[HowTo] Building my first OSx86 box...

[pluggulp]

Thanks Bofor. That re-affirms my guess. I might go and order one now :-)

[rockspeter]

Hi,

played with the bios! AND the linux setup finds the harddrive now! I changed IDE Modus to Legacy from Enhanced... when trying to format the drive it just stops at 100% and shows the spinning cursor.

I have a floppy drive in the computer now, plus i used intels tool to create a boot bios disk with 1788 on it. thing is i cant change the bios to boot of the floppy disk...it just stays at cd/dvd...even though i go in the menu and change it...

a) why do you think is the hdd formating and than freezing at the very end

i think it might be, because of my 1452 bios version...what bios setting do i need to have besides "legacy" and "sata as ide"?

 

rp

[bofors]

Hi,

played with the bios! AND the linux setup finds the harddrive now! I changed IDE Modus to Legacy from Enhanced... when trying to format the drive it just stops at 100% and shows the spinning cursor.

I have a floppy drive in the computer now, plus i used intels tool to create a boot bios disk with 1788 on it. thing is i cant change the bios to boot of the floppy disk...it just stays at cd/dvd...even though i go in the menu and change it...

 

Disconnect all the other drives if necessary.

 

 

a) why do you think is the hdd formating and than freezing at the very end

i think it might be, because of my 1452 bios version...what bios setting do i need to have besides "legacy" and "sata as ide"?

 

What version of Disk Utility are you working with? The 10.4.3 installer's Disk Utility has some GUI issues. Grab the window and move it to make sure it is indeed frozen. What format are you trying? I recomend regular HFS+ (Mac OS Extended, not journaled, not case sensitive). Also try partioning your disk into some smaller pieces and see if that makes any difference.

 

If this is not an OS X only disk right (no Linux, no Windows), try getting right of the other paritions first.

[rockspeter]

hi, disconnected the dvd drive. now it says when booting up: Intel Boot Agent GE trying to establish link...

and after a while the prompt says: no boot media found...the floppy disk is on...but never makes a sound...so i think its not being accessed at all...

the formating i tried was with novell linux, since i thought id use a final version of an os first to see if it works and than start playing with os x...

[bofors]

hi, disconnected the dvd drive. now it says when booting up: Intel Boot Agent GE trying to establish link...

and after a while the prompt says: no boot media found...the floppy disk is on...but never makes a sound...so i think its not being accessed at all...

Sounds like your floppy drive is not connected. Does BIOS set it?

the formating i tried was with novell linux, since i thought id use a final version of an os first to see if it works and than start playing with os x...

I would repartition the disk with OS X and then format your HFS+ partition, that should solve that problem.

[swag01]

Thanks bofors, you've inspired me to do about the same configuration.

 

 

I only have a couple things I'm doing differently. I have an Intel 930, different memory and using a X1300.

 

Also, I'm installing 10.4.4.

 

I'm working on three problems and then I will be good to go:

 

1. Network.

It didn't work right away, so I copied the kext from 10.4.3 and it works, but its slow. It seems to have a hard time finding the dns.

 

2. Sound.

Still don't have sound going, but I haven't modified the azaliaaudio kext. I'm thinking that might be the problem.

 

3. X1300

I tried to update the X1000 driver with my device id, however, after I did that, it would only boot up in safe mode. The boot would lock up when I wasn't in safe mode.

 

I'm thinking about moving to 10.4.5 soon and see if this fixes any of my problems. I heard that 10.4.5 is picky.

 

Thanks!!

[bofors]

Thanks for the report Swap01. These issues are one reason why I am sticking with 10.4.3 and the Intel GMA/ADD2 graphics for the time being.

 

Please continue to post your results with 10.4.4+ and your ATI x1300. Can you tell us exactly which x1300 model you are working with?

[swag01]

I just updated with the a patched dvd which has all the patches plus the 10.4.5 update.

 

It seems to run faster than 10.4.4, plus the network is working from the start.

 

I'm still having problems with the video and sound. I tried to update the ATIRadeonX1000 kext but it still locked up my machine. Its a VisionTek x1300 which has 512Mb. I have a Sappire X1600 pro with 256Mb on order and plan to keep it as my main card.

 

I haven't done anything with the sound. I still need to modify the kext's I guess to get this to work.

 

 

Thanks

 

-Greg

[GRAFFITI]

Hello !

 

What about the "multi-boot", do you ever try to press the ALT-key during the boot ?

 

Nicolas

[bofors]

I have a Sappire X1600 pro with 256Mb on order...

