OS X compatible motherboard -> QUO

[^andromedar^]

To whom it may concern here (slightly off topic, but might still help someone): For SL users like myself, Paragon NTFS reading and writing is now free of charge, download here: http://www.paragon-software.com/home/ntfs-mac-snow-leopard/index.html .

 

Disclaimer: I am not affiliated in any shape or from with the company and cannot tell you more than this.

[Riley Freeman]

To whom it may concern here (slightly off topic, but might still help someone): For SL users like myself, Paragon NTFS reading and writing is now free of charge, download here: http://www.paragon-software.com/home/ntfs-mac-snow-leopard/index.html .

 

Disclaimer: I am not affiliated in any shape or from with the company and cannot tell you more than this.

 

It's not really the right place for it, but thanks for the info.

 

I haven't installed it yet but it appears to be version 10.6.33. I have the old GAOTD 9.0.1 version installed on my MacBook so I'll probably update later.

[^andromedar^]

 

 

I haven't installed it yet but it appears to be version 10.6.33.

Yes, it is.

[peterwan]

He's not guessing, he's stating a fact.

Mountain Lion runs FASTER than Mavericks!

 

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5491144?start=15&tstart=0

no offence but I don't see any difference with my system performance

which runs faster Mountain Lion or Mavericks I think it has got to do

with the different hardware we use

To whom it may concern here (slightly off topic, but might still help someone): For SL users like myself, Paragon NTFS reading and writing is now free of charge, download here: http://www.paragon-software.com/home/ntfs-mac-snow-leopard/index.html .

 

Disclaimer: I am not affiliated in any shape or from with the company and cannot tell you more than this.

this i very nice info but sadly i dont use S.L

[StoneTemplePilots]

Regarding

 

Acpi Loader Mode 0x004D (Enabled | Darwin | Windows | Update Legacy) Loader Mask 0x4 (Darwin)

 

It looks like it should be possible to load DSDT.aml only for OS X, or there's a chance at least for loading an unpatched DSDT.aml with Windows.

Does anyone know how to do that?

[Tosk]

I finally got around to building a new machine with my QUO Kickstarter board.

 

I had a hell of a time getting everything working, but my issues weren't related to the board. My issues were related to my own stupidity. Once I got a valid copy of Mavericks, installing OS X was as simple as putting in the USB drive and turning on the machine. After installation, the only thing I needed to do was install the audio drivers. I was delighted to find that everything just worked.

 

Initially, I had the iMessage problem, but I just added 6 more digits to my serial number in NVRAM and it fixed it after a reboot.

 

I did run into two issues that I'm not sure about.

1. In System Information, under Thunderbolt, it reports "No devices found." I assume this means that there are no Thunderbolt devices attached and not that OS X couldn't find the Thunderbolt chipset. Image is attached.
2. The BIOS will not advance past the QUO logo if I have my 3TB Toshiba SATA 3 drive attached to the motherboard. It just hangs and is completely unresponsive. The drive worked fine and showed up in the BIOS before I formatted it. After installing OS X, I used Disk Utility to initialize the drive as GPT and created a single partition which was formatted as ExFAT. The process completed successfully and the drive was available to OS X. Issue didn't show up until I rebooted. If I leave the drive detached until after OS X has loaded, I can plug the drive in to a hotplug-enabled SATA port and it works fine.

Anyone have any thoughts on the two points above? I'm especially interested in the second one. The first one isn't as important since I don't have any Thunderbolt hardware right now.

[bs0d]

1. Yes it means there are no thunderbolt devices attached.

 

2. Maybe there's a problem with the Firmware's ExFat driver, you could try another format to be sure.

 

 

 

 

edited to clarify i meant firmware exfat driver.

[Tosk]

2. Maybe there's a problem with the Firmware's ExFat driver, you could try another format to be sure.

 

I'm zeroing out the drive right now. As soon as it's done, I'm going to see how far I get with it attached on a reboot. If it makes it back into OS X with the drive attached, I'll look at trying a different format.

