Hackintosh 10.5.5 Retail Rig - Starting at $305

[Zaap]

Hmm... that does look like an interesting board for Hackintosh. Should be safe to try it, following what others have done to achieve success with it.

Mosslack, that's odd about the P35-DS4. I have an EP35-DS4 based HTPC Hack that's been working flawlessly for the past year- first with one of the 'distros' and more recently with a retail install. There must have been a bad run of those boards- it was canceled almost immediately. I seem to have got one of the good ones.

 

[mosslack]

Originally posted by: Zaap
Hmm... that does look like an interesting board for Hackintosh. Should be safe to try it, following what others have done to achieve success with it.

Mosslack, that's odd about the P35-DS4. I have an EP35-DS4 based HTPC Hack that's been working flawlessly for the past year- first with one of the 'distros' and more recently with a retail install. There must have been a bad run of those boards- it was canceled almost immediately. I seem to have got one of the good ones.

Yeah Peter said he located the problem on his, a short between a heat sink and the VRM. Glad yours is okay, I believe the boards in question might have been OC'ed just a bit to contribute to the problem.

My UD3P project left me tapped out for $$$ at the moment or else I would give the GA-E7AUM-DS2H a go. Does look interesting for sure.

 

[mosslack]

For those who prefer an email list to a web forum for whatever the reason, I have setup a google groups list to discuss all things Hackintosh. I and others will do our best to keep the members informed from all the sources we gather info from. Anyone and everyone is welcome to join in. I'll still be around here and Insanely to help or provide comic relief as the need arises.

 

[Zaap]

Originally posted by: mosslack

Yeah Peter said he located the problem on his, a short between a heat sink and the VRM. Glad yours is okay, I believe the boards in question might have been OC'ed just a bit to contribute to the problem.

My UD3P project left me tapped out for $$$ at the moment or else I would give the GA-E7AUM-DS2H a go. Does look interesting for sure.

I never attempted to OC my DS4, so it wouldn't surprise me if that causes problems too. Some issues could be BIOS related too. Before I upgraded to the latest BIOS for that board, I did have some occasional flakiness, but nothing alarming.

I know what you mean about $$$ for new builds!

I'm really dying to do an i7 build for myself, but it's a hard sell with the wife when I have a house sitting full of every kind of computer, including several Hackintoshes. "But Honey, we NEED another even faster one...!"

 

[mosslack]

Originally posted by: Zaap

Originally posted by: mosslack

Yeah Peter said he located the problem on his, a short between a heat sink and the VRM. Glad yours is okay, I believe the boards in question might have been OC'ed just a bit to contribute to the problem.

My UD3P project left me tapped out for $$$ at the moment or else I would give the GA-E7AUM-DS2H a go. Does look interesting for sure.

I never attempted to OC my DS4, so it wouldn't surprise me if that causes problems too. Some issues could be BIOS related too. Before I upgraded to the latest BIOS for that board, I did have some occasional flakiness, but nothing alarming.

I know what you mean about $$$ for new builds!

I'm really dying to do an i7 build for myself, but it's a hard sell with the wife when I have a house sitting full of every kind of computer, including several Hackintoshes. "But Honey, we NEED another even faster one...!"

I no longer have a wife (traded her in for a cat), but I do still have a mortgage and unfortunately it has to be paid every month or I no longer have a place to store all my systems, or the cat for that matter. Yeah that i7 is on my list also, but way down the list until I hit the lottery for sure! 8^)

 

[mohkahn]

Hey Thank mosslack. been busy trying to learn linux and RDBMS+Access, might come in handy in such bad economy, if I lose my job..

you are progably right, the disk I am now using for hackintosh was originally in a windows system for a while. but here is the funny part:

1) I was having this problem (trash not fully emptying) with disk (A) 160gb that had Hackintosh on it. (this disk might or might not have had a few different operating systems at different times, I just can't remember, since I keep swapping things between 3 computers)

2) Then I got another disk (B) and put windows on it. it is 250gb, so i thought why not give my hackintosh a bigger HD, so I moved disk (b) to hackintosh and disk (a) to windows. Both of them only are running 1 system now.

3) So somehow this problem got transferred to this new 250GB HD, inside his hackintsosh machine or maybe from windows. I don't know.

4) The trash sometimes would delete old files and would hold on to newer ones instead, today I am clicking on "continue" button 12 times, every time I want to empty trash. which used to be 2 times only for 2 files. Boot.efi and another unimportant personal file one. If I open the files some are all empty without any data. others have data, but small (300kb) amount of data.

