Dual 3.8GHz Irwindale Xeon System Won't Work in 64-Bit

C

careet

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Hey there,
So, for the first time since ~2006, I have a desktop computer. God, I forgot nice this is...

Anyway, I kind of had to get the system up and running on short notice, so my embarrassingly limited budget and desire for something unique/interesting left me with kind of a strange setup. Here are the specs:
-2x "Intel Confidential" 3.8GHz Irwindale Xeon CPU's
-SuperMicro X6DVL-G motherboard
-2Gb DDR333 ECC Registered RAM
-BFG nVidia GeForce 8800 GTX OC Edition
-Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS Platinum
-Rosewill RNX-N300X Wireless-N PCI Card
-Vantec UGT-ST310R PCI SATA II Host Card
-Corsair AX860i PSU
-Corsair 600T chassis
(Just figured I'd list almost everything - I should explain that I was slowly buying parts I wanted when they went on sale, and then had to pick up a motherboard, CPU, GPU, and RAM all at once and on a whim)

Pardon the terrible (and completely unnecessary) cell phone pictures here...
20130719_014640.jpg


20130719_015209.jpg


So everything works nicely, but the only lingering issue is that nothing recognizes the CPU's as being able to support 64-Bit operating systems. Debian and Mint installation and Live CD's both erroneously recognize my CPU's as i686. Windows 7 x64 installation discs immediately return the error that I'm trying to use 64-Bit software on 32-Bit hardware. I initially didn't know that the CPU's were the "Intel Confidential" testing models, nor had I ever even heard of these making the way to consumers. The guy I bought them off of didn't mention this when he sold them to me, but I honestly don't think he knew.

Anyway, does anyone know if there's maybe a trick to getting these to operate with a 64-Bit data width? I'm thinking I might just be SOL. The Irwindale line is a subset of the Netburst family, so they're definitely supposed to be able to work in 64-Bit (at least the consumer versions are...). I poked around the BIOS and tried different things to no avail, even after flashing it to the most recent version (released in 2007...). SuperMicro support wasn't able to help me, and Intel's support hasn't gotten back to me after over a week, so I've definitely exhausted all of the options I can think of.

I don't necessarily need to run 64-Bit applications; it's more the 4Gb RAM limitation that's going to be a problem for me. I'm using first-gen DDR here, and my system maxes out its 2Gb of RAM farrr before the CPU's even begin to break a sweat, so I'm thinking I'm going to need at least 8Gb to make this guy usable for the next couple of years.

My main motivation for trying to get this guy operating in 64-Bit is so that I can get past the 4Gb RAM limitation of 32-Bit operating systems without using a workaround method or a server OS, since I tend to have tons of driver issues every time I try one.

If anyone's got any thoughts, I'd be much appreciative!
 
If you have tried the latest bios you may just be out of luck since they are engineering samples. I was given an engineering sample cpu once, it worked but the board didn't officially support it so there were some quirks that didn't ever get straightened out. May be the same thing here.
 
do you have access to a server 2003 x64 installation? it may be that win7 x64 doesn't like the 64-bit instruction set of your cpus. don't know that i've ever heard of anyone trying to install win 7 on your gen of xeons.
 
munkle said:
...there were some quirks that didn't ever get straightened out. May be the same thing here.
Click to expand...
Yeah for sure - quirks is right! What a headache. Kind of fun though, at least. This is my first dual CPU system, and my first time using Xeons... actually, they're my first Intel CPU's since my first build, which had a 1.? GHz Celeron, haha. Thanks for the input! I actually heard that Intel sometimes pays for the return of their testing CPU's, so maybe you could make a couple bucks off of yours if you're not still using it.


bigted said:
do you have access to a server 2003 x64 installation? it may be that win7 x64 doesn't like the 64-bit instruction set of your cpus. don't know that i've ever heard of anyone trying to install win 7 on your gen of xeons.
Click to expand...
I don't have a copy, but I'll start looking around for a download on your recommendation. Might as well try, just to be sure. I'm not too hopeful though since Debian didn't recognize it as 64-Bit either, though I'm just basing that off of Debian being lots of people's - including my - go-to server distro.

