Official CustoMac Mini 2011 Guide and Notes (in progress)

[matelot]

Q: When does a Hack equal a Mac? A: When its been TonyMac and Toledaed! ! The new tuneup kit works very well. Thank You!

Ok- now that 10.7.2 is officially out- the beans can be spilled. The drivers are much much nicer now for Intel HD 3000- I'm getting 0 artifacts. Everyone with this build should update right away. toleda is going to be posting an update for the CustoMac Mini tuneup kit soon.

I was still seeing the artefact problem after 10.7.2. Especially when I played videos (on Plex) or when I moved windows around quickly. Since the problem looks like over-writes or mis-writes to the screen buffer I started thinking about the RAM. In my case I have Corsair Vengeance PC3-12800 (1600MHz) and when checking out the compatibility I first notices that the board that we're all using has no XMP setting and seems to max out at 1333 MHz. While thinking about how to match the board with the memory I noticed that you can adjust the internal graphics clock. I lowered the setting from 1100 to 1000 and the artefacts seem to have COMPLETELY disappeared.

I have since read onteh gigabyte forums that there may be a CPU / Internal Memory controller issue and this board that also suggests that upping the graphics core voltage (by 1 increment) also helps stabilize the board and that this may be a sign that there is a voltage regulation problem on the board.

I will report back after I have time tested both solutions.

Chris

Yoohoo...Do we finally have a possible breakthrough for the annoying white lines. Let us know if you are successful with changing the voltage. I am sure many of us are anxiously waiting... Thanks in advance.

 

[matelot]

Is the HD3000 capable of running 2560x1440?

Yep.

Then I'll tray Cinema Thunderbolt Display

I'll be curious to see if you can get the full resolution in Cinema and audio via HDMI2DP. Let us know if you are seeing any video performance because it's higher than 1920x1200.

 

[Mate94]

Q: When does a Hack equal a Mac? A: When its been TonyMac and Toledaed! ! The new tuneup kit works very well. Thank You!

Ok- now that 10.7.2 is officially out- the beans can be spilled. The drivers are much much nicer now for Intel HD 3000- I'm getting 0 artifacts. Everyone with this build should update right away. toleda is going to be posting an update for the CustoMac Mini tuneup kit soon.

I was still seeing the artefact problem after 10.7.2. Especially when I played videos (on Plex) or when I moved windows around quickly. Since the problem looks like over-writes or mis-writes to the screen buffer I started thinking about the RAM. In my case I have Corsair Vengeance PC3-12800 (1600MHz) and when checking out the compatibility I first notices that the board that we're all using has no XMP setting and seems to max out at 1333 MHz. While thinking about how to match the board with the memory I noticed that you can adjust the internal graphics clock. I lowered the setting from 1100 to 1000 and the artefacts seem to have COMPLETELY disappeared.

I have since read onteh gigabyte forums that there may be a CPU / Internal Memory controller issue and this board that also suggests that upping the graphics core voltage (by 1 increment) also helps stabilize the board and that this may be a sign that there is a voltage regulation problem on the board.

I will report back after I have time tested both solutions.

Chris

I knew it! The motherboard causes the artifacts.
I'm waiting for your opinions!

 

[Connie Mac]

The CustoMac Mini Tuneup Kit version 3 is now available for CustoMac Minis on Lion 10.7.2

Thanks for this update. I've not noticed any sparkles or other screen artifacts in the 15 or so minutes that I've been running the update. Hopefully, that is now resolved.

However, my rear green audio port still has a muttled sound to the high-frequencies, but the front headphone port still works great. Also, there is a pop just before any sound starts.

 

[tylermmoore]

I have upgraded to 10.7.2 with the v3 tuneup kit from toleda. Everything seems to be working fine but I cant get any sound out of the front ports on my case. (apex 008 with gigabyte h67n board). Do i need to run MB again with the apple rollback? thanks

 

[TreeMan2011]

The CustoMac Mini Tuneup Kit version 3 is now available for CustoMac Minis on Lion 10.7.2

See http://www.tonymacx86.com/viewtopic.php?p=209915#p209915

Follow tonymacx86 update recommendations http://tonymacx86.blogspot.com/2011/10/mac-os-x-1072-update.html. Install the Customac Mini Tuneup Kit after the 10.7.2 update is complete.

