Does C6100 support Xeon X5680/X5690?

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thomasz

Member
Oct 2, 2016
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Hi all, I wonder if those 130 Watts chips like Xeon X5680 and X5690 can work with the Dell PowerEdge C6100 server board XS23-TY3.

I knew that C6100 does not *OFFICIALLY* support those CPUs. But please let me know if you *ACTUALLY* tested those combinations, and what did you see?

Thanks!
 

thomasz

Member
Oct 2, 2016
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Okay I took the risk and placed order for two X5690's.

Even if C6100 don't fire with them, there is still chance of injecting microcode into the BIOS to unlock the support.

The reason I am exploring is because I found out how to overclock dual Xeons on C6100 (not on EVGA SR-2). See here for my CPU-Z validation. I am targeting an ultimate dual 1366 OC build.

I'm running x5675s, so unfortunately I can't help.
Thank you for your information anyway! Your spec is very close to X5680/90.
 

thomasz

Member
Oct 2, 2016
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All right guys I got an answer myself, which is NO. I tested X5690 on my board and there was nothing popping up on the screen. Chips are good. I then attempted to add the microcode into BIOS. The latest official C6100 BIOS already has X5600 microcodes (06C2) up to revision 15. I cleared them out and added a newer (revision A1) code I extracted from a SuperMicro X8DTT board. Then flashed back to the board. The board can boot with my test chip E5506 normally, but it still didin't boot with X5690. So, unfortunately, I had to conclude that C6100 does NOT support X5690.

Before
c6100_default_codes.PNG

After
added_X8DTT_06C2_clean.PNG