CustoMac Pro Socket 2011 build installation in slow motion

[vmcney]

Greetings,

This is my first time building a custom Mac and I was pretty excited about it.

I followed the April 2014 build guide with one exception and I'm wondering if that exception is causing me grief with Mavericks installation.

Here's the build:
Gigabyte GA-X79-UP4 motherboard
Intel i7-4930K 6-core CPU
Corsair H60 cooler
32 GB 1600 MHz DDR3 RAM (only 8 GB installed at this point, per suggestion)
500 GB Samsung SSD hard drive (it's been formatted correctly using Disk Utility on another Mac first)
Corsair Graphite600T case, and Corsair AX760 PSU

The only difference is the graphics card: The recommended build suggested GeForce GTX 760.
I had a fairly new GeForce GTX 680 Mac Edition card from a dead Power Mac that I thought I would reuse. It seems to be compatible from what I've read, except it's a PCI-e 2 card, but that shouldn't be a problem (or so I've been told) as the PCI-e 3 bus is backward compatible.

Anyway, I followed the install directions to the letter, checking BIOS, and building a bootable USB drive and all. But it takes nearly an hour (no lie) to get to the Mavericks install page, only by using
-v npci=0x3000 cpus=1 -f boot flags (won't work without them) and a lot of patience.

But once I get there, it's like my computer is a 80286 machine or something, like dragging through molasses. The screens move at a snail's pace like everything is in super slow motion.

I managed to spend hours doing the install (in slow motion), doing the post-installation (in slow motion) and finally I got to restart, which I thought would fix everything... except it didn't. No boot up.

I started over from scratch, making sure all my i's were dotted and t's were crossed. And still hours and hours of painstakingly slow torture with no results.

Does anyone have any clues? Do you think it's the GTX 680? Or is there something else wrong.

I'm about to abandon this project, cut my losses, swallow my pride, and buy an Apple MacPro.

 

[trs96]

The slow performance is a common problem with those 6core I7 cpus. Try
the boot flag cpus=1 short term. You'll need to install the voodooTSCsync kext
from multi beast to resolve the problem. Which X79-UP4 user build guide are
you following?

 

[vmcney]

Thanks for the quick reply.

I followed this guide initially:
http://www.tonymacx86.com/374-unibeast-install-os-x-mavericks-any-supported-intel-based-pc.html

Then this guide was helpful (got me to install Mavericks):
http://www.tonymacx86.com/mavericks...-4930k-3-4ghz-gtx-780-mavericks-10-9-2-a.html

I checked the VoodooTSCSync 6 Core during the post install in the Multibeast, but that hasn't made a difference. I'll try again if I can get there.

I forgot to mention: this is the hardware guide: http://www.tonymacx86.com/420-building-customac-buyer-s-guide-april-2014.html#socket_2011

 

[vmcney]

Update: Tried to see if there is a hardware problem. I swapped out the 500 GB SSD for a spare 320 GB HDD. I reformatted, and reinstalled everything. No difference. Still extremely sluggish. I've checked the CPU and RAM in BIOS. They seem fine.

I've reinstalled Mavericks several times. Redid the Multibeast post install several times, making sure the VoodooTSCSync was set to 6-core. I've launched with cpus=1. I've tweaked every reasonable setting I could think of. I double-, triple-, and quadrupled-checked the BIOS set up.

I just can't figure out why it take 5 seconds for a popup window to popup. Or why the bouncing icons take 4 seconds for one bounce. Or why text characters take 1 second each to display after a keyboard entry.

For a supposedly screaming machine, this sure isn't. Somethin' ain't right.

I will gladly entertain any suggestions.

 

[trs96]

Update: Tried to see if there is a hardware problem. I swapped out the 500 GB SSD for a spare 320 GB HDD. I reformatted, and reinstalled everything. No difference. Still extremely sluggish. I've checked the CPU and RAM in BIOS. They seem fine.

I've reinstalled Mavericks several times. Redid the Multibeast post install several times, making sure the VoodooTSCSync was set to 6-core. I've launched with cpus=1. I've tweaked every reasonable setting I could think of. I double-, triple-, and quadrupled-checked the BIOS set up.

I just can't figure out why it take 5 seconds for a popup window to popup. Or why the bouncing icons take 4 seconds for one bounce. Or why text characters take 1 second each to display after a keyboard entry.

For a supposedly screaming machine, this sure isn't. Somethin' ain't right.

I will gladly entertain any suggestions.

Have you tried changing GE=no to GE=yes in your org.chameleon.Boot.plist ?

 

[vmcney]

Good suggestion, but makes no difference YES or NO.

Could there be a hardware issue? The BIOS shows that the CPU and RAM are good, or at least they're recognized and running at the correct speeds. Can't find any BIOS settings for the graphics card. I would think the driver comes from the OS.

I have nothing connected except USB keyboard, mouse, monitor, and the drive. So I wouldn't think there would be a conflict. Even tried another graphics card (512MB nVidia) I had kicking around. No difference.

Puzzled.

 

[trs96]

You could try your 680 in the other open PCIe x16 slots to see if that changes
anything. Some have found that to work.

 

[vmcney]

Another good suggestion, but again no change.

I'm going to clear the CMOS, reset the BIOS, check every HW connection, and start from scratch. Maybe I missed something along the way.

 

[Mac2Ci]

Hi Vmcney,

You have the same system that I have.

Here is my post:

http://www.tonymacx86.com/mavericks...evga-geforce-gtx-760-dual-boot-win-8-1-a.html

Hope this helps

 

[vmcney]

I had to load Linux to see what is going on with this box. I ran some test and it seems the CPU is only running at 1.2 GHz for some reason. Looks as if it's a hardware problem.