neilharts next modding project ?

[Einsteiniac]

Just figured I would add a gotcha I have ran into with this board since most seem to be following this thread that are interested in this board. I got my board it had the 38 bios. My 3570k was working great with this machine and even got it up and running well. Rebooted and ran into a BIOS issue with smbios that intel fixed in 042 so I updated to 043 to fix the issue. Now when I boot up I get an unsupported CPU message and it will not let me boot or even reflash the firmware! So I have to now buy a 3570s or 3770s to work with this board. Pretty annoying. I understand the TDP on this board is 65W but the only reason for that limitation is Intel's stupid CPU cooler. Well time to get a 3770s I suppose.

 

[spence4]

Yes the ASUS P8Z77-M Pro maybe the near perfect Micro-ATX motherboard "in my opinion". I am running 10.8.2 with the modded 1504 BIOS (see http://www.tonymacx86.com/buying-advice/73558-z77-matx-motherboards-os-x.html ), 16GB memory and a i7-3770K where speed step works including sleep and wake from sleep.

Have fun,
neil

Neil, Long time in getting back to you on this one as I have been slowly amassing all of my pieces for the Mac Pro. Anyway, I had a fair bit of trouble getting things installed with my P8Z77M Pro and 2500K. Finally got it working, then plugged in the 6850 graphics card and seem to be ok. Couple questions for you though.

1) When using the DVI on the 6850 directly to my Aluminum matte 23 Cinema Display I basically have no ability to get into the BIOS menu. If I unplug the 6850 then move the DVI to the mono DVI I can get to the BIOS. I can also get to the BIOS using the HDMI (via DVI HDMI adapter) on the mobo, but not the 6850. Any idea what is going on?

2) I checked on the BIOS screen and even though I went to the wordpress site and clicked on the link for the P8Z77M Pro to get the modded BIOS and used the USB Flashback with the flashing green light on the board - my BIOS version says 1616, not 1504. OS X is working, but it appears I am not using the same BIOS as you mentioned. Is this a problem? Could you send me the 1504 that I need? Doing a quick Get Info on the P8Z77MP.cap file I downloaded it says that it was created on October 17 - is it possible that this is an "improvement"? Is it also possible that it is actually not an improvement?

3) Really silly stuff now - when the system fires up I get the spinning gears for about 2-3 turns. On my P8Z77-I Deulxe/3225 combo w/o a discrete graphics card I don't even see the gears - just the Apple logo and boom - desktop. I get higher geekbench scores on my 2500K so I would think it would load faster or just as fast, but not slower. Both have 8GB of the same RAM. Literally the same as I bought a pack of 4x4GB.

Welcome your thoughts/comments. Thanks.

 

[neilhart]

Just figured I would add a gotcha I have ran into with this board since most seem to be following this thread that are interested in this board. I got my board it had the 38 bios. My 3570k was working great with this machine and even got it up and running well. Rebooted and ran into a BIOS issue with smbios that intel fixed in 042 so I updated to 043 to fix the issue. Now when I boot up I get an unsupported CPU message and it will not let me boot or even reflash the firmware! So I have to now buy a 3570s or 3770s to work with this board. Pretty annoying. I understand the TDP on this board is 65W but the only reason for that limitation is Intel's stupid CPU cooler. Well time to get a 3770s I suppose.

I do not understand your comment that it won't let you reflash the BIOS. Are you using the IFLASH2.exe utility from a bootable flash drive? And my board did also have the 38 BIOS and I installed the 43 and I am happy with this version. Also all of my experience is with the Intel i3-3225 CPU.

neil

 

[Einsteiniac]

I do not understand your comment that it won't let you reflash the BIOS. Are you using the IFLASH2.exe utility from a bootable flash drive? And my board did also have the 38 BIOS and I installed the 43 and I am happy with this version. Also all of my experience is with the Intel i3-3225 CPU.

neil

Yeah after I flashed the BIOS when it turns on and gets video it won't even let me get into the BIOS just pops up and says my CPU is unsupported and is shutting down to prevent damage. When I mean it won't let me re-flash I mean with my 3570k installed with 43 I can't even get it to boot far enough to flash. It is because the CPU is unsupported. I just find it silly that it didn't care with the 38 BIOS but does with the 43.

 

[neilhart]

spence4 - Just a general observation is that the 2nd generation CPUs (your 2500k is in this group) work well with the chip sets that were released with them, the 6x series (H67, Z68 being the most popular). And in the same fashion the 3rd generation CPUs work well with the Z77 and Q77 or the 7x series. The motherboard manufactures have released BIOS updates for the older boards so that Ivy Bridge 3 rd generation CPUs will play in the older boards (however this is not universal as some boards do not have a refresh on the BIOS and just won't boot with the newer CPUs).

That being the case, you probably would have a easier time using an Ivy Bridge CPU with your P8Z77M Pro motherboard. This has to do with both questions 1 & 2.

My system has the P8Z77M Pro with an i7-3770k CPU, 16 GB memory, a Sapphire 6870 1 GB video card. I normally use the board side DVI port to a DVI display and the HDMI port to a HDMI input of a HDTV; both displays are running at 1920 x 1200. I am at 10.8.2 with all recent updates (except this week's update for iMacs).

I have run this system OC'd to 4.2 and 4.4 GHz n the recent past. However with the modded BIOS and no OC, I have speed step working and it idles around 1.6 GHz and jumps into action and run 3.8 GHZ under any load.

Back to your question 1 - I do not see this problem. I just went to the BIOS and confirmed that it is reporting # 1504. Upon exit i booted into my 4 drive RAID 0. The boot time is long but under a minute.

