- Joined
- Mar 22, 2013
- Messages
- 14
- Motherboard
- CustoMac Mini
- CPU
- i3-3225
- Graphics
- onboard
- Mac
- Classic Mac
- Mobile Phone
DevonOinCO's TRUE Mac n00b CustoMac Mini
Core i3-3225 - GA-H77N-WIFI - HD4000 Graphics
Core i3-3225 - GA-H77N-WIFI - HD4000 Graphics
Components
Intel Core i3-3225 Dual-Core Processor 3.3 GHz 3 MB Cache LGA 1155 – BX80637i33225
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0093H8H8I
Gigabyte LGA 1155 DDR3 1600 Intel H77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Mini ITX Motherboard GA-H77N-WIFI
http://www.amazon.com/dp/product/B009JDTWVC
Corsair Vengeance 8 GB ( 2 x 4 GB ) DDR3 1600 MHz (PC3 12800) 240-Pin DDR3 Memory Kit for Core i3, i5, i7 and Platforms SDRAM CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9
http://www.amazon.com/dp/product/B004CRSM4I
MI-008 Tower Black P4 Chassis with 250W Itx Psu+sata Power Supply
http://www.amazon.com/dp/product/B001H0BA24
SanDisk Extreme SSD 240 GB SATA 6.0 Gb-s 2.5-Inch Solid State Drive SDSSDX-240G-G25
http://www.amazon.com/dp/product/B006EKJ8UI
Sony AD-7280S-0B 24x SATA Internal DVD+/-RW Drive (Black)
http://www.amazon.com/dp/product/B0057FRTPW
OS X Snow Leopard 10.6.3 Retail DVD
http://store.apple.com/us/product/MC573Z/A
OS X Mountain Lion 10.8.3 @ Mac App Store
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/os-x-mountain-lion/id537386512?ls=1&mt=12
Already Owned
LG Flattron W2361VG 23" flatscreen monitor
Logitech wireless USB mouse
Gigaware USB keyboard
Comments
Background
First, a little history. I hadn't built a computer in 20 years. I hadn't used any Apple software since probably about 1988 (this is important to note for later in the actual build details). My 9 year old son and I have both been interested in doing some iOS development so knowing that there is no (easy) way to do development on a non-OS X system we thought building our own CustoMac would be a fun father-son project to get to our ultimate goal. We thought right! The (gory) details of our build and install are below. Please bear in mind that we had NO access to any functioning Mac system so we ended up following bits and pieces of instruction from multiple sources. Chief among them was beelzebozo's OUTSTANDING "Snow Leopard to Mountain Lion: An Ivy Bridge Installation Video Guide" (http://www.tonymacx86.com/340-snow-leopard-mountain-lion-ivy-bridge-installation-video-guide.html). Since, in his video, he skips the creation of his UniBeast USB drive, we relied on steps 1 and 2 (STEP 1: Purchase OS X Mountain Lion and STEP 2: Create a Bootable USB Drive Using UniBeast) from tonymacx86's "UniBeast: Install OS X Mountain Lion on Any Supported Intel-based PC" guide (http://www.tonymacx86.com/61-unibeast-install-os-x-mountain-lion-any-supported-intel-based-pc.html). After this we reverted back to following beelzebozo's video.
Because we weren't able to find any user builds posted where (1) the builder was using our exact same components, (2) the builder was starting with zero access to an existing Mac, and (3) where the builder was clearly a true Mac beginner like we were (where general ignorance was against us from the start) we hit a couple of stumbling blocks that delayed our forward progress. As it turned out, thanks to the timely and patient support in the forums from (in no particular order) beelzebozo, Going Bald, totenkopf4, and defbref, the problems we had were all confirmed to be mistakes due to our inexperience with Mac OS. The reason we wanted to explicitly state this is to reassure anyone considering starting from scratch that if you start with recommended hardware from the Buyer's Guide, use the terrific utilities supplied on the site (iBoot, UniBeast, and MultiBeast), follow the guides supplied on the site, and ask questions in the forum, you will be successful.
