[SUCCESS] Another Slugnet clone [GA-Z77X-UD5H, i7-3770K, 660Ti MSI Power ed., 500R]

[will.moindrot]

Slugnet Clone: i7-3770k - Z77X-UD5H - MSI 660TI Power Edition​

Components

Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD5H Motherboard (mine was REV1.0)
[Amazon-uk]http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B007R21JK4/[/Amazon-uk]

Intel Core i7-3770K Quad-Core Processor 3.5 GHz 6 MB Cache LGA 1155 - BX80637I73770K
[Amazon-uk]http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B007X1JM30/[/Amazon-uk]

MSI GTX 660 Ti Power Edition Graphics Card with Triple Overvoltage and Enhanced PWM Design (N660TI PE 2GD5/OC)
[Amazon-uk]http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0095L3GJW/[/Amazon-uk]

Corsair Professional Series HX 650 Watt ATX/EPS Modular 80 PLUS Gold (HX650)
[Amazon-uk]http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B008NJGPTA/[/Amazon-uk]

Corsair Vengeance 16 GB (2x8GB) DDR3 1600MHz PC3 240 Pin DIMM Memory CMZ16GX3M2A1600C10
[Amazon-uk]http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B006EWUO22/[/Amazon-uk]

SanDisk Extreme SSD 240 GB SATA 6.0 Gb-s 2.5-Inch Solid State Drive SDSSDX-240G-G25
[Amazon-uk]http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B006EKJ8UI/[/Amazon-uk]

SanDisk 128GB SSD SATA 6Gb/s 2.5" Solid State Drive
[Amazon-uk]http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B007ZW2LY4/[/Amazon-uk]

Seagate 2TB Barracuda SATA 6Gb/s 64MB 7200RPM Hard Drive
[Amazon-uk]http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B006H32Q3S/[/Amazon-uk]

Cooling Hydro Series H100 High-Performance CPU Cooler
[Amazon-uk]http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B009ZN2NH6/[/Amazon-uk]

Startech 2 Port FireWire 800 + 1 Port FireWire 400 (later found gave problems)
[Amazon-uk]http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B000WCT5HK/[/Amazon-uk]

Sony AD-7280S-0B 24x SATA Internal DVD+/-RW Drive (Black)
[Amazon-uk]http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0057FRTPW/[/Amazon-uk]

Corsair Carbide Series Black 500R Mid Tower Computer Case (CC-9011012-WW)
[Amazon-uk]http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B005E983JW/[/Amazon-uk]

Apple Mac OS X Mountain Lion
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/os-x-mountain-lion/id537386512?mt=12

Scythe Kaze-Master 5.25" Fan Controller - Black
[Amazon-uk]http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0014GBW0Q[/Amazon-uk]

DEMCiflex Dust Filter 200mm, Round - Black/Black
[Amazon-uk]http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B005VPRE80/[/Amazon-uk]

Scythe Gentle Typhoon 120mm 1850 RPM - 3 Pin *3
[Amazon-uk]http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B001CSH980/[/Amazon-uk]

BitFenix Spectre PRO 200mm Fan - all black
[Amazon-uk]http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0067LYYI0[/Amazon-uk]

Lian Li MF-515B 5.25" to 3.5" Adapter Kit - Black
[Amazon-uk]http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B001JK3YOE[/Amazon-uk]

Corsair SP120 Performance Series High Pressure - Single Pack *2
[Amazon-uk]http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B007RESFVI/[/Amazon-uk]

Cubitek Black Cobra Series 3-Pin to 2x 3-Pin Fan Cable Adapter - 60cm *2
[Amazon-uk]http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B004YIRPO8/[/Amazon-uk]

Fan Guard Classic 120mm - black *2
[Amazon-uk]http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B004234JE4/[/Amazon-uk]

Alumino Fan Filter 120mm - black
[Amazon-uk]http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B004CL8EOM/[/Amazon-uk]


Already Owned

ASUS Xonar Essence STX (PCI express)
[Amazon-uk]http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B001P9O894/[/Amazon-uk]

Ducky DK9008 Shine 2 White LED Mech KB Brown Cherry Switch
http://www.cclonline.com/product/93...DK-9008-Shine-II-Mechanical-Keyboard/KBD0512/

Logitech Marble Mouse
[Amazon-uk]http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B001DQY9AW/[/Amazon-uk]

Aten CS1794 4 port usb HDMI KVM switch
[Amazon-uk]http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B002SU6ZYU/[/Amazon-uk]


Comments

Overview
100% working

Following the Slugnet video editor build, the Customac buyers guide, and the Unibeast install guide. Essentially same components as Slugnets (UD5H/i-3370k/660TI). Small changes include SSD drives, Windows drive, and after market cooling. I've tried out some enhancements to make the machine a bit nicer to use which may be of interest to others, and some modest overclocking.

