Follow along with the video below to see how to install our site as a web app on your home screen.
Note: This feature currently requires accessing the site using the built-in Safari browser.
I saw a sig with a C14 in an NCase - i didn't think that fitted. very curious now, but will see how the current one gets on
Nox
950 Pro works perfectly well with the board for me in Windows 10 and even in OS X. If you've got CSM enabled in UEFI you need to set the Storage option to "Don't load", or the system will freeze any time you exit the UEFI setup. Other than that, no issues at all. Since it sits right next to the CPU socket it even gets some airflow from my CPU fan.
For RAM see the previous page, Corsair seem to work fine for me and one other person at least.
i run everything with a +25% across the board. Noise from the noctua is drowned out by my GPU - before the noctua, the irritating thing was the clicking from the seidon pump.
Temp wise it's roughly the same under full load. I ran a load with the seidon and it was 75-76 degrees C, swapped over to the noctua and reran the test. It was 76-77... Either way, it's so close and a noise upgrade for sure.
...
I saw a sig with a C14 in an NCase - i didn't think that fitted.
I have now completed and successfully commissioned my new "carry-on baggage" XEON based demo machine and after a successful capital city trip around Australia can attest to its worthiness as an extremely capable travelling companion.
Lian Li PC-TU100B
950 Pro works perfectly well with the board for me in Windows 10 and even in OS X. If you've got CSM enabled in UEFI you need to set the Storage option to "Don't load", or the system will freeze any time you exit the UEFI setup. Other than that, no issues at all. Since it sits right next to the CPU socket it even gets some airflow from my CPU fan.
For RAM see the previous page, Corsair seem to work fine for me and one other person at least.
I'm running 10.11.3. This supports X99 natively, i.e. no need for fake CPU id or VoodooTSCSync. Installation took me a while to figure out, but was relatively smooth in the end, except I didn't manage to do it with my GTX 980. NVME works surprisingly well even for the boot drive using the MinnowStor driver injected with clover. Only two things I haven't figured out yet are the Intel USB 3.0 ports (the ASMedia 3.1 ports work with some trickery) and sleep. I'd be happy to give you some pointers if you do decide to go ahead with it.
can you install OS X after a Windows has been installed? or am I going to have to flatten the SSD and start from scratch?
Nox
it's been solved with chipset driver updates on other forums, but I can't find any for x99 on the intel site for win 10
latest bios?
Nox
@crhendo, looks like quite a little powerhouse. I'm curious about how you are transporting the system, if you wouldn't mind sharing. Do you cover it at all to keep out the elements with e.g. a Pelican case, or just carry it naked? Do you also carry peripherals with you, or just borrow at your demo sites? Someone else on the thread (apologies that I have forgotten whom) built a Xeon system in a Corsair 380T for portable work, which also seems like a fairly rugged solution, but the PC-TU100B is even tinier. I occasionally use a Geargrip Micro harness to transport my Ncase M1 system, and toss it into a carry-on suitcase when flying, but it's not really something I'd like to do every week. If I'm getting too off-topic, I'm happy to move this discussion to a PM or another thread.
I'm running 10.11.3. This supports X99 natively, i.e. no need for fake CPU id or VoodooTSCSync. Installation took me a while to figure out, but was relatively smooth in the end, except I didn't manage to do it with my GTX 980. NVME works surprisingly well even for the boot drive using the MinnowStor driver injected with clover. Only two things I haven't figured out yet are the Intel USB 3.0 ports (the ASMedia 3.1 ports work with some trickery) and sleep. I'd be happy to give you some pointers if you do decide to go ahead with it.
I would point out that at this point I have not seen a report of the 2676 v3 working on El Capitan. It's possible of course that it could. While the 5820K, 5830K, and some of the Xeons boot no problem, the 5960X and other high core count Xeons can't make it past the PCI Config Begin stage of the boot process. You will be able to, however, run Yosemite no problem for sure using roll back PCI kexts from 10.9.5. I expect that when full C612 support is built in this shouldn't be an issue when the new mac pro comes out.
I have now completed and successfully commissioned my new "carry-on baggage" XEON based demo machine and after a successful capital city trip around Australia can attest to its worthiness as an extremely capable travelling companion.
Just as a quick reminder, here are my build details with a few last minute changes highlighted with links:-
XEON E5-2676 V3
32GB Crucial (2x16GB) Registered DDR4-2133 memory
Samsung 512GB 950 Pro
2x Crucial M550 1TB 2.5" (in RAID 0 array)
1x Samsung M9T 2GB 2.5" drive
Zotac GeForce GTX 750 Ti 2GB
Silverstone Strider Gold 450 80+ SFX PSU
Cooler Master Seidon 120V cooler
EK-TIM Indigo Extreme for 2011-3
EK-Vardar F4-120ER fan
Lian Li PC-TU100B
A few notes about the build are as follows:-
- The Seidon 120V was a perfect fit for this build and (despite what others have reported) is quiet as a mouse
- The EK-Tim from Indigo was a real find. Not only did it keep the temps down to 43C at full load but it meant the fan speed NEVER increases above its almost silent lowest speed.
- There were a few complaints across a number of forums about the Coolermaster fan that shipped with the Seidon 120V. For this reason I installed the EK-Varder fan instead. However, now that I have discovered how effective the EK-TIM is at keeping CPU temps down, I do believe the Coolermaster stock fan set at its slowest speed would have been fine
- The only actual mods I had to do was the fiddly retrofit of the case fan mounting to the Seidon 120V and the trimming of one corner of the fan to allow access to the SATA slots.
