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mATX Suggestions, is this setup 'retail' suitable

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zim2dive
zim2dive
Posted
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Hi,

 

I've seen that the online store where I would like to buy all the components only has GA-G31M-S2L, not ES2L. It doesn't look there are great differences between them. The s2l lacks some sort of energy saving feature and has ALC662 instead of ALC883, I've red somewere it's harder to patch, do you know if it's true? should I find an other store and give up S2L?

 

Tanx

 

Newegg? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16813128357

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zim2dive
zim2dive
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I just did a fresh install of iPC 10.5.6. Only tweaks were the verbose and restart fixes. Else vanilla.

 

Upon reboot could connect to the web, etc, but I could not see the iTunes share via Bonjour for my machine upstairs.

 

I installed the kext you sent me, cleared caches, rebooted, and I get the same thing.

 

I also tried sharing the (empty) library on my hack.. my G4 could not see it.

 

EDIT:

 

Ok, some progress (and I can't say for sure if I needed the IONetworking kext from OSX86@an43, which wasn't enough by itself, at least not for my install method).

 

I then installed RealtekR1000_1.8.1.kext.zip

 

which you can get from the "content" section of jdxxx's user profile: http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showuser=21587

 

I can now see my iTunes share (from my G4).

 

See if this works for the other folks.

 

EDIT: stupid award for me.. I forgot to turn on the look for sharing.. using the 1.8.1 kext I can share both directions.. to and from my hack.

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zim2dive
zim2dive
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PCI card question... should my Graphics card show up in the System profiler list of PCI cards?

 

It shows up find as a graphics card.

 

And the 10/100 NIC I was using for testing showed up under the networking section.

 

But neither one showed up under the PCI card list.

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roowan
roowan
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As I'm already a long time reader on this board, I want also share my experience.

 

Spec:

Gigabyte EG31MF-S2 rev2.0

E7400 2.8 GHz @ 4 GHz

4GB RAM

AUDIO ALC888 fully supported, digital-out too

Asus 9600 GT 512MB Silent via EFI STRING (accelerated h.264 HD encoding now supported, even in VLC)

WLAN USRobotics USR5717 fully supported OOB

Onboard Firewire works OOB

OnboardLan disabled cause of no need

 

used Distro: iPC 10.5.6, just selected VoodooPower, latest nvidia 9er kext, SMBIOS EFI Resolver (Don't know why, but seems to work, but works also without it). Sound installed later with taruga patcher and codec dump. I didn't select any graphicdriver in setup, when it was installed, I added the efistring and restarted. And everything was ok.

 

Now working better as a mac, really. Cheaper, upgradable, reliable, everthing works: Sleep, Shutdown, Restart, Speedstep.

 

Totalsystemvalue: approx. 700 US-Dollar

 

something I would recommend: Don't select any graphicdriver in setup. The system will even boot without it. Then later add your graphiccard via EFI-String.

 

I did it with a Asus 8400 GS 256MB and later with Asus 9600GT 512 Silent. It's very efficient and works more reliable.

 

Something funny: I replaced the 8400 with an 9600 without changing the efi-string and it worked without problems and full hardware accelerating.

 

Later updates for example to 10.5.7 won't be any problem cause the only two kext are VoodooPower and maybe one from the Sound. Because everything works OOB or via EFI-String, which is already preloaded before boot, you won't have any problems during the update process ;) Great, isn't it.

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zim2dive
zim2dive
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Hi all,

 

I've seen in this review

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2...s-least-machine

that Gigabyte GA-G31M-S2L is used also in a Psystar Open Computer.

 

They say that "the machine does appear to have a few problems: the fan controller doesn't interface with OSX, so the whole cooling system runs full tilt and is slightly deafening".

 

Are your hackintosh based on this board loud?

 

Most of us here have been discussing the ES2L ... I just got a new case and can't more until I do some testing.. just did a re-install last night.. I don't think my new case (Apevia Qpack) has anything other than a +12 for its fan (and documentation for the case is little more than a 2nd-grade picture book) anyway ;(

 

So a different question... along with the new case, I picked up a new SATA drive. I had been using an old old PATA drive for my install experiments.

 

I could not get the new drive to stick as the startup disk on reboot (the old PATA drive always booted instead)... is there a limitation on the mobo about boot preference from PATA to SATA? And/or is there a BIOS setting I need to change in the boot order section (I only saw one entry for "HDD".. no way to pick SATA vs. IDE).

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noNix
noNix
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I could not get the new drive to stick as the startup disk on reboot (the old PATA drive always booted instead)... is there a limitation on the mobo about boot preference from PATA to SATA? And/or is there a BIOS setting I need to change in the boot order section (I only saw one entry for "HDD".. no way to pick SATA vs. IDE).

 

First the obvious:

You are trying to change disks using System Preferences / Startup Disk ?

 

My guess is that even with changing the startup disk you will have problems if you have two disks with EFI on them. When I built my machine, I used a Mac to install the system and EFI tools, kexts etc on the drive that I wanted to use in the Hack. I changed boot disk in system preferences to test the disk out, all worked fine, but could not get back to the internal drive in the Mac as long as the external with EFI was connected.

