Tips on your Mac Pro 1,1 upgrade

[Supermacguy]

Here are some tips for your Mac Pro 2006-7 upgrade I hadn't seen other places, maybe this will help you.

You need some short phillips screwdrivers, like jewelers kind, and some regular or long regular phillips drivers.

You NEED a 3mm Allen wrench that is AT LEAST 7 INCHES LONG or more. I got a 6 inch one and it was NOT long enough to get the bottom screws on the bottom processor. I would HIGHLY recommend getting a BALL HEAD Allen wrench to use on an angle in tight spots. A standard 2-3 inch L shape Allen wrench wasn't useful at all for me.

Use a short phillips to take the bottom screws out of the RAM cage. I put the whole driver inside of the cage as I used it, I did not try to work on an angle. When the RAM cage is loose then it's easier to take the processor shroud off. Also, when you put things back together, leave the RAM cage unscrewed until last. Then it's easy to put the processor shroud back on without bending things up.

Here's a pic of the front fan connector. It's on the board and connects to the fan housing.

Fan foot mount. It DOES pull straight out, but requires some wiggling.

Here is my 6 inch allen wrench. Notice how close it is to the top of the heat sink. At the bottom edge of the case (on the very edge of the photo) there is not enough room to turn the wrench. So you really need either a 7inch wrench, or a ball wrench for the tight spots. Plus, when you put things back together, it helps to be able to tighten 2 screws diagonally at once for even pressure.

Here is taking out the RAM cage plastic guide. I used a thin plastic card (like my health insurance card, thinner than a credit card) to pop the plastic tabs. It was easier to take it out at an angle after 1 heat sink was removed.

SEE NEXT POST FOR TIPS ON PASTE APPLICATION AND PDF!

Use a plastic card to smooth out the thermal paste. I used the Radio Shack Arctic Silver. A guy at another computer shop said to spread it with your finger, but that's BS. Why get oils from your hand into it? Use a plastic card to smooth it out. I used about 1/4 tube on each processor, but I'm told you don't want too much. Maybe I used too much. Just make it even and smooth.

Make sure to SMC fan control or something then.

2x stock 2.66 GHZ: Geekbench 5587
2x Xeon x5365 @3.0 GHZ: Geekbench 10529 (only $350 for the pair on ebay)

 

[odinsride]

It's not necessary to spread thermal paste all over the CPU cover like that.

There is a specific way to do it for Intel chips, usually you're supposed to just run a thin line across the CPU cores and let the HSF spread out the paste when you mount it:

Not saying you'll have problems doing it the way you did (I did it that way myself for many years before learning the correct way), but it's not the optimal way to apply thermal paste, which could amount to a few degrees CPU temperature difference. It also looks like you applied a little too much thermal paste in your pics. You really only need a very very thin layer.

Edit: Here are some instructions for your X5365 (Horizontal Line method)

Those who have one of the 5100 series Xeons need to use the Vertical Line method

 

[Supermacguy]

Thanks for those tips. That is a good PDF to read.

 

[Lesser Evets]

Nice pics and writing.

I did mine a month back with 1.86 4-cores BESL'd upward to give me 8000. If I can BESL a pair of quad-cor 3.0s in a couple years and get over 10,000--I'm there when the prices come down a little more.

So far these 1,1s are pretty durable. I suspect they might be good for quite a few years to come unless you want all sorts of modern additions like USB3 or Thunderbolt, etc. Mine's going to be useful for me another 3 or 4 years.