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Lifehacker Guide with GA-EP45-UD3P Motherboard

scrambler_455

By scrambler_455,
in OSx86 10.6 (Snow Leopard)

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GA-EP45-UD3P / Core 2 Quad / 9800gtx Experience  

406 members have voted

  1. 1. Are you Booting SL

    • Stable - No Problems
      196
    • Stable - Minor Issues
      142
    • Unstable - Kernel Panics
      26
    • Not Booting
      46

2371 posts in this topic

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codymac
codymac
Posted
Posted

Well, it seems hot swapping on the MB is working again and it appears, thanks to gparted (live), that I had a bad partition table on one drive that was really screwing things up.

 

For NTFS, I'd recommend Paragon. My experience with MacFUSE/ntfs-3g have been that, while it works, the write performance is unbearably slow. I've had much better luck with Paragon.

 

As always, YMMV.

claroquesi
claroquesi
Posted
Posted
if it is, is there a way to test it? i believe it's labelled as 4gb.

 

ohhh yeah that's what it is, i bet. i bet it's labelled as 4gb bc it's a 4gb kit.

 

d'oh. verifying.

 

I know from your later post that you realized it was only 4Gb of RAM anyway... but I would recommend that you test this RAM and any additional RAM anyway. I did the build (with a few alterations... 9800GT card instead of GTX... and only 4Gb for budget reasons). The thing installed okay... then I tried to reinstall as I wanted to make a slight change and nothing worked after that. I spent DAYS buying different video cards, etc (that is how I went from a $34 9400 to a $110 9800GT). In the end, I ran across one of the packages for 10.5.7 that Weasksauce12 had put into the wild. It contained a memory check program as an ISO. I burned it to a CD-RW and booted into the CD. It immediately showed massive red (errors). Through trial and error, I found that one of the two memory cards was very bad. It worked well enough to start OSX one time (that is what really threw me). I could even boot a live Ubuntu CD. Heck, WinXP even installed. It turned out that OSX seems to be VERY picky about memory and just won't tolerate a bad stick sometimes.

 

I took back the old new RAM (OCX) and replaced with new new RAM (Crucial). Ran the test... everything was fine. Installed SL and it went just fine.

 

My lesson was this... if I had known about the ram test .iso, I could have saved myself at least 4 evenings of messing around just trying to get the installation to work. I was very close to returning everything.

 

I HIGHLY recommend the mem test for anyone doing a build. Memory just aint what it used to be I guess. Ironically, I have had just as many problems upgrading memory in a macbook and a mac mini. Of the 8Gb worth of memory I have upgraded between those two machines, 6Gb was bad and had to be sent back. Since you have to send back the good with the bad in a set, you run the same risk when they send new stuff to you. The Mac usually just WON'T work at all. It gives an error tone and that is that. I have a feeling that Apple tests the heck our their highly priced memory. I guess that testing is built into the high price of an OEM memory upgrade. Still not worth the high price of buying memory from Apple for my real macs to me, but something to keep in mind. FWIW, even when I replaced my mac mem, I bought a mem test program for a couple dollars that boots into single-user mode just to test it out even when it SEEMS to work.

MacTech84
MacTech84
Posted
Posted
ok so i am totally updated on 10.6.2, everything i need is working...

 

except the line in. i do play some WoW, and I can't the my gaming headset's mic to pick up. My webcam's mic is picking up.

 

Any tips?

 

Of course the first thing to check would be the audio settings in your control panel. But one thing I know of from a few other builds I have done, is that sometimes Line-In just does not work. I might recommend either a Mac specific Sound Card, I am looking for one, or possibly a USB audio in solution. That is why its detecting your webcam off the bat.

SamTheGeek
SamTheGeek
Posted
Posted
As far as sleep goes, be sure that your BIOS matches the same as the Lifehacker guide, make sure you have the latest BIOS installed from gigabyte, and that you have the v3 installer from stellarolla installed. That might fix that problem.

