PunkNugget Posted June 18, 2017 Share Posted June 18, 2017 Hi Everyone, it's been about 5 years since The HACKINBEAST (my prior hackintosh Dual CPU / Triple GPU PC build). Introducing The ULTRABEAST! It was a 2+ year project that was finally finished about 3 months ago. Unfortunately for whatever reason it has now stopped working. The initial install when Andrew Kern (RampageDev.com) and I used (El Capitan) worked fine. The only problem though was it would freeze every 2 to 3 hours and I'd have to retstart my system. It only happened when I used all 3 x 28" 4K monitors that are caused the freezing issue. When I ran one 28" 4K monitor it never froze, using El Captain, but when using 3 x 4K monitors together, it when the freezing issue happened every 2 to 3 hours. After several months of going back and forth figuring out what the issue was, Andrew felt it may be a possible memory leak in the 980 Ti GPU's. We had to wait for an Nvidia to supply an update. Andrew reached out me to let me know about the update (in April). We installed it and also updated to Sierra, the screen went black after seeing the Apple logo and stop working altogether. Andrew was tied up with work and couldn't get back to me until a week later, then emailed me a text that he got from someone saying: "I fixed the Nvidia problem, it was BIOS related, in the video op ROM. I had selected UEFI, thing is if you put it back to Legacy the GPU work and now I'm running on Nvidia drivers again." I went into my BIOS to try to find where my OpRoM was. It was located in my PCIe/PCI/PnP Config menu. This is what I saw: Launch Storage OpROM Policy [uEFI only] Launch Video OpROM Policy [uEFI only] and set them BOTH on Legacy. Launch Storage OpROM Policy [Legacy only] Launch Video OpROM Policy [Legacy only] Looking at it NOW (and I do mean now) that may have been my issue, as I probably should've only changed the Video OpROM and not the Storage OpROM, but didn't realize that until I just now saw this as I was writing it. In any case with many attempts to get this working properly Andrew hasn't responded to me yet. Until I find a resolve to this issue, I'm pretty much stuck with an $8500 system, but with simple case and fan cooling setup, you can build it yourself for around $2,500 to $4,000. As you can probably tell by the photos, quite a bit of time went into this build. This was the first PETG tubing build I ever did. I'm also wondering if maybe it's the GPU's that need to be updated to the 1080 TI's or Titan X (Maxwell) GPUs? I don't even know if the 980Ti's, 1080 Ti's or Titans X's can work together and in SLI mode. I've seen builds with them working (as you can find completed builds to purchase on eBay). It doesn't matter now as my Mobo was giving a "B2" (error) that won't allow me to go back into my BIOS to change anything. Supermicro's tech support (and it was quite a few guys I spoke with in that dept) said it could be a RAM module or issue with an external part (i.e., GPU, CPU), or it could be one of the module RAM or GPU slots not working anymore. I have since packed up my Mobo and shipped it to their repairs dept. I will be receiving my Mobo back within about 2 weeks. Here's my system set up: Motherboard : SuperMicro X9DAi-O RAM: 128GB (16 x 8GB) DDR3-1333 MHz PC3-10600R ECC (Uprgraded to Samsung 128GB DDR3-1600 ECC RAM that were tested for this particular Mobo) CPU: 2 x E5-2697 v2 Intel (Water Blocked) GPU: 2 x 980 Ti 6GB (Water Blocked) (Upgraded to 2 x Titan X Maxwell 12GB) PSU: EVGA 1600 P2 Monitors: 3 x Asus MG28UQ 28" 4K Thanks for taking the time to read this and please let me know if any of you have any thoughts about any of what I just shared. Hope you like the Geekbench as well as the Cinebench Scores. Now all I care about right now is that the machine works. Can't wait to get the Mobo back to test everything out. Here's a video link showing the ULTRABEAST, enjoy the vid and throw a like on it, and subscribe to my YouTube channel, thanks… 13 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Allan Posted June 18, 2017 Share Posted June 18, 2017 Wow 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
