Newest Compaatible Motherboards

[CarlitosWay]

Hello All,

 

Newbie question.

 

I'm trying to build my first system and have been browsing forums for a few weeks.

 

I'm looking for new motherboards that are not discontinued that are 100% compatible with Mac OSX Leopard (Kalyway/iAtkos dists), as well as giving me the option of dual, triple, or even quad boot (OSX/XP/Vista/Linux). Looking to make the investment for a system that is capable of running all these without a hitch.

 

There are many listings on the ASUS P5W DH Deluxe, Intel BadAxe 2, and the GA-EP35-DS4 variants, etc. I've noticed that by visiting internet resellers and even the manufacturer sites, most of these MOBOs are discontinued. Even if I can find some of these in eBay, these are MOBOs that may be based in older technology.

 

Can anyone suggest (or has good experience with) any MOBOs that are newly-released that are also 100% compatible (even with patching) with OSX Leopard?

 

I'm looking at the following configuration (maybe looking for too much but I am trying to purchase equipment that will be good for a couple of years):

 

Core 2 Quad Mobo/Core2 Quad Procesors (maybe 2-8 core)/Dual Video Cards/Sata Drives (Raid 0)/Plenty of USB Ports/Firewire/Multi-Channel Audio (in-out).

 

Again, don't know if this is possible but would be greatful if I could get your advice on this build.

 

My humble thanks for even taking your time for reading my post!!

[ToGaR]

I just built my system this week (see signature). My mobo is not discontinued. I ordered it from newegg.com without problem. I installed Kalyway 10.5.2, did NOT install graphics update, then installed Kalyway 10.5.3 updater. Everything in my system worked perfectly after installing 10.5.2. The graphics update caused me lots of issues so I skipped that and went straight to 10.5.3. The only issue I'm having right now is the whole sleep/restart/shutdown issue which seems to be a continuing problem with 10.5.3.

[CarlitosWay]

Thanks Todd!,

 

I may end up copying your settings. Have you found any issues/problems with your hackintosh? Is it running stable for audio/video/peripherals? Have you installed any software over your OSX (such as Aperture,Pro-Tools, etc)?

 

Thanks again for helping me out!

[mcmaklin]

Hey I would like to buy similar configuration for my second computer (I have real MACBOOK Pro but for me sometimes it is too slow).

Did you have any problems after installing Kalyway 10.5.3. out of the box?

And one more thing - please tell me which version of Leopard should I have - is there a Kalyway 10.5.3 version - or the thing is to download 10.5.2 and then upgrade it?

 

Also I woold like to use HDSP-9632 on PCI is it possible? Thanks

[Alessandro17]

If you still want the Bad Axe 2 it is not discontinued, I found it for sale (new) first attempt right now.

However if I were building a box now I'd use a Penryn compatible mobo.

Even better, I'd wait for a Nehalem compatible one, but that will take a few months, I suspect.

[Zaap]

The Gigabyte EP35-DS4 is a solid choice. I'm multi-booting OSX, XP, XP 64, Vista 64 and PCLinux2008, 3 different HD's, Grub bootloader, and all work great. Just do yourself a favor, invest in a $6 floppy drive so you can load AHCI drivers for XP installs at boot- though you can do post-boot, which I had to do for lack of a floppy.

 

I recommend installing a second instance of OSX on another drive that you can use as updater-recovery-maintenance to your main OSX install, and also as a 'beater' install to test various hacks before appying them to the main OSX. With a bit of trail and error and following various guides, I was able to get sleep working perfectly (and LogMeIn!) on my 'beater' install of OSX- it required (for me anyway) a combination of mobo BIOS update (F3), then the right kernel and SMBIOS updates.

 

I'd post the exact order of whagt to do, except I haven't yet boiled down exactly what I did- I'll do so when I apply everything to my main OSX install. Basically, it can be achieved by following various guides on the subject around here. Oh, and rather than Kalaway, I used Leo4Allv3, and vanilla kernel. No idea what the differences are, just that Leo4All has worked great for me, and fixed most potential problems on install.

[CarlitosWay]

Thanks for your post Zaap!,

 

A couple of more questions:

 

Have you experienced any problems with sound/firewire/USB/wireless with this board? Also, how are the sleep/screen saver/shutdown/restart options working out for you with this MOBO? I see many posts from users having issues with many motherboards. What about issues with any Mac programs?, and lastly have you added more than one video card to your setup in order to run multiple monitors?

After reading both Todd's and your comments I'm pretty much sold on this MOBO!!

 

Thanks again everyone for their comments!!