 

I wanted the drive to be somewhat portable, but I guess HFS would be good enough as it has read/write on Linux and read on Windows.

[bs0d]

if other formats work, it may just be a case of locating an updated ExtFs driver (if such a thing exists).

[Riley Freeman]

I remember when exFAT support was first added with Snow Leopard that there was some gotcha with using it in OS X and Windows. I think it had to do with OS X using too large a cluster size which caused problems when the disk was read in Windows.

 

As you're formatting a 3TB disk the clusters might be too big and could be causing problems. If you can, try formatting the disk on Windows where you can set the cluster size.

[Tosk]

The drive finished zeroing out overnight. When I rebooted, the system booted normally and drive shows in OS X as uninitialized. I'll try attaching it to a Windows machine to format it as ExFAT with a smaller cluster size. I'll report back with what I find out.

[Tosk]

I've done some testing on my drive issue.

 

With the drive zeroed out, everything was fine. It was detected in the BIOS and the OS was able to see and manipulate the drive.

 

Attached to a Windows box, the BIOS picked up the drive and diskpart was able to manipulate it fine. I initialized the disk as GPT and created a single partition, formatted as ExFAT with a cluster size of 1024. This was the smallest cluster size I could manage due to the size of the disk. Windows was able to see the volume fine, but on reboot, the BIOS on the Windows box would hang at the BIOS logo. Detaching the drive allowed the BIOS to finish POST and load Windows which is when I reattached the disk. I tried reformatting the drive as ExFAT with the default cluster size (1024K) and the problem persisted. I tested the drive on the HackPro and it did the same thing as before: locked up on the QUO logo.

 

I repeated my detach-boot-reattach method on the Windows box and formatted the drive as NTFS with the default cluster size (4096K). On reboot, the Windows box functioned normally: the drive was detected by the BIOS, finished POST, and loaded the OS without incident. Windows mounted the drive normally. I took the drive and hooked it up the HackPro and it also functioned normally. OS X detected the NTFS volume and asked if I wanted to use it as a Time Machine backup volume. In OS X, I reformatted the drive as HFS and rebooted again and everything continued to work normally.

 

This doesn't appear to be an issue with the QUO board or its BIOS as the same thing happened on a Dell XPS 8300 that I used for the Windows testing. Seems like the issue is that the BIOSes can't initialize large drives formatted as ExFAT, or at least, they can't initialize this specific drive (Toshiba DT01AC300).

 

I'm content to use the drive formatted as HFS, since there is very little chance that this drive will ever be used outside of OS X.

 

Thanks for the suggestions bs0d and Riley Freeman.

[Tosk]

For anyone interested, I just updated to 10.9.4 from the App Store. Only thing I had to do on reboot was reinstall the QUO audio kext and re-enable TRIM.

[skwakk]

Like another user here..I can only use one of the thunderbolt ports..when I use the other tb port the drive randomly disconnects and is glitchy. 

 

The only fix is to not connect to any of the USB ports on the back.

 

Does everyone's board behave the same way? or do I have a faulty board? if this is normal, hopefully Quo fixes it.

[THe KiNG]

Like another user here..I can only use one of the thunderbolt ports..when I use the other tb port the drive randomly disconnects and is glitchy. 

 

The only fix is to not connect to any of the USB ports on the back.

 

Does everyone's board behave the same way? or do I have a faulty board? if this is normal, hopefully Quo fixes it.

Very detailed and informative report, I am sure it will be very useful if someone will try to investigate or fix this!

[Nubira]

ok, you clearly dont want any help just want to complain.

 

have fun.

I was informing not complaining but was jumped at so .... and I will have fun thanks

[Micky1979]

Please guys, do not fight:

posts with too personal points of view can be deleted, because the rules require to follow the Topic. 

 

Thanks for the cooperation

[austinpike]

I can only use one of the thunderbolt ports..when I use the other tb port the drive randomly disconnects and is glitchy...

The only fix is to not connect to any of the USB ports on the back. Does everyone's board behave the same way?

fwiw, I've got two TB drives and a USB keyboard plugged in the back and haven't noticed any issues with disconnects.

