lower optical I attempted to remove the fan, but gave up. Luckily just buy removing the top screw, I was able to slide the sata cable nicely into the ODD port.

Well, I guess if I can find a good deal on the 5355s I'll attempt again :)

Btw, any thoughts on the e5300 series?

[bozz2006]

I know there is at least one person here who's using the 2.33 ghz version with excellent results. Saves lots of electricity, i think!

[gugucom]

well done. I just dropped in the x5365s and it also went nicely. The fan unit can be a bitch to get out. Use one of these metal back planes for empty slots. Hook them under the right side of the fan unit and wriggle it while you pull it up. It allways want to jam in that bloody slot on the right side where it is vertically guided.

[JPamplin]

Where did you find the 5365s, and how much were they, if you don't mind me asking?

JP

[bozz2006]

He got them for about 200 Euros apiece, I think. He is from Germany, so I don't think he acquired them by the same methods we Americans would use.

[bearcatrp]

I know there is at least one person here who's using the 2.33 ghz version with excellent results. Saves lots of electricity, i think!

Yep, that would be mine. The wattage was lower so went with theses. Just use this for crunching data for world community grid 24/7 and these help keep the heat and electric bill down.

[noiceT]

Yep, that would be mine. The wattage was lower so went with theses. Just use this for crunching data for world community grid 24/7 and these help keep the heat and electric bill down.

So did you go with the actual 2.33 or go with the e5320 1.86 and use "tape mod" to bring to 2.33?

I see the 1.86 ghz on ebay at a very nice price.

[bozz2006]

I've read about that mod. That's a little too sketch for my liking!

[Eidorian]

Nice job picking up the machine for cheap and the new processors. It's amazing how some people don't realize the real value of a Mac. It's sad you can't move to Harpertown on that machine.

I didn't realize the long hex wrench would be so cheap.

[bearcatrp]

So did you go with the actual 2.33 or go with the e5320 1.86 and use "tape mod" to bring to 2.33?

I see the 1.86 ghz on ebay at a very nice price.

I went with the actual 2.33. There is another tool to speed up the processors but it also screws with the time on the machine too. Can't remember the name but will find it and get back with you.

Here it is...
http://gizmodo.com/tag/zdnet-clock/

[tobyg]

So did you go with the actual 2.33 or go with the e5320 1.86 and use "tape mod" to bring to 2.33?

I see the 1.86 ghz on ebay at a very nice price.

I tried the tape mod on two 5320's. Didn't work well for me. Machine would lock up a few times a week. Went back to the stock CPU's and all was fine, so I know it was just the CPU's. Didn't run the machine at the stock CPU speeds for the quad core cpu's, just didn't seem worth it to me. I don't have my old 2006 Mac Pro any longer.

[noiceT]

Hi tobyg, thanks for the heads up. Yeah I think I'm a little weary about doing that mod myself... want to find x5355, but I guess it's all about timing :p

What is the difference between the "e" and "x" in the cpus?
I was trying to compare but can't find the answer.

http://ark.intel.com/Compare.aspx?ids=28032,28031,30702,28035,

[gugucom]

Where did you find the 5365s, and how much were they, if you don't mind me asking?

JP


yeah, Bozz is right. I got one on Ebay Germany for the equivalent of 309 US$. Later I learned the seller had another one which he sold me for the same price. So I got the pair used for 618US$ and had no tax and duty as I would have had if they came from outside the EU (+25%). Three days later a pair of engineering samples were sold for 510€ which is a bit more. But those deals are very rare. I was looking for a month until I found them.

[bozz2006]

Hi tobyg, thanks for the heads up. Yeah I think I'm a little weary about doing that mod myself... want to find x5355, but I guess it's all about timing :p

What is the difference between the "e" and "x" in the cpus?
I was trying to compare but can't find the answer.

http://ark.intel.com/Compare.aspx?ids=28032,28031,30702,28035,

The "e" and "x" designate the TDP of each chip. The ones that run higher clock typically draw more power and utilize a higher TDP. Basically the "e" and "x", and "l" for that matter, just designiate how much electricity that the processor will use. "l" is low. "e" is medium. "x" is lots!

[JPamplin]

By the way, you're right, it's difficult to get that module up and out of the Pro, but after the screw is removed, I just took a flathead screwdriver and worked it out slowly back and forth until it loosened up and came out. I guess I should have shot a video, but it's pretty easy once you try.

JP

Congrats on your upgrade :)
I've been wanting to tinker as well, however I'm too scared to remove the fan module... How did you remove it? Brute force I'm guessing? Everytime I try to remove it, I feel as though I'm going to break something.

[JPamplin]

@Bearcatrp,

I tried that utility too - I bumped up the FSB from 333 to 350, to get 2.8 Ghz on the 5355s. It seemed to work stably, but then I launched iTunes and played a song or two - and it started "skipping". RED FLAG.

So I immediately took it back down - it wasn't worth it in my mind. Did you see that too?

JP

There is another tool to speed up the processors but it also screws with the time on the machine too. Can't remember the name but will find it and get back with you.

Here it is...
http://gizmodo.com/tag/zdnet-clock/

[bearcatrp]

Yes i did too. It was a good effort on there part to make it but not worth the problems it creates.

[Tesselator]

Sweet! Nice pics too! I did mine like that too. Still on the 7300GT tho. :p

I like the pics and slide-show you added too!

So what's you're CineBench, XBench, and GeekBench?

My CineBench is the one named "2006 2.66 Octad-Upgrade" Here (http://forums.macrumors.com/showpost.php?p=7270035&postcount=179).

And my GeekBench is Here (http://browse.geekbench.ca/geekbench2/view/123617)

[JPamplin]

Thanks!

You bring up a good point - I never posted my benchies - here we go:

GeekBench 32-bit: 7440
XBench: 190
CineBench - screenshot attached

Zip of GeekBench and XBench results files attached in ZIP - Cinebench screenshot below.

JP

Sweet! Nice pics too! I did mine like that too. Still on the 7300GT tho. :p

I like the pics and slide-show you added too!

So what's you're CineBench, XBench, and GeekBench?

My CineBench is the one named "2006 2.66 Octad-Upgrade" Here (http://forums.macrumors.com/showpost.php?p=7270035&postcount=179).

And my GeekBench is Here (http://browse.geekbench.ca/geekbench2/view/123617)

[greenmac]

Just thought it might be interesting to compare with the standard 5150 quad core Mac Pro 1,1.

so here's my results for 4 x 2.66 / 6GB RAM / ATI Radeon 4870 PC flashed to Mac (but only running in 8x lane as I can't fit it in slot 1 :( )

Geekbench 32: 5351
XBench: 168
Cinebench - screenshot attached
Open GL screenshots attatched, 1 benchmark 1 not. AFAIK benchmark is just GPU performance the other includes CPU too.

Interesting to note that our XBench results were fairly similar apart from my graphics rightfully topping yours but my disk test failing miserably...
geekbench and cinebench as expected, single thread about the same, multi thread about half as fast.

[bozz2006]

so you physically can not fit the 4870 into slot 1? You should be able to. What's the problem? Let's get that thing into slot 1!

[greenmac]

I might be able to get it in with some modifying. the screws on the heatsinks are too big at the moment

[bozz2006]

that's weird. You shouldn't have to modify anything. It should fit right in. What screws on what heatsinks are you talking about?

[tobyg]

As I and others have found out, and mentioned in the other 4870 threads, some 4870's (not Apple's of course) have longer screws in the back holding the heat sink on. These screws end up hitting the memory cage and in some cases may be too long to even get the card in the bottom slot.

[bozz2006]

that sucks! Grind those suckers down!

[Spacedust]

I just got two Quad Core Xeons E5345's 2.33 GHz and will be replacing tommorow my old Dual Core Xeons 5130's 2.0 GHz.

The problem is I discovered they had a different stepping. One is SLAC5, and the other is SLAEJ. Will they work together ?

http://img27.imageshack.us/img27/673/dsc00101ttg.jpg

[bearcatrp]

I don't think you will have a problem reading this....
http://ark.intel.com/Product.aspx?id=28032

But do some more digging to be sure.

[Spacedust]

Thank you. Will see it tommorow. I'm waiting for a long 3 mm hex key ;)

[JPamplin]

Thank you. Will see it tomorrow. I'm waiting for a long 3 mm hex key ;)

Grab the Eklind 3mm wrench I posted at the top of this thread:

http://att.macrumors.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=182612&d=1247510751

JP

[noiceT]

The "e" and "x" designate the TDP of each chip. The ones that run higher clock typically draw more power and utilize a higher TDP. Basically the "e" and "x", and "l" for that matter, just designiate how much electricity that the processor will use. "l" is low. "e" is medium. "x" is lots!

Nice, thanks for the clarification bozz!:D

[Spacedust]

Grab the Eklind 3mm wrench I posted at the top of this thread:

http://att.macrumors.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=182612&d=1247510751

JP

I've ordered something like this with hex 3 mm ending :)

http://www.beta24.pl/media/catalog/product/cache/9/image/5e06319eda06f020e43594a9c230972d/8/9/897l_rozmiar_1_1.jpg

[Eidorian]

I didn't notice this earlier but how is the Accelero S1 Rev. 2 on the 3870? It's a fantastic product isn't it?

[shadow1]

If everyone did this apple would have very poor sales of their mac pro

[Eidorian]

If everyone did this apple would have very poor sales of their mac proThe Mac Pro would sell but no one would get the build to order option. They'd just order the cheapest models available. A refurbished 2.0 GHz Mac Pro 2006 is a good starting point for this adventure.

http://www.anandtech.com/mac/showdoc.aspx?i=3597

And if you’ve ever walked into an Apple store holding a Nehalem Mac Pro processor board, you’ll get some looks.

[bearcatrp]

Yeah, but the chips stay high for awhile. A 3ghz clovertown still goes for around 1200 bucks new or around 600 used.

[nightfly13]

Hey guys I'm really interested in doing this and the idea of real heat/energy savings by downgrading from 2x dual 2.66 to 2x quad 2.33s is intriging because I have heat issues in my office and I run on UPS battery backup like 2-3 hours a day (live in India).

I suppose for the few apps that only use a single core, there would be a small performance drop... but for most (and even more so with Snow Leopard?) the 8x core performance would more than compensate?

How appreciable is the energy usage difference?

Looking at: http://cgi.ebay.com/Intel-Xeon-Quad-Core-E5410-2-33GHz-2-33-GHz-771pin-OEM_W0QQitemZ380131585623QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item58819bae57&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=65%3A12%7C66%3A2%7C39%3A1%7C72%3A1205%7C293%3A1%7C294%3A50#ht_2417wt_941

[Spacedust]

Hey guys I'm really interested in doing this and the idea of real heat/energy savings by downgrading from 2x dual 2.66 to 2x quad 2.33s is intriging because I have heat issues in my office and I run on UPS battery backup like 2-3 hours a day (live in India).

I suppose for the few apps that only use a single core, there would be a small performance drop... but for most (and even more so with Snow Leopard?) the 8x core performance would more than compensate?

How appreciable is the energy usage difference?

Looking at: http://cgi.ebay.com/Intel-Xeon-Quad-Core-E5410-2-33GHz-2-33-GHz-771pin-OEM_W0QQitemZ380131585623QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item58819bae57&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=65%3A12%7C66%3A2%7C39%3A1%7C72%3A1205%7C293%3A1%7C294%3A50#ht_2417wt_941

Don't buy these. They won't work in Mac Pro 1.1. You can have only Xeons from Dual Core series 51XX and Quad Core 53XX made in 65 nm process. The 54XX's are made in 45 nm and are completly different.

Here is the list of working CPU's in Mac Pro 1.1 2006:

Model Speed (GHz) L2 Cache (MB) FSB (MHz) TDP (W)
5110 1.60 4 1066 65
5120 1.83 4 1066 65
5128 1.83 4 1066 40
5130 2.0 4 1333 65
5138 2.13 4 1066 35
5140 2.33 4 1333 65
5148 2.33 4 1333 40
5150 2.66 4 1333 65
5160 3.00 4 1333 80

Model Speed (GHz) L2 Cache (MB) FSB (MHz) TDP (W)
E5310 1.60 2x4 1066 80
L5310 1.60 2x4 1066 50
E5320 1.83 2x4 1066 80
L5320 1.83 2x4 1066 50
E5335 2.00 2x4 1333 80
L5335 2.00 2x4 1333 50
E5345 2.33 2x4 1333 80
X5355 2.66 2x4 1333 120
X5365 3.00 2x4 1333 120

I got my E5345's from eBay.de and contacted the guy who was selling them and he told me they will work in dual CPU and sSPEC numer doesn't matter.

Will post results and photos soon, so everyone would know how to do this properly.

[OZMP]

I am going to start watching eBay for x5365's in Australia, Don't want to risk international shipping... x5365's with 32gb ram could be an interesting upgrade too last me another year! (kinda just boredom and won't be able to afford a full new machine until I finnish my traineeship, but 4x 2.66 ***** me, so I want 8x 3.0 as a minimum)

[UltraNEO*]

As I and others have found out, and mentioned in the other 4870 threads, some 4870's (not Apple's of course) have longer screws in the back holding the heat sink on. These screws end up hitting the memory cage and in some cases may be too long to even get the card in the bottom slot.

Mine does the exact same thing but that's caused by the custom heat-sink i added. The default fan was driving me insane!!!

[JPamplin]

Yeah, I really love it. The front fan in that area moves air through the card adequately, and it's dead silent. Even with 5 hard drives and now 2 quad-cores, this thing is strikingly quieter than the PC sitting next to it.

I turn off the PC sometimes, and my wife doesn't realize the Mac is still ON unless the screen is on. ;-)

JP

I didn't notice this earlier but how is the Accelero S1 Rev. 2 on the 3870? It's a fantastic product isn't it?

[JPamplin]

Your heat / power savings wouldn't be that significant, and those chips won't even run on that board - please don't do that. I know the Pro puts out a truckload of heat - if it's an issue, the best thing for you is to turn it off for the hottest part of the day (or port the exhaust out of the room).

If you're having to run on UPS daily, just put your internet connection / Airport on the UPS and whip out the MacBook Pro for the rest of the day. I know working on the Pro is nice, but if you really have that kind of power restrictions, then the MBP seems like it would be fast enough considering the battery life it has.

JP

Hey guys I'm really interested in doing this and the idea of real heat/energy savings by downgrading from 2x dual 2.66 to 2x quad 2.33s is intriging because I have heat issues in my office and I run on UPS battery backup like 2-3 hours a day (live in India).

