Lifehacker Guide with GA-EP45-UD3P Motherboard

[leppy700m]

So, I ran into the same problem again. My install worked for about 10 hours, then out of the blue, my HD gets fried, Disk Utility can't fix it.

 

I'm gonna RMA my mobo. Unless there's something I'm missing, there's no way this should be happening.

Check your power supply, too. Unstable voltage to a HD can cause data corruption.

[huntington]

Check your power supply, too. Unstable voltage to a HD can cause data corruption.

 

that involve using a multimeter on the poiwer connectors to the HD? i'm googling now, but if you have any tips/good links i'd welcome them

 

when i first built the computer, i didn't install the heatsink properly (wasn't screwed in to the mobo all the way). after buying a new heat sink & installing it right, i figured my problems would be solved. guess not. it seems to be the same problem pre-heat switch, now that i think about it. that would seem to me to point to either a bad mobo or a bad psu. i'm almost ready to just say screw it and just buy a new psu and RMA the mobo.

[huntington]

and i forgot to say thanks, leppy.

 

ps if anyone's reading this and is in the nyc area and would be into helping me with this situation i would greatly appreciate it...food/beer/newegg gift card?

[scrambler_455]

I was planning to put my old g4 into target mode and copying all the data off of it. While the g4 was booting, I connected the firewire 400 cable. Hack pro and g4 shut-down instantly. Now hack pro won't even post. Looks like a fried motherboard. I doubt this is something that would be repeatable, but its really weird that the firewire bus would cause a surge like that. I also doubt this info is useful, but there you go.

[leppy700m]

that involve using a multimeter on the poiwer connectors to the HD? i'm googling now, but if you have any tips/good links i'd welcome them.

Well, a multimeter won't show what the PSU does under load. Some motherboards have Windows utilities that allow voltage monitoring of the motherboard connections. I am not sure this one does. Anyway, a bad or underpowered PSU can cause all kinds of issues and it can be tricky to diagnose.

 

and i forgot to say thanks, leppy.

 

ps if anyone's reading this and is in the nyc area and would be into helping me with this situation i would greatly appreciate it...food/beer/newegg gift card?

Not sure I helped, but I can surely sympathize.

 

I was planning to put my old g4 into target mode and copying all the data off of it. While the g4 was booting, I connected the firewire 400 cable. Hack pro and g4 shut-down instantly. Now hack pro won't even post. Looks like a fried motherboard. I doubt this is something that would be repeatable, but its really weird that the firewire bus would cause a surge like that. I also doubt this info is useful, but there you go.

Bummer, dude. That's like leaving a bag of tasty herb in the pocket of the jacket you dumped in the salvation army can. The info is useful for anyone else thinking of trying this - be warned - be careful.

[MacWannaBe]

I was planning to put my old g4 into target mode and copying all the data off of it. While the g4 was booting, I connected the firewire 400 cable. Hack pro and g4 shut-down instantly. Now hack pro won't even post. Looks like a fried motherboard. I doubt this is something that would be repeatable, but its really weird that the firewire bus would cause a surge like that. I also doubt this info is useful, but there you go.

 

 

This is a well known issue. It has been discussed in this thread (I know it's impossibly long now). Basically your firewire cable sent POWER to the hack and fried it. If you are going to try what you did you need to make sure you use a firewire cable that does NOT transmit power.

 

Real macs have a mechanism to detect his in HW and make sure things don't get fried. Sorry you found out the hard way.

[MacTech84]

It seems that I have a bit of catching up to do... Sorry for my absence guys, long story that I would rather just not go into, but I am back and will try to catch up from where I left off. And apparently my access from work has been cutoff, so I will try my best with replies when I am at home. Who needs help?

[huntington]

Leppy - I don't have a PC to get to those diagnostic tools (and to swap out the psu, etc), and from my googling it looks like the other route is the multimeter route, and at this point... meh. I'd almost rather just buy a new psu and RMA the mobo if that seems like it'll cover all the bases here. i can't find any similar reports of this type of thing happening to other people, or even reports of what might happen if a heatsink isn't installed properly (which i'm guessing this is all from)...

 

SBMac, good to have you back... i would welcome any input you might have on my situation - outlined in

this post and this one

 

I'm looking to just start fresh at this point...

[leppy700m]

Leppy - I don't have a PC to get to those diagnostic tools (and to swap out the psu, etc), and from my googling it looks like the other route is the multimeter route, and at this point... meh. I'd almost rather just buy a new psu and RMA the mobo if that seems like it'll cover all the bases here. i can't find any similar reports of this type of thing happening to other people, or even reports of what might happen if a heatsink isn't installed properly (which i'm guessing this is all from)...

 

SBMac, good to have you back... i would welcome any input you might have on my situation - outlined in

this post and this one

 

I'm looking to just start fresh at this point...

