Asus X79 Rampage IV Extreme | Core i7-3930K (Successful)

[shilohh]

Thanks to shilohh i've got the multimplier going to x12 to x40 but about the random freezes no solution yet, one thing i can say is that it happens 2-3 times in a row every time i boot in osx, after taht 2-3 times finally it boot and stay stable and i can keep the system up for hours and it never happen again.....really don't know waht it can be...

Your problem could be unstable OC voltages. Pleas post them. For now you should record all you bios settings. Save them as a profile in your bios. Shut down and do a CMOS reset by pushing the CMOS reset button. Then try loading your profile to restore your settings. Once you've verified your settings are correct, boot up.

Also, good fast way to test for instability is to run prime95 for Mac in torture test mode then start unigen heaven for 20-30 min. If you get any prime95 errors or if you crash you'll need to raise your vcore or vccsa, or drop your multiplier instead

 

[stefanhuberfilms]

@SamuTnT
That sucks man. I suppose it's not the Motherboard (as it functions with others). There must be a way to solve it, right? Kernel/ DSDT /Kext / less overclock? Did you look everywhere (online)
Or could it be a combination of hardware? If I were you, I would realy hate it. Spending much money for a system, that doesn't function (or are you using Windows)

@stefanhuberfilms, and what about SamuTnT ?

well, a freezing system has nothing to do with getting to the boot screen. do you have any card readers hooked up? i had a usb3 card reader that caused system freezes all the time. try moving your graphics card to another slot.


also could anyone comment on boot times? how fast/slow does your machine boot in ML/Mav? I've seen boot times around 7 seconds to the desktop when running windows on an ssd with this board. Wondering how fast we could get it, i'm currently at around 30-40 seconds... BIOS settings?

 

[shilohh]

well, a freezing system has nothing to do with getting to the boot screen. do you have any card readers hooked up? i had a usb3 card reader that caused system freezes all the time. try moving your graphics card to another slot.

also could anyone comment on boot times? how fast/slow does your machine boot in ML/Mav? I've seen boot times around 7 seconds to the desktop when running windows on an ssd with this board. Wondering how fast we could get it, i'm currently at around 30-40 seconds... BIOS settings?

USB freezes like unresponsive mouse and keyboard are usually related to irq conflicts (addressed by dsdt edits). A good way see if freezing is just the mouse and keyboard not responding, is to turn on the seconds in clock settings. That way when you freeze, if the seconds aren't counting then you know it's most likely a kernel panic. If they are counting, it's probably a IRQ conflict and most likely, it's just that your input devices aren't working. Also, people with nvidia gfx were having issues using slot 1 with hexa's dsdt because he had added edits for an AMD card to slot 1. This shouldn't be an issue if you've generated your own dsdt.

BIOS 4206 BOOT TIMES:
Cold POST (Power Button till Chameleon prompt screen) = 23 sec
Warm POST (Power Button till Chameleon prompt screen) = 18 sec
10.8.5 without Kernel Cache = 17 sec
10.8.5 with Kernel Cache = 12 sec
Mavericks without Kernel Cache = 14 sec
Mavericks with Kernel Cache = 7 sec

 

[shilohh]

Hi shilohh, did you change the socket that cames in the motherboard for the one calls xsocket 2011?

thanks a lot!

Sorry, Jenue. I didn't understand your question. No I did not use the Xsocket 2011 adapter because I bought the correct cooler that doesn't need it. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835608024

The Xsocket 2011 is just a back plate adapter that lets you use older LGA 1366 coolers on the newer LGA 2011 socket. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835608018

So there are 2 different NH-D14 which should be identical except for the included mounting hardware.

It sounds to me like the vendor you bought your cooler from either sent you the wrong one, you are missing hardware, or you're trying to install it wrong. The bracket is designed to allow you to point the cooler in 90 degree increments. If you actually have all the correct hardware, maybe you need to rotate the mounting brackets 90 degrees.

http://www.noctua.at/pdf/manuals/noctua_nm_i2011_manual_en.pdf

 

[Xmephestox]

This has been a fantastic thread. Have had my rampage board running great for almost 8 months now, and this guide has been clutch.

got my 6 core 3930k running at a smooth 4.2 ghz

recently just updated to 10.9.1. super simply in 4406 bios.

gtx titan, 64 gb of corsair vengeance 1600 ram.

few questions though.

I read that under 4406 i don't need dsdt to get sound working, I installed the 898 alc drivers but audio still isn't really working. It shows up in system pref, but i plugged headphones in every audio port and I got nothing, in fact it freezes up the system when I plug into certain audio ports and I get a beach ball. and it goes away when I unplug it. Any ideas?

I really want to update to 4502, which I actually got running with no issues. I want to pop a e5-2687w v2 8 core 3.4 ghz in there. which will only run under 4502. However when I was in 4502 I couldn't hard clock anymore. It's a completely new bios interface, and the part where you directly into CPU settings to hard clock it, it's gone. when i set it to just sync all cores for the OC in the extreme tweaker settings, it doesn't actually do anything.

