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8-core motherboard for hackintosh?


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Vlad1966,

I run the IT firmware on my LSI 1068e... no RAID options at all, but enables SAS expander support.

Seems to be a bit better performing, and its my feelings that drives spindown/spinup in OSX software RAID arrays better with the IT firmware as opposed to IR firmware.

 

I haven't tried SR firmware.

 

 

Back at trying to get my onboard 6Gb/s LSI 2008 controller working... Can get it to load AppleLSIFusionSAS chunk, looks EXACTLY like the chunk shown for my LSI 1068e, except the 1068e has "Manages Targets"=Yes and that line is missing with the 2008 (the SAS initiator ID's are also different obviously)

 

I'll keep playing with it, maybe a bios setting or setting in the 2008's option rom will fix it, who knows.

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  • 2 weeks later...

OH, I AM SO HAPPY !!! :D

 

yesterday, I installed OS X 10.5.7 (iAtkos i7) the first time on my machine onto a separate SATA harddisk. the installation process running from an IDE DVD-drive was easy and quick, and the system was FULL working out of the box.

 

EVERYTHING works fine; 2 x E5405 Xeon CPU, firewire, analog/digital audio, USB 2.0, gigabit network, IDE, AHCI SATA, SAS, RAID. the graphic card (Club 3D ATI HD 3650, 512 MB) is workling as well with native resolution on both (!) screens. full QI and QE support !!! yummie ! :D

 

I have not tested time machine, yet, but I think it will work properly. the only thing that does not work is "hibernation" - the system hibernates, but it won't wake up up from this state. native PCI-cards as "Adaptec 3940" and "RME Hammerfall DIGI 9652" (non-DSP) are not recognized, I have to change them into PCIe devices.

 

I have r/w access on all NTFS-disks installed in the system. DVD-burning works fine.

 

apple logic 8 studio ist working PERFECTLY. :D this is the most important thing for me; I build this hackintosh workstation for music production purposes. so finally I decided to get the same hardware as used in the 2008 mac pro's.

 

after some hours of testing, I think that OS X ist the better OS than windows. everything looks so NICE, the system works SMOOTH and SOLID. everything is easy to use and all the hardware-accelleration features are really used !!! it's such a big difference to windows XP/Vista/7 - OS X is a REAL and HANDSOME operation system, it makes you feel that your computer is a tool, an instrument etc. not just a dumb machine.

 

now I know why every creative uses macs... ;)

 

 

okay folks, this is my current configuration:

 

Mainboard: TYAN Tempest i5400XT

RAM: 4 x 1024 MB Samsung FB-DIMM 667 MHz

Graphics: ATI HD 3650 PCIe 512 MB

DVD: 2 x LG GSA-H55L

HD: WD5000AAKS 500 GB (OS X)

HD: WD7500AAKS 750 GB (My Documents)

HD: WD3200AAKS 320 GB (Windows XP MCE 2005)

Keyboard: Cherry PS/2

Mouse: Microsoft IntelliMouse 1.1

 

this 8-core "mac pro" was dirt-cheap, about $1000. okay, I only have 2,0 ghz CPU's, but I can upgrade up to 3,2 ghz when I'm in the need. a real "mac pro" with 8 cores@3,0 ghz would be oversized at the moment and it would be 3 times more expensive (about $3000).

 

perhaps, I will change mouse and keyboard into original apple devices in a few weeks, because I need some special key comands for logic studio.

 

I will post pictures of my rig, soon. if you have any questions, please PM. :)

 

 

future_former

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Great to hear that it worked! :jerry:

 

Seems that your card is a little outdated. I'm looking for a motherboard with 1366 socket as those are newer.

