Some may recall that I recently upgraded to a MacPro 4,1 machine, and I had upgraded its CPUs to dual X5690s, which I de-lidded myself.
Unfortunately it turned out not to be reliable, and would crash periodically with an internal OS synchronization problem. Either X5690 would work OK by itself in the dual CPU card (in site A), but put them both in and not so good. (I tried the two CPUs in both permutations, no difference.) With only one CPU, though, the machine goes into full hovercraft mode and so is not really usable. Also, you can only put in half the RAM. The machine continued to work fine with the original X5570s in it, the CPU card was not damaged. I red-herringed for awhile by trying dual X5667s, which are 3GHz Westmere quads and only $6 each, but with two of them in the machine it would never boot, but either was fine alone. Suspecting that (in spite of the experts' reports that X5667 were OK in a 4/5,1 machine) this was not a viable configuration, I splurged on a pair of X5670s, which are hexes but not faster than the original X5570s. This set me back ANOTHER $39, and I installed them this morning. (I've de-lidded quite a few CPUs now, it's actually pretty easy and doesn't take that long.) The machine is running happily right now. No faster than before, 2.93 GHz, but with hex-core 2-hyperthread CPUs that will run the current version of VMware. Time will tell if it's reliable. If not, I've got the single-CPU tray to fall back on; it has been flawless all along running a slower X5650. I could try a pair of X5680s, but that's even more money in a pursuit of CPU speed that I don't really need. (Only one Raspberry Pi simulator is clearly 'too slow', and I don't think even the 5690s would be good enough.) That's why I forced myself to accept the X5670s. Dumbass, it's GOOD ENOUGH, just stop dicking with it and wasting money and get back to work. So, either my $150 non-returnable X5690s are flakey, or the dual CPU card is simply not that happy at 3.46 GHz, or??? Recently my company discarded a Mac Pro 5,1 machine. I may try to re-lid the X5690s and put them in that to see if that'll work. It would be nice to salvage the $150 I spent on them. -- Jim _______________________________________ http://www.okiebenz.com To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com
