GA-Z68X-UD5-B3 install with lion

[raydawg]

I finally made it to 10.6.8.

So I noticed what I should have noticed a few days ago in the Downloads section: "UpdateHelper - For Sandy Bridge users updating to 10.6.8 ONLY. Run this tool before running the 10.6.8 Combo Update." D'Oh!

Installed this, and Bridge Helper (which was suggested in an earlier reply) both, not sure whether just one or both are necessary, then rebooted, and then did the 10.6.8 upgrade + multibeast. That worked. (If you run UpdateHelper + Bridge Helper without a reboot, attempting to run the 10.6.8 Combo Updater will gray-screen! Would be useful if their instructions would mention that a reboot is needed before attempting to go to 10.6.8.)

In one attempt, Multibeast said it failed, so I looked in the installer log and saw it failed when it tried to repair the file system permissions, so ran it again without that option. It worked and I rebooted and got to 10.6.8.

Here's what I picked (I've not tested that sound + ethernet + USB 3.0 + RTC worked, but graphics + OS do work.)

EasyBeast
RealTekALC8xx
ALC899 (under Non-DSDT HDAEnabler)
Under Misc:
ElliotForceLegacyRTC
EvOreboot
FakeSMC (says this is required)
FakeSMC Plugins
IOPCIFamily Fix (not sure it's needed)
NullCPUPowerManagement (since I once saw a panic for AppleCPUPowerManagement in my previous attempts)
USB 3.0 (since this mobo has USB 3.0, not tested I don't have any USB 3 devices yet.)
Lnx2Mac's Realtek RTL81xx Ethernet (not tested - did not install with ethernet plugged in to prevent registration email to the mothership)
Chimera boot loader
Selected both 32-bit and 64-bit Apple Boot Screen (this turned on the Radeon card)
MacPro 3,1 System Definition
All OSX86 Software

And as usual, after the reboot, went into the Snow Installer and did a dmg backup after this attempt worked.

Still only see 4GB out of the 16GB, probably because i've not attempted to boot 10.6.8 in 64 bit. I guess I should try arch=x86_64 in iBoot.

Tonight, I'll try xMove and Lion.

 

[AC3]

I finally made it to 10.6.8.

So I noticed what I should have noticed a few days ago in the Downloads section: "UpdateHelper - For Sandy Bridge users updating to 10.6.8 ONLY. Run this tool before running the 10.6.8 Combo Update." D'Oh!

Good to see another success story

-AC3

PS: Generally, using a DSDT helps get full functionality without a lot of custom kexts. I think it is the better route to go, especially for things like sleep. Try checking out the DSDT database, but remember that if you do use custom DSDT, be sure to remove the kexts that are required for easybeast but not custom DSDT.

 

[DaSnipe]

I'm using nearly the same setup with a GA-Z68X-UD4-B3 and I was having the same 10.6.8 issues, however I couldn't get UpdateHelper to work for me. Luckily someone else on the forum posted the method http://www.tonymacx86.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=27574&p=175593&hilit=Manual+UpdateHelper+touch#p175593

Try these manual steps :
A. Remove the ACPI_SMC_PlatformPlugin.kext as it will cause a kernel panic when trying to update to 10.6.8. This IOPlatform.kext file is located in /System/Library/Extensions/IOPlatformPluginFamily.kext/Contents/Plugins folder. (Right click on IOPlatformPluginFamily.kext > show contents, then continue following the folder tree)
B. In Terminal, type: sudo touch /System/Library/Extensions
C. Run MultiBeast and select System Utilities to rebuild kext cache (yes again). If multibeast fails, install kext utility from multibeast and then run that from your applications.
D. Reboot and update 10.6.8

I'm running 10.6.8 smooth, running the Lion install right now, had to use the Arch=x86_64 flag to allow the Lion install to not KP, I thought Multibeast went to 64-bit with a userdsdt so I didn't click the option

 

[raydawg]

Not much luck yet. I seem to have trouble getting to 64 bits.
Whenever I try to either boot from Installer after xMove, or to boot into 10.6.8 with arch=x86_64, it locks up.

I tried a verbose boot to see where it would stop, but I see lot and lots of kexts loaded when the screen clearing after every pageful, and then a black screen with no output - wasn't able to catch where its breaking.

I'm probably going to try going back to 10.6.0 and using a DSDT instead.

 

[raydawg]

Ok, I'm good now. My 2nd dumb mistake was leaving the iBoot CD in the DVD drive. So of course, it is incapable of booting Lion, or for that matter 10.6.8 in 64 bit mode. D'oh!

I did this because I didn't want to experiment on the primary drive, the OCZ SSD so I wouldn't wear it out with repeated installs, wipes, and restores.

I guess what confused me is that the description for iBoot under downloads said "For 10.6.8" only, it didn't say 32-bit only, so it didn't immediately click in my head that the reason it can't boot Lion is because it can't do 64 bits, and thus the reason I couldn't go to 64 bit 10.6.8 either, not even with arch=86_64!

So I decided to bite the bullet and restore the last 10.6.8 backup that I had working on to the SSD drive, and popped out the iBoot CD, and all worked nicely.

The only odd thing now is that I can't boot off the Snow DVD with the Chimera 1.4.1 on the SSD - for that I have to use the iBoot CD. Not much of an issue, just a bit odd.

I guess I should install Chimera 1.41 on a USB thumb drive incase of emergency.

I got sound and ethernet working too. And it's super fast. It's a beautiful, beautiful thing.
Only thing I haven't tested is sleep.


I'm going to keep often updated applications such as Calibre and iTunes, and the page files off the SSD to minimize wear. You can do this from terminal only. (Finder will only let you do aliases which don't work the same as soft-links.)

    cd /Applications
    mv Foobar.app /Volumes/OtherDrive/Applications
    ln -s /Volumes/OtherDrive/Foobar.app

Surprisingly it will retain the soft link even when you update the app.

(I'll probably do the same for other volatile things like log files and caches.)

Moving page files is a bit more complicated, but doable, and requires editing the /etc/rc script (this might be replaced by an OS update, so check the script after you update.)
http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?s ... 5021440138 and http://forums.macnn.com/90/mac-os-x/195 ... e-panther/ amongst many others.

Since the machine has 16GB of RAM, it's unlikely that it will actually use much of a page file, but still I'd rather have the SSD last longer, so that will go to the rotating drive on a dedicated partition (to prevent fragmentation.)

But it will certainly create a /var/vm/sleepimage which will be 16GB in size.
This explains how to move the sleepimage: http://explanatorygap.net/2006/06/08/mo ... acbookpro/

 

[manille]

I have success install and running full speed on OS X Lion 10.7.2
My hardware models is listed below.

> Motherboard: GA-Z68X-UB5-B3
> Rev: 1.0
> CPU: i5-2500K
> Video Card: Gigabyte Radeon HD 6870 1GB GDDR5
> 8 Gig Corsair Ram Blue

Thanks to tonymacx86 and everyone who mad this possible testing!