Test Report: MSI Z77A-GD55 Fully Functional - No DSDT

[wfj]

Specs:

MSI Z77A-GD55
8GB Kingston HyperX
i5 2550K
XFX 6870
Corsair 60GB Force 3 SSD

I had a feeling this board might be a winner. Intel 82579V lan and Realtek 892 audio.

Install Procedure:

1. Chameleon Wizard -

boot.plist with GUI, Ethernet Built In, GraphicsEnabler=Yes
smbios.plist with iMac 12,2

2. Kext Wizard -

Latest version of hnak's intel lan kext
Latest version of fakesmc

3. Chimera Standalone Installer

4. Multibeast -

system utilities
speedstepper
ALCxxHDA/AppleHDA Rollback/HDAEnabler892

What Works:

Audio, LAN, P-States, USB, Sleep, Autosleep, iTunes, App Store, etc. In other words, everything seems to work!

The only thing I found strange is that when loading OS X the system pauses for exactly 1 minute with "waiting for DSMOS". This doesn't have any effect on functionality but is a slight irritation. I saw this exact same behavior with the GD65 so it has to be something specific with the motherboard design or BIOS.

I'm going to try out Toleda's process for enabling 892 audio just to confirm it works as well as the multibeast method.

All in all this was ridiculously simple to get a fully functioning system with a Z77 based board. Total install time was about 15 minutes from zero to everything working.

 

[syrnymark]

My 3570k for the MSI Z77A-G45 is coming on Monday and I will be ready to set it up to see if it will run. It has Realtek ALC892 audio and Realtek 8111E Lan what version of OS X should I have and what programs etc. My video card is EVGA GeForce GTX 560 Superclocked. I want to have it all the software ready to go for Monday when the chip gets here. Any help etc. would be appreciated.

 

[wfj]

My 3570k for the MSI Z77A-G45 is coming on Monday and I will be ready to set it up to see if it will run. It has Realtek ALC892 audio and Realtek 8111E Lan what version of OS X should I have and what programs etc. My video card is EVGA GeForce GTX 560 Superclocked. I want to have it all the software ready to go for Monday when the chip gets here. Any help etc. would be appreciated.

Follow the unibeast method to create a Lion 10.7.3 flash drive. Since you have an ivy bridge cpu, install bridgehelper to the flash drive. Basically, if you look at the 1st build in my signature, the install process is going to be almost the same. The only difference is after you get lion installed you'll run bridgehelper on the hdd/ssd as well. Obviously, you have a different lan chip so you'll just use lnx2mac's ethernet kext. I can walk you through it on skype or something if you get stuck.

Edit - Thought of one more thing...with the nvidia card you might need mac pro 3,1 as your system definition.

 

[Stork]

...what version of OS X should I have and what programs etc. My video card is EVGA GeForce GTX 560 Superclocked. I want to have it all the software ready to go for Monday when the chip gets here. Any help etc. would be appreciated.

You should have a purchased a RETAIL Snow Leopard DVD or Lion USB Thumb drive. I'd go for Snow Leopard since it's still available from Apple's on-line Store and costs $30.

Apple Mac OS X version 10.6 Snow Leopard
http://store.apple.com/us/product/MC573Z/A

Then you can upgrade to 10.6.8, access the Mac App Store and purchase & download Lion for $30.

The Lion USB thumb drive is $70 from either Apple's on-line store or retail outlets that sell Apple products.

Apple OS X Lion USB Thumb Drive
http://store.apple.com/us/product/MD256Z/A?fnode=MTY1NDAzOA

Lion can then be installed using tonymacx86's UniBeast guide and software. (See my signature block for links to tonymacx86 guides.)

 

[syrnymark]

...what version of OS X should I have and what programs etc. My video card is EVGA GeForce GTX 560 Superclocked. I want to have it all the software ready to go for Monday when the chip gets here. Any help etc. would be appreciated.

You should have a purchased a RETAIL Snow Leopard DVD or Lion USB Thumb drive. I'd go for Snow Leopard since it's still available from Apple's on-line Store and costs $30.

Apple Mac OS X version 10.6 Snow Leopard
http://store.apple.com/us/product/MC573Z/A

Then you can upgrade to 10.6.8, access the Mac App Store and purchase & download Lion for $30.

The Lion USB thumb drive is $70 from either Apple's on-line store or retail outlets that sell Apple products.

Apple OS X Lion USB Thumb Drive
http://store.apple.com/us/product/MD256Z/A?fnode=MTY1NDAzOA

Lion can then be installed using tonymacx86's UniBeast guide and software. (See my signature block for links to tonymacx86 guides.)

I already have snow leopard I purchased that a long time ago the week that it came out.

when I meant software I mean all these mod software programs not OS x.

 

[replicant]

Looks like the MSI Z77MA-G45 may also work; it uses ALC892 for audio and the Realtek drivers for ethernet. Beyond that, I'm hoping its identical to your MSI Z77A-G55. Any thoughts on that (specifically compatibility)?

 

[wfj]

Looks like the MSI Z77MA-G45 may also work; it uses ALC892 for audio and the Realtek drivers for ethernet. Beyond that, I'm hoping its identical to your MSI Z77A-G55. Any thoughts on that (specifically compatibility)?

I'm guessing it will behave the same way. We'll find out soon enough...if you look at some of the earlier posts in the thread, there is someone who is about to receive the G45 and try it out.

I'm really curious to see if they get the same "waiting for DSMOS" delay during boot.

 

[syrnymark]

Am i going to have to do anything different while running the Ivy Bridge chip and EVGA 560?

 

[marmorkuchen]

The only thing I found strange is that when loading OS X the system pauses for exactly 1 minute with "waiting for DSMOS". This doesn't have any effect on functionality but is a slight irritation. I saw this exact same behavior with the GD65 so it has to be something specific with the motherboard design or BIOS.

Hmm I was hoping that the additional SATA controller on the GD65 was causing that problem. The GD55 does only have Intel SATA right?
Do you have any other drives connected additionally to the SSD?

My 3570k for the MSI Z77A-G45 is coming on Monday and I will be ready to set it up to see if it will run. It has Realtek ALC892 audio and Realtek 8111E Lan what version of OS X should I have and what programs etc. My video card is EVGA GeForce GTX 560 Superclocked. I want to have it all the software ready to go for Monday when the chip gets here. Any help etc. would be appreciated.

I am currently having my eye on that same board. Very looking forward to see your results!

 

[concordfta]

Follow the unibeast method to create a Lion 10.7.3 flash drive. Since you have an ivy bridge cpu, install bridgehelper to the flash drive. Basically, if you look at the 1st build in my signature, the install process is going to be almost the same. The only difference is after you get lion installed you'll run bridgehelper on the hdd/ssd as well. Obviously, you have a different lan chip so you'll just use lnx2mac's ethernet kext. I can walk you through it on skype or something if you get stuck.

Edit - Thought of one more thing...with the nvidia card you might need mac pro 3,1 as your system definition.

I'm really curious to see if they get the same "waiting for DSMOS" delay during boot.

Hi wfj,

I've been reading a lot of your posts. Thanks for sharing all of your information.

1. As for BridgeHelper (I've commented in Tonymacs Bridgehelper Thread) you can boot up with the unibeast usb key after the reboot (back into the installer) and drop down to a terminal and "copy" over the "mach_kernel" file to your new install once you've backed it up. That works for me and I didn't need to pull the drive to run it on my 10.6 system

2. I bought the MSI z77ma-g45 with a i7-3770k, so far so good. (Had the dreaded Gigabyte boot loop issue on the GA-Z68MX-### and didn't want to deal with it, so I picked up the MSI) Anyways, I too get the long pause after "waiting for DSMOS" I think it might be the lnx2mac dhcp getting an IP? Or not because I do recall hearing the second harddrive spin up once it continues booting...