Can you run a bench on your Tempest? i5400XT

 

yez, it works as fine as my windows XP 32-bit OS. definatly SMOOTHER, NICER and more INTUITIVE than the windoze {censored}... ;) this is how my current desktop looks like:

 

desktop3m6v.jpg

 

 

perhaps, not as solid as a real mac pro, but solid enough to work with very well. currently, there are just a few things missing:

 

1.) hibernation does not work

2.) I can't use my 3,5" floppy with OS X anymore...haha ! ;)

3.) system string is shown as macBOOK pro 4.1, yet (instead of mac PRO. strange, but who cares if anything works ???)

4.) my multichannel soundcards are not supported by the vendor's DRIVERS anymore. I have to buy some new PCIe cards from www.rme-audio.com, the new RayDAT-series will do the job, perfectly.

 

anything forgotten ? not sure, for the moment, just tested the system for about 8 hours while working on the internet, trying out logic 8 pro, doing some system sciences stuff etc.

 

if you'd like to configure a new mac pro clone bases on nehalem technology, I'd reccomend the new SUPERMICRO system boards (2009). they offer the best boards EVER seen, (up tp 7 PCIe-slots, internal, and ALL features you'll ever need). TYAN is late this year... I'll hope, they'll come in action and bring us some real workstation boards....

 

***

 

I'm just writing this reply on this mac pro clone. using the fabulous mozilla firefox browser., my all time favorite. ;)

for sure, I definatly need an original mac keyboard, because PS/2 windows keyboard is a mess in cause of special key(s) commands, you'll know... but it works very, very well and good enough to communicate via OS X this first times. yeah ! :D

 

here's my actual geekbench result to compare (for someone who cares):

 

http://browse.geekbench.ca/geekbench2/view/172114

 

it's not so bad for a hacked OSx86 PC @ 2,0 ghz, isn't it ? ;)

 

 

I think the REAL advantage of APPLE is the smooth and really performance drilled OPERATING SYSTEM. the hardware is just as well as the upper high class systems from TYAN, SUPERMICRO & ASUS, there's really no big difference, it's all INTEL chips and some plastic boundaries to fix them together, right ?

 

so, as a short conclusion: I want to thank APPLE very, very much for the very right descision to use intel chips for they future hardware designs. :-) it made it possible to create the hackmac features by our scene and show all the engaged people out there, that SOFTWARE often matters more than hardware. just as in real life, don't forget... ;)

 

perhaps in future, APPLE will try to sell the operating system for itself, just as micro$oft has done it in the past. today, hardware is in nearly 90% of all cases obsolete.

 

but - if I'd had the money, I'd buy a mac pro, because it is an absolute PERFECT unit of hard- AND software. there's nothing better on the market. although, you can't buy "better" computers than the apple systems. their systems are easy to use, performant, highest quality and eye candy, all in one. okay, if you will build your OSx86 based clone you can get some more benefits in technology by using special hardware component like mainboard from SUPERMICRO, which offers up to 7(!!!) PCIe-slots for expansion and SAS, dual-gigabit etc. etc. - much more than the highest upper-class mac pro's.

 

i think APPLE would take more benefits and more market chances if they would change their hardware offers, soon. I'm missing a real PC-buster (eg. quadcore, 8 GB RAM, nice and upgradable case, something between mac pro and imac, you know ?). mac pro's are still too expensive for many potential clients, so APPLE has to care about this missing piece of the cake. it's just business as usual.

 

 

but for me, my OSx86 PC, my new HACKMAC, will work and it will do all the jobs I'll offer, especially music production based on APPLE LOGIC 8/9. :D this was the goal, and - THANKS TO THE OSx86 scene - I achieved. :D

 

please take a listen to my new tracks @ http://www.myspace.com/future_former

 

 

best regards,

 

 

future_former

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  • 3 weeks later...

Hey all,

 

I'm working on getting my own 8-core system working. Its a Supermicro MBD-X8DAH+-0 server board with Intel's Xeon 5520 processors. Pretty excited about it, but I'm getting a kernel panic when I'm trying to install.

