Loginfailed's Build - i7-3770k / GA-Z77-DS3H / 16GB RAM / 6850

loginfailed · Oct 2, 2012

I installed 4 additional 120mm intake fans on the side where the mesh is. They are 1200 RPM fans but are wired in 2 separate pairs which are in series. This basically halves the voltage to each fan as well as halving the RPM of the fans to 600 RPM. I did this because they were quite noisy at full throttle and the air flow they were producing was just plain overkill for my needs. This also allowed me to run them off of the 600T's stock fan controller without overloading it. I also installed some Dynamat material on both of the 600T's side panels to help reduce noise.

The Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO is overkill because I am not over clocking the CPU. But I had the room in the case and I think it looks cool, so there. Money well spent, I guess.

The Corsair AX750 is overkill too, but I wanted a fully modular power supply and I like the all black cables because I think it makes the inside of the case look cool.

I originally had planned on using a GA-Z77X-UP5 TH motherboard but I cheaped out at the last minute. I had the money but I couldn't find one locally and I wanted to build the machine right then. I needed some instant gratification and Micro Center had that bad ass deal on a 3770k plus $50 off any Z77 motherboard. I just went with the DS3H because it was only $50. Maybe later I'll get a cooler motherboard, but for now the DS3H serves my needs just fine.

I went with 2 x 8GB memory, so later if I get the itch to tinker I can add 2 more sticks.

I already owned the Gigabyte 6850. Maybe later on, I may swap it for an nVidia GTX 670 or something but for now the 6850 does what I need. Had some trouble initially getting the 6850 to work on Mountain Lion. See the Mountain Lion installation guide below for the easiest way to get your ATI Radeon HD6xxx graphics card working with Mountain Lion.

The 600T has a FireWire 400 port on the front of the case with a header to plug into the motherboard. My motherboard does not have FireWire. I also have some FireWire 800 drives around that I use, so I got a combo FireWire 800/400 PCIe card. The card has no internal header so in order to get the FireWire on the front of the case to work, I bought a cable that has 1394a male on one end and soldered the wires to the 600T's front panel header lead. I looked around on the web for pin outs and just matched everything up. Then I routed the cable outside the back panel of the case and plugged it into the FireWire card. I tried it out with an old FireWire 400 drive and it seems to be working. I doubt I will ever use it, but it was bugging me that everything on the front panel was not hooked up. You OCD guys will know what I mean, haha.

All 3 of my drives are SATA III 6Gb/s. I also have the HDD Mobile Rack that I like to use for backups. That makes 4 drives that need SATA III 6Gb/s and my motherboard only has 2. Luckily, I had a PCIe 2 port SATA 6Gb/s card laying around which brings me up to speed.

The IOGear Bluetooth dongle works pretty well. It sometimes take 5-10 seconds for my Apple Magic Mouse and Wireless keyboard when waking the machine from sleep. Other than the slight delay upon waking, it is working perfectly.

This machine is connected to the network with an ethernet cable. But I needed WiFi to enable the iPhone wireless sync function. The dongle I'm using uses a Realtek RTL8188 chipset. It uses its own driver and it is a rock solid connection. Ive never seen it drop once.

The only downside to these RTL8188 dongles is they use their own program that has to run at startup. This is no problem, but the little window for the app pops up each time you log in. For anyone interested, I wrote an applescript that closes the window so you don't have to minimize it yourself each time you log in. What you do is create the Applescript and save it as an application. Put the Applescript in your login items. Then when you start the machine it will run automatically and close the window for you:

Code:

delay 2

tell application "System Events"
	set visible of process "Wireless Network Utility" to false
end tell

You can change the "delay 2" to whatever number of seconds you want. It basically runs the script 2 seconds after login. The number 2 is how many seconds, so change it to 10 for 10 seconds, 5 for 5 seconds, etc. I just made it 2 seconds just in case there is a delay of the Wireless Network Utility app opening up. 2 seconds keeps the app visible just long enough for you to see the dongle connect to my network so it works great for me.

