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Help please! ASUS Sabertooth X79 with Yosemite ... worked for a half day now stalls on Apple Screen

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Dec 14, 2014
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Motherboard
ASUS Sabertooth X79
CPU
E5-2680 v2
Graphics
GTX 760
Mac
  1. MacBook Pro
  2. Mac mini
  3. Mac Pro
Mobile Phone
  1. Android
Hello!


First timer here so first off many thanks for the very helpful posts which troubleshot me through various hiccups in the install process.


This is regarding my fresh install of Yosemite on a new machine.


SUMMARY: Everything was working except Ethernet; I used Multibeast to install AppleIntelE1000e.kext (which I thought I had done originally) after which the boot hangs with the Apple loading bar 1/3 to 1/2 the way there.


I can still boot in safe mode (-x) but every normal boot hangs.


However, I think the ethernet kext may not be the problem, because I did a fresh install on an identical SSD (I have 2, one eventually intended for a clone of my stable boot drive) and that boot is giving me the same behavior.


Basically, all boots except safe mode now hang.


DETAILS: I'm new at this so bear with me but I will try to give thorough info of what I've done during my first installation adventure over the past couple days:


BIOS settings:


From Optimized Defaults:


Left "Intel Virtualization Technology" Enabled because it was not specifically VT-d. (used dart=0 to be sure I had disabled VT-d during initial boots, later seemed unnecessary, see below.)
Set OS Type to Other OS


Boot Flags:


After some thread surfing the boot flags that successfully allowed me to boot from my USB were dart=0 nv_disable=1 npci=0x2000


From there I successfully installed Yosemite, though my 1920x1080 display was very unhappy.


Also at this point I was still entering boot flags of dart=0 nv_disable=1 npci=0x2000 to successfully boot.


After some more research and trial and error, I reduced this to just npci=0x2000.


I then added that to the org.chameleon.Boot.plist file per this tip (thanks davidhyde18 for the great write-up!)


Look down the list for where it says "Kernel Flags". Below this, type in <string>npci=0x2000</string>


At this point I had a system that would launch OSX Yosemite from power-up.


Multibeast Installs:


DSDT Free
Drivers: Audio ALC892, Disk 3rd Party SATA, AppleIntelE1000e, Network: AppleIntelE1000e v3.1.0
Customize: 1080p Display Mode


It took a couple tries before the 1080p seemed to stick but as of this afternoon everything was working smoothly.


I had no audio however, until following another suggestion from davidhyde18's post:


After you've installed your drivers and kext files, open up Multibeast for Mavericks 6.1.0


Skip all the drivers except for:
Drivers > Audio > Without DSDT > ALC892


Then audio was working, but still no Ethernet.


Normally I'm a big fan of backing up stable systems so I can revert if something goes funky. My intention was to get Ethernet working, then use CCC off my other Mac to clone the SSD boot drive.


That's where my day took a turn for the worst. I ran Multibeast again to do a re-install of the AppleIntelE1000e.kext and my system started to hang mid-boot. Grey/white apple screen, loading bar would slow then stall about 1/2 way in.


I can still boot in safe mode using -x, however every other boot hangs.


I tried verbose mode to learn it slows down and eventually hangs on one of numerous "ATHR: Unknown Locale: 21"


I have searched a bunch of threads and tried various other boot flags, etc in attempts to fix but no luck.


I have tried deleting the AppleIntelE1000e.kext in case that had caused the problem but no luck.


I tried installing other versions of the AppleIntelE1000e.kext from Multibeast using the safe boot.


Finally, I followed the same steps as my successful install yesterday to create a brand new install on the 2nd SSD.


That boot hangs too, leading me to believe it may be hardware problem.


I reset the BIOS to original Optimized Defaults and then re-did the BIOS settings listed at the top of this post.


I powered everything off and back on.


Frustratingly, the problem persists.


Thank you in advance for any suggestions or leads. I have done a bunch of searching, but I'm new at this. :)

(Additional note: AppleIntelE10003 v3.0.4.1a did seem to do the trick in terms of ethernet ... while booted in safe mode I can now successfully connect to my network via ethernet. However I'm still left with this boot issue.)
 
Additional note regarding graphics drivers:

Numerous searches have pointed me to this thread, however those drivers will not install. The installer says they are not compatible with 10.10.1.

I did install (and update) the Nvidia CUDA driver from http://www.nvidia.com/object/macosx-cuda-6.5.33-driver.html

The system recognizes my graphics card correctly.

I don't think this is the problem since (see previous post) my machine was booting find with these drivers installed; I am just including in the interests of giving thorough information.

Again any help appreciated, this is my first build and I am stuck here.

Thanks!
 
Okay, this is immensely frustrating.


Basically, I backtracked and started all over again, aiming to repeat the steps I had done the first time to successful boot.


