Hackintosh 10.5.5 Retail Rig - Starting at $305

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: Zaap
@Kaido:

You have an ATI HD 2600XT working with one of your hacks, right?

What did you use to set it up? It's not listed in any list of EFI strings that I can find. Someone gave me one and I'd like to see if I can get it working with OSX.

I have links to the driver packages I'll be posting shortly. Just wrapping up the testing here on my media hack :thumbsup:

 

[imported_jonnyc]

So what's the current process for a fresh install on the UD3P, I've used the current package linked to from page one of this thread. but everytime i get a kernel panic after install ?

I did notice the new kexts a couple pages back ?
Should I use the kit from the front page of this thread and then just replace those sound kexts ?
My bios is exactly as your kit states but it just keeps crashing on boot. is my HD potentially plugged into the wrong sata port ?

I've tried it in Sata 0 and Gsata 0

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: jonnyc
So what's the current process for a fresh install on the UD3P, I've used the current package linked to from page one of this thread. but everytime i get a kernel panic after install ?

I did notice the new kexts a couple pages back ?
Should I use the kit from the front page of this thread and then just replace those sound kexts ?
My bios is exactly as your kit states but it just keeps crashing on boot. is my HD potentially plugged into the wrong sata port ?

I've tried it in Sata 0 and Gsata 0

I'm updating the kit right now to include the newer audio drivers that work in 10.5.7 (well, older, but they work haha). Basically plug them into the orange ports (any), not the 2 purple ports. If it's crashing on boot, it's probably because your Jmicron driver isn't properly installed for some reason. Temporarily, turn off the second set of SATA ports in BIOS (mid-way through the BIOS page - set AHCI to Off/Disabled/whatever the kill switch is). Leave the AHCI settings at the top the same. This should enable you to boot up.

 

[mosslack]

Originally posted by: Zaap
Just curious- what problems are you having with the setup? Mainly all you should need to really worry about is setting up a user account, and a flex-share or two. FreeNAS should be similar.

Also, if you're able, I'd be really curious if you could do a speed comparison. Transfer 1GB of files to your NAS using different server OS's, and note down the time. I hope things have changed, but when I last tried that little test, CC spanked FreeNAS so badly it's been off my radar ever since. Maybe things have changed radically since I last installed it.

Okay, finally got around to doing the speed test (had to mow grass today). and here are the results. For Clarkconnect the 1 Gb of files took 17:45 and for FreeNAS the same files took 19:10. I know these times are way too high (I have a 10 megabit bottleneck in my room), but they do tell a story. Also I'm having some difficulties this time around with my UD3P as the FreeNAS share, or system, shows up under the shared tab, but I get a connection failed if I try to connect or use connect as. As soon as I figure out that problem I will be able to see how the videos play this time on the UD3P. BTW, this time I used the tips at the bottom of the CIFS/SMB screen and changed some of the settings. FWIW, the videos stream just fine under Vista on the DS3L, nice and smooth, not choppy at all. :thumbsup:

Edit: I got it working by enabling AFP, but I didn't have to do that the first time, it just worked without it. The videos are worse this time so I'm gonna have to RTFM I guess to learn how to better use FreeNAS. I do still prefer it over CC though, just easier to use I think.

 

[imported_jonnyc]

Damn, tried it, still the same crash on boot.
This is weird because all I have done is installed the 10.5.7 combo update, and it won't reboot, but ever since trying to get .7 working it has been behaving very very badly.

I've even erased the disk.

There should be no partitions other than the "untitled" that is there by default after an erase correct ?

 

[mosslack]

Originally posted by: jonnyc
Damn, tried it, still the same crash on boot.
This is weird because all I have done is installed the 10.5.7 combo update, and it won't reboot, but ever since trying to get .7 working it has been behaving very very badly.

I've even erased the disk.

There should be no partitions other than the "untitled" that is there by default after an erase correct ?

Usually when you use the erase option, the default name and format will be the same as it was before. HTH

FWIW, I haven't been able to update my UD3P to 10.5.7 yet either. My problem is video related and I have a 7200 GS that I'm going to install to try one more time. :brokenheart:

 

[imported_jonnyc]

I'm sorry for your loss as i'm sure you are sorry for mine

 

[mosslack]

Not so fast. I now have 10.5.7 up and running on my UD3P, installed the 7200 GS, but things still are not right. For one thing I am unable to boot at all via Chameleon, either old or new version (using boot 132 CD to boot now). And now I am limited to using 60 Hz for my refresh rate as all of the other choices are grayed out. One time when I booted nothing worked, there was no background, just blue screen and the dock was gone. Rebooting fixed that, but I'm still not happy with this at all.