The 600T has 4 USB 2.0 ports on the front. My motherboard does not have enough headers for all the USB 2.0 stuff. I found this NZXT internal USB hub that works pretty good. It sits inside the case so its not visible, and turns a 2 port motherboard header into 3 motherboard headers and 2 female USB ports. So I was able to plug my Logitech wireless dongle in there for my wireless keyboard and mouse (for use with BIOS, or in case of Bluetooth failure), my USB 2.0 front panel headers and my 3.5" internal card reader. Don't try using the outputs from this little NZXT module for anything requiring high power. While it does have its own power cable that connects to your power supply, it will go haywire if you overload it.

The 600T also has a USB 3.0 front panel port. The weird thing about this case is that it has a regular USB 3.0 male lead at the other end. What Corsair wants you to do is run it outside the case and plug it into the port on the rear I/O of the motherboard. Since my motherboard has a USB 3.0 internal header, I found an adapter that takes care of this for me and allows me to retain all of the rear USB 3.0 ports. (see above in the hardware links)

That's pretty much the highlights. I'll add a few pics of the actual system when I get time. Thanks for looking. Any questions/comments/criticisms/suggestions please let me know.

Mountain Lion Installation
**Do not install the Gigabyte Radeon HD6850 at this time, use the onboard graphics for installation of Mountain Lion. The Gigabyte Radeon HD6850 will be installed at the very end.**

BIOS Settings

Advanced Frequency Settings
*Profile1 required for the Corsair 1600MHz memory.

Advanced CPU Core Features
*Everything Auto

Advanced Memory Settings
*Profile1 required for the Corsair 1600MHz memory.

Advanced Voltage Settings
*Everything Auto

Miscellaneous Settings

ATA Port Information
*Port 1 is Empty because there is no drive in the HDD mobile rack.
*The 2TB drives run off PCIe SATA controller so they don't show here.

BIOS Features (page 1)
*If using VM (Parallels/VMWare), set Intel Virtualization Technology to Enabled.
*Boot Option #1 must be set to P0. System would not boot when set to UEFI.

BIOS Features (page 2)

Peripherals (page 1)
*SATA Mode must be set to AHCI.

Peripherals (page 2)

Super IO Configuration

Intel(R) Smart Connect Technology

Power Management

Steps 1-3 - Purchase OS X, Create UniBeast Drive, Install OS X Mountain Lion
Follow steps 1-3 at the following link. For steps 1 & 2 you will need access to a working computer running OS X:
http://www.tonymacx86.com/61-unibeast-install-os-x-mountain-lion-any-supported-intel-based-pc.html

Step 4 - Multibeast post-installation utility
Follow step 4 at the following link to perform post-installation setup using MultiBeast. Use the screenshot below for the correct selections for this build:
http://www.tonymacx86.com/61-unibeast-install-os-x-mountain-lion-any-supported-intel-based-pc.html

Multibeast Settings

Step 5 - Install HD6xxx graphics card
After running MultiBeast and restarting. Verify that the system will boot correctly and everything is working as desired. Once system is operating as desired:

Shut down the machine
Disconnect power cord from the power supply
Install your ATI Radeon HD6xxx graphics card
Move DVI cable from the internal graphics port to the DVI port on your HD6xxx graphics card
Reconnect power cord your power supply
Turn the machine back on and allow it to boot into OS X Mountain Lion
HD6xxx graphics card should now be working as designed and detected properly

System Screen Shots

About This Mac

More Info

Geekbench 64-bit

SpeedStep working

Updating from 10.8.0 to 10.8.2

I originally installed 10.8 on this machine. To update it to 10.8.2, this is the procedure I followed which is a slightly modified version of a guide by Stork, originally found in his build thread HERE):

Repair permissions with either Disk Utility
Backup system Carbon Copy Cloner
Download the Mountain Lion 10.8.2 Combo Updater http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1581
Run the Combo Updater, but don't restart
Run MultiBeast only reinstalling ALC887/888b v100302 audio patch (see pic below)
Reboot
Repair permissions upon rebooting into Mountain Lion 10.8.2

