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[Success] Core i5-3570K - MSI Z77 MPower - GTX 680

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Joined
Jan 23, 2013
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Motherboard
MSI Z77 Mpower
CPU
3570K
Graphics
GTX 680
Mac
  1. 0
Classic Mac
  1. 0
Mobile Phone
  1. 0
Core i5-3570K - MSI Z77 MPower - GTX 680
600045760-1_gr.jpg


47116-mpower.jpg


Components

MSI Z77 Mpower
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0090Z39EA/

Intel Core i5-3570K
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007SZ0E1K/

Corsair Vengeance 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 1600 MHz
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007TG8QRW/

Gainward GTX 680 Phantom II 2 GB
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007R1H44U/

SSD Intel 520 Series 120 GB (for OS X)
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B006VCP7YA/

SSD Crucial m4 128 GB (for Windows)
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004W2JKZI/

HDD Seagate Barracuda 7200 3 TB 7200RPM
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005T3GRLY/

Be Quiet! 530 W
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005JS580A/

Noctua Ultra Silent CPU Cooler Cooling NH-U9B SE2
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0065SFEE8/

Apple LED Cinema Display 24" MB382LL
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0013FMLXK/

Apple Wired Keyboard
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000V07N9U/

Apple Mighty Mouse
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0007Y79E4/

TP-LINK TL-WDN4800
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007GMPZ0A/

Cooltek Antiphon Black
[AMAZON-de]http://www.amazon.de/dp/B00AWA3AQO/[/AMAZON-de]


Comments

The only things which do not work under Mac OS 10.8.2 are USB 3.0 backwards compatibility and the on board Wifi.

The on board wifi chipset is an Atheros AR9271 for which no OS X driver exists yet, but this might change in the future.
Instead I use the TP-LINK TL-WDN4800, which is even better than the on board WiFi chip, because it also used the 5 ghz frequency.

Under Mountain Lion, USB 2.0 devices will not work on USB 3.0 ports. For me this is no big deal, since the board
comes with two USB 2.0 ports and the Cinema Display, the Apple Keyboard and the Cooltek case provide 6 more USB 2.0 ports all together. Just be sure you plug the Cinema Display USB cable and the Apple Keyboard to the board's USB 2.0 ports, otherwise they will not work. This applies also to the Cinema Display's speakers and camera.


Dual Boot Installation of Mountain Lion and Windows 7

First off, I need to thank KSubedi, who wrote an initial guide for the MSI MPower, unfortunately his guide has been deleted. However, his guide left some questions unanswered, for example, which smbios definition worked best for him, if speed step is working or if he can access hardware sensors from OS X. All these question arise eventually after you think your OS X is running perfectly, but the more you read in the forums the more you'll discover how you can improve your installation further ;)

Hint: If you use a proper USB 3.0 pen drive, the installations of Win7 and ML are done in under 8 minutes each.


Windows 7

I started with the Windows 7 installation on the Crucial SSD. After Windows was installed, I partitioned the 3 TB HDD into three partitions, each 1 TB in size:

  • NFTS for Win,
  • exFAT for shared data between OS X and Window,
  • blank (for HFS+ later)

If you have an USB 3.0 drive and you encounter installation problems, for example, that something cannot be loaded, simply try a different USB 3.0 port, I made this experience both with Windows 7 and ML!

Although this does not really belong here, I would like to give an advice for sleep under Windows 7:
When I enabled the RAM to 1600 MHZ via the XMP profile in the BIOS, Windows couldn't sleep anymore. I disabled hibernation (suspend-to-disk) with the following command, which worked for me:
Code:
powercfg -h off
Before you patch your BIOS, set the RAM speed back to 1333, we'll cover this in a minute. Also, if you have an Apple Cinema Display like me, you would probably like to adjust the backlight under Windows too, this tool here is very neat for that: http://www.holstschumacher.dk/p/brightness-controller.html

A note on the 3 TB HDD: First I wanted to use exFAT for a whole 3TB partition, but the PC refused to boot with it. Thanks to 148248, who came up with the hint to use a smaller partition size: http://www.tonymacx86.com/general-help/85765-3tb-hdd-formatted-exfat-bios-hangs-up.html#post534616


Mountain Lion

Patching the BIOS

First thing is patching the UEFI BIOS in order to unlock power management. Theoretically, it would work without, see this thread from Samisnake for further information: http://www.tonymacx86.com/dsdt/47397-msi-asrock-foxconn-1155-patched-bios-thread.html. Without patching your BIOS, you would need the kernel extension
NullCPUPowerManagement.kext, but that is not a pretty solution, since you would loose speed step or sleep for example.