If I remember correctly, x86 Windows Server distros can deal with more than 4Gb of RAM via page address extension right out of the box (or, more easily than other versions I should say), so that might be a better dual-boot solution than Windows 7, anyway. I'll try the 64-Bit version and let you guys know. Thanks again for the advice!
 
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Looking at it, I dont know if those chips actually have x64 ?

Do you have the ES identifying numbers?
 
Try getting CPUZ to run against those CPU's. Maybe you got an ES that doesn't support 64bit.

I had an old HP xw6200 with two of those CPU's in it, that fucker heated the damn room.
 
These were early 64 bit processors so maybe unsupported by Windows 7. Maybe try Server 2003 or XP 64?
 
Are you sure that cpu supports ECC? Can you turn ECC off in BIOS?
That may not fix your issue though. But just a thought.
 
Kirika said:
These were early 64 bit processors so maybe unsupported by Windows 7. Maybe try Server 2003 or XP 64?
Click to expand...

I had Windows 7 running on my 3.8ghz Irwindale's. My brother is using that same system right now with 64bit Windows 7 Ultimate on it.

While I admire you're passion for unique/interesting hardware, I must say that there are alot better/faster combinations than that dual Irwindale setup. When I had a system very similar to this, I thought about replacing my then Pentium D 3.4ghz with it. I spent about a week benchmarking the two, and the dual Xeon setup wasn't that much faster than the Pentium D. Plus the Xeon system was much more power hungry than the Pentium D.
 
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THUMPer1 said:
Are you sure that cpu supports ECC? Can you turn ECC off in BIOS?
That may not fix your issue though. But just a thought.
Click to expand...
Any dual socket board from the past 15 years supports ECC and those more than a few years old require it.
 
Hey everyone - thanks very much for the input, and my apologies for the delay in response on my part.

Anyway, the issues continue to some degree. Neither 64-Bit variants of XP, nor Windows Server 2003 will even begin to install. I get essentially the same error message as Windows 7, Debian, and Mint 64-Bit have been returning: that I am attempting to install a 64-Bit OS on hardware that only supports 32-Bit applications. Bummer!

Just today, I decided to try the approach detailed here as option two: http://www.bcastell.com/tech-articles/enabling-more-than-4-gb-of-ram-under-windows-7-32-bit/
and here: http://www.unawave.de/windows-7-tipps/4-gb-patch-selber-machen.html?lang=DE

Essentially, this is a fully automated program that modifies the Windows 7 kernel and allows it to address more than the ~3.5/4Gb RAM it can out of the box. My system was incredibly unstable while the full 8Gb were addressable - immediately, Windows Explorer would crash, along with many of my startup services, such as nVidia's Display Manager and Open Hardware Monitor. However, I'm (so far) avoiding these problems by enabling RAM Sparing in my BIOS - meaning that my four 2Gb DIMM's operate as a mirrored set, leaving me with a full 4Gb of RAM that's addressable (I was only able to address 2Gb of RAM previously with this RAM setup, which I assume is due to much of the reserved addresses being monopolized by my GPU, a BFG nVidia GeForce 8800 GTX OC-Edition). This is a new RAM setup I've installed today - previously, I was only able to address 1Gb out of 2.5Gb without the modified kernel.

In case anyone is interested, I've uploaded full CPU-Z reports for the system on an otherwise empty subdomain here: http://solstice.wanderingstar.eu/ Both the .html and the .txt files are for the same report. Note that this report was generated while running the previously mentioned modified Win7 kernel, so if that might affect RAM readings or something, that's why.

W.Feather said:
Looking at it, I dont know if those chips actually have x64 ?

Do you have the ES identifying numbers?
Click to expand...
I haven't got the ES numbers - I took a photo and intended to record them, but I can't find said photo and I've already remounted the CPU's. I've attached a copy of my CPU-Z reports to this reply, though.

acascianelli said:
I had an old HP xw6200 with two of those CPU's in it, that fucker heated the damn room.
Click to expand...
Haha yeah, I have an old Pentium 4 box next to it that might as well be a space heater. These guys run at ~48C under load though, so I'm pretty stoked. That's with AS5, thoroughly cleaned stock coolers, and inside of a Corsair 600T, though.

