Success: GA-Z77-DS3H, i7 3770, 16 GB RAM, 120 GB SSD

Components

Apple OS X MountainLion @ Mac Apps Store

GIGABYTE GA-Z77-DS3H mainboard
[amazon-de]http://www.amazon.de/Gigabyte-GA-Z77-DS3H-Mainboard-Sockel-Speicher/dp/B007KZQFOS/[/amazon-de]

GIGABYTE GeForce GTX650
[amazon-de]http://www.amazon.de/Gigabyte-GV-N650OC-1GI-NVIDIA-Grafikkarte-Speicher/dp/B0099AOAQC/[/amazon-de]

Corsair 16 GB DDR3 1600 MHz RAM
[amazon-de]http://www.amazon.de/Corsair-Vengeance-PC3-12800-Arbeitsspeicher-DDR3-RAM/dp/B006EWUO22/[/amazon-de]


Intel Core i7-3770
[amazon-de]http://www.amazon.de/Intel-i7-3770-Prozessor-Generation-L3-Cache/dp/B007RMH1WY/[/amazon-de]

FractalDesign R4 case
[amazon-de]http://www.amazon.de/Fractal-FD-CA-DEF-R4-BL-Design-PC-Geh%C3%A4use-externe/dp/B008NFWNFO/[/amazon-de]

SanDisk 120 GB SSD
[amazon-de]http://www.amazon.de/SanDisk-Extreme-120GB-interne-Zoll/dp/B006EKJCWM/[/amazon-de]

Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM HDD 1TB and 2 TB
1 TB:[amazon-de]http://www.amazon.de/Seagate-Barracuda-ST31000524AS-interne-Festplatte/dp/B004HBAGSO/[/amazon-de]
2 TB:[amazon-de]http://www.amazon.de/Seagate-Barracuda-ST2000DM001-Interne-Festplatte/dp/B006CKCRMQ/[/amazon-de]

Scythe Ninja 3 Rev. B CPU cooler
[amazon-de]http://www.amazon.de/Scythe-SCNJ-3100-Ninja-CPU-K%C3%BChler-Sockel/dp/B0064TR8A6/[/amazon-de]

Corsair TX650 power supply
[amazon-de]http://www.amazon.de/Corsair-SERIES-650WATT-PSU-BRONZE/dp/B004NRVXK2/[/amazon-de]

TP-Link Wifi PCI card 450 MBps
[amazon-de]http://www.amazon.de/TP-Link-TL-WDN4800-PCI-Express-Adapter-frustfreie-Verpackung/dp/B006PMX964/[/amazon-de]


Already Owned

Samsung SyncMaster SA850 27'' monitor (2560x1440)
[amazon-de]http://www.amazon.de/Samsung-Monitor-S27A850D-Reaktionszeit-schwarz/dp/B005CYXNVW/[/amazon-de]


Comments

This build was designed to have a good Creative Suite performance for layout, photo correction and video editing. The crucial part was to find a combo that supports the ultra-HD resolution of the monitor. The mainboard unfortunately only outputs full-HD on the DVI and HDMI port so a cheap but performant GPU was added.

All parts are taken from the buyer's guide.

The case is awesome, it is quite expensive with about 100 EUR but it saves a lot of trouble when building the system by directing the cables behind the motherboard. It is also big enough to house the giant CPU cooler which is huge but really silent.

installation problems
As this was my first build I hoped for an easy setup. But I was disappointed. I had some hardware problems at first, but this is not connected to the build.
I started by getting my ML installation USB stick like described here. I did this on an older MacBook Pro running Snow Leopard.
I then ran in all kinds of trouble. The GPU was disconnected, I did everything over the HD4000 on a full-HD display. I got issues with network drivers, graphic drivers and could only install with -x flags on 1024x768 res. I just couldn't get a stable booting system. It took me two days and many reinstalls to find a forum post were someone mentioned in an unrelated sentence that the ML installer had to be run once before the Unibeast Stick would work. Desperate as I was I tried that. I installed ML on the MacBook Pro and started from scratch.

successful installation
Important: I created the Unibeast ML installation USB drive on a machine running the ML license I just purchased.
I then ran the installation with the GPU inserted and connected to my display. I didn't have to use any flags to install.

On reboot the AppleTyMCEDriver did not load properly and produced Kernel Panics. I then rebooted over the USB into the ML installer and moved the AppleTyMCEDriver.kext from its folder to a backup folder using the terminal.app. After that I booted successfully from the SSD.

In Multibeast I ran the user DSDT/DSDT free installation and checked the boxes for the
- Realtek 88x no DSDT, current
- fakeSMC and plugins
- Atheros Ethernet
- USB 3.0
- MacPro 5,1 preset

I ran the Multibeast install, rebooted and moved the user folder to the 1 TB HDD to avoid overusing the SSD for simple data storage.

additinal notes
If you have any questions, feel free to contact me. The system is now up and running and everything works fine, sound and video show no lagging or issues. I just wonder if the AppleTyMCEDriver.kext has any purpose, I couldn't find any evidence that it is needed for the system and the build is stable without it.
I am very happy about the build, as it is faster than an iMac 27'' and 1000 EUR cheaper.