5) Since i often reinstall system, so I though it would go away, but no luck so far. Anyway, going to partition my disk in 4 and put snowleopard on one of them. will let you know how it goes. but might wait for kaido's latest guide coming in few hour's time.. right kaido?


And about those wife things. I am getting myself one too by end of this year. as soon as she gets imported, her first job will be to take over my linux machine and learn how to use it. better put her on a free system from the very beginning

and nice job by the way on googlegroups. best of luck to our this new thread / group on google and c u there too occasionally.

 

[mosslack]

Originally posted by: mohkahn
Hey Thank mosslack. been busy trying to learn linux and RDBMS+Access, might come in handy in such bad economy, if I lose my job..

you are progably right, the disk I am now using for hackintosh was originally in a windows system for a while. but here is the funny part:

1) I was having this problem (trash not fully emptying) with disk (A) 160gb that had Hackintosh on it. (this disk might or might not have had a few different operating systems at different times, I just can't remember, since I keep swapping things between 3 computers)

2) Then I got another disk (B) and put windows on it. it is 250gb, so i thought why not give my hackintosh a bigger HD, so I moved disk (b) to hackintosh and disk (a) to windows. Both of them only are running 1 system now.

3) So somehow this problem got transferred to this new 250GB HD, inside his hackintsosh machine or maybe from windows. I don't know.

4) The trash sometimes would delete old files and would hold on to newer ones instead, today I am clicking on "continue" button 12 times, every time I want to empty trash. which used to be 2 times only for 2 files. Boot.efi and another unimportant personal file one. If I open the files some are all empty without any data. others have data, but small (300kb) amount of data.

5) Since i often reinstall system, so I though it would go away, but no luck so far. Anyway, going to partition my disk in 4 and put snowleopard on one of them. will let you know how it goes. but might wait for kaido's latest guide coming in few hour's time.. right kaido?


And about those wife things. I am getting myself one too by end of this year. as soon as she gets imported, her first job will be to take over my linux machine and learn how to use it. better put her on a free system from the very beginning

and nice job by the way on googlegroups. best of luck to our this new thread / group on google and c u there too occasionally.

Yes, swapping HD's between Mac OS X and Windows can lead to some strange problems, even when you partition and reformat a few stray bits can find their way into your new OS. I don't worry about it too much because I don't have any important data on these Hacks I build for fun, all of my important stuff is on my Mac DA file server. I wish I had a better memory so I could remember exactly why the problem with the trash happened, but I just remember it had something to do with Windows being installed on the same HD.

I look forward to your comments on how the snow leopard install goes. I think everyone here is waiting for that magic to happen. And Kaido will come through, he always does, eventually.

Now be careful fooling around with those wife things, they can be a powerful influence over us simple men creatures, you read what Zaap said, pretty soon she might want room in the house for her stuff and move your computers out in the cold!

Thanks for your comment on the HQ-A googlegroup, it seems to be going pretty well so far. We are up to 15 members/subscribers now and its my hope that everyone will feel welcome to come there and discuss all things Hackintosh!

 

[mohkahn]

FromKaido""install Leopard, then reboot and pop in the BootCD to do initial setup, then install Uinstaller at the desktop (and whatever other updates there are)""

I am sorry I don't get what you mean by install uninstaller and other programs on the desktop? should we not install them to the application folder? if yes to the application folder then I don't get the point about the new change. the reason I ask is cos I partitioned my hd in 2 to run snow leopard. that did not work, so I just put leopard again on the 2nd partition also, so that i can keep one system for testing and one for use and do hope to understand the new change for better performance and avoidance of the screensaver and other small problems.

mosslack: yeah, it would be nice to remember and have a solution to this problem. cos more and more stuff decides to stay in the trash can instead of coming out now. it will take a while to fill the hd, but it's still an annoying problem. isn' there some heavy duty hd eraser or should out write to my hd 7 times before re-installing system on it.

snowleopard did not go well, just gives me a blank screen and nothing shows up after i try to boot it's image from one of the partition I made for it. if I go for a clean install, will try to install snowleopard first, but I am sure there must be some files that will have to be put on bootCD so it can successfully boot it?

yea, thanks for the advise. i better put her on better system, so that she can keep watching movies and dramas on the computers, that way, she won't make my beloved companions suffer out in the cold. ) if she is really anti computer, gonna make her pregnant and make myself few of those little geeks and nerds so more of us can have a vote on who get to decide what's important at home.

yea. will keep visiting google'sgroup too for questions and answers of course.