 

As for the fanless variant.... -_-:unsure::wacko: I don't think its ever going to happen. Even with a die shrink on the GPU, it puts out waaayyy too much heat for a fanless variant to dissipate. Fanless variants typically can be seen on some of the lower end cards such as the GTS 250/260 as they do not output as much heat. I know we never saw a fanless variant of the 8800 Ultra or GTX and they were behemoth's as well. While it would be nice, they just put out too much heat.

 

I thought I had all the settings the same, but one of the power management options was set to 32-bit, so it wasn't seen by the OS. It's all good now.

I think that eventually there will be an NVidia fanless GPU in the GTX series. It'll take one or two die shrinks, but it'll happen. Either that or a GTS with the same amount of power will come out and be fanless. The 9800GTX never got a fanless variant because the die-shrink of that became the GTS250, and got sped up slightly.

Thanks for the help!

Charlie97L
Charlie97L
Posted
Posted
Of course the first thing to check would be the audio settings in your control panel. But one thing I know of from a few other builds I have done, is that sometimes Line-In just does not work. I might recommend either a Mac specific Sound Card, I am looking for one, or possibly a USB audio in solution. That is why its detecting your webcam off the bat.

 

ok cool!

 

yeah i figured a sound card might be the way to go.

 

let me know via PM if you find a good one, i think i'd have to go USB, all of my other slots are taken or blocked. I can just vent off of my webcam mic for now though for the occasional run that I'm in.

 

thanks!

 

charlie

sgunes
sgunes
Posted
Posted
To ...

 

As for NTFS drives, check this out...

 

http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/24481/ntfs-3g

 

Should help you for NTFS volumes

 

I downloaded it, got the installation ok, rebooted and had this error:

"NTFS-3G could not mount /dev/disk1s1 at /Volumes/SG2TB_E because the following problem occurred:

/Library/Filesystems/fusefs.fs/Support/fusefs.kext failed to load - (libkern/kext) link error; check the system/kernel logs for errors or try kextutil(8).

the MacFUSE file system is not available (71)"

 

Any help?

 

Thanks.

CoHPhasor
CoHPhasor
Posted
Posted

Stell,.. gotta say it man,.. I love ya!

 

I know it's frowned on, but I just installed Win 7 on my Hack on the same drive as

OSX SL, and it's workin like a charm! (Thanks to the v3 installer!)

 

Couldn't have been easier, I even installed Win AFTER I already had it hacked.

Both boot fine. :-D

 

I know that 2 separate HDs, one for each is the safest way to do it, but what can I say? I'm cheap.

Not that I should need to say this;

Do this sh** at your own risk!!

Back up your files, system, and DON'T BLAME ME!

 

For those interested;

 

You MUST have OSX and Win7 as 2 of the first THREE partitions, or else it doesn't play well.

 

- I installed SL, then used Disk Utility to to make a 2nd partition (for data) then a 3rd for Windows. (FAT32 with "MBR" selected in options)

 

 

- Installed Windows 7 to the 3rd partition (Making it NTFS during install)

 

From here only Win will boot, until we fix it. ;-)

Your choice, fix it from Windows or Mac. I'd fix it from Windows since it IS running after all!

The First problem is that Windows' partition is marked as "Active" so it will lead the boot.

This section taken from devilhood's Guide to dual-booting!

 

- Open a shell as administrator.

DISKPART> list disk
Will show you a list of selectable disks

DISKPART> select disk n
[where n = the disk number]
Select the disk OSX and the newly installed Win7 resides

DISKPART> list partition
This will show you the partitions on your selected disk

DISKPART> select partition n
[where n = the your OSX partition]
This will specify the partition

DISKPART> active
Will make your OS X partition the first-boot active partition

DISKPART> Exit

 

From here you just need the bootable thumbstick with installer you used to make the hackintosh.

- Boot from the thumbstick.

- Select your Hack to boot from.

- Once booted into SL, back up your /Extra folder and run Stella's installer and point it at your Hack partition.

 

From here on out Chameleon should take over as boot loader and default to OSX.

Press Esc during the bootloader will let you load Windows by choosing it.

That was it. Windows 7 still boots perfectly fine, and so does OS X! (Withstanding my 10.6.2 HDMI problem lol!)