Here's a quick video I made: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-GTRBLvR8o

[video=youtube;z-GTRBLvR8o]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-GTRBLvR8o[/video]


Background

My 2009 iMac experienced GPU damage following Mountain Lion update, and made video editing difficult, so this is both a replacement machine and an upgrade.

Hardware bought through Dabs and Overclockers(UK). Construction pain free. UniBeast/MultiBeast very easy to use, and where I had issues the tonymac forums had everything covered. Slugnet's guide is pretty fool-proof, but I found that if you deviate from this then it is pretty easy to break things, which in worst case means a reinstall of OS X. For me I found FakeSMC plugins caused such an issue. Total time a weekend.

After getting it stable and set up with the settings I like, I took steps to arrange an 'emergency plan' - essentially a backup of the osx partition for ready re-deployment.

I have now a very nice machine for editing in Final Cut Studio 7, After Effects, Photoshop and occasional 3D work. Mountain Lion is running from an SSD, and there's a 2TB hard drive for scratch media and storage. A second SSD runs Windows for gaming. I have started to dip my toe into overclocking and probably will go down this route further with this machine.

Any questions or suggestions about my build, I'd be happy to take them!


Basic Build Steps

I'll try not to repeat the guides identified, but instead add personal findings.

Read Slugnet's guide and the Unibeast/Multibeast installation guide in their entirity before start work. That way you can see the complete picture, detect problems before ther arise, and spend many happy hours solving those problems before you've even got the hardware .

Try and be methodical. Consider if you are installing a piece of hardware temporarily or perminantly and keep wiring/cables tidy for permanent installations. If you plug in a hard drive using one of the motherboards sockets, and then you have to disconnect it, it's a good idea to reconnect it to the socket used previously. When troubleshooting make notes in table form about what you try under what conditions and what is the outcome.

Initial hardware construction of the computer

If you're installing Windows in addition to OS X, do the Windows install first. That way you can quickly test components and you have got a fall back system. Only install the SSD you intend for Windows (not the OS X one) and make sure you use the particular SATA port for Windows. It needs to be the Marvel controlled one (GSATA3).

So you'll be unpacking the motherboard, installing the chip, putting in the memory and making plans for installing the CPU cooler. I applied the H100 when the motherboard was already installed in case; be careful about getting a good contact between CPU and heatsink. Connect up the cooler to a cpu_fan header on the motherboard.

Now install the PSU (you can leave the modular interconnects till last). Install the SSD for Windows. Install the video card - you'll want to use the motherboards PCIEX16 slot (the topmost large one).

Now wiring up. You want to consider at this point about doing things in a sensible order to minimise the amount of tangles later in the build, so also think about how you are going to route cables inside the case.

You'll need to plug in the case's front panel (power, reset switch, Firewire, LED etc.) to the relevant secton of the motherboard toward bottom end. There may be connections on the motherboard, that there are not plugs for on the case. The switches can be plugged in either way round, the other ones for LEDs etc. will be marked.

Now connect the modular power cables. If you have the same PSU you'll need to find one SATA power and one Molex type power line, and cables for your graphics card. Again thinking about ways to minimize the amount of cable used so as to reduce impediments to airflow inside the case - so shorter wires if you can and try to cut corners and route the wires behind the motherboard section if you can. Use the SATA to connect up to the Windows SSD, but you might want to plan ahead for leaving connections in place for the OS X drive, and DVD drive. Use the Molex connectors to power the 500R front panel. If you're using the same model display card as me you'll need to power this through two lines also.

