- Joined
- Jan 22, 2011
- Messages
- 27
- Motherboard
- toshiba qosmio
- CPU
- i7
- Graphics
- nvidia
- Mac
- Classic Mac
- Mobile Phone
Just wanted to report that I got my new Frankenstein working. The mobo & cpu are top end, but I don't need fancy graphics so it's just got a GT 640. 32GB Kingston HyperX 4x8 kit and installed Mavericks with only 2 onboard. Also Corsair H60 (planning on over clocking eventually), 60GB SSD, 1TB SATA, etc.
I found this http://www.tonymacx86.com/mavericks...igabyte-x79-up4-3930k-gtx-690-ocz-vertex.html to be the most useful guide as the 2 mobos are almost the same.
At first the big problem was verifying compatibility. I called several Gygabyte support folks most of whom said the 2690 would not work in there. Then someone in Taiwan (my wife speaks Chinese!) said that it would work if we updated the bios. But how to do that while running a cpu that's incompatible with the current bios? Well, there's Q-Flash. The best thing to do (although there is some flexibility) is to connect an ssd in a different computer and copy the downloaded update onto there. But that's not as easy as it sounds. Q-Flash only works with Fat32/16/8 volumes. Vista on up will only format in exFat. I imagine there's utilities on the net that will do it for you, but I happen to have "NTFS for Mac OS X" on one of my other CustoMacs and it will format a drive in FAT32 via Disk Utility. Then I stuck it back in the new guy, flashed it, and wallah!
Installing Mavericks went fairly smoothly. Next I want to get it over clocked. I'll report on that later.
However, I have had a problem with the bios conking out intermittently. Haven't completely overcome that but Gigabyte support has sorted this out for me and hopefully this will iron itself out over time. If not I might have to swap it out, which would be bloody annoying!
I found this http://www.tonymacx86.com/mavericks...igabyte-x79-up4-3930k-gtx-690-ocz-vertex.html to be the most useful guide as the 2 mobos are almost the same.
At first the big problem was verifying compatibility. I called several Gygabyte support folks most of whom said the 2690 would not work in there. Then someone in Taiwan (my wife speaks Chinese!) said that it would work if we updated the bios. But how to do that while running a cpu that's incompatible with the current bios? Well, there's Q-Flash. The best thing to do (although there is some flexibility) is to connect an ssd in a different computer and copy the downloaded update onto there. But that's not as easy as it sounds. Q-Flash only works with Fat32/16/8 volumes. Vista on up will only format in exFat. I imagine there's utilities on the net that will do it for you, but I happen to have "NTFS for Mac OS X" on one of my other CustoMacs and it will format a drive in FAT32 via Disk Utility. Then I stuck it back in the new guy, flashed it, and wallah!
Installing Mavericks went fairly smoothly. Next I want to get it over clocked. I'll report on that later.
However, I have had a problem with the bios conking out intermittently. Haven't completely overcome that but Gigabyte support has sorted this out for me and hopefully this will iron itself out over time. If not I might have to swap it out, which would be bloody annoying!