AHT for Mac Pro 2009 5,1

[shindom]

Hi,

I upgraded my 2009 Mac Pro with 2 X5660s and so far I am loving it.
I know that the X56xx westmere series are supposed to run cooler than the older X55xx processors and from what I can tell from iStats it does !!

Only thing is, I was also hoping my northbridge temps would be lower as well and it is not the case, the temp is the same 79C idle which I heard is fine, but still sounds high to me. I up-ed the exhaust and intake fan to cool down the temp of the northbridge to 69C but then the processor speed (BOOSTA, BOOSTB) are up 1450 rpm and more audible .. bummer.

trying to see if there could be a potential hardware mishap somewhere I decided to run the AHT tools at boot and it just froze at the scanning hardware step. I figured the AHT I have is for the 2009 Mac pro and maybe it is not compatible with the firmware-hacked 5,1 machine I have now.

Does anybody know if we are supposed to use the Mac pro 2010 AHT software for a 2009 5,1 machine ?

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oops ! I posted too fast .. never-mind my silly question, a quick search in the forum showed that indeed you have to use the AHT for the mac pro 2010 if you flashed the firmware of your 2009 machine.

 

[ActionableMango]

79-80C is normal. IIRC, these are rated for over 100C.

 

[shindom]

79-80C is normal. IIRC, these are rated for over 100C.

Yes you are right .. I just still can't believe it is safe .. 100C is boiling water temp !! plus I have read that over time the plastic pins that hold the ridiculous northbridge heatsink break causing improper cooling and ultimate death of the processor board all together .. call me crazy but I can't help thinking those high temps have something to do with the degradation of the plastic pins.

Anyway, thanks for the confirmation !

 

[ActionableMango]

Wait a minute, 4,1? That doesn't even have a Northbridge, does it?

 

[flowrider]

^^^^If you can upgrade the firmware to a 5,1, why wouldn't it? 4,1 and 5,1 Mac Pros are very similar and I would assume they both use the Northbridge in their architecture.

Lou

 

[ActionableMango]

I don't know, honestly I'm confused. I thought I read somewhere that Intel stopped using Northbridge with Nehalem and newer.

When I try to look it up just now, I can find information that states Intel did drop Northbridge with Nehalem and newer, yet I can also find people talking about the Northbridge in their Nehalem and Westmere computers.

So I don't really know what to think.

 

[flowrider]

^^^^There's a Northbridge Chip happily running in my 5,1.

Lou

 

[shindom]

I don't know, honestly I'm confused. I thought I read somewhere that Intel stopped using Northbridge with Nehalem and newer.

When I try to look it up just now, I can find information that states Intel did drop Northbridge with Nehalem and newer, yet I can also find people talking about the Northbridge in their Nehalem and Westmere computers.

So I don't really know what to think.

there is definitely a northbridge chip on mac pro 4,1 and 5,1. The chip is usually hidden under the main/processor A heatsink.

But it seems you are right as that chip is not a northbridge in the common sense of the term: the memory controller is part of the CPU in the Nehalem architecture. Istats and other temp software still call that chip a northbridge though .. so does the apple guide for the 4,1-5,1 mac pro.

more info here: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1169024/