EDITS:
10/07/2012
Changed smbios to MacPro5,1 to fix HD 6850 graphics after-wake performance. (see post #18)

Stork · Oct 3, 2012

Another excellent build description and well deserving of the Golden Builds designation. Congratulations. :clap:

As I mentioned in your previous Golden Build description on the Z68MX-UD2H the Corsair 600T is large enough to be an end table to your easy chair." :lol:

Enjoy your new system! :thumbup:

LazyBoy · Oct 3, 2012

Awesome build Loginfailed that truly deserves the "Golden" tag. It was fun reading how you put it together and inspiring too. Thanks for the detailed guide, it will surely help newbies like me to building one like this. Thanks again.

joncas · Oct 3, 2012

Great guide!

I wonder if with the big CPU cooler you couldn't get away without any case fans?

(By the way, on most of these Z77 UEFI Gigabyte boards, you can get the bios settings as a screenshot automatically by pressing F12 if you have a FAT-formatted usb stick attached -- saves you having to use a camera...)

loginfailed · Oct 3, 2012

Stork said:
Another excellent build description and well deserving of the Golden Builds designation. Congratulations.

As I mentioned in your previous Golden Build description on the Z68MX-UD2H the Corsair 600T is large enough to be an end table to your easy chair."

Enjoy your new system!

Thanks Stork! You know it makes a great ottoman too, just needs a pillow on top. Oh wait.. someone else has already thought of that:

http://www.sozodesign.com/intel_ottoman.html

LazyBoy said:
Awesome build Loginfailed that truly deserves the "Golden" tag. It was fun reading how you put it together and inspiring too. Thanks for the detailed guide, it will surely help newbies like me to building one like this. Thanks again.

Thanks!

joncas said:
Great guide!

I wonder if with the big CPU cooler you couldn't get away without any case fans?

(By the way, on most of these Z77 UEFI Gigabyte boards, you can get the bios settings as a screenshot automatically by pressing F12 if you have a FAT-formatted usb stick attached -- saves you having to use a camera...)

Could probably go with less fans, but where's the fun in that? I'm a fan of fans. A chicken in every pot, a fan in every slot.

Good catch on the BIOS screenshot tip. Fixed!

joncas · Oct 4, 2012

loginfailed said:
Could probably go with less fans, but where's the fun in that? I'm a fan of fans. A chicken in every pot, a fan in every slot.

I'm the opposite side on that one: my notion of fun is a totally silent PC !

rick26 · Oct 4, 2012

I have almost the same build, the only difference is the video card i have a Nvidia geforce gt430 and a 450 watt power suply. But good build man!

Solidww · Oct 4, 2012

That's a lovely build.

the_gael · Oct 4, 2012

nice build description :thumbup:

I have just done a very quick 1st draft of my own one and yours is inspiring me to go and make my own more complete - like bios screenshots.

2 points -
1st point - I see you selected AppleRTC Patch in multibeast - did you run into something that made you use this? I don't need it on my Z77X-UD5H.

2nd point - try setting the RAM speed manually rather than using Profile 1 - I had wake from sleep issues when I used Profile 1 with this RAM - all issues were resolved by configuring manually - may not be the answer for you as you are using a BT dongle but worth checking.

Hamburglar · Oct 4, 2012

Nice build ! I have a very similar build, but with nvidia cards and SSDs. Same cooler. 600watt PSU. I like my case better tho

So i think i solved my sleep issues but i would like to narrow down the specifics of the problem.

Difference in settings: BIOS - overclocking to 44 44 44 44, no change in voltage. Memory profile 1, 1800 Mhz at slight increase voltage 1.620. Max temp of core is about 67 with 8x prime 95 runs. normally low-mid 30's. Geekbench 16.7K

Sleep - did not use the cmos reset patch. Finally got it to work with ErP and ECHI both on + darkwake=10. What i don't know what specifically in the combo that made it work or if there was some secondary impact -- perhaps to memory ?

Any issues with sleep or usb recognition after sleep wake ?

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Loginfailed's Build - i7-3770k / GA-Z77-DS3H / 16GB RAM / 6850

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