Giacomoleopardo's Workstation Triplet

Thanks a lot @giacomoleopardo for this godlike guide !
Thanks @cheesepizza for that life saving Realtek ALC link !

I am up and running with only one issue, "Unknown Processor" in "About This Mac" section. Searching forums to solve that.

Cheers guys

@giacomoleopardo My 960 Pro is behind a pci-bridge. How do I edit my SSDT file to match to make the drive show up as internal? Attached is a screenshot.

takkyishimano said:

Hello everyone! New guy here o/ Been lurking around here many years since I built my first hack about 5 years ago. First hack was/is great success and been running since 24/7/365

My new build:
ASUS X99-A II
Intel Core i7 6900K - 3.7 GHz
Crucial Ballistix LT 32GB kit UDIMM 2400 MB/s, 16GBx2
EVGA NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti VR Gaming 6GB 2xHDMI, 2xDP, DVI VBIOS 84.00.41.00.90
SSD Crucial CT480 M500
El Capitan 10.11.6
Later I'm gonna install THUNDERBOLTEX 3 and
Lycom PE-107 FireWire Card.

I'm been testing this setup now couple of days and unfortenately it's not stable.
Photos and FCPX causes random reboots. I'm been trying to read logs, but can't get anywhere. Looks like there is many different reason. I can post logs, but don't know sure what to look.

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I have *pretty much* the same set up apart from the motherboard, thunderbolt and firewire card - I'm 100% stable, check your BIOS settings first would be my 2 cents!

So, for those struggling with stability: Asus does have a new Bios update for this board, 1401, which is supposed to address "system stability". But you all know how that goes, right? It could and it should make things better, but then again, there are risks with bios upgrades, so don't just go do it, be careful.

I'm on bios revision 1201, and it's pretty decent. But, I don't overclock, I accept all the defaults except those listed in the first part of this thread, and that works for me. But, maybe 1401 may help some folks.

Also: has anyone done a USB DSDT for this board?

There is a nice feature on this board in that it will let you shut off USB ports right in the bios. That's what I've been doing. I don't need the USB 2.0 ports so I just shut them off. I've also been shutting off any of the USB 3 ports I don't use. But a USB DSDT would be nice, if someone had one.

So, I have a question about the CPU settings in Clover. Specifically, the QPI, Type and TDP.

The Type value could get rid of the "unknown processor" result in the system report, and while this is purely cosmetic, it would be nice to fix. I see values for the 6800 and 6850 in my research, but haven't been able to find anything for the 6900k yet. Anybody got any clues about this?

But, more importantly, would filing out the QPI and TDP be worthwhile? I checked out the Clover Wiki, which was a bit cryptic, but seemed to imply that these parameters are not critical. And I can attest to that because my system based on the guide here, works.

Just curious if anyone else has wondered about these parameters.

@mm2margaret :
/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/AppleSystemInfo.framework/Versions/A/Resources/German.lproj/AppleSystemInfo.strings

German is an Example, search for your language and after that you have to open AppleSystemInfo.strings with text wrangler or any other editor you would like to use and search for UnknownCPUKind. Under it, it will say Unknown. Type in your CPU where it says unknown and after restart your Hackintosh.

Done-!

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Hey, thanks, that worked! Here is the edit. I set the QPI to 100, and I think the TDP is 140 (for the wattage of the processor?), but I just left that blank. The processor number is what I cared about and I now have that thanks to you.

<key>UnknownCPUKind</key>
<string>6900K</string>

By the way, as it relates to your stability issues. In general, my system was pretty stable - at least as stable as an IMac I used to own. However, I did have a few crashes every now and then, and some audio skipping. I found it hard to believe, but with Chrome, several times, it was the last application noted in the console log before a crash (and it also appeared in the logs that Chrome was having trouble at that time). I also updated to bios 1401, which seemed to help. Chrome also is noted to interfere with the audio for the ALC1150, causing some very annoying skipping. Since switching to a USB audio device, BIOS version 1401 and using only Firefox, I have virtually no issues with stability. I haven't had a crash since (that's been several days).

I do not use Final Cut Pro 7 or 10 anymore - only Avid or Premiere, so I can't really comment on if the problems you are having relate to Final Cut, or if there is an overall system reliability issue. Also you should note that I don't have a Thunderbolt card installed nor do I have the USB 3.1 enabled.

Hope some of this is helpful

Do you use FCPX? I do and and I got the same problems, so this setup is not stable unfortunately...

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I do use FCPX actually, there is a huge graphics glitch error on nvidia cards from FCPX 10.2 onwards ( I think it's that version onwards) - not a huge issue for me as I use a decklink card for output monitoring but still pretty annoying for us nvidia users!

Seriously?? SERIOUSLY? I've asked multiple times on multiple forums after hours of searching for an example of a workstation set-up and no one could throw me a link to this???

Just in case more folks show up here, there is a newer Sierra guide (https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/...crucial-ballistix-sport-lt-gtx-980-ti.211621/) that worked just as well as this El Capitan guide did.

I am using X99-Deluxe II - 6900k - GTX 970 - Cheap-o USB audio. (So far) Sierra feels like less hassle and generally more snappy. CPU even shows up as "3.2 GHz 8-Core Intel Xeon E5" which is close enough for me.

Unfortunately the above Sierra guide does not work on the ASUS ROG Rampage V Edition 10 Motherboard. Running the lastest bios and i7-6900K and still no Sierra installer through Clover USB stick. Damn system keeps rebooting probably due to MB hardware or CPU Panic.

I haven't seen anyone confirm a successful installation of macOS Sierra on the Rampage V Edition Motherboard with an i7-6900K CPU.