[sWORDs]

Thanks for your post Zaap!,

 

A couple of more questions:

 

Have you experienced any problems with sound/firewire/USB/wireless with this board? Also, how are the sleep/screen saver/shutdown/restart options working out for you with this MOBO? I see many posts from users having issues with many motherboards. What about issues with any Mac programs?, and lastly have you added more than one video card to your setup in order to run multiple monitors?

After reading both Todd's and your comments I'm pretty much sold on this MOBO!!

 

Thanks again everyone for their comments!!

Gigabyte DS3, Q6600 3.6GHz (1600MHz bus), 4x 1GB Kingston DDR2 800, Asus 8500GT 512MB, OptiArc 7200S, Western Digital Raptor WD1500ADFD, CM Stacker 830, Tagan TG530-U22.

Leo4Allv3 + Kalyway 10.5.3 (vanilla kernel) + 10.5.4 9E6 + Chameleon + GFX/SND/ETH devicestrings + Intel ICH9 ACPI kexts + Taruga 889a HDAenabler + shutdownfix

 

Everything works, 0 problems.

[ToGaR]

For me, everything works except for dependable sleep, restart, and shutdown. These items were broken with the 10.5.3 update.

 

I'm going to try to write a tutorial specifically for the GA-P35-DS4 board. I've used other people's "easy patches" for the variations of the GA boards but found that some caused more problems than fixes. I've narrowed KEXTs down to about 10 that need to be replaced/added in order to have a pretty flawless system.

[CarlitosWay]

Hi sWord,

 

Can you be more specific with the MOBO? Exact model Gigabyte model #? Some of the fully compatible Gigabyte DS3s are either based on older techology and/or have now been discontinued and can't be purchased from online retailers except for eBay.

 

 

 

Thanks!

[sWORDs]

For me, everything works except for dependable sleep, restart, and shutdown. These items were broken with the 10.5.3 update.

 

I'm going to try to write a tutorial specifically for the GA-P35-DS4 board. I've used other people's "easy patches" for the variations of the GA boards but found that some caused more problems than fixes. I've narrowed KEXTs down to about 10 that need to be replaced/added in order to have a pretty flawless system.

You only need 5 kext files (or 6 when not using EFI, but I'm not sure if shutdown, sleep and reboot will work without devicestrings) + shutdown fix. IOAHCIFamily, AppleAHCIPort, AppleHDA, IOATAFamily, AppleSMbios. But I've got everything working on 10.5.3 and 10.5.4, sleep, restart and shutdown. No USB mounting problems! I'm using USB keyboard/mouse and SATA burner/hd's and only use the 4 Intel sata ports, so you might need more when using ps2/ide/jmicron SATA. Check the pictures and video below. (I'm sorry for the swallowing and sniffing noises, I've got a cold. And I'm sorry for the video quality it's a mobile phone cam. The movie is made on my primary drive with EFI 8 and 10.5.3, my secondary drive has Chameleon + 10.5.4 which also works great. I could make a step by step installation guide if someone needs it. But it's pretty straight forward:

- Get Kexthelper, Kextfiles, EFI studio, PowerOff bug fix, Leo4all v3, Kalyway 10.5.3 update.

- Enable AHCI in bios.

- Install leo4all v3, select only intel ICH drivers and Mac Pro named + your mem speed for smbios besides the default selection, kernel doesn't matter you'll replace it with 9.3 vanilla anyway, so use the default.

- Add GFX + LAN with EFI Studio (do not add sound it's useless for 10.5.2 and up), Install 1_Kalyway_UpdCombo10.5.3 don't reboot, install 2_kalyway_10.5.3_kernel and select vanilla 9.3, reboot.

- Install kext files with kexthelper. Install CHUD (XCode tools package), start /Developer/Extras/PreferencePanes/Processor.prefPane and install PowerOff bug fix, reboot.

 

The included AppleHDA has SPDIF in/out and two analog linouts and shows in system profiler. If you want 3 analog lineout's and no SPDIF and no display in profiler use this.

 

The same thing can be done from a working installation with a retail dvd, but then you'll need smbios aswell. Use the guide available here, use my kext files and remove incompatible kext files. Don't forget to use EFI studio to create a hex string and add that to com.apple.boot.plist.

Video of restart, sleep and shutdown.

Hi sWord,

 

Can you be more specific with the MOBO? Exact model Gigabyte model #? Some of the fully compatible Gigabyte DS3s are either based on older techology and/or have now been discontinued and can't be purchased from online retailers except for eBay.

 

Thanks!

