Hacintosh compatibility with Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UP4-TH ?

[kaliree]

@Kongzilla:

I am also considering a build with the UP4-TH to save money vs. the UP5-TH. Is everything working on the UP4? Sleep, auto-sleep, USB 2.0 & 3.0 on all USB ports, sound without distortion or other issues? SATA II and SATA III ports working without issue? Did you need a custom DSDT or did you go DSDT free with just the kexts listed above in your Multibeast menu image?

I'm concerned because of the VIA chips and all the problems reported by others, but I do realize this was before 10.8.2. I would really appreciate your response.

Thanks!

 

[Kongzilla]

@Kongzilla:

I am also considering a build with the UP4-TH to save money vs. the UP5-TH. Is everything working on the UP4? Sleep, auto-sleep, USB 2.0 & 3.0 on all USB ports, sound without distortion or other issues? SATA II and SATA III ports working without issue? Did you need a custom DSDT or did you go DSDT free with just the kexts listed above in your Multibeast menu image?

I'm concerned because of the VIA chips and all the problems reported by others, but I do realize this was before 10.8.2. I would really appreciate your response.

Thanks!

The USB ports do work but for the VIA controlled 3.0 you have to one usb 3.0 device plugged in for the rest to recognize 2.0 devices, If you have a case with usb 3 headers those will be controlled by the intel chipset and will recognize 2.0 devices fine. Also for sleep to work with no issues you have to set Internal CPU PLL Overvoltage to Disabled, this seems to be an issue for most of the gigabyte boards. I used DSDST free and the kexts, with 10.8.2 there are no sound issues.

 

[psgrafix]

I'm still not getting a useable system after running Multibeast and ensuring that UserDDT Free and Bootloader are both checked. The SSD shows up as a boot option but booting to it only leads to a grey screen freeze. I've been through this several times with the same result.

My GA-Z77X-UP4-TH came with bios version F7. There are several differences evident from screenshots of earlier bios versions of this board covered on TonyMacX86, but I don't see any that seem significant.

I'm using the GA Series 7 bios setting guide from TonyMacx86 with xHCI mode disabled, SATA mode AHCI enabled, Initial Display set to IGFX for the internal graphics. High Precision Event Timer is Enabled. Under BIOS Features Boot Option 1 to P5: SSD, Boot Option 2 to Disabled and HD BBS priorities #1 P5 SSD, #2 to the USB thumb drive (a PNY 32Gb for Unibeast install).

Before each installation of 10.8.2 via Unibeast USB I partition the SSD: 1 partition, GUID. 10.8.2 installation is uneventful.

I set -v during boot to USB and get the same warning message both in successful boot to USB and between 10.8.2 install and boot to SSD before running Multibeast:
WARNING: IOPLlatformPluginUtil: get CPUIDInfo: This is an unknown CPU model OX3a -- power management may be incomplete or unsupported
Sound assertion in Apple HDACodecGeneric at line 360
macx_swapon SUCCESS

I ran the latest MultiBeast using Kongzilla's settings: DSDT-Free, Audio Driver set to ALC 892, 3rd party SATA with 10.8.1+ Trim Patch, Fake SMC with plugins and HW monitor App, Network Realtek Lnx2Mac's and Bootloader Chimera v1.11.1 r1394.
Installed Lnx2Mac's Realtek RTL81 which initiated an automatic restart.

On restart several pages of text flash through too fast to read anything, the Gigabyte flash screen appears briefly then the grey Apple screen appears with spinning icon. It freezes there in just a few seconds.

I've tried this with other settings but this is the one that gets the furthest. I've tried connecting the SSD to a SATA 6Gb and SATA 3Gb port with no difference.

