Advice Installing Intel Xeon CPU

[slinga]

Hey guys,

All my parts for my super computer finally arrived. I'm having a lot of trouble installing the CPUs. My first problem is that all the gave me was a CPU, some greyish stuff on the cpu, and a giant copper looking heat sink, which has the same grey stuff on the bottom. I'm guessing the greyish stuff is gel? There is no fan or glue in the set. Do I have to go out and buy them? How should the heatsink make a contact with the processor? My roomate said that it should be extremely tight and not move at all or the CPU will fry. I have no idea how to make it that tight without going out and buying some glue or something.

Problem #2 is also related to the CPUs. My motherboard comes with these adhesive metal plates which you are supposed to stick to the case. The heat sink then screws into them. My problem is there is a large, raised, gap in my case where the CPUs line up. I'm unable to stick the metal plates to the case. How important are they? What if I just screwed the heat sink into the metal plates and let it hang? I'm afraid of the heat sink moving.

Any advice is welcome. Worst case scenario I go to Mirco Center and buy a new case and fans for the heat sink tomorrow.

 

[slinga]

I finally got the machine turned on today. I still have a problem in that the CPU temperatures are WAY to high. I booted the machine and went straight intot the BIOS. Within 2 minutes the CPUs hit 60 C and I then shut off the machine. I wasn't able to turn the machine back on for about 30 minutes after that. It turns out I have a "Passive Thermal Solution", which is okay without a fan if you have directed airflow to the CPUs. My case sorta has that, but one of the fans don't spin...

Anyway my question is does anybody know how I can convert Intel's Passive Thermal Solution to an Active Thermal Solution? I googled a bit, but didn't find anything. I'm afraid to call them. I hope I can get away with buying fans that fit on top of the heat sink. I've already spent too much money on a "free" machine. Grumble grumble grumble.

 

[tsumake]

Hmm, by "free" do you mean that you know someone in the hardware biz and they gave you free stuff or...? I'm just curious.

Anyway, building a computer is a tricky thing. Did your mobo and chip come with an instruction manual? That always helps.

 

[Curtis]

Server cases (rackmountable) have exceptionally good airflow...usually because of the 8+ fans they have inside them. Xeons are server processors. For this reason I'm not really surprised you only got a heatsink as server cases are pretty cramped.

As for "passive" to "active", simply find a way of mounting a fan or two close to the heatsink so that air (and lots of it) is blown across the fins. Ideally, you'd align it such that the hot air is sucked out of the case by a different fan.

 

[slinga]

"Free" as in I sold my soul to the government. They give me $3k for computer money (+ tuition, housing, date money, etc) and in return I give them my soul. Man I screwed them good. Actually I just owe them 2 years of my life when I graduate. The only catch is if I don't get a federal job offer (for some reason they expect us to APPLY for jobs for some reason) they can place me anywhere in the 48 continental states. Knowing my luck I could end up in Nebraska with Cloud or somebody.

Anyway on to the super computer, I ordered new case fans and cpu fans from Newegg. I hooked them up and booted the bad boy. The temperature of the CPUs dropped from 60C+ to around 48C and everything worked great. I installed SuSE 9.2, patched everything, got dual video working with two nics, and everything was spiffy. Now it won't boot. @#$#@$@#$#@$@#$@#$.

No display on the monitors. No bootup noises. All fans spin. No clue what's going. I highly doubt it overheated as the temp stayed consistently below 50C.

It's so frustrating not having a computer.

 

[Curtis]

Pull out everything you don't need to get a picture on the monitor (extra ram, disks, nics, etc) and see if it boots then. If it does, slowly add things back in and see if it breaks.

 

[slinga]

I removed everything except for the Ram, video card, and CPUs. Still nothing. I then removed the ram. Still nothing. I moved the video card to another slot, and I then I tried a spare video card I had. Still nothing I swapped in Ram one stick at a time. Still nothing. I removed the CPUs one by one, and still nothing. I finally removed EVERYTHING, including the CPUs, and removed the mobo, and seated everything again. It still won't post. I have no clue what else to try. Nothing looks or smells fried, and the temperatures were all in the safe ranges as far as I know. Anything else you guys recommend trying?

 

[mal]

Try a different power supply.

 

[slinga]

Mal: All of the fans spin, the cd-rom drive (before I unplugged it) would light up and I could open/close the drive with the eject button. I doubt it is the power supply, but I'm open to any suggestions. I will try this afternoon.

Losing a computer is like losing a sibling you actually like.

 

[Curtis]

Originally posted by slinga@Thu, 2005-05-19 @ 12:40 AM

Mal: All of the fans spin, the cd-rom drive (before I unplugged it) would light up and I could open/close the drive with the eject button. I doubt it is the power supply, but I'm open to any suggestions. I will try this afternoon.

Losing a computer is like losing a sibling you actually like.

[post=134237]Quoted post[/post]​

Actually that just proves the 12v rail is fine. The power supply could still have a flaky 5v or 3v rail, though I'm willing to admit this is a long shot.

 

[slinga]

Bah. Swapped EVERYTHING except for the motherboard. The CPUs are toast. I put them into a machine here at school and it wouldn't boot on the new machine. The motherboard could be bad as well, I have no way to verify, I was not allowed to put the school's CPUs in my box. I bought the system from Monarch Computers so I'm going to try and RMA it, only thing is I think it's been more than 30 days. They seem like great guys so I have my hopes up. They however have a policy of not taking back CPUs so it looks like I'm out the price of dual Xeons.

 

[slinga]

@#$%!@%@!%@#%@!%@!$@!$!@#$@!%#!@%#!@^$!$#@^!#$^$#%@#%@#$%@#$%@#$%#@$%@#$%@#%@#$%#@%@#$%

Yeah, so I'm extremely pissed off. Monarch RMAed the motherboard to me. I take it home this weekend and hook everything up to one cpu. Boots. I swap out CPU one and put in CPU two. And...NOTHING. Won't post, no beeps, no screen, nothing. I then swap in CPU one back in, and again NOTHING. Looks like my CPU fried my mobo =(.

 

[it290]

Wow. Bummer. Did you look at the pins on said CPU and make sure they're all where they're supposed to be?

 

[slinga]

As far as I know, the CPU only fits in one way. All the pins look perfectly straight. I emailed Monarch again and I hope Intel doesn't give me shit...

 

[slinga]

Update: I RMAed the motherboard back to ASUS and both of the CPUs back to Intel...looks like I get one more shot at this thing.