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Help needed for purchasing used Mac Pro

h9826790 said:
And then a big fight after his wife back home regardless if the upgrade sucessful or not. :p
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You got that one right :D (we been married for 25 yrs).

I was busy reading various posts I bookmarked about lidded/delidded controversy and that is true that most of them were about upgrading the 8 cores to 12 cores. Will I need the washers/spacers or special torque wrenches to avoid damaging the cpu board while tightening the lidded x5690 over it? I hate to destroy my 6 yrs old beloved mac.

That brings to the next question: where to get a quality x5690/5680 cpu? I'll appreciate if you all can direct me to your trusted ebay stores where I can get decent cpu?

This weekend I am going to read all the posts dealing with 'firmware upgrade' and 'cpu installation process'. Please expect my message on monday about any quaries and I'll really appreciate if you can suggest any finer points

Thanks
 
krishnaM said:
You got that one right :D (we been married for 25 yrs).

I was busy reading various posts I bookmarked about lidded/delidded controversy and that is true that most of them were about upgrading the 8 cores to 12 cores. Will I need the washers/spacers or special torque wrenches to avoid damaging the cpu board while tightening the lidded x5690 over it? I hate to destroy my 6 yrs old beloved mac.

That brings to the next question: where to get a quality x5690/5680 cpu? I'll appreciate if you all can direct me to your trusted ebay stores where I can get decent cpu?

This weekend I am going to read all the posts dealing with 'firmware upgrade' and 'cpu installation process'. Please expect my message on monday about any quaries and I'll really appreciate if you can suggest any finer points

Thanks
Click to expand...

I read high level most of the posts. No matter what someone says, don't do the delidded upgrade of two processors from two processors, yourself. I sell my services on eBay and I have done single processor, 2009 single processor is doable with least risk. When you take the HeatSink off you will see under it W3520 and you can replace with W3680 or W3690 (not the X ones' although that can be done but let us say you want to be safe). Drop your CPU and now use common sense (there is slight Apple sophistication here than rawness of PC) when tightening and placing the heatsink (someone mentioned before you need 3mm long neck 9" T Hex wrench, can only buy online mostly so next weekend is your target now). Arctic Silver website has guide for spreading the paste. Since you are not at liberty to crush the heatsink for spreading the past, so you are understandably worried about paste spreading properly but most likely it should be fine.
I have a job at hand where someone wants me to upgrade his two delidded processors to delidded with delidded processor he already has in his hand. I have refused it. Do this and then next time buy 2010 double processor and go for delidded upgrade and give that to wife, if you survive the first fight. I usually loose and this has been the trend from last twenty years. Good Luck.
 
DavNeil said:
I read high level most of the posts. No matter what someone says, don't do the delidded upgrade of two processors from two processors, yourself. I sell my services on eBay and I have done single processor, 2009 single processor is doable with least risk. When you take the HeatSink off you will see under it W3520 and you can replace with W3680 or W3690 (not the X ones' although that can be done but let us say you want to be safe). Drop your CPU and now use common sense (there is slight Apple sophistication here than rawness of PC) when tightening and placing the heatsink (someone mentioned before you need 3mm long neck 9" T Hex wrench, can only buy online mostly so next weekend is your target now). Arctic Silver website has guide for spreading the paste. Since you are not at liberty to crush the heatsink for spreading the past, so you are understandably worried about paste spreading properly but most likely it should be fine.
I have a job at hand where someone wants me to upgrade his two delidded processors to delidded with delidded processor he already has in his hand. I have refused it. Do this and then next time buy 2010 double processor and go for delidded upgrade and give that to wife, if you survive the first fight. I usually loose and this has been the trend from last twenty years. Good Luck.
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I thought there is no difference between w3580/3590 and X5680/5690 except the total amount of RAM supported.

Also please tell me where to get a decent cpu. I saw Aventys systems on ebay. Although they seem to be more expensive then the price mentioned in various posts in this forum
 
krishnaM said:
I thought there is no difference between w3580/3590 and X5680/5690 except the total amount of RAM supported.

Also please tell me where to get a decent cpu. I saw Aventys systems on ebay. Although they seem to be more expensive then the price mentioned in various posts in this forum
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When I upgraded my Z600 I purchased the processors from a seller off of Amazon. Great prices to be had on Amazon for these processors.
 
krishnaM said:
Also please tell me where to get a decent cpu. I saw Aventys systems on ebay. Although they seem to be more expensive then the price mentioned in various posts in this forum
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If you are upgrading a 2009 4,1 cMac Pro tower, for the 2 processor model, best to use Delidded CPUs. It's a straightforward upgrade like indicated in the 2009 Mac Pro manual. You can try contacting an eBay seller, Box185 as he offers Delidded CPUs services. Box185 is also a member of this forum and other members have availed of his services. http://www.ebay.com/itm/2009-Mac-Pr...998615?hash=item2809e9a3d7:g:olwAAOSweW5VGXm2

I think Box185 can also acquire the CPUs for you for convenience. Here is a member who upgraded his 2009 cMac Pro dual processor CPUs and availed of Box185's services ( note that the delidding services of Box185 is now lower )
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/2009-8-core-upgrade-the-de-lidded-route.1827902/

In buying a used cMac Pro, you can check out macofalltrades.com aside from OWC. OWC's prices are higher compared to other sellers. Just remember to first upgrade the firmware to 5,1 on 2009 Mac Pros before upgrading the cpus.
 
