GA-Z170X-UD5 TH multiple issues, including RAM, error code b6 and EFI boot

[philtimm]

Hi!  This is my first post! I've read the FAQ, done some searching and have had no luck, so here goes:

I'm building a new PC.  Here's the list of key components, with their Amazon pages:

Gigabyte Z170X-UD5 TH Mobo with Thunderbolt 3
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B014Q5D12S

Intel Core I7-6700K Processor (4 GHz, 8 M Cache, LGA1151)
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B012M8LXQW

Ballistix Elite 32 GB Kit (8 GB x 4) DDR4 2666 MT/s (PC4-21300) DIMM 288-Pin Memory, BLE4C8G4D26AFEA
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00RCGJPUQ

Samsung 500GB 850 EVO M.2 SSD
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00TGIW1XG

I also have an Asus GeForce STRIX-GTX970
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Asus-GeForce-STRIX-GTX970-DC2OC-4GD5-Graphics-GDDR5/dp/B00NJ9BJ8G

and a SanDisk Ultra II SSD 960 GB Sata III
https://www.amazon.co.uk/SanDisk-Ultra-Sata-inch-Internal/dp/B00M8ABHVQ

both from my old machine.

I have built a dual boot Windows 10/Hackintosh machine, with the OS's on separate drives, with the Clover boot manager.  (I'll not be asking any Hackintosh related questions here, though I have many! I'm also on another forum.)

My Gigabyte hardware issues are these:

1. I regularly have to reboot at least twice, sometimes more, in order to get a bootup, with the mobo giving a b2 LED error, which is a "Legacy Option ROM Initialization".  Is that something I need, and can disable?  (As an aside, I was previously thinking I was getting error code 62, which looks a lot like b2. The last few failures have DEFINITELY been b2, though.)

2. When I launch Windows 10, the audio coming out of the line out on the mobo into my Cambridge Audio amp (via good quality cables) squeaks and squeals like an orgasmic mouse.  Via the front panel headphone connector, it's perfect.
When I am in OSX, the sound is perfect from the rear connector.  The audio cables are as far away from power lines as is possible.  Any idea why, and what I can do to stop this?

3. My RAM DIMMS -=should=- work in XMP mode, but nothing will boot when I enable XMP profile 1 in the BIOS.  That appears to be a common problem that's been seen with this mobo since January 2016, so I've little hope of solving that issue any time soon. The mobo came with firmware F4, and I upgraded it to F5, as it said it addressed an XMP issue, but it doesn't help.  The RAM is not on the approved hardware list.  Is there anything I can do?

I would appreciate any help you can offer!

Phil

[shadowsports]

Greetings Phil,

A few questions?  What OS did you install first?  Windows?  Did windows boot ok prior to you adding the boot manger and OSX?  Did you install it as UEFI?  Did sound work correctly prior to the boot manager and other OS? 

I'm just going to give some general feedback.  Its not usually a good idea to put different OS's on different drives (same machine) and rely on the BIOS to manually select the OS you want to run.  (I know you aren't doing this).

While a boot manager is definitely the way to go, typically you want to have everything on one disk, residing on individual partitions.  Of course there are exceptions but more issues seem to arise when the OS's are not in the same "family".  Some boot managers make big claims but fail when dealing with GRUB, MBR/GPT and HPFS at the same time.  I noticed Clover is free ware.  This is not a bad thing.

Bigger concern.  While it is possible to make back ups of your installs, restoring any of the individual partitions is usually a nightmare.  (Doesn't work) and you end up with a system that won't start or run.  You have quiet a bit of horsepower.  Have you considered a VM?  In my experience this is a more reliable headache free solution.
   
Regarding item 1. I can't say with certainty if you don't need this option.  If you didn't install windows selecting the UEFI: Prefixed Install media you might need it.  The B2 issue might have to do with the boot manager, or the way windows or OSX was installed.  I am familiar with MACs but not specifically with Clover.  There are BIOS options to disable Legacy boot support.  Search your manual for CSM..  it will be there. 

