Mavericks won't shut down on Z68 board

[flickh]

[SOLVED!] Mavericks won't shut down on Z68 board

So I can't get the Hackintosh to power down.

When I shut down OSX, it goes through proper logout and shutdown, then the fan stays on and there's light on the mobo: green, yellow and red LED's labelled "phase LED"

Apparently this is some CPU- measuring feature, not well documented in the manual, but it indicates the CPU is working overtime after everything else is shut down.

If I switch off the power supply and let it sit for a few seconds, everything comes back.

I have everything else working fine (including sleep and wake from sleep) with f8 dsdt. Fan stays on during sleep, but no Phase LED's.

Here's what the mobo manual says:

PHASE LED
The number of lighted LEDs indicates the CPU loading. The higher the CPU loading, the more the number of lighted LEDs. To enable the Phase LED display function, please first enable Dynamic Energy SaverTM 2. Refer to Chapter 4, "Dynamic Energy SaverTM 2," for more details.

Computer was working fine in Lion, and then fine for a bit in Mavericks, but now this... I have reconfigured my memory, to get the 8Gb in the first two slots, and 4Gb in the next two. Could that be it?! I tried all kinds of rearrangements but can't remember how they used to be arranged, didn't think it was a big deal!

 

[flickh]

Tried f10 DSDT... same same.

 

[flickh]

MultiBeast Configuration - 2014-01-13 10:45:37
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Quick Start > UserDSDT - DSDT-GAZ68XP-UD3-F10.aml
Drivers > Audio > Realtek ALCxxx > With DSDT > ALC889
Drivers > Disk > 3rd Party SATA
Drivers > Misc > FakeSMC v5.3.820
Drivers > Network > Realtek - AppleRTL8169Ethernet 2.0.6
Drivers > System > Patched AppleIntelCPUPowerManagement > OS X 10.9.0
Drivers > System > AppleRTC Patch for CMOS Reset
Bootloaders > Chimera v2.2.1
Customize > Boot Options > Basic Boot Options
Customize > Boot Options > Generate CPU States
Customize > Boot Options > GraphicsEnabler=Yes
Customize > Boot Options > Hibernate Mode - Desktop
Customize > Boot Options > Use KernelCache
Customize > System Definitions > Mac Pro > Mac Pro 3,1
Customize > SSDT Options > Sandy Bridge Core i7
Customize > Themes > tonymacx86 Black

 

[flickh]

[SOLVED!] Mavericks won't shut down on Z68 board

SOLVED! It was a loose USB3 cable on the motherboard. Yeesh!

The cable is quite heavy, it drags down a lot on the port on the mobo. Last night my portable USB drive kept mounting and unmounting, and finally when I pulled the USB drive from the USB port on the front of the case, the whole machine would shut down. So that's a big red flag on the USB port!

I opened up the box, pushed in all the connectors behind the front ports, then pushed the USB3 cable tightly into the motherboard.

Lo and behold, the machine shuts down fully now. And it sleeps properly too -no fans while sleeping.

So mavericks works better than before.

I may have made changes to the BIOS, because after it wouldn't start up I removed the internal bettery and let it sit for a few minutes, then tried to return the BIOS to the best settings. But I think the USB3 cable is the definitive answer, because the crazy shutdowns stopped when I tightened it.

Anyone got ideas on stabilizing that connector? It really is bad, just like the DVI-VGA adapter and cable on the graphics card in the back; lotta weight on that port.

HOWEVER still not front audio, and shutting down STILL scrambles my router, requiring a hard restart. Yeek!

- F