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Successful CPU upgrade

T

thestickman

macrumors regular
Original poster
Nov 21, 2010
219
18
Jacksonville, FL
Upgraded my 2009 Mac Pro from 2.26 to 2.93 CPU's. These were lidded processors I got new for cheap. I installed them one at a time & made sure to only make quarter turn adjustments till all the RAM showed & the red light on the CPU tray went out.

Granted, a pair of 6 cores would be better but this is what the wallet could pay for now. Hopefully in a few months I will find a pair of 3.33 6 core. Or I might just stick with what I have.

Peace :)
 
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Reactions: JeanLCP and mmomega
Are there no downsides in keeping them lidded? I was under the impression they had to be delidded?
 
something I've not seen mentioned here that i discovered in my upgrade to delidded processors, is that at least one of my heatsink bolts was VERY tight for the entire loosen / tighten sequence. All of the bolts had blue plastic debris on their threads when I looked at them. I had the service manual, and loosened / tightened them in the stated order, nipping them in order by about 1/4 turn 3 or so times for the last bit, each nip enabling a bit more on each of the others. But that one tight bolt required the same effort or the entire tightening process - it gave no indication in resistance of being "done up", so to speak.

Frankly, it terrified me to think what I would have been going through knowing I had the potential to crush the processor sockets as a part of the exercise, if I'd been using lidded processors.
 
mattspace said:
something I've not seen mentioned here that i discovered in my upgrade to delidded processors, is that at least one of my heatsink bolts was VERY tight for the entire loosen / tighten sequence. All of the bolts had blue plastic debris on their threads when I looked at them. I had the service manual, and loosened / tightened them in the stated order, nipping them in order by about 1/4 turn 3 or so times for the last bit, each nip enabling a bit more on each of the others. But that one tight bolt required the same effort or the entire tightening process - it gave no indication in resistance of being "done up", so to speak.

Frankly, it terrified me to think what I would have been going through knowing I had the potential to crush the processor sockets as a part of the exercise, if I'd been using lidded processors.
Click to expand...


The blue debris is LocTite Threadlocker 242. It is used during assembly to prevent the screws from unwinding. I would have used it again, except I used lidded processors just like the OP and had to make small adjustments to both the x5670 processors when I replaced mine.
 
cageytiger said:
Are there no downsides in keeping them lidded? I was under the impression they had to be delidded?
Click to expand...

If you aren't careful you can damage the CPU socket. I avoided this by tightening the screws in small increments. I did one CPU at a time I took my time to assure each CPU was tightened enough to work. When all the RAM assigned to the CPU showed up in OS X I knew it was time to move to the next one.
 
thestickman said:
Granted, a pair of 6 cores would be better but this is what the wallet could pay for now. Hopefully in a few months I will find a pair of 3.33 6 core.
Click to expand...

The 3.46 quad cores are the hidden gems for our computers. Only 8 cores, but for anyone who doesn't specifically need 12, the 3.46 get the fastest clock speeds available for our computers as well as support for 1333 ram, and they are a lot cheaper than most of the 12 cores I've been able to find.
 
great !
i updated 2 MacPro 1.1
first with Xeon X5365 3Ghz
second with Xeon X 5355
they re both ok :)
 
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