I was successful.


By 2 pm today I had a working boot.


The next thing I would always do is backup, but of course the method I use on my MacPro (boot from and external drive and use CCC to clone the system drive) would not work here.


So I went through the process from scratch again, creating an identical, working boot drive on my second SSD.


Then I booted from the second drive and cloned the first to yet another backup partition, my 'external recovery drive.'


Along the way, I learned that CCC does not, apparently, 'clone' chimera, so I used Multibeast to put chimera on my new backup boot drives.


Long story short, by late afternoon I had 3 drives I could successfully boot from.


My plan was to work very methodically on the main drive; if something broke such that it was not bootable I would use drive 3 to clone the last working backup to my main drive.


Only once again, I got the dreaded stall.

Specifically, OSX looks like it's booting normally... and then the progress bar slows ...and slows more ... and eventually stops moving altogether.


First it was just on the backup drives. I discovered this when doing a final check to make sure all my clones now booted up.


But I could still boot into my primary drive. Trying to get a backup for this I used Time Machine according to this tip.


Good thing I did ... because now the main boot stalls too during load.


Except ... when I boot from the USB into Utilities ... I don't have the "Restore from Time Machine Backup" in the Utilities menu, despite the fact that Time Machine had completed a successful backup.


What I don't understand here is: I have a drive working fine and reliably through several boots. Then a few hours later I cannot boot from that drive even though I have not modified it.


Can anyone offer any suggestions as to why this might be the case?


I didn't expect this to be easy, and it's my first time, but it is again immensely frustrating to have something that works, and not be able to simply back up that working configuration so I can get back to that point.


Any help will be greatly appreciated.


Thank you.
 
Hi zalcan! I had the exact same problem as u and you posted in my threadand the solution that worked for me was not having more than 1 partition on your main drive. I had initially wanted to have windows on one partition and mac on the other but when I reformatted that then it worked. also if that dosent work, try a different bootloader like clover.
 
Hi zalcan! I had the exact same problem as u and you posted in my threadand the solution that worked for me was not having more than 1 partition on your main drive. I had initially wanted to have windows on one partition and mac on the other but when I reformatted that then it worked. also if that dosent work, try a different bootloader like clover.

Thanks for the info, Hackentoshe!

On the original installs that failed the SSD boot drives in question were single partition (except for the 'hidden' recovery partition automatically created by OS X installer.)

However that was my first install and I put in multiple drivers, so I may have well caused another problem unwittingly.

In my latest attempt the two SSDs are working (as of now) and the clone that hangs is, indeed, on a partition.

I will try this for now, though ultimately I don't want to have to allocate an entire hard drive to what should be a small recovery partition.

But for now, will be happy just to get a setup I can work with as I move forward with this.

I haven't tried Clover because threads indicated there was a bit of a learning curve and I'm already brand new at this. Have you tried and would you recommend?

Thanks for the post!
 
clover is not too hard to set up but you have nothing to lose as you have backups.
 
:!: Some issues when updating to Yosemite from Mountain Lion 10.8.5

1. mach_kernel error
2. Hangs on gray screen


:arrow: Solutions:

1. edit org.chameleon.Boot.plist and delete mach_kernel key string
(important step missed when updating OS)

dual boot solution > Windows > MacDrive 8 > OS X drive > edit org.chameleon.Boot.plist > Save

dual boot not available - use boot flag "mach_kernel" (more info here, last entry)



2) gray screen:

boot flags (Sabertooth x79)

Use -x or -f to get to home screen

[-x] - safe mode
[-f] - ignore boot configuration file

navigate to org.chameleon.Boot.plist and make sure you have

<key>EthernetBuiltIn</key>
<string>Yes</string>
<key>GraphicsEnabler</key>
<string>No</string>

<key>Kernel Flags</key>
<string>darkwake=0 PCIRootUID=1 npci=0x2000 GraphicsEnabler=No kext-dev-mode=1 -v</string>
<key>Legacy Logo</key>
<string>Yes</string>
<key>Timeout</key>
<string>2</string>
<key>UseKernelCache</key>
<string>Yes</string>
<key>HDEFLayoutID</key>
<string>01000000</string>
<key>HDAEnabler</key>
<string>Yes</string>
<key>IGPEnabler</key>
<string>No</string>


Resources:
Boot Arguments: kext-dev-mode=1 ever or not ?


:idea: Optional:

Download and run KextWizard
http://www.tonymacx86.com/downloads

Cuda
http://www.nvidia.com/object/mac-driver-archive.html

:angel:
 
Last edited:
@dnovosad Thanks for the thorough information.

Sorry this thread never got updated; I got the system working in January and it's been stable ever since.

I did save all this for future reference in case it becomes relevant.

Thanks for taking the time to post!
 
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