Edit: Okay, everyone hold the phone, I'm having a senior moment here. All this time I thought my bios was up-to-date, but it turns out I'm still using the F6 bios! DOH! I always have my logo screen enabled and so the bios version doesn't appear, but when running through the bios settings too many differences showed up in the choices so I decided I'd better check. So let me update the bios and try the update again to 10.5.7, maybe it will go better this time? :roll:

Okay, updated the bios (F9), checked bios settings and did a complete reinstall. Same thing. Even though I specify my resolution in the Uinstaller as 1680x1050, it always comes up as 1440x900. This may have something to do with my refresh rate being at 75 Hz because I think I have to change it to 60 Hz before I can use that resolution. Anyway, changed the refresh rate to 60 Hz and the resolution to 1680x1050 and all it fine, at least until I reboot. Rebooting using Chameleon as the bootloader brings the dreaded YOU NEED TO RESTART message and I have to use the Boot 132 CD to get back in. Using the Boot 132 CD all is fine once I get back into my install. Resolution is where it should be and things seem to work just fine. I may do one more install changing the refresh rate to 60 Hz before I ever install anything and see how that works.

 

[mosslack]

I've got the combination and it has nothing to do with nvidia cards at all. It's all about the refresh rate, at least on my system. It's now working fine on 10.5.7 (except sound as I have not fixed that yet) and the key for me was to update to 10.5.6 first before going the 10.5.7 route. By installing 10.5.6 first I was able to reset my refresh rate to 60 Hz. So I installed Leo, ran the 10.5.6 combo update, reboot (boot 132 CD), run the Uinstaller, reboot (now Chameleon is installed and working), came up in 1440x900@75Hz. I changed the refresh rate to 60 Hz, rebooted (just in case) and once back up I changed the resolution to 1680x1050@60Hz. I rebooted again to make sure Chameleon still worked and it did. Then I ran the 10.5.7 delta update and got the usual mach restart and when it came back to the desktop the resolution was fine and everything seems to be working just fine. I'm sure if the refresh rate could be set to 60Hz before the drivers were installed you could go directly to 10.5.7, but I checked at each step of the process and at no time until the drivers are installed can you adjust the refresh rate. I hope this will help some of you who have been having difficulty updating to 10.5.7, I know it was driving me nuts (and it was a short trip).

 

[volcs0]

My setup is Q6600 + UD3P + 10.5.6

I have a question about overclocking. I used the PC-based utility to overclock, and it works great until I stress the system. When I try to compress a movie or do some other processor-intensive task, I get random freezes and crashes. When I change back to default settings, the crashes go away.

I don't think I could figure out the overclocking settings on my own in the BIOS - there are too may options I don't understand.

Is there a good primer? Or are there boilerplate settings I could try? The "lowest" setting in the PC utility is quite a jump from the default - maybe there is something in between.

Any help / guidance is appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[Sophie424]

I did a forum search for a firewire card, and only found Adaptec AFW-4300C. Cannot find a reliable-looking place to order this. Any suggestion for either an ordering source, or an alternative firewire card that will work natively? I have a Kaido-hack circa Dec-08

Thanks

EDIT: I'm hoping to import a ton of miniDV family video, using iMovie '09. Any general advice about this much appreciated, specially how to convert from the (large) DV format to something more compressed, and how to do this efficiently ... I'm looking at something like 70-80 mini-DV tapes through a Canon Optura-40.

 

[Kaido]

Quick Update: two hardware things left to test - HDMI-Audio and Digital Audio on the ES2L. A locally buddy has graciously allowed me to swing by his place tomorrow to patch into his 5.1 optical system for testing, so I'll report back. The card I'm testing has a separate SPDIF cable input, so I'm hoping it does the job and will let us have an HDMI-Audio solution for our Hackintoshes *crosses fingers* Also I found a Component (RGB) adapter on AVS Forums, it's a $125 adapter box that converts VGA to Component, so if your TV has Component but not VGA/DVI/HDMI, it seems to be a good working solution when combined with SwitchResX or DisplayConfigX. Once I finish testing tomorrow, I will release the new Home Theater Hackintosh guide that has the video info.

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: Sophie424
I did a forum search for a firewire card, and only found Adaptec AFW-4300C. Cannot find a reliable-looking place to order this. Any suggestion for either an ordering source, or an alternative firewire card that will work natively? I have a Kaido-hack circa Dec-08

Thanks

EDIT: I'm hoping to import a ton of miniDV family video, using iMovie '09. Any general advice about this much appreciated, specially how to convert from the (large) DV format to something more compressed, and how to do this efficiently ... I'm looking at something like 70-80 mini-DV tapes through a Canon Optura-40.

eBay is your best bet for that card. I know there are others that work, but I don't have make/models. I do own that Adaptec and it works great!