 

I'm using Netkas' 10.3 version of the Chameleon 2 RC3 bootloader on a thumb drive which also has a restored image of SL 10.6

 

Here's what the screen looks like when I get an error message:

 

 

IMG_7219.JPG

 

Sorry it's a crappy picture, but it refers to a couple apple kexts in particular right before the error. I know the chipset is ICH10R. Anybody know if this will work with the vanilla kernel? I am wanting to use a real "Vanilla" install of OSX not a seperate distribution. I've got a custom smbios.plist and com.apple.Boot.plist file that is set up for my system (I think). I am also trying to get this working with Snow Leopard.

 

I first tried only these custom kexts:

LegacyHDAController.kext

LegacyHdAPlatformDriver.kext

 

When that failed, I tried these:

LegacyHDAController.kext

LegacyHdAPlatformDriver.kext

LegacyIOAHCIBlockStorage.kext

 

Should I be using any others? I've put together some hackintosh pcs before, but never one this different from the popular configs (ep45, ex58, etc). Any help would be much appreciated! Thanks.

-masonjames

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  • 1 month later...
@future_former:

for an 8core setup i would have expected a bit more speed.

 

with my q6600 i get around 7100 at geekbench: http://browse.geekbench.ca/geekbench2/view/186860

 

i did a performance check of an 8core at a friends house which scored 12090 points. so there is still a huge performance jump...

 

this is my actual geekbench result under mac OS X 10.5.8

 

Geekbench Result 8-core Mac Pro @ 2,0 GHz

 

you see, I'm using 2,0 GHz CPU's only, and geekbench is not a very multithread optimized benchmark suite. I think this results are quite pretty. higher CPU frequencies result in higher benchmark results, so I really dont't worry about this 6700 score.

 

 

future_former

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  • 1 month later...
Hey all,

 

I'm working on getting my own 8-core system working. Its a Supermicro MBD-X8DAH+-0 server board with Intel's Xeon 5520 processors. Pretty excited about it, but I'm getting a kernel panic when I'm trying to install.

 

I'm using Netkas' 10.3 version of the Chameleon 2 RC3 bootloader on a thumb drive which also has a restored image of SL 10.6

 

Here's what the screen looks like when I get an error message:

 

 

IMG_7219.JPG

 

Sorry it's a crappy picture, but it refers to a couple apple kexts in particular right before the error. I know the chipset is ICH10R. Anybody know if this will work with the vanilla kernel? I am wanting to use a real "Vanilla" install of OSX not a seperate distribution. I've got a custom smbios.plist and com.apple.Boot.plist file that is set up for my system (I think). I am also trying to get this working with Snow Leopard.

 

I first tried only these custom kexts:

LegacyHDAController.kext

LegacyHdAPlatformDriver.kext

 

When that failed, I tried these:

LegacyHDAController.kext

LegacyHdAPlatformDriver.kext

LegacyIOAHCIBlockStorage.kext

 

Should I be using any others? I've put together some hackintosh pcs before, but never one this different from the popular configs (ep45, ex58, etc). Any help would be much appreciated! Thanks.

-masonjames

 

Hey I was wondering if you have had any success with this mobo lately. I have been looking at building an 8-core beast and am really interested in using this board. Thanks, hope you can get it working.

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Well folks, I'm going to throw my $.02 in here and unveil my project.

 

SilverStone SST-TJ07-B case ($400)

SilverStone ST1500 PSU ($400)

Tyan i5400pw motherboard ($400)

Intel Xeon E5405 2.0ghz processors (BSEL modded to 2.4ghz) ($300)

8gb (4x 2gb) A-Data FB-DIMMS ($200)

VFX GeForce 8800GT 1gb pci-e 16x ($100)

Pioneer BluRay combo drive. ($200)

 

Total = $2000 (at least for the core system, give or take... could I have had a MacPro for that? ...sure ...would it be the 2.4ghz octocore, uber-upgradable, quad boot monster that I have now? Not even close.)

