Delidding a Soldered CPU

[DunePilot]

Threw together a guide where I delidded a few soldered CPUs  (X5690s in this case) for a Mac Pro upgrade. 

 

[thekeemo]

Are you permanently looking down at us disapprovingly?

[DunePilot]

Are you permanently looking down at us disapprovingly?

Of course not, lol. 

[0ld_Chicken]

dammmmmn, now thats a delid

[thekeemo]

Of course not, lol. 

The video says otherwise.

Well done vid I have to say.

Didnt get in the way of the camera.

[DunePilot]

Trying to scrub through 2 hours of footage and pick the best shots to condense it down to 20 mins was the hard part, there were plenty of times I wasted good footage due to out of focus or covering up my hands. Definitely not the easiest thing to film solo.  

[Jacktastic-Mofo]

Awesome video.

[thekeemo]

Trying to scrub through 2 hours of footage and pick the best shots to condense it down to 20 mins was the hard part, there were plenty of times I wasted good footage due to out of focus or covering up my hands. Definitely not the easiest thing to film solo.  

Q: couldnt you sand the solder off?

[suchamoneypit]

cool video. I've never seen or read about "delidding". Why do you do this and what are the benefits?

[DunePilot]

Q: couldnt you sand the solder off?

You wouldn't want to do that. Best thing is to take a clean razor and keep a low angle on it.

 

You can definitely feel when you have gotten through the solder down to the die, the die is very hard and feels like glass. 

[0ld_Chicken]

what benefit are you getting from delidding the soldered cpu's?  I haven't come across many brave enough to try

[thekeemo]

You wouldn't want to do that. Best thing is to take a clean razor and keep a low angle on it.

 

You can definitely feel when you have gotten through the solder down to the die, the die is very hard and feels like glass. 

with sandpaper you could do this

[DunePilot]

cool video. I've never seen or read about "delidding". Why do you do this and what are the benefits?

Most people do it for a very small drop in temps due to really bad TIM (thermal interface material) that Intel puts on there. 

If a CPU is soldered then you do not have that issue so most people never have a need to delid a soldered CPU, I had to do this to upgrade a Mac Pro 4.1 to a 5.1. 

[DunePilot]

with sandpaper you could do this

Someone could try it if they wanted to, lap and polish for die or IHS. I don't think it is needed though in this case. They were smooth as glass when I was done even though they weren't very pretty. 

 

Another thing to note is to be very careful do not damage the caps as you are going around the edges cleaning off the adhesive. I didn't bother cleaning the adhesive off until you couldn't see the residue either. I just bothered getting the majority of it off there. Once that is done you can cover in the caps with clear fingernail polish to protect them. 

[suchamoneypit]

Most people do it for a very small drop in temps due to really bad TIM (thermal interface material) that Intel puts on there. 

If a CPU is soldered then you do not have that issue so most people never have a need to delid a soldered CPU, I had to do this to upgrade a Mac Pro 4.1 to a 5.1. 

why would you have to delid the CPU to upgrade a mac pro if it just drops temps a little?

[thekeemo]

Someone could try it if they wanted to, lap and polish for die or IHS. I don't think it is needed though in this case. They were smooth as glass when I was done even though they weren't very pretty. 

if it wasnt pretty it wasnt smooth as glass..

 

why would you have to delid the CPU to upgrade a mac pro if it just drops temps a little?

stock cpu is delidded and cooling is meant for delidded cpus

[DunePilot]

if it wasnt pretty it wasnt smooth as glass..

 

stock cpu is delidded and cooling is meant for delidded cpus

Lol its all in the eye of the beer holder. 

 

Yeah, 4.1 Macs came with delidded 4 core Xeons from the factory, there are a bunch of work around to swap to better CPUs but most of them involve really shoddy work arounds like using 2.2mm of washers to offset the base of the screw downs for the heatsinks. What some people end up doing is adding the new CPUs with 2.2mm of added height due to the IHS and then crush it down when tightening the heatsink and ruin their daughterboards and possibly the CPUs too. You also have the fan connector on the heatsink that you have to clip and lower so that it plugs in all the way due to the added height. Instead of those work arounds I delidded the CPUs so I could put it back normally. 

[thekeemo]

Lol its all in the eye of the beer holder. 

 

Yeah, 4.1 Macs came with delidded 4 core Xeons from the factory, there are a bunch of work around to swap to better CPUs but most of them involve really shoddy work arounds like using 2.2mm of washers to offset the base of the screw downs for the heatsinks. What some people end up doing is adding the new CPUs with 2.2mm of added height due to the IHS and then crush it down when tightening the heatsink and ruin their daughterboards and possibly the CPUs too. You also have the fan connector on the heatsink that you have to clip and lower so that it plugs in all the way due to the added height. Instead of those work arounds I delidded the CPUs so I could put it back normally. 

wait.. daughterboard??? pics?

[DunePilot]

wait.. daughterboard??? pics?

Old school Macs have a daughterboard that houses the ram and cpus in a bottom tray that is completely removable. 

 

They also have extremely cool hard drive bays. Really neat machines. I can't believe they went from these to those black circle trashcan macs theyve been making the last 3-4 years. 

[thekeemo]

Old school Macs have a daughterboard that houses the ram and cpus in a bottom tray that is completely removable. 

 

That is beautiful..

does this system have the proprietary 24pin replacement?

[DunePilot]

That is beautiful..

does this system have the proprietary 24pin replacement?

 

I'm not 100% about the power supply other than that its a 900W straight from the factory so you can add about any modern GPU you want. 

[thekeemo]

I'm not 100% about the power supply other than that its a 900W straight from the factory so you can add about any modern GPU you want. 

if its not hard look at the power connectors

[HrutkayMods]

Great video, been considering getting a Pro 4,1... Makes me want to get one even more now

[DunePilot]

Great video, been considering getting a Pro 4,1... Makes me want to get one even more now

I have the whole mac upgrade recorded as well. I just got to get around to turning it all into some videos. It's pretty sick though, 1600ish Cinebench scores and 32,000 Geekbench. Way overkill but that is the way I like to do things.