Accompanying the Gigabyte motherboard will be an extra USB3.0 plate, you can plug this into one of the USB3.0 headers on the motherboard. I chose the one nearest the memory slots F_USB30_1. On the 500R the rear fan plugs into a motherboard power header.

Connect up the power cable, monitor (probably via a DVI connection into the graphics card you just installed), keyboard, mouse (top most USB socket for me) and Ethernet to top most port. You should now be able to turn on the computer, and everything works, including the CPU fan.

Updating bios

Install Windows first. Tonymac specifies settings for Bios for OSX, but these are not important for Windows. But check the version of bios and update if necessary - mine was F10 out of the box. Slugnet recommends running F14 version which you can download from here. You can access Q-Flash through bios, and will have a copy of the F14 bios file 'Z77XUD5H.F14' on usb stick, plugged into topmost port on rear. To enter bios, when the Gigabyte spash screen appears hit DELETE (may need to restart machine).


Setting up Windows

You'll need to make a Windows 7 installer on a USB stick, and plug this into the computer. You need to get back to the Gigabyte splash so you might need to reset the machine once again, this time at the splash choose the option for Boot options (F12). This will allow you to boot up with the usb drive, and start the Windows 7 installation process.

After installing Windows, you may like to go a way to setting this up how you like: NVidia driver for a nicer resolution, for my MSI that was here; Cpuid HW monitor for temps; CPU-Z for seeing what the chip is doing.


Setting up OSX

Follow the excellent Unibeast install instructions to produce a USB UniBeast drive. You have to purchase OS X Mountain Lion through the App Store, to which UniBeast installer knows where to look and bundles this up to the USB stick. When you run UniBeast you need it to carry out it's install to your USB stick (not your hard drive!), also laptop support is only chosen when you're hackintosh will be a laptop (not the device you're using to run UniBeast).

2. OS X installation can disrupt the Windows install, so you want to unplug the windows SSD, and then plug in the one intended for OS X.

You're going to need to set up the Bios as here.

I found the instructions for getting Bios to choose a P0 name confusing. But I think that basically if no other drives are connected, the 'Boot Option Priorities' should list your SSD with a P0 prefix (possibly in addition to a UEFI one).

There are two additional settings in addition to the guide above that you may want to consider:

* Disabling 'Wake on LAN' (under Power Management) is supposed to help Sleep problems.
* Disabling 'Internal CPU PPL Overvoltage' (under M.I.T> Advanced Frequeency Settings>Advances CPU Core Features) is supposed to help with USB ejecting during sleep. I'm not sure what effects this has to do with overclocking.​

Save and exit bios (via F10). Then continue with the Unibeast guide.

I initially had trouble with the installer - I couldn't get it to run. UniBeast would load ok, but then the OSX installer would get so far and then it would display a checked/crossed circle above the spinning wheel. Entering verbose mode gave me some useful information - to do this boot with the USB stick into Chimera, then when the USB boot option is shown press the down arrow and a menu appears from which you can choose Verbose mode. I discovered a message about the usb not having enough power:

iousbfamily did not receive enough extra current for the superspeed device (4-port usb 3.0 hun) 0x14b0000
and
the iousbfamily is having trouble enumersting a USB device that has been plugged in


This posting helped advised typing the flag USBBusFix=yes (on the keyboard when the USB boot option is shown as above) and this solved it. I think it was caused by incompatibility with my 8GB USB disk.



Finalizing the OSX install with MultiBeast

Follow the MultiBeast guide Slugnet.

Don't stray from Slugnet's MultiBeast options. Selecting the FakeSMC plugins screwed things up for me - loss of keyboard/mouse/usb stick on reboot, and kernel panics in Safe Mode, and I had to reinstall OS X. (Would love hardware monitoring in OS X if anybody has suggestion?)

Update for Multibeast 5.5.5:
Choose settings

UserDSDT or DSDT-Free installation
Drivers & Bootloaders>Drivers>Audio>Realtek ALC8xx>Without DSDT>ALC898
Disk>3rd Party SATA
Disk>3rd Party eSATA
Graphics>NVIDIA Fermi> >2GB OpenCL Patch>10.8.0+ OpenCL Patch
Miscellaneous>FakeSMC v5.3.820
Miscellaneous>FakeSMC v5.3.820 Plugins
Miscellaneous>USB 3.0 - universal
Network>Atheros - Shailua's ALXEthernet v1.0.2
Network>Intel - hnak's AppleIntelE1000e v2.4.14
Customisation>Boot options>GraphicsEnabler=No

Now once you have done that, you should be able to eject the usb stick, restart the computer, and the computer should boot automatically into Mountain Lion. And it should feel fast!


