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bitdoctor's MiniMacPro Build: intel Core i7-3770 - Gigabyte GA-H77N-WIFI - HD 4000 - 16 GB - 256 GB

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I see you have HWMonitor installed: what is the highest CPU frequency it reports? The turbo rate should be more than 3.4 GHz based on your Geekbench result.

The question of whether it turbos to 3900 MHz or to 3700 MHz is relevant to my thread about some boards slightly overclocking the 3770(non-K) automatically.

Hi DBP, yes I've got both HWMonitor and iStat Menus 4 installed. The CPU typically idles at 1.58 GHz and appears to max at 3.66 GHz (3,663 MHz) running a 64-bit Geekbench test. I'll have to check your thread, as I do find this result surprising since Intel markets the i7-3770 at 3.4 GHz and up to 3.9 GHz turbo frequency.
 
A number of comments have been made regarding the USB 3.0 functionality.

Unlike what other users have experienced (also in other forum posts), on this system, USB 3.0 appears to have worked "out of the box," without any additional tweaking.

For confirmation, I thought it might be interesting to do some further USB 3.0 testing and post the results.

45480-minimacpro-2012-11-usb-system-information.png

MiniMacPro 2012: USB System Information

The first screenshot shows the USB System Information. For testing purposes, I connected the old Microsoft Comfort Curve Keyboard 2000 to the USB 3.0 bus (demonstrating backward compatibility to 1.5 Mb/s = USB 1) as well as the new LaCie P'9220 500 GB HDD (supposedly operating at up to 5 Gb/s = USB 3.0 interface transfer speed). The old Microsoft Optical Mouse is connected to the USB 2.0 bus. The back panel USB ports were used.

USB transfer speeds can be summarised as:

  • USB 1: 1.5 Mb/s Low Speed (187.5 KB/s), 12 Mb/s Full Speed (1.5 MB/s)
  • USB 2.0: 480 Mb/s High Speed (60 MB/s)
  • USB 3.0: 5 Gb/s Super Speed (625 MB/s)

45477-lacie-p9220-usb-3-0-500-gb-hdd-blackmagic-design-disk-speed-test.jpg

LaCie P'9220 USB 3.0 500 GB HDD: Blackmagic Design Disk Speed Test

The second screenshot shows the Blackmagic Design Disk Speed Test for the LaCie P'9220 500 GB HDD connected to the USB 3.0 bus. The obtained disk read and write speeds were consistently in the 76 MB/s to 77 MB/s range. While these speeds might be surprisingly low, they are definitely in the USB 3.0 class (being higher than the 60 MB/s USB 2.0 limit).

For comparison, Digital Versus tested the 1 TB version of this HDD and recorded 112.5 MB/s read and 102.0 MB/s write speeds.

In conclusion, I'm not sure why the disk is under-performing, but the obtained results show that at 77 MB/s or 616 Mb/s it's definitely operating at USB 3.0 speed with the MiniMacPro 2012.
 
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I've done a very similar build to yours (used the 3225 and a smaller SSD) and although it took some time, I'm very pleased with this case. I almost bought a 2012 mac mini until I saw this thread, so thank you very much :D

That said however, I have trouble finding mini PCI wifi card that would work under Mountain Lion. I can't find the Atheros AR5BHB92 anywhere in my area (I'm not from US so e-bay is out).

Any suggestions? Does anyone have any experience with mini PCI wifi cards?
 
Great box for this Hackintosh where you can place 1 HDD 2,5" + 1 SSD + DVDR slim = STREACOM F1CS EVO - ARGENT = EUR 89,99

Marvelous, isn'it ?

Thierry
:eek:
 
My dear Bitdoctor,

I built a customac very similar to yours - same motherboard and same CPU. The main difference is the case : I chose an Antec ISK 310-150 over an ISK 110, I was told the power supply won't be strong enough to support such a built. Apparently, this is completely false!

Anyway, though my built is working quite nice, I did not succeed to solve two problems you didn't meet at all, as far as I understood.
Only one USB port out of two is working on the front panel (2 USB 3.0, I must say) and no USB 2.0 device is working or even detected when connected to a USB 3.0 port. Of course, USB 3.0 devices are working fine either connected to USB 3.0 or USB 2.0 ports.

Your help or advice would be much appreciated.

Many thanks in advance to you and to anyone who will be able to help (and sorry for my poor english, I happened to be a french speaker).
 
Noice!

I notice About This Mac mentions 1333 MHz RAM, which is borne out by the GeekBench result. As you have 1600 MHz RAM, make sure you set the multiplier properly in the BIOS (it defaults to 1333 MHz) or select XMP Profile1. That should give you a free boost in performance. GB 64-bit Memory Bandwidth will probably climb above 8000, and it may bring your overall result above 14k.