 

[tbooth]

Originally posted by: mosslack

Originally posted by: tbooth
I'm having an issue while trying to install from a retail Leopard disc. Here's how I'm installing and the issue I'm having:

This is on a P35-DS4


-Boot with 132 disc
-Swap discs for leopard retail.
-Install (it says "Install Failed" at the end, I assumed because it's unable to reboot the PC)
-Boot with 132 disc again and select HD (device 80) and I am able to get into Leopard and everything works fine.
-Install 10.5.6 Combo update but don't reboot yet.
-Install Chameleon with PCEFI v9
-Run OSX86 Tools and install kexts for my hardware.
-Reboot

After I reboot it will boot directly to the HD without the 132 disk, but it keeps giving me a message on the grey screen that says something about the machine needing to be rebooted. I rebooted about 3 more times and it continues to say this but never actually makes it into the Leopard desktop. Any ideas?

I have a friend who is on this forum (but dosn't post much) who did 2 DS4's. I sent him your comments and here is his reply:

I used the P35 install method for the two DS4s (one was an early one, called a P35, but it was Rev. 2.1; the other was called an EP35, and it was also Rev. 2.1) and it worked flawlessly on both, until each of them died.

The P35 lasted 3 hours before "death".

The EP35 lasted 30 minutes before "death".

I believe the P35 Kit is the right install for these boards.

The Firewire, which is not part of a normal P35, is recognized by MacOS as the TI chip set is the same one which Apple supports.
--------------------------------------------

If you wish to 'talk' further about this he can be reached at:

peterh5322@rattlebrain.com

HTH

Thanks for the info. I haven't had any issues with my P35-DS4 with regards to stability up to this point. It's been running overclocked for about a year.

I got to play around with the OSX install a little more this weekend. I have OSX installed and working off of the retail disc and all of my hardware is supported and functioning. All I need to do now is get 10.5.6 working.

Every time I install the 10.5.6 combo update I get this message and I have to reinstall OSX.

 

[Kaido]

Screensaver bug is happening on real Macs too:

http://discussions.apple.com/t...jspa?messageID=7215861

It happened again on my new HDD-install, so at least I know I'm not alone. They said that trashing a screensaver pref file and rebooting fixes it. Caffiene should also fix it:

http://lightheadsw.com/caffeine/

 

[Lakeviewman]

With Kaido's help I got my rig up and running last week. I must say I'm pretty happy with how the whole thing has worked out. As expected, there were a few issues, but they're pretty much resolved.

I ran into an issue with dual booting OS X and XP on two different SATA drives. I had trouble getting OS X working without AHCI and XP totally chokes on it. I was getting tired of having to set the BIOS each time I booted until I found this link on how to enable AHCI support in XP after an install without it. This procedure worked with the ICH10R chip that comes on the GA-EP45-UD3P: Enable AHCI on Intel Chipsets I used the 12/18/08 steps posted by sbrads. They worked great

I'm spoiled with the back and forward buttons on my windows mouse, so I installed USB Overdrive and that got them working fine.

My biggest remaining annoyance has to do with using the arrow keys on the numeric keypad. I use these things constantly and can't figure out a way to get the NumLock key to turn off in OS X. Anyone have any ideas?

Kaido, thanks for all your help.

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: Lakeviewman
With Kaido's help I got my rig up and running last week. I must say I'm pretty happy with how the whole thing has worked out. As expected, there were a few issues, but they're pretty much resolved.

I ran into an issue with dual booting OS X and XP on two different SATA drives. I had trouble getting OS X working without AHCI and XP totally chokes on it. I was getting tired of having to set the BIOS each time I booted until I found this link on how to enable AHCI support in XP after an install without it. This procedure worked with the ICH10R chip that comes on the GA-EP45-UD3P: Enable AHCI on Intel Chipsets I used the 12/18/08 steps posted by sbrads. They worked great

I'm spoiled with the back and forward buttons on my windows mouse, so I installed USB Overdrive and that got them working fine.

My biggest remaining annoyance has to do with using the arrow keys on the numeric keypad. I use these things constantly and can't figure out a way to get the NumLock key to turn off in OS X. Anyone have any ideas?

Kaido, thanks for all your help.

Excellent, I will add this to the Wiki, thanks!

My numpad works fine, what keyboard do you have?