remote.syst3m Posted July 9, 2017 Share Posted July 9, 2017 Nice job! I have not done PETG. All my builds are 4U tho! Dual CPU/GPU 4U. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PunkNugget Posted July 11, 2017 Author Share Posted July 11, 2017 Nice job! I have not done PETG. All my builds are 4U tho! Dual CPU/GPU 4U. Thanks. By the way, where's your link so I can see the post of your build? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BALDY_MAN Posted July 12, 2017 Share Posted July 12, 2017 @PunkNugget i will have a look at your motherboard specs tomorrow. and see what kexts and clover bootloader you may need for Sierra to work for you... when you get a replacement mother board could you do a basic build. ie one gpu and minimum ram and run a stress test on the parts installed then work for a firm foundationas we need to know if it a hard wear or software problem firstim sorry for going back to basics im not being condescending or undermine your intelligence. i wish to help if i can Best regards BALDY_MAN Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PunkNugget Posted July 13, 2017 Author Share Posted July 13, 2017 @PunkNugget i will have a look at your motherboard specs tomorrow. and see what kexts and clover bootloader you may need for Sierra to work for you... when you get a replacement mother board could you do a basic build. ie one gpu and minimum ram and run a stress test on the parts installed then work for a firm foundation as we need to know if it a hard wear or software problem first im sorry for going back to basics im not being condescending or undermine your intelligence. i wish to help if i can Best regards BALDY_MAN No offense taken as I'm totally with you on that, and that's what I've been doing. Just to let you know, I found out what some of my issue was; the BIOS was corrupted and even though Supermicro's (SM) tech support helped me flash the BIOS (when they walked me through the process), it still gave me that "B2" error that wouldn't allow me to get into the BIOS. So that's when I sent it in for them to check the board out. They couldn't find my Mobo when it was delivered (USPS's fault as they sent to the wrong SM building as they have 7 buildings). \ Once the RMA Repair dept got my Mobo they found that I had 2 (out of the three) broken clips that hold the GPUs in place. They said that was going to cost $75 for each one. Of course I said no. Don't need them as the case screws are the ones that really hold the GPUs in place and since I have the mobo in a vertical setup (which is better anyway), gravity pushes the cards in better without the cheap mobo lock clips. $75... yeah right... can you believe that cost? They did tell me that my Mobo's BIOS was corrupted (so I guess the tech guy that walked me through it didn't explain the process well enough as we went over the process twice before I installed it). No matter, it's fixed, so once I get my Mobo, I have 2 Titan X's, I will be using 1 x Titan X (Maxwell) GPU and not the 980 Ti's (as I've been told that they're a bit glitchy with some hackintosh builds). That might or might not be true, but I'm not risking it. I will also use only two sticks of new RAM (total of 4) that SM has approved and evaluated in their tests for both CPUs when testing. I look forward to any help you (or anyone else that's reading this) can provide in two to three days from now. Thank you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BALDY_MAN Posted July 13, 2017 Share Posted July 13, 2017 @ PunkNugget Download Sierra from apple store make a bootable usb. then you will need to add the latest clover use set up for uefi. motherboard the are quite a few setting in clover i think you will need 6.1 definitions as you are using two cpus . alsodownload clover configrater clover will setup on efi partition on the usb. and latest FakeSMCkext Renesas usb kext ALC889Kext i cant explane how to use it very well so heres a link for you to read http://www.imachak.tk/2016/12/install-create-macos-sierra-usb-boot-with-clover-bootloader.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PunkNugget Posted July 13, 2017 Author Share Posted July 13, 2017 Thanks again for your guidance. What would probably make for an easier install process is to possibly follow this link: http://www.rampagedev.com/dual-cpu-dmg/ Andrew Kern (RampageDev) has set up two DMG files: Installation DMG and the post install files found in the Dual CPU DMG. If you have the time, please go through this install process and read through his PDF installation doc on both DMG files, as it is very thorough and has all the files needed for the install for this particular Mobo. My only issue is that somewhere toward the end of the install process, there are certain files that I'm not sure of that either need or do not need to be installed. He did leave another website for those issues (link below), http://forum.osxlatitude.com/index.php?/topic/9854-main-discussion-dual-cpu-dmg/ In that link (above) you'll a list of discrepancies that I found in his instructions and what needs to be looked at and changed. It's obvious that he has not replied to my particular posts, as he has with others (link provided below) that are related to other types of system board setups: http://forum.osxlatitude.com/index.php?