 

 

In System Information, under Thunderbolt, it reports "No devices found." I assume this means that

there are no Thunderbolt devices attached and not that OS X couldn't find the Thunderbolt chipset. 

It says "no devices found" even with TB devices attached. My drives show up under SATA as "Thunderbolt AHCI Controller"

 

___________________________________________________________________________________

 

I've got an issue with a new 1TB Crucial M550 SSD on a Seagate thunderbolt sled. Writing to the SSD is cripplingly slow (like, progress bar says an hour to copy 5GB.) But copying -from- the drive is perfectly fine. I've also got a 240GB Seagate 600 SSD that performs just fine (reads and writes.) Writing to the Crucial via TB is also fine on my new MacPro at work.

 

Other things I've tried:

• swapped sleds, cables, ports - no difference. 

• plug the Crucial into an internal sata port - reads/writes at full speed.

• connect the Crucial to via a Seagate USB3 connector - reads/writes at full USB3 speed.

• reformat the Crucial to exFAT - reads/writes at full speed on Thunderbolt.

 

So, specifically the only "slow" condition is writing to the Crucial while formatted with MacOS Extended on Thunderbolt connected to the Quo. Anyone have an idea what could be going on here? Is there something in the BIOS that could be tweaked?

[THe KiNG]

I've got an issue with a new 1TB Crucial M550 SSD on a Seagate thunderbolt sled. Writing to the SSD is cripplingly slow (like, progress bar says an hour to copy 5GB.) But copying -from- the drive is perfectly fine. I've also got a 240GB Seagate 600 SSD that performs just fine (reads and writes.) Writing to the Crucial via TB is also fine on my new MacPro at work.

Q: Did you tried with same Seagate thunderbolt adapter on MacPro?

If yes and works on MacPro, then I have no idea.

If no, then the only incompatibility I can (possible) see is b/w Seagate's ASMedia ASM1062 SATA controller and and Crucial M550 SSD own controller(whatever is)

I have same Seagate thunderbolt adapter and didn't noticed any lags on my external drives that I use with it.

 

Q: Did you tried on other OS i.e. windows/linux?

[austinpike]

Q: Did you tried with same Seagate thunderbolt adapter on MacPro?

 

Q: Did you tried on other OS i.e. windows/linux?

Q1: Yes, I have 3 of the adapters, I tried all of them with the M550 on the MacPro and they all work as expected.

 

Q2: It is only an issue when the drive is formatted with HFS+. So I can't write to it in Windows to test without 3rd party software. If I reformat to exFAT it reads/writes fine on the TB adapter in OSX and Windows. So I could certainly just leave it as exFAT, or use an eSATA dock instead of TB. Just an odd issue I was hoping to track down.

[THe KiNG]

Q1: Yes, I have 3 of the adapters, I tried all of them with the M550 on the MacPro and they all work as expected.

 

Q2: It is only an issue when the drive is formatted with HFS+. So I can't write to it in Windows to test without 3rd party software. If I reformat to exFAT it reads/writes fine on the TB adapter in OSX and Windows. So I could certainly just leave it as exFAT, or use an eSATA dock instead of TB. Just an odd issue I was hoping to track down.

So is a problem with HFS+ and the thunderbolt "soup".

What about Linux, can you try a live stick or whatever?

For the sake of knowledge try MacDrive on Windows with the drive formatted HFS+, see if the write lag bug persist.

[fredouille]

I've done some testing on my drive issue.

 

With the drive zeroed out, everything was fine. It was detected in the BIOS and the OS was able to see and manipulate the drive.

 

Attached to a Windows box, the BIOS picked up the drive and diskpart was able to manipulate it fine. I initialized the disk as GPT and created a single partition, formatted as ExFAT with a cluster size of 1024. This was the smallest cluster size I could manage due to the size of the disk. Windows was able to see the volume fine, but on reboot, the BIOS on the Windows box would hang at the BIOS logo. Detaching the drive allowed the BIOS to finish POST and load Windows which is when I reattached the disk. I tried reformatting the drive as ExFAT with the default cluster size (1024K) and the problem persisted. I tested the drive on the HackPro and it did the same thing as before: locked up on the QUO logo.