 

[Lakeviewman]

Originally posted by: Kaido

Originally posted by: Lakeviewman
With Kaido's help I got my rig up and running last week. I must say I'm pretty happy with how the whole thing has worked out. As expected, there were a few issues, but they're pretty much resolved.

I ran into an issue with dual booting OS X and XP on two different SATA drives. I had trouble getting OS X working without AHCI and XP totally chokes on it. I was getting tired of having to set the BIOS each time I booted until I found this link on how to enable AHCI support in XP after an install without it. This procedure worked with the ICH10R chip that comes on the GA-EP45-UD3P: Enable AHCI on Intel Chipsets I used the 12/18/08 steps posted by sbrads. They worked great

I'm spoiled with the back and forward buttons on my windows mouse, so I installed USB Overdrive and that got them working fine.

My biggest remaining annoyance has to do with using the arrow keys on the numeric keypad. I use these things constantly and can't figure out a way to get the NumLock key to turn off in OS X. Anyone have any ideas?

Kaido, thanks for all your help.

Excellent, I will add this to the Wiki, thanks!

My numpad works fine, what keyboard do you have?

I have a Microsoft USB keyboard ('Microsoft Digital Media Pro Keyboard'). The numbers on the keypad work fine, but I usually leave NumLock off and use the arrows, Ins, Del, etc.. When I push the NumLock key in OS X nothing happens. Light stays on and I keep getting numbers.

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: Lakeviewman
I have a Microsoft USB keyboard ('Microsoft Digital Media Pro Keyboard'). The numbers on the keypad work fine, but I usually leave NumLock off and use the arrows, Ins, Del, etc.. When I push the NumLock key in OS X nothing happens. Light stays on and I keep getting numbers.

Very odd! I have a Microsoft ergonomic USB keyboard and it works great! You may try installing Intellitype, Microsoft's Mac driver for their keyboards and mice:

http://www.microsoft.com/hardw...nload.aspx?category=MK

 

[Zaap]

Originally posted by: Lakeviewman
I use these things constantly and can't figure out a way to get the NumLock key to turn off in OS X. Anyone have any ideas?

Have you tried turning off numlock in the BIOS?

 

[Lakeviewman]

Originally posted by: Zaap

Originally posted by: Lakeviewman
I use these things constantly and can't figure out a way to get the NumLock key to turn off in OS X. Anyone have any ideas?

Have you tried turning off numlock in the BIOS?

I'll give both this and Intellitype drivers a try. Thanks.

 

[abbzer0]

Originally posted by: Lakeviewman
With Kaido's help I got my rig up and running last week. I must say I'm pretty happy with how the whole thing has worked out. As expected, there were a few issues, but they're pretty much resolved.

I ran into an issue with dual booting OS X and XP on two different SATA drives. I had trouble getting OS X working without AHCI and XP totally chokes on it. I was getting tired of having to set the BIOS each time I booted until I found this link on how to enable AHCI support in XP after an install without it. This procedure worked with the ICH10R chip that comes on the GA-EP45-UD3P: Enable AHCI on Intel Chipsets I used the 12/18/08 steps posted by sbrads. They worked great

I'm spoiled with the back and forward buttons on my windows mouse, so I installed USB Overdrive and that got them working fine.

My biggest remaining annoyance has to do with using the arrow keys on the numeric keypad. I use these things constantly and can't figure out a way to get the NumLock key to turn off in OS X. Anyone have any ideas?

Kaido, thanks for all your help.

Lakeviewman - Can you repost the link to "GA-EP45-UD3P: Enable AHCI on Intel Chipsets" please? That comes up as unfound. I've been having ONE HECK OF A TIME!! getting windows to install on AHCI. I would love to know exactly what you did. I have probably invested about 4 hours of trial & error already.. sigh..

 

[Jack Flash]

I'm getting pretty excited for my GA-EP45-UD3P build. Parts should all be here by this weekend!

 

[mosslack]

Originally posted by: abbzer0

Originally posted by: Lakeviewman
With Kaido's help I got my rig up and running last week. I must say I'm pretty happy with how the whole thing has worked out. As expected, there were a few issues, but they're pretty much resolved.

I ran into an issue with dual booting OS X and XP on two different SATA drives. I had trouble getting OS X working without AHCI and XP totally chokes on it. I was getting tired of having to set the BIOS each time I booted until I found this link on how to enable AHCI support in XP after an install without it. This procedure worked with the ICH10R chip that comes on the GA-EP45-UD3P: Enable AHCI on Intel Chipsets I used the 12/18/08 steps posted by sbrads. They worked great

I'm spoiled with the back and forward buttons on my windows mouse, so I installed USB Overdrive and that got them working fine.

