I've read of many people having success with installing an X56xx onto their X58 motherboard, but I have not been one of them. All I got was a black screen. It refused to boot.
 
Anybody have any answers to this? Insights? Suggestions?

Thanks DEJ for forwarding this really informative thread to me. I have already scoured many threads on this, and on other forums, but I will say: this one does seem to come closest to concisely laying out what needs to be done. Verbstyler even gave blow-by-blow instructions. That's really helpful.
 
I wanted to ask you some questions:
 
1. Did you do what Verbstyler did, because it seems a little different than what he's suggesting. I actually had already seen this thread that you linked:

. . . and those pics seem to refer to older versions of this mod-specifically: it seems to document what I'll call the "Two Location Mod" wherein you short one resistor near the top of the CPU and one resistor near Northbridge. Am I right on this? 
 
2. If I am wrong, and you actually did something closer to what Verbstyler did, then could you clarify the method by answering this: did you completely remove R538, and then bridge the two metal pads on R539? And: is R539 just an empty pad on Rev. 1 boards (which mine is)? It's sounding like that's the case, as not a lot of people are saying what to do with the actual resistor R539, they're just speaking about shorting the pads.
 
2. Did you experience any of the reduced, or completely lost, functionalities that some people talk about? (like the CPU fan no longer working, or Vcore temps no longer reporting properly, etc. There's a long list.) I do know that some of those reports came from people that did the "Two Location Mod", but the part of the mod near the top of the CPU has since been deemed unnecessary, so not a lot of people are doing it anymore (thankfully). I'm hoping that I could do this mod without ANY loss of function, and certainly no loss of my ability to monitor voltages, or to use a CPU fan-that would be insanity, of course.
 
I'm pretty confident of my electrical engineering-I do a lot of it, and I'm set up to work on SMD when I need to-so as long as I am pointed exactly to where I need to go, and exactly what I need to do then I should be able to pull off this mod without a hitch, so thanks for all the help you've given.

Yes-thanks anyway.

comeNtakeit
Been considering this mod myself. If I do end up doing it. I will make of a copper desoldering braid.

. . . yeah, a Solder De-wicker, I dunno man.
 
Ordinarily I'd say yes, sure (that is, if I couldn't use my Desoldering Vacuum-far and away my fave for de-soldering), but in this case: are you really familiar with the size of these SMDs? They are REAAALLY small! One guy in another thread said he thought they might be 0402, but I think they're quite a bit smaller than that. I mean really tiny. You put some copper braid down there and I think you're gonna find that the actual wires that make up the braid are actually not much smaller than the components themselves, and therefore effectively using this "copper tapestry" to absorb solder will be almost impossible.
 
But, the fact that the components are so small can also be a good thing. A sufficiently small iron tip, at the right temperature, I think is just going to barely have to touch each soldered end in order to loosen the component, and then of course you'll have your trusty picking tool at the ready to push this end away.
 
If done just right (and with the right iron tip-like maybe a chisel tip) I bet one could lay one's tip down upon both ends of the component, loosen both, and instantly push them away with the pick.
 
I'm going to try that-if I go through with this: I'm still eyeing a Core i7 990x route instead-same 6 cores, unlocked multiplier and no need to do any mods whatsoever.
 
Good Luck!

I wanted to give an update:
 
This past Saturday I decided would be the day that I would install my Noctua NH D9L into my X58.
 
Anyone who has any experience with this fan knows that it will only work with this mobo by installing the NM 13 backing plate. This means: you guessed it-motherboard removal!
 
Since I was definitely installing the fan, that meant mobo removal was inevitable, and THAT fact made it reeeally hard for me to see myself not taking this opportunity, while the mobo was out of the case, to just go ahead and go through with the Westmere Mod. Thing was: I had had this positively horrifying conversation with a tech at EVGA who unapologetically trashed the idea of any user attempting this mod, saying that he'd heard too many stories of people "bricking" their mobos. Even though I'm very confident in my Electrical Engineering skills, the threat of the Unknown (how much about the endeavor I still didn't know for sure) was enough to cause me to go back and forth with the prospect for many days and nights. But by Friday evening I realized that it if I didn't take that opportunity-while the mobo was out and on the bench-to try and achieve what in my heart I knew should actually be a really simple affair-then I would just kick myself later. So I got my courage up and went to work on Saturday.
 
And . . . 
 
. . . the hardest part of the job was always going to be the disassembly and reassembly of the case (moving the harness around, figuring out a fool-proof cataloguing of wires-to-headers (I did mine through a combination of step-by-step videos I took as I disconnected each component, and marking things with a Paint Pencil) and things like that. Once the mobo was out, well . . .
 
. . . it was every bit the piece of cake that all my experience thought it would be. Just super-simple. Take the North/Southbridge out (for maneuvering room) put on your mag glasses (at the highest power they can muster) and remove R538, and then short the pads of R539 however you best feel comfortable with (I just ended up doing it with beads of solder). Done. North/Southbrige re-pasted and re-installed, Reassemble case. It was really as simple as that.
 
I took the reassembled case back into the house, plugged her up and pressed power and: nothing. Took her back to the workshop, investigated and saw that I had put the power switch line onto the wrong header. I corrected it, gave her some power while in the workshop this time before I took her back into the house. She powered up fine, so I immediately stopped the process before any posting could happen, took her back inside the house, re-hooked her up to all connections-including monitors, said a prayer and pressed Power, and . . . 
 
. . . as if it had been in there all along, all these years-without any fanfare, smoke, without any explosion or extraordinary lightshow, the X5675 posted. Then booted. Desktop.
 
Other than the fact that, for whatever reason ELeet Tuner 1.0.2.8 will no longer work, it so far has been like I said before: acting like it's always been my resident CPU, for 13 years. No muss, no fuss-just working.
 
So, if you have decent Electrical Engineering experience under your belt, I just want to say I'd say IMO you're more than capable of achieving this mod. I can say for sure that it at least works on my model mobo: 132-BL-E758 Rev. 1.1.
 
Good luck to you-thanks for reading!

Hi! With all the research I’ve done, I’m pretty certain that Rev. 1.2 is the first board in the series that does not need the physical mod. I think you lucked out! There are actually quite a few threads out there on the forum talking about the Westmere mod so do a search. You’re going to find a LOT of info that can assist you in accomplishing the task. And this bit of info is not going to be buried like a needle in a haystack. Plenty of people are outright asking the same question you did, and getting outright answers. So, do the search.

But, again, if my memory serves me correctly, I think Rev. 1.2 is in the clear. Congrats!