It's the current ds3 (else it wouldn't be a correct answer to the question ), so GA-EP35-DS3 Rev 2.1. The complete Gigabyte P35 serie should work with ease, so DS3(R/P), DS4 and DQ6. So if you need firewire get a DS3P. Asus P5K serie is much more trouble (lan needs kext file, won't work when resuming out of sleep, usb won't mount on startup 50% off the time, etc. I also recommend nVidia 8xxx graphics. I would not recommend dual graphic cards (you can only use this for 4 monitors, SLI and Crossfire won't work, duplicate the gfx section in efi studio and modify devicepath) and raid (only possible with osx, so software raid, but the raidcontrollers on desktop motherboards are software raid anyway, and you will need an extra drive for multiboot, you can't boot other operating sytems from your osx array), both are possible but will require some work.

 

I'm really waiting for 10.6, it's upgraded multi core support, CUDA (parts that now go to cpu that can be better done by GFX will goto GFX) and true 64bit kernel will be a major performance upgrade (and it's already fast as lightning, so I can only imagine). When the correct kext files will be integrated by Kalyway, JaS or Eddie11c we only need to add device strings after installation. or maybe not even when using EFI-X. I will get two 120MB/s SSD drives when 10.6 for hackintosh is released. My reason for mentioning CUDA is that it might be smart to get a fast videocard with a lot of shaders, 8800GTS looks like a nice and cheap candidate.

[Zaap]

Have you experienced any problems with sound/firewire/USB/wireless with this board? Also, how are the sleep/screen saver/shutdown/restart options working out for you with this MOBO? I see many posts from users having issues with many motherboards. What about issues with any Mac programs?, and lastly have you added more than one video card to your setup in order to run multiple monitors?

 

Firewire- no issues.

Sound- no issues.

USB- at first I had a hub plugged in that OSX didn't like- it would cause a slight pause in the boot with an IOUSBFamily error, then the device wouldn't work in OSX. However, since I've patched things as per guides for this board, no such issues- the same hub works fine. Other than that, no USB issues at all.

Not using any wireless, but no wired LAN issues- transfers, even of huge files over my gigabit LAN are as speedy and stable as expected.

 

Sleep/screen saver/shutdown/restart all work fine since various updates. By the way, I'm still running 10.5.2, so I guess these have been broken in 10.5.3. Shutdown sometimes doesn't work- I'd say about 20% of the time it will shutdown the computer with the fans still running and have to be fully shutdown by pressing the power button. But 80% of the time, it fully shuts down. I can now tell exactly which it will do by hearing how it parks the hard drives on shutdown- if the park occurs about three seconds after selecting 'shutdown', then it will be the 'not for real' shutdown. If the park is a little later, after the screens have gone black, it will fully shutdown. I have no idea the correlation to this and what's happening with the shutdown process, but it's a pretty good heads up. By way of 'flaws' it's really minor.

 

I'm using two 22" monitors at 1680 x 1050 off the same EVGA 8600GT 256MB video card- no problems. I haven't tried another video card in the second PCIe 16x slot for 2 more monitors.

 

Every program I've run works great- FCS, Adobe CS3, Office 2008, Front Row, Toast 9, Parallels, DVD/VLC/NicePlayer/QT, etc. etc. etc... I did have the well known issue with LogMeIn installing yet not fully working, but again, after the SMBIOS update it works great.

[sWORDs]

Firewire- no issues.

Sound- no issues.

USB- at first I had a hub plugged in that OSX didn't like- it would cause a slight pause in the boot with an IOUSBFamily error, then the device wouldn't work in OSX. However, since I've patched things as per guides for this board, no such issues- the same hub works fine. Other than that, no USB issues at all.

Not using any wireless, but no wired LAN issues- transfers, even of huge files over my gigabit LAN are as speedy and stable as expected.

 

Sleep/screen saver/shutdown/restart all work fine since various updates. By the way, I'm still running 10.5.2, so I guess these have been broken in 10.5.3. Shutdown sometimes doesn't work- I'd say about 20% of the time it will shutdown the computer with the fans still running and have to be fully shutdown by pressing the power button. But 80% of the time, it fully shuts down. I can now tell exactly which it will do by hearing how it parks the hard drives on shutdown- if the park occurs about three seconds after selecting 'shutdown', then it will be the 'not for real' shutdown. If the park is a little later, after the screens have gone black, it will fully shutdown. I have no idea the correlation to this and what's happening with the shutdown process, but it's a pretty good heads up. By way of 'flaws' it's really minor.

