$421 Simple PowerHac G5

[DrTom]

Dr. Tom

Thanks for another informative reply. When I install Mavericks would you recommend that I also set the Bios to default Ram settings and not XMP profile 1?

That is correct. XMP Profile 1 has proven to be troublesome and doesn't really get you that much of a performance gain especially if you set the memory multiplier to get 1600MHz.

I also noticed that you said that this motherboard does not need boot flags for Mavericks installation. Does this mean that future revisions of the Mac OS will likely need boot flags as well? I am new to Hackintosh and would rather not put in the boot flags.

Misscomp

I agree that boot flags can be a pain. If by future revisions of the Mac OS you mean 10.9.3 or 10.9.4 I think that you won't need any boot flags. If by future revisions you mean 10.10, then all bets are off and we'll just have to wait until the OS is released to find out what it takes to get the OS up and running on our motherboards. OTOH, if you're satisfied with Mavericks and it can do all that you need an OS to do, perhaps there's no reason to upgrade at all. My son has kept his Hackintosh at 10.8.5 with iTunes 11.0.1 so that he can watch the movies he purchased. It all depends upon what you want to do.

Tom

 

[DrTom]

DrTom,

I have ben trying to find other's using the same board who might have some insight into a problem I am having with my USB 3.0 ports.

Are your USB 3.0 ports writing at the correct speed?

I am having trouble getting my USB 3.0 ports on my board working with Mavericks 10.9.0+. They show up up as USB 3.0 ports in the system info, and drives connected mount etc. However the writes speeds I am getting are below USB 2.0 speeds. The USB 3.0 ports work fine with 10.8.5, but as soon as I upgraded or do a clean install of 10.9.0 they stopped writing at the correct speeds.


Kind Regards
Spang1974

I wish I could help but I don't have any USB 3.0 devices to properly test speeds on the 3.0 ports. Did you try installing USB 3.0 - Universal with Multibeast? That would be worth a shot if you haven't already done so.

Tom

 

[DrTom]

DrTom,

I am having trouble getting my USB 3.0 ports on my board working with Mavericks 10.9.0+. They show up up as USB 3.0 ports in the system info, and drives connected mount etc. However the writes speeds I am getting are below USB 2.0 speeds. The USB 3.0 ports work fine with 10.8.5, but as soon as I upgraded or do a clean install of 10.9.0 they stopped writing at the correct speeds.


Kind Regards
Spang1974

One additional thought. How is xHCI configured in your BIOS? In another thread a6f691ac noted the following which may be helpful:

XHCI Mode = Disabled
The on-board USB 3.0 port function like a 2.0 port

XHCI Mode = Enabled
The on-board USB 3.0 port function like a 3.0 port

XHCI Mode = Auto
The on-board USB 3.0 port function like a 2.0 port before OS USB 3.0 driver load.
If you reboot the OS, the on-board USB 3.0 port again function like a 2.0 port during this reboot BIOS phase before OS USB 3.0 driver load.

XHCI Mode = Smart Auto
The on-board USB 3.0 port function like a 2.0 port before OS USB 3.0 driver load.
If you reboot the OS, during this reboot BIOS phase, BIOS is "Smart" enough to avoid downgrade the USB 3.0 port back to 2.0 functionality before OS USB 3.0 driver load. So Smart Auto is faster than Auto on 2nd boot onward, but Enabled is fastest once you are sure the OS has the USB 3.0 driver installed, because it avoid the switching. Making the on-board USB 3.0 port function like a 2.0 port is mainly to support OS installation or to support OS that does not have build-in USB 3.0 driver, so that the USB keyboard would still work if the user plug-in a USB keyboard or any other USB devices into the USB 3.0 ports before the OS is installed with the USB 3.0 driver come with the motherboard.

Tom

 

[Misscomp]

Dear Dr. Tom,

You replied to an earlier question I had about memory and you recommended that I bump the voltage up to 1.56 V. Can I ask why? Both the memory models are rated to run at 1.5 V cas Latency 9.

In my earlier question I asked about boot flags for a version of OS X coming out in the future like in 2017 (OS X 10.12?). If we both try to update to that version of OS X does it mean that since we have the exact same mother board model ( GA B85m DH3) does it mean that we will use the same exact flag when we try to install the OS? I hope that this chipset will allow me to update until 2018 or so but this may be asking too much.

Thanks,

Misscomp

 

[DrTom]

Dear Dr. Tom,

You replied to an earlier question I had about memory and you recommended that I bump the voltage up to 1.56 V. Can I ask why? Both the memory models are rated to run at 1.5 V cas Latency 9.

The reason I bumped up my voltage was that when I selected the XMP Profile 1 I noted that the RAM voltage was supposed to be 1.65 V when using that profile, but the actual voltage was only 1.5 V. And I had strange, random freezes. I decided to see what would happen if I bumped up the voltage just a little bit while running at 1600 MHz (trying to keep the increase less than 5%). The result was complete stability. You may find that your RAM is completely stable at 1.5 V, but if not, try increasing it just a little and see what happens.

In my earlier question I asked about boot flags for a version of OS X coming out in the future like in 2017 (OS X 10.12?). If we both try to update to that version of OS X does it mean that since we have the exact same mother board model ( GA B85m DH3) does it mean that we will use the same exact flag when we try to install the OS? I hope that this chipset will allow me to update until 2018 or so but this may be asking too much.

