[SUCCESS] GA-Z68MX-UD2H-B3 + I7 2600K 3.4 + Lion/Snow Leoprd

Whipped this puppy together over the weekend and I'm pretty happy so far. Few questions for the community for a noob as well.

PARTS LIST:

OS 1: Mac OS X Lion 10.7.1

OS 2: Mac OS X Snow Leopard 10.6
http://store.apple.com/us/product/MC573Z/A
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001AMHWP8?ie=UTF8

MOTHERBOARD: Gigabyte Z68MX-UD2H-B3 (from CustoMac Build #3)
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005484N9W
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128503

CPU: Intel Core i7 2600K 3.4GHZ Sandy Bridge
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004EBUXSA/
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115070

RAM: Corsair Vengeance Blue 16GB DDR3-1600
http://www.amazon.com/Corsair-Vengeance-Channel-Memory-CMZ16GX3M4A1600C9B/dp/B004RFBIUU/ref=sr_1_3?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1320006014&sr=1-3
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145346

HDD: Crucial M4 2.5" 128GB SATA III SSD
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148442

Already Owned:

VIDEO: "Old Trusty" EVGA 9800GT 512 (No longer available)

OPTICAL: LG Black SATA Super Multi BluRay+DVD+HDDVD (No longer available)


Comments:
PROCESS:
-Flashed BIOS to F5 (Board came as F3).
-Used DSDT from the database.
-iBoot and then Install Snow Leopard
-Installed 10.6.8 and ran Multibeast before restarting
-In Multibeast installed Network, USB3, Audio Rollback, MacPro 3,1.
-9800GT works great, dual monitors, both DVI.

COMMENTS:

I also use a Logitech Perfomance MX mouse and Apple flat keyboard in case that's important to you. I'm also using the Apple trackpad here and there on the Lion build, but I'm a designer so it's really mouse for the details. I've hooked up both of my Cintiqs and they worked ok as well.

Ran this configuration for a few days as a work machine and it was VERY stable. USB3, SATA3, etc, all great. SSD is blazing fast. Geekbench64 hit 12899.

Decided to try Lion 10.7.1 Used the Tonymac method with xMove+Multibeast over Snow Leopard Install.

Installed standalone 10.7.1 updater and reran Multibeast to install audio rollback again before restart.

Only issue I'm getting in Lion is the same as others. USB gets ejected on wake from sleep. I also lose my USB3 ports until a restart. I'd love to get this figured out, otherwise I may go back to Snow Leopard. It's a little annoying to have to unplug my USB drives, etc all the time.

Lion actually scores a little higher in benchmarking.

Here are my MultiBeast settings:

Multibeast.png

I have two questions for the community. I'd like a decently priced but more powerful graphics card but I'd love as little hassle as possible the 9800 is great for my normal graphics work, but I'd like to maybe play some games and would love a more powerful card. Are there any good nVidia cards that are as no hassle as the 9800 was?

Thanks in advance.

Also, anyone else have any luck with the USB eject on sleep? I'm really hoping to figure this out.

Feel free to ask any questions. When I get back home I can start up the box and post a screencap of the Multibeast exact settings if that would help.

This seems to be a really solid, compact, blazing fast build. Very few issues on installing and it seems to be very stable so far minus the crashes here and there if I forget a USB stick when sleeping.

If you do this build and don't care for Lion, the 10.6.8 build is ROCK SOLID.

Thanks everyone. This board was immensely helpful and I would have been lost without the layman's walk-throughs.

Anyone got a good thread on doing hackintosh backups that is tried and true?

Did you have the sleep/USB ejection problems when you were running SL, too, or is that problem specific to Lion?

Are you sure you have usb3 working? This board has the Eltron usb3 chip and as far as I know, no one has it working.

For a quick and easy fix for the sleep issue, I was using a mini iogear usb hub plugged to the board, then my keyboard and mouse into the hub. Works great. I now have the wireless keyboard and mouse and use the apple bluetooth module with no sleep issues.

I did not have the ejection issues with 10.6.8. It seemed to be a flawless machine for me on 10.6.8, minus some issues with back to my mac and local networking. It will just disappear from my local computers like Bonjour has died or something. Same issue in Lion.

Yes, USB3 appears to be working with the same drivers. My USB3 thumb drive transfers a little over twice as fast on the USB3 ports as it does on the USB2 ports which seems to be about the standard at the moment.

Hope that helps.

That's interesting. What brand and model usb3 stick are you using?

gdtrfb24,

It's an ADATA S102/16GB The nice grey metal ones.

You know, I'm just wondering if people are not understanding that USB3 isn't performing at it theoretical throughput yet. Currently real world performance is more times than not just doubling USB2 on things like thumb drives, etc.

I basically ran a set of files from the drive (to and from) in both sets of ports a couple times to test for consistency. Seems dead on.

holto said:

I have two questions for the community. I'd like a decently priced but more powerful graphics card but I'd love as little hassle as possible the 9800 is great for my normal graphics work, but I'd like to maybe play some games and would love a more powerful card. Are there any good nVidia cards that are as no hassle as the 9800 was?

Thanks in advance.

Also, anyone else have any luck with the USB eject on sleep? I'm really hoping to figure this out.

Feel free to ask any questions. When I get back home I can start up the box and post a screencap of the Multibeast exact settings if that would help.

This seems to be a really solid, compact, blazing fast build. Very few issues on installing and it seems to be very stable so far minus the crashes here and there if I forget a USB stick when sleeping.

If you do this build and don't care for Lion, the 10.6.8 build is ROCK SOLID.

Thanks everyone. This board was immensely helpful and I would have been lost without the layman's walk-throughs.

Anyone got a good thread on doing hackintosh backups that is tried and true?

Click to expand...

Thanks MUCH for the info!

I will be buying the same mobo (w/i7-2600k CPU, for 3D rendering the 2600k vastly outpaces the 2500k) and will be on the lookout for the hiccups you described.

Did you download the DSDT for the F5 BIOS? Or upgrading to the latest, which sounds like it's F11? (I will be installing the F11 BIOS and then the according DSDT). That might fix the USB/sleep problem.

I will be getting an ATi 6870 card as well. XFX had the best price. I wanted to go Gigabyte, but the 6870 being $10 more than the Gigabyte 6850 is worth the price difference (the Gigabyte 6870 was $209 and not available ). However, Tony's site did point out that the XFX card - depending on revision - couldn't see the model ID completely (under 10.6.7 if I recall...) As Lion (10.7.2) sees my nVidia 550Ti in my test rig fully, and the 6870 being a known-supported chipset to begin with, I think the XFX is a safe bet. But if the Gigabyte 6870 returns for sale, I'd recommend that instead. I'd have spent the $40 otherwise, based on Tony's database.

I will be going Lion. It's got a couple quirks, but the pros outweigh the cons by far. (YMMV, of course, but hardware compatibility is definitely going to be wider under Lion.) But it's GREAT to know SL works solidly as well.

For backups, I have tried DriveGenius 3 (boot from iBoot then Drive Genius 3.1.2). It works but the drive cannot be remounted afterward. I've not had time to test a restore, but I will also be using Time Machine for software backups anyhow.

One question, if you don't mind: On Multibeast, you selected "Mac Pro 3,1" for 'System Definitions'. Have you tried 4,1 or 5,1? (4,1 is comparable to my 2009 Mac Pro (Nehalem)... 5,1 is the 2010 Mac Pro model...) Thanks!

Have to be careful when choosing a graphics cards for the following reasons:

• 
  - Apple only supports the Reference Designs in OS X which means you have to have the same ports and arrangement as the cards on AMD/ATI's and nVidia's web sites;
  
  - Apple had a falling out with nVidia a couple of years ago, so pick an AMD/ATI for ease of compatibility;
  
  - The tonymacx86 Recommend Builds recommend Gigabyte graphic cards because they work OOB (see link in my signature block); and
  
  - There's a preference for Gigabyte, Asus and MSI cards among the mods because of the quality of design to be called a Reference Design - YMMV.

I have two graphics cards which work without issues - a Gigabyte 9800 GT Silent Cell and a Gigbyte HD 5770 "Batmobile." Both cards were in previous tonymacx86 Recommend Builds. (You can see where I'm going.)

So, I'd recommend the Gigabyte 6850 or 6870 graphics cards. You can try to save $10, but the risk is higher that the card won't work.

See this post to get sleep/wake-up with your Z68 working.

viewtopic.php?f=7&t=36044&start=0

Stork said:

Have to be careful when choosing a graphics cards for the following reasons:

• 
  - Apple only supports the Reference Designs in OS X which means you have to have the same ports and arrangement as the cards on AMD/ATI's and nVidia's web sites;
  
  - Apple had a falling out with nVidia a couple of years ago, so pick an AMD/ATI for ease of compatibility;
  
  - The tonymacx86 Recommend Builds recommend Gigabyte graphic cards because they work OOB (see link in my signature block); and
  
  - There's a preference for Gigabyte, Asus and MSI cards among the mods because of the quality of design to be called a Reference Design - YMMV.

I have two graphics cards which work without issues - a Gigabyte 9800 GT Silent Cell and a Gigbyte HD 5770 "Batmobile." Both cards were in previous tonymacx86 Recommend Builds. (You can see where I'm going.)

So, I'd recommend the Gigabyte 6850 or 6870 graphics cards. You can try to save $10, but the risk is higher that the card won't work.

Click to expand...

AWESOME information to know, thanks!

I will try the XFX, the moment there's a problem I'll return and get a preferred card...

And it looks like amazon has the card back in. (Updated today, after I ordered... d'oh! )

On the plus side:

http://wiki.osx86project.org/wiki/index.php/HCL_10.7.2#AMD.2FATI

"Native support" for Lion is a good sign, but the card I ordered has a 4-letter suffix of "ZHFC" (unlike "ZNFC" or "ZDFC").

Looks like my biggest challenge will be doing 10.6.0 -> 10.6.8. But I'm crossing my fingers; the nVidia 550ti on my other box worked fine in plain old VGA mode (unlike the i5-2300's integrated Intel video... ) Once I get it to 10.7.2, it should be fine...

But, I ramble. Thanks again for the info, and I will keep that in mind for the future...