MiniDV tapes require realtime import, so I'd say setup a schedule to do one tape a day, like in the morning before work (pop it in for import, then hop in the shower, eat, etc. and make sure it's done before you leave). That way, in 3 months you'll be fully digital! If you try to do it all at once, after a couple days, even thinking about a MiniDV tape will make you throw up haha.

iMovie 09 uses AIC, the Apple Intermediate Codec. You can read more here, including how many MB/sec each format uses:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2704?viewlocale=en_US

So AIC HDV 720p30 runs about 7 MB/sec, so you're looking at about 25 gigabytes for every hour you import. A 1 terabyte drive formatted @ 931gb is about 37 hours of footage in AIC 720 format. That can be compressed if you convert the imported footage into something else, like an h.264 file (h.264 is what I'd recommend for your storage format, unless you can afford ridiculous amounts of hard drive space). With h.264, you could easily reduce your storage footprint by 1/6th or more. You'll have to play with exporting to see what works the best for you.

 

[mosslack]

@Kaido: Is the UD3P audio fix for 10.5.7 included with the kit with the link on the first page? If not, run it by me again please. I'm this close to a totally working 10.5.7 and I want to wrap it up before bedtime if at all possible. Thanks!

Edit: Nevermind, I looked back in the thread and found it. Trouble is it doesn't work. I may have messed something up, will try again.

Is there any specific kext to remove prior to installing the new ones? I just removed the same four and then used kext helper to install the new ones. Reboot and it took a long, long time, but once back at desktop, no volume control, in sound pref no output device.

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: mosslack
@Kaido: Is the UD3P audio fix for 10.5.7 included with the kit with the link on the first page? If not, run it by me again please. I'm this close to a totally working 10.5.7 and I want to wrap it up before bedtime if at all possible. Thanks!

Edit: Nevermind, I looked back in the thread and found it. Trouble is it doesn't work. I may have messed something up, will try again.

I'm working on the kits tonight, going to be doing a full-scale release assault tomorrow after finishing the digital audio testing at my buddy's house. Big day tomorrow, whoohoo! Months of procrastinating, er, working will finally pay off!

 

[mosslack]

Originally posted by: Kaido

Originally posted by: mosslack
@Kaido: Is the UD3P audio fix for 10.5.7 included with the kit with the link on the first page? If not, run it by me again please. I'm this close to a totally working 10.5.7 and I want to wrap it up before bedtime if at all possible. Thanks!

Edit: Nevermind, I looked back in the thread and found it. Trouble is it doesn't work. I may have messed something up, will try again.

I'm working on the kits tonight, going to be doing a full-scale release assault tomorrow after finishing the digital audio testing at my buddy's house. Big day tomorrow, whoohoo! Months of procrastinating, er, working will finally pay off!

Okay, I tried again to delete the kext and reinstall using kext helper. Still no volume control or output device in sound pref. I read the thread on Insanely but didn't see anything there that would help. Too late now to worry about it, I'll just wait for your new kit.

Edit: I shut down my computer completely and restarted. Now the volume control is present and the outputs are in the sound pref. I guess just a normal restart is not enough in this case. Anyway it's working now and I can relax a bit before I hit the hay. :clock:

 

[scootermaster]

Originally posted by: Sophie424
I did a forum search for a firewire card, and only found Adaptec AFW-4300C. Cannot find a reliable-looking place to order this. Any suggestion for either an ordering source, or an alternative firewire card that will work natively? I have a Kaido-hack circa Dec-08

Thanks

EDIT: I'm hoping to import a ton of miniDV family video, using iMovie '09. Any general advice about this much appreciated, specially how to convert from the (large) DV format to something more compressed, and how to do this efficiently ... I'm looking at something like 70-80 mini-DV tapes through a Canon Optura-40.

I bought a TI-chipset based FW card from geeks.com like 8 years ago. Works under Hack as best as I can tell (or, at least, the HarmonyAudio that's plugged into it right now is making noise, so I'd assume it works ). It was like $6 or something back then.

Looks kinda like this: Hi! I'm a firewire card! except I don't have an internal port.

 

[scootermaster]

TOMORROW IS THE DAY!




TOMORROW IS THE DAY!











No really, tomorrow is the day?!?!!?

 

[metzler555]

Originally posted by: volcs0
My setup is Q6600 + UD3P + 10.5.6

I have a question about overclocking. I used the PC-based utility to overclock, and it works great until I stress the system. When I try to compress a movie or do some other processor-intensive task, I get random freezes and crashes. When I change back to default settings, the crashes go away.

I don't think I could figure out the overclocking settings on my own in the BIOS - there are too may options I don't understand.

