Unsolved
This post is more than 5 years old
4 Posts
0
4022
PE1900 and Xeon X5260 upgrade
I have a PE1900 server with 2 x 5150 processors.
I have just tried to upgrade it to 2 x X5260 processors and despite booting up and correctly identifying 2 x 3.33Ghz 1333Mhz 6M cache processors, it gets all the way through the BIOS boot, only to fail with 'unsupported processor combination' just before booting the OS.
Surely the X5260 isn't that different from the 5160?
Also, the BIOS notes for BIOS 2.7.0 seem to indicate that it supports 5200 processors :-
"* Updated Dual-Core Intel(R) Xeon(R) Processor 5200 series C0 Stepping Microcode (Patch ID=60F)"
Should I have also updated the BMC(?) which I have seen mentioned in these forums or is it just that my motherboard is too old to support this processor?
Cheers,
Rich.
theflash1932
7 Technologist
7 Technologist
•
16.3K Posts
0
March 10th, 2011 15:00
Read this:
http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/pe1950/multlang/doc_upd/FD259.pdf
Processor Upgrades – PowerEdge 1950 II and PowerEdge 1950 III Systems
upgradeable to the 5100 series of dual-core Intel Xeon processors and
the 5300 series of quad-core Intel Xeon processors.
upgradeable to the 5100 and 5200 series of dual-core Intel Xeon processors
and the 5300 and 5400 series of quad-core Intel Xeon processors.
From this, I might suspect you have a 1950 II. You currently have a 5100-series processor, so it is at least a II, but if you don't have a 1950 III, then you won't be able to upgrade to the 5200-series. All three versions of the 1950 use the same BIOS code, so all release "notes" will not apply to all versions.
You can check your server version by the identifier II or III on the top-left corner of the system, in your order details, or in OpenManage.
A note on the BMC/ESM ... the BIOS should never be updated without also updating the BMC, as they are interdependent.
Rich101
4 Posts
0
March 11th, 2011 12:00
SO, the million dollar question : is there likely to be a motherboard hardware change that was needed specifically to support the newer x5260 or is Dell artificially limiting the upgrade potential based on motherboard version (the motherboards also went hand in hand with PE1900, PE1900II and PE1900III)?
I don't know enough about the hardware to answer that but, I do find it difficult to believe that there is a significant difference between Xeon 5160 and Xeon x5260 in hardware terms.
I did check the BMC and I had updated it to the latest version.
theflash1932
7 Technologist
7 Technologist
•
16.3K Posts
0
March 11th, 2011 13:00
Whether there is a real hardware barrier preventing you from using the processor or and artificial one, the result is the same ... there is no way to get it to work if it is not a supported processor. I don't believe it is an artificial barrier, mainly because the systems share the same BIOS code and have the same chipset, which are just about the only things that OEM's can alter to "artificially" limit your hardware (you see it all the time on systems with the i-series processor). The motherboard is wired differently - different supported FSB's, etc. - it simply can't handle it.
Check out the comparison, and somewhere in there lies your answer as to "why".
http://ark.intel.com/Compare.aspx?ids=27219,33907