I hate to add more, but there's another possibility - if an improperly mounted heatsink caused the problem, it's very possible the CPU sustained damage.

[huntington]

I hate to add more, but there's another possibility - if an improperly mounted heatsink caused the problem, it's very possible the CPU sustained damage.

 

Ouch. And the only way to test that is to try it in another known working computer, right? So I'm pretty screwed here.

 

So now I'm up to: RMA the mobo, RMA the CPU, buy new PSU... fun times. Learning my lesson about building my first computer the hard way...

 

Since I don't really have the resources to "workbench" test all these parts...I'm better off just replacing all three of these things at once right? At this point I'm trying to be patient as possible but I just want to get this thing running... my old mac's (2001 G4) days are numbered (and it's ridiculously slow...)

[CoHPhasor]

Look, the cookie cutter build works - perfectly - case closed. We all know that. This hobby is all about experimenting with different configurations, and being put off by people trying to get a variation of it working is silly pettiness. Your surly, sardonic attitude about anything here that's not cookie cutter is getting old.

 

I understand you feel that this thread is here to hold the hand of anyone wanting to explore "this hobby".

The problem is that it is not this thread's purpose.

It is best to show users that the forum as a whole is their place to find information on different subjects.

You know, the way the forum is setup it might actually have separate sections to address different issues.

Teach a man how to fish, don't simply give him one.

Thank you for the personal attack, I feared my wit lost in the Ether.

 

This is a well known issue. It has been discussed in this thread (I know it's impossibly long now). Basically your firewire cable sent POWER to the hack and fried it. If you are going to try what you did you need to make sure you use a firewire cable that does NOT transmit power.

 

Real macs have a mechanism to detect his in HW and make sure things don't get fried. Sorry you found out the hard way.

 

Yea, we discussed it. Unfortunately we haven't worked it into the initial post as a warning yet though.

As you said the PC mobo doesn't have this setup as PCs don't expect that behavior.

 

A cable that does not supply power is a 4-pin. (Like those used on DVCams)

Scrambler, sorry for your loss. :-\

[FranM]

This is a well known issue. It has been discussed in this thread (I know it's impossibly long now). Basically your firewire cable sent POWER to the hack and fried it. If you are going to try what you did you need to make sure you use a firewire cable that does NOT transmit power.

 

Real macs have a mechanism to detect his in HW and make sure things don't get fried. Sorry you found out the hard way.

 

 

This happened to me and it turned out to be the power supply that got toasted, so check that first.

[HAVEC]

I was planning to put my old g4 into target mode and copying all the data off of it. While the g4 was booting, I connected the firewire 400 cable. Hack pro and g4 shut-down instantly. Now hack pro won't even post. Looks like a fried motherboard. I doubt this is something that would be repeatable, but its really weird that the firewire bus would cause a surge like that. I also doubt this info is useful, but there you go.

 

If you or any body else is in need of a GA-EP45-UD3P, they're on sale at New Egg for $100 with coupon code EMCYNNS26

[CoHPhasor]

This happened to me and it turned out to be the power supply that got toasted, so check that first.

 

 

If both you and this user can confirm this then it will mark a great

note in hackintosh knowledge.

Please list your old power supply type here for posterity.

 

I guess it could be possible that the power fo FW comes straight from the PSU;

Although it would be more likely that the mobo simply was able to sustain the overpower but the PSU didn't.

Can we get a confirmation from the latest case please?

(Simply experiment with an old PSU if you have one.)

[leppy700m]

Ouch. And the only way to test that is to try it in another known working computer, right? So I'm pretty screwed here.

 

So now I'm up to: RMA the mobo, RMA the CPU, buy new PSU... fun times. Learning my lesson about building my first computer the hard way...

 

Since I don't really have the resources to "workbench" test all these parts...I'm better off just replacing all three of these things at once right? At this point I'm trying to be patient as possible but I just want to get this thing running... my old mac's (2001 G4) days are numbered (and it's ridiculously slow...)

Well at this point, that's probably your safest route. Chances are they aren't all bad, but as you point out yourself, without more resources available you'll have a very hard time sorting this out.

 

 

I understand you feel that this thread is here to hold the hand of anyone wanting to explore "this hobby".

The problem is that it is not this thread's purpose.

It is best to show users that the forum as a whole is their place to find information on different subjects.

You know, the way the forum is setup it might actually have separate sections to address different issues.

Teach a man how to fish, don't simply give him one.

Thank you for the personal attack, I feared my wit lost in the Ether.

 

"Have a Coke and a smile and shut the f&%$ up!" - Richard Pryor

 

Good advice for anyone feeling frustrated with another's behavior - including myself.

[bean5]

on the stella blog, v3 of the installer says (i think it started with v2) that it now has automatic network detection. Does that mean that the onboard NIC supports bonjour now and doesn't need a separate pci network card? Or would I still need the card to be able to access other computers on my network?

