Interesting Xeon Mod for socket 775

[DaveLembke]

Surfing ebay I came across this interesting mod to run Xeon socket 771 in a socket 775 motherboard.

Here is the ebay hit I found and below this is another link to it from another source. Guessing you need a special BIOS version to support recognition of a Xeon though since the BIOS has to support the CPU.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Intel-Core-2-Quad-CPU-MOD-Q9650-Q9550S-Q9450-Q9400-Q9300-Q8400-Q8300-LGA-771-775/291045406492?_trksid=p2045573.m2102&_trkparms=aid%3D555012%26algo%3DPW.MBE%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D18472%26meid%3D3729821884620788873%26pid%3D100034%26prg%3D8385%26rk%3D2%26rkt%3D8%26sd%3D331088325919%26#ht_1154wt_1133


More info here:
http://www.delidded.com/lga-771-to-775-adapter/

[Calum]

Impressive, I had no idea this would be possible, or indeed feasible, due to BIOS support.
Reading the link though, it seems that just supporting similar CPUs *should* be enough, which kind of makes sense.
If one was available in the UK (I'll have a search in a minute) I might order one and try it out, it's cheap enough, seems interesting and I have a few 771 Xeons doing nothing.

Edit: it looks like it would be trivial to do the mod yourself actually, although buying this would be easier and potentially more reversible.

[DaveLembke]

Edit: it looks like it would be trivial to do the mod yourself actually, although buying this would be easier and potentially more reversible.

Yah I agree. I dont have any extra Xeons laying around to try this with myself, but it looks like masking some connections and removing the 2 key way tabs to socket 775 is the trick. Best part is that the removal of these tabs does not make the motherboard socket 775 to 771 mod irreversible, so if the Xeon doesnt work in your motherboard you can simply put the normal socket 775 CPU back in, just paying attention to pin 1 now..LOL

[Calum]

Heh, exactly.  Looks like there are a few success stories over at OCN too, useful info.

I may have something incoming to try this out with, I have a 775 board but I doubt it'll work with my Xeons as it's an oddball chipset.
I don't have anything special lying around but the Ebay ad is right, equivalent 771 Xeons are often much cheaper, and many don't have a socket 775 equivalent - specifically the lower power/lower clocked chips which are still cheap for their performance.  A Xeon equivalent to the Q6600 which sells for around £30-35 would typically be around 1/3 less.

[DaveLembke]

I dont have any extra Xeons laying around to try this with myself, but it looks like masking some connections and removing the 2 key way tabs to socket 775 is the trick.

Was reading further into this and realized my statement was incorrect, its reversing 2 pins, so the special pin redirection mask is needed. Wanted to state this info in case anyone tries this on their own without the kit to redirect the pins.

[Calum]

Ah, I see.  Looks like the kit is needed then yes, shame there's nowhere selling it in the UK which makes it cost more than it's worth to me

[Calum]

Changed my mind and bought two for just over £11, decided I can probably find a use for them as a decent quad Xeon can be bought for £15 ish, and I have two spare lower end Xeon quads to test with too.  Worth a try!  I'll try it on my current spare 775 board (which I doubt will work) and on a system I just picked up today which I'm pretty confident this trick will work on, which would make it a really nice cheap setup.

[Calum]

They arrived today, I'm hoping to get some time to try this tomorrow or next weekend.  I'll update with results

[Calum]

Well, I just tried a Xeon in the Shuttle system I recently bought, and after a bit of fiddling, it's working fine!
The little adapter is quite hard to line up "just so" but it seems to stay on fine after that thanks to the adhesive.
Just for reference, the Shuttle was an SG33G5, the Xeon was an E5310 1.6GHz quad core as that's the best I had spare.
Not entirely sure if the adapters will be reusable due to the adhesive, it might not stick too well once removed, but I'll find out once I've got some more Xeons to play with!  I'm off hunting decent cheap 775 boards now...being able to buy nice cheap quad core Xeons makes a 775 system much more feasible if you already have some spare DDR2.  I have plenty of that, some spare PSUs and vid cards, spare high end coolers, so everything I need for some cheap quad cores to sit and crunch for me

[DaveLembke]

Well, I just tried a Xeon in the Shuttle system I recently bought, and after a bit of fiddling, it's working fine!

SWEET!!!!  I looked up my socket 775 boards and they are unfortunately too old to support this mod. But if I come across a board that can do it, I might perform this inexpensive xeon quadcore mod myself.

Thanks for sharing that it worked and specifics on the board you used.

[Calum]

No problem what 775 boards do you have out of interest?
I have an Abit board I want to try next although I'm less confident this mod will work on that as it's an ATI chipset, seems Intel chipsets are the way to go for this.

Edit: also, looks like I'll be picking up some E5430s for some more systems, 2.66GHz so basically like a Q9450.  Seem to go for around £15 each, so good value.

[DaveLembke]

Here is my wifes socket 775 motherboard. It came with an E4300 1.8Ghz Core 2 Duo and I upgraded it to a E6600 2.4Ghz Core 2 Duo with 4MB Cache. The E6xxx is the max supported for this board.
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?cc=us&lc=en&docname=c00864946

The other 2 socket 775 boards are:

FoxConn (*Only supports Pentium 4 and Pentium D ) Daughters system is running this board.

