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Both YouTube videos miss some fundamental points that need covering. The Mac Observer article is better, but still doesn't afford this subject the gravity and detail it requires. Please, please read and re-read the Pindelski article I posted above. It will arm you with a very thorough understanding of all aspects of the upgrade process and greatly improve your chances of success. The author says that he's upgraded many 2009 machines with this method and not had one failure. I believe him.

yeah looks like i was a little bit to fast. expensive instructive money.
 
meanwhile it boots up with one cpu one time. with no lights on but fans at full speed. than i put one ram out to see what happen then. no boot up and after i put it back no boot up again. :confused:
 

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meanwhile it boots up with one cpu one time. with no lights on but fans at full speed. than i put one ram out to see what happen then. no boot up and after i put it back no boot up again. :confused:

But this means cpu at A is good. But when Cpu B is conneced too no boot up.
One time it boots up with just 4GB at cpu A one time with 6GB.
I got 6GB on each A & B.
 
Sounds to me like your pins are not perfectly back into place. Try very carefully to fine tune the alignment.

Keep this in mind. I had a damaged processor board from my 5,1, bent and broken processor pins in one socket. I put it on eBay clearly stating it was used and damaged, with photos, and I was still able to sell it for around $250.00. So I was able minimise the pain of buying a new board for $500.00.

So, someone is either repairing the boards of salvaging components from them.
 
German: Beim nächsten Mal solltest du Unterlegscheiben benutzt.

English: Next time it is better to use washers.

Dontae Harris shows how to make it wrong.
 
meanwhile it boots up with one cpu one time. with no lights on but fans at full speed. than i put one ram out to see what happen then. no boot up and after i put it back no boot up again. :confused:

sounds you are on your way. I've been there. It is very important to screw the heatsinks properly (same amount of turns on each corner). I spent a weekend with this, and in the end it turned out i needed to screw much tighter i though would be sensible. Look at the board - the pins are arranged in a way, that they are already bent. there are no holes in the cpu. which makes perfect sense, as the cpu lays on the pins pushing them a bit. Screw it more tightly, but go easy and do it in several steps. Do not screw it very hard once, just in turns, and balance it out with all the screws. Good luck.
 
Got a new Processor Board now. but my mac pro is making me crazy.
Now just with one CPU inside on A. I got a bootsound once but no display output after i restart again. no boot sound anymore and no output. What is wrong?
 
Your Mac Pro 4,1 2009 (factory) backplane board will remain flashed with a Mac Pro 5,1 bootrom , regardless of the Tray used . The CPU Tray does not receive the flashed upgrade .

ok thx this is what i thought.
still no boot up with new processor board.:confused:
strange was one time it starts with 2 cpus installed. showing all 12 cores. 5min later it freeze and no boot up again.
 
Sounds to me like your pins are not perfectly back into place. Try very carefully to fine tune the alignment.

Keep this in mind. I had a damaged processor board from my 5,1, bent and broken processor pins in one socket. I put it on eBay clearly stating it was used and damaged, with photos, and I was still able to sell it for around $250.00. So I was able minimise the pain of buying a new board for $500.00.

So, someone is either repairing the boards of salvaging components from them.

Not likely they are repairing bent pins on a CPU socket array . They are after the actively cooled CPU heatsinks and the northbridge heatsink , all of which are valuable in good shape .
 
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Got a new Processor Board now. but my mac pro is making me crazy.
Now just with one CPU inside on A. I got a bootsound once but no display output after i restart again. no boot sound anymore and no output. What is wrong?

I'm doing one of these upgrades today - 12 Core @ 3.46 GHz for a local client . I've done a number of them . I get cold sweats every time , but I've always been successful with the re-builds . I researched this 3 months before I did my first one .

Are you still using off the shelf CPUs or the de-lidded ones ?

And did you get the M5 washers and a caliper ? You are dealing with very fine tolerances here .

You must compensate for the thickness difference between the IHS-less processors Apple used at the factory and ordinary retail processors that have the IHS . It is precisely 2.3 mm . The retail chips are the thicker ones, of course .

There really is no room for error here . Too much tightening when installing the CPU heatsink and you will bend pins . It is difficult to repair the pins on the CPU socket . I used to reposition the bent pins on G5 processors back in the day . Not fun .

Too little tightening when installing the CPU heatsink and you will get overtemp warnings and no boot . Or the processor will be installed properly enough to be recognized . But , you might be minus certain functions like ECC ram support , hyper-threading , etc .

All the contacts on both processors must have just the right amount of pressure to contact the pins of the CPU sockets , when re-installing the CPU heatsinks . You're talking about over 2500 (2 X 1366 exactly ) connections here and they all must be perfect .

I fear you may have damaged your processors or your installation method is faulty . Please understand one forum posting is not a comprehensive set of instructions for this upgrade ! I'm just adding to what you should already have researched . This is a seriously difficult upgrade , to all others reading this .
 