We will be donating to the site shortly and encourage all others to do so as well!
Hardware Build
As you can see from the list of hardware in the Components section above, we selected our parts directly from the March Buyer's Guide's CustoMac Mini list (http://www.tonymacx86.com/339-building-customac-buyer-s-guide-march-2013.html), though we skipped the Wifi card and added a DVD drive.
As every comment you see about the case states, it IS compact. In hindsight, we could have removed the power supply until we were ready to seal up the case, to get more room to work (again, I hadn't built a computer in 20 years - I was just trying to make sure we didn't zap anything!). Apologies for the level of detail, if it is too simplistic for you
but here's exactly what we did:- Took the top and front off the chassis
- Snapped the I/O shield into place
- Installed CPU on motherboard
- Installed CPU fan (included with CPU) on to motherboard and plugged fan's power connector in to motherboard
- Mounted motherboard directly to case, using combo slot/phillips headed screws that came with case
- Installed RAM (NOTE: had to do this sequence because the motherboard and CPU fan, specifically, are tight under the power supply in the case)
- Referring frequently to the case, power supply, and motherboard manuals, connected:
- 24-pin Motherboard Cable (from power supply to motherboard)
- 4-pin Motherboard Cable (from power supply to motherboard)
- SATA power cable (from power supply to DVD drive), though drive was floating outside, not mounted to, case at this point
- SATA power cable (from power supply to SSD), though SSD was also floating outside, not mounted to, case at this point
NOTE: There is a single SATA power cable with connectors for two drives on it
- Attached SATA data cable (from motherboard [white connector "SATA3 0", per motherboard manual] to DVD drive)
- Attached SATA data cable (from motherboard [white connector "SATA3 1", per motherboard manual] to SSD)
- HD Audio cable (from case front to motherboard [F_AUDIO header]), leaving the AC97 cable unplugged
- USB2.0 cable (from case front to motherboard [F_USB1 header])
- Power Switch LED cables: PW, HD, and MSG (from case front to motherboard [F_PANEL header])
NOTE: Motherboard manual calls the power button LED "MSG", while the case cables are physically labeled "P LED" (+/-)
NOTE: Assumed all white cables were -, colored were +
- Mounted DVD drive into case
- Installed SSD, attaching it to the left side (looking at case from the front) of the outside of the (empty) hard drive bay with velcro
- Monkeyed with the cables to ensure they didn't interfere with the CPU fan AND that the case still closed!
- Replaced the front and top of the chassis
NOTE: We did not install the small speaker that came with the case. We could find no reference, in the motherboard manual, to where it might attach and, per comments on forum, it sounds like others have experienced the same confusion.
Step 1: BIOS Settings
- Held down Delete key to go to BIOS
- Pressed F7 key to load optimized defaults
- In System menu, set System Date and System Time
- In BIOS Features menu, changed Boot Option #1 to DVD drive
- In Peripherals menu, confirmed that SATA Mode Selection was already set to AHCI
- In Peripherals menu, confirmed that Internal Graphics Memory Size was already set to 24M
- On our Windows 7 machine, navigated to tonymacx86.com and downloaded iBoot Ivy Bridge 1.1 from the Downloads >> Software section (http://www.tonymacx86.com/downloads)
- In Windows Explorer, right-clicked on the (unzipped) "iBoot-Ivy-Bridge.iso" and selected "Open with" and then "Windows Disc Image Burner". Inserted a blank CD into the CD/DVD burner when prompted. When image creation was completed, we followed prompts to Verify successful image creation and then CD was ejected.
! ALERT ! : This was where we hit out first snag (http://www.tonymacx86.com/snow-leop...vd-drive-hard-start-snow-leopard-install.html). Be sure you "create a disc image", via the utility we used (or an equivalent) as opposed to just using the "burn files to CD" functionality in Explorer. If you do it wrong, you'll get stuck with incessant "Reboot and Select proper Boot device or Insert Boot Media in selected Boot device and press a key" errors when you try to fire up iBoot at start up.