EliteGroup (*Only supports Pentium 4 ) This one is in storage and is half gutted for parts.

[Calum]

Yeah, seems like it's the 945 chipset which doesn't support quads on any board, so you're limited to duals only.  COuld always throw in a dual core Xeon, but there aren't any your board would support which would be an upgrade from the E6600 - the only faster duals use a 1333MHz FSB, your board only goes to 1066MHz.

[DaveLembke]

Yeah, I dug the ECS Board out of storage to see what it had for chipset and its this one here with the even older 915 chipset. http://www.ecs.com.tw/ECSWebSite/Product/Product_Detail.aspx?CategoryID=1&DetailID=503&DetailName=Feature&MenuID=24&LanID=0

Got this motherboard through www.geeks.com for like $15 + $5 shipping a few years ago and stuffed a Celeron D 2.53Ghz in it to use as a file server, but then retired it 6 months later because it was having issues which appeared to be main board stability issues after 2 different power supplies and a full DDR RAM swap. 

Todays further inspection of this board shows that they use low end parts and the cheap electrolytics and some had slightly raised tops vs flat, so it appeared to have the bad caps in it. If it was a board that had potential to run a better dual or quadcore CPU, I'd take the time to replace the swolen caps, but its a junk board that is too limited for my needs so I am going to drop it off in the electronic recycle after I remove the RAM, CPU, and Jumpers from it to hold on to as spare parts for older systems.

[Calum]

ECS using low end parts?  How shocking!

[DaveLembke]

Yeah...LOL   

I figured I'd give a heavily discounted ECS board a try, but I got what I paid for!    Another $25 more could have been a better board such as a Biostar, although I rate the boards best to worst for low budget builds as:

BEST

ASUS
Gigabit
Intel
Biostar
Zotac
----------------------------------- I avoid buying brands below this dotted line due to defects
Foxconn ( integrated audio chipset died as confirmed with o-scope ) - Added USB Audio adapter, still running as kids system.
MSI        ( Plugging/Unplugging USB devices caused hard reset. Not PSU, Not USB Port, NOT ground issue in case )
ASRock  ( Friends system died after 2 weeks. Further inspection lots of tiny solder balls all over the board and some falling off.)
ECS       ( Died after 6 months of 24/7 use as file server. Bad Caps )

WORST

*In addition to notes above to brands, I have seen other issues with Foxconn, MSI, ASRock, and ECS that strengthen the need to avoid those brands. Although my daughters Foxconn system is running ok now with the replacement USB sound setup. This system has run for about 8 years now since it was built and audio died at the 5 year mark.

Not sure if this follows what everyone else feels about brand quality, but my personal experience sets it in this order of preference and avoidance..LOL

[patio]

I personally wouldn't give any of those MBoards a 2nd...or 3rd chance...
Been there...done that...got no t-shirt.

[Calum]

Heh, sure, it was worth a try, shame it didn't work out for you in the long term.

I tend to take some manufacturers as I find them, Biostar and Foxconn aren't always junk but some of their models are so you have to take care.
Most Asus and Gigabyte boards are at least decent, it's not often they make a board that's prone to major problems above and beyond the expected failure rate.  Intel boards are also usually fairly solid although lacking in features and can be quite expensive for what they are.  Zotac make some good niche boards.  MSI, Asrock and ECS I would never buy under any circumstances due to past experiences with their products.

[Calum]

Just a quick update - the Frankenshuttle is now running a Xeon E5430, equivalent to a Core 2 Quad Q9450.  The Q9450 generally costs around £60 used, the Xeon was £15.  Temps are fine at around 55C under load, overclocking will commence after I've ensure it remains stable over the next week or so.

I have a few more boards to test, just need to pick up a few more Xeons!

[DaveLembke]

Sweet on your success.... also like the Frankenshuttle name as for I have named a HP Pavlion system Frankenstein in the past since it was created as the result of a lightning struck system that was given to me.

It needed a new PSU, Hard Drive, and Motherboard, yet the CPU and RAM were good. Threw away the 56k modem that was arc flashed with burned traces. Added motherboard from an eMachine, swapped the eMachine 2Ghz Celeron CPU out for the Pentium 4 2Ghz CPU from the lightning struck HP, added PSU from a Dell tower, added 160GB IDE HDD from an IBM Desktop, and added the 512MB stick from the HP and 512MB stick from the IBM to have 1GB max memory on this system. System ran well, but was showing its age back in 2007 when I built Frankenstein up. Now I just have the motherboard from frankenstein in storage as for its so aged and limited still with the P4 2Ghz and 1GB RAM in case I ever need to make a file server etc.

Just before putting Frankenstein up into storage, I tested Windows 7 32-bit on the Pentium 4 2.0Ghz with 1GB of DDR266 and it ran, but was not a multitasker with the single core Pentium 4 pegged at 100% almost constantly and this wasnt even SP1 yet either....LOL   Also ran into issues trying to get 1024x768 graphics out of the Intel 845GL integrated chipset, had to force Windows 7 32-bit to operate on Windows XP drivers for GPU.

Never tried Windows 8 yet... I doubt it would run 8.