jdratlif Posted February 17, 2009 Share Posted February 17, 2009 First let me say thanks to the people who have already provided me advice. I have been wary of building my own system, but I am seriously thinking about trying it out. I have spent weeks on various forums trying to figure out my needs. These components (I'm hoping) will provide me a good system that will run osx86 when needed. I should mention that I have only ever used Tiger with osx86. I have heard of problems building software on Leopard that runs on Tiger. I don't know what the problems may be, but this has kept me from ever trying or seriously considering Leopard. Since Tiger works pretty well for what I need it to do, I might still keep using it. Here are the components I have selected. All are from newegg and have respectable ratings. I'm pretty sure I've heard the motherboard I want will run Leopard, and I hear Gigabyte is pretty compatible in that area overall. Rosewill R218-P-BK Black 0.5mm SECC Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - Retail -$27 hec HP485D 485W ATX12V Power Supply - No Power Cord - OEM - $20 GIGABYTE GA-G31M-ES2L LGA 775 Intel G31 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail - $53 Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Kentsfield 2.4GHz LGA 775 Quad-Core Processor Model BX80562Q6600 - Retail - $197 G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F2-6400CL5D-4GBPQ - Retail - $46 ASUS EN8400GS SILENT/HTP/256M GeForce 8400 GS 256MB 64-bit GDDR2 PCI Express x16 HDCP Ready Video Card - Retail - $23 Western Digital Caviar RE WD2500YD 250GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM - $40 Sony Optiarc 22X DVD±R DVD Burner Black SATA Model AD-7220S - OEM - $25 I don't really understand power supplies. How do you know how much power you need? 485W sounds like a good choice, but I have seen ones with 1100 W and ones with 200W. I have also heard there are different kinds of connections for different motherboards. There's the processor, the SATA HDD, the SATA DVD burner, and the video card (I don't think it needs a power connection though). I am also moving an old IDE hard drive and my PCI wireless network card to the new box. Thanks so much for all your assistance. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/153487-gigabyte-ga-g31m-es2l-based-system-evaluation/ Share on other sites More sharing options...
mattrb Posted February 17, 2009 Share Posted February 17, 2009 Okay, my buddy has this motherboard but you really need to listen carefully, all distributions (iatkos, iPC, iDeneb) are {censored}. They are buggy up the wazoo. Ignore everyone else. Get a retail disk from the apple store or download it off the pirate bay. Next you need to read munky's guide on how to setup efi partition boot. This will allow you to run retail disks without a cd to pop in every time you want osx. The best way to set this up is to have another osx install running (use the crappy distributions that I was talking about, theyll do the trick) and setup your efi partition on your other drive that you want to use. Then setup the efi partition with that guide I was talking about. http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php...st&p=900139 Then use terminal and do this in the leopard install cd cd /System/Installation/Packages/ open OSInstall.mpkg then point to your efi partitioned drive This will work with sound and lan. My buddy has the alc662 but here are the drivers for your alc883 http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=129058 You need all of these drivers AppleSMBIOS.kext dsmos.kext HDAEnabler.kext IONetworkingFamily.kext (or that realtek1000 driver) LegacyAppleAHCIPort.kext LegacyAppleIntelPIIXATA.kext LegacyHDAController.kext LegacyHDAPlatformDriver.kext LegacyIOAHCIBlockStorage.kext LegacyJMicronATA.kext seatbelt.kext SMBIOSEnabler.kext System.kext And you need to edit your efi strings for your 8400gs Should all be really easy, less then 1hr from start to finish. if you cant find info from searching like doing google site:forum.insanelymac.com ga-g31m-s2l then message me if you still have more problems Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/153487-gigabyte-ga-g31m-es2l-based-system-evaluation/#findComment-1083001 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Synaesthesia Posted February 17, 2009 Share Posted February 17, 2009 They're really not that buggy. iAtkos has always worked great for me. (on lots of PC's) But you've convinced me to try a retail install. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/153487-gigabyte-ga-g31m-es2l-based-system-evaluation/#findComment-1083259 Share on other sites More sharing options...
