Haswell-E + X99 Motherboard Temporary Guide - OS X 10.9.4 / 10.9.5

[BoomR]

Well, I'm nearly there. Followed all the instructions at the beginning of this post. Can get all the way through to completing Mavericks installation, then running Multibeast, and finally adding the npci=0x2000 flag (not sure if I did that correctly, though).

Just curious for those of you whose ASUS X99-Deluxe boards are running (I have i7-5930K, BTW), can you please take a look at my MB config file & tell me what I might be doing wrong?

View attachment ASUS X99Deluxe v1.1.mb

 

[samtimbaud]

Well, I'm nearly there. Followed all the instructions at the beginning of this post. Can get all the way through to completing Mavericks installation, then running Multibeast, and finally adding the npci=0x2000 flag (not sure if I did that correctly, though).

Just curious for those of you whose ASUS X99-Deluxe boards are running (I have i7-5930K, BTW), can you please take a look at my MB config file & tell me what I might be doing wrong?

View attachment 108521

Bravo, It is the same settings as me

 

[festr2]

Bravo, It is the same settings as me

I'm curious how you achieved native powermanagement. I had to disable speedstep and use nullcpupowermanagent to get optimal performance. Using anything else leads to poor performance (3000 points) which means no turbo states switching. So I had to do OC and disable powermanagement in the macos.

 

[BoomR]

Bravo, It is the same settings as me

Thanks for your reply BTW, is this the proper syntax when adding npci=0x2000 to org.chameleon.boot.plist??

<key>npci=0x2000</key>

Also, can someone confirm: does an X99 build require the DDR4 be installed in "pairs"...?? I could swear that I read that you need to remove all but 4GB when you first do the build. Initially I only had in 1 stick of RAM....but then when I was having problems getting booted into Mavericks after MB install, the verbose log got stuck at a message saying something like, "only 1 bank of memory has been detected" (or words like that). So I added a matching stick in the corresponding slot on the other side of the CPU per the user guide. That got me a **little** further, but still cannot get booted into Mavericks successfully.

OH - before I forget:
ASUS X99-Deluxe
i7 5930K
SanDisk Extreme 240GB SSD
ASUS Radeon HD6450 1GB
Crucial Ballistix Sport 16GB KIT (4GBx4) - only have 2 installed

Could my problem possibly be that I'm doing an install with a Mavericks 10.9.5 UniBeast key? The guide here appears to be written from the standpoint of Mavs 10.9.4, then upgrading to 10.9.5.

 

[BoomR]

SUCCESS!! (well mostly...)

After a closer look at another user's org.chameleon.Boot.plist with a running ASUS X99-Deluxe build, I learned that I added the npci=0x2000 to kernel flags incorrectly.

So I started from scratch - reformatted the SSD and did a clean install of 10.9.5 via the instructions in the original post (plus having 2 x 4GB of ram installed). Then followed all the remaining instructions to a T, and finally able to boot into Mavericks successfully!

VooDoo audio from MB doesn't seem to work (got an error message during MB installation), but I understand there is an updated one on Sourceforge that I can download & install using KextBeast. Audio is not a huge priority for me, as this eventually will be Music Studio v3 build, and I have external audio interfaces. I'm guessing that the Realtek audio + the 9-series motherboard options in MB are still a no-go? (without any mods, that is)

I must say that I was a little surprised at my Geekbench scores, though. around 18,600-ish. I thought I would be around 20,000 or higher. But a few posts back, festr2 mentioned that disabling SpeedStep in the UEFI really helped bump up their scores. So I went back & did that, and now my GB is like 19,506... a little better. But I just re-read & realized that I did not also select nullcpupowermanagements, so will try that next to see if the combination of the 2 gives me even better GB scores. BTW, I am not overclocking anything right now - and was hoping that I wouldn't have to.

Wonder if different/better DDR4 would also help improve my score? I currently have 2 x 4GB of Crucial Ballistix Sport DDR4 2400 MT/s (PC4-19200) CL16 Unbuffered DIMM memory installed. Anyone have any other recommendations?

Also, my video card is a pretty low-budget card (see parts list in previous post), but one that I know has worked OoB for all of my builds thus far. it's not the card that will eventually be in the build, but thought I would use this dependable card during the heavy lifting of getting the build up & running. I'm guessing more video horsepower in the GPU may also improve my score?

As always, thanks to everyone for the feedback & tips!!
--B

 

[festr2]

The asus x99 deluxe have probably the same audio chip like my x99-a asus - just download voodoohda from sourceforge and install - it will install it for you and not only reboot but shutdown the pc completely - ideally turn off the power. I was once stucked with not working audio and reboot did not solved it - it was probably due to some driver inconsistency do not know.

regarding the CPU powermanagement - currently I have the best results with slight overclock - just set it to auto and target the CPU to 4Ghz so it will use the turbo. Install null powermanagement and your score should be around 4000 for single core. I also believe that the cpu management is done via the motherboard. Do not forget to disable speedstep and enable turbo in the bios.

Even though you install the intel power gadget (which is a little bit trickier) it will show you only one speed but the temperature works. It shows only one because it does not generates C/P states to the OS so the OS have no idea how the CPU is scaled. I even do not know if the board is doing PM on its own.

I was able to get working powermanagement where I saw how the CPU was switching to 1.2Ghz in the intel power gadget in configuration: bios: speedstep + turbo enabled, nullcpupowermanagement DISABLED (not installed) - but this setup has poor performance (only 3000 score instead of 4000) because it probably did not used the turbo states and I saw that the CPU was only on 3.3 at max (in the intel power gadget).

I would really love to know if the asus bios is doing PM on its own when speedstep disabled.

 

[BoomR]

regarding the CPU powermanagement - currently I have the best results with slight overclock - just set it to auto and target the CPU to 4Ghz so it will use the turbo. Install null powermanagement and your score should be around 4000 for single core. I also believe that the cpu management is done via the motherboard. Do not forget to disable speedstep and enable turbo in the bios.

I've disabled speedstep, turbo is enabled, and now when I try to add CPUPowerManagement in MB, I get booted up, but then the desktop never draws...stuck at a plain gray screen (no apple logo). Only thing I have not done that you spoke of above is to do the slight overclock. That shouldn't be causing me the problems, should it?

Update 8:30pmCST: I decided to do one last clean install & used my original MB configuration that was working (but threw an error message because of the MB VooDooHDA284 audio kext) - this time, with the exception of not using the VooDoo. Here's my currently working MB configuration file:
View attachment ASUS X99Deluxe v1.3.mb

I'll fuss with installing the VooDoo kext from Sourceforge in a bit. In the meantime, I also upgraded to GeekBench v3. Here is my current score:


Now THAT'S the kind of score that I thought I'd be getting with this build.

As a side-note, UEFI BIOS settings are nothing out of the ordinary, except for the following:
--Disable SpeedStep
--Boot>Secure boot>OS Type: "Other OS"

Otherwise, all UEFI BIOS settings are from the "optimized" defaults. I'm a very happy camper. Now to make a CCC backup of this working version so I can begin some additional tweaks & tries.

 

[BoomR]

Update 10:15pm CST: With my CCC safety backup in place, I've started to tinker a bit. BTW, USB3.0 appears to be working just fine - did my CCC to a spare SSD in a USB3.0 enclosure, and it made the clone in just a few minutes.

• Installed VooDooHDA from Sourceforge. After reboot & connecting speakers to green port, I also experienced some ground loop noise through the speakers. Someone suggested that I simply lower the microphone volume. On my board, Sound > Input shows 2 options:

---Microphone (Pink Rear) - and
---Microphone (Pink Front)

​

While setting the volume to 0 on "pink rear", for me - simply switching to the "pink front" option got rid of the ground loop noise...without having to adjust any volumes. FWIW....​

• Downloaded Pacifist, and then used it to install Intel Power Gadget. IPG now also working for me, alerting me that my CPU is running max at 3.6 GHz all the time. (fingers crossed for some SpeedStep relief soon).

Just for yuks & giggles, I re-ran Geekbench again - for some reason, I've been able to squeeze another 60 points higher (maybe just lucky, I dunno):
View attachment 109158

 

[alexxo1005]

Hi! I changed system definition from mac pro 3.1 to 5.1. After the installation it recommended me to change my ram slots from 5,6,7,8 to 2,3,6,7 for better performance. I did this and now bios and osx only recognizes 4gb ram instead of 16.

Please help!

Greetings,
Alex

 

[BoomR]

Hi! I changed system definition from mac pro 3.1 to 5.1. After the installation it recommended me to change my ram slots from 5,6,7,8 to 2,3,6,7 for better performance. I did this and now bios and osx only recognizes 4gb ram instead of 16.

Please help!

Greetings,
Alex

Would you mind giving us a bit more information about your system (mobo, processor, type & amount of RAM, hard drive, video card, etc). Also, what does the user guide say about where to place RAM? My ASUS X99-Deluxe is very specific about where it should go and even shows pictures of the configuration, based on 2, 4, 8, or 16 sticks of RAM.

Also, per the instructions here, you should be using Mac Pro 6,1 definition (recommended) or if problems arise, revert back to 3,1....not 5,1....