Initial system check in OSX

USB connections

USB2.0 worked across the board, in all sockets at the back and at the front (500R case and the Gigabyte 3.5inch breakout), and my usb3.0 USB stick worked in all socket (albeit but not at usb 3.0 speeds even in the USB3.0 slots). System Profile identifies the USB3.0 Super Speed bus, and the USB3.0 device (5 Gb/sec), but I get 14 write and 38MB/sec read as measured with Blackmagic Disk Speed Test:

I have tried various things but nothing has worked. Including the VIA update as talked about here. Interestingly USB 3.0 is not working for Windows7 ever even though I have installed the USB3.0 driver from the Gigabyte website, although I haven't tried the Microsoft extensive driver available from here.

I now have the 500R case sockets going into one of the FW2.0 header on motherboard, and the Gigabyte breakout panel (via 5.25 to 2.5" adapter) fitting into the USB3.0 socket F_USB1.


Firewire[/U
Working on board and to front panel header at about 30MB/sec.

Esata[/U
I found that this didn't work, even using MultiBeast's 3rd party option. Testing with a Lacie external HDD.

Audio

Audio is working via the green socket on the motherboard, but the audio header to the case's front panel does not work. Instead I have used the front panel to connect to Xonar sound card for use when running Windows.


Sleep test

There are reports on tonymac of difficulties with Sleep. I did initially get some horrible display artifacts as below, which meant that I had to do a cold system restart. This happened about once in five, but since turning off 'Wake on LAN' in bios it's been behaving itself. USB disks were rudely ejected during sleep, but since following instructions to turn off Internal CPU PLL Overvoltage and that seems to have done the trick.

Geekbench score

Geekbench bench score (64bit 2.4.0) is about 14100, comparable to Slugnet's.

Connecting up Windows 7 drive again

At this point I reconnected the Windows SSD.

Turning back on, just after the Gigabyte splash when the UniBeast/Mountain Lion progress bar appears, press <space>. You should then see extra boot options for Winows NTFS and System Reserved. To boot into Windows choose System Reserved instead otherwise you get a "BOOTMGR is missing" message. I've got an 'enhancement' below that you may wish to follow to clean up this boot screen and rename System Reserved to Windows.


Making an emergency strategy

Whilst OS X was now running stable, my difficulties with Fake_SMC made it apparent that it was very easy for me to mess things up. Re-installation of OS X does not take long but re-installation of applications and settings can be annoying. So time to make a backup.

I used SuperDuper instead of Carbon Clone (they do a free version and anyway I'd previously purchased a copy). All my scratch/media/Home directory files would be stored on the separate Storage hard drive so this would stay independent from the system drive, so that in case of redeployment I'd be able to get back to work quickly. Before I started this process I set up OSX how I like it (user account, keyboard settings, energy saver, dock etc.), and installed Final Cut Pro, Adobe CS and any other system applications you need such as Logmein and SuperDuper of course. And I set up Final Cut Pro user preferences. If you make further sizable changes/improvements to your system you can always repeat and update the backup.


In Disk Utility I made the partition on the Storage drive just a little bit bigger than the used portion of my OS X system drive - OS X with all apps took about 80GB, so I partitioned for 100GB.

You end up with Chimera having an extra boot option for the Emergency drive. Boot into that and you can then run SuperDuper to copy it's system drive to the main drive. And if you log into the main Mountain Lion drive, you see Emergency partition as a hard drive to which you can deploy an updated backup. If you don't want Emergency partition appearing in OS X all the time I've got an enhancement for that below. Beats having to store a USB stick safely and worry about how to boot to it.

 

[will.moindrot]

Further enhancements

Clearing up multibeast bootloader

Chimera bootloader works nicely but having to choose 'System Reserved' rather than 'Windows NTFS' for Windows would probably trip me in the future. So to clean up the boot options in Chimera:

Firstly hide the 'Windows NTFS' partition using advice from here. Then rename System Reserved to Windows as outlined here. The file and the Extras folder seems to be write protected so you need to allow read and write access for yourself via Info, plus the script is case sensitive and avoid any extra spaces.
Also see here: http://quickwebgems.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/hackintosh-hide-and-rename-partitions.html

If you run Multibeast again it will overwrite this change, so make a note of the contents of the file somewhere. My org.chameleon.Boot.plist looks like:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>EthernetBuiltIn</key>
    <string>Yes</string>
    <key>GenerateCStates</key>
    <string>Yes</string>
    <key>GeneratePStates</key>
    <string>Yes</string>
    <key>GraphicsEnabler</key>
        <string>No</string>
    <key>Kernel</key>
    <string>mach_kernel</string>
    <key>Kernel Flags</key>
    <string>darkwake=0</string>
    <key>Legacy Logo</key>
    <string>Yes</string>
    <key>Timeout</key>
    <string>2</string>
    <key>UseKernelCache</key>
    <string>Yes</string>
<key>Hide Partition</key>
<string>hd(2,2)</string>
<key>Rename Partition</key>
<string>"System Reserved" Windows</string>
</dict>
</plist>

Clearing unused drives in osx

I found it annoying to see the other system drives in OSX. I do not need to do any cross platform sharing with windows. But a bigger annoyance and potential pitfall was that files on the Emergency drive appeared Spotlight searches, so I could accidentally use programs or make changes to that disk.

So I wanted OSX to never mount: System Reserved, Windows 7 and Emergency. Following these instructions. The file you are workling here is called fstab. What is slightly confusing is the fact that this file does not exist before you use nano to edit it.

It is a bit tricky because not all of my Windows drives (System Reserved/Windows) has a UUID by which it is identified, in which case you can use it's label instead (also note you have to specify the ntfs flag). You get the label from Disk Utility, selecting the disk from left and pressing Command-I to bring up info. If your windows partition contains a space in it's name, use instead \040

My fstab file looks like this:

UUID=79FC2280-5A0D-3F11-8561-F91F743DF3AE none hfs rw,noauto
UUID=C52BD240-8226-41AC-BA35-767604F23DB5 none ntfs ro,noauto
LABEL=System\040Reserved none ntfs ro,noauto

On occassions where I need to mount Emergency partition (to update the backup), it's mountable through Disk Utility.

Setting up for PC keyboard
The @ key was where my " key was and vice versa, even though I'd used the Wizard that pops up automatically. Bascially in System Prefs go to Language & Text> Input Devices> and check that British PC is checked only.


Getting rid of the 3D dock

This is a pet hate, but if you don't know about it you might consider it. I find the 3D dock difficult to use because I can't easily see when apps are running and I think the 2D dock looks nicer. In Terminal type:

defaults write com.apple.dock no-glass -boolean YES

killall Dock

Further hardware installation


Firewire card Startech PEX1394B3

This card provides 1 x FW800, and 2 x FW400 sockets on top of the motherboard two FW400 sockets (one of these header to case). Of note is that this card requires extra power from PSU supply in order for it to work as best as it can.

On testing with Blackmagic I originally thought that it was not working at proper FW800 speed, but testing it with a second external drive appears that the limit was the speed of the hard drive: Lacie Rugged ~4000rpm = 42MB/s read and write; Lacie Big Disk raid 7200rpm = 80MB/s. In comparison the FW400 ports on the motherboard for the Rugged gave about 30MB/s.

But I found that the card prevented the computer from staying shut down, doing so after a second the computer will come back on. This thread suggests things such as disabling 'PME event wake' in bios (UD5H does not have this and Enabling Erp doesn't work either). Another forum finds more hackintoshers with same problem, and they are awaiting a fix from Gigabyte. So for the moment I have taken out this card.


Installing the Optairc DVDROM drive
After hardware installation I found that the computer was automatically booting to the Windows 7 (i.e. not running the Chimera bootloader). I set went into bios to check the boot order but I discovered that I could not select the mac partition 'P0' under either of the boot options, only the Windows one 'P Sata' or the DVD ROM drive. I found this discussion board post which worked for me.