So, in order to patch your BIOS, just grab the latest from the MSI page. Don't worry, it is very easy, and in case something should go wrong, you have a second fresh BIOS on your MSI MPower ;)
  1. Get PMPatch from http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/285444-pmpatch-uefi-patching-utility/ and patch your BIOS file.
  2. Next step is to create a bootable USB drive to install the new BIOS. Head over to the MSI forums http://forum-en.msi.com/ and create an account, only then you will be able to download the tool. After you're signed into the MSI forum, go to http://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=108079.0 , download the tool and follow the instructions in the thread.
  3. Before you begin, be sure you have switched all BIOS settings to default. Even better, clear the CMOS with the convenient CMOS switch on the board.
  4. Boot from the flash drive and start flashing the BIOS. (Before flashing the BIOS, the USB drive wants to perform Memtest, skip this if you don't want to wait :))


Installation with Unibeast

Now you have a patched BIOS and your machine is ready for Mac OS. I my case, I downloaded Mountain Lion from the App Store on my MacBook and created an USB drive with Unibeast: http://www.tonymacx86.com/61-unibeast-install-os-x-mountain-lion-any-supported-intel-based-pc.html Just follow the instructions and you're gonna be fine. Follow the UniBeast guide until the end of STEP 3. Boot the USB drive again, but this time choose your new installation to boot. If everything worked well, you should sit in front of your working hackinshosh, YEAH :)


Configuration

Now you need some things in order to make your hackintosh perfect:

  • a boot loader (Chameleon or Chimera) in order to boot from the SSD, until now you're just able to from the USB drive
  • audio and ethernet drivers (from Multibeast)
  • an SSDT.aml file, which tells OS X how to threat your CPU right
  • some kernel extensions (kexts) to access the mainboard's sensors (if you want to)

A hint before you start: get Multibeast, the boot loader, the SSDT.aml and the kexts before you install ML and put them on your USB drive, so you have everything in one place. Also, it might be necessary to edit some (XML) files. I recommend to use (the now free) TextMate 2, which you can download here: https://github.com/textmate/textmate/downloads


Drivers

First, we're going to install two drivers which are included in Multibeast. Open Multibeast and select

  • Drivers & Bootloaders > Drivers > Audio > Realtek ALC8xx > Without DSDT > ALC 898
  • Drivers & Bootloaders > Drivers > Network > Realtek - Lnx2Mac's

Nothing more. After installing the ethernet driver, the installer asks you to reboot, but you can just leave the window open. But if you do reboot, make sure you boot from the usb drive again and select your new mac os.


Bootloader

The tonymacx86 tools prefer to use the Chimera bootloader, which is a fork of the Chameleon bootloader. I couldn't see any difference between them on my system. By the way, the bootloader on your USB drive is Chimera.
Get Chameleon here http://chameleon.osx86.hu/
or get Chimera here: http://www.tonymacx86.com/336-chimera-2-0-now-available-imessage-login-fix.html
I use Chimera 2.0.1 at the moment.

Install the bootloader on your OS X partition. Both Chameleon and Chimera read their configuration files from the /Extra directory, however neither of them created this directory during my installation, so I needed to create it on my own.
Create this one as root, with the sudo command:
Code:
sudo mkdir /Extra

Everything for the boot loader is in place, now we're going to configure it. To this end, we're going to use a nice GUI tool Chameleon Wizard, it works also for Chimera: http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/257464-chameleon-wizard-utility-for-chameleon/ .

Go to the second tab, this is a graphical representation of the bootloader's config file "org.chameleon.Boot.plist". Do Save As "/Extra/org.chameleon.Boot.plist" in order to create the file.

Enable the following features:

  • GUI
  • Instant Menue
  • Legacy Logo
  • Kernel "mach_kernel"
  • darkwake=0
  • Restart Fix
  • DropSSDT
  • Graphics Mode "resolution of your display"

Hide partitions: by default, the boot loader will present every partition it finds as selection, as you might have already experienced with the USB boot loader. However, you can hide the partitions which do not contain an OS. Try to find out which you do not want to boot and put them in the "hide partitions" field. Separate them with a blank, like so:
Code:
hd(1,1) hd(1,2)
and so on.

The next thing we'll look into are kernel extensions. The only additional kernel extension we need is FakeSMC.kext. There are several versions out there. I prefere the one from kozlek, who also maintains the hardware sensors extensions and the HWSensors app. He provides an easy to use installer here:
https://bitbucket.org/kozlek/hwsensors/downloads

Grab the most recent one and install it. Additionally with the hardware sensors and the HWSensors app. After that, you can finally reboot. Now you should be able to boot without the pen drive.

Hint: when you boot the next time, go into your BIOS and select the SSD drive, on which you just installed the boot loader as default boot drive. Otherwise, you'll always need to hit F11 to select the drive manually.

Hint: Every time you add or delete kernel extensions, it is advised to rebuild caches. I use this neat tool: http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/253395-kext-wizard-easy-to-use-kext-installer-and-more/
It seems to be the perfect companion to Chameleon Wizard.


