Will Mac pro Xeons work in other machines?

[Curious Pineapple]

I'm looking for some 1366 Xeons to test a board I have, I've found a pair of Mac pro Xeons for pretty much nothing on eBay. WIll they work in other boards, or would Apple have pulled an Apple and got farked CPU's to prevent replacement with non-apple provided parts?

[Master Disaster]

A CPU is a CPU, even Apple can't persuade Intel to make them specific SKUs.

[Curious Pineapple]

14 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

A CPU is a CPU, even Apple can't persuade Intel to make them specific SKUs.

I meant more like a pinout change, would only need a different substrate for that. At £3 the pair it's worth a shot to have some test cpu's kicking about

[Berfs1]

3 hours ago, Master Disaster said:

A CPU is a CPU, even Apple can't persuade Intel to make them specific SKUs.

They can, such as the Xeon W-2140B (and other B CPUs for LGA2066 in the newer iMac Pros). They just can't persuade Intel to design custom systems.

 

All in all, yes, however i recommend the latest BIOS revisions before attempting.

[Curious Pineapple]

6 minutes ago, Berfs1 said:

They can, such as the Xeon W-2140B (and other B CPUs for LGA2066 in the newer iMac Pros). They just can't persuade Intel to design custom systems.

 

All in all, yes, however i recommend the latest BIOS revisions before attempting.

The board is dead at the moment, and I have a known faulty CPU for it. If I can get it to do anything other than spin fans then I'll be happy. I'm not willing to try my known good Xeons in it in case it was a board fault that damaged the original CPU.

[Zando_]

The 1366 ones? Maybe, but keep in mind those Mac Pros used direct die cooling, so ones specifically for them won't have an IHS, or may include it but it won't be attatched. 

[Curious Pineapple]

2 minutes ago, Zando Bob said:

The 1366 ones? Maybe, but keep in mind those Mac Pros used direct die cooling, so ones specifically for them won't have an IHS, or may include it but it won't be attatched. 

No IHS but they come with what looks like a spacer to keep the heatsink from wobbling around on the die. I just need something to test a Dell mainboard, worst case is I put them in my spare Z800

[Zando_]

16 minutes ago, Curious Pineapple said:

No IHS but they come with what looks like a spacer to keep the heatsink from wobbling around on the die. I just need something to test a Dell mainboard, worst case is I put them in my spare Z800

How will you attach the cooler though, all the usual ones are spaced to mount on a CPU with an IHS, without that you'll just have an air gap and instantly overheat. 

 

Keep in mind you can grab quad cores for nearly nothing as well, I got 4 e series bois for $12, so $3 each. 

[Curious Pineapple]

6 minutes ago, Zando Bob said:

How will you attach the cooler though, all the usual ones are spaced to mount on a CPU with an IHS, without that you'll just have an air gap and instantly overheat. 

 

Keep in mind you can grab quad cores for nearly nothing as well, I got 4 e series bois for $12, so $3 each. 

Never thought of the cooler, It's only for testing a board so I can just glob on some thermal paste and press a heatsink down onto the CPU. If it powers up and starts to POST then I'll look at getting a "normal" processor for it, otherwise it'll be going in the bin.

[Zando_]

1 minute ago, Curious Pineapple said:

Never thought of the cooler, It's only for testing a board so I can just glob on some thermal paste and press a heatsink down onto the CPU. If it powers up and starts to POST then I'll look at getting a "normal" processor for it, otherwise it'll be going in the bin.

Why not just get an equally cheap CPU that actually works, if you want to test and see if it can go into windows or not. POSTing doesn't always mean everything works. 

[Master Disaster]

49 minutes ago, Berfs1 said:

They can, such as the Xeon W-2140B (and other B CPUs for LGA2066 in the newer iMac Pros). They just can't persuade Intel to design custom systems.

 

All in all, yes, however i recommend the latest BIOS revisions before attempting.

I thought the only difference here was microcode? The actual CPUs are identical.

[Curious Pineapple]

1 minute ago, Zando Bob said:

Why not just get an equally cheap CPU that actually works, if you want to test and see if it can go into windows or not. POSTing doesn't always mean everything works. 

At the moment all it does is spin the fans, anything at all would be better. A pair for £3 posted is about as cheap as I'm going to get.

