GA-Z77X-UD5H Problems

[Bicster]

I got my Z77X-UD5H running last night, but not without problems.

BIOS F7
2x8GB Crucial Ballistix Tactical 1600 MHz
Celeron G530 (temporary until Ivy Bridge CPUs are supported)
Nvidia 7200 (temporary, not supported, so GraphicsEnabler=No, running in dumb framebuffer mode)

No DSDT (used UserDSDT without one, which I think is what Tony did)

What's working:

USB (sort-of), Ethernet (Intel & Atheros), Intel & Marvell SATA

What's broken:

1. My ergo keyboard (Kinesis Contour USB) does not work in the BIOS or bootloader. It doesn't matter which USB port I use. The keyboard is powered and I can hear the audible feedback when I push keys (this keyboard has a built-in audio feedback mechanism), but nothing is registered and the status LEDs don't light up. The keyboard is fine once Mac OS starts.

2. The other USB keyboard (Logitech wireless) which works in BIOS doesn't work in Mac OS most of the time.

3. Audio. No surprise there, I'm not concerned about it, I will get it working or use USB audio.

4. Stability. : Geekbench stress testing locked up the machine overnight. While I was observing it, the CPU temp never got over 51C... but hell, it froze, so I'm not sure if it's an OS X issue (lack of DSDT?)

I'll boot Knoppix on it later and run a massively parallel kernel compile in a loop and see if that holds up.

Any advice from the experts?

 

[Bicster]

Geekbench stress test has been running for over 2h, no errors; CPU temps are hovering around 40C.

 

[Gordo74]

The USB issues seem hardware related.

Audio, you just need the modified kext from Multibeast

Stability may be related to the USB.

 

[Bicster]

Should I contact Gigabyte support or RMA w/ Newegg? Either one sounds less fun than poking my eye with a spork.

I may try putting a powered hub in the mix to see if that affects anything.

Thumb drives are working fine.

Any chance the stability issues are due to unsupported graphics?

 

[TurbineSeaplane]

Are you using "UseKernelCache" as "yes or "no"?

(curious)
Fighting several issues with this exact same MoBo on F7

 

[Bicster]

KernelCache is working with a clean install. I was having issues trying to use a clone of my old hack's boot drive.

 

[Bicster]

It occurred to me that my Kinesis keyboard has a built in hub, so if the UD5H doesn't support keyboards behind hubs, that would be the issue. I sent Gigabyte an email asking about it. If they can't fix their BIOS, I may just open the keyboard and bypass the hub. It's never been useful because it lacks enough power to run a mouse or anything.

Geekbench has been running the torture test for 6 hours now, and the last hour I have also been running Prime95's stress test. I either have a terrible intermittent problem or everything is going to work out OK.

I found a Radeon 4670 which might be supported, I'll try it later. I've also found some potential audio solutions, but I may just ignore that and hook up my USB sound blaster to avoid issues with sound after updates.

 

[Bicster]

Great news.

USB - I tried three USB keyboards with two USB hubs. In every case the keyboard did not work in BIOS or Chimera but worked in OS X. This motherboard evidently does not support USB hubs in BIOS. (If anyone has a confirmed case otherwise, please let me know the details.)

If you have this USB issue, please open a case with Gigabyte and ask them for a BIOS fix.

Stability - It turns out the lock-up I reported earlier was incorrect. The system was still running normally but the screen would not wake up. Replacing the video card with a supported one (Radeon 4670) fixed it. I confirmed the issue by logging in with Screen Sharing while the system appeared to be locked up. I have run a total of about 16 hours of Geekbench and Prime95 torture tests without any issue.

A new issue is the SAS controller. I have an LSI 3081E-R (1068E) 8-port controller. I thought this was supported by the Fusion MPT driver, and it may be, but I can't get the card's firmware to initialize on the UD5H, and OS X doesn't see it either. I verified the slot is OK by plugging in a 3ware 9650SE. Before I give up, I will try to re-flash the firmware on the LSI card. The last time I used it was with Solaris and I have no idea what firmware it has on it.

I also don't have audio working yet (like most people) ... I forgot to dig the USB sound blaster out of the closet before my kids went to bed, so I might mess with that a bit more tonight.

In any case, I don't see why this board can't replace my old hackintosh at this point.

 

[Bicster]

Audio works. Used SR Tools to remove the audio and ALC kexts. Then installed the ALC898 injector, ALC8XX and AppleHDARollback, then rebooted.

 

[Adriant]

Witch where exactly the kexts you removed to get audio?