I suppose for the few apps that only use a single core, there would be a small performance drop... but for most (and even more so with Snow Leopard?) the 8x core performance would more than compensate?

How appreciable is the energy usage difference?

Looking at: http://cgi.ebay.com/Intel-Xeon-Quad-Core-E5410-2-33GHz-2-33-GHz-771pin-OEM_W0QQitemZ380131585623QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item58819bae57&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=65%3A12%7C66%3A2%7C39%3A1%7C72%3A1205%7C293%3A1%7C294%3A50#ht_2417wt_941

[bearcatrp]

You would save on energy if you go with the 2.33 clovertowns but the heat issue is higher. The heat from the 2.33 raised 10 degrees from my 2.0. Installed smcfancontrol to bump up the fans.

[nightfly13]

Don't buy these. They won't work in Mac Pro 1.1. You can have only Xeons from Dual Core series 51XX and Quad Core 53XX made in 65 nm process. The 54XX's are made in 45 nm and are completly different.

Here is the list of working CPU's in Mac Pro 1.1 2006:

Model Speed (GHz) L2 Cache (MB) FSB (MHz) TDP (W)
5110 1.60 4 1066 65
5120 1.83 4 1066 65
5128 1.83 4 1066 40
5130 2.0 4 1333 65
5138 2.13 4 1066 35
5140 2.33 4 1333 65
5148 2.33 4 1333 40
5150 2.66 4 1333 65
5160 3.00 4 1333 80

Model Speed (GHz) L2 Cache (MB) FSB (MHz) TDP (W)
E5310 1.60 2x4 1066 80
L5310 1.60 2x4 1066 50
E5320 1.83 2x4 1066 80
L5320 1.83 2x4 1066 50
E5335 2.00 2x4 1333 80
L5335 2.00 2x4 1333 50
E5345 2.33 2x4 1333 80
X5355 2.66 2x4 1333 120
X5365 3.00 2x4 1333 120

I got my E5345's from eBay.de and contacted the guy who was selling them and he told me they will work in dual CPU and sSPEC numer doesn't matter.

Will post results and photos soon, so everyone would know how to do this properly.

Thanks for posting this. I presume the bottom set of models are the 4 core models? There don't appear to be any deals for E5345 or X5355 at present - unless there's another way to search for these?

[Eidorian]

Yeah, I really love it. The front fan in that area moves air through the card adequately, and it's dead silent. Even with 5 hard drives and now 2 quad-cores, this thing is strikingly quieter than the PC sitting next to it.

I turn off the PC sometimes, and my wife doesn't realize the Mac is still ON unless the screen is on. ;-)

JPI get the same effect from the intake fan in my P180 mini case. It's still manageable without the airflow from the intake but it dropped 5° C with the fan.

[Spacedust]

You would save on energy if you go with the 2.33 clovertowns but the heat issue is higher. The heat from the 2.33 raised 10 degrees from my 2.0. Installed smcfancontrol to bump up the fans.

What's the point ?

Take a look at my current temps with Dual Core Xeons 2.0 GHz

http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/5171/tempsa.jpg

CPU's and HDD's (2xBarracuda 12 series) are cold, but 7300GT and some non Transcend RAM's are really hot, because they use small headspreaders (2xSamsung + 2xMicron).

Will post the same after upgrade soon :)

[Spacedust]

Thanks for posting this. I presume the bottom set of models are the 4 core models? There don't appear to be any deals for E5345 or X5355 at present - unless there's another way to search for these?

They are really hard to get. I got two E5345 from eBay.de, because I'm from Poland and this German guy was speaking fluent polish :)

Xeon 51XX series are all Dual Core (4 cores total in 2x CPU)
Xeon 53XX series are all Quad Core (8 cores total in 2x CPU)

I also hope I'll have a small benefit from lower energy consumption. These new Xeon's got Extended Halt state and should slow down FSB when not fully utilized. My current Dual Core Xeon's always run at 2 GHz.

[nightfly13]

Your heat / power savings wouldn't be that significant, and those chips won't even run on that board - please don't do that. I know the Pro puts out a truckload of heat - if it's an issue, the best thing for you is to turn it off for the hottest part of the day (or port the exhaust out of the room).

If you're having to run on UPS daily, just put your internet connection / Airport on the UPS and whip out the MacBook Pro for the rest of the day. I know working on the Pro is nice, but if you really have that kind of power restrictions, then the MBP seems like it would be fast enough considering the battery life it has.

JP

The problem with the power cuts is that they're random. 3-4 outages per day, between 5 minutes and 2 hours in duration and no rhyme or reason. Also, share the laptop with my wife.. in fact, unless we're traveling or I take it to work to teach off of, the laptop is her machine. I've spent the money and sporadically replace batteries (around $200 a pop - I have 6 over 2 systems) so it's sustainable for me to run on the UPS... I just turn off the 2nd or third monitor :)

I have 2x 12k BTU split ACs in the room (they're old and don't perform great), basically one runs almost all day long just to take the edge off the heat the Pro creates, and when I have a group in there for movies or whatever, I fire up the second one and the temp actually drops down to 25-26 (77-79F). Porting the heat into the next room is something I've considered. I have a laser thermometer, so I'll try to investigate how much heat comes from the Mac Pro vs the 3 LCDs and my 7.1 receiver that's always pretty toasty to touch. (the ACs don't run on the batteries!)

[Spacedust]

Just got my Hex key. It's really long, but it do not fits in the heatsinks holes :/

Please send me a photo of your Eklind key.

They are available in Poland, but extremly expensive :/

http://techtools.com.pl/Zestaw_kluczy_Hex_z_uchwytem_T_9_calowe_model_36198-98.html

http://techtools.com.pl/_var/gfx/d7182a504b18878199dfae5dd891afeb.jpg

[JPamplin]

Check this out - it's exactly what I have:

http://www.drillspot.com/products/64300/Eklind_54930_Metric_Cushion_Grip_T_Handle_Hex_Key

You might be able to get them to ship one to you.

JP

[Spacedust]

Check this out - it's exactly what I have:

http://www.drillspot.com/products/64300/Eklind_54930_Metric_Cushion_Grip_T_Handle_Hex_Key

You might be able to get them to ship one to you.

JP

Thanks. The are really cheap in USA, but probably due to some fees, taxes etc. the cost a lot more right here in Poland. I've asked them if I can get only one 3 mm key, not the whole set of keys.

I'll be returning this Beta key today.

I got a question: How to you remove your graphics card from PCI-Express ? I unscrewed the two screws from PCI-Express slots, but my 7300GT still stays in. There is a PCI-Express lock directly in port, but I can't find it :)

Also how do you remove the front fan block ? After unscrewing the black screw I used a lot o force to remove it, but I'm not able to. I don't want to brake anything.

[gugucom]

The little plastic lock on the PCIe socket has to be pushed in. It is akward to do with a dual slot card. Most computers have them broken off after several exchanges. It does not seem to have any negative effects.

The fan unit is sticky in the vertical guide. Use one of the PCIe slot covers to hook under the right side and pull up. Wriggle it from the left side to unstick the guide.

[Spacedust]

http://esa.tienhaara.net/seti/pics/05092006096.jpg

On this photo it's shown that all PCI-EX slots got the same plastic lock. I got a single slotted 7300GT, so removal should be easy.

[Spacedust]

Fans in my Mac Pro smells really terrible. Anyone got this problem ?

I even bought Compressed Air to get rid of this problem while upgrading CPU's.

[bozz2006]

what does it smell like? Do you have cats or dogs? Could be dander.

[Spacedust]

what does it smell like? Do you have cats or dogs? Could be dander.

No. When I sold my 2 month PC to get a Mac Pro then everything started to smell really terrible. It's smells like a garlic.

It's really annoying when I press power on my Mac Pro everyday and after a while the smell comes from the case - YUCK! I discovered the smell comes from the fans. It looks like this plastic is a crapy material or whatever ;)

There is absolutely no dust inside the case, because I cleaned mostly everything. I hope to clean the fans when replacing the CPU.

[JPamplin]

Might as well post some Handbrake numbers with the octo-core:

One hour DVD track takes about 15 minutes to do h.264 encoding WITH Decombing. Here's a screenshot that shows CPU utilization, temps, fan speeds, and Handbrake speeds as it progresses:

UPDATE: I just looked at this encoding and I don't like the settings. 3.44GB file and it's quite blocky in places. Does anyone have the best tradeoff in file size vs. quality vs. encoding speed in Handbrake? I can't seem to figure it out.

Let me know, TIA - JP

[bozz2006]

I've found that with some of the TV shows that I've encoded, things get quite choppy if the camera moves fast or if a character moves fast. To correct this, I turn "detelicene" on and also "decomb" on. It fixes that. I also encode at constant rate of 64%. I've found it to be a good tradeoff between quality and file size.

[Spacedust]

I got my Eklind key today and IT WORKS :D

I've made a lot of photos from this procedure and will post them here today :)

So as you can see CPU stepping doesn't matter for Mac Pro :P

[gugucom]

So as you can see CPU stepping doesn't matter for Mac Pro :P

Good to know! But you better post the sSpec and the stepping. I suspect that differences in sSpec are possible but different steppings would be a problem.

[Spacedust]

http://img18.imageshack.us/img18/6422/dsc00102ebq.th.jpg (http://img18.imageshack.us/i/dsc00102ebq.jpg/)http://img12.imageshack.us/img12/1995/dsc00103orc.th.jpg (http://img12.imageshack.us/i/dsc00103orc.jpg/)http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/7610/dsc00104rig.th.jpg (http://img9.imageshack.us/i/dsc00104rig.jpg/)http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/2642/dsc00105egz.th.jpg (http://img9.imageshack.us/i/dsc00105egz.jpg/)http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/4930/dsc00106ydc.th.jpg (http://img24.imageshack.us/i/dsc00106ydc.jpg/)http://img13.imageshack.us/img13/4682/dsc00107r.th.jpg (http://img13.imageshack.us/i/dsc00107r.jpg/)
http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/7594/dsc00108yso.th.jpg (http://img24.imageshack.us/i/dsc00108yso.jpg/)http://img12.imageshack.us/img12/5158/dsc00109evi.th.jpg (http://img12.imageshack.us/i/dsc00109evi.jpg/)http://img12.imageshack.us/img12/187/dsc00110fwf.th.jpg (http://img12.imageshack.us/i/dsc00110fwf.jpg/)http://img6.imageshack.us/img6/1035/dsc00111lua.th.jpg (http://img6.imageshack.us/i/dsc00111lua.jpg/)http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/8575/dsc00112pog.th.jpg (http://img24.imageshack.us/i/dsc00112pog.jpg/)
http://img268.imageshack.us/img268/4021/dsc00113hgf.th.jpg (http://img268.imageshack.us/i/dsc00113hgf.jpg/)http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/8757/dsc00114tpq.th.jpg (http://img24.imageshack.us/i/dsc00114tpq.jpg/)http://img12.imageshack.us/img12/4094/dsc00115qgx.th.jpg (http://img12.imageshack.us/i/dsc00115qgx.jpg/)http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/322/dsc00116nez.th.jpg (http://img24.imageshack.us/i/dsc00116nez.jpg/)http://img6.imageshack.us/img6/2197/dsc00117bwz.th.jpg (http://img6.imageshack.us/i/dsc00117bwz.jpg/)http://img6.imageshack.us/img6/4594/dsc00118hmm.th.jpg (http://img6.imageshack.us/i/dsc00118hmm.jpg/)http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/8585/dsc00119cde.th.jpg (http://img24.imageshack.us/i/dsc00119cde.jpg/)

[Spacedust]

http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/712/dsc00120gte.th.jpg (http://img24.imageshack.us/i/dsc00120gte.jpg/)http://img33.imageshack.us/img33/5049/dsc00121wpd.th.jpg (http://img33.imageshack.us/i/dsc00121wpd.jpg/)http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/4115/dsc00122vvq.th.jpg (http://img24.imageshack.us/i/dsc00122vvq.jpg/)http://img197.imageshack.us/img197/6024/dsc00123e.th.jpg (http://img197.imageshack.us/i/dsc00123e.jpg/)http://img33.imageshack.us/img33/5895/dsc00124l.th.jpg (http://img33.imageshack.us/i/dsc00124l.jpg/)http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/2980/dsc00125jil.th.jpg (http://img24.imageshack.us/i/dsc00125jil.jpg/)
http://img12.imageshack.us/img12/795/dsc00126gvl.th.jpg (http://img12.imageshack.us/i/dsc00126gvl.jpg/)http://img197.imageshack.us/img197/2742/dsc00128use.th.jpg (http://img197.imageshack.us/i/dsc00128use.jpg/)http://img197.imageshack.us/img197/9099/dsc00129qzh.th.jpg (http://img197.imageshack.us/i/dsc00129qzh.jpg/)http://img197.imageshack.us/img197/6198/dsc00130qjd.th.jpg (http://img197.imageshack.us/i/dsc00130qjd.jpg/)http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/5575/dsc00131ilt.th.jpg (http://img9.imageshack.us/i/dsc00131ilt.jpg/)
http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/4186/dsc00132wvy.th.jpg (http://img24.imageshack.us/i/dsc00132wvy.jpg/)http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/2831/dsc00133cdo.th.jpg (http://img9.imageshack.us/i/dsc00133cdo.jpg/)http://img6.imageshack.us/img6/5982/cores.th.jpg (http://img6.imageshack.us/i/cores.jpg/)http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/8055/cpuzl.th.jpg (http://img9.imageshack.us/i/cpuzl.jpg/)http://img12.imageshack.us/img12/2479/devicesu.th.jpg (http://img12.imageshack.us/i/devicesu.jpg/)http://img197.imageshack.us/img197/1139/infowlv.th.jpg (http://img197.imageshack.us/i/infowlv.jpg/)http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/1136/tempnrs.th.jpg (http://img9.imageshack.us/i/tempnrs.jpg/)

[Spacedust]

Good to know! But you better post the sSpec and the stepping. I suspect that differences in sSpec are possible but different steppings would be a problem.

1st CPU details: http://valid.canardpc.com/show_oc.php?id=609092
2nd CPU details: http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/5858/cpu2.jpg

[Tesselator]

Cool pics, thanks for sharing!

[Spacedust]

Cool pics, thanks for sharing!

BTW: I was using IC Diamond 7 Carat Thermal Compound

http://iccdistributors.com/Images/IC7%20Web%20Photo.jpg

It's really expensive, but worth every money.