 

Thanks Stella!!!!

MacTech84
MacTech84
Posted
Posted
I downloaded it, got the installation ok, rebooted and had this error:

"NTFS-3G could not mount /dev/disk1s1 at /Volumes/SG2TB_E because the following problem occurred:

/Library/Filesystems/fusefs.fs/Support/fusefs.kext failed to load - (libkern/kext) link error; check the system/kernel logs for errors or try kextutil(8).

the MacFUSE file system is not available (71)"

 

Any help?

 

Thanks.

 

Going over NTFS-3G it seems this error is not uncommon. When in doubt try a re-install, OR try this software from a previous post.

 

For NTFS, I'd recommend Paragon. My experience with MacFUSE/ntfs-3g have been that, while it works, the write performance is unbearably slow. I've had much better luck with Paragon.

 

I have not used this as I do not need to read WIN disks, but try a re-install, and if that does not work, un-install it and try Paragon. Hope that helps...

 

ok cool!

 

yeah i figured a sound card might be the way to go.

 

let me know via PM if you find a good one, i think i'd have to go USB, all of my other slots are taken or blocked. I can just vent off of my webcam mic for now though for the occasional run that I'm in.

 

thanks!

 

charlie

 

If you are lacking the available PCI/PCI-E slot, try this...

 

http://www.griffintechnology.com/products/imic/

 

I love Griffin products, and its had support for 10.4/10.5/& 10.6 now.

MacTech84
MacTech84
Posted
Posted
well,

the v3 installer has not helped me with my problem of booting from my HD.

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php...t&p=1318320

I still have to boot from my thumbdrive (which is now in v3 and works well) :-/

 

My apologies for not seeing this sooner. I have a Seagate 1.5TB drive as my primary and I was getting the same error. Supposedly in Chameleons 2.0 RC3, they were supposed to include large drive support, but I have not seen it (and can't answer as to why the thumb drive boots it). Here is what you need to do. Use Disk Utility to make 2 partitions with the drive. The primary cannot be greater than 1 TB otherwise you get that error.

sgunes
sgunes
Posted
Posted
Going over NTFS-3G it seems this error is not uncommon. When in doubt try a re-install, OR try this software from a previous post.

 

 

I have not used this as I do not need to read WIN disks, but try a re-install, and if that does not work, un-install it and try Paragon. Hope that helps...

 

 

If you are lacking the available PCI/PCI-E slot, try this...

 

http://www.griffintechnology.com/products/imic/

 

I love Griffin products, and its had support for 10.4/10.5/& 10.6 now.

 

I reinstalled it. No dice.

Tried to uninstall it from the System Preferences Panel and I get an error (probably because it is not correctly installed).

I will try Paragon 7.02 next.

 

Hooray!

Downloading the newest version from the website worked. I now have access to my NTFS drives.

 

Thanks.

MacTech84
MacTech84
Posted
Posted
I reinstalled it. No dice.

Tried to uninstall it from the System Preferences Panel and I get an error (probably because it is not correctly installed).

I will try Paragon 7.02 next.

 

Hooray!

Downloading the newest version from the website worked. I now have access to my NTFS drives.

 

Thanks.

 

Glad to hear its working, now is it the latest version of NTFS? or Paragon that worked for you?

MacTech84
MacTech84
Posted
Posted
Does the v3 installer support dual graphics cards if they are the exact same card? I have one 9600gt and would like to use 4 monitors. Thanks all!

 

From a previous post of mine...

 

"As far as I am aware, the problem with Hack-Intoshes is that you cannot use dual cards, either in SLI (no drivers) or separately as 2 cards. I forget the actual reason but its something with the bootloader and drivers for OS X and recognition of the cards as 2 separate cards."

metzler555
metzler555
Posted
Posted
From a previous post of mine...

 

"As far as I am aware, the problem with Hack-Intoshes is that you cannot use dual cards, either in SLI (no drivers) or separately as 2 cards. I forget the actual reason but its something with the bootloader and drivers for OS X and recognition of the cards as 2 separate cards."

