Hello!
I have a Gigabyte x79-UD5 motherboard with i7-3820 and 32GB or ram. I needed more CPU power and saw that Xeon E5-1650v2 would be a cheaper option than to swap the whole system.
Ive updated the motherboard BIOS before I did the swap. I used the latest official BIOS I could find (F13w) where I only added nvme support. Then I found an even newer one F14e for the same motherboard and did the same for nvme support.<br /><br />Both BIOSes work for my i7-3820 but with the 1650v2 it just ticks and bootloops. Ive tried with one stick of RAM, no RAM, no GFX and it just wont work, where as the i7 does.<br /><br />Is it possible that the Xeon is not supported? The gigabyte has it on the CPU support list, but it says N/A in the BIOS revision category.<br /><br />If so can I add support for it using UBU Tool or some other means?<br /><br /><br />I thought x79 mobos were mostly the same. I hope I did not get one of the processors that is not supported 
Thanks for all the ideas you have.
Greetings!
The retail Xeon E5-1650v2 is CPUID 306E4 for which there is a supporting microcode in the F14e BIOS.
Is your Xeon a retail CPU?
If it is an Engineering sample it would need a different microcode added to the BIOS e.g CPUID 306E0, 306E1, 306E2 or 306E3.
[Edit] 306E2 is also supported in F14e
Hey!
I think they took it out of an old Mac pro.
I cant post a link yet, but it says:<br /><br />i m ©11<br />INTEL ® XEON ® E5-1650V2<br />SR1AQ 3.60GHZ<br />COSTA RICA<br />3410B212 E4<br /><br />Can I make it work with the correct microcode or would this mean it wont work.
Greetings.
SR1AQ is the retail S-spec so it should work.
It’s a pity that board doesn’t have an debug LED so you could tell at which point the boot process is failing.
Have you tried taking the battery out and clearing CMOS?
You might also want to check the CPU socket and check for any bent pins that may not be making contact.
Ok. Ive flashed the BIOS again just in case, loaded optimized defaults and rebooted. Took the battery out for 10 mins and put the processor in the socket. <br /><br />Tried 1 and 2 sticks of RAM, it still does not work. It just keeps rebooting, the i7 works fine - starts even without any RAM in the socket.<br /><br />Ive checked the motherboard socket and I don`t see any bent pins.
Is it possible that the processor is dead or am I just missing something obvious?
The reason is Gigabyte. It’s hardware incompatibility, not microcode’s issue.
E.g. GA-X79-UD3 has two revisions with the same BIOS. But only rev. 1.1 has support for Xeon E5 v2 series.
Oh… that sucks!
Well I guess I can try and return this one and maybe get E5-1650 (v1).
Thanks for the help.