Item 2.  I have a CA amp myself.  Older now, but the sound is great.  Sounds like you are getting some type of weird feedback. I would think this is software related as it doesn't happen in OSX.  You would need to confirm whether it happens with W10 on its own.   

Item 3.  When your RAM isn't on the QVL, it can be a crap shoot getting it to run properly.  If the modules don't conform to the expected JDEC standard, enabling XMP profiles will not help.  Default RAM runs at 2133Mhz for the Z170 chipset.  Anything faster typically requires some OC tweaks.  Sometimes just setting the memory parameters manually, timings, voltage, etc can work (even with faster RAM) but is not guaranteed.  You might have to experiment.  Start by forcing it to run at 2133Mhz and go from there.  Don't want to mess with it, (short answer) buy QVL RAM.

Sorry if my comments aren't much help.  You have a lot going on and I don't think there is a single solution.  Its going to take some work and trial and error on your part to solve.

[philtimm]

Hey, Shadowsports!  Looking around the place, I wasn't surprised to see that it was you who'd replied!  Thanks!  OK:

> What OS did you install first?  Windows?  Did windows boot ok prior to you adding the boot manger and OSX?

Yes, Windows 10 got installed onto the M.2 SATA SSD in the UEFI stylee. Sound was "squeaky" from the first moment Windows launched.

The other OS was installed onto a Sandisk SSD afterwards.  Everything I had read about building Hackintoshes said that having the two OSs on partitions of the same drive was much harder to do, and seperate drives was much easier.

> Its not usually a good idea to put different OS's on different drives (same machine) and rely on the BIOS to manually select the OS you want to run.

Interesting.  Might that be why, in the BIOS boot options, I get MANY instances of the same disk/partition, just like this video http://bit.ly/2dojN7Z?

Currently, it's set to auto-boot from the EFI partition on the Sandisk SSD which contains Clover.  Clover gives me the Windows/OSX boot options (as well as lots of other phantom Windows installs that don't work, but that's OK).

> Have you considered a VM?
No.  I need the Mac for some pretty intensive video software, and I want native Windows for gaming goodness!

> Regarding item 1 (the reboot hanging, b2 error code) Search your manual for CSM...

The only place I've seen CSM is when I choose Windows 8/10 as the OS.  I'm using the "Other OS" option, so that shouldn't be enabled anyway...

> Item 2.  I have a CA amp myself...

Well, the electrics in my house are a bit poor, and we are moving in a couple of weeks, so I'll see if I still get it in our new house.

> Item 3.  When your RAM isn't on the QVL, it can be a crap shoot getting it to run properly.

Hopefully, this is something that I can get some help with! I've got CPU-Z running, and it's got some crappy looking numbers in it. 

I'll post some of the text report, but it basically says that the DRAM freq is 1200Mhz, which is clearly far slower than it should be.  At this point, XMP is disabled.


Chipset
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Northbridge         Intel Skylake rev. 07
Southbridge         Intel Z170 rev. 31
Graphic Interface      PCI-Express
PCI-E Link Width      x16
PCI-E Max Link Width      x16
Memory Type         DDR4
Memory Size         32 GBytes
Channels         Dual
Memory Frequency      1200.1 MHz (1:18)
CAS# latency (CL)      16.0
RAS# to CAS# delay (tRCD)   16
RAS# Precharge (tRP)      16
Cycle Time (tRAS)      39
Row Refresh Cycle Time (tRFC)   313
Command Rate (CR)      2T
Uncore Frequency      800.0 MHz
Host Bridge         0x191F

MCHBAR I/O Base address      0x0FED10000
MCHBAR I/O Size         19456
MCHBAR registers   

Memory SPD
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

DIMM #            1
   SMBus address      0x50
   Memory type      DDR4
   Module format      UDIMM
   Manufacturer (ID)   Crucial Technology (7F7F7F7F7F9B00000000)
   Size         8192 MBytes
   Max bandwidth      DDR4-2400 (1200 MHz)
   Part number      BLE8G4D26AFEA.16FA
   Serial number      A70E7472
   Nominal Voltage      1.20 Volts
   EPP         no
   XMP         yes
   XMP revision      2.0
   AMP         no
JEDEC timings table      CL-tRCD-tRP-tRAS-tRC @ frequency
   JEDEC #1      9.0-9-9-22-31 @ 675 MHz
   JEDEC #2      10.0-10-10-25-35 @ 750 MHz
   JEDEC #3      11.0-11-11-27-38 @ 825 MHz
   JEDEC #4      12.0-12-12-29-41 @ 900 MHz
   JEDEC #5      13.0-13-13-32-45 @ 975 MHz
   JEDEC #6      14.0-14-14-34-48 @ 1050 MHz
   JEDEC #7      15.0-16-16-37-52 @ 1126 MHz
   JEDEC #8      16.0-16-16-39-55 @ 1200 MHz
   JEDEC #9      18.0-16-16-39-55 @ 1200 MHz
   JEDEC #10      20.0-16-16-39-55 @ 1200 MHz
XMP profile         XMP-2666
   Specification      DDR4-2666
   Voltage level      1.200 Volts
   Min Cycle time      0.750 ns (1333 MHz)
   Max CL         16.0
   Min tRP         12.75 ns
   Min tRCD      12.75 ns
   Min tRAS      27.00 ns
   Min tRC         45.38 ns
   Min tRRD      3.67 ns
XMP timings table      CL-tRCD-tRP-tRAS-tRC-CR @ frequency (voltage)
   XMP #1         7.0-8-8-16-27-n.a @ 583 MHz (1.200 Volts)
   XMP #2         8.0-9-9-18-31-n.a @ 666 MHz (1.200 Volts)
   XMP #3         9.0-10-10-21-35-n.a @ 750 MHz (1.200 Volts)
   XMP #4         10.0-11-11-23-38-n.a @ 833 MHz (1.200 Volts)
   XMP #5         11.0-12-12-25-42-n.a @ 916 MHz (1.200 Volts)
   XMP #6         12.0-13-13-27-46-n.a @ 1000 MHz (1.200 Volts)
   XMP #7         13.0-14-14-30-50-n.a @ 1083 MHz (1.200 Volts)
   XMP #8         14.0-15-15-32-53-n.a @ 1166 MHz (1.200 Volts)
   XMP #9         15.0-16-16-34-57-n.a @ 1250 MHz (1.200 Volts)
   XMP #10         16.0-17-17-36-61-n.a @ 1333 MHz (1.200 Volts)
   XMP #11         17.0-17-17-36-61-n.a @ 1333 MHz (1.200 Volts)
   XMP #12         18.0-17-17-36-61-n.a @ 1333 MHz (1.200 Volts)
   XMP #13         19.0-17-17-36-61-n.a @ 1333 MHz (1.200 Volts)
   XMP #14         20.0-17-17-36-61-n.a @ 1333 MHz (1.200 Volts)



My brain is already melting reading the tonymacx86 forums trying to learn how to tweak Hackintoshes without needing to get into the nuts and bolts of manually overclocking RAM.  Even if I can't get XMP speeds out of my RAM, I'd at least expect to get stock speeds, but it doesn't look like I'm getting that.

And it doesn't help when they seemingly interchange MT/s numbers and MHz numbers.  I might just be getting old...

Thanks for your time, shadowsports!

[ElectroStingz]

Hello,

Your CPUZ info shows the memory running at 2400Mhz, can you change it in the BIOS to 2133Mhz (manually set).
Running over 2133Mhz doesn't always work when trying to boot the system so this may solve your initialisation error.

2133Mhz is default for the memory controller, over that requires you to change some CPU/memory related voltages.
Some memory kits force the CPU to run 2400Mhz (usually the X99 optimised kits) without changing those required voltages, so stability issues occur.

This works for X99 series boards / CPUs but not the Skylake Z100 series, the memory kit you have is designed for X99, the voltages and timings at XMP may never be stable including 2400Mhz.