 

I would suggest just disconnecting the ATA drive and the board should then boot straight to the SATA drive. The second thing to do is to remove the EFI from the ATA drive so that it does not look like a system start-up disk to the board. You might also be able to change the boot sequence in the boards BIOS.

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zim2dive
zim2dive
Posted
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First the obvious:

You are trying to change disks using System Preferences / Startup Disk ?

 

My guess is that even with changing the startup disk you will have problems if you have two disks with EFI on them. When I built my machine, I used a Mac to install the system and EFI tools, kexts etc on the drive that I wanted to use in the Hack. I changed boot disk in system preferences to test the disk out, all worked fine, but could not get back to the internal drive in the Mac as long as the external with EFI was connected.

 

I would suggest just disconnecting the ATA drive and the board should then boot straight to the SATA drive. The second thing to do is to remove the EFI from the ATA drive so that it does not look like a system start-up disk to the board. You might also be able to change the boot sequence in the boards BIOS.

 

Ah.. guess that makes sense. Yes, removing the PATA drive allowed the SATA drive to boot (nice shiny new 1TB green Western Digital.. nice and quiet too). The EFI also explains why my initial attempt at using CCC from the small PATA to the SATA failed (b/c I did not install EFI).

 

Only dilemna now is that I think? I need the patched IOPCIFamily from iPC so that my PCI cards will get listed?, but that seems hard to come by (b/c folks don't want to redistribute Apple kext).. thinking maybe I can pull it out of iPC via Pacifist...

 

This thing is really starting to look solid now. :D

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mr-pink
mr-pink
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Hi all, I'm still trying the right mobo (actually now I'm quite busy so my hack have to wait) :thumbsup_anim:

 

I wanted to ask you if audio is working fine in this mobo (in, out, headphones... ). Reading out some post here I got the impression that alc889a is natively supported on OS X while alc883 (used in this board) isn't so needs patching. Am I right?

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zim2dive
zim2dive
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Hi all, I'm still trying the right mobo (actually now I'm quite busy so my hack have to wait) :D

 

I wanted to ask you if audio is working fine in this mobo (in, out, headphones... ). Reading out some post here I got the impression that alc889a is natively supported on OS X while alc883 (used in this board) isn't so needs patching. Am I right?

 

I can only say that analog audio out and SPDIF audio out (both optical and coax) work fine. I don't use any of the others.

 

I used the ALC883 kext from osx86tools.

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mr-pink
mr-pink
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I can only say that analog audio out and SPDIF audio out (both optical and coax) work fine. I don't use any of the others.

 

I used the ALC883 kext from osx86tools.

 

Thanks zim2dive.

 

No one using mic/headphones (I'm planning to use them)?

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noNix
noNix
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I would not worry about the audio.

 

Build it, test it, try a fix or two if the audio is a problem and if you still cant get it going, buy a cheep USB audio adaptor. In the US you can find them startting at a few dollars on Ebay. Any generic USB audio adaptor will work, but if you want quality there are plenty high end ones available that will beat the sound quality of the built in audio. I have two 'real' macs and use a USB audio converter / DAC to get music from the mac to my stereo as the sound quality is a vast improvement over the noisy low cost components on the mother boards.

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HBP
HBP
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I hope that I have the same or better luck with the G31M-ES2L that I had with the DG31PR. After almost 16 months of rock solid use, I went to move a PCI Ethernet card and Fried the Board. having checked out All the boards and such that were pluged in, including my GFX card, Ram and CPU all checked out and are fully working. I do not understand the Failure of the DG31PR, however I ordered a G31M-ES2L to replace it.

 

are there issues with using the IDE and SATA @ the same time like with the DG31PR? I have noticed that many of the replied here do not use Retail and that is what was installed on the HDD. should I have any Issues just dropping the new board in and Firing up my Hack?

 

Hope my input assists you in your choice of boards.

 

last input, DG31PR is not stable with Bois past REV 052 you Must downgrade the Bios if it has anything beyond that bios to get fully working Hack.

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noNix
noNix
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Retail works fine with the ES2L board. Mixing SATA and IDE is not recomended, but you might get lucky. The best guide for the board is the LeopardSoup one, which includes all the tools and kexts that you will need for a retail install. Good luck.

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HBP
HBP
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Retail works fine with the ES2L board. Mixing SATA and IDE is not recomended, but you might get lucky. The best guide for the board is the LeopardSoup one, which includes all the tools and kexts that you will need for a retail install. Good luck.

 

 

ty for your response, I have been using -DuNe-'s IOATA mod that enabled smooth use of both IDE and SATA devices on the DG31PR, I am hoping to just be able to drop the new board in, turn on the power and have my system come back up Happy.

 

it shut down nice before I fragged the board, unless the rumored CMOS killer kext is what did in my board, but I don't recall snow or ANY version of unix being able to frag CMOS to the point that the built-in recovery would not work.

 

*Crossed fingers*

 

if not, I'll just disable the DVD burner for now, and go just SATA. I am looking forward to a board that doesn't underclock the whole system.

 

Intel boards are good for long term business use, but they don't allow adjusting memory freq or chips @ all.

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HBP
HBP
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Back online with only needing to reset my EFI strings for the new board. this is WAY better then any recovery from windows where if you don't have the mobo you have to fully reinstall everything. look forward to getting back into world of warcraft and gaming the night away

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