Installed hardware:
MoBo: GIGABYTE GA-Z77X-UP4 TH
CPU: Intel Core i7-3770K Ivy Bridge 3.5GHz (3.9GHz Turbo)
Case: Antec Nine Hundred Two V3 Black Steel ATX Mid Tower
RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
Cooler: CoolerMaster Hyper 212 EVO
PSU: SeaSonic M12II 620 Bronze 620W
SSD: OSX boot drive - SanDisk SDSSDP-128G-G25 2.5" 128GB SATA III

Still in boxes awaiting installation
Video: MSI GTX 650 Ti Power Edition
HD: Western Digital WD Black WD1002FAEX 1TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s
Optical: LG Black 14X BD-R 2X BD-RE 16X DVD+R 5X DVD-RAM 12X BD-ROM 4MB Cache SATA BDXL Blu-ray Burner
Firewire: SYBA Low Profile PCI-Express 1394B/A Firewire Card Model SD-PEX30009
Wireless: TP-LINK TL-WDN4800 Wireless

 

[Kongzilla]

Try updating you bios to F9, I updated mine to F8(which was the newest at the time) before I installed OSX. Also set xHCI Mode to smart auto I found this works better with the updated bios;I can post some screenshots of my bios settings if you want.

 

[psgrafix]

Kongzilla, it would be great to see screenshots of your bios settings. Since I'm not an IT guy I'm mostly just copying what others succeed with. Since we have the same mobo and CPU I'm confident I can get mine working IF I use the same settings.

Thanks

 

[Kongzilla]

Ok I uploaded the screen shots
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v123/j_trez/Bios Screenshots/

 

[psgrafix]

Thanks for the bios screenshots.

SUCCESS! I'm running with 10.8.2 on the updated F9 BIOS on the Z77-UP4 TH board and i7 3770K cpu. All installed hardware and features show up in ML System Profiler.

The BIOS update seems to have resolved at least part of the USB 2.0 issues since the computer now sees the front panel USB 3.0 ports. I think part of the issue may have been a short caused by a bad USB 2.0 panel I added to access a working USB 2.0 port for the install.

I installed ML on and am booting from a WD Black 1Tb currently. Any attempt to boot from the SSD with ML, even after F12 selection of the SSD, immediately boots from the WD HD. I've changed BIOS settings to prefer the SSD. What am I missing?

Thanks for all the help.

 

[Kongzilla]

Congratulations, glad I could help. Do you have the SSD set as the number 1 drive in Hard Drive BBS Properties ?

 

[psgrafix]

Now booting from SSD after reinstall of ML and Multibeast. Not sure what the problem was.

Installed TP-Link wireless card. Easy OOB install. The rest will go better now that I can listen to my iTunes purchases on this computer.

Installed PCI-Express IEEE 1394b card. System Profiler recognized it OOB at max speed of 800 Mb/s.

Issues to work on:
Whenever the computer goes to sleep I have to log back in, even though anything running before sleep continues to run. Any ideas on fixing that?

The LG WH14NS40 Blu-Ray/DVD burner recognizes DVD discs but not Blu-Ray and won't play DVDs. I get "There was an initialization error A valid video device could not be found for playback. [-70017]"

Next up, MSI GTX 650 Ti Power Edition card. So far I've changed graphics enabler to no and gotten a kernel panic. I know there are other actions required, like updating the Nvidia driver but I'm in over my head again.

More reading necessary, lots more.

Not sure about the forum protocols, should I move this to another thread?

 

[Kongzilla]

Whenever the computer goes to sleep I have to log back in, even though anything running before sleep continues to run. Any ideas on fixing that?

The LG WH14NS40 Blu-Ray/DVD burner recognizes DVD discs but not Blu-Ray and won't play DVDs. I get "There was an initialization error A valid video device could not be found for playback. [-70017]"

Next up, MSI GTX 650 Ti Power Edition card. So far I've changed graphics enabler to no and gotten a kernel panic. I know there are other actions required, like updating the Nvidia driver but I'm in over my head again.

If you have a password set you will have to enter it when waking from sleep as its a security measure. You can install the Nvidia drivers from Multibeast, just check the OpenCL Patch box. What software are you using to play the dvds? try VLC if you havent already done so.