Your question 2 - Yes it is 1504 and I am attaching a zipped copy of the modded file. These files all share the same name, so you need to set a subdirectory for each.

Your question 3 - My system is slow to boot as compared to others. I think most of slowness has to do with the number of drives that the system is checking. In this system I have 5 HDDS. In that I don't reboot frequently when I have a system "on line", this longer boot time does not mean much to me.

I hope that this helps and this is "off topic" so I we should continue by PM if needed or start a new thread.

Have fun,
neil

 

[ATW]

ATW good find of this link with the answer that I did not want to hear. Again, I will see what a SATA III SSD does on a SATA III port when I have one available. The M4 mSATA drive was $ 120 US shipped and could well have been a standard 2.5" 6 Gbs SSD instead.

neil

Hey Neil, just thought about the mSATA drive and due to very little space in my planed build I would still want to use one just to save space. After a little research I found something that might be perfect, an mSATA to SATA cable. That would make it possible to have a small mSATA drive connected to a full speed SATA III port which should then reach up to 500 MB Second RW speeds.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812186155

ATW

 

[neilhart]

ATW - Only if it were that simple. It apparently is not; the connector from the newegg link

and a close up of the board connector, mSata drive, and a slimline connector from Frys.

I think the description of the board connector is "mini pcie" and an adapter would be "mini pcie to SATA".

Take a look at this link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MSATA#mSATA as there is some clarification that
"Due to the absence of a standard for quite some time, there is still some confusion around this subject.
For host devices which support either an mSATA SSD or mini-PCIe card interchangeably, this application
note from NXP explains how to use a PCI-express/SATA router chip."

neil

 

[chaosdesigns]

Edit - I purchased a SIIG Display Port to HDMI adapter and it works. Now I have the Motherboard HDMI port with the HDMI to DVI adapter and the new DP to HDMI adapter and my two 1920 x 1200 displays are happy with full acceleration and adjustable resolutions. This combination survives a reboot where the prior combination of setups did not.

neil

Hi Neil,

I am currently messing around with this board and cpu and am having strange video issues in ML 10.8.2. While I am able to get it to boot into ML at a resolution of 1920 x 1080, and have the HD4000 recognized in the System Profiler, If I switch resolutions, things go sideways. At present I am only using the HDMI port.

I built a ML 10.8.2 installer using Unibeast 1.5.3 and then Installed EasyBeast, GraphicsMode 1920x1080, and Mac Mini Profile using MultiBeast 5.1.3

Here are my BIOS settings:View attachment BIOS Settings.txt

Could you please give them a look and perhaps share what settings you used to get yours up and running?


Many thanks in advance.

chaos

 

[neilhart]

Hi Neil,

I am currently messing around with this board and cpu and am having strange video issues in ML 10.8.2. While I am able to get it to boot into ML at a resolution of 1920 x 1080, and have the HD4000 recognized in the System Profiler, If I switch resolutions, things go sideways. At present I am only using the HDMI port.

I built a ML 10.8.2 installer using Unibeast 1.5.3 and then Installed EasyBeast, GraphicsMode 1920x1080, and Mac Mini Profile using MultiBeast 5.1.3

Here are my BIOS settings:View attachment 36323

Could you please give them a look and perhaps share what settings you used to get yours up and running?


Many thanks in advance.

chaos

I have my system setup using the HDMI port to HDMI/DVI adapter to my DVI display 1920 x 1200 and the DP port to DP/HDMI adapter to HDTV 1920 x 1200. And the change resolutions does work on the DVI display but not on the HDTV (as expected in my OP). On the HDTV the when you change from 1920 x 1200 to 1600 x 1200 for example the display loose sync and I have blurred multiple images across the screen.

And the differences in our setup are:

Configuration/Video/IGD Minimum Memory 64MB ; I have 128MB
Configuration/Video/IGD Primary Video Port HDMI; I have AUTO
Configuration/Video/IGD Secondary Video Port None; this line is not listed when above is set to AUTO
Power/Intel Dynamic Power Technology Off; I have Energy Efficient Performance
Power/PCIe ASPM Support Disable; I have Enable
Boot/Boot Menu Type Normal; I have Advanced
Boot/BIOS Setup Auto Entry Enabled; I have Disable
Boot/Boot Display Options/Expansion Card Text Disable; I have Enable
Boot/Boot Display Options/Keyboard Ready Beep Disabled; I have Enable

Of interest I have seen no screen artifacts with HD4000 on this system.

neil

 

[Einsteiniac]

Alright so I am at a loss for what CPU to get for my setup on this board and figured I would see what you guys weigh in with. I have 3 options.

3770s
3770t
E3-1265LV2

The 3770S has the best performance scoring 9,517 on CPU mark. It has a 65W TDP and HD4000. This CPU is readily available. The biggest con is its 65W and I am shooting to go completely passive cooled in my mini.

The 3770T has the lowest performance scoring 8,787 on CPU mark. It has a 45W TDP and HD4000. This CPU I can't find anywhere in the US. Given some time and exhausting resources I am sure I could eventually track it down though. I like this CPU but its biggest con is lack of availability plus it isn't on the official supported list for this board. So I would hate to buy it only to be in the same position I am in now with my 3570k.

The E3-1265LV2 is a Xeon chip and its performance is just a smidge better than the 3770T with a 8,823. This CPU does have some better virtualization features though and I do run VMWare quite a bit. It has a TDP of 45W but it has HD2500. If it weren't for that damn HD2500 I would just swoop up this chip. Plus how many mini mods have Xeon chips Now that said with my mod I do have room for a passively cooled video card as well and that was the overall plan for this mod was to run something like a GT640. Also this CPU IS on the supported list for this board.

What are your guys' thoughts?