CPU Upgrades for Precision 610

Anyone gotr a idea on this?

In particular, can I upgrade to 700mhz Xeons?

After installing the A10 BIOS, you can install up to 800MHz XEON processors in the 610 Workstation. Important - When installing dual CPU's, make certain they have the same "Step # 's"!

If you know of other 700's available at a good price, or decide against the ones you're considering, please let me know, as I am presently running 550's. Thanks.

Thanks,

I've found a couple of auctions over on E-bay, but the prices are higher than I'm willing to go at the moment. I'll keep looking.

Thomas

My Precision 610 has jumpers on the motherboard up to 550mhz. I also would like to throw something more into the old girl. Are there settings in the BIOS that would allow a CPU higher than what the jumpers on the motherboard allow for?

To all you 610 upgrade wanna-be's. As the jumpers on the MotherBoard clearly show 550Mhz. is the largest Xeon Processor this board will handle ,A-10 bios or not.Everything on this board was made to work with a max CPU of 550.Using
anything above 550 will not only VOID your warranty it could very well fry your Mobo.The Dell 610 Motherboard is a dual xeon with the Intel 440BX chip-set
on it and after all the checking I did ,550 Mhz. is the MAX.If you want to try anything bigger turn off your smoke detectors first.
ganash1

If the max CPU that the 610 can handle is 550, why does the A10 BIOS suggest it can go higher?

Is there anyone from Dell who can definitivavely state one way or the other???

Thomas

I have the same problem. I also have questions about voltage. It seems that the Xeon 550 is the highest speed that still has the 2.0v the ones above this are 2.8v. How does this bear on the possibilities of upgrades.

Also, what about L2 cache size? Dell documentation states that our 610's can run with 1MB L2 cache 550's but nothing about the 2MB version. Is the 2MB version only for quad-processor and up applications? Will they work in a dual-processor setup? Would I be able to benefit from the 2MB L2 anyway?

I wish I could go with a Xeon 800 with big cache but they are really, really expensive if you buy them and can't even use them!

I sure wish I could get a definitive answer!!!!!!!

sw

I'm using the 500mhz Xeon's with 2 MB cache,or should I say I was, I now have a bad power supply and can't find a cheap ( but good ) replacement.These Dell boards with the 24pin power plug and then everything is all switched around-it stinks!!!!!!! I have heard the newer Workstation's are becoming more user parts replaceable friendly( I don't know how I got that all out )The voltage Dif. of 2.0 to 2.8 does make a difference,your board is set up to supply 2.0 volts to the processors not 2.8 so the diff. of .8 volts they will not work,Or if they do ( which they might ) this would almost be like underclocking.You can look for boards,used or new on the web.One thing I will never ever buy a system with a dell board again.And I don't care what anyone says Intel is where it's at.I think the 800 Mhz Xeon's only have a 256 cache.

According to the MB spec sheet that I downloaded from Dell, the system is designed to supply 1.8-2.8 VDC to each slot 2_SEC.

I am not a hardware guy so what you say does not help me much.

I have 2 Xeon 700 processors - the simple question is whether these will work or whether they will fry the MB.

PLEASE DELL - can you please, please, please answer this question???

I was looking at and old drawing when I stated that 2.0 volts was the highest
voltage that this processor slot can take ,each of the (2) two Xeon slots receives 3 voltage lines,one is 1.5 volts which comes from the power supply through a voltage converter is split into two lines one for each of the Xeon slots,then there is 2.5 volts which travels the same path,the third and most important is 1.8 to 2.8 which travels from the power supply through the Processor Core Regulator and into each of the Xeon slots,this is very important,I was wrong when I stated 2.0 was the highest voltage,Now I went back and looked at the paper copy I have and it does say 1.8 to 2.0 ,but this is for the 610 Workstation with the Intel 440 BX chip set,the new drawing on the web refers this 2.8 volts with boards with the 440 GX chipset,I would imagine this has some thing to do with it.The only other issue here is the clock speed which is 100 Mhz also memory is limited to PC-100 Mhz so upgrading to a 700 Mhz Xeon Processor which runs at 133 Mhz takes PC-133 memory I'm not sure this is even an option.Dell is going to have to work this one out.I don't think it will Fry you motherboard it will just run at the slower 100Mhz clock speed.
Frank

Thanks for the response - which has generated more questions!!

First, how can you tell what chip set the box is using?

Second, assuming the 700 mhz parts work, is there really an issue with 100mhz ram? I've just picked up 1gb of ram for this machine (which works fine!).

Thomas

I e-mailed Dell Support and, at first, received the "same old run-around". I pressed them for a definitive answer, and this is the response I received:

"The answer is not definitive, that is true. But here it is:
this system has been certified by Dell to support a maximum of
a 550Mhz Xeon pair of processors. Later engineers have been
able to write BIOS versions that should allow this system to
support up to two 800Mhz processors but this is not guaranteed
by Dell to work properly."

This is the response I received from Dell Support:

"The answer is not definitive, that is true. But here it is:
this system has been certified by Dell to support a maximum of
a 550Mhz Xeon pair of processors. Later engineers have been
able to write BIOS versions that should allow this system to
support up to two 800Mhz processors but this is not guaranteed
by Dell to work properly."

Gnashman,

I'm glad to hear the P3 500's (2mb) seemed to work for you. I want to buy these exact processors as the prices have come down to my comfort level. My two PII 400's (1mb) are not quite enough anymore. Have you had any problem running these processors? In other words, do you think the power supply problem is unrelated?

Thanks,

Mark