/forum/188-rampage-dev/ Nobody else has (or is currently working on) a build quite like this one that we put together with success. At least the short success that I've had up until the latest update. I did do some searching, as I don't want to say I'm the first one that's had success with particular mobo's setup (link below): http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/308458-supermicro-x9dai-dsdt/ A link for the sound issue: http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/317358-how-to-getting-supermicro-x9dai-audio-working/ Also you can just Google: Hackintosh X9DAi (link below): https://www.google.com/search?q=hackintosh+x9dai&oq=hackintosh+x9d&aqs=chrome.1.69i57j0l2.8159j0j1&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 In any case, if I could possibly provide the help needed (with both of those DMG files) to figure out which other files that are needed (or not needed), that would be great. Thank you again for your help... :-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BALDY_MAN Posted July 13, 2017 Share Posted July 13, 2017 @PunkNugget you could make a os clover usb using his dmg. first make a os usb then add clover open the efi partition and add his files repair permissions in disk on the your usb. and install from the usb you have made then add clover to the install with the same files in the install EFIpartition of the install Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PunkNugget Posted July 13, 2017 Author Share Posted July 13, 2017 Tomorrow when I get the board, I will go into my BIOS (finally) and make the necessary (proper) changes this time to see if my updated SSD and my new install SSD work. If they do great, if not, I will let you know either way. Thanks... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BALDY_MAN Posted July 13, 2017 Share Posted July 13, 2017 Pleasure Best of luck with it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PunkNugget Posted July 18, 2017 Author Share Posted July 18, 2017 Well it looks like my motherboard came back and the day it came back, guess who contacted me? That's right, Andrew Kern. Really grateful that we had a chance to communicate and work things out. He also made some time to help me with my situation and although I'm still facing some issues with only being able to use 4 RAM slots and not all 16 of them, it's still up an running with all cores working and at least one Titan X GPU and works now. Got a recent Geekbench of 49,488. Not bad, still needs some fixing though... http://browser.geekbench.com/geekbench3/8408188 Couldn't have done this without Andrew's help. Thanks again Andrew! Hope you enjoy your gift. Also, thanks to you too Baldy, I really appreciate you too for making effort reaching out to me to want to help me, so again, thanks! I now have to possibly turn in the board back to Supermicro to have them look at the board again. Hopefully they can find out what the issue is. We'll see what happens when it comes back and finally hook everything back up. I'll keep you posted... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BALDY_MAN Posted July 18, 2017 Share Posted July 18, 2017 glad ya got it running Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PunkNugget Posted July 18, 2017 Author Share Posted July 18, 2017 Well for now I do. I'm going to see what happens once we get this hopefully fixed by Supermicro when I send it out again. They want to help and have it sent overnight (they will pay this time) and will fix it same day and have it sent back overnight. I'm very grateful that they are helping me in this way and can hopefully fix the issue with my RAM slots (if that's the issue). We'll see. I'll keep you posted... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BALDY_MAN Posted July 18, 2017 Share Posted July 18, 2017 thank you for keeping me informed. perhaps at sometime later on you mite think of getting a 0zmosis bios done for your board as the are some great developers here and im sure you could get help with making one i think your Titans will be more suited to mac os. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PunkNugget Posted July 19, 2017 Author Share Posted July 19, 2017 Thanks for that info, but what is 0zmosis for BIOS? Can you explain in more detail and provide web links for me to possibly read up on that? Thank you... I just was looking up Ozmosis for BIOS and found an article (oddly enough here on InsanelyMac) and it's where I would have to flash my existing BIOS. That is probably not going to be the move I make, if that's the case. The reason why, because of the risk of messing things up beyond repair on the board. To me that's not the route I would like to go. Lastly, it looks like it was for a specific board. I hope you have taken the time to thoroughly look through Andrew's posts that I provided (above) with his Install DMG and Dual CPU DMG, because that method works for me. The only thing is, it's not perfected the way it could be, as it's missing about 2 or 3 things. He's going to be working on that later though, but he is a very busy person with a career and that obviously takes precedence over correcting a manual that he voluntarily put together for guys like us. Thanks again and I look forward to your reply... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BALDY_MAN Posted July 19, 2017 Share Posted July 19, 2017 i down loaded the DMG Dual cpu last week im having another read. the methard looks ok clover as been updated quite a bit since the guid was written and as more options. in it now what do you think needs improving? you can down load clover configerator mount you efi folder to change things ok what i would do. have a venalla install spare on a h/d ssd and make a clover usb. using the latest clover to experiment booting with. and get used to using clover configerator and changing things in the efi folder Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PunkNugget Posted July 19, 2017 Author Share Posted July 19, 2017 Andrew installed the updated Clover and made various adjustments and we even tried a suggestion that his other programming friend suggested: "I fixed the Nvidia problem, it was BIOS related, in the video op ROM. I had selected UEFI, thing is if you put it back to Legacy the GPU work and now I'm running on Nvidia drivers again." This time I did what I was supposed to do and… the nVidia drivers kicked in and worked. In fact all three monitors are back up and running now. In the meantime I'm going to wait until my board get fixed and brought back to me and we're going to go from there. Also, I did a clean install on another SSD with Sierra installed. So I'm okay with that, but I'm more excited that I'm updated existing SSD (that has all my apps and other things I've been using) working just fine. Now all I have to do is learn how to make a proper backup of my existing SSD. Any thoughts on how that process works? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BALDY_MAN Posted July 19, 2017 Share Posted July 19, 2017 back up ssdthere you go. I think its in English as I'm just on Sierra beta 3 at the moment no sound I've got time machine back up of files. and I could copy and past to a clean install Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PunkNugget Posted July 19, 2017 Author Share Posted July 19, 2017 Thanks I'm going to give it a shot. Tried to do it with CCC (Carbon Copy Cloner), but that failed and didn't work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BALDY_MAN Posted July 19, 2017 Share Posted July 19, 2017 tell me how you get on Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PunkNugget Posted August 1, 2017 Author Share Posted August 1, 2017 Well, it looks like everything is fully tested and now working (RAM and all), but... It's still freezing. So Andrew thought it could be the custom cables that were attached to the system. So I used my stock cables that came with my EVGA 1600 P2 PSU. I also took out the PSU so it was not in the case at all (for grounding issue testing). Well, this time it froze in about 5 min. Then I disconnected the PSU and all the cables and used a leftover LEPA 1600W PSU and attached the stock cables and... same thing. Froze within 5 min. I'm going to disconnect both my USB 3.0 cables that plug into my board and see if that's the issue. Never mind, just tested it and same thing. It froze. I just don't know anymore. Any help would be great from anyone at this point. Thanks... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BALDY_MAN Posted August 1, 2017 Share Posted August 1, 2017 you need to find out if it is a hardware or software fault. so i would load a copy of windows and give the pc a good stess test with occt for 48 hour first. http://www.ocbase.com/index.php/download this should stress test the hard wear for you. and we can go for there Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PunkNugget Posted August 24, 2017 Author Share Posted August 24, 2017 Sorry to highjack a little bit the thread... Congrats for the build mates, my question is for PunkNugget... I have a similar rig to yours, and I'm one that has been working with Andrew to get everything running on this motherboards/cpu combos (X9DAi and Sandy/Ivy CPUs). Are you running already High Sierra on your rig ? If yes I'm curious because I got HS running on it, but having trouble with Power Management and some lagginess with the system, when under Sierra it is running Flawless. I can also confirm that Vega runs out of the box! Thanks for any insight Well, what can I say? No I'm not running High Sierra (HS), just 10.12.5 and I'm pretty much stuck with my system continually freezing and I still don't know what to do. Honestly, although I'm excited that I got the fastest GB score (59,104), I really