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Having build a system with (amongst others)

  • Supermicro X10SRL-F
  • Intel xeon E5 1620 v4

I am about 80-90% sure I placed the triangle-corner in the correct orientation. But there is a slight possibility I might have messed up, as I had to take a phone-call (I know, I know).

The system boots, albeit slightly slowly (even after enabling all 4 cores in the bios) but I just started to worry about this. What if I placed the CPU in the wrong orientation - this cpu has a symetrical form, so it could have fit without me noticing.

Would my system even run/install if this were the case? Should I open it up and check?

Many thanks!

nick88
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    Check heatsink and thermal paste. – Mokubai Jan 19 '18 at 15:19
  • Thanks - I didn't take a picture, but it looked very much like this https://imgur.com/a/GgWvm I then mounted this on top https://imgur.com/a/V00VX Would you recommend disassembling it? What should I check specifically? – nick88 Jan 19 '18 at 15:50
  • While you don't want too large an amount of thermal paste that looks just a little bit on the stingy side and off centre to me. It's probably fine as long as there's enough pressure holding the heatsink down. Make sure that the heatsink isn't wobbly or loose. Check CPU temperatures (coretemp is a good program) and so long as temps are in a good range then it's probably fine. Typically <80°C when under load is fine, but an aftermarket cooler like that one should be better. If it gets up to 90 when idle then your cooler is not doing its job and your system might be thermally throttling. – Mokubai Jan 19 '18 at 16:05

2 Answers2

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It should be impossible to install it the wrong way, every cpu I've seen has had the pins arranged so they fit in the socket only one way.

Looks like an LGA 2011 socket, and strangely Wikipedia has images of a matching cpu's contacts and they do appear very similar when flipped 180 degrees... except for the corner arrow

enter image description hereenter image description here

But Wikipedia says:

These protrusions, also known as ILM keying, have differently placed protrusions which are intended to mate with cutouts in CPU packagings. These protrusions, also known as ILM keying, have the purpose of preventing installation of incompatible CPUs into otherwise physically compatible sockets, and preventing ILMs to be mounted with a 180-degree rotation relative to the CPU socket.[9]

So I'm assuming if it closes, it's in correctly. And I'm confident it wouldn't boot to the BIOS if it weren't in correctly anyway.

(You could worry more about not getting the heatsink & paste on correctly)

Also, as Mokubai says in his comment below (if it were an answer I'd upvote it, if it becomes one I still will):

the pinouts for CPUs are not rotationally symmetric: cdn.overclock.net/e/ed/eda12cf1_pins_clark4mfk.png if you'd put it in the wrong way it would not have worked at all. You would have a lot of power and ground pins where data lines were meant to be and could have potentially destroyed the CPU. – Mokubai♦ Jan 19 at 16:11

That seems too important to leave the pinout image not see like this:

pinout image

So it does appear impossible to spin it and still have it working at all.

Xen2050
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  • Thanks! I did my best to add a small pea-sized drop, place the noctua) heatsink on slowly, screwing it down diagonally. I did worry about the little dot/whole combined with thermal paste spreading... https://imgur.com/a/1p2LE – nick88 Jan 19 '18 at 14:25
  • "they do appear the same when flipped 180 degrees." Do they? Check the upper left corner, or lower right, if you are so inclined. – Gerard H. Pille Jan 19 '18 at 14:35
  • @GerardH.Pille The little triangle in the corner is a contact/"pin"? I can't tell if it was just an arrow or not – Xen2050 Jan 19 '18 at 14:55
  • There is a difference in terms of the triangle (and some dots on other corners) but no difference in terms of the physical aspect - the indents are the same on both sides, so if someone with sunglasses on was putting the cpu in, it could go wrong quite easily. – nick88 Jan 19 '18 at 15:26
  • I could check, but then I'd have to remove the heatsink and open the spu-holder (there must be a correct name). I wanted to check the chance of this being necessary first here, but if it's wise, I'll do it of course. – nick88 Jan 19 '18 at 15:29
  • It *sounds* like it should only fit in one way, from the description of the "ILM keying", and the history of cpu, but the notches on the heatsink & board do look pretty symmetrical too, I'd hope they're offset a tiny bit so it can't be spun. I wouldn't imagine it would still be working if it were somehow backwards, I wouldn't take it apart to check myself... Instead of removing the heat sink to check, maybe a small mirror & flashlight might reveal which corner has the triangle... – Xen2050 Jan 20 '18 at 13:36
  • @Xen2050 Thanks, this sounds like a good idea about the mirror, but I think the metal bracelet is over the little corner of the CPU, judging from pictures online at least. The bios does recognize the type of CPU (Xeon E5, etc.) so I suppose this would be impossible if it were in the wrong way..(?) – nick88 Jan 20 '18 at 16:14
  • This is the motherboard by the way https://imgur.com/a/irJ5e – nick88 Jan 20 '18 at 17:48
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You couldn't, not without removing a corner pin. And it would run much slower, as in NOT.

Gerard H. Pille
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  • Ok - if there is zero chance of running the BIOS and/or doing an OS installation, then I won't open it up :) Thanks! – nick88 Jan 19 '18 at 14:27
  • So just to make sure - it is absolutely not possible to run the system (bios/ubuntu) if the CPU is in the wrong way? – nick88 Jan 19 '18 at 15:52
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    @marc1011 the pinouts for CPUs are not rotationally symmetric: http://cdn.overclock.net/e/ed/eda12cf1_pins_clark4mfk.png if you'd put it in the wrong way it would not have worked at all. You would have a lot of power and ground pins where data lines were meant to be and could have potentially destroyed the CPU. – Mokubai Jan 19 '18 at 16:11