 

 

That's the core stuff anyway. Totally impressed with this rig. I run an 8 core MacPro at work (2.3ghz if I remember correctly w/6gb of ram)... and this thing beats the pants off of it. (1000 point margin on geekbench... my 64bit geekbench score was 9620 this morning... 32bit geekbench scores on MacPro were in the low to mid 7000's if I remember correctly) Ram reports funny for some reason, says it's running at 667mhz... which, after the BSEL it should be running at the full 800mhz... and the memory benchmarks are the lowest part of it's scores. Sad really. Considering another 8gb of ram to be able to take full advantage of the 4:1 interleave. Right now, 2:1 interleave with the Crystal Beach addressing enabled gives me the best benchmarks.

 

Everything works... I mean EVERYTHING. (Ok, I haven't had a chance to try the s-video output on the video card... sue me!) Dual DVI video output, CHECK! Audio (ALC262)... CHECK! Quad boot (XP64, Win7 x64, Ubuntu 9.04 x64, OSx 10.5.7)... CHECK!

 

10.5.7 was an iAtkos install, with no options selected, with the exception of PS2 drivers, as I'm using a PS2 Mouse and Keyboard. Not because the OS needs it, but because the TYAN board doesn't seem to have legacy USB support to allow use of a usb mouse and keyboard for bios functions and boot selections. Haven't had this issue on other machines, and don't see anywhere to enable it.

 

Video was a simple EFI Studio boot.plist install (QE/CI supported and enabled)

Audio was a tad more tricky, and still not completely happy (VoodooHDA.kext)... tried all the other methods to no avail. Would prefer a more seamless integration, but for now, it gets the job done.

 

 

Future projects:

 

Snow Leopard (Have it installed, consistently get kernel panics. Any help here would be appreciated!)

 

Bootable Hardware Raid

Onboard LSI Raid works fine for individual disks, but not hardware raid.

SIL3112 works fine for hardware raid on all OS's! ...but, it's not impressively fast.

I have a PCI-X SIL3124 that I've been considering playing with, but it's otherwise occupied

Highpoint 8ch seems to be the goto solution here... $250 at Frys. Sad when I already have an

onboard 8ch controller. Have been searching for a quad bootable 12ch.

 

(Yes, I have a LOT of hard drives! Acard 4ch IDE card running 4x hitachi 250gb drives RAID 0 for windows video scratch disk, a 5 bay sata backplane with 5x hitachi 1tb drive attached to LSI controller... 500gb boot volume partitioned into 3 segments... OSX/Ubuntu/WinXP and a 320gb drive set aside for Win7.... couldn't get Win7 to play nice on the same drive with the other operating systems, the bootloader isn't very friendly with chameleon v2)

 

Second 5 bay Sata Backplane

 

RHEL installation and hopefully a Inferno/Flame/Smoke installation for video finishing

 

Upgraded CPUs... now that I have my proof of concept with my overclocked 2ghz Xeons... I'd like to ramp it up with some overclocked 3ghz+ chips... breaking 4ghz would be nice.

 

 

If anyone has any input on the Snow Leopard install it would be greatly appreciated, I'm a newbie to 10.6 and all of it's quirks!

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  • 4 weeks later...
Well folks, I'm going to throw my $.02 in here and unveil my project.

 

...

Tyan i5400pw motherboard ($400)

Intel Xeon E5405 2.0ghz processors (BSEL modded to 2.4ghz) ($300)

...

 

...

Audio was a tad more tricky, and still not completely happy (VoodooHDA.kext)... tried all the other methods to no avail. Would prefer a more seamless integration, but for now, it gets the job done.

 

Future projects:

 

Snow Leopard (Have it installed, consistently get kernel panics. Any help here would be appreciated!)

 

Hi, i am planning to buy a dual cpu motherboard, did you get audio working ro snowleopard installed? TX

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Good thread..

I'm on the hunt for a GIGABYTE board that will take an AMD Phenom II 64bit chip for my Hackintosh.

It will be going inside an old blue and white G3 case. Initially using onboard DVI, but video card to be upgraded in the future.

