My Third Case Mod....Thawing an Ice Cube

[Einsteiniac]

So today I assembled my parts and booted from my uniBeast 10.7.2 Installer with the monitor hooked to the DVI port and formatted my hard drives and installed Lion onto the SSD. Then I flashed the BIOS on the board from .23 to .39. Now when I boot using the uniBeast USB installer, I get a "restricted" symbol on the screen and the grey sparks just keep going round and round. So I tried my Mountain Lion uniBeast installer 10.8.0 and the same thing occurred.

So I figured that by upgrading past version 0.28 that the board no longer supports Sandy Bridge CPU's. Nothing I read explicitly states this, but I cant figure out why it stopped booting. I read that its a bad idea (read impossible) to downgrade the BIOS because it "reprograms" the board, so I cant go backwards. So I made a quick trip to the toy store and picked up an i3-3225 Ivy Bridge which supports HD4000 graphics. The toy store didn't have any 2125's. And the TDP is only 55W on this CPU.

I installed it and tried booting from the USB ML Unibeast and I still get the restricted symbol and the circle of sparks.

Here is a photo of my poor-mans bench test rig, compliments of my wife's organizational fetish. (Yes, I got in trouble for drilling holes in it!)
View attachment 33424

Does anyone have an idea what might be wrong?

chaos

Is this a plastic tuperware bin top? I would highly suggest against using that as a bolt to surface. While it isn't conductive if it is the same plastic that they use to make the plastic picnic tables they generate static electricity really easily. Does the machine allow you to boot using option flag -v so that you can see what its freaking out on?

 

[chaosdesigns]

Here is a photo of my current grief.

 

[chaosdesigns]

Its not tupperware...its Sterilite, but I will find a new surface tomorrow. Thanks for pointing that out!

 

[Einsteiniac]

Here is a photo of my current grief.
View attachment 33436

Weird that is showing it is having trouble reading from the boot device. Either that or it can't access it or kexts are missing. I would say you are best just reinstalling if you have no data on it as it will probably be quicker.

 

[minihack]

Much of this grief may be being caused by the HD 4000 with 6 series board. Assuming that now your bios and board version are okay for that combo.
The easiest way to workaround (in my view) is to patch the DSDT. Get DSDT from Neils thread and use this patch from Toleda:

# Insert device MEI_IB to adr 0x00160000 into dsdt 
#
# 2. Insert device MEI adr 0x00160000
into device name_adr 0x00160000 set_label
begin
MEI
end;
into device name_adr 0x00160000 parent_label PCI0 remove_entry;
into device label PCI0 insert
begin
Device (MEI)\n
{\n
    Name (_ADR, 0x00160000)\n
    Method (_DSM, 4, NotSerialized)\n
    {\n	
        Store (Package (0x02)\n
            {\n
                "layout-id", \n
                Buffer (0x04)\n
                {\n
                    0x3a, 0x01e, 0x00, 0x00\n
                }, \n
            }, Local0)\n
        DTGP (Arg0, Arg1, Arg2, Arg3, RefOf (Local0))\n
        Return (Local0)\n
    }\n
}\n
end

That patch can be applied by using DSDT editor.

If you prefer to patch manually and be able to see what you are doing then the actual insertion to make on a DSDT is to find the Device (PCI0) and within that definition copy and paste the following (the DSDT must also be patched to add the Method DTGP) :

Device (MEI)
    Name (_ADR, 0x00160000)
    Method (_DSM, 4, NotSerialized)
    {	
        Store (Package (0x02)
            {
                "layout-id", 
                Buffer (0x04)
                {
                    0x3a, 0x01e, 0x00, 0x00
                }, 
            }, Local0)
        DTGP (Arg0, Arg1, Arg2, Arg3, RefOf (Local0))
        Return (Local0)
    }
}

Doing this fools OSX into loading the correct graphics kext for your processor even though you are on a 6 series board. The other options involve patching two kexts which you have to do every time Apple updates their OS. The DSDT edit is a once and forever edit.

Once you have prepared your Unibeast installer, inspect it for hidden files (e.g. use application "Show all files" or google the terminal commands), find the "Extra" folder in your installer and drop the modified DSDT into it.

 

[doctorevil30564]

Here is a photo of my current grief.
View attachment 33436

I am probably asking a silly question, but have you tried moving your sata cable around for your ssd drive to other ports on the motherboard? I ran into this same issue on the Gigabyte Z68 motherboard that I used in my powermac G4 mod system when I tried to install Mountain Lion on it after having been able to run Lion with no issues. I wound up having to move my sata cable to one of the white sata ports as ML just didn't like me having it plugged into the blue ports.

 

[chaosdesigns]

Thanks everyone for your input and suggestions. I really appreciate all of them.

After frustrating myself last night, I woke up to Minihacks suggestion to modify my DSDT. I did that and tried the installer again. No luck!

So I threw in the towel and returned the i3-3225 and picked up an i3-2125. I installed it and then booted the unibeast installer. Again it locks up with the sparks going round and round.

Then I tried running the video from the HDMI and still no luck.

So...... I thought for a moment and let my training take over. When things go wrong..."Let the computer tell you what's wrong"...So I read the verbose screen again, over and over. Einsteiniac was right... it was having trouble loading files. Then it dawned on me. I was installing using one of the USB 3.0 ports which might be getting re-inited by the OS booting up! I may have been pulling the rug out from under the installer. So I switched the USB stick to one of the 2.0 ports (the yellow ones) and the installer ran fine!

I am now happily watching a blue progress bar slowly crawling across my screen.

And that means there is still hope for the i3-3225.


Once again thank you, thank you, thank you! everyone.

chaos

 

[minihack]

Yep, that'll do it! Don't use those USB 3.0 ports for an install as you can only enable them afterwards.....

 

[sonicseamus]

That certainly would solve it! Glad it's working now!

 

[chaosdesigns]

So I ended today with a bootable ML installation on the SSD. Not everything works yet, but at least it boots to 10.8.2. Now the tuning begins.

I purchased a (working) cube locally today for $70. Its in ok shape, but somebody glued an anti-theft device onto the side. Its going to be fun getting it off.