Test Report: MSI Z77A-GD65

[wfj]

Are there any Pros for the MSI GD65 vs the GA-Z77X-UD5H at this time? I've been eyeing the GD65 since it was announced, but the oob support for the UD5H seems to make it a no brainer. Just wondering if there are any other pluses for the GD65 over the UD5H, if we were to ignore OSX support for now.

The specs are pretty similar. For details, just use the compare feature @ newegg and you can easily see the differences. The biggest differences are no mSATA, dual lan, and eSATA on the gigabyte side. I think the OOB support is better for the UD5H since you don't have to use a modded BIOS or speedstepper.

 

[brycv]

As far as the waiting for DSMOS issue, can one of you try:

sudo chown root:admin /

Run that in terminal and then reboot. Does that solve the issue?

 

[wfj]

As far as the waiting for DSMOS issue, can one of you try:

sudo chown root:admin /

Run that in terminal and then reboot. Does that solve the issue?

I had already tried that...no joy. I don't think it has to do with permissions because I get the same pause during the initial installation routine.

 

[brycv]

I had already tried that...no joy. I don't think it has to do with permissions because I get the same pause during the initial installation routine.

I figured as much but wanted to make sure it was ruled out. Thanks.

I've also found some information suggesting it might be related to FakeSMC. Did you try any other versions of FakeSMC?

 

[brycv]

One more thing. Try installing the 3rdParty eSATA kext from MultiBeast for the on-board ASMedia ASM1061 SATA 6Gb/s ports.

 

[wfj]

I had already tried that...no joy. I don't think it has to do with permissions because I get the same pause during the initial installation routine.

I figured as much but wanted to make sure it was ruled out. Thanks.

I've also found some information suggesting it might be related to FakeSMC. Did you try any other versions of FakeSMC?

That is exactly what I'll be trying out today. I was just installing Kozlek's branch of HWSensors so I could see the multiplier and frequency of the CPU without bothering with MSRDumper. I'm not sure what version of fakesmc is included with that package though. If you haven't tried out HWSensors, it's pretty slick. Here is the link:

https://github.com/kozlek/HWSensors/downloads

Just choose download as zip. Should be self explanatory after that.

 

[brycv]

That is exactly what I'll be trying out today. I was just installing Kozlek's branch of HWSensors so I could see the multiplier and frequency of the CPU without bothering with MSRDumper. I'm not sure what version of fakesmc is included with that package though. If you haven't tried out HWSensors, it's pretty slick. Here is the link:

https://github.com/kozlek/HWSensors/downloads

Just choose download as zip. Should be self explanatory after that.

Looks like a good option. I'll try it out.

Try installing the 3rdParty_eSATA kext (or 3rdParty_SATA) as well. I think that might solve the waiting for DSMOS since the Z77A-GD65 does have an additional ASMedia ASM1061 SATA 6Gb/s controller. That's what I've found in some research at least.

 

[wfj]

That is exactly what I'll be trying out today. I was just installing Kozlek's branch of HWSensors so I could see the multiplier and frequency of the CPU without bothering with MSRDumper. I'm not sure what version of fakesmc is included with that package though. If you haven't tried out HWSensors, it's pretty slick. Here is the link:

https://github.com/kozlek/HWSensors/downloads

Just choose download as zip. Should be self explanatory after that.

Looks like a good option. I'll try it out.

Try installing the 3rdParty_eSATA kext (or 3rdParty_SATA) as well. I think that might solve the waiting for DSMOS since the Z77A-GD65 does have an additional ASMedia ASM1061 SATA 6Gb/s controller. That's what I've found in some research at least.

Ok, good tip.

 

[Going Bald]

@going bald, it might have been due to adding it as an attachment to you.
http://bios.zmac.net/msi/E7751IMS_modified.zip
try that instead

Turned out it was a bad USB drive - one of my older 1Gb PNY drives from when the 1Gb drives first came out. I had a suspicion when this link BIOS didn't work either so tried a different USB and it worked - no problem.

I am happy to report that NullCPUPowerManagement.kext is no longer required with the modified BIOS linked above.

BTW, SuperDuper reports effective copy speed on cloning the drive was 12.38 Mb/s
11.2 Gb total backup in 23.22 minutes elapsed time.

On to more testing.

 

[wfj]

@going bald, it might have been due to adding it as an attachment to you.
http://bios.zmac.net/msi/E7751IMS_modified.zip
try that instead

Turned out it was a bad USB drive - one of my older 1Gb PNY drives from when the 1Gb drives first came out. I had a suspicion when this link BIOS didn't work either so tried a different USB and it worked - no problem.

I am happy to report that NullCPUPowerManagement.kext is no longer required with the modified BIOS linked above.

BTW, SuperDuper reports effective copy speed on cloning the drive was 12.38 Mb/s
11.2 Gb total backup in 23.22 minutes elapsed time.

On to more testing.

BTW, I asked another person on the forum (who has the MSI B75 board) if they had the pause at the waiting for dsmos prompt and they replied no. Looks like it could be specific to this board...we'll see.