My MAC is still whisper silent. No difference in fan speed so far :)

[gugucom]

1st CPU details: http://valid.canardpc.com/show_oc.php?id=609092
2nd CPU details: http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/5858/cpu2.jpg

Thanks for sharing the pics and info. I'm really surprised the CPUs work with different core voltages. For once a very solid job by Apple.

[Jeffrosproto]

BTW: I was using IC Diamond 7 Carat Thermal Compound

http://iccdistributors.com/Images/IC7%20Web%20Photo.jpg

It's really expensive, but worth every money.

My MAC is still whisper silent. No difference in fan speed so far :)

Do you have a link to that thermal compound? Thanks.

[Spacedust]

Do you have a link to that thermal compound? Thanks.

For example: https://store.hardwarecanucks.com/products/Innovation-Cooling-IC7-Thermal-Compound.html

Polish tests: http://www.frazpc.pl/artykuly/582/PASTA/IC/DIAMOND/i/szesciu/konkurentow/Diamentowa/rewolucja

[gunraidan]

This may sound embarrassing but I didn't know you could upgrade the processors off of Mac Pro's.:(

[bozz2006]

that's what these forums are for. You can always learn new stuff!

[Eidorian]

Great pictures Spacedust.

[Spacedust]

This may sound embarrassing but I didn't know you could upgrade the processors off of Mac Pro's.:(

I knew long it before I got this Mac. The problem was getting the right Xeons. I thought I can switch to these 5400 series with 12 MB cache ;) Someone's tested them in Mac Pro 2006 and they didn't work. Too old MB chipset.

[Eidorian]

I knew long before I got this Mac. The problem was getting the right Xeons. I thought I can switch to these 5400 series with 12 MB cache ;) Someone's tested them in Mac Pro 2006 and they didn't work. Too old MB chipset.It's actually the EFI support. The chipset should support them.

[Spacedust]

Some special info about temps.

I've started Vista Ultimate 64-bit SP2 and loaded Orthos 4 times and StressCPU test for about an hour - max load on 8 cores.

Here are the temps:

First Xeon (newer stepping with lower voltage): 56C,55C,53C,52C
Second Xeon (older stepping with higher voltage): 74C,72C,68C,69C

Fans were spinning at ultra silent level (no difference beetween idle and stress). No instability issues so far.

On Mac OS X fans are spinning automatically faster on high load.

My Micron FB-DIMM's got 82C :eek:

[Spacedust]

It's actually the EFI support. The chipset should support them.

It might be the same history as with GeForce 8800GT...

[Eidorian]

It might be the same history as with GeForce 8800GT...If you had gotten a board alone there's a good chance the manufactuer would have provided a BIOS update to support the new processors.

[gunraidan]

I knew long it before I got this Mac. The problem was getting the right Xeons. I thought I can switch to these 5400 series with 12 MB cache ;) Someone's tested them in Mac Pro 2006 and they didn't work. Too old MB chipset.

I thought the CPU's on Mac Pro's aren't suppose to be upgradable?

[tobyg]

I thought the CPU's on Mac Pro's aren't suppose to be upgradable?

When someone says that you can't do something, it usually means they don't offer any supported method for the common user to do it.

It doesn't mean it's impossible to do. 99% of things that someone says can't be done, are done. That's what the internets are good for. The internets are great resources for these sorts of things.

Remember those stickers they used to (and maybe still do?) put on things that say "Do not open. No user serviceable parts inside". Yeah, well once you open it, you're no longer a "user" and when they say things aren't "user" upgradable, you're no longer just a "user", so go ahead and upgrade it!

[bozz2006]

that's right. and, of course, if you need help, don't expect to get any from the folks who told you it wasn't user-upgradeable. That's what we're for!

[Eidorian]

I might upgrade to a 2008 Mac Pro next year then. :rolleyes:

Though a refurbished Arrandale MacBook feels right.

[Spacedust]

It's actually the EFI support. The chipset should support them.

"A while back we tried to get two Harpertowns (IIRC we took two Xeon X5450; I think they now go by the name Xeon E5450) and put them into a first-generation MP. We couldn't get it to boot. We didn't play around with it for long, but we concluded that even though there are some reports of people getting Harpertowns to run on that chipset, Clovertown (for example the Xeon X5365) is the best you can do on a first-generation MP. It's quite likely that this has to do with the firmware Apple used on the MP. It's a shame though because Clovertowns are quite expensive. In many cases it will probably be more economical to sell of the older MP and replace it with a new one (which comes with other benefits) instead of upgrading it to expensive Clovertowns — especially now that Gainestown (the first DP server variant of Nehalem) MPs are about to arrive. I guess it depends mainly on what kind of stuff you installed into an older MP and how much of it you can transfer to a newer box." http://forums.macnn.com/65/mac-pro-and-power-mac/377797/can-i-upgrade-my-mac-pro/

[JPamplin]

Great job Spacedust! Welcome to the MacPro1,1 Octo-Club! ;-)

I keep hearing about this 32-bit vs. 64-bit EFI on the Pros. Is this a BIOS (firmware) issue that MIGHT be upgradeable in software? Like flashing the BIOS of a PC video card? Is the 64-bit EFI something that could be downloadable?

I know, it's probably crazy, but I can dream can't I?

[gugucom]

Apple's policy of firmware upgrades is the worst in the industry. They never ever touch a product they have sold to improve customer choice after sales. Every Chinese or Taiwanese 25$ MoBo manufacturer does it but don't expect Apple to do anything to enhance the stuff they have successfully shifted through their sales. Quite contrary they deliberately design hardware and firmware to stop customers exploiting upgradebility.

[bearcatrp]

Well folks, no longer a member of the upgraded 2006 mac pro club. Just sold my baby. Will have to see what i can do to upgrade my 2008 cpu's. Runs just fine now though so will see what snow leopard has to offer. Enjoyed all the help from you guys. Needed the money for my new panasonic hmc150 camcorder. Maybe when the next generation mac pro comes out I'll grab one.

[nanofrog]

Apple's policy of firmware upgrades is the worst in the industry. They never ever touch a product they have sold to improve customer choice after sales. Every Chinese or Taiwanese 25$ MoBo manufacturer does it but don't expect Apple to do anything to enhance the stuff they have successfully shifted through their sales. Quite contrary they deliberately design hardware and firmware to stop customers exploiting upgradebility.
That's Apple. ;) Apparently they prefer to force users to pony up for a new system sooner than is actually necessary. :eek: On occasion, the users find a way, but it's not consistent across models, and therefore can't be depended upon. :rolleyes:

[gugucom]

Yep, the more it pleases to be able to read about all these great upgrades in CPUs, graphics and SSDs that are reported on this board. I'm really sold. MR Forums is the best I've come across in a very very long time.

[nanofrog]

Yep, the more it pleases to be able to read about all these great upgrades in CPUs, graphics and SSDs that are reported on this board. I'm really sold. MR Forums is the best I've come across in a very very long time.
It's far cleaner and less hostile than most I've come across as well. :D Makes for a much nicer atmosphere. ;)

[hyram]

I've seen that a lot of posters are getting great deals on upgrade CPU's. And seeing that I can never quite find these deals (ebay or otherwise); here's a question for all of you: How much are you willing to pay for a pair of x5355's or x5365's?

hyram

[gugucom]

Given a bit of time you can usually get them for 50% of the price of LA Micro. They seem to have all the upgrades at outrageous prices. Privatly you can mostly buy a pair for their price. So that is a reasonable first guide. It also is worthwhile to look for used machines with the upgrades. I saw 10 machines with 5365 octad for 2000€ on German ebay.

[RitMo9777]

Hi

I am new here but was hoping someone might have an answer

I tried the dual 5355's into my early 2007 Quad (dual Xeon 5130s) as a replacement for my ageing G5.

On start up all I get is an error message saying to restart and lots of lines of code and a nasty grey screen. The only part that makes sense says the Mac can only find one core and it was expecting two.

i bought the 5355's new on ebay from a local PC parts dealer. They were packaged by HP but the chips have the usual Intel ID stamps on them.

Is it possible the 5355s are faulty? Or one of them? I put the original 5130s back in and the Mac works fine again so I'm pretty sure that it wasn't that I was following the wrong procedure.

Completely at a loss to understand why it didn't work.

[JPamplin]

Yes, it should have. Here's what I would check:

- take a soft brush or compressed air and blow off the undersides of the new chips really well, then clean the contacts with a soft cloth and alcohol

- blow out the pins in each socket - thermal paste is not good on those pins

if it happens again, you may have a bad chip. The Pro may take one or the other, so I would mount one 5355 in slot A (upper one) and leave the second one empty - see if each one comes up on it's own.

I've never tried that but I'll bet it will work. Let us know what happens,

JP

[RitMo9777]

Yes, it should have. Here's what I would check:

- take a soft brush or compressed air and blow off the undersides of the new chips really well, then clean the contacts with a soft cloth and alcohol

- blow out the pins in each socket - thermal paste is not good on those pins

if it happens again, you may have a bad chip. The Pro may take one or the other, so I would mount one 5355 in slot A (upper one) and leave the second one empty - see if each one comes up on it's own.

I've never tried that but I'll bet it will work. Let us know what happens,

JP

I thought about trying a single chip at a time but I had assumed that the 5355s had to work as a pair(?), sort of like ram modules I guess.

Will give it a go.

Thank you :)

[gugucom]

If the parts were new and from a local dealer I would definitely claim the faulty part. I usually try to pay PayPal to protect against such mishaps. I once got my money back after a vendoe took my money and did not deliver.

[RitMo9777]

No dice :(

Tried each of 5355's alone in socket A (after giving a good air blast and clean) and the Mac won't even boot. I guess it needs both sockets in use.

Will try both sockets again. Maybe I missed something.

[Spacedust]

Get another X5355. Series and stepping doesn't matter. Mine works fine :)

[tobyg]

No dice :(

Tried each of 5355's alone in socket A (after giving a good air blast and clean) and the Mac won't even boot. I guess it needs both sockets in use.

Will try both sockets again. Maybe I missed something.

Is socket A the "bottom" socket? If I recall correctly, they are not labeled correctly on the motherboard as far as which socket is really the 'first' socket. I ran my MP 2.66, when I was upgrading the chips, with just one chip at a time. I was doing the BSEL mod on some 1066 fsb chips so I wanted to test them each before I put them together, to make sure I did the taping of the pin correctly. So I know for a fact that the 2.66 original quad Mac Pro can run one socket only, but I believe only the bottom socket. I seem to remember trying what was marked as the 'first' socket and that didn't work, tried the other and it worked fine all by itself.

[parkie]

so is it possible to put a quad core in one socket and leave the dual core in the other giving you an upgrade from 4 to 6 cores. I have a 2.66 Mac Pro 1.1 so if I bought a 2.66 quad core X5355 would they run along side each other or would it not work? the reason I ask is it'd be a lot less expensive to just buy one quad core chip rather than a pair. anyway, just a thought

p

[Spacedust]

Is socket A the "bottom" socket? If I recall correctly, they are not labeled correctly on the motherboard as far as which socket is really the 'first' socket. I ran my MP 2.66, when I was upgrading the chips, with just one chip at a time. I was doing the BSEL mod on some 1066 fsb chips so I wanted to test them each before I put them together, to make sure I did the taping of the pin correctly. So I know for a fact that the 2.66 original quad Mac Pro can run one socket only, but I believe only the bottom socket. I seem to remember trying what was marked as the 'first' socket and that didn't work, tried the other and it worked fine all by itself.

Socket A is the upper socket.
Socket B is the lower socket.

[bozz2006]

Is socket A the "bottom" socket? If I recall correctly, they are not labeled correctly on the motherboard as far as which socket is really the 'first' socket. I ran my MP 2.66, when I was upgrading the chips, with just one chip at a time. I was doing the BSEL mod on some 1066 fsb chips so I wanted to test them each before I put them together, to make sure I did the taping of the pin correctly. So I know for a fact that the 2.66 original quad Mac Pro can run one socket only, but I believe only the bottom socket. I seem to remember trying what was marked as the 'first' socket and that didn't work, tried the other and it worked fine all by itself.

How did the BSEL mod work for you?

[tobyg]

so is it possible to put a quad core in one socket and leave the dual core in the other giving you an upgrade from 4 to 6 cores. I have a 2.66 Mac Pro 1.1 so if I bought a 2.66 quad core X5355 would they run along side each other or would it not work? the reason I ask is it'd be a lot less expensive to just buy one quad core chip rather than a pair. anyway, just a thought

p

No, it's not. They need to be the same model, and I've heard rumors they don't need to be the same stepping but I would never suggest running a dual processor system without matching steppings.

How did the BSEL mod work for you?

It didn't. It would work but my machine locked up at least once a week. I went back to the stock processors and had no problem again, so it wasn't a problem with the machine, purely with the BSEL mod. Those processors just couldn't handle the overclock. I put them back in a different HP server of mine and they're working just fine at their stock speeds.

[RitMo9777]

Is socket A the "bottom" socket? If I recall correctly, they are not labeled correctly on the motherboard as far as which socket is really the 'first' socket. I ran my MP 2.66, when I was upgrading the chips, with just one chip at a time. I was doing the BSEL mod on some 1066 fsb chips so I wanted to test them each before I put them together, to make sure I did the taping of the pin correctly. So I know for a fact that the 2.66 original quad Mac Pro can run one socket only, but I believe only the bottom socket. I seem to remember trying what was marked as the 'first' socket and that didn't work, tried the other and it worked fine all by itself.

Okay, I tried each 5355 alone in socket B (the bottom socket according to the Mac service manual).

On their own, each 5335 works fine and shows in OSX as a 2.66 so the chips seem to be okay (thanks for the tip tobyg :)

But as soon as I put both in together again, I get the bootup error message "Should have two cores but only found one for Die 2"0" etc etc.

Is there a hardware switch or logic board change I need to make somewhere?

[RitMo9777]

SUCCESS!!!

I took the two chips out and swapped them in their sockets

Still can't figure out why two identical chips should make a difference as to what socket they're but in anyway, there you go. Guess there must be some subtle difference in them, the way ram modules need to go in a certain order.

Thanks for all your help guys, much obliged. I can finally retire the G5 and look forward to Snow Lep and FC Studio 3!

[JoeG4]

Nice! But I have to admit, I was a bit floored that Apple still uses regular electrolytic capacitors on their $3000 machines. I would've expected nothing but solid cores!

[tobyg]

SUCCESS!!!

I took the two chips out and swapped them in their sockets

Still can't figure out why two identical chips should make a difference as to what socket they're but in anyway, there you go. Guess there must be some subtle difference in them, the way ram modules need to go in a certain order.

Thanks for all your help guys, much obliged. I can finally retire the G5 and look forward to Snow Lep and FC Studio 3!