I'm very happy with the result and can also thoroughly recommend the use of the Intel 2011-3 E5 2676 V3 ES which is a truly remarkable workhorse for only around $300 on eBay (AND runs happily with BCLK set to 105).
i was able to install OS using 2x16gb corsair dominator 3000mhz at rated specs using the latest bios.
no further testing was done as there was no overclock.
Can confirm that Corsair seem to work fine. I've got 2x16GB Vengeance LPX 2666 running at 2800, without any problems. Can't promise anything regarding faster Vengeance kits of course, but I'd expect them to work as well. I needed a 4GB DIMM to upgrade the BIOS first.
It's possible to enlarge it if you move the Windows partition back first, but I think I needed to do that in gparted booted from a thumbdrive rather than in Windows itself. Oh, and I think I accidentally wiped the EFI partition at some point in the process and had to recreate the Windows bootloader from the installer. But, it's possible.
Alternatively it seems you can create a new EFI partition as well: http://www.tonymacx86.com/yosemite-...h-space-device-requested-operation-error.html
Anyway, getting a bit off topic, but feel free to PM me if I can help out.
Thanks. This is all useful information. Many of the recent high-profile ITX cases seem more focused on aesthetics than portability, so it's nice to hear from someone who actually uses their build for travel. The handle is nice, and the lack of perforations in the top panel gives you a measure of protection from rain as well, though I'm sure you're not leaving it out in a downpour.The thing that attracted me about the Lian-Li case (other than it's size) was the handle... So yes, it travels "naked".
Awesome build. What kind of work do you do using the 2676?
Thanks. This is all useful information.....though I'm sure you're not leaving it out in a downpour.
The PC-TU100 was reviewed fairly negatively by Anandtech and others for its poor thermals. $ 300 US for twelve Xeon cores does seem like the steal of the year.
If you could help me out that would be incredible, I've been trying to get OS X installed for weeks now. I think part of the issue is potentially my Xeon 2676 V3 but I've been trying 10.10.3 for that reason. I actually got to the point where I had it installed, and Nvidia web drivers working for my 980 Ti but I had no ethernet, bluetooth or wifi. I then used multibeast and must have accidentally installed something because it never booted again despite undoing everything I thought it. I wiped the partition and tried to start from scratch but now I can't get a 10.10 or 10.11 installer to boot at all no matter what I try, I get stuck at "com.apple.applefscompressiontypedataless load succeeded" during the boot process.
Would really appreciate seeing the general path you took to get going and the exact versions of Unibeast or whatever. Thanks man.
New bios, 1.5. Enables csm again so loose the high res bios (but easy to disable again)
Nvme compatibility is there(but was ok before anyway!)
I haven't run into that specific error. But I had trouble for the longest time even getting into the installer as well (both on 10.10 and 10.11). The only way to do it in the end for me was to use a GTX 650 (for the install only) instead of the 980 I use otherwise. There's one person on tonymacx86 who had to do the same, though with a GT 430: http://www.tonymacx86.com/user-buil...tx-ac-ssd-sm951-6-core-5820k-32gb-gtx970.html
I did once manage to boot into the 10.10.5 installer with the 980, but then messed up the install and never managed to get the installer booting again until I switched GPU. So it might be worth a try to get a cheap second-hand GPU just for the install. It does seem to depend on the exact GPU though; I tried a Geforce 210 and a Radeon 5450 too and neither worked.
One other thing to try first: Is that error happening soon after PCI Configuration Begin? Possibly that is the real issue? For 10.10 you need to inject a few kexts from 10.9 to get past that stage, are you doing that?
The integrated ethernet ports work with AppleIntelE1000e.kext and AppleIGB.kext respectively. The Wi-Fi / BT card that comes with the board can be made to work as well. I used BrcmFirmwareData.kext, BrcmPatchRAM2.kext and FakePCIID_Broadcom_WiFi.kext and a few kext patches in clover. There's a guid here: http://www.tonymacx86.com/network/104850-guide-airport-pcie-half-mini-v2.html I can look up the exact patches I put in clover later and post them here, though you'd have to alter them slightly to fit the SMBIOS you're using and the country code you want for your Wi-Fi. That said, the original card that ships with the board is very unreliable for me (in Windows too), so you might be better of just getting a BCM94360CD card. (That one should work in OS X out of the box.)
Hope this helps.
Is PCI Bifurcation available as an option in this one?
no clue. Will have a peek, any ideas where it might be?
Yes, I have run into that and posted a video of it the first time I encountered it many months back. I guessed that they used a lot of the same code from their server line and just had it hidden normally.I just had a look, and can't find any option like that. In fact the "Advanced" tab looks unchanged from 1.40 altogether. The only PCIe related options I can find are under "Chipset", and related to ASPM, SR-IOV and link speed.
On a related note, I have just now managed for the second time to get into a usually hidden 'more advanced' menu of sorts. It contains an extra "Advanced" tab with additional options and an "IntelRCSetup" tab. Any of you ever run into this before? Images below:
![]()
![]()
jb1, I've looked, nothing regarding bifurcation in there either as far as I can tell. I took photos of everything PCIe related though and can email them to you.
Also, do you know if it's possible to downgrade the BIOS? I would upgrade and check for myself, but not if I wouldn't be permitted to downgrade to something that works with bifurcation.
Yes, I have run into that and posted a video of it the first time I encountered it many months back. I guessed that they used a lot of the same code from their server line and just had it hidden normally.
I just flashed 1.40 over 1.50, so this seems to be possible.
I am surprised that the e5-2676v3 ES worked since it is not a supported CPU. What was the stepping and revision details on this CPU?