Is there a good primer? Or are there boilerplate settings I could try? The "lowest" setting in the PC utility is quite a jump from the default - maybe there is something in between.

Any help / guidance is appreciated.

Thanks.

Did you run a 6 passes of Memtest? That's where I would start.. I have UD3P, 10.5.7, and q6600. I set my FSB to 356 and multiplier to 9x. All the other settings I set to the defaults that are listed in the bios. To stress test a mac in OSX I run this command in terminal:

yes > /dev/null

Open a new terminal for each core you have (you have 4 so 4 windows) and type this command then execute. This will stress your cpu to max. I have run this all night @ 3.2ghz on my q6600, so I see no other reason for testing. I have 8gb of gskill memory running at 854 and stock timings. NO issues at all. I have to say, thanks a lot Kaido for all your work organizing this. It was extremely easy to follow. You even put some nice touches (like the UD3P folders already on the boot disks). Anyways, if you have other questions volcs I would google "ud3p q6600 overclock" There are some templates out there that show you good settings. But remember you have to find your own settings, and not every chip is the same.

 

[Zaap]

Originally posted by: Sophie424
I did a forum search for a firewire card, and only found Adaptec AFW-4300C. Cannot find a reliable-looking place to order this. Any suggestion for either an ordering source, or an alternative firewire card that will work natively? I have a Kaido-hack circa Dec-08

Take your pick. Any of these that list MacOS should work fine.

I've used the 3+1 port t $10 (VIA) and $12(Lucent) Syba cards with several Hacks and they work great.


Edit: oops, forgot the link!

 

[metzler555]

getting another weird error.. When I wake my computer from sleep the external self powered USB hard drive I have plugged in gives me the "device removal" error message. I tested this also with my USB flash drive and the same thing happens. This doesn't happen on my MBP but I have read it happens on some other genuine macs. I have noticed when I wake the computer the drives are mounted on the desktop and then very quickly they are removed and remouted, followed by the error message. Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks.

I'm on UD3P, q6600, 10.5.7, bios f8, using latest Kaido package, ask if you need any other info.

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: scootermaster
No really, tomorrow is the day?!?!!? [/b]

Ya rly! Doing final testing at my buddy's house afterwork today and then final write-up, then it's time to rock the new thread!

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: metzler555
getting another weird error.. When I wake my computer from sleep the external self powered USB hard drive I have plugged in gives me the "device removal" error message. I tested this also with my USB flash drive and the same thing happens. This doesn't happen on my MBP but I have read it happens on some other genuine macs. I have noticed when I wake the computer the drives are mounted on the desktop and then very quickly they are removed and remouted, followed by the error message. Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks.

I'm on UD3P, q6600, 10.5.7, bios f8, using latest Kaido package, ask if you need any other info.

This isn't a bug, this is part of running a Hackintosh. Although I think MSI boards don't have this problem, something about how they handle USB drives on sleep.

Perfectly normal

 

[Sophie424]

Originally posted by: Kaido

So AIC HDV 720p30 runs about 7 MB/sec, so you're looking at about 25 gigabytes for every hour you import. A 1 terabyte drive formatted @ 931gb is about 37 hours of footage in AIC 720 format. That can be compressed if you convert the imported footage into something else, like an h.264 file (h.264 is what I'd recommend for your storage format, unless you can afford ridiculous amounts of hard drive space). With h.264, you could easily reduce your storage footprint by 1/6th or more. You'll have to play with exporting to see what works the best for you.

Thanks for the card tip (Zaap, thanks as well) ... my source is non-HD, I read somewhere it takes in raw form about 4G/hour. Would like to compress it, presumable h.264 is a decent choice still? Can the conversion to h.264 done on-the-fly while importing, or a separate step I need to do manually after the import?

Thanks so much!

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: Sophie424

Originally posted by: Kaido

So AIC HDV 720p30 runs about 7 MB/sec, so you're looking at about 25 gigabytes for every hour you import. A 1 terabyte drive formatted @ 931gb is about 37 hours of footage in AIC 720 format. That can be compressed if you convert the imported footage into something else, like an h.264 file (h.264 is what I'd recommend for your storage format, unless you can afford ridiculous amounts of hard drive space). With h.264, you could easily reduce your storage footprint by 1/6th or more. You'll have to play with exporting to see what works the best for you.

Thanks for the card tip (Zaap, thanks as well) ... my source is non-HD, I read somewhere it takes in raw form about 4G/hour. Would like to compress it, presumable h.264 is a decent choice still? Can the conversion to h.264 done on-the-fly while importing, or a separate step I need to do manually after the import?

Thanks so much!

Seperate step unless you invest in a some sort of hardware recorder for your camcorder. Handbrake might work, depending on the format you import in!