EX58-EXTREME Build [Part2]

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Posted by power_boz | Posted on 21-08-2009

Category : Discussions, Howtos, Reviews

Tags: , , , , , ,

We left off part 1 with a running system. Complete parts were assembled and a guest OS, either Windows or Linux, was installed to test the system components and make sure everything was running. Now on to OS X.

The ex58 chip set is not supported under Leopard 10.5.0 and our installation DVD is 10.5.0 so we can not just install leopard as we did previously with our EP45 build. Here we need a different route. First let us gather our parts.

  • Mac OS X Leopard 10.5.0 Retail DVD
  • Mac OS X Leopard 10.5.7 Combo Update – You can use 10.5.8 but there are issues till now.
  • EFIX(tm) V1 Module
  • Our EX58 system
  • Another Mac, yes we need another Mac. If you intend to use your Macbook/Macbook Pro then you need a USB to eSATA or SATA dongle.

    • Steps:

    First we connect the hard drive we want to install leopard on to our working Mac system. You can accomplish this by directly connect to any available SATA port or to the USB to eSATA dongle to your laptop. Open up disk utility from Applications/Utilities and select the disk you have connected. Then Click on the Partition tap and select your desired partition scheme. For our drive we selected 1 Partition.
    du1
    Put a name for it and make sure it says Mac OS Extended (Journaled) in the format drop down menu. du2
    Now click on options and button and make sure that the GUID partition option is selected and then click OK. Click Apply and Disk Utility will start format the drive according to our selections.

    Now we need to install Leopard on our fresh new drive. We start by inserting our Leopard DVD into our working Mac laptop or desktop and it should pop up a windows with an icon that says Install OS X. Fire up terminal from Applications/Utilities and type the following: Note that each line is separate.

    cd /Volumes/Mac\ OS\ X\ Install\ DVD/
    cd System/Installation/Packages/
    open .

    A finder windows will pop up with lots of packages to choose from. pkg
    We need only one, the OSInstall.mpkg. Double click on that file and it will start the Mac OS X Installer. We go through the option we want and when you get to the destination part we simply select the hard drive we prepared earlier. About 20 minutes later we have Leopard 10.5.0 installed on our fresh drive. Now we find the Combo updater we downloaded and double click on the dmg file, and run the installer but also making sure to select our fresh drive as our destination.

    Final steps:
    After the OSX installer and the combo updater we now have 10.5.7 or 10.5.8 depending on your selection installed and ready to boot. If you remember correctly, our build used eVGA Nvidia GeForce GTX275 and so we need to install the correct drivers for it. Navigate you browser to the Nvidia’s site to download these drivers or to eVGA’s site. We used these ones here from eVGA. Double click to mount the dmg and install the drivers.

    Now we shutdown the mac and remove the hard drive and install it in our build machine. We also plug the EFIX(tm) Module in the first USB header. Booted up the machine and went into bios to set the EFIX(tm) to boot first and we have a working Mac.

    Problems:
    The X58 chipset and the core i7 for some reason run the clock fast when booting with EFIX(tm) version 1 but not with version 1.1. So if it is 9:00 pm in about 2 minutes real time it would be 9:04 and not 9:02 so time is twice as fast. This messes up a lot of programs like Growl and QuickTime.

    In Part 3 we get rid of EFIX(tm).

    EX58-Extreme EFI-X Build [Part1]

    6

    Posted by power_boz | Posted on 08-08-2009

    Category : Howtos, Reviews

    Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

    I promised you guys a writeup on an EFI-X(tm) chip build sometime ago and here it is. If you don’t know what EFI-X(tm) you need to check their site out and read up. Basically it is a chip that enables PCs, yes, PCs to boot our favorite OS. What this chip does is act as a layer between the computer and the OS to allow the OS to communicate with the computer. If you remember sometime ago we did a similar build in which we followed the recommended hardware list and it worked out of the box. What makes this new build special is that we are using hardware that is not yet approved and a new processor, the core i7 from intel.

    Here are the specs:

  • Gigabyte GA-EX58-EXTREME
  • Intel Core i7-920 2.66GHz
  • eVGA Nvidia Geforce GTX275 with 896MB DDR3
  • OCZ Triple Channel DDR3 6GB RAM
  • OCZ GameXstream Power Supply 850Watts
  • Zalman CPU Cooler
  • SATA CD/DVD
  • SATA Hard Drive Western Digital 1TB 32MB Cache
  • Thermaltake Armor+ Case
  • Retail Copy of Mac OS X Leopard
  • EFI-X Module

    • ex58-01
    We first assembled the Gigabyte Motherboard into the case. Some careful consideration should be taken with the Extreme board from Gigabyte because they come with Huge Heat Sink that fits into a slot of its own and cools the chipset of the motherboard. ex58-16ex58-17Make sure you dummy fit all the cards you want as to see how or in what order you might need to install these. After securing the CPU bracket for the Zalman Cooler from under the motherboard, we proceeded to installing the motherboard into the case.ex58-20 We then screwed everything in, and fitted the OCZ Ram modules before installing the CPU. We then installed the CPU and applied a bit of thermal grease that came with the Zalman Cooler, Arctic Silver, just enough to cover the CPU and create a really thin layer on top of it. ex58-21We did the same thing for the heat spreader of the motherboard chipset. Installed the Zalman Cooler and then the heat spreader onto the motherboard and making sure everything is fastened snugly. We then installed the Graphics card. ex58-22Here you can see how huge the card is. The 200 series from nvidia are pretty wild in size. After we fitted everything in and make sure all your wires are connected correctly, we fired up the computer and made sure BIOS and other setting are all correct and working.ex58-23 To make sure that the components for our build are in good working order, we installed windows and loaded all the drivers. Below you will find a gallery of all the images we took. In Part 2 we will look at how to install OS X on this beast!