 

Looking to spend between £130-180 on board and chip. Any recommendations?

 

many thanks.

 

Also, if anyone has any links on how to fit the card into an old mac g3 chasis, much appreciated. Are the holes of the board in the same place?

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Good thread..

I'm on the hunt for a GIGABYTE board that will take an AMD Phenom II 64bit chip for my Hackintosh.

It will be going inside an old blue and white G3 case. Initially using onboard DVI, but video card to be upgraded in the future.

 

Looking to spend between £130-180 on board and chip. Any recommendations?

 

many thanks.

 

Also, if anyone has any links on how to fit the card into an old mac g3 chasis, much appreciated. Are the holes of the board in the same place?

 

 

hi i do the same thing what u want to do.

 

powermac g4 quicksilver case with a full atx mainboard.

 

ga ud3p ep45 + intel core 2 quad 9650 3ghz

 

the holes are not at the same place u have to do some new holes and cut the io back off.

look at mine ..

 

http://img189.imageshack.us/g/bild655.jpg/

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personally i think a core i7 is very comparable and enough for whatever you need a mac for.

 

if you are going to go the xeon processor way you are better off getting a mac and if you prefer building one find a guide with a lot of success because chances are it will be very unstable as most hackintosh's hackers prefer the core 2 or core i series so there is a lot more support on that end.

 

also if you need a hardcore build your processor and motherboard are important but you should also get a sick raid set up. but if this is for personal use you can get this built for under a grand.

 

if you want a really fast pc you should try linux, i put linux on a virtual os and got faster responses than I ever ever seen on a computer. though linux is for the more advanced geeks out there who can pick up easily on learning something new.

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I already have installed Snow Leo a few weeks before on my TYAN S5396 and it runs very fine. I installed it native vanilla, check out this guide:

 

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=183751

 

For my graphics card, I had to install nvinject 0.2 and for ALC 888 onboard sound Voodoo HDA enabler from an iAtkos v7 distribution. Dual DVI is working fine.

 

Sometimes I have some issues with two of the rear USB ports (USB-keyboard is not recognized), but I think it's a hardware problem, not software (perhaps too low power on USB bus ?). Hibernate also does not work perfect, but I think it is because I have a Symbios Logic SCSI PCI adapter installed and Snowy does not like it for power management ? I don't know, WTF.

 

Uh, and OS updates from Apple are not working, I get a black screen after updating and rebooting. But doesn't matter, I actually don't need any update and perhaps someone from OSx86 scene will discover to fix this up in a few days. ;-)

 

This is my current hardware configuration:

 

Mainboard: TYAN Tempest i5400XT

CPU: Intel Xeon DP 5405 2,0 GHz

RAM: 4 x 1024 MB Samsung FB-DIMM 667 MHz

Graphics: Sparkle nVidia Geforce 9600 GT PCIe 512 MB passive cooled

DVD: 2 x LG GH22LS50

HD: WD5000AAKS 500 GB (OS X 10.6)

HD: WD5000AAKS 500 GB (OS X DATA)

HD: WD3200AAKS 320 GB (Windows XP MCE 2005)

HD: WD7500AAKS 750 GB (My Documents)

Keyboard: Apple USB-Keyboard from iMac

Mouse: Microsoft IntelliMouse 1.1

Sound: 2 x RME Audio RayDAT

SCSI: Symbios Logic LSI 21320-R

 

So far, I am very happy with this Snow Leopard installation, because I can use Apple Logic 9 with very small latency (32 samples, yeah !), now. Perfect audio & MIDI timing, overall system performance is much better than with Windows XP 32-Bit.

 

I like Snowy Leopard. :-D

 

 

future_former

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hi i do the same thing what u want to do.

 

powermac g4 quicksilver case with a full atx mainboard.

 

ga ud3p ep45 + intel core 2 quad 9650 3ghz

 

the holes are not at the same place u have to do some new holes and cut the io back off.

look at mine ..

