Upcoming Intel X58 Mobos & Core i7 CPUs

[jplee4907]

Hi JaE-V, please advice...!

 

I'm using the default bios since I got the EVGA board.

I actually don't know what the version I'm using at this moment.

 

Do you know how to check what the version of the bios is?

 

Also, would it be OK to update the bios with the latest one from EVGA web?

Would this hurt my Hackintosh settings?

 

The reason I'm asking you is that I had so much troubles with the bios of GA EX58-UD5.

All the OS system correctly installed using perfectly, but the board hangs at "Verifying DMI pool..." sometimes with AHCI on. And it was really hard to get into the correct mode. Sometime it did, sometimes it didn't. That's why I moved to EVGA X58.

 

Ever since I used this EVGA X58, I don't have any issue with AHCI setting.

It's really smooth.

 

But one thing I was wondering is that its capability of overclocking.

I think my EVGA board is not doing well in overclock.

I can just follow some of 4.2 overclock guide but it fails at Prime test with temp going up.

Right now, I'm using with Dummy OC at 3.2 which is OK, but I think this board has a lot more capability.

I even bought a second i7 920.

 

So, I start thinking updating the newest bios but I just want to find if everything is OK with my intention.

 

If you can give some advice, that will be very thankful.

 

Thanks again

 

JP

 

My system spec:

i920

EVGA EX58 SLI

OCZ DDR3 1600mhz 2g x 3

HD3870

X-fi 5.1 Surround USB sound

[JaE-V]

Hi JaE-V, please advice...!

 

I'm using the default bios since I got the EVGA board.

I actually don't know what the version I'm using at this moment.

 

Do you know how to check what the version of the bios is?

 

Also, would it be OK to update the bios with the latest one from EVGA web?

Would this hurt my Hackintosh settings?

 

The reason I'm asking you is that I had so much troubles with the bios of GA EX58-UD5.

All the OS system correctly installed using perfectly, but the board hangs at "Verifying DMI pool..." sometimes with AHCI on. And it was really hard to get into the correct mode. Sometime it did, sometimes it didn't. That's why I moved to EVGA X58.

 

Ever since I used this EVGA X58, I don't have any issue with AHCI setting.

It's really smooth.

 

But one thing I was wondering is that its capability of overclocking.

I think my EVGA board is not doing well in overclock.

I can just follow some of 4.2 overclock guide but it fails at Prime test with temp going up.

Right now, I'm using with Dummy OC at 3.2 which is OK, but I think this board has a lot more capability.

I even bought a second i7 920.

 

So, I start thinking updating the newest bios but I just want to find if everything is OK with my intention.

 

If you can give some advice, that will be very thankful.

 

Thanks again

 

JP

 

My system spec:

i920

EVGA EX58 SLI

OCZ DDR3 1600mhz 2g x 3

HD3870

X-fi 5.1 Surround USB sound

 

 

Honestly i wouldnt touch the bios, i'm using the one fresh out the box and all is well. What type of cooling are you using? Monitored your temps? There's a video guide at the evga site and plenty of overclocking guides for the board in the evga forums. The 4.2 clock requires some insane cooling. I have the coolermaster v8 cooler, apparently it can do the job but i have no desire.

[jplee4907]

Honestly i wouldnt touch the bios, i'm using the one fresh out the box and all is well. What type of cooling are you using? Monitored your temps? There's a video guide at the evga site and plenty of overclocking guides for the board in the evga forums. The 4.2 clock requires some insane cooling. I have the coolermaster v8 cooler, apparently it can do the job but i have no desire.

 

 

Thanks for info!

 

I ya...it's already spilt milk!

 

As I found, the bios came with the board was SZ19, the latest one was SZ1G.

It was a little be different way of updating bios then other boards.

Anyway I did, and it was a disaster...

1. Booting Priority of HDD in Bios was not working. I need this for my hanckintosh and Vista.

2. Overclock menu was not working at all. If I change QPI, CPU voltage, etc., I see only black screen.

 

I couldn't get back to original bios, SZ19

But I was able to downgrade the bios as SZ1C.

 

Now, I can use multibooting menu from the bios.

But still if i tried to change settings OC menu, the system blacks out.

I could use Dummy OC ok, which I was using before.

I'm staying with this bios right now.