 

I'm using two 22" monitors at 1680 x 1050 off the same EVGA 8600GT 256MB video card- no problems. I haven't tried another video card in the second PCIe 16x slot for 2 more monitors.

 

Every program I've run works great- FCS, Adobe CS3, Office 2008, Front Row, Toast 9, Parallels, DVD/VLC/NicePlayer/QT, etc. etc. etc... I did have the well known issue with LogMeIn installing yet not fully working, but again, after the SMBIOS update it works great.

Zaap, use my guide and you'll have 100% shutdown working with 10.5.2 and 10.5.3/10.5.4. I've had the same problem before.

[Zaap]

Zaap, use my guide and you'll have 100% shutdown working with 10.5.2 and 10.5.3/10.5.4. I've had the same problem before.

Thanks sWORDS, I'm going to use your guide for building another system for someone else coming up very soon, and it seems just the info I need to know all in one place. I learn more on other people's builds than I do from my own system which I put together in sort of a hurry to actually get my work done with it.

 

It works 99.9% perfectly but now I've got all sorts of work files on it, everything is just how I need it, and I'm loathe to mess with it to get that other 1%, especially since the only flaw is the rare and predictable shutdown issue. But eventually I'll redo my main system and use your guide and what I've learned on other builds.

 

I'm amazed people are using 10.5.4 already. And even a select few running Snow Leopard! Even more mind blowing when I think back that just a few months ago, I had no idea any of this was even possible.

[ToGaR]

I could make a step by step installation guide if someone needs it. But it's pretty straight forward:

- Get Kexthelper, Kextfiles, EFI studio, PowerOff bug fix, Leo4all v3, Kalyway 10.5.3 update.

- Enable AHCI in bios.

- Install leo4all v3, select only intel ICH drivers and Mac Pro named + your mem speed for smbios besides the default selection, kernel doesn't matter you'll replace it with 9.3 vanilla anyway, so use the default.

- Install kext files with kexthelper. Install CHUD (XCode tools package), start /Developer/Extras/PreferencePanes/Processor.prefPane and install PowerOff bug fix. Add GFX + LAN with EFI Studio (do not add sound it's useless for 10.5.2 and up), Install 1_Kalyway_UpdCombo10.5.3 don't reboot, install 2_kalyway_10.5.3_kernel and select vanilla 9.3, reboot.

 

The included AppleHDA has SPDIF in/out and two analog linouts and shows in system profiler. If you want 3 analog lineout's and no SPDIF and no display in profiler use this.

 

This where I know just enough to be dangerous. My system profiler never showed any audio install. Even though it worked perfectly and showed all of the correct options in the audio control panel. So, I installed your AppleHDA and things showed up, but not the long list like you have. So then I removed the audio settings from my EFI and removed a couple of audio KEXT files. Then it worked!

 

But...

 

I later tried a couple of the other KEXT files you supplied and it broke again. Then I had no sound. I replaced the audio files I had deleted. I had sound, but now the display in SysProf was messed up. So then I tried to go back to all of my original KEXTs and...

 

... now my system won't even boot. I get a kernel panic shortly after Darwin loads.

 

Good thing I have an image of a clean install. Sooner or later I'm going to learn to leave well enough alone.

[sWORDs]

Thanks sWORDS, I'm going to use your guide for building another system for someone else coming up very soon, and it seems just the info I need to know all in one place. I learn more on other people's builds than I do from my own system which I put together in sort of a hurry to actually get my work done with it.

 

It works 99.9% perfectly but now I've got all sorts of work files on it, everything is just how I need it, and I'm loathe to mess with it to get that other 1%, especially since the only flaw is the rare and predictable shutdown issue. But eventually I'll redo my main system and use your guide and what I've learned on other builds.

 

I'm amazed people are using 10.5.4 already. And even a select few running Snow Leopard! Even more mind blowing when I think back that just a few months ago, I had no idea any of this was even possible.

Only netkas is running 10.6 on a hackintosh as far as I know, I'm getting kernel panicks all over the place. Netkas must have done something with the kernel.

[sWORDs]

This where I know just enough to be dangerous. My system profiler never showed any audio install. Even though it worked perfectly and showed all of the correct options in the audio control panel. So, I installed your AppleHDA and things showed up, but not the long list like you have. So then I removed the audio settings from my EFI and removed a couple of audio KEXT files. Then it worked!

 

But...

 

I later tried a couple of the other KEXT files you supplied and it broke again. Then I had no sound. I replaced the audio files I had deleted. I had sound, but now the display in SysProf was messed up. So then I tried to go back to all of my original KEXTs and...

