Ruined my CPUs?

[ericj2109]

I'm all for the heat method; putting that amount of force on a chip that's fixed with solder scares me and I've seen busted up dies. It looks like you have the heat part down, you just were a little forceful with the initial glue cutting. I used a new DE shaving razor to cut the silicon on the outer edge and it worked really well. It's much thinner than a box cutter blade so it slides right in with no force and flimsy enough that you can feel if you hit something inside. I did a few passes around the IHS to make sure it was all cut then pushed a few box cutter blades along the edges to create some tension before using a heat gun to soften the solder.

You never have to go past the point where the IHS gets taller so thats a good indicator if you're cutting too far in. Could even mark the blade for extra peace of mind. Gently scraped the bulk of the solder with the DE razor again (it comes off like foil) and cleaned the last of the solder off with a quick rub of Mothers polish and got what you see here. Steady hands... those blades are sharp and everything is crazy hot so when it pops off, don't go chasing it with bare hands. Worth it but the opinions of what's best are all over the place.

Oh yeah, and keep in mind the side without the capacitors: that's a good place to start so that you get a feel for how much force you need to use and what cutting the glue feels like with less risk of ruining something.

 

[DPUser]

5680 vs 5690:

5690 4% faster. 100% more expensive.

Pertinent Question: Do you have money to burn?

 

[flowrider]

^^^^And do you really need 12 cores? Will 8 suffice? My dual X5677s do I I need!

Lou

 

[bookemdano]

Tend to agree. 5690 is for e-peen bragging rights. No detectable difference in any real-world usage.

 

[ActionableMango]

For video encoding I'd definitely take the extra 50% cores that Hexacores provide. That is a very multithreaded CPU-dependent process with a very real-world noticeable difference for each additional core.

For anything that isn't really heavily multithreaded, 12 cores is overkill. Even 8 cores most likely won't be used well.

 

[Jtporter9]

Sweet thanks, I just ordered a pair of x5680's, and some test xeon chips to test the vice method. Thanks!

 

[tsialex]

^^^^And do you really need 12 cores? Will 8 suffice? My dual X5677s do I I need!

Lou

X5677 for dual boards and X5680 for single ones is the sweet spot.

 

[DPUser]

With all respect, I use all 12 cores of my dual-5680 cheesegrater every day running Digital Performer my recording studio.

Unlike some other genres, audio software is generally very adept at using all the cores one can throw at it. This is likely a result of the all the parallel activities involved in multitrack recording and playback, including running multiple discrete virtual instruments.

 

[skizzo]

Tend to agree. 5690 is for e-peen bragging rights. No detectable difference in any real-world usage.

e-peen bragging rights! I love it! hahaha

 

[fhturner]

I have (very) recently upgraded my mid-2012 cMP with two X5680s. I don't think paying twice the price for X5690s is justified. It is, like you said, a much better value imo.

5680 vs 5690:

5690 4% faster. 100% more expensive.

Pertinent Question: Do you have money to burn?

Tend to agree. 5690 is for e-peen bragging rights. No detectable difference in any real-world usage.

While I agree with these value assessments, there might be a use case where some people can justify the 2x cost. Here’s my take on it:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/easy-4-1-dual-cpu-upgrade.2134474/#post-26397875

Even then, maxing out [12 x 3.46GHz] for only $200 still seems like a pretty reasonable value to me. Just that the X5680 is nearly twice as good of one!

 

[EMJAYWLZ]

So I very, and I mean very poorly de-lidded (first time) my X5690 CPUs (see images, link below)
https://photos.app.goo.gl/ngVQKvjwX9tPd5rm8

I accidentally scraped off or damaged most of the capacitors on one of the CPUs, and both I accidentally scrapped the PCB.

Would either of these cause the CPUs to not work? When I inserted them I get both CPU LED constant red, and fans spinning, no boot.

Basically, I'm just trying to see if I can salvage these or even one of them. I'm sure many of you will cringe at my work, which is okay because I know it's terrible. Any help is very much appreciated! Thanks

Though this is a very old thread, and cMP's are still kind a relevant, I will share my just now story. I have some brand spanking new Xeon 5690's to deli, which I did using "House of Moth"s method, very good, but when I was scraping off the soldering I think I sheered off one of the capacitors. I was about to sacrifice one of my spares new cpus for deluding, but decided that I would give it a go, dropped it into the cpu tray, threw a Graphite thermal pad on it, and hoped for the best! Well, from what I can see, both processors are recognized, temperatures seem to be within normal range. So far, so good. Still waiting or the ticking time bomb part of the this story, but it seems that with at least one of the tiny capacitors gone, this still is in very great working condition. From your scenario it sounds like you inflicted some major damage to that processor, all be it accidental. Being a very old post, I'm sure you've moved on to a better system by now, but I feel your pain. I'm sure it was heartbreaking. (I was digging through the trashcan looking for that lost capacitor, but no where to be found.) I let it go. I was not at all interested in trying to resolder that half a grain of rice back onto a CPU. In any case, good luck and all the best!