I have a similar build with same MB and 16MHz RAM from Kingston. In the UEFI I don't have the option to change RAM speed and there's no menu with XMP Profile1 (as far as I can tell)
 
Thanks, but as I said, I don't live in the US so shipping would double/tripple the price. I've found this http://www.tonymacx86.com/network/58146-guide-airport-half-mini-pcie.html thread though and will try to get something from that list.

Hi damnated, could you locate an Atheros AR5BHB92 or similar WiFi card in your area? If eBay is not available, these cards are also available through Amazon and plenty of other online outlets (just google Atheros AR5BHB92) like AliExpress who advertise shipping to 200+ countries within 3 days after purchase.

Great box for this Hackintosh where you can place 1 HDD 2,5" + 1 SSD + DVDR slim = STREACOM F1CS EVO - ARGENT = EUR 89,99 Marvelous, isn'it ? Thierry

Hi Thierry, the Streacom F1C Evo Chassis is a very slick looking case: aluminium, optical drive space yet still very compact. Very much Mac mini! Unfortunately it appears to be difficult to source in Australia, or outside Europe. You should post photos of your build.

My dear Bitdoctor,

I built a customac very similar to yours - same motherboard and same CPU. The main difference is the case : I chose an Antec ISK 310-150 over an ISK 110, I was told the power supply won't be strong enough to support such a built. Apparently, this is completely false!

Anyway, though my built is working quite nice, I did not succeed to solve two problems you didn't meet at all, as far as I understood.
Only one USB port out of two is working on the front panel (2 USB 3.0, I must say) and no USB 2.0 device is working or even detected when connected to a USB 3.0 port. Of course, USB 3.0 devices are working fine either connected to USB 3.0 or USB 2.0 ports.

Your help or advice would be much appreciated.

Many thanks in advance to you and to anyone who will be able to help (and sorry for my poor english, I happened to be a french speaker).

Hi Fil60, it is a mystery why you, as well as many others on this forum, should experience such USB problems with virtually identical builds. I can only suggest to recheck your settings (including your BIOS settings) and maybe your front USB to system board connection. One difference (as you noted) is that your ISK310-150 case features 2 x USB 3.0 front facing ports while my ISK110 case includes 4 x USB 2.0 front facing ports (of which I have two working because the GA-H77N-WIFI system board includes just 1 x F_USB1 header (for USB 2.0/1.1) and 1 x F_USB30 (for USB 3.0/2.0)).
 
I have a similar build with same MB and 16MHz RAM from Kingston. In the UEFI I don't have the option to change RAM speed and there's no menu with XMP Profile1 (as far as I can tell)

You said that your system is quite similar, so you'll also likely have a similar UEFI DualBIOS. With the GA-H77N-WIFI UEFI DualBIOS (BIOS Version F2) there are two sections where these settings can be altered.

SECTION 1: On the M.I.T. (main or home screen) you'll see a menu entry "Advanced Memory Settings." Hitting enter will show the "\M.I.T.\Advanced Memory Settings" screen where the "Extreme Memory Profile(X.M.P.)" setting can be changed from "Disabled" to "Profile1" (using the -/+ keys). Alternatively, you could change the "System Memory Multiplier" from "Auto" (13.33) to "16" which also changes the greyed out "Memory Frequency(MHz)" from "13333MHz" to "1600MHz." Note that changing the "Extreme Memory Profile(X.M.P.)" to "Profile1" also changes the greyed out "Profile VTT Voltage" from "1.05V" (default) to "1.20V."

[IMGLightBox]http://www.tonymacx86.com/members/bitdoctor/albums/minimacpro-2012/50452-minimacpro-2012-bios-m-i-t-main-screen.png[/IMGLightBox]

[IMGLightBox]http://www.tonymacx86.com/members/bitdoctor/albums/minimacpro-2012/50453-minimacpro-2012-bios-advanced-memory-settings-x-m-p.png[/IMGLightBox]

[IMGLightBox]http://www.tonymacx86.com/members/bitdoctor/albums/minimacpro-2012/50454-minimacpro-2012-bios-advanced-memory-settings-system-memory-multiplier.png[/IMGLightBox]

MiniMacPro 2012: BIOS M.I.T. (Main Screen) and Advanced Memory Settings

SECTION 2: Alternatively, on the M.I.T. (main or home screen) you'll also notice a menu entry "Advanced Frequency Settings." This "M.I.T.\Advanced Frequency Settings" screen also provides access to the "Extreme Memory Profile(X.M.P.)" and "System Memory Multiplier" settings.

[IMGLightBox]http://www.tonymacx86.com/members/bitdoctor/albums/minimacpro-2012/50455-minimacpro-2012-bios-advanced-frequency-settings.png[/IMGLightBox]

MiniMacPro 2012: BIOS Advanced Frequency Settings

Does anyone know how to resize images in forum posts? I tried standard BBCode size options inside the IMG (and IMGLightBox) tag, but these were ignored (at least in the preview post). Basic HTML <img> tags also appear to be ignored.
 
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