Asrock X99 Extreme3 with Xeon E5-1650V3, GTX 980 Ti and OSX 10.11.1 El Capitan

[AndrewL7332]

Once again, thank you so much for this guide. You really took the time to document the exact steps and it works exactly as you describe.

I would like to make a few small suggestions about things that could improve the documentation even more:

1) The first time around, I missed this instruction:

• in BIOS Settings disable Boot -- CSM (Compatibility Support Module)

which was contained in the Installation section versus in the BIOS setup section. It might be better that you put that information in the BIOS sections (and note that it may only be necessary for installation)

2) For some reason, after I installed OS X (in my case, I was installing 10.11.3 on an ASROCK Extreme 4,3.1), I had to reboot 3 times before I could see my HDD in the USB Clover Bootloader. Each time, the OS X installation appeared to continue where it had previously left off -- I didn't get any prompts. In your instructions, you said this might happen once, but I wasn't expecting to have to reboot 3 times. Eventually, the HDD did show up in the Clover USB bootloader and I was able to boot into OS X, install Clover on the HDD, install Multibeast, etc. I just think it's worth noting that people shouldn't get frustrated because eventually it seems to work.

3) For some reason, my Audio Devices didn't show up on the first reboot after installing Multibeast. I followed your instructions exactly, so after installing Multibeast and rebooting, I installed the Nvidia Web drivers and modified Clover's boot flags to remove nv_disable=1 and put in nvda_drv=1. On the next boot, both my Nvidia web driver AND the audio devices were working. Do you understand why the Audio didn't work until that second reboot?

4) At one point, I ran into the "AllocateRelocBlock(): can not allocate relocation block" problem and on EVERY reboot it was the same thing. I tried plugging in USB devices into different ports, and not having any devices plugged in as well. I also removed all but the Nvidia card from the PCI-e slots. I unplugged the system completely from the AC power and let it sit for a while. But always the same error. The only way I was able to get past this was to boot up in a Windows 10 installation DVD, quite the installation before it did anything, and then on the next boot everything was fine.

All told, this installation experience was relatively painless. So far, I am having much better luck with the ASROCK X99 board than with the Gigabyte X99 board. With Gigabyte, I am not able to populate all of the PCIe slots without getting memory errors on boot.

I'll let you know what happens when I try out a 12-core CPU on the ASROCK system. Thanks again for taking the time to precisely document what works!

 

[AndrewL7332]

Hi tomtomx86,

A couple of days ago you wrote to me:

the twelve cores should be no problem.​

You would simply have to edit the file Contents/Info.plist inside the VoodooTSCSync.kext​

and change the value for "IOCPUNumber" to 23.​

(That value begins at zero for one core)​

I tried that but OS X (10.11.3) gets stuck at the following message:

Currrent tsc from rdtsc64() is 896715635541. Rendezvouing..​

The computer itself is fine with the 12-core CPU (it's an E5-2690 v3 2.60 Ghz). Wndows 10 boots without any problem. Any ideas about how to solve the OS X boot issues?

Hope you have another great suggestion?

Regards,
Andrew


Update: Thinking that perhaps I needed to rebuild the kext cache after modifying the Info.plist in the VoodooTSCSync.kext, I put back the 6-core CPU and went back and tried everything again (I keep Clonezilla images of the OS drive so that it's easy to revert to something that works). I made the same modification to VoodooTSCSync.kext -- changing the "IOCPUNumber" to 23 and then running "touch /Library/Extensions to cause the cache to rebuild. And now on reboot I get a different error -- "AppleKeyStore starting".

This is the line that would normally appear just before the Currrent tsc from rdtsc64() is 896715635541. Rendezvouing..

Not sure how to get past that one.

 

[tomtomx86]

Once again, thank you so much for this guide. You really took the time to document the exact steps and it works exactly as you describe.

I would like to make a few small suggestions about things that could improve the documentation even more:

1) The first time around, I missed this instruction:

• in BIOS Settings disable Boot -- CSM (Compatibility Support Module)

which was contained in the Installation section versus in the BIOS setup section. It might be better that you put that information in the BIOS sections (and note that it may only be necessary for installation)

2) For some reason, after I installed OS X (in my case, I was installing 10.11.3 on an ASROCK Extreme 4,3.1), I had to reboot 3 times before I could see my HDD in the USB Clover Bootloader. Each time, the OS X installation appeared to continue where it had previously left off -- I didn't get any prompts. In your instructions, you said this might happen once, but I wasn't expecting to have to reboot 3 times. Eventually, the HDD did show up in the Clover USB bootloader and I was able to boot into OS X, install Clover on the HDD, install Multibeast, etc. I just think it's worth noting that people shouldn't get frustrated because eventually it seems to work.