Apart from the max RAM support, W36xx (yeah, it's 36xx, not 35xx) Max temperature is 68C, and X56xx is 78C. So, IMO, the X56xx is better.
 
h9826790 said:
Apart from the max RAM support, W36xx (yeah, it's 36xx, not 35xx) Max temperature is 68C, and X56xx is 78C. So, IMO, the X56xx is better.
Click to expand...

I did place order today for x5690, Eklind 3mm Hex key, Arctic Silver and cleaning kit, anti static wrist band etc from Amazon. Downloaded the 2009 Mac Pro service manual. Hopefully next weekend I should be able to do the upgrade.

Next step is the '4.1 to 5.1 firmware update'. I read the 'http://forum.netkas.org/index.php/topic,852.0.html' post from the beginning. My mac pro's version is B07 and I do not have any non apple video cards. So it should be doable. I noticed that recently many posts recommend to download 'Mac Pro EFI Firmware update 1.5' before using the 4.1 to 5.1 firmware tool (why?). I have not been able to download the firmware upgrade utility yet from netkas.org as I am still waiting for the membership activation e-mail from their moderators.

Apart from backing up my mac, is there any thing else I need to do before attempting the firmware upgrade?

Also I am currently running 'Mavericks' and I am not very clear if that is a problem. Do I need to use a startup disc with Snow Leopard for the upgrade or the does it work on Mavericks also?


Krishna
 
The firmware upgrade should be very straight forward. You already have B07, all you need to to now is just place the require file on desktop and boot (NOT restart) the Mac with power button holding down...

Anyway, even though it fail, just equals to nothing happen, never heard anyone damage a Mac by this upgrade.
 
krishnaM said:
I did place order today for x5690, Eklind 3mm Hex key, Arctic Silver and cleaning kit, anti static wrist band etc from Amazon. Downloaded the 2009 Mac Pro service manual. Hopefully next weekend I should be able to do the upgrade.

Next step is the '4.1 to 5.1 firmware update'. I read the 'http://forum.netkas.org/index.php/topic,852.0.html' post from the beginning. My mac pro's version is B07 and I do not have any non apple video cards. So it should be doable. I noticed that recently many posts recommend to download 'Mac Pro EFI Firmware update 1.5' before using the 4.1 to 5.1 firmware tool (why?). I have not been able to download the firmware upgrade utility yet from netkas.org as I am still waiting for the membership activation e-mail from their moderators.

Apart from backing up my mac, is there any thing else I need to do before attempting the firmware upgrade?

Also I am currently running 'Mavericks' and I am not very clear if that is a problem. Do I need to use a startup disc with Snow Leopard for the upgrade or the does it work on Mavericks also?


Krishna
Click to expand...

The firmware upgrade utility was posted to these forums here in case you have problems getting approved on netkas.org.

I noticed that recently many posts recommend to download 'Mac Pro EFI Firmware update 1.5' before using the 4.1 to 5.1 firmware tool (why?).
Click to expand...

I might be misremembering, but I think that Apple changed the name of the firmware update file, so the netkas utility process that is supposed to pull it from the web fails. You will need to download the .dmg yourself and mount it before running the upgrade utility.

Mavericks will work just fine.
 
You should not have any difficulty doing the firmware upgrade in Mavericks. If you have El Capitan however, you have to make sure SIP is disabled or you won't be able to do the firmware update.
 
krishnaM said:
I did place order today for x5690, Eklind 3mm Hex key, Arctic Silver and cleaning kit, anti static wrist band etc from Amazon. Downloaded the 2009 Mac Pro service manual. Hopefully next weekend I should be able to do the upgrade.

Next step is the '4.1 to 5.1 firmware update'. I read the 'http://forum.netkas.org/index.php/topic,852.0.html' post from the beginning. My mac pro's version is B07 and I do not have any non apple video cards. So it should be doable. I noticed that recently many posts recommend to download 'Mac Pro EFI Firmware update 1.5' before using the 4.1 to 5.1 firmware tool (why?). I have not been able to download the firmware upgrade utility yet from netkas.org as I am still waiting for the membership activation e-mail from their moderators.

Apart from backing up my mac, is there any thing else I need to do before attempting the firmware upgrade?

Also I am currently running 'Mavericks' and I am not very clear if that is a problem. Do I need to use a startup disc with Snow Leopard for the upgrade or the does it work on Mavericks also?


Krishna
Click to expand...

You may also want to check out this video on upgrading the dual CPUs of a 2009 4,1 cMac Pro. Take note that Delidded CPUs were used. If you would use lidded CPUs with the heat spreader, the process would be different.


The video also shows the firmware upgrade from 4,1 to 5,1. I upgraded the firmwares to various 2009 cMac Pros except there was a machine that the upgrade would not complete successfully. The fix I did was to download an EFI hardware update from the Apple site. Good Luck.
 
If I understood the initial post the MacPro is a single processor Mac. From what I have seen the single processor MacPro 4,1 has a processor that is not delidded so it is a simple swap of the processor.

This was the little writeup under the video: "This is a video of how you replace the processor in a 2009-2012 Mac Pro. I replaced my 2.8 quad with a 3.33 6 core (W3680)."

I agree that when upgrading a two processor tray from a 2009 MacPro, it is best to use delidded processors but like Macsonic posted, it's a relatively straight-forward upgrade. Just wanted to add the single processor upgrade video as well. :)
 
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