Thanks,

Misscomp

If everything else was identical, it would be very likely that boot flags needed would be the same for all users of that model motherboard. Different manufacturers of RAM, video cards, WiFi cards, hard drives, installed programs, etc. can always make individual results vary, however. The good news that I get from reading different threads on this forum is that there are many users with older chipsets that are able to run Mavericks, so there is some hope that you will be able to update by 2018.

Tom

 

[spang1974]

One additional thought. How is xHCI configured in your BIOS? In another thread a6f691ac noted the following which may be helpful:

XHCI Mode = Disabled
The on-board USB 3.0 port function like a 2.0 port

XHCI Mode = Enabled
The on-board USB 3.0 port function like a 3.0 port

XHCI Mode = Auto
The on-board USB 3.0 port function like a 2.0 port before OS USB 3.0 driver load.
If you reboot the OS, the on-board USB 3.0 port again function like a 2.0 port during this reboot BIOS phase before OS USB 3.0 driver load.

XHCI Mode = Smart Auto
The on-board USB 3.0 port function like a 2.0 port before OS USB 3.0 driver load.
If you reboot the OS, during this reboot BIOS phase, BIOS is "Smart" enough to avoid downgrade the USB 3.0 port back to 2.0 functionality before OS USB 3.0 driver load. So Smart Auto is faster than Auto on 2nd boot onward, but Enabled is fastest once you are sure the OS has the USB 3.0 driver installed, because it avoid the switching. Making the on-board USB 3.0 port function like a 2.0 port is mainly to support OS installation or to support OS that does not have build-in USB 3.0 driver, so that the USB keyboard would still work if the user plug-in a USB keyboard or any other USB devices into the USB 3.0 ports before the OS is installed with the USB 3.0 driver come with the motherboard.

Tom

Tom,

Thanks for all the feedback. I have tried ALL that ( Bios XHCI settings, various versions of the Universal kext, etc) and more. At this point in time (3 months+ since I noticed I had lost proper write speeds) I am not convinced this board is capable of USB 3.0 with Mavericks, as I have not been able to get it work and have yet to find anyone else using this board and USB 3.0 with verified write speeds. I will keep trying and will of course share my success if it occurs

Spang1974

 

[Misscomp]

Dear Dr. Tom,

I have have read in your previous posts that you alway back up you OS X before the updates using Macrum Reflect. Have you heart of CloneZilla? I have used it to back up my Windows computers at home and it works flawlessly. The user interface is not as good as something like Acronis but Clonezilla is free. Clonezilla is supposed to work with mac Os as well. i was wondering if you have tried Clonezilla.

You have remarked also that the Ga B85m D3h motherboard is also very stable with Mavericks. Does this mean that it will also be stable with future versions with the OS as well?

Misscomp

 

[DrTom]

Dear Dr. Tom,

I have have read in your previous posts that you alway back up you OS X before the updates using Macrum Reflect. Have you heart of CloneZilla? I have used it to back up my Windows computers at home and it works flawlessly. The user interface is not as good as something like Acronis but Clonezilla is free. Clonezilla is supposed to work with mac Os as well. i was wondering if you have tried Clonezilla.

Actually I use Carbon Copy Cloner by Bombich Software for my Macs and Acronis TrueImage for my Windows computers. I have not heard of or tried Clonezilla, but as long as it produces a bootable clone so that you're protected in case the update doesn't go correctly (which has happened to me many times in my experimentation) you're good to go. Just boot to your backup drive and clone it back to the main drive and figure out what went wrong.

You have remarked also that the Ga B85m D3h motherboard is also very stable with Mavericks. Does this mean that it will also be stable with future versions with the OS as well?

Misscomp

I think that the GA-B85M-D3H is likely to be stable with future versions of OS X. Part of my problem was that I moved to the B85M and Mavericks at the same time, so it was difficult to sort out whether the random freezes were caused by the new Haswell hardware or the new Mavericks software, or a combination of the two. I finally concluded that the random freeze problem was caused mostly by RAM, so I updated the BIOS to the latest version and bumped up the RAM voltage to 1.56 volts. I haven't had a random freeze since and I'm using all four memory slots. 10.9.2 is definitely better than 10.9.0 and 10.9.3 will be better yet, so I'd go right to 10.9.3 after it is released. Others have had success by using only two memory slots or by using the iMac 14,2 system definition, neither of which solved the problem for me.

Tom

 

[DrTom]

Tom,

Thanks for all the feedback. I have tried ALL that ( Bios XHCI settings, various versions of the Universal kext, etc) and more. At this point in time (3 months+ since I noticed I had lost proper write speeds) I am not convinced this board is capable of USB 3.0 with Mavericks, as I have not been able to get it work and have yet to find anyone else using this board and USB 3.0 with verified write speeds. I will keep trying and will of course share my success if it occurs

Spang1974

The B85M also has the issue that you've identified. I picked up a 16 GB Kingston DataTraveler that is USB 3.0 and plugged it into one of my USB 3.0 ports. As you can see below, it is clearly identified as a USB 3.0 SuperSpeed device and yet there is no difference in the read/write speeds over USB 2.0. It writes and 20 MB/sec and reads at 40, which is only about half of what it should be.



While this doesn't really affect my use of the computer, which is excellent in all other respects, I will be very interested in any solution you come across.

Tom

 

[Misscomp]

Dear Dr. Tom,

I was wondering if you all of your RAM slots are occupied by the exact same model and part of RAM?

Have you used the Time Machine feature of the OS X to make a backup of the OS?

You are running the latest version of the BIOS that came out recently to accommodate the new versions of Haswell CPU's?


Misscomp