Precision T3500 Processor Upgrade to Xeon W3690 from W3505 and W3550

[sodv]

I own a Dell Precision T3500, motherboard Dell P/N 09KPNV with and Intel AF82801JIR SLB8S BGA Chip & Intel X58 Express Chipset

BIOS Revision A17
A mix of RAM as follows:
2 x 4GB Kingston 1333MHZ non-ecc
2 x 2GB Samsung 1333MHZ non-ecc
2 x 2GB Hynix 1333MHZ non-ecc

The unit first ran with a Xeon W3505 2 cores, then I upgraded to a Xeon W3550 4 cores and it too work fine.

I purchased an Intel Xeon W3690 3.47Ghz Six Core 12Mb 6.4GT/s Processor SLBW2 processor for an upgrade, and when installed, at boot, there were no beep codes, but the Diagnostic Lights 1 & 2 flashed rapidly and randomly. Diagnostic Lights 3 and 4 flashed a bit slower and randomly, and BIOS would not execute.

Is the Xeon W3690 a compatible processor for this unit? It is either non-compatible or I received a bad processor.

 

[cin19]

From the manual, Diagnostic Light Codes, 3 and 4 related to the RAM. So try only one pair RAM.

 

[sodv]

Done... Tried each pair of RAM only with each processor prior to posting here. Be it the Hynix 4GB, the Samsung 4GB or the Kingston 8 GB, all combinations gave the same POST response.

 

[william p]

It should have 3 channel memory with the 6 core CPU. You might need 2 sets of 3 modules, not 3 sets of 2. I purchased one of these with the W3690 installed, it looked like it had been there quite a while due to the dust bunnies i had to remove.. Haven't tried it yet due to extensive mods and hurricane keeping me busy. But that's my best guess. I would check the manual for 3 channel memory configurations.
I would try 3 of the 2GB modules and see if that works.
https://www.techiehq.net/threads/supported-ram-configurations.86700/
All the memory offered at Crucial.com is low density x64 type so that could be a factor also.

 

[william p]

The memory controller is on the CPU, not the motherboard. So when you changed the CPU you changed the controller also. The 2, and 4 core CPUs might have tolerated the dual channel configuration better than the 6 core. Or more likely some of the RAM was running single channel

 

[sodv]

Awesome, thank you! I forgot that point long ago... Somewhere around the release of Pentium....