[Berfs1]

30 minutes ago, Curious Pineapple said:

At the moment all it does is spin the fans, anything at all would be better. A pair for £3 posted is about as cheap as I'm going to get.

If fans are spinning at max speed, it could indicate a dead CPU.

 

Recommendation: Get a POST card, that shows the POST codes; they really help a lot. btw 00 means CPU detection failed, not necessarily dead CPU

Edited April 22, 2019 by Berfs1
added recommendation

[Curious Pineapple]

Just now, Berfs1 said:

If fans are spinning at max speed, it could indicate a dead CPU.

The CPU "worked" in another machine, however only with a 32 bit OS, 64-bit would just lock up.

[Berfs1]

Just now, Curious Pineapple said:

The CPU "worked" in another machine, however only with a 32 bit OS, 64-bit would just lock up.

Which exact CPU are you using?

[Curious Pineapple]

56 minutes ago, Berfs1 said:

Which exact CPU are you using?

I can't remember what was in it, E5570 possibly but I'm not entirely sure. Not sure where it is either.

[Berfs1]

9 hours ago, Curious Pineapple said:

I can't remember what was in it, E5570 possibly but I'm not entirely sure. Not sure where it is either.

I think you are referring to the Xeon X5570. That is a Nehalem EP chip, LGA1366, 4c/8t, 6.4GT/s, and 95W. Also supports up to 144 GB, with 1333 MHz RAM support, in triple channel. Seeing as this CPU has support for 64 bit instructions (practically all CPUs made on LGA1366 have that), I think it may be your installer or your motherboard's BIOS settings. You may need to enable some 64 bit specific options in your BIOS in order to have proper working operation.

[Curious Pineapple]

12 hours ago, Berfs1 said:

I think you are referring to the Xeon X5570. That is a Nehalem EP chip, LGA1366, 4c/8t, 6.4GT/s, and 95W. Also supports up to 144 GB, with 1333 MHz RAM support, in triple channel. Seeing as this CPU has support for 64 bit instructions (practically all CPUs made on LGA1366 have that), I think it may be your installer or your motherboard's BIOS settings. You may need to enable some 64 bit specific options in your BIOS in order to have proper working operation.

The machine works fine with my E5530's in it, both 64 bit Windows 10 and Ubuntu installers lock up, but Win 8 32 bit works fine.

[Berfs1]

On 4/23/2019 at 11:25 AM, Curious Pineapple said:

The machine works fine with my E5530's in it, both 64 bit Windows 10 and Ubuntu installers lock up, but Win 8 32 bit works fine.

How exactly did you set up the Windows 10 installer? Did you use Microsoft's Media Creation Tool (link: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10)? If not, I highly recommend you to use this instead of direct ISO files.

[Curious Pineapple]

1 hour ago, Berfs1 said:

How exactly did you set up the Windows 10 installer? Did you use Microsoft's Media Creation Tool (link: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10)? If not, I highly recommend you to use this instead of direct ISO files.

MCT onto a USB drive, it works on every machine, just that CPU has trouble with 64-bit apparently.

[Berfs1]

On 4/24/2019 at 1:31 PM, Curious Pineapple said:

MCT onto a USB drive, it works on every machine, just that CPU has trouble with 64-bit apparently.

Sorry for the late reply, after looking through similar issues, try resetting your BIOS settings to default values, and see if you can install the 64 bit OS that way. Also, I should note that, you should definetly consider running full UEFI mode before booting from the USB AND NOT LEGACY MODE, so that you can have modern drivers. I like to think of Legacy vs UEFI as HDD vs SSD and Analog vs Digital, typically you want digital and SSDs because of the way they are designed, they have the potential to be exponentially more reliable.

[Curious Pineapple]

6 minutes ago, Berfs1 said:

Sorry for the late reply, after looking through similar issues, try resetting your BIOS settings to default values, and see if you can install the 64 bit OS that way. Also, I should note that, you should definetly consider running full UEFI mode before booting from the USB AND NOT LEGACY MODE, so that you can have modern drivers. I like to think of Legacy vs UEFI as HDD vs SSD and Analog vs Digital, typically you want digital and SSDs because of the way they are designed, they have the potential to be exponentially more reliable.

If only it supported UEFI

 

I've actually given up on it, there's water damage to the case and the mainboard needed quite a clean when I finally got it out. I'll either put newinternals in it, or just sell what's left of the machine.