 

I repeated my detach-boot-reattach method on the Windows box and formatted the drive as NTFS with the default cluster size (4096K). On reboot, the Windows box functioned normally: the drive was detected by the BIOS, finished POST, and loaded the OS without incident. Windows mounted the drive normally. I took the drive and hooked it up the HackPro and it also functioned normally. OS X detected the NTFS volume and asked if I wanted to use it as a Time Machine backup volume. In OS X, I reformatted the drive as HFS and rebooted again and everything continued to work normally.

 

This doesn't appear to be an issue with the QUO board or its BIOS as the same thing happened on a Dell XPS 8300 that I used for the Windows testing. Seems like the issue is that the BIOSes can't initialize large drives formatted as ExFAT, or at least, they can't initialize this specific drive (Toshiba DT01AC300).

 

I'm content to use the drive formatted as HFS, since there is very little chance that this drive will ever be used outside of OS X.

 

Thanks for the suggestions bs0d and Riley Freeman.

 

Hello

I've tried to search the reasons of the exfat format used both in osx and windows without success for a long time. I have tried to change the clusters size, tried to format within windows or osx and I can say that it depends also of the brand of hard disk an brand of motherboard I have a PC with EP45 DS3 and and a SATA seagate 1to formatted in exfat - partitionned in a GPT and had never problem with it. The Hard drive is everytime correctly mounted on each boot

 

and on the other part, I have a Z77-DS3H with a WD 2T formatted also in exfat - GPT hard drive (green one) , with sleep drive option checked in preferences systemand if I don't wake the sleeping drives by mounting  all drives before sleep (using for instance disk utility) I have probleme of unmounted drive the next boot. I tried every BIOS available for this mobo, change cluster size, MBR partition type .. nothing change, most of time on reboot, exfat prtition is unreacheable !, and even worse, disk utility is unable to repair the partition.

I know it's a bit out of your specific problem of QUO motherboard but NEO-AMIGA found a solution to repair exfat partition when it's corrupted :

 

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4154638?start=0&tstart=0

 

Maybe aout of subject but it can help because for me, each time I see my EXFAT partition is bad mounted, I use this method with success.

regards

fred

[austinpike]

So is a problem with HFS+ and the thunderbolt "soup".

What about Linux, can you try a live stick or whatever?

For the sake of knowledge try MacDrive on Windows with the drive formatted HFS+, see if the write lag bug persist.

I installed the MacDrive trial, it hangs on write in Windows 7 as well.

Have no Linux installs, could download something another day if you think it would help find a solution.

 

If it were up to me I would send the M550 back and try another brand, but it was purchased through our IT dept so that would be a pain.

 

Only other thing I can think of is the M550 formats to 1.02TB. Is there any possible issue with a volume >1TB? (in combo with HFS+ and TB of course.)

[Bigclaudy]

Hi everybody ,

 

Sorry for my bad language, I'm French.

 

Well, I just read the complete thread I still ask me the eternal question, should I buy the quo board.

 

I have actually a MSI z77a-g43 and I'm still looking for a board which has a better sleep/wake support.

 

I don't need thunderbolt now but maybe later.

I have an old camcorder which use fw400.

Since few years that I practice hackintosh, I can't use my camcorder.

 

I'm not really sure that quo board is a so nice invest.

 

I also have an i7 3770k , asus gt660 ti and an additional Ethernet sonnet which is natively support with my os 10.8.5.

 

My real interest is to have a prefect sleep/wake and a fw400 port .

I also love the bios which can load os without boot loader.

 

I don't if I change my board with a gigabyte or with a quo.

 

Do you have some good arguments to give ?

 

Thank you in advance

[ntsmkfob]

There are several members here using the GA-Z77MX-D3H TH mobo with a slightly modified version of  the QUO BIOS. Lots cheaper.