ASRock Fatal1ty X99M Killer/3.1 | i7-5820k | GTX 960 | Unibeast | 10.10.4

[steveastian]

Definitely struggled a bit getting this together, but thanks to help on these forums, I eventually got it to work.

Components:

CPU: Intel Core i7-5820K
Motherboard: ASRock Fatal1ty X99M Killer/3.1
Video Card: PNY GeForce GTX 960 XLR8 4GB (GTX 460 for initial install)
RAM: Crucial Ballistix Sport 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 2400 mHz
OS X Yosemite 10.10.4

Pre-Installation:

1. Install non-Maxwell video card (I used my old GTX 460).

2. Create Unibeast USB per Steps 1 and 2 from http://www.tonymacx86.com/yosemite-...-x-yosemite-any-supported-intel-based-pc.html

3. Before rebooting, follow Installation Steps 1, 2 and 3 from http://www.tonymacx86.com/yosemite-...motherboard-temporary-guide-os-x-10-10-a.html

4. Load UEFI BIOS Defaults on motherboard. In particular, check the following:

- Advanced / Chipset / VT-d Disabled
- Advanced / Chipset / Thunderbolt Disabled
- Advanced / Super IO / Serial Port Disabled
- Advanced / USB - Disable all non-essential USB options. They can be reenabled after guide completion. They are: Intel USB 3.0 Mode, Legacy USB 3 Support, USB 3 Controller and USB Compatibility Patch.
- Security / Secure Boot - Disabled

5. Plug the Unibeast USB into a USB 2 port between the eSATA and PS2 ports. Follow Step 4 from http://www.tonymacx86.com/yosemite-...-x-yosemite-any-supported-intel-based-pc.html. I used the following flags: -v npci=0x2000 GraphicsEnabler=Yes (GraphicEnabler=Yes is specific to the GTX 460, it may be different for your card).

6. Reboot via the Unibeast USB back into the OS X Installer, using same flags as before. Complete steps 5, 6 & 7 from http://www.tonymacx86.com/yosemite-...motherboard-temporary-guide-os-x-10-10-a.html. You should now be able to boot into OS X using the Unibeast USB.

7. Run Multibeast with the followng settings and reboot (thanks to XxQ8LioNxX for http://www.tonymacx86.com/yosemite-...killer-gtx-980-i7-5820k-update-10-10-2-a.html, my settings are based on those):

- Drivers / Audio - VoodooHDA v2.8.7 (HDMI audio also works once NVidia drivers and GTX 960 are installed)
- Drivers / Disk - 3rd Party eSATA, Intel Generic AHCI SATA
- Drivers / Misc - Ev0Reboot, FakeSMC v6.16.1372, NullCPUPowerManagment, USB 3.0 - Universal, VoodooTSCSync 6 Core
- Network - AtherosE2200Ethernet v2.0.0, AppleIntelE1000e v3.2.4.2
- BootLoaders - Chimera v4.1.0
- Customize / Boot Options - 1080p Display Mode, IGPEnabler=No, Instant Menu, Kext Dev Mode, User KernelCache.
- System Definitions - Mac Pro 5,1 (DO NOT USE 6,1! See Notes section Below.)
- Themes - Tonymacx86 Black

8. After reboot, you should have a working X99 system, with your old graphics card. Now’s a good time to make a Time Machine backup.

9. Install Nvidia graphics drivers and reboot. Change default graphics from OS X to Nvidia in top menu bar. Reboot. Confirm in top menu Nvidia drivers are being used. If so, shut down and swap out your old video card for your shiny new GTX 960.

10. Enable trimforce via the Terminal with: sudo trimforce enable.

11. Reboot, cross fingers, and rejoice when OS X boots up. How about another Time Machine backup, just in case?

My Geekbench score is 20578 (attached).

Here are some additional notes I thought worth mentioning:

- My biggest issue in building this machine was figuring out I had to disable all nonessential USB settings on the the motherboard. Before making those changes, I couldn't even boot into the OS X Installer via Unibeast. It took a lot of time to troubleshoot the issue. They were documented in this post: http://www.tonymacx86.com/yosemite-desktop-support/169964-asrock-x99m-install-issues.html

- The Haswell-E + X99 Temporary Guide, as well as combo update articles, say the 6,1 System Definition is appropriate for X99 builds. However, I have found that whenever I switch to 6,1 my machine becomes unbootable. There are posts that suggest there’s a conflict with 6,1 on X99 systems with Nvidia graphics cards. Per XxQ8LioNxX’s Multibeast settings, I used the 5,1 System Definition and everything works great. I also tried the 3,1 System Definition, and it seems to work fine, too. I’ve noticed no discernible difference between the two settings.

- The OS sees all my RAM, but says it’s running at 0 mHZ. The performance doesn’t reflect that speed, it must be a glitch. If anyone knows a fix, I’ll update the guide.

- Thunderbolt works, but it’s a pain. I bought ASRock’s Thunderbolt 2 AIC. I had read on the forums you needed to install the TB drivers on a Windows drive on your machine to get OS X to recognize the card, but I didn’t realize that each time you wanted to use it, you had to boot into Windows first, then reboot into OS X to mount the drive. I’ll be using USB 3, and soon USB 3.1, instead. You can find TB guides on the forums, and can use this post to fix slow boots after installing TB: http://www.tonymacx86.com/general-help/128748-fix-slow-boot-thunderbolt-2-0-motherboards.html

- A couple times (specifically when using the 6,1 System Definition), my machine became completely unbootable. I wanted to restore the disk via the Unibeast USB and Time Machine, but it turns out the Time Machine option is hidden in the 10.10.4 OS X Installer menu. Luckily, martyz had a solution. See his post here: http://www.tonymacx86.com/unibeast/...-time-machine-option-utilites.html#post969009. This saved me SO MUCH time.

Particular thanks to Going Bald for his help, XxQ8LioNxX for the http://www.tonymacx86.com/yosemite-...killer-gtx-980-i7-5820k-update-10-10-2-a.html guide, Luchazo for the http://www.tonymacx86.com/user-buil...tx-ac-ssd-sm951-6-core-5820k-32gb-gtx970.html guide, martyz for the Time Machine fix, and TonyMacx86 for the Unibeast and Haswell-E guide.

Good luck with your builds.

 

[BallsMcNadFrop]

Definitely struggled a bit getting this together, but thanks to help on these forums, I eventually got it to work.

Components:

CPU: Intel Core i7-5820K
Motherboard: ASRock Fatal1ty X99M Killer/3.1
Video Card: PNY GeForce GTX 960 XLR8 4GB (GTX 460 for initial install)
RAM: Crucial Ballistix Sport 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 2400 mHz
OS X Yosemite 10.10.4

Pre-Installation:

1. Install non-Maxwell video card (I used my old GTX 460).

2. Create Unibeast USB per Steps 1 and 2 from http://www.tonymacx86.com/yosemite-...-x-yosemite-any-supported-intel-based-pc.html

3. Before rebooting, follow Installation Steps 1, 2 and 3 from http://www.tonymacx86.com/yosemite-...motherboard-temporary-guide-os-x-10-10-a.html

4. Load UEFI BIOS Defaults on motherboard. In particular, check the following:

- Advanced / Chipset / VT-d Disabled
- Advanced / Chipset / Thunderbolt Disabled
- Advanced / Super IO / Serial Port Disabled
- Advanced / USB - Disable all non-essential USB options. They can be reenabled after guide completion. They are: Intel USB 3.0 Mode, Legacy USB 3 Support, USB 3 Controller and USB Compatibility Patch.
- Security / Secure Boot - Disabled

5. Plug the Unibeast USB into a USB 2 port between the eSATA and PS2 ports. Follow Step 4 from http://www.tonymacx86.com/yosemite-...-x-yosemite-any-supported-intel-based-pc.html. I used the following flags: -v npci=0x2000 GraphicsEnabler=Yes (GraphicEnabler=Yes is specific to the GTX 460, it may be different for your card).

6. Reboot via the Unibeast USB back into the OS X Installer, using same flags as before. Complete steps 5, 6 & 7 from http://www.tonymacx86.com/yosemite-...motherboard-temporary-guide-os-x-10-10-a.html. You should now be able to boot into OS X using the Unibeast USB.

7. Run Multibeast with the followng settings and reboot (thanks to XxQ8LioNxX for http://www.tonymacx86.com/yosemite-...killer-gtx-980-i7-5820k-update-10-10-2-a.html, my settings are based on those):

- Drivers / Audio - VoodooHDA v2.8.7 (HDMI audio also works once NVidia drivers and GTX 960 are installed)
- Drivers / Disk - 3rd Party eSATA, Intel Generic AHCI SATA
- Drivers / Misc - Ev0Reboot, FakeSMC v6.16.1372, NullCPUPowerManagment, USB 3.0 - Universal, VoodooTSCSync 6 Core
- Network - AtherosE2200Ethernet v2.0.0, AppleIntelE1000e v3.2.4.2
- BootLoaders - Chimera v4.1.0
- Customize / Boot Options - 1080p Display Mode, IGPEnabler=No, Instant Menu, Kext Dev Mode, User KernelCache.
- System Definitions - Mac Pro 5,1 (DO NOT USE 6,1! See Notes section Below.)
- Themes - Tonymacx86 Black

8. After reboot, you should have a working X99 system, with your old graphics card. Now’s a good time to make a Time Machine backup.

9. Install Nvidia graphics drivers and reboot. Change default graphics from OS X to Nvidia in top menu bar. Reboot. Confirm in top menu Nvidia drivers are being used. If so, shut down and swap out your old video card for your shiny new GTX 960.

10. Enable trimforce via the Terminal with: sudo trimforce enable.

11. Reboot, cross fingers, and rejoice when OS X boots up. How about another Time Machine backup, just in case?

My Geekbench score is 20578 (attached).

Here are some additional notes I thought worth mentioning:

- My biggest issue in building this machine was figuring out I had to disable all nonessential USB settings on the the motherboard. Before making those changes, I couldn't even boot into the OS X Installer via Unibeast. It took a lot of time to troubleshoot the issue. They were documented in this post: http://www.tonymacx86.com/yosemite-desktop-support/169964-asrock-x99m-install-issues.html

- The Haswell-E + X99 Temporary Guide, as well as combo update articles, say the 6,1 System Definition is appropriate for X99 builds. However, I have found that whenever I switch to 6,1 my machine becomes unbootable. There are posts that suggest there’s a conflict with 6,1 on X99 systems with Nvidia graphics cards. Per XxQ8LioNxX’s Multibeast settings, I used the 5,1 System Definition and everything works great. I also tried the 3,1 System Definition, and it seems to work fine, too. I’ve noticed no discernible difference between the two settings.

- The OS sees all my RAM, but says it’s running at 0 mHZ. The performance doesn’t reflect that speed, it must be a glitch. If anyone knows a fix, I’ll update the guide.

- Thunderbolt works, but it’s a pain. I bought ASRock’s Thunderbolt 2 AIC. I had read on the forums you needed to install the TB drivers on a Windows drive on your machine to get OS X to recognize the card, but I didn’t realize that each time you wanted to use it, you had to boot into Windows first, then reboot into OS X to mount the drive. I’ll be using USB 3, and soon USB 3.1, instead. You can find TB guides on the forums, and can use this post to fix slow boots after installing TB: http://www.tonymacx86.com/general-help/128748-fix-slow-boot-thunderbolt-2-0-motherboards.html

- A couple times (specifically when using the 6,1 System Definition), my machine became completely unbootable. I wanted to restore the disk via the Unibeast USB and Time Machine, but it turns out the Time Machine option is hidden in the 10.10.4 OS X Installer menu. Luckily, martyz had a solution. See his post here: http://www.tonymacx86.com/unibeast/...-time-machine-option-utilites.html#post969009. This saved me SO MUCH time.

Particular thanks to Going Bald for his help, XxQ8LioNxX for the http://www.tonymacx86.com/yosemite-...killer-gtx-980-i7-5820k-update-10-10-2-a.html guide, Luchazo for the http://www.tonymacx86.com/user-buil...tx-ac-ssd-sm951-6-core-5820k-32gb-gtx970.html guide, martyz for the Time Machine fix, and TonyMacx86 for the Unibeast and Haswell-E guide.

Good luck with your builds.

