Lifehacker Guide with GA-EP45-UD3P Motherboard

[chewdog316]

Hello

 

So I am researching a serious problem. Im running the lifehacker system with snowleopard. The same system listed on lifehacker.

 

I have blown two motherboards the same way.

 

When I try to transfer my files from my original mac to my hackintosh via firewire connection the hackintosh motherboard blows. As is doenst work, dead. I blew my second board last night after trying to migrate my old machine.

 

This is the second board this has happend to. I didnt know why the first one blew when I connected to two computers but now I know. Its the firewire connection between the two.

 

Has anyone ever heard of this before? And what can I do to fix it?

[MacWannaBe]

I just tried again and it didn't work...

 

Installed 10.6 using V3 installer in the flash drive. Everything stable.

 

Installed V3 installer in HD, reboot , everything is still fine.

 

Installed 10.6.2 combo. Reboot. KP

 

 

 

Should I upgrade to 10.6.1 prior to attempting 10.6.2? Where can I still get 10.6.1?

 

I just tried going from 10.6 to 10.6.2 with V3 and I got KP again.

 

OK, please list your exact parts.

[AkronElliott]

Hello

 

So I am researching a serious problem. Im running the lifehacker system with snowleopard. The same system listed on lifehacker.

 

I have blown two motherboards the same way.

 

When I try to transfer my files from my original mac to my hackintosh via firewire connection the hackintosh motherboard blows. As is doenst work, dead. I blew my second board last night after trying to migrate my old machine.

 

This is the second board this has happend to. I didnt know why the first one blew when I connected to two computers but now I know. Its the firewire connection between the two.

 

Has anyone ever heard of this before? And what can I do to fix it?

 

Did a google search on the ga-ep45-ud3p and firewire and fried and got post from another lifehacker thread.

 

Did I just Destroy my new computer?

 

Hope this is what you are looking for.

[jamis2001]

OK, please list your exact parts.

 

Parts from my "successful" 10.6 build:

 

- EP45-UDP3 V 1.6

- Intel E7200 Core Duo

- 2 x 2GB OCZ Reaper HPC DDR2 800 Memory

- WD 36 GB SAT Raptor Drive

- Samsung SATA DVD Burner

- nVidia 7600 GS (borrowed)

- Trendnet NIC (The one in the guide.)

 

I am able to install 10.6 and boot from the HD after installing the V3 installer in the HD.

 

Thanks in advance.

 

Update: Downloaded 10.6.1 from Apple and did the update. It works! Then I did the 10.6.2 Combo update ... KP.

[chewdog316]

Did a google search on the ga-ep45-ud3p and firewire and fried and got post from another lifehacker thread.

 

Did I just Destroy my new computer?

 

Hope this is what you are looking for.

 

Yep, I burned out my board.....again. So basically people, keep in mind to NEVER connect your firewire from a MAC to a HACKINTOSH. It will fry your board. At least for a dozen of us who have done it, it fried our boards.

 

The question is will FRYS take it back? Dont think so but we will see. 120 dollar mistake.

 

Thanks for your help peeps!

[MacWannaBe]

Parts from my "successful" 10.6 build:

 

- EP45-UDP3 V 1.6

- Intel E7200 Core Duo

- 2 x 2GB OCZ Reaper HPC DDR2 800 Memory

- WD 36 GB SAT Raptor Drive

- Samsung SATA DVD Burner

- nVidia 7600 GS (borrowed)

- Trendnet NIC (The one in the guide.)

 

I am able to install 10.6 and boot from the HD after installing the V3 installer in the HD.

 

Thanks in advance.

 

Ok.... I think that the issue is related to booting to 64bit and using that video card with 10.6.2. This is what I would do....

 

1) Get to 10.6.1 with everything working with V3.

2) Use TextWrangler (http://www.barebones.com/products/TextWrangler/) or a pure text editor (not textedit)

and change your /Extra/com.apple.Boot.plist

 

to include the following:

<key>arch</key>

<string>i386</string>

 

3) Reboot.

4) Ensure that you are running the 32bit kernel. In system profiler, select the "Software" section on the left. You should see: 64-bit Kernel and Extensions: No.

 

5) if this is what it shows, now update to 10.6.2.

 

Let us know how it goes.

 

-Ed

[jamis2001]

Ok.... I think that the issue is related to booting to 64bit and using that video card with 10.6.2. This is what I would do....

 

1) Get to 10.6.1 with everything working with V3.

2) Use TextWrangler (http://www.barebones.com/products/TextWrangler/) or a pure text editor (not textedit)

and change your /Extra/com.apple.Boot.plist

 

to include the following:

<key>arch</key>

<string>i386</string>

 

3) Reboot.

4) Ensure that you are running the 32bit kernel. In system profiler, select the "Software" section on the left. You should see: 64-bit Kernel and Extensions: No.

