Z87-UD3 / 4770k getting nowhere fast

EDIT: skip this, go straight to post two. Making progress, but this build has certainly been much more of a hassle than I'd anticipated. Serves me right: getting too cocky, probably.


Hi all

Not a complete noob, but while I've been enjoying customacs for several years over four different builds, I've never really had to delve any further than what I've tried so far, and now I'm at a loss.

Here's the spec:
Gigabyte Z87-HD3
i7 4770k
16GB Corsair Vengeance low profile (CML16GX3M2A1600)
Antec CP-850 (850W PSU)

There's also an Asus DirectCU build of a GT640 which I removed for install, plus a DVD drive and three Seagate HDDs, also disconnected for install, just incase. Oh and a DIY airport (actual Airport chip on one of those ebay PCIe cards, from back in the days when off the shelf didn't work), which I've also removed to no avail.

Target drive is a Corsair Force 120GB SSD, but I've also tried using a spare HDD (also 120GB) in case something was going wrong there. No luck. Unibeast drive is a 16GB Kingston USB stick which HAS worked flawlessly as recently as a few months ago when I updated my old rig to 10.9

So, to make clear, I'm trying to install using a very bare-bones rig: just the mobo, CPU, PSU, RAM, target SSD and a keyboard/mouse, with the Kingston USB stick freshly wiped, partitioned and Unibeastified with a fresh copy of the most recent Mavericks update, downloaded before dismantling the old rig this afternoon. At first I tried with the GT640 in (since it caused no problems in the old machine), but removed it pretty quickly when I couldn't get anywhere.

First efforts got a boot0: error. Removed Graphics Card then fiddled with UEFI settings based on an old Haswell post and got past that to bootloader. No flags got me as far as the dark grey background before the welcome message, but then it hung, so I tried flags:

-x -v - got me to Install, fired up DiskUtility and repartitioned the SSD, but when I went back to continue it hung on the Software License Agreement
-x -v PCIRootUID=1 - hangs early on
-x -v PCIRootUID=0 - got me to Install again but crashed on SLA
-x -v PCIRootUID=0 GraphicsEnabler=Yes - PROGRESS! Actually started installing but then KP
-x -v PCIRootUID=0 GraphicsEnabler=Yes IgnoreCaches - Same again: started install but KP

OK, so not getting anywhere. Maybe the disk is at fault? Swapped for a 120GB HDD.

No flags - hangs before install screen
-x -v PCIRootUID=0 GraphicsEnabler=Yes IgnoreCaches - hangs on DiskUtility opening (so I haven't even been able to repartition the HDD)

Long story short - tried all the previous flags in combinations and got absolutely nowhere. I don't know that any other possible flags have any bearing on my setup, so haven't tried - that could easily be another four hours of chasing wild geese.

I *know* others have had success with systems similar to mine, I *know* that the SSD and Flash disk were working ok earlier today, and I'm pretty sure I've not done anything stupid (although I'm open to the possibility I've mixed and matched components too much and something isn't compatible with something else), so I'm now completely at a loss and desperately in need of help from someone.

Please?

Bish

UPDATE: cpus= flag got me a stable install, then Multibeast went ok but still needed the flag to boot - can add this to plist later to finalise hassle-free booting. Just need to fix the boot0 error with macman's guide now and I *should* be ok. Proper write up later if I don't hit a brick wall.

Right. Couldn't get past the boot0 error, so in the end lost patience with the SSD and swapped it out for an OCZ one that'd been living in my MacBook. Installed ok, but Unibeast couldn't boot the installation, no matter what flags I used, so I decided to take the easy way out and simply cloned the slow HDD onto the SSD. Unibeast was able to boot the clone (with cpus=4 - still wouldn't boot without) and then I simply used Multibeast to reinstall Chimera (since all other /Extra stuff had copied fine).

That gave me a working system, which seemed flawless... And it is, as long as I don't plug anything into the Gt640. I know Nvidia stuff *should* be supported, but in practice can lead to freezes with some cards. That said, the freezes I'm seeing are practically instant - within five minutes of boot the system will freeze and need hard resetting. That's with a display plugged into the card (I have two displays and have tried all combinations of HDMI/DVI/VGA across both displays and card/integrated graphics, and the bottom line is any use of the card at all is asking for disaster).

This is very annoying, since the card worked beautifully on 10.9 in my old (X58A) build. Is it a 10.9.1 issue? Or a mobo power management issue? Or something else entirely? Who knows. I'll post up some console grabs tomorrow. Still intend to document the successful build, but would like the "success" to meet my own expectations, and not simply mean I've got things running.