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Mac Pro CPU Upgrade Question Need Help

Yeah I could hardly believe the price. Now I'm trying to find a screwdriver suitable for removing the CPU heatsinks, and not having much luck:mad:
 
It's a torx T15. The bit isn't the problem. The problem is finding a screwdriver with a long enough shaft to reach it.

I made a thread about it, lol. Hope I can figure it out. I think I may have found a suitable screwdriver HERE but I'm not thrilled about the $17 shipping charge.
 
bozz2006 said:
It's a torx T15. The bit isn't the problem. The problem is finding a screwdriver with a long enough shaft to reach it.

I made a thread about it, lol. Hope I can figure it out. I think I may have found a suitable screwdriver HERE but I'm not thrilled about the $17 shipping charge.
Click to expand...
Must it be 16.5"?

Somehow, I don't think you'd find it cheaper. You could try Sears, home improvement stores, or auto parts stores to find one locally, but I wouldn't expect less expensive. Only convenience.

FleaBay on a long shot. :p
 
I am going to buy the new Mac Pro with 2.66GHz and was wondering if I will be able to upgrade to 2.93GHz if I need to? If yes, is it easy to upgrade it in this new machines?

Thanks!
 
So the 5100 Woodcrest Processors can be upgraded to the 5300 Clovertown processors. Same heat syncs? Is it just a straight forward swap? Do i need to do anything in OSX to enable anything?

Thanks.
 
Makindosh said:
I am going to buy the new Mac Pro with 2.66GHz and was wondering if I will be able to upgrade to 2.93GHz if I need to? If yes, is it easy to upgrade it in this new machines?

Thanks!
Click to expand...

You can probably upgrade it, but why would you? that's a ton of money thrown away for a pretty meager upgrade. we don't know how easy it will be since nobody actually has one yet.
 
up again, because the issue is still ongoing. the question is:

can a pair of 5355 or 5365 fitted to the MacPro1,1 without any other mods particularly considering the higher power consumption?
 
Thanks nanofrog. Gould article this one. It talks about not doing this at home but I have exchanged CPUs on G5s and would think it is not such a daunting task once you have the special torx screw drivers and manage to remove the bloody fan unit they designed for the MacPro1,1. My concern realy was the thermal design power that goes up considerably. You get 110 W more on the two CPUs. If Apple have factored the higher thermal power in at the design point I'm pretty impressed with their foresight. If they didn't you will pay with shorter life. I also would expect the fans to work harder at full load.
 
It can be done at home. You just have to know what you're doing (no problem thanks to several very good walk-throughs that can be easily found online), and steady hands. and the extra heat is absolutely not an issue. the factory 53XX mac pro is the exact same machine as the original 4 core machine. exactly. my cores idle at around 90-95 degrees farenheit and they get up to about 130 degrees when encoding movies with handbrake, all cores fully maxed out.
 
bozz2006 said:
It can be done at home. You just have to know what you're doing (no problem thanks to several very good walk-throughs that can be easily found online), and steady hands.
Click to expand...

Excellent news, bozz2006. Can I bother you to give me a hint to the walk-throughs? I have wasted many days to find a AASP manual for PM G5s and have no desire to repeat this exercise with the Mac Pro. If you know where it is please drop a link or the google search words.
 
I used this guys: http://www.o0o.it/pro/ in combination with this one: http://www.anandtech.com/mac/showdoc.aspx?i=2832&p=3 and here are the steps I took without in-line images:

Materials needed:
  1. 1 Flat screwdriver,
  2. 1 Philips (+) screwdriver,
  3. One Torx driver or an Alan-wrench,
  4. About 50 ML of acetone,
  5. A clean cotton or linen rag,
  6. Thermal paste,
  7. Aluminum foil,
  8. Some workspace, :p
  9. Of course the new CPUs you're about to install, :D
  10. 2 static-guard wrist bands,
  11. And cotton gloves,
    (CPUs are actually not supposed to be handled without fine-weave cotton gloves but if you don't mind a little risk factor you don't absolutely NEED them). I did mine without the gloves or anti-static wrist-bands. :eek:

Procedure:
  1. Lay down about a 2 or 3 foot strip of aluminum foil flat on your workspace - to one side and out of the way.