I bet they are different steppings. Did you write down the SL number from each chip before you put them in? I'm guessing you have to put the older (lower stepping) chip in the first socket, which is really the bottom socket.

I know there is a way to get the CPU stepping in OSX, just don't remember/know how.

[gugucom]

I bet they are different steppings. Did you write down the SL number from each chip before you put them in? I'm guessing you have to put the older (lower stepping) chip in the first socket, which is really the bottom socket.

I know there is a way to get the CPU stepping in OSX, just don't remember/know how.

That makes very interesting reading. CPU-Z will give you all the details. I'm surprised that apparently Apple changed the primary CPU from A to B when they went from IBM to Intel. But that has apparently happened.

[RitMo9777]

The stepping issue was in the back of my mind when I bought the CPUs but I (limbs crossed) had hoped they were from the same batch.

Anyway CPU-Z as far as I know is Win only. So...

I tried Intel CPUID and CPU X. Useful info but I could only appear to see four cores, not 8 so I think they were only seeing one CPU.

Tried typing "sysctl -a" into Terminal and then Command-F for "stepping". Again only showed a single stepping value. I thought that perhaps if both chips are the same stepping only a single value is returned?

I then tried the demo version of Hardware Monitor from bresink.de. It confirmed both CPUs are Stepping 7. So the mystery continues!

[gugucom]

Why not run Bootcamp to check the CPU? Too much hassle?

[RitMo9777]

Why not run Bootcamp to check the CPU? Too much hassle?

Don't need to; the demo app I found works in OS X and did the job.

[flatfoot]

Hi there,

I just bought two used X5350 which are on their way right now.
Despite the bad experience some seem to have had, I'm definitely going to try the BSEL mod (2.66GHz@1066FSB -->3.33GHz@1333FSB :D).

I'm wondering whether anybody here has had any experience with these rare processors. Feel free to post... :)

[Spacedust]

Hi there,

I just bought two used X5350 which are on their way right now.
Despite the bad experience some seem to have had, I'm definitely going to try the BSEL mod (2.66GHz@1066FSB -->3.33GHz@1333FSB :D).

I'm wondering whether anybody here has had any experience with these rare processors. Feel free to post... :)

Nice :) They should work without any problems.

[bozz2006]

I've read about a few people who've done the BSEL mod, and they all report that their machines are flaky afterwards. Maybe they're not doing it right. Don't give up too easy if you experience flakiness!

[tobyg]

I've read about a few people who've done the BSEL mod, and they all report that their machines are flaky afterwards. Maybe they're not doing it right. Don't give up too easy if you experience flakiness!

I don't know how you could make it work at all but not do it right. It either should work or it doesn't. Mine would work great for about a week at a time, I could handbrake all cores for 8 hours and then maybe a week later it'd just lock up randomly, even with almost no CPU usage. It was just unstable with those chips using the BSEL mod. But again, I'm running those chips (at their stock speed, without the BSEL mod) in a different server running with VMware ESX server and haven't had any lockups.

Good luck with your BSEL mod. But if your machine starts to lock up or act weird, with or without stressing the cpu's, try them without the BSEL mod and see if it's anymore stable.

[nanofrog]

...flakiness!...
Rather technical term there. ;) :p

[bozz2006]

Yeah, I'm smart.

[nightfly13]

Here is the list of working CPU's in Mac Pro 1.1 2006:

Model Speed (GHz) L2 Cache (MB) FSB (MHz) TDP (W)
.....
5150 2.66 4 1333 65
....
Model Speed (GHz) L2 Cache (MB) FSB (MHz) TDP (W)
...
L5335 2.00 2x4 1333 50
E5345 2.33 2x4 1333 80
X5355 2.66 2x4 1333 120
X5365 3.00 2x4 1333 120
....


Thanks again for this priceless information. I have a couple questions. I'm assuming that my stock 2.66 is the 5150 above, yes? So My processors are running at 65 watts each. Power consumption is a big deal for me because I run on a battery backup for 2-3 hours a day. As much as I'd like to just 'double my cores' and go 8x2.66, that would also add 80 watts to my power consumption, correct? Frankly, the 2.0's at 50 watts each are almost interesting - really wish I knew how many apps won't but multi-core aware after SL - because those are the ones which would give me a performance hit by downgrading my clock speed, right?

Second question is, can I use the same heatsinks? Most pair auctions I see on eBay are without heat sink... just need that specific screw driver, some thermal paste and I'm good to go for the swap?

I'm back in India, so I'm not in a hurry to buy, I plan to just watch and see what comes up and snatch something cheap on eBay when the chance arrises - but I need a bit of help thinking through which is the best option for me.

Thanks!

[The Rominator]

Originally Posted by Spacedust

Here is the list of working CPU's in Mac Pro 1.1 2006:

Model Speed (GHz) L2 Cache (MB) FSB (MHz) TDP (W)
.....
5150 2.66 4 1333 65
5160 3.00 4 1333 80
....
Model Speed (GHz) L2 Cache (MB) FSB (MHz) TDP (W)
...
L5335 2.00 2x4 1333 50
E5345 2.33 2x4 1333 80
X5355 2.66 2x4 1333 120
X5365 3.00 2x4 1333 120

Here I have added the 5160's that I know work....using them now.

[flatfoot]

I don't know how you could make it work at all but not do it right. It either should work or it doesn't. Mine would work great for about a week at a time, I could handbrake all cores for 8 hours and then maybe a week later it'd just lock up randomly, even with almost no CPU usage. It was just unstable with those chips using the BSEL mod. But again, I'm running those chips (at their stock speed, without the BSEL mod) in a different server running with VMware ESX server and haven't had any lockups.

Good luck with your BSEL mod. But if your machine starts to lock up or act weird, with or without stressing the cpu's, try them without the BSEL mod and see if it's anymore stable.

Thanks for your replies, folks. If I experience 'flakiness' ;) I'll try those 5350s at stock speed and compare the results to my 5150s. Then I'll decide which way to go, 4x2.66@1333 or 8x2.66@1066.

BTW: My 5350s arrived a few minutes ago. Now I'm waiting for the 35cm long Allen key which I ordered paying 14,81 Euros (incl. VAT & shipping) since they didn't have any that were long enough at my local hardware stores... :(

[Spacedust]

Thanks for your replies, folks. If I experience 'flakiness' ;) I'll try those 5350s at stock speed and compare the results to my 5150s. Then I'll decide which way to go, 4x2.66@1333 or 8x2.66@1066.

BTW: My 5350s arrived a few minutes ago. Now I'm waiting for the 35cm long Allen key which I ordered paying 14,81 Euros (incl. VAT & shipping) since they didn't have any that were long enough at my local hardware stores... :(

I've got the same problem. But I've found and ordered long Eklind keys and now I got whole set ;)

[nightfly13]

Just as a public service announcement to the community - there's a guy who's liquidating a pile of matched Xeon pairs on eBay. His prices seem competitive, although not very many that will work with 1,1 Mac Pros, lots of the 55xx series, though.

http://shop.ebay.com/forty6_two/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_from=&_ipg=

I'm in no way affiliated with that guy, just passing the info on.

[nightfly13]

Incidentally, how does his price of $365 shipped for 2x 2.0 quad core Xeons (E5335) sound? Obviously a bit of a clock speed hit for most of us, but a pretty cheap way to double the core count.

What do you guys think? I'm planning to just keep watching eBay for a great buy-it-now deal and see how great a difference the improved multi-core-awareness really is in SL, but this is a pretty interesting deal.

[bozz2006]

not that good of a price. i got my pair of 5355s for $155 each.

[JPamplin]

not that good of a price. i got my pair of 5355s for $155 each.

Wow. How and when? I'm jealous. ;-)

JP

[bozz2006]

ebay. patience.:p

[nightfly13]

Just a quick request - can anyone post a link to an appropriate screw driver for sale from a US Vendor? My 6-7 minutes searching was kinda fruitless. Seems US sites don't like mm :)

[flatfoot]

G'morning everybody. ;)

Last night I installed my X5350s. Unfortunately, my Mac Pro didn't like the BSEL mod to 1333FSB and gave me kernel panics just after the EFI boot screen, where the grey Apple is shown, the little wheel starts to spin and HD access begins. Once I got through to my desktop (auto log-in) and hit a kernel panic then. :(

Anyway, now they're running at 4x2.66GHz and 1066FSB each, and that's just fine. Maybe if I stumble over a pair of X5355s (or X5365s... :D) I'll try to get those and sell the X5350s. These are beats on an overclockable PeeCee mobo; should go even beyond 3.33GHz and sell quite well again.

Or maybe I'll try the BSEL mod in a few weeks again with some better tape. The only reason I can imagine for the kernel panics is that one of the CPUs pierced through its tape (resulting in two differnet CPUs recognized). Hm, should've checked that before peeling the tape off...

[JPamplin]

Just a quick request - can anyone post a link to an appropriate screw driver for sale from a US Vendor? My 6-7 minutes searching was kinda fruitless. Seems US sites don't like mm :)

You can find them at Ace Hardware all day long - it's the Eklind 3mm hex T-Wrench:

http://www.acehardwareoutlet.com/%28e3eod455r1uumf55v2kp3r45%29/productDetails.aspx?SKU=2099869

JP

[nightfly13]

You can find them at Ace Hardware all day long - it's the Eklind 3mm hex T-Wrench:

http://www.acehardwareoutlet.com/%28e3eod455r1uumf55v2kp3r45%29/productDetails.aspx?SKU=2099869

JP

Thanks you rock.

[Renderz]

Hi folks, I have been monitoring this thread with great interest. I have been looking for a pair of 5355's for a few days now, but the best price I can find is £254 ($415). Has anyone found these anywhere cheaper?

Many thanks.

[flatfoot]

ebay. patience.:p

bozz2006's method is the way to go... ;)

[beaker7]

I just updated a 2006 Mac Pro dual-dual 3.0 ghz to dual-quad 2.66 Clovertowns. Worked like a charm. Benchwell score went from 590 to 964 :D

[lbodnar]

I had a nosy inside MacPro1,1 MacPro2,1 and MacPro3,1 EFI images looking for CPU microcode updates.

I can see that MacPro1,1 has data for CPUIDs 0x6F0, 0x6F1, 0x6F4, 0x6F5, 0x6F6.
MacPro2,1 adds support for 0x6F7 (e.g. x5355)
MacPro3,1 adds microcode data for 0x6F9, 0x6FB, 0x10671, 0x10674, 0x10676.

54xx CPUs with C0 stepping (5430 5440 5450 5460) all have CPUID 0x10676.

Maybe this is the reason MacPro1,1 and MacPro2,1 (2006-2007) won't boot up with 54xx installed? Would placing microcode update for 54xx CPUs in the 2006-2007 EFI image make 54xx usable in 2006-2007 MacPros?

Microcode update has a fixed format and supplied by Intel themselves so in theory even pinching it from any motherboard supporting 54xx should be fine.
Cheers
Leo

P.S. Correction: Latest Microcode data is available directly from Intel (http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&ProdId=2371&DwnldID=18148&lang=eng). Apple does not update microcode in EFI very often.
I think it's the init code itself that is the problem, not the lack of microcode update data that stops 54xx working in 2006 MacPros.

[gugucom]

That sounds like a great idea. The question is how one would add the code. I thought it is in the firmware?

[hyram]

A quick survey question for all of you that have upgraded to x5355's. What is the sSpec number for the parts you used?

Thanks,

hyram

[bozz2006]

QVQF
stepping is B3

[hyram]

Bozz, I knew you would be the first to reply! So you have ES.

The 3 production sPSecs are: SL9YM, SLAC4, and SLAEG. Anyone have these?

[gugucom]

No, I used to have a 5365 SLAED

[hyram]

Hmmm. SLAED doesn't show up on Intel's current ilist.

[Spacedust]

Mine E5345's are SLAC5 and SLAEJ ;)

[lbodnar]

Hmmm. SLAED doesn't show up on Intel's current ilist.It's the only listed 3GHz 65nm 4 core part: http://processorfinder.intel.com/details.aspx?sSpec=SLAED

[hyram]

Interesting. When I run it, here's what I get.


Edit: Ok I see... I was asking specifically about the x5355. Its the x5365.

[cal6n]

Mine are QWTMs, which makes them engineering samples, I believe. Their core stepping is G0, the same as the SLAEGs.

ref (http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Xeon/Intel-Xeon%20X5355%20-%20HH80563KJ0678M%20(BX80563X5355A%20-%20BX80563X5355P).html)

@ Ibodnar: Good detective work, mate. I think you are saying that the 3.1 firmware still contains support for the "older" processors as well as enabling the newer ones. If so, might the same be true for the other hardware in the "older" machines, and might there be a way into install the 3.1 firmware onto a 1.1 machine and thereby upgrade from 32-bit EFI to 64-bit?

[Spanky Deluxe]

Can anyone tell me how long does the hex key need to be? I'm looking for a UK source and have found a 120mm (4.7") long one for £3.75 (http://www.diytools.co.uk/diy/Main/sp-2-9149-63628-trend-t-handle-hex-key-3mm-x-120mm-ball.asp). Is 4.7" long enough?

[gugucom]

If I remember it right you need closer to 10" than 5". For me it is mm and I recall that I was shopping for 200 mm.

[cal6n]

I used one of those screwdrivers that takes ¼" hex bits. It's 190 mm long and I remember it being plenty long enough. I reckon you'd get away with 150 mm. Also, it's 9.5 mm in diameter and I remember thinking that if it were any larger, then it wouldn't fit down the channel in the side of the heat-sink.

[bozz2006]

instead of buying an expensive super-long screwdriver, do what I did. I used a regular interchangeable head screwdriver like this:

http://news.thomasnet.com/images/large/814/814906.jpg

and a magnetic bit holder like this to add more length:

http://www.ptreeusa.com/Peach%20Graphics/mag_drill_bit_holder_200_07.jpg

works perfectly.

[Spanky Deluxe]

instead of buying an expensive super-long screwdriver, do what I did. I used a regular interchangeable head screwdriver like this:

For some reason I thought I read somewhere that normal screwdrivers like that were too wide. I've already got one of those so that's one less thing needed. :)

[gugucom]

bump - to make it easier to find

[lbodnar]

bump - to make it easier to find
Thank you, gugucom!

[Renderz]

Sigh... I'm still looking for those elusive x5355. They're like gold dust!

[beaker7]

Sigh... I'm still looking for those elusive x5355. They're like gold dust!

Same here. Even better an x5365...