[naluvs01]

Hi everyone I just officially built my first computer and it was a Hackintosh. I followed Lifehackers instructions and bought the same equipment with the exception of the cpu (quad 2.66) and I added a Artic pro 7 heatsink. Everything works flawlessly (update, software installs) except the pci slots. I have two uad1 (dsp cards) pci cards and need to use them with Logic Pro 9. Are there any kext files available to allow them to function?

 

Thanks.

 

on the stella blog, v3 of the installer says (i think it started with v2) that it now has automatic network detection. Does that mean that the onboard NIC supports bonjour now and doesn't need a separate pci network card? Or would I still need the card to be able to access other computers on my network?

 

I bought the 1.6 version MoBo and both LAN, Firewire, USB ports worked right out the box.

[bean5]

same here, but my understanding is that while the ethernet ports do work connecting to the internet, they lack bonjour support...or am I mistaken?

 

I was reading back on the thread and read somewhere that with the v3 installer that the cpu temp would be about 10c higher...so I shouldn't be surprised that if I OC the q9650 to 3.33ghz, it would be around 51c when idle?

[kuee]

same here, but my understanding is that while the ethernet ports do work connecting to the internet, they lack bonjour support...or am I mistaken?

 

I was reading back on the thread and read somewhere that with the v3 installer that the cpu temp would be about 10c higher...so I shouldn't be surprised that if I OC the q9650 to 3.33ghz, it would be around 51c when idle?

 

 

I had a similar issue. I could not get my build to connect to my Time Capsule even though the network was working fine.

 

I installed the RealTekR1000SL.kext and everything worked. I am still a bit fuzzy on how I got it to recognize the kext and the system is running now so I don't want to see if I can repeat the fix. I think I will build another drive just to see if I know what I am doing.

[bean5]

I just tried installing windows xp on a separate harddrive, however, when I restart the computer and have it boot from disc, it hangs on the verifying dmi pool....what do I need to do? Setup is pretty much what LH told me to do, nothing different.

[CoHPhasor]

Well at this point, that's probably your safest route. Chances are they aren't all bad, but as you point out yourself, without more resources available you'll have a very hard time sorting this out.

 

 

 

 

"Have a Coke and a smile and shut the f&%$ up!" - Richard Pryor

 

Good advice for anyone feeling frustrated with another's behavior - including myself.

 

Glad to see you using such sage advice.

[backinmac]

Well, first of all I would like to thank Stella, everyone on this thread, and Adam Pash for making this process SO EASY! Anybody can do this; especially if a noob like me who has never built a computer or "hackintoshed" can. I followed Adam's guide and used Stella's V3 installer with absolutely no issues whatsoever (major ones anyway). I just have a couple kinks that need to be worked out. First and foremost, I have no sound. I'm guessing this is just some setting I need to change. Also, Mac OS X doesn't see my optical drive. I'm guessing it's just not supported. But maybe you guys can help me.

 

My Specs:

Intel Pentium Dual Core @ 2.6Ghz (Seen by Mac OS X as Intel Core 2 Duo)

750G Seagate Barracuda SATA

Sony Optiarc DVD +/- DL Drive Model AD-7241S-0B

Gigabyte EP45-UD3P Rev 1.6

2x1 GB of GSkill Ram Model #F2-6400CL5D-2GBNQ

1 GB of GSkill Ram Model #F2-6400CL5S-1GBNT

1 GB of Kingston ValueRAM Model # KVR667D2/1GR

EVGA Geforce 9800GT Model #512-P3-N987-TR

Antec Sonata III Case

 

EDIT:

Optical drive works, just needed to replace SATA cable.

 

EDIT 2:

YAYYY!!! Got sound working! I realized that I had plugged in AC97 in my mobo as sound and not HDA....now i have perfect sound!

[CoHPhasor]

I just tried installing windows xp on a separate harddrive, however, when I restart the computer and have it boot from disc, it hangs on the verifying dmi pool....what do I need to do? Setup is pretty much what LH told me to do, nothing different.

 

The question will come in; What did you do during the xp install?

Did you disconnect the SL HD when you installed XP? Did you point the BIOS to boot the SL HD first?

[HAVEC]

I just tried installing windows xp on a separate harddrive, however, when I restart the computer and have it boot from disc, it hangs on the verifying dmi pool....what do I need to do? Setup is pretty much what LH told me to do, nothing different.

 

Try your XP HDD on the other set of Satas. I don't remember having to disconnect the SL drive in order to install Win7.

[bean5]

that's the thing...I couldn't even get to the point where I could install xp. I went into the bios first, set it to boot from disc first, nothing happened/ stopped at verifying dmi pool. Restarted and pressed f12 so I could select the dvd drive myself, nothing happened/stopped at verifying dmi pool. My sata setup is this: dvd drive and SL hard drive on the purple connectors, time machine and two extra hard drives on the yellow connectors.