A. does anybody know how I can go back to a hard clock in 4502 and above?
B. can i even OC a xeon processor? I would just push it to run at where it normally speed steps up to since speed stepping still isn't working. (or is it?)

any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[stefanhuberfilms]

BIOS 4206 BOOT TIMES:
Cold POST (Power Button till Chameleon prompt screen) = 23 sec
Warm POST (Power Button till Chameleon prompt screen) = 18 sec
10.8.5 without Kernel Cache = 17 sec
10.8.5 with Kernel Cache = 12 sec
Mavericks without Kernel Cache = 14 sec
Mavericks with Kernel Cache = 7 sec

Thanks! will measure mine today!

I have rearranged my rams yesterday and changed the thermal compound on my cpu's heatsink. Suddenly the EBIOS "Cardreader" error is gone...? I bought my RAM'S in two steps, hence having two different batches, one from April 2012, one from December 2012. I rearranged them, that the red slots are "April" and the Black ones are "December" DIMM's. Maybe this did the trick.

Also digged a bit into fast boot optimization - Enabled Fast Boot, disabled every non booting hdd in the BIOS boot menu, turned of some onboard devices, turned of oprom's, and other things i could find which are not necessary to get checked on boot or to be available in bios. Will have to check USB initialization, and usb per port control today.
This cut my post time significantly, around 15-20 seconds cold to the desktop, but i'll do some further digging and report back...

 

[stefanhuberfilms]

This has been a fantastic thread. Have had my rampage board running great for almost 8 months now, and this guide has been clutch.

got my 6 core 3930k running at a smooth 4.2 ghz

recently just updated to 10.9.1. super simply in 4406 bios.

gtx titan, 64 gb of corsair vengeance 1600 ram.

few questions though.

I read that under 4406 i don't need dsdt to get sound working, I installed the 898 alc drivers but audio still isn't really working. It shows up in system pref, but i plugged headphones in every audio port and I got nothing, in fact it freezes up the system when I plug into certain audio ports and I get a beach ball. and it goes away when I unplug it. Any ideas?

I really want to update to 4502, which I actually got running with no issues. I want to pop a e5-2687w v2 8 core 3.4 ghz in there. which will only run under 4502. However when I was in 4502 I couldn't hard clock anymore. It's a completely new bios interface, and the part where you directly into CPU settings to hard clock it, it's gone. when i set it to just sync all cores for the OC in the extreme tweaker settings, it doesn't actually do anything.

A. does anybody know how I can go back to a hard clock in 4502 and above?
B. can i even OC a xeon processor? I would just push it to run at where it normally speed steps up to since speed stepping still isn't working. (or is it?)

any help would be greatly appreciated.

i suppose you mean 4206 BIOS? just to clarify.
I'd recommend to compile your own DSDT following shiloohs guide. It's super easy and takes around 5-10 minutes if you take your time and do it carefully. link: http://www.tonymacx86.com/dsdt/1144...ide-create-your-dsdt-5-min-using-maciasl.html

 

[shilohh]

@Stephanuberfims,
The guys at the asus rog forum recomend buying all your ram in one matched kit for x79, but if you have 2 kits that's deffinetly the way you want them installed.

 

[shilohh]

I read that under 4406 i don't need dsdt to get sound working, I installed the 898 alc drivers but audio still isn't really working. It shows up in system pref, but i plugged headphones in every audio port and I got nothing, in fact it freezes up the system when I plug into certain audio ports and I get a beach ball. and it goes away when I unplug it. Any ideas?

I really want to update to 4502, which I actually got running with no issues. I want to pop a e5-2687w v2 8 core 3.4 ghz in there. which will only run under 4502. However when I was in 4502 I couldn't hard clock anymore. It's a completely new bios interface, and the part where you directly into CPU settings to hard clock it, it's gone. when i set it to just sync all cores for the OC in the extreme tweaker settings, it doesn't actually do anything.

A. does anybody know how I can go back to a hard clock in 4502 and above?
B. can i even OC a xeon processor? I would just push it to run at where it normally speed steps up to since speed stepping still isn't working. (or is it?)

any help would be greatly appreciated.

In my dsdt guide I provide the patch to use the original audio kext from the original build. I still use it. The new ones should work and I've tried it. You need to install the enabler kext with it if you want to go dsdt free.

This board has never needed a dsdt to boot and run but we use the dsdt to inject the audio device, manage IRQ interrupts and a few other things. I still use a dsdt and always will.

4206 was the last bios optimized for the sandybridge-e CPUs. All the newer ones aim to add functionality for ivybridge-e CPUs. 4802 is current and that all the newer ones before it will break turbo and multiplier overclocks in OS X unless the CPU is recognized by OS X as ivybridge-e and loads the x86platform plugin for OS controlled speedstep (we're very close). Also, I found the cold post time to be twice as long with my 3930.

With xeons I think you may be able to push the bclk to 108 but strap and multiplier is locked. You'll probably feel like the 8 core Xeon is either equal or even a downgrade from a Overclocked 3930k or 4930k. My current geekbench is 23,855 at 4.4ghz and I'm running 1.25 vcore. I hit 25.5k at 4.8 but I feel like that was pushing it to hard because I do overnight renders and encodes sometimes and it was getting close to the thermal limits at extended full load.

 

[Xmephestox]

I'm just comparing the benchmarks to the new mac pro, and they are a solid 30% faster or more then my existing system even with the higher clock speed and want to be able to match it or get close to render times. Hopefully speed step will work one day with the ivy bridge v2 chips and maybe i can drop in a 8, 10, or 12 core xeon.

It's ok if i do a DSDT after I'm down with my post install drivers correct? I really want to get the audio working.