- Joined
- Jul 7, 2013
- Messages
- 104
- Motherboard
- ASUS MAXIMUS GENE VIII
- CPU
- Intel i7-6770K
- Graphics
- EVGA Nvidia Gtx 970 ssc
- Mac
- Classic Mac
- Mobile Phone
View media item 187847Overview:
I had a Mac Pro 2008 for many years as my faithfull companion , but as it began to grew older, i saw the need to upgrade the system, back in 2013 i was decided to make a change so i faced my choices: 1) get the rubber expensive trash can macpro with almost no internal expansion capability (as you can see im running 7 drives on this build) 2) get the max ram amount posable, and maybe a new gpu and ssd trying to extend the lifespan of my Mac Pro a few moe years or 3) for that same amount of money build my own computer
I took the last option and i came out with this build : [Almost] Out Of The Box
Everything was new to me, from building a Pc to get it running OSX. Thanks to to This lovely community i was able to get it up an running. (special thanks to stork, wolfie8, dawsman, and a few others that show interest on helping me fine tune my build)
Then again when I felt the need for an upgrade, the trash can came to mind again, but im not really interested on a machine that ask for a lot of (expensive) external attachments to achieve what i already had both in my mac pro and my hackistosh. I have some mixed feelings about apple: I do love their devices and mostly their OS (well at least until mavericks an those phone-like OS’s) but im pretty disappointed on how they seem to have forgotten they “prosumer” line of customers that trusted their hardware/software for completing work tasks fro so many years. Also I cannot help to feel annoyed about the “programmed obsolescence “ that appears to be on the top of their production policies.
Finally, the strongest motivation was to recover a little bit of what i used to love form my Mac Pro: a computer that I could take components in and out, thus recovering some of the ownership of our machines that we have lost to soldered memories, glued displays and proprietary screws on apple hardware. To Mod that case and make a CustoMac out of it seemed like the “ultimate hack “ to me.
This machine will be used mostly for graphic design and general tasks associated with the art department for movie making
Procedure:
As with my former build I tried to pick as most of already tested component as possible (except for the kingston m.2 ssd, more on that later) that way I could use the resources and experience collected from other members of the community.
For the case mod i also made profit from all the people that had success in the past on this mod, especially Aquamac, Neilhart and Mooner’s.
Hardware Choices :
Processor: Intel Core i7-6700K. As fast as possible, unlocked for overclock
Memory : 2x DDR4 GSKILL TRIDENT Z 2X16GB 3000MHZ. The fastest i could get at the build time… killer looks!
Mobo: ASUS ROG MAXIMUS VIII GENE . Needed an mATX, to fit it in he case more easily. Full of features, killer looks and most important i wanted a decent fan control to fine tune my airflow for overclocking.
GPU: Evga GeForce 970 ssc Acx 2.0 .I’m Also on the wait list for Pascal Drivers ,I decided not to go for the appealing 1080 , and i got a somehow cheap 970 while we wait for NVDIA to release mac drivers. I didn’t realise the lack of a backplate on it, but i solved the issue making one myself.
Cpu Cooler Thermaltake Water 2.0 PRO . No air cooling for a traveling machine. More on this Bellow
PSU: Thermaltake Smart Standard 650W needed a non-modular PSU in order to gut it and fit it on the original enclosure
WIFI/ Bluetooh: Apple Broadcom BCM94360CD with premade adapter
Storage
Boot Drive: Kingston Digital HyperX Predator 480 GB . M.2 flavor. This was a tuff one. I really wanted to go with samsung pro 950, bunt wasn’t available on my country and fate wanted me to get two kingston 480 ssd’s almost for free. I saw the specs and they’re AHCI so i supposed I was fine… maybe was a mistake I’m not yet sure on this one
Scratch Drive:Kingston Digital HyperX Predator 480 GB PCIE Flavor
Boot Dirve Backup Disk: Crucial M4 512gb
Time Machine drive: WD Green 6TB
Files Drive: Western Digital Caviar Green 2 TB
Proyects dirve: 3tb Seagate
Windows drive: Corsair Neutron Series 128GB
Optical Drive: Asus Blue ray burner
Newer Technology AdaptaDrive 2.5 to 3.5 Inch Drive Converter Bracket
Transport: Pelican Storm Case iM2875
Case Fans: Noctua NF-F12 insudtrial 2000 pwm
CPU cooler fans: Enermax TwisterPressure UCTP12P
Firewire card: Startech PEX1394B3
Displays: 2x Dell UP2716D 27"
Sound: Dell AC511 USB Wired SoundBar
Apple Wireless Magic Trackpad
Apple Wireless Keyboard with Bluetooth
Wacom Intuos Pro Pen M
Mod Specific Hardware:
Laser Hive Macpro matx 120 kit. No time or resources to make my own
MaxConnect SAS/SATA Link with MiniSAS- 4x SATA Cable for Mac Pro 2006/ 2007/ 2008. Proven solution for connecting the original data harness
Front I/O Panel: Lian Li PW-IS20AV65AT0
Custom made aluminium plates. For from I/O, GPU backplate, ssd heatsink, and cable management
Software Installation
I decided to stick with El Capitan until i got all my issues solved and a fully working machine. No need for unknown bugs and fixes until I get this one right.
I follow pretty much Tony’s guide for el Capitan aswell as Storks gene build but mostly Pastrychef’s build as we run almost the same hardware Refer to their post for settings , the only thing i skipped was the NVMe ssd patch, as im running on an AHCI m.2 drive
Bios Settings
Extreme Tweeker
AI Overclocker Tuner > X.M.P.
Extreme Tweeking > Enable
Advanced Items
System Agent (SA) Configuration > VT-d > Disable
PCH Configuration > IOAPIC 24-119 > Disabled
USB Configuration > Legacy USB Support > Auto
USB Configuration > XHCI Hand Off > Enabled
APM Configuration > Power on by PCI - E/PCI > Disabled
Graphics Configuration > Primary Display PEG (did dis once the system was up, installed with igfx)
Boot Menu
Fast Boot > Disabled
Boot Logo Display > Disabled
Secure Boot > OS Type > Other OS
Installed Nvida web drivers
Used Clover Configurator to set “nvda_drv=1”
Then as per Stork I Installed Rehab Man’s Codec Commander
I updated to Ox 10.11.6 via App Store
Post Installation
as Pastrychef did, i used the Asus AI Suite and it overclocked my CPU to 4.7GHz Wow! that was easy!
I generate a ssdt for better power management following Tony’s Guide and Piker-Alpha’s directly from github I used ./ssdtPRGen.sh -turbo 4700 to customise it for my overclock. I have not HW Monitor Working, but Intel Power Gadget Is showing states going from 9 to 4.7 Ghz according to the workload , so i assume power management is working properly.
[note: when using Imac 14,2 Sys Def I got an error stating that (obviously) that machine does not support skylake CPU, for the moment im ignoring that fact]
I followed this guide to fix iMessage and worked
I have been switching SMBIOS from Imac 17,1 as it matches my hardware and the recommended Imac 14, 2 in an effort to get HW sensors and sleep working. I found 14,2 to more stable and no need for the black screen patch
But so far my hw sensors aswell as my sleep are not working. I describe the situation of the HW here.
Issues:
I need further test to see if i can solve the sleep issue. Have been playing with the pmset settings, graphics injection and BIOS settings and no luck so far.
Edit:
I followed pastrycheff's suggestion to fix my sleep by removing my broadcom card and didn't work. I stumbled upon this thread, and following Yoga's suggestions I enabled Erp on BIOS and fixshutdown in clover configurator and now my sleep works perfect! except when i'm running google chrome (apparently a common issue) solved by switching back to firefox.
Really worried about the HW sensors / monitor not working, as its crucial to a healthy overclock (even more on a case mod!)
I'm experiencing random failure on my front USB3 ports , sometimes they work sometimes just if the device (i.e usb flash memory) are connected from boot. Im using USBInjectAll and GenericUSBXHCI from multibeast.
What works
USB 3 (mostly )
Audio
Wifi
Bluetooth
Messages
Discrete GPU
power management
Stable overclock 4.7 ghz.
Sleep!