3D sound card for Windows

For gaming under Windows I fitted a pre-owned [Asus Xonar STD] audio card giving Dolby Headphone 3D sound. This card is not recognised by OSX, so I use the onboard sound for OSX. The [xonar] is routed to the 500R front panel. There does not seem to be any conflict with this arrangement.



3.5inch to 5.25 front bay adapter

This adapter allows the Gigabyte USB3.0 beakout panel to be fitted into one of the 500R front bays. I wish that Gigabyte had included one of these!



Installation of NVidia drivers

The Nvidia card seems to work natively in OSX, but I think that if you install the extra drivers from the Nvidia site you unlock the card's CUDA potential. I tried to follow these instructions to setup After Effects for use with CUDA but it didn't work with CS3 which is what I am using.


Aftermarket cooling

With plans to overclock this machine I rather hoped to improve system and CPU cooling. In reality it hasn't made a huge difference to temps, but I guess it gives a bit more control and maybe adds to bling factor.


CPU cooling

The H100 fits nicely into the 500R case, but I felt that making a push-pull configuration on the radiator would give lower CPU temps. So I added a pair of Corsair SP120 fans to the radiator on the top (fans intended for high static pressure). To make these fit I had to cut a hole in the 500R top mesh panel which has an added benefit in that the mesh above the radiator was a bit restrictive to air flow. So that's: [stock H100 fans> case> radiator> mesh (with holes)> SP120]. My findings at stock frequency is that it brings temp down by a degree, so not all that much. The fans use a Y-splitter into one of the channels of the Skythe fan controller below.


System fans

The 500R ships with two front 120mm fans, a side 200mm fan, and a rear 120mm fan. All use a propritary connector to an inbuilt fan controller. I replaced these with more efficient fans. For the front and rear I choose Skythe Gentle Typhoons 120mm, and for the side fan a Bitfenix pro 200mm - all just plain old black without flashing LEDs. The front two use a Y-splitter to go into one of the fan controller channels. The rear and side each have their own fan controller channel. I have reversed the rear fan to make it an intake (all intake apart from what goes through the H100) which I am trialling.


Skythe fan controller

This fits into one of the 5.25" bays at the front of the 500R. It is powered by a Molex connection. Testing I found that there was no problem with running two of the fans from one channel using a splitter. The fan controller also has four temperature probes That I have fitted into each of the fan quadrants: CPU, internal near top, hard drives, GPU. I haven't yet found a reliable (and safe) location for the CPU probe.


Results of after market fans
Testing Prime95 for 3 hours in blended torture test, with the H100 CPU cooler in push-pull configuration (with stock fans and top SP120s on), and just in push (with stock fans alone)

	SP120 fans on full 2130rpm (celcius)	SP120 fans off (celcius)
Core #0	48	59
Core #1	61	62
Core #2	63	63
Core #3	56	57
Package	62	63

I haven't tested this conclusively but looks like CPU temps a degree or so cooler in push-pull config.



Overclocking

I have done a quick trial of overclocking this computer, making changes through Bios and testing in Windows 7 using Prime95 and Cpuid HW Monitor. An overclock that seemed stable from my early testing is:

x40 multiplier (4.0ghz) at 1.190v Vcore, (running Prime95 for 4 hours)
Geekbench: 15116
Max temps cores 0=59, 1=64, 2=63, 3=57

To get 4.5ghz would be nice. But I'm a beginner at this, so I set it back to stock settings for the moment until I can get a change to read and digest the excellent resources on the interweb.

 

[slugnet]

Looks good, congratulations on the successful build!

 

[will.moindrot]

Thanks Slugnet!

 

[will.moindrot]

Worth mentioning that one day about a month or two ago I came to my iHack and found that the video display went blank a couple of seconds into booting into OSX (the OSX desktop fully loaded). Seemed to coincide initially with running a Quicktime VR I had taken, after that problem as described finding that the display would crap out. Tried it with my cloned backup but found same thing, so prior to blasting everything away I tried the other DVI connection on the graphics card and found the problem went away (very relieved!!) So not sure if to do with hardware or what not. Have just tried again today (pending move to 2x7950 - more later) and both DVI ports working ok, so not sure. But anybody else with this problem worth checking

 

[will.moindrot]

Changing the video card to 2x 7950

So I am looking to upgrade my bitcoin miner on my main desktop PC, and decided that a way to do this would be to swap out the 660 TI in the hackintosh in exchange for a couple of AMD Radeon HD 7950. AMD/ATI cards mine bitcoin way better than Nvidia. So I found these http://www.amazon.co.uk/Gigabyte-7950-Radeon-Graphics-Card/dp/B0071LP5ME which are abit cheaper off ebay.