 

5) if this is what it shows, now update to 10.6.2.

 

Let us know how it goes.

 

-Ed

 

Thanks! I will try it tomorrow and report back.

[Wowzer42]

Yep, I burned out my board.....again. So basically people, keep in mind to NEVER connect your firewire from a MAC to a HACKINTOSH. It will fry your board. At least for a dozen of us who have done it, it fried our boards.

 

The question is will FRYS take it back? Dont think so but we will see. 120 dollar mistake.

 

Thanks for your help peeps!

 

 

Ouch! Do you mean that if you connect the firewire port from a Mac to your Hackintosh, it'll fry out the gigabyte MB? Were you trying to migrate over from the Mac to the hackintosh?

[mrquacker]

Yep, I burned out my board.....again. So basically people, keep in mind to NEVER connect your firewire from a MAC to a HACKINTOSH. It will fry your board. At least for a dozen of us who have done it, it fried our boards.

 

The question is will FRYS take it back? Dont think so but we will see. 120 dollar mistake.

 

Thanks for your help peeps!

Ouch! Do you mean that if you connect the firewire port from a Mac to your Hackintosh, it'll fry out the gigabyte MB? Were you trying to migrate over from the Mac to the hackintosh?

 

How did you manage that? Did you start up the mac in Target Disk Mode first? I had zero issues using the migration assistant to move everything over from my G4 Powerbook to the Hackintosh.

 

Disclaimer: I used the firewire port on the front of my Antec900 case, not the one on the mobo.

 

If firewire does not work, you can use the "over network" feature, although it will take *forever*. For an 100Gb transfer from Powerbook to Hackintosh it gave me an 18 hour estimate. Firewire took 45mins - 1hr.

[jamis2001]

Ok.... I think that the issue is related to booting to 64bit and using that video card with 10.6.2. This is what I would do....

 

1) Get to 10.6.1 with everything working with V3.

2) Use TextWrangler (http://www.barebones.com/products/TextWrangler/) or a pure text editor (not textedit)

and change your /Extra/com.apple.Boot.plist

 

to include the following:

<key>arch</key>

<string>i386</string>

 

3) Reboot.

4) Ensure that you are running the 32bit kernel. In system profiler, select the "Software" section on the left. You should see: 64-bit Kernel and Extensions: No.

 

5) if this is what it shows, now update to 10.6.2.

 

Let us know how it goes.

 

-Ed

 

This works!!!!

 

Thank you very much for the help.

 

I am going to use Time Machine to back it up and then move on to my next adventure: Making the ATI 4850 works, hopefully CrossFire would work too as it is my Win 7 configuration.

[chewdog316]

Ouch! Do you mean that if you connect the firewire port from a Mac to your Hackintosh, it'll fry out the gigabyte MB? Were you trying to migrate over from the Mac to the hackintosh?

 

Yeah I was trying to migrate, and it just fried it with that oh so familiar burnt marshmellow smell. (Thats what I associate the burnt electronic smell.) Sucks, but frys replaced it with no questions asked.

 

I dont know how to fix it, I read another forum and they had the same problem without a fix. Im going to just do it over the network cable. Its cheaper.

 

How did you manage that? Did you start up the mac in Target Disk Mode first? I had zero issues using the migration assistant to move everything over from my G4 Powerbook to the Hackintosh.

 

Disclaimer: I used the firewire port on the front of my Antec900 case, not the one on the mobo.

 

If firewire does not work, you can use the "over network" feature, although it will take *forever*. For an 100Gb transfer from Powerbook to Hackintosh it gave me an 18 hour estimate. Firewire took 45mins - 1hr.

 

I did not put it into taget disk mode, but again, on the linked forum posted above I did not see any fix or tips to succesfully migrate using the on board firewire.

[ruby_99]

Yeah I was trying to migrate, and it just fried it with that oh so familiar burnt marshmellow smell. (Thats what I associate the burnt electronic smell.) Sucks, but frys replaced it with no questions asked.

...

I did not put it into taget disk mode, but again, on the linked forum posted above I did not see any fix or tips to succesfully migrate using the on board firewire.

I successfully migrated from a G4 Mini to my hack. I don't remember the actual steps, but I believe that I hooked up the firewire cable while both were powered up and hot-swapped the monitor as well.

[jamis2001]

 

I am stoked.

 

My set up finally works. And it seems like 10.6.2 support Radeon 4850, even in crossfire mode. It supports one card with no issues, it hesitated a little with the second card and then started fine. Running 1920x1200 at 32 bit colors.

 

My setup:

 

EP45-UD3P v1.6

Intel E7200 Core Duo 2.53 GHz overclokled to 3.6 GHz (400Mhz x 9.0)

2x2GB OCZ Reaper HPC DDR2 800 memory

WD Raptor 36GB SATA drive

Samsung SATA DVD RW

Trendnet TEG-PCITXR

Sapphire Radeon 4850 (512MB) x2.