- Back on the CustoMac, placed iBoot for Ivy Bridge 1.1 image disc into the DVD drive
- Hit Save & Exit (from BIOS)
- Held down F12 key. At boot menu selected DVD drive and hit Enter.
- Once Chimera boot loader came up (displaying "iBoot-Ivy-Bridge"), ejected iBoot CD, inserted Mac OS X Snow Leopard Retail DVD, and pressed F5 key
- Once boot loader display refreshed (to show "Mac OS X Install DVD"), pressed Enter to begin the boot process
- Held down F12 key. At boot menu selected DVD drive and hit Enter.
- Selected English
- When we got to the installation screen, opened Utilities >> Disk Utility
- Selected SSD from list of drives in the left pane
- Selected 1 partition, named it "OS X", and selected a format of "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)"
- Went to Options and confirmed that GUID Partition Table is selected
- Clicked Apply, then clicked Partition to format SSD
- Once formatting was completed, closed Options window
- Back at installation screen, clicked Continue and clicked Accept on TOS
- Chose OS X partition as location for install and clicked Install. Once install was complete, restarted the computer.
NOTE: Because we were expecting this step to take roughly 20 minutes, we stepped away from the computer. As it turned out, the computer automatically restarts after completing the install so we were hung up. We had to force the system down and restart.
- Held down F12 key. At boot menu, ejected Snow Leopard Install DVD, replaced it with iBoot CD, selected DVD drive and hit Enter.
- When Chimera boot loader came up, it showed both iBoot-Ivy-Bridge (on the DVD drive) and OS X (on the SSD)
- Chose the new OS X installation and hit Enter.
- Went through Apple's set up and desktop loaded successfully. Clicked on the Apple icon on the toolbar and About This Mac and confirmed that version 10.6.3 was displayed!
- Because neither ethernet port on the CustoMac was working at this point, we returned to our Windows 7 machine and downloaded the Mac OS X 10.6.8 Combo Update v1.1 (https://support.apple.com/kb/DL1399)
NOTE: This file is 1.09GB so it took a while.
- Copied 10.6.8 Combo Update onto USB drive
- Back on CustoMac, inserted USB drive into USB port on the right front of the case and OS X recognized it
- Double-clicked USB drive, double-clicked MacOSXUpdCombo10.6.8.dmg, and stepped through install of combo update. Once install was complete, restarted the computer.
- Held down F12 key. At boot menu selected DVD drive and hit Enter.
- When Chimera boot loader came up, selected OS X (on the SSD)
- Confirmed successful upgrade of OS to 10.6.8 (via [Apple icon] >> About This Mac). Also confirmed that App Store icon appeared in list of applications at bottom of screen.
- Ejected iBoot CD from DVD drive
! ALERT ! : At this point we tried to fire up the App Store to download Mountain Lion but still had no internet access (via the ethernet ports). We shut down and restarted, switching the cable to the first jack, but this caused a kernel panic. The second attempt, using the ethernet jack furthest to the right (if looking at the case from behind), next to the speaker jacks, worked.
- Went to App Store and searched for Mountain Lion OS X 10.8.3
- Purchased and downloaded Mountain Lion
NOTE: The installer file is over 4GB so it took quite a bit of time.