Hey congratulations on the successful install. My specs are essentially identical to yours but I continue to struggle.

Two questions:
1. What version of the Motherboard are you running 1.0 or 1.1?
2. You said the OS had to be installed once before it worked?? Are you saying that you installed the OS on the Snow Leopard machine before you installed it on the custom build?

Thanks.

Hi,

for your first question:
I did an motherboard update, which was a bit tricky to do on a mac, as gigabyte's archive is a self extracting .exe that only runs on windows. I did the update to the latest version and the used the optimized defaults with the SSD set to ACPI.

and for your second question:
yes, I installed Mountain Lion on the Snow Leopard machine. Basically the first thing I did after the upgrade was to redownload the installer and create the unibeast boot device. With this USB stick everything worked like a charm, as I described. I have no explanation for this, I don't know, why the unibeast stick does not work when it is created in Snow Leopard.

I hope I could help a bit, don't hesitate to ask further questions Good luck with your build!

Oops, by version I meant revision. There are two different Z77-DS3H motherboards out there. 1.0 seems to be functioning all right for people, Revision 1.1 has been causing headaches for many (including me). You can see which version it is by looking at the lower left corner of the motherboard, near the PCI slots.

If you got everything working in 1.1 I would also be curious how you went about updating the BIOS, I am pretty new to all this and any info you could provide would be much appreciated. Danke.

I just had a look in the case, I have the rev1.0. The update process is straightforward if you have access to a windows machine were you can extract the self extracting zip archive provided on the gigayte homepage. You just put the extracted firmware on a USB stick, plug it in and start the update via the BIOS.

If you struggle with the rev 1.1 I would return it to the seller. I bought mine in germany at cyberport, as they have a store nearby and I had good experiences with them. They sold me the rev 1.0.
good luck!

Hi got similar setup but with i5 2500 CPU have truble with bios settings would it be possible to add screen grabs of BIOS settings ?

I'm going same way installing iBoot + Snow Leopard and creating boot USB but stuck: iBoot loads ok Snow Lep 10.6.3 (original) won't go to setup stays on White screen with Apple logo on the middle
Can you please help

P.S MB revision 1 and BIOS version 12 ( update with no trouble)

Hey,
the screencaps will be hard to do as the mainboard only supports this feature on fat32 system disks and mine is already mac os x journaled. What Bios trouble do you have precisely? To me it sounds more like a problem with the drivers during booting. I always recommend to use the -x flag to get complete information on any issues.
I use the optimized defaults for my motherboard with the HDD mode set to ACPI, like described in the guide on this website. Initially I had the HD4000 enabled in bios but now it is disabled as I don't use it anymore.
Do you use your graphics card or the HD4000 during installation?

The best way to help you is to get the error you get during installation, so boot up with -x flag.
And in your place I would consider buying Mountain Lion, as it is much easier and has better support of modern hardware.

Jorams
Thanks for reply Im new to Mac but read a lot about this install on the forum. The bios I update to 12 with no issues using Q flash. I did load optimased defaults and set HDD to ACPI save/exit. I have tried to use internal HD4000 ( graphics enable in Bios) with no card installed the process goes better I got boot and get to disk management and seems to get through install but it kinda stuck on the end but I failed to save the error mesages will try again later.
With HD4000 graphics disabled GTX650 installed bootloader work ok but 10.6 wont load at all .

I really need this 10.6 to create USB boot with Mountain Lion I have Powermac G4 Quick Silver running 10.4 with I understand is not compatible with multibeast to create USB Boot of Mountain Lion?

I will try all again with -X and see the error message will take photo.
Many thanks

Unfortunately I have no experience with powerPC installation of a hackintosh. Since the architecture of a PowerPC and an Intel Mac differ broadly it may be hard to get a stable system running. I suggest finding a friend's mac to create the multibeast boot stick.

coolfox said:

...
With HD4000 graphics disabled GTX650 installed bootloader work ok but 10.6 wont load at all .

I really need this 10.6 to create USB boot with Mountain Lion I have Powermac G4 Quick Silver running 10.4 with I understand is not compatible with multibeast to create USB Boot of Mountain Lion?

I will try all again with -X and see the error message will take photo.
Many thanks

Click to expand...

You will have problems installationg Snow Leopard if you left your 650 installed. Take it out of your computer. Be aware that Snow Leopard will (barely) work in Ivy Bridge systms with HD4000 in Snow Leopard at a low resolution state. Or get an older graphics card. Use this install guide iBoot for Ivy Bridge: http://www.tonymacx86.com/43-simplest-mac-os-x-installation-guide.html

None of the tonymacx86 software will run on a PPC as outlined in the Rules: http://www.tonymacx86.com/faq.php