 

Thanks again for the information. I plan to get an ATI x1600 card like the Sapphire you ordered at some point, after they are working perfectly.

 

 

What about the "multi-boot", do you ever try to press the ALT-key during the boot ?

I assume you talking about the OpenFirmware/EFI boot volume selector on normal Macs. This does not work on "hackintoshs" (yet?), because we are using Intel's BIOS. Hopefully, we will see people with EFI capable motherboards flash Apple's ROM to enable this great feature on "hackintoshs".

[vfilby]

Bofors,

 

I really appreciate you posting your experiences here. I am at the point now where I am either going to upgrade my hardware to work with mac and buy a really nice display *or* buy an iMac. I would prefer to keep my current hardware for the time being because it would be cheaper.

 

I have noticed that the hackintosh (running in sse2 emulation mode) has a number of annoyances. The only thing that is holding me back from upgrading my current hardware to work better is the fear that some of these annoyances might persist.

 

What are the biggest problems/annoyances you have run into now that you have it up and running?

 

Thanks,

V

[swag01]

Thanks again for the information. I plan to get an ATI x1600 card like the Sapphire you ordered at some point, after they are working perfectly.

I assume you talking about the OpenFirmware/EFI boot volume selector on normal Macs. This does not work on "hackintoshs" (yet?), because we are using Intel's BIOS. Hopefully, we will see people with EFI capable motherboards flash Apple's ROM to enable this great feature on "hackintoshs".

 

 

I just installed iLife 06 and boy is it slick. Garageband works so fast. I also have a Mac G4 1Ghz and it doesn't even compare to the performance on this machine.

 

I tried iWork 06, but keynote keeps crashing. I think its because my graphics card isn't being recognized by the os. Once I get this fixed, I think it will work great.

 

Thanks for all your help....

[bofors]

What are the biggest problems/annoyances you have run into now that you have it up and running?

 

I think I need to preface my response by stating that my experience with OSx86 may be different than others. I started with a clean slate and very carefully choose which hardware to use, in particular the motherboard.

 

As far as technical annoyances go, they are minor to me. I am using the machine for work perhaps 10 hours a day and I think I am getting perhaps one kernal panic or spontaneous restart every five days or so. The spontaneous restart is a little annoying because it mildly corrupts the boot partition, so I have to boot up my 10.4.3 install disk and repair disk permissions when this happens. I could make this a little less annoying if I choose not to run AHCI (and just stuck with IDE).

 

Now here is the real issue in my mind: time. It took me a lot of time to pick out these components and jerk around with some five differents vendors to get the best deals. Then of course it took me more time to physically build the box and jack around with things like memory timings. But these issues are more of case of me being a PC-ignorant long time Mac user that are now largely remedied.

 

However, if you will notice that I am still running 10.4.3, not 10.4.4 or 10.4.5. This is because I simply have not wanted to invest the time into making the newer versions run. Likewise, I have yet to get a real graphics card like an ATI x1600 do to my perception that I will run into issues with it and otherwise spend a lot time getting it to run.

 

The bottom line is that the iMac is a good deal. If it meets your needs and you have other things that you would rather be doing besides screwing around with this OSx86 hardware and software issues, than I would recommend it. My situation is different, I needed high performance tower not an iMac (or Mini) and I do not expect Apple to even offer an x86 PowerMac until September.

[pluggulp]

Just upgraded my very similar system (identical motherboard) to 10.4.5. It broke the built-in sound but now my DLINK wireless works and the Rosetta improvements (Skype now works using a USB headset) compensate for that.

 

I tried copying the AppleAzaliaAudio and AppleHDA kexts from 10.4.3 into the extensions folder but that didn't fix the sound issues. (No, I didn't forget to fix permissions). I remember having seen this discussed on some threads, but I can't find it anymore (hints appreciated !!!).

[swag01]

Just upgraded my very similar system (identical motherboard) to 10.4.5. It broke the built-in sound but now my DLINK wireless works and the Rosetta improvements (Skype now works using a USB headset) compensate for that.

 

I tried copying the AppleAzaliaAudio and AppleHDA kexts from 10.4.3 into the extensions folder but that didn't fix the sound issues. (No, I didn't forget to fix permissions). I remember having seen this discussed on some threads, but I can't find it anymore (hints appreciated !!!).

 

 

I did the same with the Sound and it worked. One thing I noticed was the Green jack on the computer doesn't work four the audio out. I had to move it up to the top connector. It could be a similar problem for you.

 

I'm using 10.4.5 without problems now because I returned my X1300 and am using the on board video. The on board video is working great.

[pluggulp]

I did the same with the Sound and it worked. One thing I noticed was the Green jack on the computer doesn't work four the audio out. I had to move it up to the top connector. It could be a similar problem for you.

 

I'm using 10.4.5 without problems now because I returned my X1300 and am using the on board video. The on board video is working great.

 

Hmmm ... did you just copy the .kexts from 10.4.38f1111 to /System/Library/Extenstions ? If so, did you copy the AppleAzaliaAudio *and* the AppleHDA kernel extensions or just one of them ? Some posts seem to recommend deleting AppleHDA.kext which I haven't tried yet.

 

Or did you edit some of the .plist files in your kernel extensions ?

 

Maybe you can send me your .kext files in a PM ?

 

I agree with the onboard video, it really works nicely. Still waiting for my ADD2 card though. Now that WLAN works as well my machine based on this MoBo can really be used productively. Just bummed out about the missing sound. In the worst case I might have to dish out some money for a USB sound adaptor. However, the fact that it worked in 10.4.3. and that you have it working in 10.4.5. suggests that I'm doing something wrong here.

[swag01]

Hmmm ... did you just copy the .kexts from 10.4.38f1111 to /System/Library/Extenstions ? If so, did you copy the AppleAzaliaAudio *and* the AppleHDA kernel extensions or just one of them ? Some posts seem to recommend deleting AppleHDA.kext which I haven't tried yet.

 

Or did you edit some of the .plist files in your kernel extensions ?

 

Maybe you can send me your .kext files in a PM ?

 

I agree with the onboard video, it really works nicely. Still waiting for my ADD2 card though. Now that WLAN works as well my machine based on this MoBo can really be used productively. Just bummed out about the missing sound. In the worst case I might have to dish out some money for a USB sound adaptor. However, the fact that it worked in 10.4.3. and that you have it working in 10.4.5. suggests that I'm doing something wrong here.

 

I know the extensions I downloaded from piratebay and they were 10.4.3. I don't know what version. I think once I installed them and then moved my speaker cord from the green connector to the purple connector. Did you try moving the connector?

 

I don't know if its a bug specific with this environment because I have only had sound working in 10.4.5 but I saw someone else say that the sound doesn't come out of the green connector.

 

Its been a few days, but I can't remember if I had to modify the .kext to match my device. I think it worked right after I installed and did all the steps to force the kext to be built again.

 

I have an Sappire X1600 I'm getting tomorrow. I've heard good things about its support so I'm hoping it will work for me too.

[pluggulp]

I know the extensions I downloaded from piratebay and they were 10.4.3. I don't know what version. I think once I installed them and then moved my speaker cord from the green connector to the purple connector. Did you try moving the connector?

 

I don't know if its a bug specific with this environment because I have only had sound working in 10.4.5 but I saw someone else say that the sound doesn't come out of the green connector.

 

Its been a few days, but I can't remember if I had to modify the .kext to match my device. I think it worked right after I installed and did all the steps to force the kext to be built again.

 

I have an Sappire X1600 I'm getting tomorrow. I've heard good things about its support so I'm hoping it will work for me too.

 

 

Thanks for your reply.

I know that the line-in and line-out are switched across when it works (it worked for me in 10.4.38f11111).

In 10.4.3. I used to be able to go to System Prefrences Audio and adjust all the settings (such as balance, volume etc). Can you do that ? Now, in 10.4.5 it says "no audio device connected". Maybe there is some audio coming out the connector anyway, but I haven't tested it. But even if there was, this isn't the same level of functionality as before.

 

Again, which kext did you actually copy ? Only the AppleHDA.kext or both AppleAzaliaAudio.kext and AppleHDA ? Some posters suggest using only AppleHDA while others suggest using only Azalia and some others recoomend both. Could you check in your extensions folder whether you have all of these or only some of these present ? Your help is much appreciated.

Good luck with the Sapphire, hope you don't run into too many problems with mouse tearing etc. I'm not into gaming so the performance of the built-in GMA950 does the trick for me at the moment. Seeing that the GMA950 is also in the new Mac mini there's reason to believe that it will be supported for a long time and there might be optimized drivers further down the track.

[bofors]

I did the same with the Sound and it worked. One thing I noticed was the Green jack on the computer doesn't work four the audio out. I had to move it up to the top connector. It could be a similar problem for you.

This is "normal" for OSx86 on these Intel / SigmaTel 9220 boards.

I'm using 10.4.5 without problems now because I returned my X1300 and am using the on board video. The on board video is working great.

Hmm... perhaps I should be thinking about upgrading to 10.4.5 now.

I have an Sappire X1600 I'm getting tomorrow. I've heard good things about its support so I'm hoping it will work for me too.

Looking forward to your report, maybe I will get one too.

 

1. Network.

It didn't work right away, so I copied the kext from 10.4.3 and it works, but its slow. It seems to have a hard time finding the dns.

Did these network issues disappear with 10.4.5? Did you still have use the 10.4.3 kext? Is DNS still slow?

[swag01]

This is "normal" for OSx86 on these Intel / SigmaTel 9220 boards.

 

Hmm... perhaps I should be thinking about upgrading to 10.4.5 now.

 

Looking forward to your report, maybe I will get one too.

Did these network issues disappear with 10.4.5? Did you still have use the 10.4.3 kext? Is DNS still slow?

 

The network worked while I did the install (which never happened before). I suspect that the dvd I used had it patched with the 10.4.3 kext.

 

I used the dvd that's floating around which is 10.4.4 and its been patched with 10.4.5, plus all the other maxxuss patches. The OS X is working great in my environment. I have iWork and iLife installed and they work.

 

I just got the Sappire radeon X1600 card and will install it tonight. I'm hoping it gets recognized and I can do dual displays. Let you know how it goes.

[pluggulp]

Bofors,

 

when you upgrade to 10.4.5. let me know how you go with regards to the sigmatel audio.

I used the above-mentioned DVD that's floating around to upgrade my existing 10.4.3f11111

system, which broke it. As your configuration seems to be absolutely identical (except for RAM and CPU speed) to mine, I expect you will have a similar experience.

 

Overall, the upgrade is worth it despite of the audio issues (especially since you use

USB sound, which is unaffected).

[swag01]

This is "normal" for OSx86 on these Intel / SigmaTel 9220 boards.

 

Hmm... perhaps I should be thinking about upgrading to 10.4.5 now.

 

Looking forward to your report, maybe I will get one too.

Did these network issues disappear with 10.4.5? Did you still have use the 10.4.3 kext? Is DNS still slow?

 

 

I installed the Sappire X1600 and tweaked the ATIRadeonX1000.kext to match my device id. It's recognized my video card; however, I'm seeing the same cursor problem everyone else is seeing.

 

I forgot how to setup dual display's in the mac, so I'll see if that is possible. The control panel is only showing the resolution I have things set at, so it's not 100 percent perfect.

 

I got the card so I can use the machine for other things so I plan to do a tripple boot of Linux, Windows Xp and Osx.

 

I'll give an update if I figure anything else.

 

 

 

Bofors,

 

when you upgrade to 10.4.5. let me know how you go with regards to the sigmatel audio.

I used the above-mentioned DVD that's floating around to upgrade my existing 10.4.3f11111

system, which broke it. As your configuration seems to be absolutely identical (except for RAM and CPU speed) to mine, I expect you will have a similar experience.

 

Overall, the upgrade is worth it despite of the audio issues (especially since you use

USB sound, which is unaffected).

 

 

I thought you did a fress install? If you did an upgrade, that might be your problem. My configuration is the same as Bofors except for ram and cpu too and I haven't had a problem.

 

I tried to pm you my kext; however, I couldn't see any place to add an attachment?

[swag01]

I replied to the wrong e-mail.

 

 

I thought you did a fress install? If you did an upgrade, that might be your problem. My configuration is the same as Bofors except for ram and cpu too and I haven't had a problem.

 

I tried to pm you my kext; however, I couldn't see any place to add an attachment?

 

 

 

Bofors,

 

when you upgrade to 10.4.5. let me know how you go with regards to the sigmatel audio.

I used the above-mentioned DVD that's floating around to upgrade my existing 10.4.3f11111

system, which broke it. As your configuration seems to be absolutely identical (except for RAM and CPU speed) to mine, I expect you will have a similar experience.

 

Overall, the upgrade is worth it despite of the audio issues (especially since you use

USB sound, which is unaffected).

[bofors]

when you upgrade to 10.4.5. let me know how you go with regards to the sigmatel audio.

I will be posting the results here of course, but I will send you PM as well. Although I do not feel like messing with my OSx86 install yet, I am thinking it is time for me to upgrade to 10.4.5.

Overall, the upgrade is worth it despite of the audio issues (especially since you use

USB sound, which is unaffected).

Actually, I have not used USB sound on this machine since I first built it (but have two USB speaker sets that I could fall back on).

[tattoo99]

great thread.

 

are the integrated 950 graphics capable of driving an Apple 30 inch display? I assume the DVI connector is NOT dual-link, and so this is not the case.

 

anyone know of a compatible graphics card that can drive the 30 inch?

 

thanks.