What don't work
HW sensors/monitor
Random USB problems (maybe is the 15-limit and the inject usb kext bug)
View media item 187770View media item 187769View media item 187768View media item 187767View media item 187766
I had a Mac Pro 2008 for many years as my faithfull companion , but as it began to grew older, i saw the need to upgrade the system, back in 2013 i was decided to make a change so i faced my choices: 1) get the rubber expensive trash can macpro with almost no internal expansion capability (as you can see im running 7 drives on this build) 2) get the max ram amount posable, and maybe a new gpu and ssd trying to extend the lifespan of my Mac Pro a few moe years or 3) for that same amount of money build my own computer
I took the last option and i came out with this build : [Almost] Out Of The Box
Everything was new to me, from building a Pc to get it running OSX. Thanks to to This lovely community i was able to get it up an running. (special thanks to stork, wolfie8, dawsman, and a few others that show interest on helping me fine tune my build)
Then again when I felt the need for an upgrade, the trash can came to mind again, but im not really interested on a machine that ask for a lot of (expensive) external attachments to achieve what i already had both in my mac pro and my hackistosh. I have some mixed feelings about apple: I do love their devices and mostly their OS (well at least until mavericks an those phone-like OS’s) but im pretty disappointed on how they seem to have forgotten they “prosumer” line of customers that trusted their hardware/software for completing work tasks fro so many years. Also I cannot help to feel annoyed about the “programmed obsolescence “ that appears to be on the top of their production policies.
Finally, the strongest motivation was to recover a little bit of what i used to love form my Mac Pro: a computer that I could take components in and out, thus recovering some of the ownership of our machines that we have lost to soldered memories, glued displays and proprietary screws on apple hardware. To Mod that case and make a CustoMac out of it seemed like the “ultimate hack “ to me.
This machine will be used mostly for graphic design and general tasks associated with the art department for movie making
Procedure:
As with my former build I tried to pick as most of already tested component as possible (except for the kingston m.2 ssd, more on that later) that way I could use the resources and experience collected from other members of the community.
For the case mod i also made profit from all the people that had success in the past on this mod, especially Aquamac, Neilhart and Mooner’s.
Hardware Choices :
Processor: Intel Core i7-6700K. As fast as possible, unlocked for overclock
Memory : 2x DDR4 GSKILL TRIDENT Z 2X16GB 3000MHZ. The fastest i could get at the build time… killer looks!
Mobo: ASUS ROG MAXIMUS VIII GENE . Needed an mATX, to fit it in he case more easily. Full of features, killer looks and most important i wanted a decent fan control to fine tune my airflow for overclocking.
GPU: Evga GeForce 970 ssc Acx 2.0 .I’m Also on the wait list for Pascal Drivers ,I decided not to go for the appealing 1080 , and i got a somehow cheap 970 while we wait for NVDIA to release mac drivers. I didn’t realise the lack of a backplate on it, but i solved the issue making one myself.
Cpu Cooler Thermaltake Water 2.0 PRO . No air cooling for a traveling machine. More on this Bellow
PSU: Thermaltake Smart Standard 650W needed a non-modular PSU in order to gut it and fit it on the original enclosure
WIFI/ Bluetooh: Apple Broadcom BCM94360CD with premade adapter
Storage
Boot Drive: Kingston Digital HyperX Predator 480 GB . M.2 flavor. This was a tuff one. I really wanted to go with samsung pro 950, bunt wasn’t available on my country and fate wanted me to get two kingston 480 ssd’s almost for free. I saw the specs and they’re AHCI so i supposed I was fine… maybe was a mistake I’m not yet sure on this one
Scratch Drive:Kingston Digital HyperX Predator 480 GB PCIE Flavor
Boot Dirve Backup Disk: Crucial M4 512gb
Time Machine drive: WD Green 6TB
Files Drive: Western Digital Caviar Green 2 TB
Proyects dirve: 3tb Seagate
Windows drive: Corsair Neutron Series 128GB
Optical Drive: Asus Blue ray burner
Newer Technology AdaptaDrive 2.5 to 3.5 Inch Drive Converter Bracket
Transport: Pelican Storm Case iM2875
Case Fans: Noctua NF-F12 insudtrial 2000 pwm
CPU cooler fans: Enermax TwisterPressure UCTP12P
Firewire card: Startech PEX1394B3
Displays: 2x Dell UP2716D 27"
Sound: Dell AC511 USB Wired SoundBar
Apple Wireless Magic Trackpad
Apple Wireless Keyboard with Bluetooth
Wacom Intuos Pro Pen M
Mod Specific Hardware:
Laser Hive Macpro matx 120 kit. No time or resources to make my own
MaxConnect SAS/SATA Link with MiniSAS- 4x SATA Cable for Mac Pro 2006/ 2007/ 2008. Proven solution for connecting the original data harness
Front I/O Panel: Lian Li PW-IS20AV65AT0
Custom made aluminium plates. For from I/O, GPU backplate, ssd heatsink, and cable management
Software Installation
I decided to stick with El Capitan until i got all my issues solved and a fully working machine. No need for unknown bugs and fixes until I get this one right.