 

I think updating bios of this board is very tricky.

I will find out more on this issue from EVGA pretty soon.

 

Thanks JaE-V

[ѕӎѳѳ₮ңӌ]

bios:

A couple of posts backs in this thread you can see my bios settings, its a zip with photos...

 

efi-boot:

munky method:

don't use the mkext, don't run the script:

only use the least number of kexts!

dsmos.kext/appledecrypt.kext on efi partition. /System/Booter/Extensions instead of /Extensions

Voodoo kernel and other kexts in te normal SLE. no other kexts are needed! if i'm not mistaken

you patch video, lan, sound, shutdown restart etc later...

 

but first make it boot right

 

lol, it wont even boot with just appledecrypt and system kexts. fails with the same error.

 

i just cannot understand why..... i have done nothing different from before.... i will try one last time from scratch.... if that fails, is anybody interested in a gigabyte board?

[csn_pilot]

Will the Asus P6T Standard work with Leopard? I don't want to spend $50 more on the deluxe edition if I don't have to. Also, I would prefer to get an Asus board over Gigabyte or EVGA.

 

Otherwise, I'm getting a Core i7 920, nVIDIA 9800 GTX+, and 6 GB RAM. Is there still no driver for the nVIDIA GT200 series cards in Leopard. Has there been any attempt to port the driver in Snow Leopard to Leopard?

 

Thanks for any help.

[ѕӎѳѳ₮ңӌ]

i'm happy to report that i will not be offering my mobo up for sale... although i have no idea how i got it to work this time (i have done the same method throughout)

 

anyways... im not satisfied with the speed of the usb dongle so if anybody knows of a good pci-e x1 ethernet card im all ears...

[walterav]

i'm happy to report that i will not be offering my mobo up for sale... although i have no idea how i got it to work this time (i have done the same method throughout)

 

anyways... im not satisfied with the speed of the usb dongle so if anybody knows of a good pci-e x1 ethernet card im all ears...

 

Are you sure you got the permissions enabled with the vsdutil -a command? before adding extra kexts, and chown/chmod?

[M J]

Will the Asus P6T Standard work with Leopard? I don't want to spend $50 more on the deluxe edition if I don't have to. Also, I would prefer to get an Asus board over Gigabyte or EVGA.

 

Otherwise, I'm getting a Core i7 920, nVIDIA 9800 GTX+, and 6 GB RAM. Is there still no driver for the nVIDIA GT200 series cards in Leopard. Has there been any attempt to port the driver in Snow Leopard to Leopard?

 

Thanks for any help.

 

Many of us did it on a deluxe a standard shouldn't have major differences as far as drivers and such are concerned.

[lamarzocco]

Just adding to the list of mobo's, I used digital_dreamer's boot-132 method and it works great on my DFI Lanparty Jr. x58-T3H6 micro-ATX motherboard. I simply did not install the Realtek driver as the Marvell gig-e works out of the box.

 

I'm still working on sound ALC889 versus ALC889a (as always), but other than that everything else seems good. VMware is running fine on us DD's method. Although i'm only running winXP virtual machines.

[ѕӎѳѳ₮ңӌ]

Are you sure you got the permissions enabled with the vsdutil -a command? before adding extra kexts, and chown/chmod?

 

i am doing nothing different to a few days ago, even booting with the full set of kexts minus the networking kexts (which i also tried a few days ago)..... so i dont have a clue really. like i said before, i dont mind a challenge (the long line of hackintoshes i have owned proves that) but there seems to be no consistency with my build... some days a kext works, the next it wont without any interference from myself.

[digital_dreamer]

Just adding to the list of mobo's, I used digital_dreamer's boot-132 method and it works great on my DFI Lanparty Jr. x58-T3H6 micro-ATX motherboard. I simply did not install the Realtek driver as the Marvell gig-e works out of the box.

 

I'm still working on sound ALC889 versus ALC889a (as always), but other than that everything else seems good. VMware is running fine on us DD's method. Although i'm only running winXP virtual machines.

lamarzocco,

Cool little board you have there. Nice to see another board with fruitful results.

 

Have you seen this ALC889A thread and tried the AppleHDA.kexts with various pin-outs available?

 

regards,

MAJ

[ѕӎѳѳ₮ңӌ]

i know this has probably already been answered but i have not been checking this thread as closely recently.

 

 

has anybody got parallels 3/4 to run on the gigabyte board?

[Tex1ntux]

lamarzocco,

Cool little board you have there. Nice to see another board with fruitful results.

 

Have you seen this ALC889A thread and tried the AppleHDA.kexts with various pin-outs available?

 

regards,

MAJ

I'm in the same boat as lamarzocco.

 

I've been poking around the ALC889A thread, but so far I've gotten nothing but "no output devices found".

 

Let me know if you figure it out lamarzocco, and I'll do the same.

[mattrb]

has anybody got parallels 3/4 to run on the gigabyte board?

 

This only works in non-retail installs, so it wont work with efi boot partition. But Iatkos, iPC, and other distros its a go! The efi boot/parallels tradeoff choice is obvious though. It is definately worth it to keep EFI Boot Partition. Distros blow Fat Choad. Just restart to your vista if you want windoze. You could use virtualbox (not as good as parallels but free) in efi boot though.

 

Note:Digital_Dreamer got it working retail but many others say otherwise and I personally could not replicate his results. I would go with general consensus which is no. The conversations about a Parallels/EFI Boot solution will be located in the Ga-x58-ud5 tutorial thread when there is one.

[ѕӎѳѳ₮ңӌ]

Note:Digital_Dreamer got it working retail but many others say otherwise and I personally could not replicate his results. I would go with general consensus which is no. The conversations about a Parallels/EFI Boot solution will be located in the Ga-x58-ud5 tutorial thread when there is one.

 

have you got a link to this comment? ive gone back through to page 30 of this thread but no luck seeing it

[saxman314]

Hey, it looks like this is the spot to post. I've been looking into this site with some interest, because I'm tired of waiting for Apple to drop a new imac, I don't want to pay a trillion dollars for subpar technology, and I'm just a broke musician trying to upgrade my toolkit. I'm on a 2003 G4 titanium powerbook right now (Power PC 1 Ghz!). I'm very good at making do, but I'm looking forward to having an upgradable platform.

 

Anyhow, before I pull the trigger and order all this stuff I figured I'd see if anyone cares to point out a glaring mistake in my plan... here's the the entire parts list for my next computer. I plan to run Linux on it for a week or two and then try to run Leopard off it. This is the ultimate goal because I need to run Logic Pro 8.

 

What I've got already: a DVI 19" LCD, wireless keyboard/mouse with standard connectors, Focusright Saffire audio interface running through firewire 400, Lacie external 750Gb drive running through firewire 400 (looking forward to running it at 800!), and an old WD external 125Gb USB drive. Here's my list from newegg:

 

A couple things have changed since I made those images. 1: I realized I had the wrong kind of RAM in there, so I changed it to DDR3 1066. 2: The MSI video card is out of stock, so I'm going with the EVGA and the same chipset.

 

I know there are a few of you guys running Osx86 rigs on i7 platforms already and having great success with Logic. I checked all my components for compatibility against your setups and selected them accordingly. I guess the only one I'm worried about (I'm a total noob at this stuff) is the firewire PCI card, which I haven't seen mentioned, and of course the very real danger that I totally misunderstood something or just generally messed it up. There are also things I just don't know, being a noob, for example, how much power will I need? I'm guessing based on some other setups I've seen that I'm erring on the side of caution here, but I'd like to save money if possible, and if I need a more powerful PSU, that'd be good to know, as well.

 

Thanks to all you guys who do this stuff. Someone like me with no computer science training could never attempt something like this without a supportive online community to spell everything out.

 

Dan

[mattrb]

I use i7 and Logic Pro 8, you will have an easy time getting everything up and running if you use wolfienuke's efi boot partition with a retail disk. Dont use distrobutions (iatkos, iPC)! They suck.

 

I use Komplete, BFD2, Toontracks, Circle, Omnisphere.

[ѕӎѳѳ₮ңӌ]

how much power will I need?

 

that depends on what you are wanting to do with your system.... you could probably get away with running with a 500w if you keep everything stock, but start over clocking and you will want to stick with what you have got....

 

i'm running at 1000w as i have the intention to overclock (when my w/c loop is up) and to run two hd4780x2 when they come down in price and when snow leo is out

[saxman314]

Thanks guys! Mattrb, what do you mean when you say the distros suck? I've seen this idea several times, but I haven't gotten clear exactly how or why they suck. Do they just not install well on i7, or is there functionality missing from the OS, or what?

 

Smoothy, I do intend to overcock, thanks for that. Do you think the Noctua CPU sink/fan and the more powerful case fans will do the trick for cooling? I will bundle cables as well as I can to get good airflow in the case. I don't know how hard you want to push yours with the watercooling setup, but I'm planning to be fairly conservative. After all, the stock setup is going to blow the doors off this old laptop I'm used to! I figure I'll run it stock for a day or two, then up it to 3.2Ghz to see how it does being on 24hrs a day and keep pushing bit by bit, with an ultimate goal between 3.6 and 4Ghz depending on how it heats up.

 

I doubt I'll ever put in another graphics card because I'm not planning to shell out for Windows and games (xbox360 for that!), and I'm not a graphics/video editing guy.

[mattrb]

Thanks guys! Mattrb, what do you mean when you say the distros suck? I've seen this idea several times, but I haven't gotten clear exactly how or why they suck. Do they just not install well on i7, or is there functionality missing from the OS, or what?

 

Smoothy, I do intend to overcock, thanks for that. Do you think the Noctua CPU sink/fan and the more powerful case fans will do the trick for cooling?

 

I heard the Noctua is the best, go with it, but it wont work well if {censored} is involved. (read what you wrote)

 

 

Distros suck because they are buggy and they dont work without a billion problems related to them. You should setup your efi boot partition on a distro though. With the reality that the distro disk is used to setup the retail then I take my suck back and give a half suck. In my opinion, retail installs without problems. You should get a distro cd and the retail dvd and you can see for yourself. You are going to need to find a way to get the EFI Boot Partition setup so just get the distrobution cd anyway and see how crappy it is and then you can go to retail. Easy as pie. Tell us your success and problems and help will be provided if it hasn't been answered already.

 

Use site:forum.insanelymac.com ga-ex58-ud5

 

or whatever, to get a quick search of our site.

[saxman314]

I heard the Noctua is the best, go with it, but it wont work well if {censored} is involved. (read what you wrote)

Freudian slip, I guess... QFT, lol.

 

Great advice on the distros. I've been reading the new tutorial thread as well, and I'll see what I get when I try the boot from EFI deal. Question, how is your setup working out with the 1600 RAM? I thought that wasn't supposed to play nice with the i7 chip, according to intel?

[ѕӎѳѳ₮ңӌ]

i think you will be fine with the PSU then.... If i wasnt going with W/C i would have that heatsink... all the fans on my rads are noctura, they are pretty hard to beat for sound against performance.

 

id say that 4ghz is a little optimistic and i doubt it will be very stable with the cooling set up, saying that MAJ has got 3.8 but im not sure what he is cooling it with.

 

EDIT: by the way im using 1600 ram with no issues....

[radov4n]

I had a quick question.. maybe someone will be able to answer.

 

Has anyone tried to use Foxconn Reneissance board (x58, 4 x16)?

 

All that pci-express powa sure does look appealing to me (I do CUDA programming). So I kind-of wanted to know, before I shell out 350$ on a motherboard that might not work

[mattrb]

I had a quick question.. maybe someone will be able to answer.

 

Has anyone tried to use Foxconn Reneissance board (x58, 4 x16)?

 

All that pci-express powa sure does look appealing to me (I do CUDA programming). So I kind-of wanted to know, before I shell out 350$ on a motherboard that might not work

 

Foxconn is shady, I would pass. I heard many over the years tell bad stories of foxconn being incompatible with osx. Besides, they are straight up Chinese, slave labor and proud.

[saxman314]

Thanks again Smoothy and Mattrb. I just ordered all the parts and a retail OS 10.5 and everything should be here in a couple days. I'll let you know how it all goes.

 

Smoothy, I figured 4Ghz was a bit optimistic. I'm pretty much at the limit of my budget right now, so what's left for me is just to figure how much speed I can get out of that thing safely. Whatever it turns out to be, i'll be happy. I just don't see the point in either: 1) running my CPU at 60% of capacity if it can do better, or 2) frying my new $290 CPU!