DELL Precision 690 microcode update

[DeathBringer]

OK. Only real experiment can verify compatibility. As I wrote:

X5355 (SLAEG) must work on your motherboard. BIOS has microcode for them.

[duracellttu]

OK. Only real experiment can verify compatibility. As I wrote:

X5355 (SLAEG) must work on your motherboard. BIOS has microcode for them.

Thanks.

Maybe the original post will chime in and let me know his results.

[boilermaker8162]

My board must be the Rev A02 MY171. Two of the X5355, 2.66 GHz, FSB 1333 MHz, L2 8 MB, work perfectly. I have been doing a lot of reading on this model of the precision workstation and I have found that this board and revision, and chipset have no reason not to support the X54xx, with 1333MHz FSB series. The only reason I have not tried to update the cpu code myself is because there are few to no tools out there that can so much as tell you what codes are actually in the BIOS update itself. And then of course the microcode in all of the BIOS updates do not seem to have headers, so i have no idea how to search for them.  If you need any information from my 690 let me know and i can get it for you within a couple of days. Oh and also i did see one person try to add microcode to a BIOS.hdr A07, and A08, my opinion is that when they added the code it was added with a header and NOT in the format Dell uses with all of the precision models which might have something to do with why it didn't work.

[DeathBringer]

We need owners of A00 & A01 revisions.

[duracellttu]

We need owners of A00 & A01 revisions.

Today I received my Xeon X5355 processor in the mail and installed in on my MY171 Rev00 on bios A08.  No issues running the processor.  I took out the motherboard battery for 2 mins before reinstalling and starting up for the first time.  Bios immediately recognized the processor.  

I'm running window 10 and initially it only saw 2 of the cores.  I went into MSCONFIG and made some changes under the BOOT tab, Advanced Options, you need to uncheck "Number of Processors" and reboot.  After that , the OS will see all 4 cores.

I plan to run as second X5355 processor, but am waiting to get a second heat sink before dropping it in.

Hope this helps other looking to upgrade the 690.  Both processors cost me a total of $20 on ebay.  Also got 16GB (8x2GB) of PC5300 DDR2 RAM for this computer for $10.  Computer will run great for $30 worth of upgrades.  I still feel like they need SSD to run faster.

[DeathBringer]

Great news!

[modlord]

We need owners of A00 & A01 revisions.

i own A01 revision, I tried single processor X5365@3.0Ghz, it worked just fine! then when I got my heatsink I installed the matching pair of X5365 I got 1 3 4 beep then off! i'm at A08 bios version.
I downgraded to A01 successfully, still problem persists.
I reset the bios by removing the cell battery waiting 1 hour not 3 minutes, then reinstalled battery, installed 2nd cpu & heatsink. same problem!

I have now a shiny X5365 with its heatsink collecting dust on my desk!

[DeathBringer]

Tell sSpec of each your CPUs.
How many DIMMs you used?

[modlord]

Tell sSpec of each your CPUs.
How many DIMMs you used?

both CPU's are a matching pair X5365 SLAED, bought them over ebay (http://www.ebay.com/itm/Lot-of-2-Intel-X...1ea9277870)

I have 64GB of RAM in memory riser (16Dimms X 4GB) from ebay as well: (64GB (16x4GB) DDR2 FB Fully Buffered PC2-5300F 667 Memory Dell) here's the link to ebay: (http://www.ebay.com/itm/64GB-16x4GB-DDR2...2edcb59bb7)

I tried both CPU's in CPU 0 slot  as single processors, they're both working just fine! it's just that they won't work together. let me know if you need more info.

[DeathBringer]

Which slots are used for memory risers?
Did you tried to use memory without risers?
Try to install 8 DIMM to slots 1-8.