I had a different board that died on me and I am trying to save my CPU. I have an i7 3930k, which still keeps up just fine with the new processors. I bought a used x79 FTW. It was the only board with a 2011 socket I could find.
 
Booting:
 
(1) I have two bootable drives. The only way I've been able to boot is to set SATA Mode to IDE Mode, Controller 0 Compatible, Controller 1 Enhanced. The downloaded manual has no info on BIOS settings so I have no idea what these did. Either way, all drives show up in the list correctly.
 
However, I can only select whatever drive is in SATA Port 0 for BIOS to try and boot from in the boot order list. What is the deal? Why can I not boot from any other port. I would prefer to put two other drives on the 6Gb/s sata ports. Can I set this up or am I just stuck with it.
 
(2) When I try to boot, right after post, I get this screen:
 
Adapter 1
Disks Information:
      No hard disk is detected!
 
The post screen reappears, and the second round through, no post beep, but it loads the bootloader on disk. What gives? I currently have 3 hdds not plugged in but cables in the mobo SATA ports.
 
Fan control:
I seriously need some sort of fan control. Everything just runs 100% all the time, even the cpufan when set to SmartFAN in the BIOS. I've temporarily set the fan speeds to 50% atm for sanity sake. If it is software based, I need a solution for both windows and arch.
 
Stress Test:
I need to stress test the mobo under heavy load to make sure it is not damaged. I was just going to play a couple games for a bit and make sure it doesn't crash the system/cause stability issues. Any other suggestions?

Remember this as well Important Update for EVGA X79 Motherboards Ref: Firmware/driver update for the ASmedia USB 3.0 controller.

I intend on using Win7 eventually Win10, and Manjaro(Arch) linux.
 
Thanks for the notice bcavnaugh.
 
I'm not entirely sure about windows, but arch was set up as legacy and boots under grub bios. I can boot to both atm through grub. If I manage to get a win10 disk, I plan on redoing the win install so I can set that up however I like.
 
Sorry not sure how this ended up in the x99 section.

bcavnaugh
Legacy mode For Windows XP or Windows 7
UEFI for Windows 8/10 and above.

Gonna be hard to switch from 7 to 10 and take advantage of UEFI. The bootloaders are not compatible. You can keep it Legacy in Win 10 but its slower. Will most likely need to start from scratch when you upgrade to 10. 

MhzManiac

bcavnaugh
Legacy mode For Windows XP or Windows 7
UEFI for Windows 8/10 and above.

Gonna be hard to switch from 7 to 10 and take advantage of UEFI. The bootloaders are not compatible. You can keep it Legacy in Win 10 but its slower. Will most likely need to start from scratch when you upgrade to 10. 

Only if you are going to try an in place upgrade and that is a very bad idea to do between Windows 7 and Windows 10.
This is part of what has caused 80%-90% of all the issues on Windows 10. This is the number one reason why Microsoft Failed Us.

arod529
TIL there are PWM splitters, and I just happen to have one. It seems that it is ok to power 2 fans on one port(?), but more than that you need independent power. I'm going to contact evga support to ensure that I can split the cpu_fan header for my two radiator fans.

Make sure you stay below 1 AMP Per Header.