BAH! Ready for a MB that 'just works'. Any suggestions?

[farski]

I've just about reached the end of the rope with this.

 

I've been working on an i7 920 build since November. The only thing keeping me from finishing it is this fracking mother board. It's an EVGA FTW3 X58. It's not even that it doesn't play well with OS X (I got it nearly perfect), it's apparently just a terrible piece of hardware.

 

I'm already on my second one, because the first one was losing all CMOS settings at the drop of a hat. Totally unacceptable. Now this one's doing it to, and there's a host of other little things that make no sense (power LED never goes off, even if the computer's off. Uh, what? Won't boot if the KB is plugged into the wrong USB port, etc.).

 

Anyway, I'm ready to get a refund for it (through EVGA, Newegg, or American Express. However I need to) and sacrifice some of the perks I was looking forward to for something that just does it's job.

 

Anyone have a good recommendation? All I'd need is:

LGA 1366

6xMemory slots (DDR3 1600)

1xPCIEx16

A really solid DSDT already out there. Not in the mood to make my own at this point. Lame, I know, but the truth.

Sleep needs to work

Speedstep really should work

 

Beyond that anything else would be a luxury. USB 3 is probably going to come on any board that meets those specs. eSATA would be nice, and an extra PCIEx16 could be useful down the road. An extra gigabit port would save me from needing a NIC at some point, I'm sure. SATA 6Gb is honestly not a huge deal. But none of those are necessary.

 

I'm really just frustrated at this point and want something that both works and works with OS X. I'm sure there's a go-to GB board out there that fits my needs perfectly that I probably should have used from the start. The budget will in the vicinity of $270.

 

Thanks for any help or suggestions you can provide.

[Hagar]

Welcome to the world of hackintoshing, where the only limitation is your own skill. If you want no effort, there *really*

 

 

 

NO, SERIOUSLY!

 

 

Really

 

is no alternative to a real Mac.

 

There is no "Just works" PC hardware.

 

People post questions like this every day. If there was a sensible answer it would be stickied in big letters at the top of the new users section. As there isn't, people should stop asking & use the fabulous resources at their disposal to research their own builds instead.

 

Maybe this just isn't for you?

[farski]

Thanks for the reply. I've been running the hackintosh in my sig for several years now, and it took many, many hours of tweaking and working with other members of this community to get working, so I have a good idea of the hurdles that can pop up.

 

I'm not looking for a no-effort answer, just no-risk (or, realistically, low-risk). i7 builds are common enough now that I figured someone has one on a 1366, tripple channel board that can go to sleep that they could just say "here's what I'm using, it works fine". I can track down the DSDT and necessary kexts on my own. The problem is it's so easy to find page after page of reports of things not working, and very tough to find a simple report of someone saying "here's my build that works". Or maybe I'm just looking in the wrong place. I'm not asking for people to walk me through building a hackintosh step by step, I don't need to know which setting to change in the BIOS or where to put my device strings, just a simple motherboard recommendation.

 

I know no one simple answer will solve everyone's needs, and there will always be a new change available even for the "100% WORKING PERFECT" how-tos people have made, whether it be LCD brightness control, better thermal sensor reporting, or whatever, so it's a constantly moving target anyway. But I do think asking for a motherboard recommendation that has very few requirements, all of which are extremely common, is a question that has an answer.

 

I suppose I could be overlooking some of the resources available to me, though. Where would you recommend I look find reports of people's successes with their motherboards? Or better yet, where can I go to report my own successes? The osx86 Hardware Database is woefully underutilized and ineffective. Even my own build's components, that have been working essentially perfect for years, aren't included. I obviously am partly responsible for that, since I could submit new hardware, but it doesn't change the fact that there is no single point of reference for which hardware does what, and it's not respected as a good resource anyway. If I were to submit my hardware, there isn't even a good way to say, "here's what's fixed in this DSDT (with a link), here are the kexts you still need, here's what you need to watch for when you upgrade OS X, etc." The forum post relating to my current motherboard is I think 40 pages long; some information can be found in the third post that was updated frequently over time, and other information is scattered throughout the pages. It's strange that culling through that is the expect way of finding useful information If there were a good place to do post my own report, I don't think it actually would be so hard sticky it in big letters for new users to see. If a new user were to replicate my computer, with my /E/E files, I think they'd be extremely satisfied with a 'just works' system. Or even if someone were to come here and ask "Anyone have a good recommendation for a core 2 quad box that's stable" I think I should be able to say "here's my setup, everything works", and not need to send them on a wild goose chase to hopefully run across that thread and hopefully they realize the end result was a near-perfectly working computer.

[Hagar]

In a sense, you just answered your own question.

 

If your EVGA was really so flakey that it lost its cmos settings (I assume you've investigated the DSDT patches that prevent that in gigabyte boards) for no reason and you clearly have USB issues (Apple's USB stuff is definitely flakey once again there is a lot of DSDT'ery around to fix the things that exacerbate that) The power LED issue could be all sorts of things, including the fact that on some boards there is an "always on" led that shines as long as there is power to the psu or in the caps.

 

I'm guessing that your real issue is having a board that not a lot of others have hacked & therefore your knowledge base is a little on the small side.

 

My suggestion would be to make a shortlist of boards that fit your requirements, ideally from a vendor you use, and the google hell out of them to find which one has the most known about it and/or the least documented issues.

 

At the end of the day, that result is going to be way more accurate & useful to you than any response you'll get from a post like this.. after all, I could have picked a board at random & recommended it, and you might just have believed me....

 

which brings me back to my first point: your only limitation is yourself, and BTW, a pre-made DSDT isn't such a good idea, especially with all the knowledge and editors available now, customising one for just your machine is easier and more likely to succeed than ever.

 

So if you still have the bug, go for it & good luck!

[seanmcd]

I suggest the Gigabyte X58A-UD3R. Otherwise, any Gigabyte P55 series (or H55) board will work great in the 11156 world.

 

While Hagar is correct, it's not exactly the option for most of us.

 

There's one key to a smooth OSX86 experience, and that's picking the correct motherboard for it by researching left and right before buying. I am pretty sure you failed doing so with your current board selection. I've run OSX on my current and previous board with VERY little effort for several years now. It all begins with googling the {censored} out of your board selection.