[bozz2006]

For some reason I thought I read somewhere that normal screwdrivers like that were too wide. I've already got one of those so that's one less thing needed. :)

Some are too wide. I have two of those type of screwdrivers. One was too wide, one was just right.

[cal6n]

For some reason I thought I read somewhere that normal screwdrivers like that were too wide. I've already got one of those so that's one less thing needed. :)

Please refer to the measurements in #151...

[Renderz]

Hi,

I'm going to find and install x5355 into my Mac Pro 1,1 anyway so this request won't really influence that decision. In the meantime, I am curious as to what the increase will be according to XBench.

Yes I know XBench isn't the best way to compare, but it's quick, easy and gives a snapshot of how fast the machine is.

With that in mind, here are my XBench resullts using x5130 CPUS. Can someone who has done the upgrade to a pair of x5355 post their XBench results too please?

CPU Test 187.86
GCD Loop 313.51 16.53 Mops/sec
Floating Point Basic 153.29 3.64 Gflop/sec
vecLib FFT 122.10 4.03 Gflop/sec
Floating Point Library 295.10 51.39 Mops/sec
Thread Test 472.45
Computation 425.58 8.62 Mops/sec, 4 threads
Lock Contention 530.92 22.84 Mlocks/sec, 4 threads
Memory Test 153.46
System 174.71
Allocate 378.12 1.39 Malloc/sec
Fill 144.69 7034.99 MB/sec
Copy 131.32 2712.42 MB/sec
Stream 136.82
Copy 132.72 2741.38 MB/sec
Scale 131.88 2724.57 MB/sec
Add 142.90 3044.18 MB/sec
Triad 140.44 3004.34 MB/sec
Quartz Graphics Test 233.34
Line 175.55 11.69 Klines/sec [50% alpha]
Rectangle 234.44 69.99 Krects/sec [50% alpha]
Circle 198.63 16.19 Kcircles/sec [50% alpha]
Bezier 209.51 5.28 Kbeziers/sec [50% alpha]
Text 602.93 37.72 Kchars/sec
OpenGL Graphics Test 223.67
Spinning Squares 223.67 283.74 frames/sec
User Interface Test 309.07

Much appreciated.

[lbodnar]

OK, I have tried mixing one x5365 (4x3.0) and one original 5150 (2x2.66) - it does not work and MacPro won't even start. One CPU in CPUB socket works just fine so I have covered CPUA socket with a piece of antistatic film and placed its heatsink back over the empty socket. I think removing unused heatsink is a bad idea because it disrupts the airflow through an active one as airflow follows the path of least resistance (=hole.)

So far I have migrated from two dual core 2.66 to one quad core 3GHz. Speed has increased and temperatures have dropped across the board.
While at it I have found a cable at the bottom of the memory cage that had one of its wires' insulation stripped by sharp edge of the cage (during factory assembly) and making contact with the metal case [fixed now] :eek:

So overall I am very happy having moved from 2 x 5150 -> 1 x 5365.

Now I need to chase another X5365 but no pressure now.

Good side of such upgrade path is that you can buy one 5365 and then sell a pair of 5150s while looking for another 5365 (if you want full monty) and enjoy upgrade in stages...

Temperatures shown under continuous full load (4 thread CPUTest / glucas.) Notice how cool all memory modules "A" are now - as they are in the slipstream of inactive CPU.

[gugucom]

Congrats Ibodnar to your successfull upgrade. There must be very few Mac Pros out there with your config and it is better than the original. Well done.

[lbodnar]

I am still trying to find a way of loading correct microcode data into a CPU. Here is the way to check if your CPU has been loaded with any microcode data during EFI initialisation.

Open Applications->Utilities->Terminal and type
sysctl -a | grep cpu\\.
Here is my result for X5365 SLAED in MacPro1,1:
kern.exec: unknown type returned
machdep.cpu.thread_count: 4
machdep.cpu.core_count: 4
machdep.cpu.address_bits.virtual: 48
machdep.cpu.address_bits.physical: 38
machdep.cpu.tlb.data_large: 32
machdep.cpu.tlb.inst_large: 8
machdep.cpu.tlb.data_small: 256
machdep.cpu.tlb.inst_small: 128
machdep.cpu.cache.size: 4096
machdep.cpu.cache.L2_associativity: 8
machdep.cpu.cache.linesize: 64
machdep.cpu.arch_perf.fixed_width: 40
machdep.cpu.arch_perf.fixed_number: 3
machdep.cpu.arch_perf.events: 0
machdep.cpu.arch_perf.events_number: 7
machdep.cpu.arch_perf.width: 40
machdep.cpu.arch_perf.number: 2
machdep.cpu.arch_perf.version: 2
machdep.cpu.thermal.ACNT_MCNT: 1
machdep.cpu.thermal.thresholds: 2
machdep.cpu.thermal.dynamic_acceleration: 0
machdep.cpu.thermal.sensor: 1
machdep.cpu.mwait.sub_Cstates: 8736
machdep.cpu.mwait.extensions: 3
machdep.cpu.mwait.linesize_max: 64
machdep.cpu.mwait.linesize_min: 64
machdep.cpu.microcode_version: 0
machdep.cpu.cores_per_package: 4
machdep.cpu.logical_per_package: 4
machdep.cpu.extfeatures: XD EM64T
machdep.cpu.features: FPU VME DE PSE TSC MSR PAE MCE CX8 APIC SEP MTRR PGE MCA CMOV PAT PSE36 CLFSH DS ACPI MMX FXSR SSE SSE2 SS HTT TM SSE3 MON DSCPL VMX EST TM2 SSSE3 CX16 TPR PDCM
machdep.cpu.brand: 0
machdep.cpu.signature: 1787
machdep.cpu.extfeature_bits: 537919488 1
machdep.cpu.feature_bits: -1075053569 320445
machdep.cpu.stepping: 11
machdep.cpu.extfamily: 0
machdep.cpu.extmodel: 0
machdep.cpu.model: 15
machdep.cpu.family: 6
machdep.cpu.brand_string: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU X5365 @ 3.00GHz
machdep.cpu.vendor: GenuineIntel
Microcode version is 0 after CPU is powered on but would reflect update version after successful update. As I said before, it shows zero here because 2006-2008 MacPro EFI does not have update data for later processors - even when Apple released EFI updates for them. Intel publishes microcode updates quite often (few times a year for each CPU model) but has never opened information about what problems each microcode revision fixes but there are a lot of speculations (http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1007862/critical-update-intel-core-cpus) and these updates are apparently strongly recommended for 51xx and 53xx Xeons. Running un-initialised CPU means that otherwise avoidable errata cannot be ruled out as a reason of any system crash.

Linux systems allow to upload microcode data into the processor. I wander if OS X security model allows for similar utility to be written? Microcode does not have to be done in EFI but OS must allow this kind of operation.

Leo

[666sheep]

Congrats!
I'm following this thread almost from the start and i was thinking about 2x X5355 upgrade, but it's hard to find them for a good price (as you all know).

I also have MP 1.1 with 2x 5150, and i have opportunity to buy one X5365.
I'm wondering is it possible to use 1 CPU config in everyday work (before i will get the second one)? It's my main machine, so it's good to know that before upgrade like this ;)
Can you post any Geekbench score after upgrade to 1x X5365?
Thanks in advance.

[lbodnar]

Geekbench test is about 6000 and before upgrade it was about 5200.
Cinebench has also increased proportionally. Apart from the speed increase I can't see much difference from previous 2x2.66 configuration.

[bearcatrp]

When you do drop in the second processor, watch your temps. I upgraded my 2ghz quad to a 2.33 octo (sold it later) and my temps jumped 10 to 15 degrees. Had to bump up the fans. Would have kept it if there was a way to change the efi to 64 bit. Currently happy with my 2.8 mac pro.

[lbodnar]

Temperatures seem to be OK. SMC does a good job keeping them at bay. It speeds up fans to either keep RAM modules below 80ºC (for memory intensive tasks like CPUTest) or CPU case below 65ºC (for CPU intensive ones like Handbrake.) I have looked through X5365 datasheet and this is within spec.

In fact, my fan speeds have dropped after the upgrade and I am very glad to see my Northbridge running at 63ºC. I am not sure I really need second X5365 at all. I only do video compression once a month or so. Given the fact that I have bought X5365 on eBay for $100 shipped (with BuyItNow) :eek: this is not a bad reshuffle.

[lbodnar]

OK, I must be the only one concerned about this. But I will document my progress anyway...

I have downloaded current Intel update file and found that most recent microcode version for X5365/SLAED X5355/SLAEG stepping G0 (CPUID 0x6FB) is version 0xB9 released on November 5th 2009.

Having researched OS X security model I have discovered that user space application cannot access CPU wrmsr instruction required to initiate the update process. It just causes segmentation fault. So I have created a simple proof-of-concept kernel extension (.kext) that loads manually, updates the CPU and exits. I have to run (load/unload to kernel) it a few (=4) times for the new microcode to "stick". Maybe this is related to the number of cores even though I was under the impression that update is required only once per physical CPU. Anyway, it works if implemented properly. Also, when Mac goes to sleep its CPUs power down and get reset so proper microcode KEXT needs to reinit the upload after each wake up.

I wish some kernel developer gave us some help here... Given the fact that Apple updates EFI microcode very rarely it might be useful to any Intel based Mac.

[bozz2006]

can you explain to me why this matters? I must confess my ignorance!

[lbodnar]

Modern processors are complicated digital circuits run by internal state machine controlled by microcode. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microcode) It is impossible to extensively debug the processor until it is released as a silicon chip. E.g. list of currently discovered problems with 5300 series Xeons is a 54 page document (http://www.intel.com/Assets/en_US/PDF/specupdate/315338.pdf) (known knowns). By the time bugs are found it is impossible to change the silicon masks. This is where microcode update comes into play - it's a way to patch some of internal CPU operation by uploading a reversible update.

Intel never admits to what problems each new update fixes so I assume they don't make it into the above document (known unknowns?)

Typically BIOS or EFI uploads microcode into the CPU when system boots. Otherwise it can be updated by the OS. There was a scare in 2007 when serious bug was found affecting most Intel CPUs and even Microsoft released a system patch (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/936357) that would update microcode if BIOS fails to do so. They obviously did not want to be blamed for random system hangs. Apple updated EFI (http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1237) almost simultaneously on many Intel based Macs fixing "stability issues" which makes me think that it has something to do with Intel...

Now MacPro1,1 and MacPro2,1 do not have microcode data for many Xeons including X5365 and X5355. Running them unpatched is like ignoring all errata that has been found and fixed for the last 2-3 years.

Frequently asked questions
Q: What issues are fixed by the microcode reliability update?
A: The microcode reliability update fixes the following issues:
- possible Intel processor marginality
- potential source of unpredictable system behavior
- "stop 0x7E" error that may occur during startup on some systems that are running an older Pentium 5 CPU (This issue occurs only in the 32-bit version of Windows XP and in the x86-based version of Windows Server 2003.)

Q: How do you know if the system needs the microcode reliability update?
A: Although these issues are uncommon, you may receive a Stop error, or you may experience unpredictable system behavior.

Q: What errors occur?
A: You may receive a Stop error, or you may experience unpredictable system behavior.

Q: Which Intel processors are affected?
A: Although these issues are uncommon, the following Intel processors may be affected:
Mobile: Intel Core 2 Duo mobile processor.
Desktop: Intel Core 2 Duo desktop processor, Intel Core 2 Quad desktop processor, and Intel Core 2 Extreme processor.
Server: Intel Xeon processors 3000, 3200, 5100, and 5300 series.

Q: If you install the microcode reliability update, do you still require the latest BIOS update?
A: If you install the microcode reliability update, you do not require the latest BIOS update.

Q: Does the microcode reliability update have to be proactively installed?
A: Affected Intel processor users must use the microcode reliability update.

[bozz2006]

Ah!

[gugucom]

I have downloaded current Intel update file and found that most recent microcode version for X5365/SLAED X5355/SLAEG stepping G0 (CPUID 0x6FB) is version 0xB9 released on November 5th 2009.

Having researched OS X security model I have discovered that user space application cannot access CPU wrmsr instruction required to initiate the update process. It just causes segmentation fault. So I have created a simple proof-of-concept kernel extension (.kext) that loads manually, updates the CPU and exits. I have to run (load/unload to kernel) it a few (=4) times for the new microcode to "stick". Maybe this is related to the number of cores even though I was under the impression that update is required only once per physical CPU. Anyway, it works if implemented properly. Also, when Mac goes to sleep its CPUs power down and get reset so proper microcode KEXT needs to reinit the upload after each wake up.

I wish some kernel developer gave us some help here... Given the fact that Apple updates EFI microcode very rarely it might be useful to any Intel based Mac.

So with advanced kernel programming knowledge one could slip the latest micro code into the system without EFI modifications. Presumably this would not only fix the latest errata but also make the machine find the new CPUs in profiler?

[lbodnar]

So with advanced kernel programming knowledge one could slip the latest micro code into the system without EFI modifications. Presumably this would not only fix the latest errata but also make the machine find the new CPUs in profiler?
Yes, this would fix known CPU problems but hardly make it appear in the profiler as its CPUID and stepping would remain the same.

[lbodnar]

Some more interesting news. I have programmatically dropped CPU voltage a little bit and now the processor runs quite a bit cooler (but with computational performance unaffected.) Power dropped too and fans have slowed down. :)

To do that one needs to change the contents of IA32_PERF_CTL msr using e.g. reggie_se from CHUD tools.

Here is comparison between standard and reduced voltage operation with Handbrake running and all temperatures stabilised.

[lbodnar]

Might be a good deal, two X5365 for US$700:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=310189885904
For information only! I don't know the seller.

[bozz2006]

engineering samples. but still, not a bad price.

[lbodnar]

engineering samples. but still, not a bad price.
Wouldn't engineering samples have no upper restriction on clock multiplier?
If so then they can be clocked up right from the terminal window.
With production X5365 SLAED I can only alter their frequency down (within 3.0 - 2.0GHz region.)

[Spanky Deluxe]

Took it all apart over Christmas. I didn't need any fancy screwdrivers after all, a simple long screwdriver with an extendable magnetic pointing wand thingy (bought from Lidl at some point over the past few years) and a screwdriver bit set from Wickes did the job. Had I known how easy it was to take it all apart I probably would have upgraded years ago!

[Renderz]

I have nothing positive to contribute, my mate recently bought an 8 core Mac Pro. I'm still searching for the elusive x5355. Someone donate me one and ease my suffering :-)

[bozz2006]

just one?

[macprofit]

Hey guys, thanks for the information on this thread. I've decided to upgrade my Mac Pro 1.1 with the 2x Quad core clovertown processors mentioned.