I follow pretty much Tony’s guide for el Capitan aswell as Storks gene build but mostly Pastrychef’s build as we run almost the same hardware Refer to their post for settings , the only thing i skipped was the NVMe ssd patch, as im running on an AHCI m.2 drive
Bios Settings
Extreme Tweeker
AI Overclocker Tuner > X.M.P.
Extreme Tweeking > Enable
Advanced Items
System Agent (SA) Configuration > VT-d > Disable
PCH Configuration > IOAPIC 24-119 > Disabled
USB Configuration > Legacy USB Support > Auto
USB Configuration > XHCI Hand Off > Enabled
APM Configuration > Power on by PCI - E/PCI > Disabled
Graphics Configuration > Primary Display PEG (did dis once the system was up, installed with igfx)
Boot Menu
Fast Boot > Disabled
Boot Logo Display > Disabled
Secure Boot > OS Type > Other OS
Installed Nvida web drivers
Used Clover Configurator to set “nvda_drv=1”
Then as per Stork I Installed Rehab Man’s Codec Commander
I updated to Ox 10.11.6 via App Store
Post Installation
as Pastrychef did, i used the Asus AI Suite and it overclocked my CPU to 4.7GHz Wow! that was easy!
I generate a ssdt for better power management following Tony’s Guide and Piker-Alpha’s directly from github I used ./ssdtPRGen.sh -turbo 4700 to customise it for my overclock. I have not HW Monitor Working, but Intel Power Gadget Is showing states going from 9 to 4.7 Ghz according to the workload , so i assume power management is working properly.
[note: when using Imac 14,2 Sys Def I got an error stating that (obviously) that machine does not support skylake CPU, for the moment im ignoring that fact]
I followed this guide to fix iMessage and worked
I have been switching SMBIOS from Imac 17,1 as it matches my hardware and the recommended Imac 14, 2 in an effort to get HW sensors and sleep working. I found 14,2 to more stable and no need for the black screen patch
But so far my hw sensors aswell as my sleep are not working. I describe the situation of the HW here.
Issues:
I need further test to see if i can solve the sleep issue. Have been playing with the pmset settings, graphics injection and BIOS settings and no luck so far.
Edit:
I followed pastrycheff's suggestion to fix my sleep by removing my broadcom card and didn't work. I stumbled upon this thread, and following Yoga's suggestions I enabled Erp on BIOS and fixshutdown in clover configurator and now my sleep works perfect! except when i'm running google chrome (apparently a common issue) solved by switching back to firefox.
Really worried about the HW sensors / monitor not working, as its crucial to a healthy overclock (even more on a case mod!)
I'm experiencing random failure on my front USB3 ports , sometimes they work sometimes just if the device (i.e usb flash memory) are connected from boot. Im using USBInjectAll and GenericUSBXHCI from multibeast.
What works
USB 3 (mostly )
Audio
Wifi
Bluetooth
Messages
Discrete GPU
power management
Stable overclock 4.7 ghz.
Sleep!
What don't work
HW sensors/monitor
Random USB problems (maybe is the 15-limit and the inject usb kext bug)
View media item 187770View media item 187769View media item 187768View media item 187767View media item 187766
Last edited: