Success: TUTORIAL Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R. Sapphire 5770.i7950

[tdragisics]

Hi,

I'm building a system which is very similar to yours, apart from a Gigabyte HD 5570 and a slightly different memory kit (I have a 2GbX6 Corsair CM3X2G1600C9B6 HX3X12G1600C9). A few questions:

1) Do you really have to enable all the Advanced CPU Core Features? I left Turbo Boost to Auto as it was on default, since I prefer stability over raw speed.

2) Do you run your memory at 1333 0r 1066? I tried to run my memory at 1600 using the XMP profile but my system was unstable. So now I think I'll leave it at 1066 as the Gigabyte Optimized default suggests.

3) I disabled eSATA and GSATA in my BIOS, as I don't plan to use them and this way it takes less time to boot. Does it change anything in the installation process? I think I might have to skip the JMicron part...

Thanks a lot

1. Following Lnx2mac's BIOS guide he suggests to turn all those features on so they do not disable when making other adjustments. It is not a completely necessary step, but I did it just in case.

2. I run my memory at 1066 although under about my mac it says its running at 1333mhz, but I never changed anything in the bios for it. I want a stable computer so I didn't want to risk anything, but maybe it did it automatically.

3. Yes you could skip the JMicron part.

 

[tdragisics]

Thanks for posting this build! I just went through and bought most of your things. It really helped me since I had no idea on where to even start being this is my first computer im building & turning into a hackintosh.

Glad I could help. It was the same for me and it turned out great with all the help on this forum. Let me know if there are any other questions you have!

We have almost the same configuration except for the different upgrading times.
In fact I preferred installing 10.6.3, then 10.6.5 and MultiBeast. Last was 10.6.6 through Apple Upgrade.

But I have other questions about your install....
Why did you choose:
vi. Customization -> Boot Options-> 64 Bit Boot Screen
vii. System Definitions -> Mac Pro -> Mac Pro 5,1
viii. Miscellaneous -> USB 3.0

Although my install is running well, I'd like to know if I can make it running better.

Thanks
Michael

After asking Notshy who uses the same graphics card he said that was the newest way to install the card for 64-bit. So i chose the 64 Bit Boot Screen for that reason. I chose Mac Pro 5,1 so that OSX recognizes my CPU correctly in about my mac. Then I chose USB 3.0 because my motherboard has USB 3.0 ports and I figured that by using this I could potentially use a USB 3.0 device one day on it.

 

[lavaface]

Any idea if this will work with the 10.6.5 update instead of 10.6.6? Pro Tools is not compatible with 10.6.6. I figured I asked before I try. Perhaps some setting somewhere needs to be changed? I have followed the steps above until the OS update+MultiBeast. Instead I restarted and now the boot up stalls at the gray screen with Apple logo and spinner. Is it possible to use MultiBeast with 10.6.3 (the stock install)? Or are other tools needed? I have searched many forums but haven't been able to figure that out. Any help is appreciated. Keep up the good work!

 

[tdragisics]

Any idea if this will work with the 10.6.5 update instead of 10.6.6? Pro Tools is not compatible with 10.6.6. I figured I asked before I try. Perhaps some setting somewhere needs to be changed? I have followed the steps above until the OS update+MultiBeast. Instead I restarted and now the boot up stalls at the gray screen with Apple logo and spinner. Is it possible to use MultiBeast with 10.6.3 (the stock install)? Or are other tools needed? I have searched many forums but haven't been able to figure that out. Any help is appreciated. Keep up the good work!

The install should work fine with 10.6.5, but since you didn't complete the installation I suggest you start from the beginning. Since you are supposed to install the update and Multibeast before restarting it is not going to work the way you did it. Those steps are to finalize the hackintosh install and to get it to work properly as far as I know.

 

[Bulleh]

Thanks for posting this build! I just went through and bought most of your things. It really helped me since I had no idea on where to even start being this is my first computer im building & turning into a hackintosh.

Glad I could help. It was the same for me and it turned out great with all the help on this forum. Let me know if there are any other questions you have!