I have few questions about this upgrade.

1. What is the BEST, latest graphic card you can install on a 2006 Mac Pro?
Or whatever is reasonable.

2. Is there a way to get really cheap RAM for this machine, and can I upgrade it 32GB? Instead suggested 16GB?

3. I am ditching my Mac Pro's Aluminum casing and replacing it with new. Or make one from scratch. Can you recommend any cases?

4. If I can overclock the CPU's what coolers should I purchase?

5. Do you suppose spending $1000+ on this is more worth it than buying a new 8 core Mac pro?

You don't have to answer all questions alone, 1 question per person is just fine or as you like. I will post up the picture of the modified Mac Pro when it'd done.

[dmw2692004]

very cool. thanksfor sharing. ;)

[flatfoot]

Hey guys, thanks for the information on this thread. I've decided to upgrade my Mac Pro 1.1 with the 2x Quad core clovertown processors mentioned.

I have few questions about this upgrade.

1. What is the BEST, latest graphic card you can install on a 2006 Mac Pro?
Or whatever is reasonable.

2. Is there a way to get really cheap RAM for this machine, and can I upgrade it 32GB? Instead suggested 16GB?

3. I am ditching my Mac Pro's Aluminum casing and replacing it with new. Or make one from scratch. Can you recommend any cases?

4. If I can overclock the CPU's what coolers should I purchase?

5. Do you suppose spending $1000+ on this is more worth it than buying a new 8 core Mac pro?

You don't have to answer all questions alone, 1 question per person is just fine or as you like. I will post up the picture of the modified Mac Pro when it'd done.


1. ATi HD4890

3. Hm, I wouldn't do that.

4. Macs are usually not overclockable.

5. Up to now I have put around €600 into my MacPro1,1 which I bought for €1300. Doesn't hurt as much when it's bit by bit, but you have to consider for yourself what is reasonable.

[macprofit]

Thank you. But I just read ATI 5870 is working on Mac Pro. (Windows O/S)

Could someone please answer this question?

Would ATI HD 5870 work on a 1.1 Mac Pro?

It's either this or... AI 4870x2 or something...

[flatfoot]

Ah, thought you were talking about OS X cards. As to what I know the 5870 is incompatible with or at least bottlenecked by the MacPro1,1's PCIe 1.0 bus. But someone who knows for sure will have to confirm that...

[macprofit]

I see... But then so is 4890's PCI-e is 2.0...
So it may work. :)

[bearcatrp]

I can see spending 5 to 600 bucks upgrading but a 1000 plus is not worth it IMHO. I upgraded my 2ghz quad to 2.33 octo for 400 bucks. Nice speed bump. But you can sell your system for a descent price, plus the 1000 or so your planning on using and buy a fairly new system that has the 64 bit EFI. Don't know why the clovertowns are still so expensive. Heck, the harpertowns are even cheaper than the clovertowns. I built a octo pc for around 1300 bucks with harpertowns. Just wish I could put OS X on it.

[macprofit]

1st Gen Mac Pro.
2x 3.0ghz Quad Core Clovertown (8 Core)
32GB Ram DDR2 667mhz, FB-DIMM.
ATI HD 4890, 1GB Graphic Card.
(Let's say this costs $2100)

VS

Lastest Gen Mac Pro.
2x 2.26Ghz Nehalem Quad Core (8 Core)
6GB DDR3 1333mhz Ram.
Nvidia Geforce GT 120, 512mb Graphic card.
(Let's say this costs $3300)

My question is:

Just how much faster would the new generation Mac Pro be compared to the old gen Mac Pro with above specs?
Can someone please give me a benchmark number (Or a guess).
And btw, which one would you get?

[macprofit]

This was a wrong comparison, forget about it and thanks.

[Renderz]

I've started to install the x5355 into my Mac Pro, but I hit a big problem early on.

I followed Hardmac.com's tutorial. On the part where I have to remove the 2nd pair of screws holding the memory cage I stripped both screws, now I have no idea of how to get them out.

http://files.macbidouille.com/mbv2/articles/hm/article_hm_70/3.jpg

Can anyone help? It's very tight in there.

[bozz2006]

I actually didn't remove the memory cage. I messed around trying to get it out for about 10 minutes then gave up. If I remember correctly though, I did have to remove the screws in order to slide it over to the right. Which screws exactly did you strip? I would say the only thing to do is get them out with a pliers or vice grip now. You might end up having to buy a specialized tool (long needle nose plier or very skinny vice grips) that will get the job done in that cramped space.

[Renderz]

I actually didn't remove the memory cage. I messed around trying to get it out for about 10 minutes then gave up. If I remember correctly though, I did have to remove the screws in order to slide it over to the right. Which screws exactly did you strip? I would say the only thing to do is get them out with a pliers or vice grip now. You might end up having to buy a specialized tool (long needle nose plier or very skinny vice grips) that will get the job done in that cramped space.

That is correct, I'm not trying to 'take it out', but slide the mem cage to the right. And as you point out, those screws have to be removed in order for it to slide.

If you look at the photo in my post, I stripped the ones nearest to me.

[bozz2006]

the ones that are pointing down when the case is upright? I think you could have good luck with a compact right-angle pliers. I don't think you'll have much trouble if you have the right tool.

[Spanky Deluxe]

You may have to just end up grinding them out with a drill. I had to do something similar with some other screws in my Mac Pro - I used a handheld electric screwdriver with a little drill attachment.

[Renderz]

You may have to just end up grinding them out with a drill. I had to do something similar with some other screws in my Mac Pro - I used a handheld electric screwdriver with a little drill attachment.

Is that wise? Did it work? I've never drilled anywhere near a computer before!

[Renderz]

the ones that are pointing down when the case is upright? I think you could have good luck with a compact right-angle pliers. I don't think you'll have much trouble if you have the right tool.

I googled compact right angle pliers, and nothing small enough came up. I'm open to suggestions if you've seen such a tool.

[bozz2006]

I think you'd actually be able to angle a small regular plier in there enough to get them out. It'll just take some patience. or, if they aren't completely stripped or if they're stripped out unevenly, you might be able to use a flat-blade screwdriver. with enough downward pressure you could probably finagle them out with that too.

[Spanky Deluxe]

Is that wise? Did it work? I've never drilled anywhere near a computer before!

These were different screws but I'd already tried pliers. I just couldn't get needle nose pliers or anything else to grip right. If pliers don't work it really is the only other option. Buy yourself a pair of needle nose pliers and a can of compressed air. If the pliers don't work then you'll probably have to drill the heads off carefully. A vacuum and a blast of compressed air should do the trick afterwards. When I did my screws I didn't actually create that much mess anyway.

[Renderz]

I'm going to use a dremel to file a groove in an attempt to use a Philips screwdriver (flat head) to remove the screw. I will be placing protection surrounding the area.

[bozz2006]

that should do the trick.

[Renderz]

that should do the trick.

If I remember, I'll video it. If nothing else it would make a great video to see a Mac Pro go up in smoke and watch a grown man cry! :eek:

[Renderz]

I just wanted to share my good news. After a week of testing I can confidently say a x5355 inside my mac pro is working and stable!

I posted some photos on my blog. Please check it out. I'll be posting speed results and increases a bit later.

http://www.waitingoutside.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/DSC_0107-600x398.jpg (http://www.waitingoutside.com/2010/02/mac-pro-upgraded-with-2-intel-xeon-x5355-processors/)

http://www.waitingoutside.com/2010/02/mac-pro-upgraded-with-2-intel-xeon-x5355-processors/

[bozz2006]

that's great! glad it worked out for you.

[Renderz]

Hi,

I've posted my Geekbench results on my blog too, but for convenience I've also put them below. I have a 54% increase. I do realise that these results aren't conclusive but they do demonstrate performance in it's most basic state.

BEFORE: 4952

http://www.waitingoutside.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/mac-pro-quad-core-geekbench-results-before-8-core-upgrade.jpg

AFTER: 9436

http://www.waitingoutside.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/mac-pro-8-core-geekbench-results-after-cpu-upgrade.jpg

[everrain]

Hi folks ordered few days ago via ebay "Quad Core X5365 3.0 GHz 8MB LGA771 1333 PAIR" for my 2007 macpro 1,1.
I will needone Eklind 3mm hex wrench?, im from Spain were can i buy some of this or similar? any other thing is needed? any advice?
Thanks

[jiver]

Hi,

Great thread! I just found it...after upgrading to 5355 over the weekend.

So far, all is well. One question: About This Mac shows "Unknown" for the CPU. This is cosmetic only--but does anyone know a fix (Beyond changing AboutThisMac.strings)? I remember seeing something about a new plist file with CPU definitions but of course can't find it now. (OS 10.6.2, by the way)

I'll add my experiences with this upgrade in case it helps someone else down the line.

The sites (pix) that were most useful:
http://www.anandtech.com/Mac/showdoc.aspx?i=2832&p=3
http://www.hardmac.com/articles/70/
http://www.o0o.it/pro/
MacPro Service manual (find it online).

The blog post above was great, too! I had just as much dust on the heatsinks, so it was good to clean it out.

Memory Cage: Same trouble as nearly everyone. Apple has a little wrench that fits over the hex standoffs. Someone enterprising could make one from a thin piece of metal. That would have helped. Instead, used the trick from Anandtech: remove the plastic partition at the left side of the memory cage. (Slip a thin putty knife around all sides except the one near the motherboard. There are 2 latches on each side, near the corners).

Heatsinks: used ArcticClean & Arctic Silver (Radio Shack) for these. FYI, manufacturer recommends only a thin line of thermal compound above the cores. (http://www.arcticsilver.com/arctic_silver_instructions.htm). For the 5355 as far as I could tell, the cores are oriented vertically. Verified that this method coats evenly by pulling the heatsinks.

Hex Key: In US, check bargain bin at Ace--I found a knockoff set for $2 that did the job fine.

One scare: if a cpu heatsink cable is not plugged in all the way, the fans spin up to full speed, which is amazingly loud. I did this.

Otherwise, well worth it if you can find the CPUs for the right price on eBay.

[jiver]

Hi,

An answer to the question of how to correct the "unknown" processor in About This Mac:

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=98775

[everrain]

there is no way of retiring the plastic case that covers the devices without breaking it, because they are anchored to a female srews that are downside the motherboard and turn with them.
Any solution?

[bozz2006]

Can you restate your question? I am unclear on what you are asking? What plastic covers?

[everrain]

i cant remove the screws, any trick of geting them out?

[hyram]

In the pic it looks like you've bugger it up. If not, then just a short phillips screwdriver. If you have, then a pair of pliers and a lot of patience.

[everrain]

the thing is that the lower piece moves with the screw, i have to hold it?

[hyram]

Is this for both screws or just the one in the pic? Can you get a needlenose pliers down into the gap to hold the post?

[everrain]

It happends in both screws.

[bozz2006]

I think your best bet at this point is to grind those screws off (or drill them out, your choice) and replace them when you're finished. you can try to use a pliers to turn the screws out while using another pliers to hold the shaft in place preventing it from spinning, but that prove to be a major pain in the ass.

[qwarkas]

And I had no luck idiocy! spent a lot of money for 2 CPU xeon 5320 1860 1066 mhz bus. At the beginning of this excellent work 2 nuclear 2GHz 5130 as you have read the article and boldly ventured on such spending, after intense manipulations as on a video I earn per cent and load the operating system 10.6 , the computer worked fine until I did not reset option + function + p + p. Then 5 minutes later the computer stopped and stammered sound and darkened screen with the characters, I rebooted the force and looked Report:
Interval Since Last Panic Report: 206971 sec
Panics Since Last Report: 3
Anonymous UUID: 58F8DD61-A583-4C29-A4FB-29E2648B08E5

Thu Apr 8 2010 00:04:11
Machine-check capabilities (cpu 4) 0x0000000000000006:
family: 6 model: 15 stepping: 7 microcode: 0
Intel (R) Xeon (R) CPU E5320@1.86GHz
6 error-reporting banks
Machine-check status 0x0000000000000005:
restart IP valid
machine-check in progress
MCA error-reporting registers:
IA32_MC0_STATUS (0x401): 0x1000000000000000 invalid
IA32_MC1_STATUS (0x405): 0x0000000000000000 invalid
IA32_MC2_STATUS (0x409): 0x0000000000000000 invalid
IA32_MC3_STATUS (0x40d): 0x0020000000000000 invalid
IA32_MC4_STATUS (0x411): 0x0000000000000011 invalid
IA32_MC5_STATUS (0x415): 0xb200001806000e0f valid
MCA error code: 0x0e0f
Model specific error code: 0x0600
Other information: 0x00000018
Status bits:
Processor context corrupt
Error enabled
Uncorrected error
panic (cpu 4 caller 0x2a7c94): Machine Check at 0x00fe5bc5, thread: 0x6303b7c, trapno: 0x12, err: 0x0, registers:
CR0: 0x8001003b, CR2: 0xb0103c58, CR3: 0x00100000, CR4: 0x00000660
EAX: 0x00000000, EBX: 0x052cb4c0, ECX: 0x00000001, EDX: 0x00000000
ESP: 0x393e3b10, EBP: 0x393e3b48, ESI: 0x0526d000, EDI: 0x00ff0668
EFL: 0x00000002, EIP: 0x00fe5bc5

Backtrace (CPU 4), Frame: Return Address (4 potential args on stack)
0x302c4fb8: 0x21b449 (0x5ce420 0x302c4fec 0x2238a5 0x0)
0x302c5008: 0x2a7c94 (0x590140 0x59022d 0xfe5bc5 0x6303b7c)
0x302c50f8: 0x29f912 (0x1 0x6b2e656c 0x702e6970 0x61766972)
0x393e3b48: 0xfdbf0b (0x301b60a4 0x1 0x526d000 0x0)
0x393e3c28: 0xfdda5b (0x540725f3 0x800000ab 0x0 0x0)
0x393e3ce8: 0x2a9aa5 (0xffffffff 0x7fffffff 0x393e3d28 0x302ec000)
0x393e3d08: 0x2256c6 (0x302ec49c 0x5407231f 0xab 0x302ec488)
0x393e3d68: 0x2264b0 (0x1 0x6303b7c 0x52cf884 0x0)
0x393e3dd8: 0x2270d4 (0x6303b98 0x6303b98 0x393e3e38 0x232817)
0x393e3e48: 0x227178 (0x0 0x0 0x0 0x514b740)
0x393e3e68: 0x22193c (0x0 0x2 0x80 0x2)
0x393e3e88: 0x485c67 (0x598e55c 0x1 0x598e73c 0x2)
0x393e3ef8: 0x461f37 (0x0 0x0 0x0 0x598e55c)
0x393e3f78: 0x4ec84e (0x598e540 0x62d3f80 0x62d3fc4 0x6303b7c)
0x393e3fc8: 0x29eef8 (0x5c5ba20 0x0 0x10 0x5c5dd00)
Kernel Extensions in backtrace (with dependencies):
com.apple.driver.AppleIntelCPUPowerManagement (104. 3.0) @ 0xfda000-> 0xff5fff