 

Thank you all for the great help.

[the_indrewder]

I set up a RAID0 with 2 1.5 TB drives using Disk Utility when installing Snow Leopard. I can boot fine when booting off the usb stick and then selecting the first of the two drives. I ran the installer (version 3) on the raid setup and then tried to boot from the raid0 without the usb key.. no go. I get stuck at verifying DMI pool data. Any suggestions as to what to do?

[CoHPhasor]

I set up a RAID0 with 2 1.5 TB drives using Disk Utility when installing Snow Leopard. I can boot fine when booting off the usb stick and then selecting the first of the two drives. I ran the installer (version 3) on the raid setup and then tried to boot from the raid0 without the usb key.. no go. I get stuck at verifying DMI pool data. Any suggestions as to what to do?

 

I believe there are other places in the OSx86 forums dealing with RAID.

 

I did not put it into taget disk mode, but again, on the linked forum posted above I did not see any fix or tips to succesfully migrate using the on board firewire.

 

You did see a fix, you simply didn't realize it.

6-pin firewire is powered.

4-pin firewire is not.

If the problem is the power feed frying the board it stands to reason to use

a 4-pin port/cable. (a 6-pin:4-pin cable/adapeter is fine)

 

Let that be noted to all those here. Don't risk it, use a 4-pin.

Btw,.. what board rev. do you have? (1.0, 1.1, 1.6) It's printed on the corner.

[Christian 1985]

Agh,

 

I didn't pay attention and i just fried my board thanks to that damn firewire. And I had a perfectly working hackintosh after a few tweaks

[the_indrewder]

I believe there are other places in the OSx86 forums dealing with RAID.

 

It's alright, I figured it out. Thanks though!

[jsw513]

wowza...I'm glad I found you guys. Looks like I might be running into some problems. I found the life hacker post, and contemplated the build for a while, and finally decided to pull the trigger. I ordered the exact parts list they had posted, and am waiting for them to arrive, likely sometime this week.

 

I already have a copy of snow leopard, I'm just waiting for my parts. This will be my first computer build ever, maybe I'm in over my head. By reading through lifehacker, it seemed that if I follow step by step, i should be fine, but it looks like people are running into a bunch of problems, and using lingo I just don't understand.

 

I started reading through the thread, and I got frustrated, so now I'm posting. Can anyone direct me to any guides on how to update my SL system to 10.6.1 and 10.6.2? I'll be following the direct steps posted on life hacker for my initial build, and install.

 

Thanks peepz...I'm assuming I"ll be talking to you guys quite a bit in the future

[thepretender]

wowza...I'm glad I found you guys. Looks like I might be running into some problems. I found the life hacker post, and contemplated the build for a while, and finally decided to pull the trigger. I ordered the exact parts list they had posted, and am waiting for them to arrive, likely sometime this week.

 

I already have a copy of snow leopard, I'm just waiting for my parts. This will be my first computer build ever, maybe I'm in over my head. By reading through lifehacker, it seemed that if I follow step by step, i should be fine, but it looks like people are running into a bunch of problems, and using lingo I just don't understand.

 

I started reading through the thread, and I got frustrated, so now I'm posting. Can anyone direct me to any guides on how to update my SL system to 10.6.1 and 10.6.2? I'll be following the direct steps posted on life hacker for my initial build, and install.

 

Thanks peepz...I'm assuming I"ll be talking to you guys quite a bit in the future

 

Using the guide get version 3 of the install package found here http://stellarola.tumblr.com/post/23846198...-update-ud3p-v3 instead of the one linked in the guide.

 

Then get the combo update to 10.6.2 here and install. http://support.apple.com/kb/DL959

 

Then go to software update from the apple icon at the top and install what ever shows up.

 

You will now be up to date with you Snow Leopard install. Work like a charm for me

[jsw513]

thanks for your help pretender...I may have jumped ship a little early in asking this question...I'm just getting nervous/anxious about my build. I should probably get 10.6.0 up and running on the machine i have yet to build before I go asking questions...

 

ugh...I'm getting nervous.

 

Using the guide get version 3 of the install package found here http://stellarola.tumblr.com/post/23846198...-update-ud3p-v3 instead of the one linked in the guide.

 

Then get the combo update to 10.6.2 here and install. http://support.apple.com/kb/DL959

 

Then go to software update from the apple icon at the top and install what ever shows up.

 

You will now be up to date with you Snow Leopard install. Work like a charm for me

[MacTech84]

thanks for your help pretender...I may have jumped ship a little early in asking this question...I'm just getting nervous/anxious about my build. I should probably get 10.6.0 up and running on the machine i have yet to build before I go asking questions...

 

ugh...I'm getting nervous.

 

I think at some point we all get nervous when attempting something new, I was as well when I started my new Hack-Intosh with this build. Feel free to ask any questions here and we will try to help the best we can.

 

Sorry I have been down a few days, the holidays and family have kept me pretty busy. And it seems there are a lot of issues going right now with the Fire Wire ports. Here is something to consider....

 

6 - Pin FireWire (as well as FW800) is fully powered and meant for Hard Drives, some audio interfaces, high end video cameras and basically anything that requires 0 latency communication.

 

4 - Pin FireWire was funny enough, created by Sony, as an extension of FireWire from Apple, for general consumer video cameras and transferring data. It was meant to not take so much room up on a video camera yet still provide fast transfer from the camera and even direct video editing. The reason it lacks 2 pins is of course for power.

 

Now when connecting devices to either of these ports there are a few things to consider and in my opinion just playing it safe. If you want Hard Drive data transfers, i.e. from old mac to new, use the 6 pin port and do not use the 4 pin. Only use that if you have a Video Camera that uses it, just to play safe.

 

As for problems blowing the board and connecting Old Mac to the Hack-Intosh there is a very specific reason why Apple created Target Disc Mode. The Mac has to go into Target Disc Mode otherwise its like plugging a light bulb into 2 sockets (if it were possible) and then turning both sockets on. Essentially flodding a 50 Watt lightbulb with 100 Watts of power and Boom! there goes the lightbulb. Target Disk mode essentially ramps down the power in the port, and makes it act like an external hard drive, versus giving 100% power through the port to give an external device power.

[CoHPhasor]

Now when connecting devices to either of these ports there are a few things to consider and in my opinion just playing it safe. If you want Hard Drive data transfers, i.e. from old mac to new, use the 6 pin port and do not use the 4 pin. Only use that if you have a Video Camera that uses it, just to play safe.

 

Although technically enlightening, remember that most non-Mac laptops

equipped with FW are only 4-pin.

As we both pointed out 4-pin FW vs 6-pin FW have only one difference; powered ports.

 

I have never tried migrating from one Mac to another, and if it is done "live", ie 2 fully powered on Macs, it must be that Macs auto-sense that they have been connected to a powered FW port and turn off their power automatically.

 

If this is indeed true, then it should absolutely work if you use either a 4-pin

adapter on both sides, or a 6-pin to 4-pin cable.

(the 6:4 cable doesn't have conductors in it for the power pin, else you would fry your camcorder. ;-) )

[MacTech84]

Although technically enlightening, remember that most non-Mac laptops

equipped with FW are only 4-pin.

As we both pointed out 4-pin FW vs 6-pin FW have only one difference; powered ports.

 

I have never tried migrating from one Mac to another, and if it is done "live", ie 2 fully powered on Macs, it must be that Macs auto-sense that they have been connected to a powered FW port and turn off their power automatically.

 

If this is indeed true, then it should absolutely work if you use either a 4-pin

adapter on both sides, or a 6-pin to 4-pin cable.

(the 6:4 cable doesn't have conductors in it for the power pin, else you would fry your camcorder. ;-) )

 

After digging a bit further into tech specs... real Mac's do in fact auto sense through the Firewire port, while this is part of the chipset, PC's should be able to as well but this would need to be done within a combination of the BIOS by the manufacturer and the OS. Since we are using a hack most likely the boards are lacking this auto sense that would normally apply. I would recommend that if you are going to migrate, either pull the drive from your mac, put it into target disk mode, or just use the network for small files, then say an external drive for larger files.

[jsw513]

hey guys...question about my build. I ordered all my parts from New Egg...it looks like the bulk of it shipped from New Jersey, but the DVD drive is coming from California. Everything is estimated to be here tomorrow, but the DVD drive on Jan 4th. I'm pretty eager to get in and build this thing.

 

Can I build and install w/out the DVD drive and just throw it in when it arrives, or do I need it? If it's needed, can I go pick up any make and model from Best Buy and put that in, and just return new Egg's when it get's here? I really wanna get on this, and don't wanna wait until the 4th to start...

 

advice....

[AkronElliott]

hey guys...question about my build. I ordered all my parts from New Egg...it looks like the bulk of it shipped from New Jersey, but the DVD drive is coming from California. Everything is estimated to be here tomorrow, but the DVD drive on Jan 4th. I'm pretty eager to get in and build this thing.

 

Can I build and install w/out the DVD drive and just throw it in when it arrives, or do I need it? If it's needed, can I go pick up any make and model from Best Buy and put that in, and just return new Egg's when it get's here? I really wanna get on this, and don't wanna wait until the 4th to start...

 

advice....

 

Your installation will be from your USB Thumb drive.

 

The BIOS will not show your DVD drive. So that will appear different when setting the BIOS.

 

You should be able to build without it and install the DVD when it arrives. Only will impact the BIOS settings.