[SUCCESS] Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UP5-TH, i7 3770K, 32GB, 480GB SSD, 2TB HDD, GTX 670

[techfanatic9]

Sweet, just bought all the parts and gonna make it next month, gonna come here if I run into problems.

 

[cRAZY_tALK]

I have almost the same build:

Gigabyte Z77X-UP5-TH
Core i7 3770K
Gigabyte Geforce 670 4GB
4x8GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1600 RAM
2x Samsung 840 Series 120GB SSDs
Seagate Barracuda 3TB
Seagate Barracuda 1TB
Samsung CD/DVD Optical Drive
TP Link TL-WDN4800 Wifi Adapter
Corsair HX750 80Plus Gold Power Supply
Corsair Carbide 500R case
LG Flatron monitor (not sure what size or model - stole from family PC which is over 5 years old)

Attempting to Dual-boot Mountain Lion and Windows 8. (Posting entire build in case there's something wrong with something seemingly insignificant).

I have had both Windows 8 and Mountain Lion running just fine without the graphics card working but trying to get the graphics card working has been a real pain, even in Windows. I'm thinking it might be a faulty board, but I want to make absolutely sure before I go and return it.

The BIOS also can't decide whether the send the graphics through the 670 or HD4000. Previously I've had to switch the DVI cable from one to the other until I found the signal, but now I've set it up with a VGA from the mobo and a DVI from the 670 and I just change the input on the monitor. The monitor doesn't support HDMI. When I power up it's pretty much 50/50 whether the BIOS flash screen and Chimera boot screen will appear on one input or the other, but neither Windows or ML will display from the 670. If the BIOS screen shows on the VGA, then Win8/ML will continue to display via the mobo VGA, but if the BIOS screen displays on the DVI channel from the 670 both Windows and ML will display their boot screens for a second or two, and then I'll get no output from either the HD4000 or the 670.

Right now I've disconnected my Windows drives and am attempting to reinstall Mountain Lion for about the 8th time. The Unibeast install went fine but when I boot it up it hangs on the grey boot screen with infinitely spinning wheel. With -v it hangs on [IOBluetoothHCIController][start] -- completed. Any combination of GraphicsEnabler=Yes/No, PCIRootUID=0/1, darkwake=0, -f or -F gives me the same thing. I can only boot in Safe mode with -x. Deleting certain graphics kexts by using Terminal to navigate to the Extensions folder while running off the Unibeast drive as suggested here screwed up my install last time I tried it and I had to start from scratch. I'm sick of having to reinstall over and over and from now on I'm not going to do anything by guessing - I need someone to tell me that it's fine to do what I'm doing.

So my first question is this: Should I proceed in Safe Mode and run the Multibeast settings as described in the first post here?

 

[Stork]

Take a look at my Thunderball build description to see if that helps you. I'm running a GTX 650 Ti, but the BIOS setup and installation are the same.

BTW, I'm going to have a link to my Albums with my BIOS settings, real soon now.

 

[jesaf00]

Does anyone else have issues with the front panel USB3 ports not working? I have a Western Digital My Passport USB 3 drive that works perfectly on the back ports but not on the front ports connected to the USB3 headers. I have tried Headers 2 and 3 with no luck. The hard drive turns on and the light blinks for a few seconds but it never shows in the Finderm Disk util or System Information.

I have also tried a different USB header to female usb port adapter with no luck.

 

[Stork]

My Front Panel USB 3.0 works as expected. You may have a bad Front Panel connection which you'd have to work out with the case company OR you have a problem motherboard.

 

[jesaf00]

Hmmm. MB problem sounds like possibility. I have tried 2 different adapter off of the headers and they both failed. I guess it is time to contact Gigabyte.

 

[jesaf00]

I have another, older WD external drive that is USB2, it seems to work fine on the front USB 3 ports.

 

[dawsman]

Have you installed the universal USB 3.0 driver included with Multibeast 5.3? This fixed a problem I was having with my front USB ports, where my external drive (USB 2.0) would spin up, not be recognised in Mountain Lion, then spin down. I think this issue may have started after upgrading to 10.8.3, but I can't be certain because I haven't been using the front USB ports very much (I regularly use a Firewire 400 drive).

Note that when you run Multibeast 5.3 it will "reset" your org.chameleon.boot.plist and smbios.plist files, so make a copy if you've made any manual modifications to those files.

 

[cRAZY_tALK]

Just a quick question for Dawsman: When you first ran Unibeast to install ML and then booted into ML to run Multibeast, were you running from your HD4000 graphics or your GTX670?

I get a black screen when I try to boot into ML or Unibeast going out of my 670 although I can view the BIOS and Chimera boot screens fine and the HD4000 works fine. I was having the same problem with Windows 8 up until yesterday when I don't know what I did but it just sorted itself out somehow and started working.

So did you have signal from the GTX670 from the beginning or did you have to use the HD4000 until you were able to install drivers and certain boot flags like GraphicsEnabler=No before you could use it?

 

[Stork]

Have you installed the universal USB 3.0 driver included with Multibeast 5.3? This fixed a problem I was having with my front USB ports, where my external drive (USB 2.0) would spin up, not be recognized in Mountain Lion, then spin down. I think this issue may have started after upgrading to 10.8.3, but I can't be certain because I haven't been using the front USB ports very much (I regularly use a Firewire 400 drive).

Note that when you run MultiBeast 5.3 it will "reset" your org.chameleon.boot.plist and smbios.plist files, so make a copy if you've made any manual modifications to those files.

+! dawsman. I neglected to realized that not everyone has rushed to install the Generic USB 3 kext by RehabMan.