I'm doing one of these upgrades today - 12 Core @ 3.46 GHz for a local client . I've done a number of them . I get cold sweats every time , but I've always been successful with the re-builds . I researched this 3 months before I did my first one .

Are you still using off the shelf CPUs or the de-lidded ones ?

And did you get the M5 washers and a caliper ? You are dealing with very fine tolerances here .

You must compensate for the thickness difference between the IHS-less processors Apple used at the factory and ordinary retail processors that have the IHS . It is precisely 2.3 mm . The retail chips are the thicker ones, of course .

There really is no room for error here . Too much tightening when installing the CPU heatsink and you will bend pins . It is difficult to repair the pins on the CPU socket . I used to reposition the bent pins on G5 processors back in the day . Not fun .

Too little tightening when installing the CPU heatsink and you will get overtemp warnings and no boot . Or the processor will be installed properly enough to be recognized . But , you might be minus certain functions like ECC ram support , hyper-threading , etc .

All the contacts on both processors must have just the right amount of pressure to contact the pins of the CPU sockets , when re-installing the CPU heatsinks . You're talking about over 2500 (2 X 1366 exactly ) connections here and they all must be perfect .

I fear you may have damaged your processors or your installation method is faulty . Please understand one forum posting is not a comprehensive set of instructions for this upgrade ! I'm just adding to what you should already have researched . This is a seriously difficult upgrade , to all others reading this .

yeah is a difficult upgrade. i still use shelf CPUs. but this time with washers.
But no luck at boot up. And there are no pins bended this time ;)
 
yeah is a difficult upgrade. i still use shelf CPUs. but this time with washers.
But no luck at boot up. And there are no pins bended this time ;)

please obtain a caliper . You need to raise those CPU heatsinks by the precise amount I indicated before (2.3 mm) . Get a whole box of flat washers because some might vary in thickness from spec . So, the set of washers you use to build up each standoff must be equal to that amount . Sounds like the heatsinks are too high now (if you did not bend the pins this time around !) I understand your anxiety . But with a lot of TLC and strictly following a set of instructions , this is an upgrade you can handle . PS - do not use locking washers .
 
please obtain a caliper . You need to raise those CPU heatsinks by the precise amount I indicated before (2.3 mm) . Get a whole box of flat washers because some might vary in thickness from spec . So, the set of washers you use to build up each standoff must be equal to that amount . Sounds like the heatsinks are too high now (if you did not bend the pins this time around !) I understand your anxiety . But with a lot of TLC and strictly following a set of instructions , this is an upgrade you can handle . PS - do not use locking washers .

I check two times for bended pins the socket was fine.
The strange thing for me was that the boot sound was there sometime and nothing happend. And the first time i did it with the new board it boots up with 12 cores and full ram and after some minutes osx freeze and no boot up arrrggh.
thx for your explanations. Do you had something similar ?
 
And the first time i did it with the new board it boots up with 12 cores and full ram and after some minutes osx freeze and no boot up arrrggh.
thx for your explanations. Do you had something similar ?

why oh why would you try to do both at once?

Extremely foolish.

Do A, get it perfect then B.

Looks like operator error
 
why oh why would you try to do both at once?

Extremely foolish.

Do A, get it perfect then B.

Looks like operator error

Thats what i did first A it boots then B it boots and freeze. After the freeze no boot up anymore. Now i'm on A only again but it dosn't boot up.
 
Thats what i did first A it boots then B it boots and freeze. After the freeze no boot up anymore. Now i'm on A only again but it dosn't boot up.

If you had A perfect, added B and now A alone won't boot then you have buggered something.

If you did what you wrote above where you shot for the moon with all 12 and then started tightening and loosening via the "guess" method you will never get it right.

Get A perfect all by itself. Yes, you will hear some fans, nothing gets hurt. Then move on to B. I have done 3 of these, last 2 were much easier as I did A first and counted turns always.
 
Got a new Processor Board now. but my mac pro is making me crazy.
Now just with one CPU inside on A. I got a bootsound once but no display output after i restart again. no boot sound anymore and no output. What is wrong?

Did you carefully study the Pindelski guide I posted early on in this thread before trying again?
 
yep i read it often. but so far no luck.

How many turns did you start with on the heat sink A screws? Did you add extra thermal pad over the voltage regulators? Did you decouple the fan plug from its housing before heat sink re-installation?
 
How many turns did you start with on the heat sink A screws? Did you add extra thermal pad over the voltage regulators? Did you decouple the fan plug from its housing before heat sink re-installation?

2mm thermal pad is over the voltage regulators. And the heatsilck got a good connection with the plug without the housing.
i start wit 3 turns on each then 4.
 
today in the morning something happends. i powered the mac pro on and boot sound! it worked with one 6 Core. I don't know why after a 10 hours sleep it worked but it did.
 

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But then i put the CPU B inside. It boots and at Login Screen it freeze again.
And no boot sound again. looks like there is something with the cpu. When i look at the cpu it looks good maybe my dealer gave me a bad one.
 
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