Of course this will also mean an upgrade to the PSU so I have opted for a 760W.

The plan is to either mine in OSX or windows. It's better to mine with the cards seen as individuals, but it would be handy if I could leave the Crossfire connections in place for gaming under Windows. I don't know how this will work out.

Anyway for the moment until I fit the cards I wanted to carry out seom benchmarking against the 660Ti currently fitted:

660 TI

Under OSX Cinebench score: 42.19
Under Windows: 52.76
Under Windows 3DMark11 Demo: P8780 (8978, 9171, 7147)

 

[waytooslow]

This post and Slugnet's post made my build a success. Thanks!

 

[nishant98]

Great build! I have a few doubts on the dual boot. I have almost the same config (Z77X-UD5H Rev1.1, i7-3770K, GTX 670 Power Edition) and I installed OS X first. I plan on getting a new SSD this month for Windows 7 so I can do a little gaming. My doubts are --

1. Can I unplug the OS X SSD, install Windows on the new one and replug the original one? After which I can boot into the UniBeast drive to install a bootloader. Will this work? And is it absolutely necessary to use the Marvel GSATA ports? I want to use the Intel ones..

2. Also, I was wondering if I could use a Time Machine backup to put OS X on the new SSD to allow Windows on the current one? It's not something that I need, but it'd be nice to have it that way.

3. I also plan on purchasing a 1TB HDD as a storage drive, is there a way I can make it shared by both the operating systems?

Eager for an answer!
Thank you!

 

[will.moindrot]

Hi Nishan, really sorry for a late reply - I thought I had subscribed to my own thread for new messages but don't think I could have done. If this is no longer relevant to you hopefully of use to someone else:

1. Can I unplug the OS X SSD, install Windows on the new one and replug the original one? After which I can boot into the UniBeast drive to install a bootloader. Will this work? And is it absolutely necessary to use the Marvel GSATA ports? I want to use the Intel ones..

I think this how I went about installing windows, unplugging the mac OSX one whilst I installed Windows, and then replugging back in the OSX one. This is what I did. After you reconnect the OSX one you might find that the computer automatically now boots into the windows drive which you might not want, so to rectify this you need to have the bios set to boot to the osx SSD but this has to be done in a certain way - in original post this is where it refers to using a P0 (or P1 or whatever) rather than the UEFI formatted name for the drive, (in bios the drop down list of drives you can use, and the hard drive will show up as either UEFI... or P0...). You might find that you only have a limited selection of boot options and none of these are for the P version of the name (recently I went into bios and I think I found the menu for this), but what I did was to then disconnect the PC drive, then set bios to boot from the OSX Px name and then once that's set (settings saves) can reconnect the PC one. I made that mega complicated and it doesn't need to be!

2. Also, I was wondering if I could use a Time Machine backup to put OS X on the new SSD to allow Windows on the current one? It's not something that I need, but it'd be nice to have it that way.

I assume you can do this, although I use Superduper instead. I'll bet that you need to run mutlibeast again to have it boot up into OSX, and to get that far you might have to use unibeast to log it in.

3. I also plan on purchasing a 1TB HDD as a storage drive, is there a way I can make it shared by both the operating systems?

I'm sure there is better advice out there than I can give, but I know that OSX can look at the Windows NTFS drives (but don't think can write to them). I gave up on doing this kind of thing in the past - was doable but a ballache.

Good luck, and I hope you have found happyness with your tonyhack

 

[nishant98]

Thanks for the timely reply lol. But I talked to a guy with the same hardware and suggested I simply use the first method I listed. I will be buying a 120 gig SSD soon and going around installing it. But the person I talked to said that his Ethernet didn't seem to work so he even gave me a link to fix it. Thanks again for your advice! And nice build,