BSD process name corresponding to current thread: QTKitServer

Mac OS version:
10D573

Kernel version:
Darwin Kernel Version 10.3.0: Fri Feb 26 11:58:09 PST 2010; root: xnu-1504.3.12 ~ 1/RELEASE_I386
System model name: MacPro1, 1 (Mac-F4208DC8)

System uptime in nanoseconds: 735849704264
unloaded kexts:
com.apple.driver.AppleFileSystemDriver 2.0 (addr 0xe33000, size 0x12288) - last unloaded 96147174542
loaded kexts:
com.apple.driver.AppleHWSensor 1.9.3d0 - last loaded 29997288897
com.apple.driver.AppleUpstreamUserClient 3.3.2
com.apple.driver.AppleHDA 1.8.4fc3
com.apple.driver.AudioAUUC 1.4
com.apple.GeForce 6.1.0
com.apple.Dont_Steal_Mac_OS_X 7.0.0
com.apple.driver.AudioIPCDriver 1.1.2
com.apple.driver.AppleMCEDriver 1.1.9
com.apple.driver.AppleIntelMeromProfile 19
com.apple.driver.ACPI_SMC_PlatformPlugin 4.1.1d0
com.apple.driver.AppleLPC 1.4.11
com.apple.filesystems.autofs 2.1.0
com.apple.iokit.SCSITaskUserClient 2.6.2
com.apple.BootCache 31
com.apple.AppleFSCompression.AppleFSCompressionTyp eZlib 1.0.0d1
com.apple.driver.AppleIntel8254XEthernet 2.1.1b7
com.apple.iokit.IOAHCIBlockStorage 1.6.1
com.apple.driver.AppleFWOHCI 4.5.7
com.apple.driver.AppleUSBHub 3.9.6
com.apple.driver.AppleAHCIPort 2.1.1
com.apple.driver.AppleIntelPIIXATA 2.5.1
com.apple.driver.AppleEFINVRAM 1.3.0
com.apple.driver.AppleUSBEHCI 3.9.6
com.apple.driver.AppleUSBUHCI 3.9.6
com.apple.driver.AppleACPIButtons 1.3.2
com.apple.driver.AppleRTC 1.3.1
com.apple.driver.AppleHPET 1.5
com.apple.driver.AppleSMBIOS 1.5
com.apple.driver.AppleACPIEC 1.3.2
com.apple.driver.AppleAPIC 1.4
com.apple.driver.AppleIntelCPUPowerManagementClien t 104.3.0
com.apple.security.sandbox 0
com.apple.security.quarantine 0
com.apple.nke.applicationfirewall 2.1.11
com.apple.driver.AppleIntelCPUPowerManagement 104.3.0
com.apple.driver.AppleProfileReadCounterAction 17
com.apple.driver.DspFuncLib 1.8.4fc3
com.apple.driver.AppleProfileTimestampAction 10
com.apple.driver.AppleProfileThreadInfoAction 14
com.apple.driver.AppleProfileRegisterStateAction 10
com.apple.driver.AppleProfileKEventAction 10
com.apple.driver.AppleProfileCallstackAction 20
com.apple.nvidia.nv50hal 6.1.0
com.apple.NVDAResman 6.1.0
com.apple.iokit.IONDRVSupport 2.1
com.apple.iokit.IOFireWireIP 2.0.3
com.apple.iokit.IOSurface 74.0
com.apple.iokit.IOBluetoothSerialManager 2.3.1f4
com.apple.iokit.IOSerialFamily 10.0.3
com.apple.iokit.IOAudioFamily 1.7.6fc2
com.apple.kext.OSvKernDSPLib 1.3
com.apple.driver.AppleHDAController 1.8.4fc3
com.apple.iokit.IOGraphicsFamily 2.1
com.apple.iokit.IOHDAFamily 1.8.4fc3
com.apple.iokit.AppleProfileFamily 41
com.apple.driver.AppleSMC 3.0.1d2
com.apple.driver.IOPlatformPluginFamily 4.1.1d0
com.apple.iokit.IOUSBHIDDriver 3.9.6
com.apple.driver.AppleUSBComposite 3.9.0
com.apple.iokit.IOSCSIMultimediaCommandsDevice 2.6.2
com.apple.iokit.IOBDStorageFamily 1.6
com.apple.iokit.IODVDStorageFamily 1.6
com.apple.iokit.IOCDStorageFamily 1.6
com.apple.driver.XsanFilter 402.1
com.apple.iokit.IOATAPIProtocolTransport 2.5.1
com.apple.iokit.IOSCSIArchitectureModelFamily 2.6.2
com.apple.iokit.IONetworkingFamily 1.9
com.apple.iokit.IOFireWireFamily 4.2.6
com.apple.iokit.IOUSBUserClient 3.9.6
com.apple.iokit.IOAHCIFamily 2.0.3
com.apple.iokit.IOATAFamily 2.5.1
com.apple.iokit.IOUSBFamily 3.9.6
com.apple.driver.AppleEFIRuntime 1.3.0
com.apple.iokit.IOHIDFamily 1.6.2
com.apple.iokit.IOSMBusFamily 1.1
com.apple.kext.AppleMatch 1.0.0d1
com.apple.security.TMSafetyNet 6
com.apple.driver.DiskImages 283
com.apple.iokit.IOStorageFamily 1.6
com.apple.driver.AppleACPIPlatform 1.3.2
com.apple.iokit.IOPCIFamily 2.6
com.apple.iokit.IOACPIFamily 1.3.0
Model: MacPro1, 1, BootROM MP11.005C.B08, 8 processors, 1.86 GHz, 2 GB, SMC 1.7f10
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT, NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT, PCIe, 512 MB
Memory Module: global_name
Network Service: Ethernet 2, Ethernet, en1
PCI Card: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT, Display, Slot-1
Serial ATA Device: ST3250820AS P, 232,89 GB
Parallel ATA Device: PIONEER DVD-RW DVR-112D
USB Device: USB Keyboard, 0x04d9 (Holtek Semiconductor, Inc.), 0x1603, 0x5d100000
USB Device: USB Full Speed, 0x09da (A-FOUR TECH CO., LTD.), 0x8090, 0x3d100000
FireWire Device: built-in_hub, Up to 800 Mb / sec

It is to be hoped that this discrepancy is the memory bus and the bus of the processor because the processor is running at 1066, and the memory is not reduced the frequency to 533 and remained at 667, but should work on the 533, yet the number of cores in the system are defined here as the name of the processor is unknown. What to do? How do I know what the problem is on the report? in memory or processor? Now it crashes every 5 minutes. CPU temperature is not no more than 34 degrees celsius while watching hd video.

[Flocarino]

Hello guys,
I just found a good deal on Ebay at $400 per processor (X5365 3.00 2x4 1333 120) but when I received them today, I looked at one of them and it is clearly damaged as you can see in the picture, it has a broken/missing transistor and the one above it is bent. I'm sure that it cannot fit in my MacPro this way, I won't even bother, unless one of you guys has installed a similar/crippled processor and worked :D
What do you guys think that I should do beside contacting the seller and ask for a replacement/refund?

Should I try installing it this way? :eek:
[img=http://img261.imagevenue.com/loc207/th_95344_IMG_4003_122_207lo.JPG] (http://img261.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=95344_IMG_4003_122_207lo.JPG)

[Renderz]

I wouldn't risk installing it.

[Vylen]

Hello guys,
I just found a good deal on Ebay at $400 per processor (X5365 3.00 2x4 1333 120) but when I received them today, I looked at one of them and it is clearly damaged as you can see in the picture, it has a broken/missing transistor and the one above it is bent. I'm sure that it cannot fit in my MacPro this way, I won't even bother, unless one of you guys has installed a similar/crippled processor and worked :D
What do you guys think that I should do beside contacting the seller and ask for a replacement/refund?

Should I try installing it this way? :eek:
[img=http://img261.imagevenue.com/loc207/th_95344_IMG_4003_122_207lo.JPG] (http://img261.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=95344_IMG_4003_122_207lo.JPG)

Straight-out no.

[Flocarino]

I thought so guys so I sent today the processor back for a full refund, now I'm stuck with one processor(hopefully good) and must chase on Ebay for a second bargain on an X5365.
Thank you.

[Flocarino]

A general power consumption question.
Will I have any problems, mainly Power Supply, by installing 2 x X5355 2.66 QUAD CORES and a ATI Radeon HD 4870 1GB which requires both power connectors on the motherboard?
I want to play it safe and avoid any problems related to the voltage.
I love my MacPro and I keep it clean and don't want to ''kill'' it with a voltage surcharge.
I personally don't see any problems but maybe some of you guys already have a similar configuration and can confirm me that all its fine :) and I have nothing to worry.
Thank you guys!

[GiantDolphin]

A general power consumption question.
Will I have any problems, mainly Power Supply, by installing 2 x X5355 2.66 QUAD CORES and a ATI Radeon HD 4870 1GB

I have that card, 1GB, and 2 x X5365 3.0 in a Mac Pro 1,1 and no problems.

[nanofrog]

A general power consumption question.
Will I have any problems, mainly Power Supply, by installing 2 x X5355 2.66 QUAD CORES and a ATI Radeon HD 4870 1GB which requires both power connectors on the motherboard?
I want to play it safe and avoid any problems related to the voltage.
I love my MacPro and I keep it clean and don't want to ''kill'' it with a voltage surcharge.
I personally don't see any problems but maybe some of you guys already have a similar configuration and can confirm me that all its fine :) and I have nothing to worry.
Thank you guys!
The voltages in that line are the same (VID = 1.000 - 1.500VDC). Only the TDP differs (i.e. X5355 = 120W, X5365 = 150W, which means the current requirement of the X5365 is higher <p=iv; i is current, v is voltage, and p is power>).

The PSU and board's voltage regulators can handle it (PSU = 980W BTW). :)

[Flocarino]

WOW, I thought so, but hearing from you guys, simply ''calms'' me down and I'll go ahead with the upgrades shortly. :)
Thank you.

[everrain]

Can anyone specify the waternose pliers to use to hold the shaft?(And screwdrivers you used by the way) and were to buy those? it would be useful to people wanting to open the Macpro.

[Flocarino]

Can anyone specify the waternose pliers to use to hold the shaft?(And screwdrivers you used by the way) and were to buy those? it would be useful to people wanting to open the Macpro.

You don't need the pliers, trust me. I've done the upgrade for the first time and couldn't remove the same 2 screws on the memory cage but a gentle brute force is enough. Simply pull the memory cage to the right with one hand(towards back of the Mac) while with the other hand pull the heatsink plastic cover to the left(front of the Mac). It will come off, but be gentle and patient.
Hope this helps.

[KintoVW]

Hi everyone. Great thread! I was wondering if anyone could help. My first gen. Mac Pro has a CPU B fail diagnostic LED lit on the logic board. It's been suggested that I swap CPU A with CPU B, swap heatsinks, reset PRAM- which I've all done with no success. The computer will power on, chime, and just sit at a white/grey screen. I'm to the point now where I'd settle for running just one CPU if possible. I read here that CPU B is the primary one, but since I'm getting a B failure, am I screwed?

[hyram]

I'd say it's doubtful that both processors died at the same time. What's the rest of the diagnostic LED's telling you? The things that might be wrong would include bad memory, bad MCH (orthbridge), or corrupted firmware.

[fabbio]

OK, I must be the only one concerned about this. But I will document my progress anyway...

I have downloaded current Intel update file and found that most recent microcode version for X5365/SLAED X5355/SLAEG stepping G0 (CPUID 0x6FB) is version 0xB9 released on November 5th 2009.

Having researched OS X security model I have discovered that user space application cannot access CPU wrmsr instruction required to initiate the update process. It just causes segmentation fault. So I have created a simple proof-of-concept kernel extension (.kext) that loads manually, updates the CPU and exits. I have to run (load/unload to kernel) it a few (=4) times for the new microcode to "stick". Maybe this is related to the number of cores even though I was under the impression that update is required only once per physical CPU. Anyway, it works if implemented properly. Also, when Mac goes to sleep its CPUs power down and get reset so proper microcode KEXT needs to reinit the upload after each wake up.

I wish some kernel developer gave us some help here... Given the fact that Apple updates EFI microcode very rarely it might be useful to any Intel based Mac.


Hi folks.

Ibodnar,
you're not the only one concerned with this, unfortunately ....
... finally I found someone 'serious' involved in that, in a 'serious' Forum ;)

So, let me ask you: any progress with the microcode 'injection' process?

I bought 2x X5365 on ebay for my MP1,1, different stepping (I cannot check right now which one I have, I'm abroad for work), so different voltages and different core temperatures (and different current drain) under stress/idle.

Obviously I have "unknown processor" under :apple:about menu, but I have something even worse:

1) VmWare Fusion tells me it has troubles running VT-x hardware emulation technology ("a mix on VT-x and not VT-x processors") and I can have JUST 4 cores available for virtual machines (on 8)
2) MS Silverlight pkg is not installing 'cause "not known processors" (ok, I could live without that)
.. other sw with similar problems..

All the 'core' sw and the famous stress-benchmarks (Apple compressor, Lightroom, Adobe CS4, etc.) use all the 8 cores correctly, but I 'feel' OSX needs something in order to work properly with the Xeons I've installed.

For now, let me inject a microcoded 'thanks in advance' for any answers... :D

cheers, fabbio

[KintoVW]

I'd say it's doubtful that both processors died at the same time. What's the rest of the diagnostic LED's telling you? The things that might be wrong would include bad memory, bad MCH (orthbridge), or corrupted firmware.

Thanks for the suggestions. I never considered firmware. How would I go about checking that? It was running fine with 2 dual 2.66. I upgraded to two 3 GHz dual core Xeon 5160s and it powered up and was running then too. I wanted to reinstall the OS ( and didn't have a working optical drive in there at the time) so I booted to target disk mode. Things seemed normal for a few minutes until the FireWire symbol stopped bouncing on screen. That's when I noticed the "CPU B Fail" led was lit. That's the only diagnostic led lit. After that it will only chime and go to the white/grey screen.

