DESPERATELY NEED ADVICE FOR THE STRANGEST PROBLEM EVER

[Axel2011]

I'm not totally sure where to post this, but the problem is definitely with my build... except that it is not so successful.

I was really excited to build myself a hackintosh about a month ago. I purchased almost all the recommended components for tonymac's CustoMac Pro build, via the direct links to Newegg/Amazon:

Corsair Carbide Series 400R
Gigabyte GA-Z68XP-UD3
Intel Core i7-2600K
Zalman CNPS 9900 max CPU cooler
16GB Corsair 1600Mhz DDR3
NVIDIA Geforce GTX 460 (I had this from my previous computer)
Corsair HX 750 Watt PSU
Corsair Force GT 240GB SATA 3 SSD (I wanted a large one because I am doing audio production and streaming audio samples, where the SSD can make a big difference)
D-Link Xtreme N Desktop PCI Express Network Adapter

Ok. Now I went through a marathon of troubleshooting during the past few weeks, and I will try to make it brief and skip unnecessary steps.

So I put everything together. I had the USB drive with the bootable Lion installation made with UniBeast (on a friend's iMac). Installing OS X 10.7.2 and subsequent update to 10.7.3 via combo update were a cinch, and using MultiBeast to enable audio and boot from hard drive etc worked equally well.

But very strange things start happening when I connect more (data) hard drives. I've used Windows only for many years, so I have lots of data on NTFS formatted drives. So I had spent $20 for Paragon's NTFS for Mac software in order to make it simple to access all my old data. BUT - after connecting one or more of those drives, the system will not boot properly anymore. That is... it will boot, but only every 2nd or 3rd attempt, and restart always fails. The computer shuts down as if someone had pulled the plug - poof, and off. This happens mostly before I can even get into the Bios, but sometimes even after the chimera boot loader and entering the password. When it does boot up, everything is great and fast, and I have read/write access to all drives, no matter how they're formatted (I am typing this right now with only the system SSD connected).

I have done the following things, and none of them have fixed the problem of the sudden crashes:

- changed the SATA ports that the drives are connected to, to just about any combination imaginable.

- changed the SATA cables.

- tried to boot with only 1 data drive connected, both (freshly) NTFS and Mac formatted.

- ran "repair disc" from OS X's disk utility; it found errors and fixed them.

- RMA'd the motherboard and patiently waited 10 days to get a replacement from Newegg.

- RMA'd the RAM and received a very fast replacement from Amazon even before sending back the old RAM (nice).

- ran MemTest to check all 4 sticks of RAM, no errors.

- taken the computer to a tech expert who has worked for the Geek Squad for many years. He said he'd never seen anything like this before. After first guessing that the problem is hardware related, he told me after a week of checking things that all hardware is fine, and that the hard drives are at fault... he said I should maybe not use an SSD drive, and just do a clean install of Win7... so:

- tried to install Windows 7 from the original installation DVD - IT CRASHES EVERY TIME DURING THE INSTALLATION, right after the "starting Windows" logo appears. It doesn't even matter whether or what kind of drive is connected - when booting from the Win7 DVD the computer crashes even when there is no drive connected at all!!!!
>> I am unable to do a clean install of Windows 7 on a brand new system with a newly formatted hard drive!!

Now, at this point I REALLY REALLY don't know what to do anymore, none of this makes any sense! It's now been just over 30 days since I bought most of the hardware, so returning it is not possible anymore. Anyway, the hardware appears to be fine when tested, and motherboard and RAM have already been swapped... CPU and PSU, as far as I understand, either work or not, but couldn't work every other attempt or so.

Should I maybe contact Gigabyte and ask to replace my motherboard with a different model? I'm about ready to give up... except I don't even know what that would mean for me?! I can't even install Windows!?! My old Core 2 Duo based system (that has worked flawlessly for 4 years) is still here, so maybe I'll have to sell all the hardware and go back to that...

PLEASE HELP! I have had over a month of downtime and am rather frustrated I really need my computer back

 

[karacho]

Perhaps your Bios Settings are resetted to their defaults. Check your Bios settings and set it to the recommended settings for OSX on PC Hardware in case they were resetted. Click the link to my Builds in my Signature for Pics how to set up the Bios. Important is AHCI and HPET=Enabled and 64bit

 

[Axel2011]

Hi karacho, thanks for your reply. I did double check the Bios settings, but they're still the same. Before installing I loaded optimized defaults, then changed SATA to AHCI and HPET to 64bit, and those settings haven't changed. Wish it was that simple!

I am probably going to try an Asus motherboard instead of my Gigabyte because I kind of suspect there may be a motherboard incompatibility issue. Does anybody have any suggestions for a good Asus board with 1155 socket that has a DSDT?

 

[karacho]

The Gigabyte MoBo's are the best Supported Boards for Hackintoshing ever as you may see in our DSDT Database

 

[veng58]

So ,without the added ntfs drives the system is working ok?? maybe your power supply is faulty with the extra hardware attached ,have you tried disconnecting the mac drives and just have the windows drives to see if that is stable ? does seem like a power issue ,sorry can see you have tried that ,but in putting all the other drives on and a faulty psu ,could have damaged it now and it wont switch properly ,had that with a 3 way sli setup of my sons and had to put a 1000 watt in to get it to boot properly

 

[Axel2011]

@karacho: Yes, I know Gigabyte boards have the best support, that's why I got one! But things haven't been working for me!! I think I will still wait before trying a new motherboard though because...

@veng58: You may be right with the PSU... Today I am able to boot and restart successfully with 2 data drives connected, when they are on different power cables. 3 drives still crashes though. (Whether they're NTFS or Mac formatted seems to have no impact, I've tried both). I've submitted an RMA to Corsair to replace the PSU, and upgrade it to a 1000W too (I'll have to pay a little extra of course, but it's ok. I hope they'll do it!) Will definitely wait to try with a new PSU before doing anything else...

Thanks for your advice!

 

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[westwaerts]

its ParagonNTFS that causes problems.
for reading windows disks you dont need it, its only for write support.

if you running your system on a SSD, shutdown or sleep are fast.

Windows7 itself

 

[georgeba]

This won't help you, but seeing you already changed your motherboard and the new one displays the same symptoms, it's unlikely that it's the motherboard. Have you tried installing a new BIOS?
I am running Paragon v.8 for many months with no problems at all, so I wouldn't automatically point the finger to it.

 

[Axel2011]

UPDATE: Since it's the weekend, I still haven't taken out my PSU to return it... As I was trying to create a backup of my system drive today, OS X consistently crashes (=shuts down suddenly). This happens with Time Machine and with Carbon Copy Cloner as well. It seems as though the system doesn't like moving large amounts of data from one drive to another... Now as to what that tells me... not so sure about that :-/