THUMPer1 said:
Are you sure that cpu supports ECC? Can you turn ECC off in BIOS?
That may not fix your issue though. But just a thought.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the thought, but yeah, this mobo (and probably the CPU's as well, I think) require it. Such is life when your hardware is older than your aging car!

acascianelli said:
I had Windows 7 running on my 3.8ghz Irwindale's. My brother is using that same system right now with 64bit Windows 7 Ultimate on it.
Click to expand...
No kidding? Well that's good to hear; at least I know it's doable if I just replace the testing CPU's with standard release ones.
acascianelli said:
While I admire you're passion for unique/interesting hardware, I must say that there are alot better/faster combinations than that dual Irwindale setup. When I had a system very similar to this, I thought about replacing my then Pentium D 3.4ghz with it. I spent about a week benchmarking the two, and the dual Xeon setup wasn't that much faster than the Pentium D. Plus the Xeon system was much more power hungry than the Pentium D.
Click to expand...
Oy, even a Pentium D? That's disheartening. I know you're right though - buying this mobo and the CPU's was really a spur-of-the-moment thing. Truth be told, I was actually slowly putting together a system around an Athlon 64 X2 6400+ that I had lying around, and I got burned by faulty hardware from eBay (no refund either, even though the purchase was supposedly covered by their buyer protecting plan, or whatever it's called). I suppose I really had just wanted a dual CPU system for a while, and that was really to blame. Huge bummer, but the new hardware fund starts anew and hopefully I'll have something workable and stable sooner than later :)
 
Have you tried running CPUZ against these yet to see if they support 64bit?

If you're going to be putting more money into this system with new CPU's, you might want to consider a pair of Xeon 2.8's SL8MA. They're dual core and hyperthreaded, so 4 total threads. Depending on what you're doing with the system you may be getter off with these over the 3.8's. But, the 3.8's already run at 110W's each, the 2.8's are 135W EACH.

I myself am trying to make a similar decision with my system; keep my Xeon 5160's (dual core 3ghz) or switch to Xeon 5345 (quad core 2.33ghz).
 
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See if there is a bios setting that will enable/disable 64 bit. I've had a few that have such a setting.
 
acascianelli said:
My brother is using that same system right now with 64bit Windows 7 Ultimate on it.
Click to expand...

Does it have Hyper-threading ? What CPU ID do they have ?


I am currently facing similar dilemmas.

I have a SuperMicro X6DH8-XG2 with 3.2GHz Nocona Xeon.

From what I have seen from some exhaustive search, although Irwindale have 2MB L2 cache they seem to lack Hyper-threading and Intel 64 support so I am really not sure if there is an upgrade path to go for...
 
KillerDAN said:
Does it have Hyper-threading ? What CPU ID do they have ?


I am currently facing similar dilemmas.

I have a SuperMicro X6DH8-XG2 with 3.2GHz Nocona Xeon.

From what I have seen from some exhaustive search, although Irwindale have 2MB L2 cache they seem to lack Hyper-threading and Intel 64 support so I am really not sure if there is an upgrade path to go for...
Click to expand...

Yes, they do have HT and EM64T. Not sure on the CPUID or SLCode.

http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Xeon/...22MM - NE80546KG1122MM (BX80546KG3800FA).html
 
This thread is quite old, but my answer might help people with similar problem. I think that this problem is related to the BIOS of the motherboard, or a hidden failure in the motherboard. Please also note that the R0 stepping is the last one for the Irwindale CPU family, and not every BIOS supports all of its features.

If you are facing such a problem, then
- try your board with two early-stepping Noconas. Low-clock Noconas are really cheap.
- update your BIOS. It might help. (e. g. the NCCH-DL 1003 BIOS starts the Irwindale CPU's at 2800 MHz, and the multiplier cannot be changed)
- if your motherboard works with Noconas, try some Irwindales with N0 stepping. Since VT is disabled in R0 Irwindales, there is no difference between the N0 and R0 stepping from the point of view of a user.

Best wishes,
chey229
 
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I wish I would have held on to this system. :(

Mine was a HP xw6200.
 
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