  2. Unplug your Mac Pro and depress power button for several seconds.

  3. Unlock and remove the case' side panel.

  4. Lay the machine down flat on your workspace.

  5. Remove both RAM trays and set them onto the aluminum foil strip.

  6. Remove all HDDs and sleds and set them on the aluminum strip.

  7. Remove any PCIe cards that are installed and place them on the aluminum foil strip.

  8. Locate and remove the CPU shroud. Here is where the flat screwdriver comes in. Pry it gently so that the shroud slides left toward the rear fans and then rotate the right edge up toward the drive bays and slightly up out of the machine at the same time.

  9. Locate the single (+) screw than holds the rear fans in place and remove it. It's at the top right of the Rear Fan module near drive bay one.

  10. Lift the rear fan module straight up and out of the machine. Take a second at this time to notice the plastic guide-locks that it slides on so that you can reassemble it correctly.

  11. Next remove the left plastic guide partition that your RAM trays slide on.

  12. Locate and unplug the two (1 and 2) cpu thermal sensor connectors. Grab them by the headers and pull straight up - gently.

  13. Use the torx driver or the allen-wrench to unscrew the four torx bolts holding the heat-sinks in place one heat-sink at a time so that one doesn't topple over while you're removing the other. If you chose an allen-wrench be careful not to bend any heat-sink fins. If you do tho don't worry it won't hurt anything - you'll just have a bent fin. :)

  14. Rotate slightly to break any bonds that the now dry thermal paste formed, lift and remove the heat-sinks (again one at a time).

  15. Remove the old CPUs and set them on the aluminum foil.

  16. Clean all 6 surfaces with the acetone and the rag. Dip a small portion of the rag into the acetone. Clean the two new CPUs first, then the copper bottom of the two heat-sinks, then the old CPUs so you can store or sell them. You want absolutely no finger oil or particulate matter on any of the surfaces!!!

  17. Put the new CPUs in place. They're notched so they only go in one way. :)

  18. Apply a THIN layer of thermal paste to the tops of the CPU heat spreader. About like this but without the sloppiness. Spread it around with a thin piece of cardboard like from a cigarette carton or cereal box. Do NOT use your fingers and make sure that the cardboard edge is cleanly cut and not frayed. Remember, no finger oil or particulate matter. We're not overclocking and these are xeons so it's not hyper-critical but it's still very important to achieve the coolest running system possible.

  19. That's it, we're done. Now just place the heat-sinks back in place (straight down and rotate very slightly back and forth to mush the thermal paste onto every part of the contact surface), tighten the torx bolts, and work backwards to reassemble the system.

My x5355 CPUs idle at 25c ~ 30c depending on the air-temperature BTW. This is exactly the same as the x5150's they replaced.


.
 
Tesselator has some good stuff there. Here is a link to the thread that kind of chronicles my 8 core upgrade. A little long, but lots of stuff is covered in there. Here are three websites that I found particularly useful. I think Tesselator linked to a couple of these in his previous post.


Number One

Number Two

Number Three

Hope this helps, and I'm glad to try answering any questions that may come up.
 
Thanks to both of you Tesselator and Bozz2006 for the excellent documentation. I am confident that I can do the job once I have found a pair of affordable 53xx Xeons.
 
yes, but I would love to get the x5365s. They are not available under 600$ at the moment. That is a bit steep and I will wait and see what comes along.
 
Mac Pro 1,1 CPU Upgrade

Hi Guys, I want to buy a pair of Intel Xeon X5355 processors to upgrade my Mac Pro 1.1 they must be matched, or there is no problem if you buy them separately at different stores?
 
Hi,

As long as you get them in pairs and they are x5355's, then you will be fine. Buying them separately from any store does not matter.. so long as they are x5355's.

Macquero said:
Hi Guys, I want to buy a pair of Intel Xeon X5355 processors to upgrade my Mac Pro 1.1 they must be matched, or there is no problem if you buy them separately at different stores?
Click to expand...
 
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