- Went to Applications folder (via Finder) and confirmed Mountain Lion download was there
- Downloaded the Apple Software Installer Update 1.0 (http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1512)
- Installed the update
- Went to Safari >> Security and disabled plug-ins (unchecked "Web Content: Enable plug-ins) so tonymacx86.com site won't freeze up
- Went to tonymacx86.com, signed in, and downloaded UniBeast - Mountain Lion 1.7.0 from the Downloads >> Software section (http://www.tonymacx86.com/downloads)
- Inserted the USB drive into USB port on the right front of the case
- Opened /Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility
- Selected the USB drive in left column
- Clicked on the Partition tab
- Clicked Current and chooe 1 Partition
- Clicked Options
- Chose Master Boot Record
- Under Name: typed "USB"
- Under Format: chose Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
- Clicked Apply then Partition
- Ran UniBeast for Mountain Lion
- Clicked Continue, Continue, Continue, Agree
- At Destination Select, chose USB and clicked Continue
- Did NOT select Legacy USB Support or Laptop Support
- Clicked Continue
- Entered password and clicked Install
! ALERT ! : At this point, we had not done Step 6 above (applying the Apple Software Installer Update 1.0), so the UniBeast install failed immediately. We were not looking in the proper location for the log info (we were just looking at the generic Console Messages as opposed to hitting Show Log List and selecting /private/var/log/install.log) so the log message we saw had no details beyond "Installation Failed". Once we looked in the right place, we saw the common problem, documented in the UniBeast troubleshooting notes (http://www.tonymacx86.com/unibeast/73498-unibeast-troubleshooting-notes.html), "The package “UniBeast - Mountain Lion 1.7.0.pkg” is untrusted." Per the troubleshooting notes, we downloaded and installed the Apple Software Installer Update 1.0 (http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1512), restarted the system, and were able to run the UniBeast installer to completion without a problem!
- Once install was complete, restarted the computer.
- Held F12 key down. At boot menu selected USB drive and hit Enter.
- When Chimera boot loader came up, selected USB (name of our thumbdrive) and hit Enter.
- When "Install OS X" dialog came up, clicked through it and eventually reached "Install Succeeded" screen
NOTE: Again expecting this step to take longer than it did, we stepped away from the computer. As it turned out, the computer automatically restarts after completing the install so we were hung up. We had to force the system down and restart.
- Restarted computer
- Held down F12 key. At boot menu selected USB drive and hit Enter.
- When Chimera boot loader came up, selected OS X (presented with USB and OS X)
- Entered "-v PCIRootUID=0" and hit Enter
NOTE: There was no field to click in to, we just started typing and a box appeared
- Lots of screens full of text went flying by and OS X desktop came up
- Confirmed (via [Apple icon] >> About This Mac) that version shows 10.8.3!
- Went back to tonymacx86.com and downloaded Multibeast - Mountain Lion 5.2.1 (http://www.tonymacx86.com/downloads)
- Attempted to run Multibeast at this point which didn't work as OS said it was from an unidentified developer
- Went to System Preferences >> Security >> Unlock >> and set Allow Applications Downloaded = "Anywhere"
- Ran MultiBeast
- Clicked Continue, Continue, Continue, Agree
- Selected "UserDSDT or DSDT-Free Installation"
- Selected Drivers >> Audio >> Realtek ALC8xx >> "Without DSDT" >> ALC892 (per our Gigabyte motherboard manual specs)
- Selected Drivers >> Network >> Realtek - Lnx2Mac's RealtekRTL81xx
NOTE: We originally selected Drivers >> Network >> Intel - Hnak's AppleIntelE1000e but the ethernet port did not work upon restart so we reran MultiBeast and chose "Realtek - Lnx2Mac's RealtekRTL81xx" instead
- Clicked Continue
- Prompted for system password, clicked Install Software
- Got to "Installation Was Successful" message
- Prompted to go through secondary install for RealTekRTL81xx
- Selected RealTekRTL81xx "Release" version and completed install
- Removed USB drive from USB port on front of case
- Restarted and did NOT hold down F12 or any other keys
NOTE: We actually forgot to remove both the USB drive and the iBoot CD (from the DVD drive) and since we changed the BIOS to set the DVD drive as the first boot device, the system hung up on our initial restart attempt. Once we removed the USB drive, ejected the CD, forced the computer off, and restarted, the Mac desktop came up as expected.
- Mac desktop came up, confirming that we were now able to boot into OS X directly from hard drive!!!!
- Confirmed internet access
- Confirmed that audio worked (plugged headphones into front panel headphone jack and then went to System Preferences >> Sounds and listened to some sound effects)
- Confirmed access to Mac App Store
- Declared VICTORY!
If you read this far, congratulations, you are officially a glutton for punishment!
Seriously, though, we hope this helps anyone undertaking a build similar to our's!
Please do alert us to any errors you find - it is inevitable that there are at least a few..
