iMac Pro Xeon Build

    Hallo Leute,


    Ich lese dieses Forum sehr gerne und Dieses Forum hat mir sehr geholfen mit meinem Hackintosh Build. Ich verstehe Deutsch sehr gut, aber ich spreche es nicht so gut. Also, entschuldigen Sie mich, ich werde in English schreiben.


    I built a few Hackintoshes and thanks to this forum I resolved quite a few problems (USB ports config, network...) with my builds.


    Since new modular Mac Pro is not near, I decided to build one myself. I have Intel i9 configuration already, but for some of my tasks I wanted something a bit different - Xeon based.


    So I went on and bought following:


    Motherboard: Supermicro X11SRA https://www.supermicro.com/pro…rd/Xeon/C420/X11SRA-F.cfm


    This motherboard has a great M.2 and U.2 drive support, up to 256GB ECC RDIMM DDR4 support, 2 network cards (1Gbit and 5Gbit)...


    CPU: Intel W-2175 https://ark.intel.com/products…sor-19_25M-Cache-2_50-GHz This CPU can be found in new iMac Pro


    RAM: 32GB modules of DDR4-266 RDIMM (so far I have 128GB, expecting one more kit of 128GB so that I have 256GB of RAM in total)


    Disks: 2x 1TB Samsung M.2 960Pro and 2x Intel Optane 900P 480GB


    Graphics card: AMD Vega Frontier Edition 16GB


    Power supply: Corsair HX1200i


    CPU is cooled with Noctua NH-D15 and chassis with NF-A14.


    I went with Clover installation, and install of High Sierra 10.13.3 went through first time.


    Everything is stable so far and I only have a few problems:


    5Gbit Aquantia AQC108 Network card is not recognized (second NIC from Intel works)


    AMD Vega Frontier fans are pretty loud. I thought AMD fan spinning bug was corrected in 10.13.3, but obviously it is not.


    Now to the question:


    I based my Clover on iMac Pro 1.1 with OsxAptioFix2Drv-free2000.efi and EmuVariableUefi-64.efi. I read a lot that these files are not the way to go with High Sierra 10.13 installs.


    What do you recommend, what are your experiences?


    If there will be interest I can write about my setup in more details.

    willkommen ;)


    you could test 10.13.4 beta for the fan issue, i can‘t tell if there‘s a difference since my vega is on water but there are people claiming it fixed the fan - and other issues!


    also you could swap out osxaptiofix and emuvariable for aptiomemoryfix.efi - had no problems with this on several builds. gets you native nvram, which is nice ^^

    Danke für die freundliche Begrüßung :)


    @iMarc - I also have egpu case, and I tested Vega Frontier with Macbook Pro which is on beta High Sierra - no luck so far, at least for me.


    I was also thinking about water based cooling, but I had some bad experiences with water and expensive hardware, so I'm staying with air.


    I was reading about aptiomemoryfix.efi and native nvram support but wasn't sure if that was the right way to go. I'm switching now to aptiomemoryfix.efi - thanks for the tip :)

    are you on newest beta, released yesterday? i think fan issue was claimed fixed on 10.13.4 beta 3


    also, would you mind checking if your vega behaves or sounds like this as an egpu?


    [Externes Medium: https://youtu.be/y6gLpCb8rMw]

    Hallo @turboyoda
    (and all other nice people on this impressive hackintosh forum)
    Sorry for writing in bad english but i have no choice because my german is worse or "nix gut" and swedish is not an option.
    Last week I've bought myself a new rig.
    Asus WS C422 motherboard
    64GB 2666 Mhz DDR4 ECC Ram (16384 Mb x 4)
    Intel Xenon W-2175
    My goal was as @turboyoda to try to build my own iMac Pro with hardware as near as the original as possible. I have now put up my rig with an old Zalman water cooler, RX Vega 56 graphics and two M.2 1 TB Samsung 950 Evo Pro.
    I've followed KGP:s very impressive guide with Skylake X299 on this thread: http://www.insanelymac.com/for…sful-buildextended-guide/ just to get the basic information. My problem now is that I can't even boot up and install HighSierra. Is there anybody out there how could guide me in the right direction?
    The MSR 0xE2 register is unlocked with an UEFI-patch on my ASUS-mobo and I've tried booting with all different combinations of OsxAptioFix-drivers including Test2-2016.efi and the new AptioMemoryFix without success.


    Could maybe you @turboyoda shed some light or maybe share your EFI?
    Best regards
    Totte

    My build is much more modest (and older) than yours, but I also have an air cooled Vega FE which starts with the fan at full speed. However, as soon as I open youtube the fan goes silent as if that makes the control kick in. This is reproducible behaviour here and I have a hunch it might be h.264 related, but it also might be coincidental. Would be interesting to see if it's just my machine though. This is on 10.13.3.

    @Vathek you could try the latest 10.13.4 beta 4, can't tell if anything changed on fan behaviour but it fixed some graphics issues introduced with beta 3 and also recognize vega correctly as vega gpus instead of RX XXX. there must be a lot of driver improvement going on lately

    Thanks iMarc, I'm aware of that, but this is a computer I need to work with so I'll just wait until 10.13.4 is officially released, the fan issue is really not that big of a deal. The IMO lacklustre performance of the Vega kind of is, but that's another topic and hopefully this will improve as well while the driver is being improved as you mention. I just found the spinning down of the fan once video playback is involved interesting.

    it seems apples driver handles things a bit different than windows, i noticed the %usage on vega gpu tach only knows 2 states like 100% load or 0%, while light usage shows a flimmery 100% instead of something like 10% usage. maybe fanspeed is somehow related to usage too, since the iMac Pro doesnt share the same thermal solution than a regular vega card would.


    i think once eGPU support is out of beta, things should improve. or as late as with the modular mac pro, iMac Pro release didn‘t help at all

    Sorry for not answering in timely manner, I had a lot of work lately.


