Z68ma-d2h-b3 ver1.3 F9 BIOS 10.6.8 [SOLVED] Noob help

[JDLiver]

Hi everyone!
I have been lurking around for several days experimenting with my build, but I am new to all of this and am seeking some advice.

Here is the system I have put together.

GIGABYTE GA-Z68MA-D2H-B3 LGA 1155 Intel Z68 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard (F9)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128495

Intel Core i3-2120 Sandy Bridge 3.3GHz LGA 1155 65W Dual-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 2000
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115077

PNY VCGGT4301XPB GeForce GT 430 (Fermi) 1GB 128-bit DDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready Low Profile Video Card
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814133356

CORSAIR XMS3 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145315

COOLER MASTER eXtreme Power Plus RS500-PCARD3-US 500W ATX12V v2.3 Power Supply
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817171031

Seagate Barracuda 500GB 7200RPM 16MB Cache SATA

Thermaltake V3 Black Edition VL80001W2Z Black SECC / Plastic ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811133094

Pioneer 24x DVDRW OEM

Retail Snow Leopard DVD


So, my ultimate goal is to upgrade to Lion as quickly as possible. Here is what I have accomplished so far:

I start the system off with only 4gb ram.

The Seagate SATA is connected with a blue cable to SATA (02[blue]) on the MOBO. SATA (0) and (1) on the MOBO are both white.

Optical Drive is connected with a blue SATA cable to SATA (3) on the MOBO.

Alter BIOS (F9)
-Set to Optimized Defaults
-Change Boot Devices to CD-ROM first, Hard Disk second
-SATA to AHCI mode
-HPET to 64-bit mode.

Installation
-Run iBoot and Swap to SL
-Wait 5 seconds, press F5
-SL installs successfully
-Reboot using iBoot
-Choose SL as startup vol.

Post-Install
-Copy UpdateHelper, Multibeast, 10.6.8 ComboUpdate, and UserDSDT to Desktop
-Run Update Helper
-Reboot with iBoot
-Rename UserDSDT to DSDT.aml on Desktop
-Open MultiBeast
-Run ComboUpdate
-AVOID RESTART
-Apply MutiBeast Settings
-UserDSDT
-Sys. Utilities
-Restart and alter boot devices to boot HDD first, CD Second
-While looking for OS I get Boot0: error
-Reboot with iBoot

At this point, the system starts to behave erratically. I have to switch the display from VGA on MOBO to DVI on MOBO (this is rather inconvenient as my television is the only device with DVI capability. I am also annoyed that the GPU doesn't work with my VGA even though it has a VGA output!) I have never been able to boot from the HD, and I have limited success with booting into the OS either once with iBoot or possibly a few times with iBoot -v -x.

No doubt, this all boils down to user error. This is the first computer I have ever built, so I am quite the noob.

Questions:
How do I get the GPU to work with VGA (or at all for that matter) after installing SL DVD?

Will I save myself some trouble by upgrading the CPU to run HD 3000?

How do I fix boot0: error? (AKA how do I boot OSX without iBoot?)

How do I get the apple store to recognize my system to DL Lion?

Am I using MultiBeast properly? (I feel like my ignorance of MultiBeast is the root of most of my problems. I have followed several different guides for it, but ultimately I think I am missing something obvious in how it is supposed to function.)

Thank you in advance for your help! I am looking forward to getting this thing up and running!

 

[veng58]

Re: Z68ma-d2h-b3 ver1.3 F9 BIOS 10.6.8 Noob help

ok,vga is not supported by apple ,you need a dvi-i to vga adapter,you will have the same problem with hd3000 so don't upgrade ,the boot 0 error can be fixed with http://www.mymac4music.com/2011/10/boot0-error/ ,

with booting hdd -v ,we need to know the errors on booting to see what it is hanging on ,ccan you take pictures and post on here or even better use www.pastebin.com and put the link here

 

[JDLiver]

Re: Z68ma-d2h-b3 ver1.3 F9 BIOS 10.6.8 Noob help

ok,vga is not supported by apple ,you need a dvi-i to vga adapter,you will have the same problem with hd3000 so don't upgrade ,the boot 0 error can be fixed with http://www.mymac4music.com/2011/10/boot0-error/ ,

with booting hdd -v ,we need to know the errors on booting to see what it is hanging on ,ccan you take pictures and post on here or even better use http://www.pastebin.com and put the link here

I followed the boot 0 error tutorial, and it worked like a charm. Upon booting -v, I get a panic because the CPU is unsupported. I suspect this is because I failed to update to 10.6.8 before applying the UserDSDT, SysUtils, and Chimera. So, I am going to take a break (this is day 3 of my little project) and retry later with some panic photos.

 

[veng58]

Re: Z68ma-d2h-b3 ver1.3 F9 BIOS 10.6.8 Noob help

just a quickie ,next boot verify all bios settings are correct ,and turn off all non essentials i.e onboard sound /Lan/Fwire(1394)/serial port/usb3 and see if it boots just get into system if you can, they can be turned back on one by one later

 

[JDLiver]

Somehow, over the last 24 hours I have managed to piece together each hazy and disconnected fact to get my build up and running with (seemingly) no issues.

YAY!

I ultimately followed the same steps I did before with greater knowledge of the limitations of my equipment.

The i3 2120 supports HD 2000 Graphics, not HD 3000 which the OS requires to run Graphics off of the MOBO. If you attempt to run 10.6.8 with OnBoard outputs using HD 2000 the system will boot, but it will run slowly until it finally crashes. This led me to purchase the PNY Geforce GT 430 GPU. You have to install the card and change the BIOS to use PCI x16 instead of OnBoard Graphics.

Then I did a clean install following all of the standard TonyMac installation steps including using UserDSDT with SysUtils only in MultiBeast. This is the point where I get the Boot 0 Error. Check out the link Veng mentioned earlier.

Once I got back into 10.6.8, I ran Multibeast for my network and was able to download the update to Lion.

Then I followed the latest Lion and UniBeast install guide. This whole process becomes much easier after a few days of exposure and a little help (Thank Veng!)

I am going to order an i3 2125 to be able to run my Graphics off of the MOBO and lose the GPU. I just don't need an extra card when I could save $25 all around by getting a slightly more expensive CPU. Especially since I won't be doing any serious Graphics processing.