Speed Stepping with SSDT.aml

The next thing we'll look into is speed stepping. When your CPU has nothing to do, you would like it to reduce it's clock speed in order to save power, and depending on the load, it should adapt the clock speed accordingly. In order to "tell" ML how to treat your CPU correctly, you need a SSDT.aml file, which holds that specific information. Before I installed a SSDT.aml, my CPU knew only two speed steps: 1.6 Ghz for idle and 3.8 Ghz at load. Nothing in between.

To check which steppings your CPU does at the moment, you can use a neat kernel extension: MSRDumper, you can find it along with more information here: http://www.tonymacx86.com/lion-desk...peedstep-sandy-bridge-cpus-using-msrdump.html. By default, I'm seeing:
Code:
PStatesReached: 16 38
which we will chance in in the next steps.

Thanks to PikeRAlpha and his sister Revogirl, there is a shell script "ssdtPRGen" which creates this SSDT.aml file, see this thread for more information: http://www.tonymacx86.com/ssdt/86906-ssdt-generation-script-ivybridge-pm.html

Thanks to toleda, we can enrich this SSDT.aml even further to suite your system even more, see this thread for more information: http://www.tonymacx86.com/mountain-...tive-ivy-bridge-cpu-gpu-power-management.html. If you have one of these CPUs i7-3770K, i5-3570K (like me) or i3-3225, you can use one of the pre-build SSDT.aml, which toleda provides in the first post.

Place the SSDT.aml, which you either downloaded or created with ssdtPRGen, also in /Extra and it will be loaded next time you boot from Chameleon. This is ensured by the DropSSDT option we set previously.


SMBios System definition

Further, I took the advice from toleda and used macmini6 as system definition in order to tell ML that it runs on an Ivy Bridge system. You can also set it with Chameleon Wizard. Go to the SMBios tab, choose it from the drop down list and hit "Save". After booting again, I get the following speed steps with MSRDumper:
Code:
 PStatesReached: 16 19 24 28 36 42
In order to produce some load on your system, the easiest way is to watch multiple 1080p vids on youtube ;)


Shared User Profile or Documents

If you would like to treat both systems equally and want to have your documents in the same place on both systems, you can place them physically on the exFAT partition and "link" them into the respective user directory under Windows or OS X.

Under Windows, you can use an NTFS junction point to link the shared folder(s) to your user directory:
Code:
mklink /J linkName target

On OS X, you can use a sym-link:
Code:
ln -s source_dir target_dir
or alternatively the "alias" command.


TRIM Support for SSD drives

By default, TRIM is disabled for third party SSDs. Use this tool here to enable it: http://www.groths.org/trim-enabler/


Suspend-to-RAM

Similar to what we did in Windows, we switch from Suspend-to-Disk (Hibernate) to Suspend-to-RAM, because it is faster and it does not consume a 16 GB file on the SSD.

Type the following command in the Terminal:
Code:
[COLOR=#151515][FONT=Courier New]sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 0[/FONT][/COLOR]


Auto Sleep

Manually go to sleep should work perfectly, but try out auto sleep. If your system is not able to auto sleep, type in the following command:
Code:
pmset -g assertions
You get a list with causes why automatic sleep does not work. Everything with a "1" prevents sleep, for which a short explanation is given. For example, if you listening to music:
Code:
PreventUserIdleSystemSleep   1
NoIdleSleepAssertion named: "com.apple.audio.'AppleUSBAudioEngine:Apple Inc.:Display Audio:1a114100:2,1'.noidlesleep"
Try to get rid of the causes, search the forum if necessary.

If everything is on "0" and Mac OS still does not want to auto sleep, open the bootloader config like this, assuming you have TextMate installed as command line tool (available in the TextMate settings):
Code:
sudo mate /Extra/org.chameleon.Boot.plist
Change "darkwake=0" to "darkware=8".

Be patient, Mac OS takes its time to go to auto sleep. In my case, when I configure screen and sleep should trigger after 1 minute, the screen goes to sleep immediately after 1 minute, but the PC needs 2 or 3 minutes more.

If you still cannot get auto sleep working, there is again a neat litte tool available: http://www.dragonone.com/products/macosx/pleasesleep/


Mavericks Update

In order to upgrade Mountain Lion to Mavericks, you need to do a complete install with UniBeast. Afterwards, you just install all kexts with MultiBeast as before for Mountain Lions.