Just a tip as I recently improved my GB score dramatically with this same setup as you. Turn off speedstep in BiOS, Turn off all Cstates in BIOS. No -xcpm boot flag, FACECPUID 0x0302E0 + install NULLCPUPowermanagement.kext in clover 10.11 folder, and hopefully, like me, you will get 6-8k more GB points and speedstep now working and cpu maxing under load in OS X 10.11.5. Curious to see if this works for you : )

 

[steveastian]

Thanks for the tip. I haven't gotten around to doing an El Cap install. Still running Yosemite 10.10.5. I tried these tweaks, and the Geekbench was about the same as before (around 24000 at 4.0 overclock). But when I find the time to do a fresh El Cap install, I'll be sure to try this out and let you know my results.

 

[morganb]

Weird, I'm having this exact thing with my X79-UD3. With EIST on, my benchmarks plummeted and the CPU was clearly throttling. As soon as I turned it off again - full speed bench. I can leave all c states on though. So yes, roundabout way of mostly confirming what you said and I see the same behaviour in Windows too in as far as throttling behaviour . Im at just over 23k on a 3930k @ 4.6. It's not a good board for OC.

It's strange as I don't believe this is intended behaviour...??

 

[cackland]

Hi Steveastian,

Thanks for your post.

Unfortunately I have followed your procedures over and over again and still have problems. Using an older graphics card, and the same boot flags, I either get 'White screen with apple logo' doesn't load, or the verbose screen with numerous lines of text. Same motherboard as you, only 5930k cpu.

When I get to #5... it just loads verbose and displays a massive amount of text. No panics as I can see. Help?

Any tips would be great.

Cheers,
Corey

 

[steveastian]

Hi Corey,

I know that some of the 2011-3 chips aren't as easily compatible with Yosemite as the 5820k, though I'm not sure if yours is one that has an issue. When you boot verbose and let it run awhile, what's the error that it freezes on? Let it sit a few minutes, sometimes it takes awhile to get past a stage.

 

[cackland]

Ah I see. Well I follow your guide because I have exactly the same motherboard as you so thought that would be the deciding factor. Another problem, is when I disable the bios settings, I have no keyboard function as at to proceed, like obviously disabling those settings disables my keyboard.

When it boots verbose, there is a bunch of text that displays on screen, not even sure if it comes up with an error or just freezes. I'll have to take a screen shot for you

 

[cackland]

These are the steps I take:
Disk Utility: Format Drive / Partition Drive - Mac OS Extended (Journaled) - Options (Master Boot Record)
Unibeast 5.2.0: Completed all the steps (http://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/u...emite-on-any-supported-intel-based-pc.143976/)
Added: VoodooTSCSync.kext to Extra/Extensions on Unibeast stick
Patched: Via Terminal - sudo perl -pi -e 's|\x74\x11\x83\xF8\x3C|\x74\x11\x83\xF8\x3F|g' /Volumes/USB/System/Library/Kernels/kernel
Loaded: BIOS DEFAULTS (Secure Boot: Disabled, VT-D: Disabled, Thunderbolt: Disabled, Serial Port: Disabled, Intel USB 3.0: Disabled, Legacy USB Support: Disabled, USB 3 Controller: Disabled, USB Compatibility Patch: Disabled
Unibeast USB Plugged IN: Flags -v npci=0x2000 Graphics Enabler=Yes
Verbose Intitalises: Runs all lines of text (Difficult to read) then the monitor shuts off (Goes to black) then have to restart motherboard.

Tried again this time without going into Verbose Mode: Flags npci0x2000 GraphicsEnabler=Yes. It then goes to the White Screen with Grey Apple logo.. starts to load up installer (progression bar) then cuts off again and shows NO SIGNAL on my monitor.

Please see attached image (I have a video of the whole thing) but this is where it cuts off.
http://imgur.com/ISCtXKD

 

[cackland]

Steveastian, please help.

 

[steveastian]

Hi cackland,

I'm sorry it's not working. I've replicated the install myself, but I'm not sure exactly what's different on your machine. Usually when the screen goes totally black like that, it means the OS is not recognizing your graphics card correctly, so you lose the video signal.

My boot flags work for the GTX460 I installed with, but they may be different for your particular graphics card. I'd look up other Yosemite installs that use your specific card and see what boot flags they used.

Most users have moved past the Chimera boot loader (which I used for this install) and are now using Clover. You may want to try a Clover install. I don't have a guide for that, as I haven't done a fresh install using that method.

It's worth trying to create the Unibeast disk on a completely different USB stick, too. I have a couple that simply won't work for booting, while others do.