mattrb Posted February 17, 2009 Share Posted February 17, 2009 They're really not that buggy. iAtkos has always worked great for me. (on lots of PC's) But you've convinced me to try a retail install. Not on my i7, had issues that maybe would have been fixed somehow. But in reality, the amount of time spent on fixing osx when a new version comes out is definitely much less then if you went with iatkos. The point is.... Distributions are obsolete, it was an experiment and it needs to go to rest. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/153487-gigabyte-ga-g31m-es2l-based-system-evaluation/#findComment-1083717 Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdratlif Posted March 1, 2009 Author Share Posted March 1, 2009 I am posting this from my new Leopard install. Everything seems to work, but I haven't had much time to play with it, so we'll see. For starters, I followed LTL's guide in the OS X Leopard Retail install disc sticky. http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=86167 I had been trying XxX's PPF3 Leopard 10.5.6 on my old machine, and since I kept that hard drive for the new box, I still had it. No video, no networking, no sound out of the box, and I'm unclear on some things still. EFI Studio gave me a string for the nVidia GeForce 8400 GS card, and that works great now. I don't understand why it has an option for the specific video card, but nothing on Ethernet, AZAL or HDEF. I also don't know what AZAL or HDEF are. Is AZAL Azalia audio? Is that what I have? Linux uses the Intel HDA audio driver and it has a RealTek ALC883 codec. Don't really know what that means. I added the AZAL string but that's pretty much a guess. When I use System profiler, it says I don't have any built-in audio. Neither Ethernet nor Wireless worked OOB, so I copied the kexts that XxX was using since those seemed to work. They're working for me now. None of the audio drivers I found seemed to work, so I got the codec dump from linux and used the HDA patcher. So that made sound work after I changed the output to use Line Out. You said I would need several kexts. AppleSMBIOS.kext - This came from the 4.4 package dsmos.kext - This came from the 4.4 package HDAEnabler.kext - Don't know what this is IONetworkingFamily.kext (or that realtek1000 driver) - Using the AppleRTL8169.kext inside the Plugins folder LegacyAppleAHCIPort.kext - Don't know what this is LegacyAppleIntelPIIXATA.kext - Don't know what this is. I have a new IOATAFamily from the 4.4 package - is that the same? LegacyHDAController.kext - Not sure what this is LegacyHDAPlatformDriver.kext - Not sure what this is LegacyIOAHCIBlockStorage.kext - Not sure what this is LegacyJMicronATA.kext - Do I really need this? I don't have a JMicron ATA controller seatbelt.kext - Don't know what this is SMBIOSEnabler.kext - Is this part of AppleSMBIOS? What does it do? System.kext - another thing I don't know what it is About this Mac says I have a 2.4 GHz unknown processor. Hardware overview says I have 1 processor with 4 cores, so that seems good. Graphics Says nVidia GeForce 8400 GS. Core Image Hardware Accelerated. Quartz Extreme Supported. Memory 4 GB DDR2 800 ram. When it went to sleep, the monitor didn't come back on. It crashed last time I tried shutdown, but restart works. I have disabled system and hard drive sleep for now, and I'm trying to remember to restart only. I've edited the 4.4 post-patch script to use my new drivers, but there is an ALCinject.kext driver in my extensions folder and I'm not sure where it came from. Did HDA patcher put it there? Is it needed? Thanks so much for all your help. I'm pretty happy right now. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/153487-gigabyte-ga-g31m-es2l-based-system-evaluation/#findComment-1094691 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Synaesthesia Posted March 1, 2009 Share Posted March 1, 2009 Looks like everything is working. If you want restart and shutdown to work reliably, download & install the openhaltrestart kext from Psystar Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/153487-gigabyte-ga-g31m-es2l-based-system-evaluation/#findComment-1094787 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts