daffycus Posted October 15, 2007 Share Posted October 15, 2007 I have been browsing the WIKI and these forums for quite some time looking for ideas on working OSX86 systems. Just to give a little background, I have been building my own PCs since the 386 days, I bought a Mac Mini when they were first introduced and really enjoyed using it. It did leave me feeling out of the loop though as far as tinkering/upgrading. Also for my photography hobby it was much slower than my low end PC. When the Intel Macs came along, the landscape changed considerably. I can appreciate why Apple doesn't sell OSX in a box at Staples for anyone to enjoy, so the handful of people who have made this work on legacy BIOS, systems have really done a service to the geeks out there. Thanks to all the knowledgable people here I have 3 working installs! I have two working installs from pre-built systems, but the most recent system built with new parts will be of most interest to folks here. Here are the specs: Antec Sonata III case, (a little bulky but nice and quiet) Gigabyte 965P-S3 Motherboard, (Full ATX, well known to everyone here, with F12 BIOS installed) Intel Core 2 Duo 6550 at stock speed of 2.33 Ghz 4 x 1GB DDR2 Corsair Pioneer 212D SATA DVD/RW, (Used for install) Pioneer 112D IDE DVD/RW, (Used for everyday use) Seagate 320 GB SATA HDD BFG Nvidia 7900 GS OC 256 MB PCIe Video Card, (Dual DVI) Installed Uphuck v 1.3 (10.4.9). Used Natit 0.2 for Dual display, SSE3-2 Kernal, Speedstep patches for Core 2 Duo, JMicron Drivers, and All Apps. Then updated using koolkal 10.4.10 SSE3 Sound and Ethenet do not work after install. For Sound you need the Azailia ALC888 Audio package. For Ethernet you need to install a modified AppleYukon kext package, delete the AppleYukon2 and repair permsissions. The ethernet was the hardest to get working, but it does work! If after installing the fix for AppleYukon it may seem as though nothing has changed, try opening up safari and going through the "network troubleshooting" link when it fails to find the start page. A pop may show a new etherent device has been detected, then go into network in the System Preferences and Configure your etherenet card. I noticed after installing the 10.4.10 update it seemed a little messed up. Repair permissions and reboot a few times and then it was fine. This system now will sleep properly! It wakes from sleep no problem, graphics fan spins down and everything! I'm very impressed with the performance as well. Games such as Warcraft III work great at 1650x1050, dual display works great As I've said, this entire system works very well, there is only one minor issue remaining. The SATA DVD drive seems to go to sleep after a period of time and will not wake up unless the system is rebooted. I installed the IDE Pioneer drive, and it does not have this problem. Maybe someone else knows if this problem? In conclusion, for just slightly more than the price of a Mac Mini, I have a system with 4 GB of RAM, a fast Nvidia 7900 GS video card and the ability to upgrade to Quad core in the future. It is very quiet, and with a new apple keyboard and wall mounted LCD attached a pleasure to use. The only thing I would like to add is a PCIe Firewire 800/400 card. Just a note: I started this build with a Gigabyte P35-DS3L, a more modern board costing the same. This board installed all fine except audio. It overcloked really well, (unlike the 965 board), however in OS X it would run fine for 10 min. or 2 hours and just kernal panick. I tried other video cards, less ram, it was simply unstable in OSX. This could be a bad board, others seem to have success with it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Akiro Posted October 15, 2007 Share Posted October 15, 2007 I have been browsing the WIKI and these forums for quite some time looking for ideas on working OSX86 systems. Just to give a little background, I have been building my own PCs since the 386 days, I bought a Mac Mini when they were first introduced and really enjoyed using it. It did leave me feeling out of the loop though as far as tinkering/upgrading. Also for my photography hobby it was much slower than my low end PC. When the Intel Macs came along, the landscape changed considerably. I can appreciate why Apple doesn't sell OSX in a box at Staples for anyone to enjoy, so the handful of people who have made this work on legacy BIOS, systems have really done a service to the geeks out there. Thanks to all the knowledgable people here I have 3 working installs! I have two working installs from pre-built systems, but the most recent system built with new parts will be of most interest to folks here. Here are the specs: Antec Sonata III case, (a little bulky but nice and quiet) Gigabyte 965P-S3 Motherboard, (Full ATX, well known to everyone here, with F12 BIOS installed) Intel Core 2 Duo 6550 at stock speed of 2.33 Ghz 4 x 1GB DDR2 Corsair Pioneer 212D SATA DVD/RW, (Used for install) Pioneer 112D IDE DVD/RW, (Used for everyday use) Seagate 320 GB SATA HDD BFG Nvidia 7900 GS OC 256 MB PCIe Video Card, (Dual DVI) Installed Uphuck v 1.3 (10.4.9). Used Natit 0.2 for Dual display, SSE3-2 Kernal, Speedstep patches for Core 2 Duo, JMicron Drivers, and All Apps. Then updated using koolkal 10.4.10 SSE3 Sound and Ethenet do not work after install. For Sound you need the Azailia ALC888 Audio package. For Ethernet you need to install a modified AppleYukon kext package, delete the AppleYukon2 and repair permsissions. The ethernet was the hardest to get working, but it does work! If after installing the fix for AppleYukon it may seem as though nothing has changed, try opening up safari and going through the "network troubleshooting" link when it fails to find the start page. A pop may show a new etherent device has been detected, then go into network in the System Preferences and Configure your etherenet card. I noticed after installing the 10.4.10 update it seemed a little messed up. Repair permissions and reboot a few times and then it was fine. This system now will sleep properly! It wakes from sleep no problem, graphics fan spins down and everything! I'm very impressed with the performance as well. Games such as Warcraft III work great at 1650x1050, dual display works great As I've said, this entire system works very well, there is only one minor issue remaining. The SATA DVD drive seems to go to sleep after a period of time and will not wake up unless the system is rebooted. I installed the IDE Pioneer drive, and it does not have this problem. Maybe someone else knows if this problem? In conclusion, for just slightly more than the price of a Mac Mini, I have a system with 4 GB of RAM, a fast Nvidia 7900 GS video card and the ability to upgrade to Quad core in the future. It is very quiet, and with a new apple keyboard and wall mounted LCD attached a pleasure to use. The only thing I would like to add is a PCIe Firewire 800/400 card. Just a note: I started this build with a Gigabyte P35-DS3L, a more modern board costing the same. This board installed all fine except audio. It overcloked really well, (unlike the 965 board), however in OS X it would run fine for 10 min. or 2 hours and just kernal panick. I tried other video cards, less ram, it was simply unstable in OSX. This could be a bad board, others seem to have success with it? Thanks for the info... I'm currently using an Asrock Dual-VSTA motherboard that worked fine (although it was very slow) for a Jas 10.4.7 install on a PATA HD drive and is now very flaky with a Uphuck 10.4.9 (1.3) SATA install and I'm considering a new MB to replace this one....... I'll look into this... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
volospin Posted October 15, 2007 Share Posted October 15, 2007 daffycus I want to know if you used the Jmicron SATA plugs or the ICH8 plugs for installation? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daffycus Posted October 15, 2007 Author Share Posted October 15, 2007 daffycus I want to know if you used the Jmicron SATA plugs or the ICH8 plugs for installation? I haven't tried the purple SATA plugs yet. The 4 ICH8 Orange ones work fine for install though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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