Jump to content

Asus P7H55M-Pro Build w/ Nvidia GT 430


KGMac
 Share

2 posts in this topic

Recommended Posts

As a long time Windows user my son has been bugging me to get a Mac since he went to college 5 years ago. Having no idea there was a "Hackintosh" community until last week when I saw it in a popsci.com newsletter I could never see spending the bucks, but that's now history...

 

I have an HTPC setup in my home theater room that's been running Windows 7 on the following hardware:

 

Asus P7H55M-Pro w/ BIOS 1709 (dated 1/14/11 but not shown on Asus web site)

Intel i5-661 CPU

8GB DDR3-1333

Intel NIC

Microsoft wireless keyboard & mouse

Galaxy GT 430 video card connected via HDMI to Denon AVR-1911 and then to Panasonic 58VT25

LG Blu-ray SATA drive UH10LS20

 

 

I thought I'd start with this system to see if I can create my own Hackintosh, and then move to building a new setup for our PC in the study.

 

Using the guidelines from tonymacx86.com as a starting point I embarked on this adventure last night. I thought I'd post my experience & issues here hoping perhaps it could help others that may have the same or similar hardware, and perhaps gain some additional info from others who might read this topic. So here goes...

 

I downloaded all of the latest tools from tmx86.com to get started and printed out the guide. I removed my Intel NIC, 4GB of memory, my wireless kb & mouse, and installed an empty hard drive to which I moved my Windows boot drive's SATA data & power connectors. I added a wired USB kb & mouse. I set the storage to use AHCI, re-enabled my mobo LAN and set the BIOS to boot from CDROM. So far so good so it was time to boot from [url="http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/"]#####[/url].

 

This is where things first went bad for me, meaning I consistently got a kernel panic screen. I tried everything I could think of plus Googled for solutions, all to no avail. After browsing my Asus mobo manual I finally decided to try clearing RTC CMOS settings and starting over from scratch. VOILA! I finally got past the kernel panic screen! So from my perspective unless you're starting with a new mobo you should clear RTC before starting the Hackintosh build process!!!

 

The next problem occurred after booting from my new Snow Leopard 10.6.3 DVD. (NOTE: My empty hard drive was previously used on a Windows system so it was formatted with NTFS. Not sure if that's bad or not but I now wonder...) I used the verbose boot option and as soon as the system had booted to the point where it displayed the mobo MAC address it just hung up. I repeated the sequence a few times with the same result. So my next step was to boot with -v -x (and PCIRootUID=1) and finally SUCCESS! I got to the Snow Leopard installation screen.

 

I ran through the installation process as outlined in the guide I printed out, but forgot to deselect the installation "options". Everything seemed to go fine and I made it to the system restart, but when I attempted to reboot using [url="http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/"]#####[/url] and then picked my new SL installation the system would just error and and give me the "You need to restart your computer" screen. So I thought I'd just try to go back and restart the whole installation process to try again, but from that point on I couldn't get past the nag screen to restart my computer, even when attempting to boot from [url="http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/"]#####[/url] and then the SL DVD. {censored}!!!

 

I removed the hard drive (750GB Samsung) and took it up to our study PC to reformat it. I then reinstalled it, cleared RTC settings and started over. Now that the HD wasn't an NTFS volume I decided to try the SL DVD boot with just PCIRootUID=1 -v (no safe mode) and to my surprise I made it all the way to the installation process. From there I just followed the instructions in the guide, used [url="http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/"]#####[/url] as directed including the update to OS 10.6.7 and was rewarded with a successful boot into a 58" 1920x1080p Mac OS X computer!!!

 

post-798887-1305818475_thumb.jpg

 

post-798887-1305818481_thumb.jpg

 

Everything seemed fine, or so I thought. I'll continue in a second post...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

(Perhaps I should have explicitly stated I have exactly NO experience using a Mac. I work in the semiconductor industry and we have NEVER had a Mac at the company where I've worked for 28 years now. Nothing but IBM compatibles up through Windows 7 machines these days.)

 

So as the above pictures show I did have the system up and running with network access and such, but I did not have any sound coming through my HDMI to my Denon AVR-1911. I didn't really think about that for a bit. Anyway my "Windows Update" mentality caused me to look for updates to Snow Leopard which I then downloaded and installed. (Was this a mistake InsanelyMac folks???) The system told me to restart so I did and the updates installed and the system rebooted with no issues. Except that I no longer had network access. So I re-ran [url="http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/"]#####[/url] to reinstall the LAN drivers. I restarted the system and network access was back. Then I realized I had no sound so I ran [url="http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/"]#####[/url] again to install the sound drivers. I restarted the system and after it came back I had no sound and once again no network access. So I figured I must need to select sound and network at the same time which I proceeded to do. THIS IS WHERE THINGS WENT BAD!!! After running the [url="http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/"]#####[/url] install I went to restart the system, but instead of getting a restart the system hung with a text error message in the upper left corner that had something to do with a PCI error (I regret not having written down the exact text). So not knowing what else to do I powered down the system and then powered it back up. But then I was greeted with my prior nemesis the "You need to restart your computer" screen. By that point it was 1AM today (Thurs) so I decided I'd go to sleep what with having to get up at 5:30 to start my day. :blink:

 

So when I woke up at 5AM this morning I fed our 3 dogs and headed downstairs to continue my fun. Except I had no fun at all. I started from square one again planning to do a full reinstallation of Snow Leopard. But after numerous failed attempts including 3 hangups during installation, plus one "complete" installation from the DVD followed immediately by being greeted by aforementioned nemesis, I finally had to concede defeat and get ready for work. That's where I am now as I type while running jobs on our servers.

 

So at the moment my system is turned off with the RTC jumper on the motherboard set to clear CMOS. It should be nice and clear by the time I get home tonight eh? Maybe I should pull the battery too?!

 

I'm not giving up as I like the challenge this is presenting, but I'd love to get some feedback from others in this forum if you've managed to read my 2-chapter novel. A couple of questions:

 

1) Should I perhaps roll back my system's BIOS to the 1604 version that's the latest available on the Asus web site?

 

2) Any body else have this mobo with the 1709 BIOS? Where the heck does it come from and why isn't it on the Asus web site?

 

Back to the job now....

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 Share

×
×
  • Create New...