2008 Xserve dual processor or not?

[jezzy]

hi guys

picked up a ebay damaged xserve for 150$ shipped.. fingers crossed getting it to work. so far it boots. dvd wont work. unable to get it to see my spare hdd's.. until I tried a apple 80gb sata drive and it recognized it! pfew. was thinking the hdd controller was toast!

now im told its a dual quad 2.8.. flipped open the lid. I see two heat sinks. assuming 2 cpu's.

installed 10.7 and sees processor = 1, 2.8ghz.
installed 10.6 server sees the same.

do I have a dual cpu or perhaps a dead cpu?

Thanks!

 

[Intell]

That model can have one or two physical CPUs, each with 4 cores for a total of 8 cores on two CPUs. You may have the 1 CPU with 4 cores model.

 

[jezzy]

Understand. . Odd that it seems to have 2 cpu's physically installed? The cpu coolers are there for 2 cpus. Although one is a copper color and the other a silver color. Odd having 2 different cpu cooler colors. Not apples style! Think they'd put a dummy cpu cooler ?

 

[Intell]

I think the silver (aluminum) one is either a dummy or isn't cooling the CPU. I've never worked on one of those single CPU Xserves' internals so I sadly can't give a better answer.

 

[jezzy]

Understand. . Odd that it seems to have 2 cpu's physically installed? The cpu coolers are there for 2 cpus. Although one is a copper color and the other a silver color. Odd having 2 different cpu cooler colors. Not apples style! Think they'd put a dummy cpu cooler ?

Ah! I just watched a youtube video. Indeed a cpu cooler over a dummy cpu (the black plastic cover!)

----------

Thanks for the reply btw.

Now if I can only get my dvd and bay 2 and 3 to work! Must be a way to get non apple hdds to be recognized? ?

 

[Consultant]

You can just make a bootable thumbdrive with your DVD data.

 

[jezzy]

Thanks 10.6.8 server installed. Works well. But still bay 2 and 3 and dvd are inop. Afraid I need oem apple drives and a new superdrive.

 

[jezzy]

Just to follow up. Got a 2nd processor on ebay for 35$ shipped. Swapped my 2 software raided drive from the g5 server into this 08 model and now all 3 drives work! Fantastic. For under 200$ a 2008 for a 8 core xserve. Sweet.

Now to get a 2nd fibre channel pcie card to hook up the 2 xserve raid units. Total of 28 drives at 500gb each for 14tb of storage in raid 5..

I wish the 4 channel fibre cards pcie were as cheap as the pcix ones.