This is my first time building a one of these so I want to be really clear on this before I do anything. Right now I am running Lion 10.7.1 and everything is working fairly well (I get artifacts for a short time after a reboot, but they seem to go away after a half hour to an hour or so). I have downloaded the 10.7.2 combo update but have not installed it yet. What I want to know is, are you saying that after doing the combo update I should run the CustoMac Mini Tuneup Kit version 3 in exactly the same way that I did it with the Mini Tuneup Kit version 2 after installing 10.7.1, and that doing that won't break anything in my existing installation? I know this probably seems like a question with an obvious answer, but I'd rather ask and be sure than not ask and be sorry. Also, should the Mini Tuneup Kit be run before, after, or instead of MultiBeast? I assume you need to run these before rebooting.

The other thing I would like to know is if anyone running the same hardware as I am (the "Official CustoMac Mini 2011") has had an issue with USB ports not working after an update (as has been reported by a few users in the other update thread)? The reason I ask is because that's probably the thing that scares me the most about attempting this update. I can probably handle anything else, but if the USB ports stop working that means my keyboard and mouse won't work, and I have no idea how to recover from that if it happens (again, I'm new at this). So I'd rather forgo the update than risk having my system become totally inaccessible.

Thanks in advance for any info/advice!

 

[Connie Mac]

What I want to know is, are you saying that after doing the combo update I should run the CustoMac Mini Tuneup Kit version 3 in exactly the same way that I did it with the Mini Tuneup Kit version 2 after installing 10.7.1, and that doing that won't break anything in my existing installation?

Yes, if you can successfully boot into 10.7.2 you should be able to install the Tuneup V3 just as described in its readme file and that should do it.

 

[rockydbull]

Hey guys I went with the alternative parts here:

h61n board and sapphire 5570 video.

I can install lion and update to 10.7.2 but after a few restarts my video card starts flickering black and then back on. I thought this was supposed to be an oob card but seems not.

Any help is appreciated

 

[carukc]

While thinking about how to match the board with the memory I noticed that you can adjust the internal graphics clock. I lowered the setting from 1100 to 1000 and the artefacts seem to have COMPLETELY disappeared.

I have since read onteh gigabyte forums that there may be a CPU / Internal Memory controller issue and this board that also suggests that upping the graphics core voltage (by 1 increment) also helps stabilize the board and that this may be a sign that there is a voltage regulation problem on the board.

I will report back after I have time tested both solutions.

Chris

Ok... I have time tested both lowering the graphics clock and raising the graphics core. With 'Graphics Core' set to 1000 and a fixed the Graphics Core voltage at 1.050V. With either setting, I no longer see artefacts. Since setting the graphics core voltage has less of an impact of performance, I suggest that this is the way to go. It is also possible that simply setting the core voltage to something is enough to resolve the problem. When I looked at these settings with Graphics Core Voltage set to Auto, I noticed that the voltage floated between 1.045 and 1.050. It may be this fluctuation that causes the problem. With it fixed to something like 1.050 it does not float.

Enclosed is a screen shot showing the value that I changed. Enclosed is a screen shot showing the value that I changed. It can be found in the MB Intelligent Tweaker (M.I.T) -> Advanced Voltage Settings.

Chris

 

[carukc]

The other thing I would like to know is if anyone running the same hardware as I am (the "Official CustoMac Mini 2011") has had an issue with USB ports not working after an update (as has been reported by a few users in the other update thread)? The reason I ask is because that's probably the thing that scares me the most about attempting this update. I can probably handle anything else, but if the USB ports stop working that means my keyboard and mouse won't work, and I have no idea how to recover from that if it happens (again, I'm new at this). So I'd rather forgo the update than risk having my system become totally inaccessible.

Thanks in advance for any info/advice!

Which USB Ports are you using? The ones next to the sound ports (under the network port) are for USB3 and do not work properly on my system either. I think that this might be because we do not have a proper driver for Renesas D720200 chip based USB3. I'm going to try to change the BIOS settings for these to USB2 to see if that gets them working.

Chris