Motherboard suggestions

[msingh]

I am trying to build a custom hackintosh for myself.

 

I am getting a little dizzy going through all the motherboards on newegg. What I want - onboard audio (don't care about video as such since I am buying a supported graphics card - ATI Radeon 5670) and onboard LAN that just works natively with OSX. I want to avoid special kexts as much as possible (which is the right thing to shoot for since I am building this myself).

 

Right now, my search consists of going through the specs, and googling for each LAN or audio chip with OSX. This is going to take forever.

 

Can someone please suggest:

 

1. What are the chipsets to avoid for OSX (so if I know Realtek is not natively supported, I don't waste my time).

 

2. What are kosher chipsets (does Broadcom make onboard LAN for motherboards for desktops) ?

 

3. I can guess the answer to this question, but I will ask anyways. What is the motherboard used in a mac pro ? I am looking for an LGA 1156 socket for the Core i7 860 I am thinking of buying. Googling has led to more confusion than I started with.

 

?

[geiman]

The motherboard in a Mac Pro isn't the same as what you are finding on Newegg; tear one apart once and you will see.

 

As for what to buy; you are doing it backwards. If you don't know what to look for on newegg, look here first. Find someone who has the board of your dreams working perfectly under OS X, and then you know what to buy. This community is big enough now I would imagine someone has a new enough board that does just what you want, and they have already gone through the headache of getting OS X running. If this isn't helping you, then you will need to do the grunt work of looking up the chipsets, etc.. here to find out what is supported, and then finding boards with those. If you've read on this forum much, you know there are a few good brands that give excellent compatibility, so right there that narrows newgg's results down a bit.

[msingh]

The motherboard in a Mac Pro isn't the same as what you are finding on Newegg; tear one apart once and you will see.

 

As for what to buy; you are doing it backwards. If you don't know what to look for on newegg, look here first. Find someone who has the board of your dreams working perfectly under OS X, and then you know what to buy. This community is big enough now I would imagine someone has a new enough board that does just what you want, and they have already gone through the headache of getting OS X running. If this isn't helping you, then you will need to do the grunt work of looking up the chipsets, etc.. here to find out what is supported, and then finding boards with those. If you've read on this forum much, you know there are a few good brands that give excellent compatibility, so right there that narrows newgg's results down a bit.

 

 

It does not seem to be quite as simple as that. I consulted tonymacosx86, kakewalk, etc. and found:

 

1. Gigabyte GA-P55M-UD2 works well, but found a few reviews (non-OSX related) that suggest that its socket can melt when used with the core i7 processors.

 

2. A change in the revision number is apparently enough to make a very compatible card, well, less than compatible.

[geiman]

If those are the problems you are considering, then I'm not sure you will every buy anything. A melting socket? Certainly sounds like grounds for using your warranty.

 

You researched a few places, looks like a few boards; thats a good start. Not nearly enough. There are countless guides here about "Flawless install on XXX System" -- That is what I would be looking at (and do, every time I buy a system for this purpose).

[msingh]

If those are the problems you are considering, then I'm not sure you will every buy anything. A melting socket? Certainly sounds like grounds for using your warranty.

 

You researched a few places, looks like a few boards; thats a good start. Not nearly enough. There are countless guides here about "Flawless install on XXX System" -- That is what I would be looking at (and do, every time I buy a system for this purpose).

 

Insanelymac's infamous and unique IPS driver error (never seen anything like this in any other forum) ate my response as soon as I submitted it. Forum owners - please fix the software, this is incredibly irritating and wasteful of time when it happens.

 

I think that a melting socket is a showstopper. Yes, the warranty is available to be used, but what is the cost in time ? I guess my point is - I am happy to invest a bit of time in building this rig, learn about building machines, etc. But I am not willing to make this an eternal project, where I keep tinkering with it just because I was not careful enough to start with.

 

It is obvious what I have read so far is just a start. The word "flawless" is a relative term. One person might consider the ease of use and availability of a patch that makes a partially incompatible piece of hardware functional to be "flawless". To anyone sensible, that is a time bomb waiting for an Apple update. So, one has to obviously use the hardware that Apple actually uses in iMacs and Mac Pros today, like an ATI Radeon HD 5670 graphics card (what's with all the coloured plastic rebranding on newegg ?).

 

With motherboards (as you clarified in response to my question), the situation is considerably less clear. But one does have to take basic physical limits of the hardware and the revision number into account.

[msingh]

If those are the problems you are considering, then I'm not sure you will every buy anything. A melting socket? Certainly sounds like grounds for using your warranty.

 

You researched a few places, looks like a few boards; thats a good start. Not nearly enough. There are countless guides here about "Flawless install on XXX System" -- That is what I would be looking at (and do, every time I buy a system for this purpose).

 

Are you able to properly shutdown, reboot, sleep and hibernate your rigs ? The hibernate (aka Deep Sleep) is particularly important to me.

[geiman]

shutdown, reboot, sleep all yes. The hibernate I have never tried on my current desktop because I have never had any need for it on there. However on my Toshiba hackintosh I frequently used deep sleep, particularly during the school year between classes.

[msingh]

shutdown, reboot, sleep all yes. The hibernate I have never tried on my current desktop because I have never had any need for it on there. However on my Toshiba hackintosh I frequently used deep sleep, particularly during the school year between classes.

 

Thanks for the response.

 

I personally consider the ability to hibernate to be even more important than sleep. I like to be able to have zero power consumption while I am traveling. For a desktop, I like to be able to bring the system to hibernate so that I do not have to worry about power failures. Those are becoming more common, with the bad weather, and all.