3) For some reason, my Audio Devices didn't show up on the first reboot after installing Multibeast. I followed your instructions exactly, so after installing Multibeast and rebooting, I installed the Nvidia Web drivers and modified Clover's boot flags to remove nv_disable=1 and put in nvda_drv=1. On the next boot, both my Nvidia web driver AND the audio devices were working. Do you understand why the Audio didn't work until that second reboot?

4) At one point, I ran into the "AllocateRelocBlock(): can not allocate relocation block" problem and on EVERY reboot it was the same thing. I tried plugging in USB devices into different ports, and not having any devices plugged in as well. I also removed all but the Nvidia card from the PCI-e slots. I unplugged the system completely from the AC power and let it sit for a while. But always the same error. The only way I was able to get past this was to boot up in a Windows 10 installation DVD, quite the installation before it did anything, and then on the next boot everything was fine.

All told, this installation experience was relatively painless. So far, I am having much better luck with the ASROCK X99 board than with the Gigabyte X99 board. With Gigabyte, I am not able to populate all of the PCIe slots without getting memory errors on boot.

I'll let you know what happens when I try out a 12-core CPU on the ASROCK system. Thanks again for taking the time to precisely document what works!

Hi AndrewL7332,

I've added your hints from 1) and 2) to the guide. Thank you very much for your input!

The audio problem you mentioned under 3) is strange indeed. I've got no clue why an additional reboot
is necessary. Who knows, perhaps there is some relation between the NVidia audio driver and
the onboard sound driver and the NVidia web drivers need to be installed before the onboard
sound works? But in end it's probably not worth investigating since sound works after an additional
boot and no further adjustments to the system.

I believe that the error you describe under 4) is related to the OsxAptioDrvFix driver for Clover.
Or more precisely it should fix this problem. Maybe your UEFI partition (on the USB-Stick I suppose)
got messed up somehow or your rather the UEFI bios had some faulty information stored.
That booting from the Windows DVD fixed the problem appears like an UEFI related issue to me.
Your approach to trying the Windows DVD is ingenius

I would very much like to know how the 12-core CPU works for you! In theory there should be
no problems. But one never really knows until you actually try it out, right?

Best of luck!

 

[connermo]

Thank you so much Tomtomx86 for your guide.
I wouldn't be able to make it work without you !

My config :

Motherboard: Asrock Fatal1ty X99M Killer
CPU: Intel Xeon E5-2630V3 8x2,4GHz(16 Threads)
CPU-Cooler: Noctua NH-D9DX I4 3U
RAM: 1x16GB DDR4 2133 MHz ECC Registered
GPU: Sapphire Radeon HD 7950 3Gb
Power Supply: Enermax Liberty 500W
Harddrive #1: Samsung SM951 512GB M.2 Nvme

I wasn't able to install it directly on the M.2 drive had to install it on a SATA drive.(follow method post #77 : http://www.tonymacx86.com/general-hardware-discussion/181387-os-x-driver-nvme-m-2-solid-state-drives-released-8.html )

Using NvmExpressDxe-64.efi and NVMeGeneric.kext in clover.

Waiting my Thunderbolt 2 AIC card to arrive to try to install it and connect my Thunderbolt display.

But still some issues :
System reboot after a while.
only USB 3 port working

Not yet tested sound

Got almost the same build except my CPU is i7 5820k. I put only the NVMeGeneric.kext and it works fine.

 

[AndrewL7332]

Hi tomtomx86,

Can you look at my post above? #12 in this thread.. I don't want to spam this list and post it twice but I think you answered my previous question yesterday just as I was posting a new one, and our conversation is now "out of order" and you may have missed my last question.

Thanks.
Andrew

 

[tomtomx86]

Hi tomtomx86,

A couple of days ago you wrote to me:

the twelve cores should be no problem.
​

You would simply have to edit the file Contents/Info.plist inside the VoodooTSCSync.kext
​

and change the value for "IOCPUNumber" to 23.
​

(That value begins at zero for one core)​

I tried that but OS X (10.11.3) gets stuck at the following message:

Currrent tsc from rdtsc64() is 896715635541. Rendezvouing..​

The computer itself is fine with the 12-core CPU (it's an E5-2690 v3 2.60 Ghz). Wndows 10 boots without any problem. Any ideas about how to solve the OS X boot issues?

Hope you have another great suggestion?

Regards,
Andrew


Update: Thinking that perhaps I needed to rebuild the kext cache after modifying the Info.plist in the VoodooTSCSync.kext, I put back the 6-core CPU and went back and tried everything again (I keep Clonezilla images of the OS drive so that it's easy to revert to something that works). I made the same modification to VoodooTSCSync.kext -- changing the "IOCPUNumber" to 23 and then running "touch /Library/Extensions to cause the cache to rebuild. And now on reboot I get a different error -- "AppleKeyStore starting".

This is the line that would normally appear just before the Currrent tsc from rdtsc64() is 896715635541. Rendezvouing..

Not sure how to get past that one.

Hi Andrew,

this time I almost missed your update on the new error "AppleKeyStore starting"

But regarding your original question, is it possible that you accidently set the "IOCPUNumber" to 28 instead of 23?
From the screenshot it looks like the VoodooTSCSync is trying to initialize 29 cores.

I'm not sure whether deleting /Library/Extensions was a good idea. It could be that you've erased
some important kernel extensions there...
The VoodooTSCSync.kext for example resides in /System/Library/Extensions/.
Personally I would try the boot flag "-f" in Clover -which basicly flushes the caches- first.

Manually rebuilding the kernel caches should work like this:

• boot OSX in Single User mode and set the amount of CPUs to 1 by using the flags "cpus=1 -s" in Clover
• on the command line run
  

  touch /System/Library/Extensions
  kextcache -update-volume /
  reboot

In case that you've erased some important kernel extensions in /Library/Extensions/ you might
even have to reinstall OSX.

Best of luck and regards
Thomas

 

[AndrewL7332]

Hi Thomas,

I think you misread my last email. I didn't delete /Library/Extensions. I only "touched" it. Many posts on the web suggest that's all you need to do to make the kextcache rebuild, but I didn't run "kextcache --update-volume" , so perhaps what's happening is that I am loading the old version of VoodooTSCSync that is already cached and that specifies "11" as the value for "IOCPUNumber". I'll try once more, this time really rebuilding the kext cache.

Also, you mentioned that VoodooTSCSync resides in /System/Library/Extensions but on my system it resides in /Library/Extensions. It seems that's where Multibeast now puts all of the Kexts that it installs. I don't think it matters where it is, so long as there is only one.

As you noted in the screen shot, there is a weird numbering of the CPU cores. But there aren't 29 cores in the list. Some numbers are skipped, and the total is 24. I have no idea what is accounting for that. When I boot in Windows I see cores 0-23, just as I would expect.

Do you think it's necessary to update the SSDT file after swapping CPUs? Both are Xeon E5 CPUs of similar vintage. The one that I had on the motherboard when I installed OS X was the six-core E5-1650 v3 and the one I have replaced it with is the 12-core E5-2690 v3.

Hopefully, I'll sort this out. Thanks again for your time.

Andrew

 

[tomtomx86]

Hi Thomas,

I think you misread my last email. I didn't delete /Library/Extensions. I only "touched" it. Many posts on the web suggest that's all you need to do to make the kextcache rebuild, but I didn't run "kextcache --update-volume" , so perhaps what's happening is that I am loading the old version of VoodooTSCSync that is already cached and that specifies "11" as the value for "IOCPUNumber". I'll try once more, this time really rebuilding the kext cache.

Also, you mentioned that VoodooTSCSync resides in /System/Library/Extensions but on my system it resides in /Library/Extensions. It seems that's where Multibeast now puts all of the Kexts that it installs. I don't think it matters where it is, so long as there is only one.

As you noted in the screen shot, there is a weird numbering of the CPU cores. But there aren't 29 cores in the list. Some numbers are skipped, and the total is 24. I have no idea what is accounting for that. When I boot in Windows I see cores 0-23, just as I would expect.

Do you think it's necessary to update the SSDT file after swapping CPUs? Both are Xeon E5 CPUs of similar vintage. The one that I had on the motherboard when I installed OS X was the six-core E5-1650 v3 and the one I have replaced it with is the 12-core E5-2690 v3.

Hopefully, I'll sort this out. Thanks again for your time.

Andrew

Hi again,

grabbing a new DSDT and SSDT is indeed a great idea! I didn't think of that but you're absolutely right.
That might fix the problem with the VoodooTSCSync. I would grab both, DSDT and SSDT, just be sure.

Cheers!

 

[AndrewL7332]

Nope, that didn't work either . Still seeing the AppleKeyStore line where the boot up freezes. Although it's not clear whether that's what fails, or it's the TSC part that is next failing. I'm wondering if I should just try without VoodooTSCSync?

Update: Doesn't work without VoodooTSCSync or with cpus=1.

 

[damnsoul]

Hi,
2016/03/07 update;
degrade bios 2.10 to 1.80,all problem solved.

2016/03/06 update;
after replace OsxAptioFixDrv.efi to OsxAptioFix2Drv.efi,and change slide=0 to slide=128,
stuck at Missing Bluetooth Controller Transport!

2016/03/04
I've followed you guide to prepare the usb and the motherboard,but when I try to boot Clover from EFI,I get OsxAptioFixDrv: AllocateRelocBlock(): can not allocate relocation block (0x16687 pages below 0x100000000) error

My builds :

Motherboard: Asrock X99 Extreme3 (bios update to 2.10)
CPU: Intel Xeon E5-1650 V3
RAM: 16GB DDR4 2133 MHz ECC *2
GPU: NVidia GTX 770 2GB
Harddrive #1: Samsung SM951 512GB M.2 PCIe
Harddrive #2: Samsung 750 EVO 256GB SATA
Harddrive #3+4: HDD