[GUIDE] Jerivalu’s Build: Fresh 10.11.5, Z170X-UD5 TH, 6700k, Intel HD 530, Thunderbolt, Dual Boot

[MrMarc]

PW8888: my setup is:
Display: Samsung S34E790C
Case: Nanoxia Deep Silence 3
Motherboard: Gigabyte LGA1151 Intel Z170 ATX
Memory: Ballistix Sport LT 32GB Kit (16GBx2) DDR4 2400 MT/s (PC4-19200) DIMM
Graphics: EVGA GeForce GTX 970
Processor: Intel i7-6700K 4.00 GHz 8M
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA 650 P2 80+ PLATINUM, 650W ECO
WiFi: TP-LINK N900
HDDs: 2x Samsung EVO 850 SSDs (OS X, Windows 10), 2 1TB Seagate Barracuda 7200.11
Thunderbolt 3 to Thunderbolt Adapter: StarTech TBT3TBTADAP
Audio Interface: Universal Audio Apollo 8 + Satellite Quad (Thunderbolt)
System Definition: iMac17,1 (had to apply AGDPFix due to NVidia card)

No overclocking. I don't want my fans running any louder in the studio than required. System is plenty fast (for now). Geekbench 3 score below.
View attachment 206929

Kinda old but important for me:

Which OSX are you using right now?
Which DAW?

I'm having almost the same setup, except the TH devices because i still stick to my Focusrite pro 40 connected via Firewire.
My basic problem is that i randomly get a "sound stutter freeze" of my Pro Tools (since 12.5 - 2018.10). That means it just appears that i get a sound like "boob boob boob" and the Mac completly freezes. Hard restart is needed...

 

[herrschultzz]

I can't speak to the sound card issues, but my Sierra install is still working great on the same computer parts as you have. I have found that it is not (yet) possible to upgrade this hardware system to Mojave, having tried a lot of times with different tools and so far being unsuccessful at getting it to even install.
As much as I love this hardware setup, I'm investigating upgrading to newer CPU, and Mobo parts, but having Thunderbolt necessary makes those choices slimmer.
Any suggestions greatly appreciated.

 

[zipb]

Kinda old but important for me:

Which OSX are you using right now?
Which DAW?

I'm having almost the same setup, except the TH devices because i still stick to my Focusrite pro 40 connected via Firewire.
My basic problem is that i randomly get a "sound stutter freeze" of my Pro Tools (since 12.5 - 2018.10). That means it just appears that i get a sound like "boob boob boob" and the Mac completly freezes. Hard restart is needed...

MacOS 10.13.1 With Metric Halo FireWire and ethernet interfaces. Sometimes Lynx Aurora(n) via TB. Main DAW's Logic Pro X.4.2, Cubase Pro 9.5.30, occasionally Waveform, Reaper or Pro Tools HD 12.8

Works quite well, I don't recognize your problem. Maybe try another interface or DAW and see if that changes anything.

Mojave also works, I've upgraded a test SSD with 0 problems. But I will wait for at least X.14.2 before I will even think of upgrading my normal boot SSD.

I really went to town fixing this build properly and it has paid off.

 

[MrMarc]

MacOS 10.13.1 With Metric Halo FireWire and ethernet interfaces. Sometimes Lynx Aurora(n) via TB. Main DAW's Logic Pro X.4.2, Cubase Pro 9.5.30, occasionally Waveform, Reaper or Pro Tools HD 12.8

Works quite well, I don't recognize your problem. Maybe try another interface or DAW and see if that changes anything.

Mojave also works, I've upgraded a test SSD with 0 problems. But I will wait for at least X.14.2 before I will even think of upgrading my normal boot SSD.

I really went to town fixing this build properly and it has paid off.

Thank you!! Did u face any problem updating the system to 10.13.1?
Re-installing some clover settings, kexts etc?
Graphic problems? Or did u just install the High Sierra installer?

 

[zipb]

After I found a cheap RX480, I tried to upgrade from El Cap to Sierra. That didn't work well(black screen after boot), so I decided to give the then brand new HS a try. That worked better, and later I upgraded to 10.13.1 without an issue. this was necessary because there was a problem with the Steinberg software downloader in 10.13.0.
I use whatevergreen for my RX480, works great, I also updated a couple of other kexts. I haven't done a clean install, I will just upgrade a backup with an older system, copy my EFI over, upgrade Clover and some some kexts if necessary , done.

 

[canyondust]

Kinda old but important for me:

Which OSX are you using right now?
Which DAW?

I'm having almost the same setup, except the TH devices because i still stick to my Focusrite pro 40 connected via Firewire.
My basic problem is that i randomly get a "sound stutter freeze" of my Pro Tools (since 12.5 - 2018.10). That means it just appears that i get a sound like "boob boob boob" and the Mac completly freezes. Hard restart is needed...

10.13.6, Pro Tools Ultimate 2018.10, RME ADI-2 Pro (USB). No issues whatsoever, but I don't use Thunderbolt for anything, so that could be a factor.

 

[MrMarc]

It seems to be a Firewire problem that causes the Bloop bloop freeze. Im just ordered a TH3-TH2 and TH2-FW Adapter and try to find out, if its because of the firewire card (Syba). We will see...

EDIT:
Its not a FW problem. it seems to be a problem between Pro Tools 2018.10 and the Hack..
Had a couple of freezes recently, even with a musician in the studio ...

 

[Bhakta]

I’ve been able to install everything including Mojave with this build, but Mojave is suffering from random shutdowns which I’ve not been about to diagnose as yet... annoying!

 

[Derbis]

Just a reminder (mostly for people with the GA-Z170X-UD5); if you gotten the internal audio working with this motherboard on previous OS versions and you've just upgraded to Mojave, you probably need to step through this post from toleda to get things working. The modification of AppleHDA.kext and layouts are probably messing you up.

 

[MrMarc]

@jerivalu , a few questions:

• which BIOS version do you use? still F5?
  
• which Audio Interface is connected to your hack / TB3, USB, FW?
• do you face the problem when pro tools is opened that your finder freezes when previewing some audio files quick after another? like audio1, spacebar, down key, listen audio2, down key, listen audio3, down key, listen audio4 etc?
• did you hack freeze while running pro tools?
  
• any other problems appeared in the meantime?

for me in my case it looks seriously like a problem regarding to the pro tools aggregate i/o audio driver. perhaps i'm gonna check out a USB 2 audio interface just to make sure its not the FW "driver".

thx in advance
Marc