[hyram]

Thanks for the suggestions. I never considered firmware. How would I go about checking that? It was running fine with 2 dual 2.66. I upgraded to two 3 GHz dual core Xeon 5160s and it powered up and was running then too. I wanted to reinstall the OS ( and didn't have a working optical drive in there at the time) so I booted to target disk mode. Things seemed normal for a few minutes until the FireWire symbol stopped bouncing on screen. That's when I noticed the "CPU B Fail" led was lit. That's the only diagnostic led lit. After that it will only chime and go to the white/grey screen.

Hmmm.... No idea if it's firmware, but you can try. Get an optical drive in there, download the restoration disk, follow the directions.

[silverblue3]

I have a Mac Pro 1,1. Was wondering if the Mac Pro would work if I just use one X5355 (was able to find only one till now)? If so, which one of the sockets would that go into?

[beaker7]

I have a pair of x5355 CPUs (each is quad 2.66ghz) that i am preparing for sale on ebay. Please PM if interested.

[Flocarino]

I have a pair of Intel Xeons X5355 SLAEG removed from my MacPro, they are for sale.
If interested, send me a PM. Thank you. SOLD!!!!!!

[hugh71158]

Hi,

I am hoping that I can get some advice an a subject that you guys clearly know lots more about than me! :)

Here is the situation.

My wife has a Mac Pro 1.1 (early 2007 I think) and she is running a bunch of things on it. Lightroom, Photoshop, etc. We are photographers. For a while now she has been complaining that the machine seems to freeze up a lot while it catches up.

Also attached are two monitors - a 30 inch and a 23 inch cinema displays. We also have three internal drives and two external. A total of around 8 TB. The RAM installed is 5 GB.

My question is twofold:

1. If I buy two xeon quad cores, as per this thread, how much difference will it realistically make?

2. If I don't upgrade, will a video card make much (any?) difference. Or maybe I should do both?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Hugh

[Silencio]

Hi,

I am hoping that I can get some advice an a subject that you guys clearly know lots more about than me! :)

Here is the situation.

My wife has a Mac Pro 1.1 (early 2007 I think) and she is running a bunch of things on it. Lightroom, Photoshop, etc. We are photographers. For a while now she has been complaining that the machine seems to freeze up a lot while it catches up.

Also attached are two monitors - a 30 inch and a 23 inch cinema displays. We also have three internal drives and two external. A total of around 8 TB. The RAM installed is 5 GB.

My question is twofold:

1. If I buy two xeon quad cores, as per this thread, how much difference will it realistically make?

2. If I don't upgrade, will a video card make much (any?) difference. Or maybe I should do both?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Hugh

5GB of RAM isn't nearly enough. Before you do anything else, load up on more! Get four more 2GB DIMMs, two more 4GB DIMMs, whatever.

The MacPro1,1 is actually a "Early 2006" model. That should help out with your RAM shopping.

I assume your video card is the stock GeForce 7300? An upgrade there would be useful, but you'll see better results with more memory.

Which CPU(s) do you have in your Mac Pro right now?

[hugh71158]

5GB of RAM isn't nearly enough. Before you do anything else, load up on more! Get four more 2GB DIMMs, two more 4GB DIMMs, whatever.

The MacPro1,1 is actually a "Early 2006" model. That should help out with your RAM shopping.

I assume your video card is the stock GeForce 7300? An upgrade there would be useful, but you'll see better results with more memory.

Which CPU(s) do you have in your Mac Pro right now?

Somewhere in the back of my mind I seem to remember it not being the first wave of this model. Hmm, I am sure you are right though, and thanks for the memory pointer. I have attached a grab of the system info.

I assume the memory has to be added in pairs. It came with 2 x 512MB modules when new, and I almost instantly added 2 x 2GB modules, giving me the now total of 5GB.

Yes, GeForce 7300 GT is installed. The CPU's are Dual Core 2.66 (x2)

So more memory will help, but would you also upgrade the processors? If it made enough of a difference I would buy a couple of Xeon 5355's, if it REALLY made a difference I would even buy the Xeon 5365's.

From what I can see they seem easy enough to install you are reasonably handy (I am) I just wonder if it's the right route to take.

Thanks for the feedback, it is much appreciated.

Hugh

http://ventureweddingphotography.com/images/maccores.jpg

[MacUser2525]

So more memory will help, but would you also upgrade the processors? If it made enough of a difference I would buy a couple of Xeon 5355's, if it REALLY made a difference I would even buy the Xeon 5365's.

Looking at those 5365s on Ebay they go for ~$700 a piece so selling the old MacPro and adding $1400 to it I'd say your looking at current Quad 2.8 money so you would be better off doing that. The 55s go around ~$300 so a $600 upgrade getting close to a current 2.8 refurb the sweet spot I think is these 5345 matched pairs I found on Ebay and if the stepping on these chips matter in a MacPro (no expert but I suspect it does) then you want matched pairs, they go for 300 & 250 respectively which IMHO is your best bang for the buck upgrade if your apps are indeed CPU and not memory bound.


http://cgi.ebay.ca/2x-Intel-Xeon-E5345-Quad-Core-2-33-GHz-MATCHED-PAIR-CPU-/180579844227?pt=CPUs&hash=item2a0b65c083#ht_4104wt_1141

http://cgi.ebay.ca/2-x-HP-DL380G5-XEON-2-33GHz-Quad-Core-E5345-SL9YL-KITs-/380284166830?pt=CPUs&hash=item588ab3e2ae#ht_2969wt_1129

[NoNameBrand]

1. If I buy two xeon quad cores, as per this thread, how much difference will it realistically make?

Use activity monitor to see how many cores you're using now. At a guess, 8 cores isn't going to make a blind bit of difference compared to 4.

Look to see what's making the computer wait - out of memory, out of CPU, waiting for files to read/write, etc.

At a guess, more memory will help.

I do want to do the dual quad upgrade at some point, but I don't need it yet, it's just an 'oooh ooooh POWER' thing.

2. If I don't upgrade, will a video card make much (any?) difference. Or maybe I should do both?

I don't think Photoshop and Lightroom are particularly GPU dependant.

You also may wish to look at where your data is stored - SATA connections are faster than Firewire, which is faster than USB; the first part of a disk is much faster than the end, etc.

If you use Photoshop, look into making a RAID0 scratch disk. I use the first 15GB of each of my disks to make a 60GB scratch disk that does I/O at 300 MB/s (vs 110 MB/s on my two fastest disks).

[hugh71158]

If you use Photoshop, look into making a RAID0 scratch disk. I use the first 15GB of each of my disks to make a 60GB scratch disk that does I/O at 300 MB/s (vs 110 MB/s on my two fastest disks).

Can you tell me more about that please? I am not getting how you did this. As per the post from Silencio, within 30 minutes I had ordered another 8 GB or RAM. Let's see what that does. :)

Thanks for taking time out to reply to me.

Hugh

[NoNameBrand]

Can you tell me more about that please? I am not getting how you did this.

Yes. See below.

As per the post from Silencio, within 30 minutes I had ordered another 8 GB or RAM. Let's see what that does.

Waiting for the postman (I have 8GB winging its way to me right now too. Will have 13GB when I install it).

--

RAID0 scratch disk.

You use Disk Utility to make a software RAID0 ('striped') array. You can use all of each disk in the set or just a partition from each. Since I only have internal disks on my Mac Pro, I used a partition.

Preamble:
Since hard drives are circular, the portion at the outside moves faster than the inside. The outside portion is the beginning of the disk, and the more your disk fills up, the closer to the inside it gets and the slower it gets. Use the outside of your disk for stuff you want to be fast, use the inside for backup. See Lloyd Chamber's Mac Performance Guide (http://macperformanceguide.com/).

My four disks are partitioned something like this (I have more partitions on disk A/B/C, but they're small and slow and at the back):
A: stripe | system | users backup | media backup
B: stripe | users | system backup | games backup
C: stripe | media | games
D: stripe | Time Machine

'system' is the OS and Applications. 'users' has the home folders of people I like (me), and is full of stuff I create. 'media' is stuff I watch and listen to. The partitions and their order provide the most speed for day-to-day use. 'stripe' is the bit you want, you can ignore the rest of my setup, though I think it's pretty awesome.

The meat:
Each 'stripe' is the first (fastest) 15GB of the disk. In Disk Utility, I assembled them into a RAID0 set (which works out to be 60GB) (look under the 'RAID' tab when you have one of these partitions selected). I called it 'scratch', and in Photoshop made in the primary scratch disk. Word to the wise: If you need to break your RAID set for any reason, set the scratch disk to be something else first, even if you plan on recreating it with the same name before launching PS again: Photoshop freaks out.

Setting this up will require some data-shuffling, so plan it out, use Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper! and test your clones before reformatting/repartitioning (erasing!) your existing disks.

Caveat: The stripped array will bottleneck on the slowest disk in it, so if your computer is doing a lot of disk access on one disk when Photoshopping, your speed boost will be diminished. I tend to not to have my Mac do anything else when Photoshopping.

Since you have two empty internal bays, if you don't need more storage, you may want to find two low-capacity SSDs (cheaper) and use those instead of HDDs. They'll be faster and you don't have to deal with data shuffling and the caveat. The disadvantage is the price and mounting them in the Mac Pro.

[hugh71158]

Yes. See below.



Waiting for the postman (I have 8GB winging its way to me right now too. Will have 13GB when I install it).

--

RAID0 scratch disk.

You use Disk Utility to make a software RAID0 ('striped') array. You can use all of each disk in the set or just a partition from each. Since I only have internal disks on my Mac Pro, I used a partition.

Preamble:
Since hard drives are circular, the portion at the outside moves faster than the inside. The outside portion is the beginning of the disk, and the more your disk fills up, the closer to the inside it gets and the slower it gets. Use the outside of your disk for stuff you want to be fast, use the inside for backup. See Lloyd Chamber's Mac Performance Guide (http://macperformanceguide.com/).

My four disks are partitioned something like this (I have more partitions on disk A/B/C, but they're small and slow and at the back):
A: stripe | system | users backup | media backup
B: stripe | users | system backup | games backup
C: stripe | media | games
D: stripe | Time Machine

'system' is the OS and Applications. 'users' has the home folders of people I like (me), and is full of stuff I create. 'media' is stuff I watch and listen to. The partitions and their order provide the most speed for day-to-day use. 'stripe' is the bit you want, you can ignore the rest of my setup, though I think it's pretty awesome.

The meat:
Each 'stripe' is the first (fastest) 15GB of the disk. In Disk Utility, I assembled them into a RAID0 set (which works out to be 60GB) (look under the 'RAID' tab when you have one of these partitions selected). I called it 'scratch', and in Photoshop made in the primary scratch disk. Word to the wise: If you need to break your RAID set for any reason, set the scratch disk to be something else first, even if you plan on recreating it with the same name before launching PS again: Photoshop freaks out.

Setting this up will require some data-shuffling, so plan it out, use Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper! and test your clones before reformatting/repartitioning (erasing!) your existing disks.

Caveat: The stripped array will bottleneck on the slowest disk in it, so if your computer is doing a lot of disk access on one disk when Photoshopping, your speed boost will be diminished. I tend to not to have my Mac do anything else when Photoshopping.

Since you have two empty internal bays, if you don't need more storage, you may want to find two low-capacity SSDs (cheaper) and use those instead of HDDs. They'll be faster and you don't have to deal with data shuffling and the caveat. The disadvantage is the price and mounting them in the Mac Pro.

Wow, that was a VERY comprehensive response. THANK YOU. I will now set about digesting it all.

Actually, I think I will go the SSD route. I am guessing that you said 2 low capacity as opposed to one higher capacity because it is faster as a striped set up?

Funny, as I said I ordered 8GB too, and OWC emailed me today to say it is shipped. My total will also end up as 13GB!

I really appreciate your help - thanks again!

Hugh

[NoNameBrand]

Actually, I think I will go the SSD route. I am guessing that you said 2 low capacity as opposed to one higher capacity because it is faster as a striped set up?

Yeah, but also because SSDs get very pricey very quickly as you go up in capacity.

[MacUser2525]

Yeah, but also because SSDs get very pricey very quickly as you go up in capacity.

One thing to watch for though is that they will usually cripple the controller on the lower capacity drives so you don't get the same throughput as the larger more expensive ones.

[hugh71158]

Thanks guys, I appreciate it.

Hugh

[giffut]

... won´t need a scratch disc for Photoshop: It´s much more effective if you provide enough RAM for the machine, as OSX uses RAM for scratch as long it is available. It does so quite efficiently, I might add. That´s why you will see memory filled up even after minimal usage patterns. Your unused memory space will be huge - check the memory section in "Activity Monitor".

Depending on the image filesizes you work with (multiply its size x4 to roughly get the scratch value), choose accordingly. Depending on your budget I would through as much RAM as possible into it, even maxing it with 32GB. If your image work goes beyond this value, you might consider a fast Intel X25 SSD 128GB/256GB as a secondary scratch disc. I wouldn´t by any means use a harddrive in RAID 0 or whatever for scratch. You loose precious bays in your Mac Pro, generate more heat, noise and vibrations, have double the risk of failure. RAID 0 for scratch, those times are definitely over: SSD rules.

And if all this still holds the breaks on your machine, you might consider upgrading the CPUs and going 2x QuadCore.

[Concorde Rules]

*snip*

Sod that for a month of Sundays! Get a SSD, does the job much better than messing about like that :eek:

[NoNameBrand]

Sod that for a month of Sundays! Get a SSD, does the job much better than messing about like that :eek:

Yeah, just like I said to do. Personally, I have no spare bays. I have four full hard drive bays and two full optical bays already— striped scratch array is faster than just assigning a partition, and with a little planning no harder than just using the default boot disk. Doing it my way doesn't work if any of your disks are being used for much while you're Photoshopping, but that's usually how it goes for me. Anyway, the I/O is faster than a single SSD, so cheers.

[giffut]

... best scratch disc for Photoshop is more RAM - up it to 16gb or 32GB. And I/O wise you are right, but you want fast access time, and here any (even mediocre) SSD beats the pants of any HD out there.

[NoNameBrand]

... best scratch disc for Photoshop is more RAM - up it to 16gb or 32GB. And I/O wise you are right, but you want fast access time, and here any (even mediocre) SSD beats the pants of any HD out there.

CS3 RAM is already maxed out, alas (3GB). Interesting reading the Mac Performance Guide (http://macperformanceguide.com/), the author suggests transfer speed is more important than access time for scratch disks, and that the fastest scratch disk is now a pair of OWC Mercury SSDs (used to be four striped HDDs).