I ordered all the parts you've listed minus a different PSU, HD and less ram. I just got the Lite-On dvd in the mail and it's not the same pictured on the link you've provided, although the part numbers match. I was wondering if you got the same one as me. It looks like this

Thanks for the kind offer. This board is probably the nicest & most helpful forum I've ever joined. It's making the impossible, possible for me.

 

[tdragisics]

Thanks for posting this build! I just went through and bought most of your things. It really helped me since I had no idea on where to even start being this is my first computer im building & turning into a hackintosh.

Glad I could help. It was the same for me and it turned out great with all the help on this forum. Let me know if there are any other questions you have!

I ordered all the parts you've listed minus a different PSU, HD and less ram. I just got the Lite-On dvd in the mail and it's not the same pictured on the link you've provided, although the part numbers match. I was wondering if you got the same one as me. It looks like this

Thanks for the kind offer. This board is probably the nicest & most helpful forum I've ever joined. It's making the impossible, possible for me.

Yes that is the exact same one! All those parts are fine to change, as long as you have enough wattage on your PSU. *Also a quick reminder: Once you connect everything to your motherboard, make sure you connect both power supply lines from the PSU to your motherboard! I forgot the smaller one when I first powered up and my screen wouldn't come on until I realized. A small mistake but one you can avoid.

 

[marcomk]

1. Following Lnx2mac's BIOS guide he suggests to turn all those features on so they do not disable when making other adjustments. It is not a completely necessary step, but I did it just in case.

After a few days of struggling with my build, I realized that C3/C6/C7 states set on "enabled" caused me random shutdowns and corruption on my hard drive installation (I'm testing on Windows before trying the OSX hack). So I decided to leave it "disabled" with all the other settings on "Auto" or "Enabled" according to Gigabyte Optimised Defaults. Turbo Boost seems to work anyway and the CPU frequency also drops when the system idles. I haven't found the exact culprit of this issue but I think I'll keep this settings for my peace of mind.

 

[Lnx2Mac]

1. Following Lnx2mac's BIOS guide he suggests to turn all those features on so they do not disable when making other adjustments. It is not a completely necessary step, but I did it just in case.

After a few days of struggling with my build, I realized that C3/C6/C7 states set on "enabled" caused me random shutdowns and corruption on my hard drive installation (I'm testing on Windows before trying the OSX hack). So I decided to leave it "disabled" with all the other settings on "Auto" or "Enabled" according to Gigabyte Optimised Defaults. Turbo Boost seems to work anyway and the CPU frequency also drops when the system idles. I haven't found the exact culprit of this issue but I think I'll keep this settings for my peace of mind.

Your build should be able to work with C3/C6/C7 "enabled"...
I'd suggest you to see NotShy's guide to RAM & CPU testing: viewtopic.php?f=51&t=6616

 

[marcomk]

Your build should be able to work with C3/C6/C7 "enabled"...
I'd suggest you to see NotShy's guide to RAM & CPU testing: viewtopic.php?f=51&t=6616

Thanks for your reply. I followed both guides - Notshy's and yours. At the moment, I'm testing my system with Win7 and only 2 sticks of RAM (2x2Gb which I extensively tested with Memtest) at SPD speed (1066).
I ran Prime 95 for several hours and my system looks stable with C1E and C3/C6/C7 disabled (all other Advanced Core Features are enabled, as well as all the other settings you suggest in your guide). Now I realise that everything is fine even if I enable C3/C6/C7 (Not really, also C3/C6/C7 is causing application crashes and disk data corruption). It's C1E that gives me huge problems. As soon as I run Windows with C1E enabled, applications start to crash randomly and I experience disk data corruption (at the next reboot, CHKDSK kicks in and finds several errors). I made an image of my installation, so everytime I experience some issues, I restore the image in order to make new tests with a clean system. My HD is fine, because I already tried to use another disk with the same results. Could I have a faulty motherboard? Is C1E necessary to install OSX?

Thanks.

 

[nbert]

For some reason after I save the BIOS it won't read the cd. I've done everything properly up to that, but for some reason it keeps saying error. Any ideas?