 

I have heard this... But I have also information on the contrary. The cards must be exact. I was looking for some personal experiences. Thanks.

stellarola
stellarola
Posted
Posted
From a previous post of mine...

 

"As far as I am aware, the problem with Hack-Intoshes is that you cannot use dual cards, either in SLI (no drivers) or separately as 2 cards. I forget the actual reason but its something with the bootloader and drivers for OS X and recognition of the cards as 2 separate cards."

 

The built in Graphics Enabler by default does not support dual graphic cards. You'll either need to use EFI strings or DSDT injection to accomplish this task.

goMac'in
goMac'in
Posted
Posted

The EFI string method works in my hack using two 9800gtx+ cards from different manufactures. This was a must for me when going from 10.5.8 to 10.6.1. I originally got it working in 10.5.x following the link from Aquamac.

 

On this motherboard you must set the display to PEG2 and the second PCIx slot becomes your first monitor. There is some trial and error but it is worth it for the outcome.

 

Good luck.

MacTech84
MacTech84
Posted
Posted
@SBMac

 

thanks for the link.

 

are there supported PCI/PCI-E slots? I think i might be able to move stuff around and unblock a slot.

 

thanks!

 

The only PCI sound cards I keep finding are the M-Audio Revolution 5.1 & 7.1 but there are no SL drivers yet. These seem to be the best just lack of support kills the cards.

 

In addition, I would love to see how some have got the dual cards working, I am glad to be proven wrong and see that there is finally a way around this. We just keep getting closer and closer to almost transparent support in the bootloaders with almost no need for kext's. I hope to see that day come! woohoo...

c1ark
c1ark
Posted
Posted

After a minor hiccup, I am now running SL 10.6.2 flawlessly.

 

Here is the system:

 

This is the Lifehacker setup other than the less expensive 2.83GHz processor and no Network Adapter (the onboard LAN works perfectly). I added the ASUS WL-138g PCI Wireless Adapter.

 

My monitor is an ASUS VW246H connected by DVI from the video card.

 

I had installed SL 10.6 using Halloween v.2 installer and then updated to 10.6.1.

 

For the 10.6.2 update, I dragged the Extra folder to the trash and then ran Stell's v.3.

 

The minor hiccup occured when I updated to 10.6.2. I got the BSOD. From reading previous posts here I tried the other DVI connector on the video card and rebooted. Success.

 

Being a Princess Bride/Andre-the-Giant fan, I appreciate Stell's boot logo, but replaced it with the original apple.

 

Thanks to all who have provided the info to help this amateur get his first Mac.

sgunes
sgunes
Posted
Posted
Glad to hear its working, now is it the latest version of NTFS? or Paragon that worked for you?

 

Sorry, I was not more specific. I tried Paragon 7.02 I had and it did not work. Then I ran the newest trial from the website (it took my serial number) and it worked.

 

Update: not available anywhere.

I have seen at Best Buy a BFG GeForce GTX 285 OC 1GB on sale (whatever is left over) for $280. It has dual DVI and looks to be a good deal. It is almost $100 cheaper than the other GTX 285. You think it will work?

 

BTW: What is the fastest graphics card anybody is running on a Hackintosh?

MacTech84
MacTech84
Posted
Posted
Sorry, I was not more specific. I tried Paragon 7.02 I had and it did not work. Then I ran the newest trial from the website (it took my serial number) and it worked.

 

I have seen at Best Buy a BFG GeForce GTX 285 OC 1GB on sale (whatever is left over) for $280. It has dual DVI and looks to be a good deal. It is almost $100 cheaper than the other GTX 285. You think it will work?

 

BTW: What is the fastest graphics card anybody is running on a Hackintosh?

 

Glad to hear that is working, now I think the fastest card you can drop in is going to be the GTX 285 into a Hack-Intosh. Can't really tell the specs from the best buy site, but from BFG directly it looks like an awesome card. I would only recommend that you be sure and ask about Best Buy's return policy if something does not work properly. I like what BFG does, but have not always liked the quality for the price, and remember, they sometimes can stray away from the reference design.

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