My biggest remaining annoyance has to do with using the arrow keys on the numeric keypad. I use these things constantly and can't figure out a way to get the NumLock key to turn off in OS X. Anyone have any ideas?

Kaido, thanks for all your help.

Lakeviewman - Can you repost the link to "GA-EP45-UD3P: Enable AHCI on Intel Chipsets" please? That comes up as unfound. I've been having ONE HECK OF A TIME!! getting windows to install on AHCI. I would love to know exactly what you did. I have probably invested about 4 hours of trial & error already.. sigh..

I found this some time ago, not sure if it is the same one or not:

http://www.msfn.org/board/The-...l&p=785969#entry785969

I've never tried it yet, I just use XP without the DVD burner for now. Besides I've got Vista on the same system as well. HTH

 

[mosslack]

Originally posted by: Jack Flash
I'm getting pretty excited for my GA-EP45-UD3P build. Parts should all be here by this weekend!

Has anyone got 4 Gb chips for 16 Gb total on the UD3P yet? I wanted to go that route, but NewEgg didn't have any when I ordered mine.

 

[mosslack]

Originally posted by: tbooth

Originally posted by: mosslack

Originally posted by: tbooth
I'm having an issue while trying to install from a retail Leopard disc. Here's how I'm installing and the issue I'm having:

This is on a P35-DS4


-Boot with 132 disc
-Swap discs for leopard retail.
-Install (it says "Install Failed" at the end, I assumed because it's unable to reboot the PC)
-Boot with 132 disc again and select HD (device 80) and I am able to get into Leopard and everything works fine.
-Install 10.5.6 Combo update but don't reboot yet.
-Install Chameleon with PCEFI v9
-Run OSX86 Tools and install kexts for my hardware.
-Reboot

After I reboot it will boot directly to the HD without the 132 disk, but it keeps giving me a message on the grey screen that says something about the machine needing to be rebooted. I rebooted about 3 more times and it continues to say this but never actually makes it into the Leopard desktop. Any ideas?

I have a friend who is on this forum (but dosn't post much) who did 2 DS4's. I sent him your comments and here is his reply:

I used the P35 install method for the two DS4s (one was an early one, called a P35, but it was Rev. 2.1; the other was called an EP35, and it was also Rev. 2.1) and it worked flawlessly on both, until each of them died.

The P35 lasted 3 hours before "death".

The EP35 lasted 30 minutes before "death".

I believe the P35 Kit is the right install for these boards.

The Firewire, which is not part of a normal P35, is recognized by MacOS as the TI chip set is the same one which Apple supports.
--------------------------------------------

If you wish to 'talk' further about this he can be reached at:

peterh5322@rattlebrain.com

HTH

Thanks for the info. I haven't had any issues with my P35-DS4 with regards to stability up to this point. It's been running overclocked for about a year.

I got to play around with the OSX install a little more this weekend. I have OSX installed and working off of the retail disc and all of my hardware is supported and functioning. All I need to do now is get 10.5.6 working.

Every time I install the 10.5.6 combo update I get this message and I have to reinstall OSX.

Is this using the DS3L kit? Or are you still using OSx86 Tools?

 

[Zaap]

Originally posted by: mosslack

Originally posted by: Jack Flash
I'm getting pretty excited for my GA-EP45-UD3P build. Parts should all be here by this weekend!

Has anyone got 4 Gb chips for 16 Gb total on the UD3P yet? I wanted to go that route, but NewEgg didn't have any when I ordered mine.

I've only found DDR2 800, IE: here.

Personally, I haven't felt the need to go above 8GB of RAM on any of my systems thus far.

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: mosslack

Originally posted by: Jack Flash
I'm getting pretty excited for my GA-EP45-UD3P build. Parts should all be here by this weekend!

Has anyone got 4 Gb chips for 16 Gb total on the UD3P yet? I wanted to go that route, but NewEgg didn't have any when I ordered mine.

Not yet, but the cost is freaking ridiculous - $450 for 16 gigs vs. $80 for 8 gigs. It's almost worth switching over to Core i7 chips for the cheaper memory...plus you can do 24 gigs on those boards now...

 

[Zaap]

Yeah true, the cost makes no sense.

 

[mosslack]

Aren't you guys all multi-billionaires like me? Actually I was just wondering how well OS X handles it. I had heard on some other lists there were problems on anything above 8 Gb.