don't care, because if my system is going to continue freezing every 1 to 3 hours whenever it wants and I'm going to have to restart it and Andrew and I still can't figure out what's still going on with the system, then I'd rather go with a system that's going to work a GB score average of 50,000+ and still get great results. Believe me, this has been humbling experience (like it was with my original MacHack Pro system that I built 6+ years ago where I spent months trying to get it to work before I met Andrew). But ever since Andrew stopped communicating (until recently) for 2 months, that gave me great pause in my life and when I went to Philly for a film production job, Andrew and I finally met (after 6+ years of online convos), had dinner and got things worked out. But he's a very busy man and quite honestly I think he may be done doing this as he makes a great living doing something else and this is just a hobby. But I did find someone else who is fantastic at installing pretty much any setup (as long as it's not a Dual CPU system). Hit me up on my email at: punknugget@gmail.com and I'll put you in touch with him. I will tell you this though (and I said the same thing about Andrew), don't cheese these guys out, contribute to their efforts they deserve. What do I mean? Pay them what they're worth ($150 contribution sounds about right). Mind you, I get nothing from it, except the satisfaction that I'm able to help out guys Andrew that are willing to help guys like us have an operational system. If you're willing to do that, then I'll forward him your info and you can go from there. As you know, Andrew is not easy to get a hold of and really won't be available until October, and even then, he's going to play catch up with his site and all the other questions that he's going to have to answer from guys like us who need his help. That's why I say - contribute to them what they're worth. But make sure you and whoever it is you're going to use understands and agrees to what you need and what they're willing to do so there is no miscommunication and no feels like they're getting burned on either side. Hope this info helps and I look forward to your reply, later... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arkanis Posted August 24, 2017 Share Posted August 24, 2017 Hey Punk, I clearly understand your point of view and I totally agree with it, I've been collaborating with Andrew for a long time... in fact since the Z9PE board came ou for dual Sandy CPUs... boy that board is a piece of {censored} we even had to give feedback to Asus to change the Bios, fun times. I know he's been really busy, had him on the phone recently and had a long talk about future developments at Apple, where this scene is going, how we felt about the sharing/giving (or the lack of it), etc. so trust me, I know exactly how you feel and how we feel too. Lucky you to meet him, I'm in Europe at the moment so it is hard to catch him in person from here. The X9DAi is the board we found with Andrew to be the most rock solid, easy to work with, etc. and since then I've been running this here, unluckily I don't have such powerful CPU's as yours but it has done the trick for all the audiovisual work I do (I understand from what you say that we are probably working in the same field). So regarding the freezing maybe I can help you out, who knows... I've dealt with my hurdles with this board too and got to know it pretty well by now. What I can say about this board is that on my end, I don't have any freeze, but our hardware might be different (add-on cards, dongles, etc.)... I will shoot you an email so you have my contact and we can discuss about your freezing problem, (maybe a skype call would be easier also) if you want to. Now regarding High Sierra, it is still in beta so I cannot say much other than I got it working/booting... but problems remain: - PM is patched but not working properly... all the states get recognised at boot and validated with the SSDT but nonetheless no real PM in the system (Might be apple trolling us). - 1 CPU seems to be doing all the work, all the rest remain pretty much idle (Might be apple trolling us). - Board sound isn't working with previous method. Once those are solved, I will move on to BlackMagic drivers... I don't know you, but on my end, when installing decklink drivers on this board breaks completely the system performance. That problem didn't existed under Mavericks, as soon as Sierra wen't 10.12.3 I believe it went downhill. Andrew has experienced the same problem on his side with different CPUs and config. We reached BMD, but they reacted like douches. Anyway, interesting read/talk, take care and talk soon I hope. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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