    @iMarc - I'll probably be waiting for official 10.13.4 release, but thanks for the heads up on fan problem.


    As for strange sound - no I don't have that problem with my vega. I'm not sure from the video you uploaded, LEDs on your vega look like it is under full load, or the card is idling in this video?


    It sounds to me like you have coil whine "problem", I had it with few of my graphics cards. It manifests itself only while the gpu is under heavy load or way over 60fps. If you need further assistance, I'll be happy to assist.


    @totte I'll upload my working EFI so you can try it. I just need to find a way to upload here. Edit: I uploaded my working efi. Not the latest, but this is 100% working (at least for me).


    @Vathek - I tried the trick with youtube but It didn't work. I just tried it again after reading your post and it works now :) Fans are quiet. I'll guess it will have to be youtube in the background will 10.13.4 is out.

    Dateien

    • EFI.zip

      (17,69 MB, 168 Mal heruntergeladen, zuletzt: )

    Einmal editiert, zuletzt von turboyoda ()

    In order to upload files just click on "More Options" or in german "Erweiterte Antwort" and you'll be able to attach files to your postings as well. If you like to add files to existent postings you may also use "More Options" in the Edit Menu. :D

    Haswell, Notebook
    Zitat von griven

    In order to upload files just click on "More Options" or in german "Erweiterte Antwort" and you'll be able to attach files to your postings as well. If you like to add files to existent postings you may also use "More Options" in the Edit Menu. :D


    Nochmals vielen Dank. :) Ich gelang mir es zu hochladen.

    vega is not under load at all in this video, it just happens under macOS, but it got a lot beta with the latest beta versions of macOS. it seems like macOS handles gpu load a lot different thant windows, every load seems to be full load.


    but just to be clear: your leds arent flickering like mine?

    Zitat von iMarc

    vega is not under load at all in this video, it just happens under macOS, but it got a lot beta with the latest beta versions of macOS. it seems like macOS handles gpu load a lot different thant windows, every load seems to be full load.


    but just to be clear: your leds arent flickering like mine?


    If you have Windows installation try following: download one of the Unigine benchmark tools (https://benchmark.unigine.com) Heaven, Valley or the latest one - Superposition, run it and listen to the sounds of your GPU.


    Also, the test on which I got loudest coil whine from my GPUs is 3D Mark (https://www.futuremark.com/benchmarks/3dmark) Ice Strom test. It runs on very high FPS on new GPUs.


    You can try all of the mentioned above in Windows, it will benchmark your GPU, put some load on it and you'll see if the vega still produces that sound.


    My LEDs are sometimes flickering just like yours, depends on the load which system puts on the GPU. These LEDs should be "load meter" for the Vega Frontier.


    Please try tests I mentioned above in Windows when you have opportunity, so we can see if the issue can be reproduced i nWindows environment.

    well yeah, i have coil whine in windows under heavy load, thats totaly fine, its not nearly as loud as in macOS. but in macOS, the gpu is everytime under full load, just for milliseconds. but as i said, latest betas fixes the noise

    Zitat von iMarc

    well yeah, i have coil whine in windows under heavy load, thats totaly fine, its not nearly as loud as in macOS. but in macOS, the gpu is everytime under full load, just for milliseconds. but as i said, latest betas fixes the noise


    10.13.4 is out of the beta in few days, so lets hope it fixes our gpu problems.


    if you feel annoyed by coil whine maybe you can exchange your card if it is still in warranty. I succeeded with exchanging mine, but the new one I got also has coil whine while under full load.

    Zitat von turboyoda

    Sorry for not answering in timely manner, I had a lot of work lately.
    @totte I'll upload my working EFI so you can try it. I just need to find a way to upload here. Edit: I uploaded my working efi. Not the latest, but this is 100% working (at least for me).



    Cheers @turboyoda
    I will check your EFI and see if there is something I can use.
    My problem is that ASUS bios has a, locked mainboard BIOS, MSR 0xE2 register.
    Because of that I need FakeCPUID 0x040674, xcpm_program_msrs (c) Pike R. Alpha-patch in clover kernel to patch and TSCAdjustReset.kext.


    Do you have any idea's how to get rid of that?
    I bought a new Radeon RX Vega 64 Liquid and the performance is really bad.
    Is this your experience too?

    Einmal editiert, zuletzt von al6042 ()

    Edit by derHackfan: Bitte keine Vollzitate in Vollzitaten verwenden.


    EFI that I uploaded has everything for the locked BIOS, so you can try it and let us know if it worked.


    You can find steps for unlocking ASUS BIOS (X299 platform) on other forums (maybe there is a thread even here).


    As for the VEGA, I haven't worked yet on this build, so I don't know about performance of the GPU. I'm currently downloading 10.13.4 and if the GPU is quiet I will then go forward into more testing and production with this Xeon build.