 

... now my system won't even boot. I get a kernel panic shortly after Darwin loads.

 

Good thing I have an image of a clean install. Sooner or later I'm going to learn to leave well enough alone.

Get the needed files and do everything from the start (clean install with leo4allv3), if you can get better then good enough why won't you? It will only take a few minutes more then restoring and fixing the bootloader.

[Zaap]

I used your guide to get 10.5.3 working on my beater install- works 100%, now at 10.5.3. Even seems to boot a few seconds faster. The only issues I had were no QE/CI and my ACHI dropped back to orange drives on the desktop- I used the AHCIFix and NVinstaller from here to get these back and now it's perfect. (I notice after reading toddgarvin's post that audio does show up as Intel High Def Audio, with all I/O listed in system profiler- before I never had anything there).

 

I'll brave updating my main install once I'm finished my current workload. Thanks for the guide, sWORDs.

[sWORDs]

I used your guide to get 10.5.3 working on my beater install- works 100%, now at 10.5.3. Even seems to boot a few seconds faster. The only issues I had were no QE/CI and my ACHI dropped back to orange drives on the desktop- I used the AHCIFix and NVinstaller from here to get these back and now it's perfect. (I notice after reading toddgarvin's post that audio does show up as Intel High Def Audio, with all I/O listed in system profiler- before I never had anything there).

 

I'll brave updating my main install once I'm finished my current workload. Thanks for the guide, sWORDs.

Those AHCI kexts are in archive.zip, QE/CI will work when using EFI device strings (editted EFI Studio is also in that post, I've added 126 Geforce cards, including yours). Better solution then nvinstaller.

 

You've skipped this part:

Install kext files with kexthelper. Install CHUD (XCode tools package), start /Developer/Extras/PreferencePanes/Processor.prefPane and install PowerOff bug fix. Add GFX + LAN with EFI Studio (do not add sound it's useless for 10.5.2 and up),

 

Edit:

Install kext files with kexthelper. Install CHUD (XCode tools package), start /Developer/Extras/PreferencePanes/Processor.prefPane and install PowerOff bug fix. Should be done after 10.5.3, or the kextfiles will be replaced... I've edited the guide.

[CarlitosWay]

Hello all,

 

Just my luck. Looks like Newegg is sold out of the EP35-DS4. They do have the EP45-DS4P. Does anyone know if the EP45-DS4P would be ok? It uses the Intel P45 chipset NorthBridge and the Intel ICH10R SouthBridge chipsets.

 

The EP45-DS4P seems to support up to 16GB RAM, but I don't know if this MOBO would create any compatibility issues when building a hackintosh.

 

What do you think?

 

Thanks all again for your patience and support!

[sWORDs]

Hello all,

 

Just my luck. Looks like Newegg is sold out of the EP35-DS4. They do have the EP45-DS4P. Does anyone know if the EP45-DS4P would be ok? It uses the Intel P45 chipset NorthBridge and the Intel ICH10R SouthBridge chipsets.

 

The EP45-DS4P seems to support up to 16GB RAM, but I don't know if this MOBO would create any compatibility issues when building a hackintosh.

 

What do you think?

 

Thanks all again for your patience and support!

 

All post regarding the P45 chipset are claiming it doesn't work.

[CarlitosWay]

Thanks sWords!,

 

One more question. Would you know what is the difference between the GA-EP35-DS4 and the GA-P35-DS4? The specs seem the same, but the models/price are different.

The P35-DS4 seems about $50.00 cheaper than the EP35-DS4.

 

Thanks again!

[Zaap]

There is no real difference between the P35-DS4 and the EP35-DS4- they're the same board, just the EP35 is a later revision and so Gigabyte changed the name. Early EP35-DS4s even came with the newer model name added via a sticker that was just put right over the old P35-DS4 label etched into the PCB.

[sWORDs]

That they use the same PCB does not necessarily mean that it's identical, Gigabyte claims they (EP) are more efficient atleast because of DES (works best with 45nm processor), but DES is software on the GA-P35 boards (p45 boards contain a Intersil hardware chip) which can actually be added to the rev 2.1 GA-P35 boards by bios update aswell (GA-P35-DS4, GA-P35-DS3P, GA-P35C-DS3R, GA-P35-DS3R, GA-P35-DS3) but maybe they also switched some components (Mosfet, Caps etc) on the PCB.

[Freddie2008]

Hi, can you help me find the link of swords guide for audio, Thanks

 

Hi! anybody knows where is the swords guide of installation?

Thanks