 

http://img189.imageshack.us/g/bild655.jpg/

 

Many thanks! Anyone else done something similar? cheers

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  • 3 months later...

Hello this is my first post, so please forgive. I did a search for Installing Snow Leopard on a Celeron - E (socket-LGA 775), 64bit 2.5 GHZ processor on a gigabite board with 1 MB cache and I was wondering if this setup would work?

 

If not, which Intel Processor would you recommend?

 

Oh I am using the Snow Leopard version 10.6.3, the newer one, noticed the Database board only had it for Snow Leopard 10.5 and older.

 

Thanks,

 

d-1

 

I can't start a "new topic" thread apparently, on my first post.....

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  • 7 months later...
Makes me want to jump back in now and see if any of my older systems can be upgraded to Snow Leopard easily.

 

seems to be no big problem. have done the snow leo installation just a year before, and the day before yesterday I updated my rig on 10.6.5. I had to install a new sleepenabler.kext, delete NullCPUManagement.kext and update my sound drivers via the new [url="http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/"]#####[/url] release.

 

so far, everything is working fine. if you need further details, feel free to ask.

 

 

future_former

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Some good configuration:

 

dual cpu

 

Asus motherboard model: Z8PE-D12 2 x Intel Xeon CPUs (x5660 or x5670 Westmere versions)

i found it here:

http://www.macgenesis.com/2010/10/adding-n...the-store-soon/

 

see thread too:

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php...amp;hl=Z8PE-D12

 

 

one cpu

 

SAMPLE i7-950 SYSTEM SPECS:

 

Media Drive: DVD & CD Burner/Reader (slot load optional, BR Reader/Writer Optional - $120)

Desktop Tower: CoolerMaster 690 II Advanced - Special Cooling features and massive expandability, fan & light control

Processor: Intel i7-950 3.06GHz LGA 1366 130W Quad Core (12.24GHz Total, overclocked safely to 16GHz) (Optional liquid cooling system)

Hard Drive: Seagate or Western Digital - 2TB 7200RPM SATA3 3.5" Internal 64MB Cache

Video: nVidia GeForce GT240 1GB GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0x16 HDCP Ready w/ SLI / Dual DVI (or DVI,VGA,HDMI) Triple monitor output at HD 1080i/p resolution

Power: CoolerMaster 700W / SLI and Crossfire engaged / Intel i7 Specific

Memory: 6GB G.SKILL Trident (3x2GB) DDR3 2000 (PC16000) (expandable to 24GB on 6 memory slots)

Mother Board: Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD7 Revision 2

Network: 1Gb Ethernet x 2 and Apple Airport Wireless WiFi

OS: Snow Leopard OS X 10.6.4 Licensed and Genuine (purchased for each system from Apple)

Other: Apple Wired Keyboard and Wireless Magic Mouse

 

i found it here:

http://www.macgenesis.com/products-page/4-...nstruction-kit/

see also:

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=185097

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  • 1 year later...

After reading this topic and the excellent tutorials at tonymacx86 and lifehacker I got Lion working on my dual socket 771 system.

 

Specs:

SuperMicro X7DAL-E

2x Intel Xeon E5405 (quadcore 2,0 GHz)

12GB FB-DIMM 667MHz

NVidia Quadro 600 1GB

500GB Seagate harddisk (SATA 2)

Dell U2711 monitor

DVD

 

Snow Leopard from the Apple store, and Lion from the app store. There was no need to use 4GB mem at install. Just let my 12 GB in it.

 

Thanks for the info

 

Edit 8 feb 2012: Reinstalled everything on a Crucial M4 64 gb SATA-600(firmware 0309). Works.

 

Edit 24 feb 2012: Put the Seagate 500gb disk, with the Lion install, in a HP XW4600 workstation and just checked what would happen. System booted, took a while to start (driver detection?) and suddenly Lion appeared. Didn't check much further, but it looked like it worked.

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