w2100z upgrade with two opteron 285

I've wondered about this too.

Currently, I am running 2x Opteron 852 CPUs on my W2100Z, so the BIOS does detect more than just single core 1xx and 2xx CPU's sucessfully.

I'm wondering about seeing if I can get an Opteron 265 cheaply off eBay just to experiment to see if the BIOS will run it okay. I've heard of people sucessfully running dual core CPUs on boards that don't offically support them, so it may be possible. The problem is that dual core CPUs require a modified power supply.

I'm just worried about ruining my W2100Z, as armed with an ATI Radeon X1950Pro AGP, it actually makes a very decent gaming system too!

James.

weirdgeordiea at 2007-7-9 22:44:25 >

Although Sun will not support the use of dual-core CPU's in the W2100z, the original designer of the system board did evaluate dual-core CPU's in their design tests and as such will be recognized. This was performed on motherboard part number 501-7136 only and not on the earlier 501-6851 motherboard.

However and this is the big one.

Dual core CPU's which include PowerNow! features and hardware I/O address remapping have some very distinctive bugs that can cause your platform to freeze. Read the AMD errata on E stepping CPU's to review these bugs.

Since Sun no longer develop the W2100z, some fixes may not be incorporated into the BIOS.

Therefore you will be limited to software workarounds or disabling of such features that cause you issues.

The other issues to consider are power and cooling. The W2100z comes with a 550 Watt PSU which is good as long as your W2100z is not fully populated with disks, PCI cards and dual-core CPU's.

Exercise caution not to overload your W2100z when upgrading.

TonyMaca at 2007-7-9 22:44:25 >