I had a Problem with Sleep and Wake afterwards. When return from Sleep, Mavericks did freeze and a hard reboot was necessary. A look into Console revealed:

Code:
02.02.14 00:32:11,000 kernel[0]: Wake reason: PWRB GLAN EHC2 (User)
02.02.14 00:32:11,000 kernel[0]: Unsynchronized  TSC for cpu 1: 0x00000000a34c55d6, delta 0x791658de
02.02.14 00:32:11,000 kernel[0]: Unsynchronized  TSC for cpu 2: 0x00000000a3673973, delta 0x791658db
02.02.14 00:32:11,000 kernel[0]: Unsynchronized  TSC for cpu 3: 0x00000000a381ff59, delta 0x791658db
02.02.14 00:32:11,000 kernel[0]: RTC: PowerByCalendarDate setting ignored
02.02.14 00:32:11,000 kernel[0]: RTC: PowerByCalendarDate setting ignored
02.02.14 00:32:11,000 kernel[0]: Previous Sleep Cause: 5


To fix this issue, install VoodooTSCSync from MultiBeast (either for 6 or 8 cores).
Afterwards, make a change to the file:
Code:
/System/Library/Extensions/VoodooTSCSync.kext/Contents/Info.plist
and set IOCPUNumber=3 (4 cores, no hyperthreading)

afterwards, wakeup from sleep should not cause freezes anymore. The console output should look like:

Code:
02.02.14 15:37:37,000 kernel[0]: Wake reason: PWRB (User)
02.02.14 15:37:37,000 kernel[0]: Unsynchronized  TSC for cpu 1: 0x00000000a3edfd64, delta 0x7991070d
02.02.14 15:37:37,000 kernel[0]: Unsynchronized  TSC for cpu 2: 0x00000000a409299a, delta 0x7991070a
02.02.14 15:37:37,000 kernel[0]: Unsynchronized  TSC for cpu 3: 0x00000000a423dd0a, delta 0x7991070a
02.02.14 15:37:37,000 kernel[0]: RTC: PowerByCalendarDate setting ignored
02.02.14 15:37:37,000 kernel[0]: RTC: PowerByCalendarDate setting ignored
02.02.14 15:37:37,000 kernel[0]: [B]Current tsc from rdtsc64() is 2778403610. Rendezvouing..[/B]
02.02.14 15:37:37,000 kernel[0]: Previous Sleep Cause: 5



Please comment to this thread if you have found this guide useful, thank you :)
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Hi, mate looks like I'll be doing a fresh install with all your nifty little hints and tricks. As my install was abit of a rush job. now ive done a 10.8.3 update through the app store my audio has stopped and no matter what I do I cant get it to work so probably no better time than any to give it a go.
 
First of all thanks for the guide, has been a HUGE sucess for me and just wanted to post a link to my youtube video that explains how to patch the file for our motherboard and I even included the patch file for download in desription. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SFwykHo1jA And I also made a video how to enable the built-in bluetooth! http://youtu.be/SodL6mlAf4g
 
I'm glad to hear that the guide was helpful to you :) I have read in another post that you got USB 3.0 backwards compatibility working.. did you use the Universal USB 3.0 driver from MultiBeast?
 
Yup! It works perfectly, and it was actually working OOB on the first boot aswell as the built in bluetooth but I had to install the kexts for both after installing chimera. My Z12 plus case has two 3.0 ports and both work aswell.
 
I just want to ask you about the Mighty Mouse. I saw some terrible reviews on amazon and some other sites, so I just thought to ask here. A lot of users reported that the mouse started malfunctioning after a certain period of time so I wanted to ask what are you're experiences?

Thanks.
 
I just want to ask you about the Mighty Mouse. I saw some terrible reviews on amazon and some other sites, so I just thought to ask here. A lot of users reported that the mouse started malfunctioning after a certain period of time so I wanted to ask what are you're experiences?

Thanks.
I recommend you search the http://www.tonymacx86.com/other-apple-hardware/ forum section and, if you can't find a relevant thread, open a thread in that forum section. I'd like to know that info, too. TIA.

BTW, I've been using mice since they first hit the market. (I'm olde. :D) I really like Apple's Mighty Mouse and have several of them - no problems with them, either. However, I wold have liked a slight bigger version as I'm a tall guy with large hands. Other than that, it's best mouse I've used.
 
Very nice Tutorial, dsms,

followed yours and some others with nearby same system like my. Core i5-3570K, MSI Z77 MPower and ATI HD 7870. Works nearby everything smooth. Except of the Problem with FaceTime crash and hibernate. Used also the tool you've posted at the and of your tutorial but does not help. Maybe i will figure out what's going wrong but i think it's the internal gpu preventing the system to go sleep.

Code:
20.07.13 14:24:53 MESZ   
Assertion status system-wide:
   PreventUserIdleDisplaySleep    0
   PreventSystemSleep             0
   PreventUserIdleSystemSleep     0
   ExternalMedia                  0
   UserIsActive                   0
   ApplePushServiceTask           0
   BackgroundTask                 0

Thank you for your detailed How-To.
 
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