Hackintosh 10.5.5 Retail Rig - Starting at $305

[DougoMan]

Does anyone know if a 9400GT 1GB is Snow Leopard compatible? Fry's has one for $30 but I don't want to get it if it's going to be a PITA to install..

 

[leglez]

Has a guide for snow leopard on the UD3P been posted yet? I went back a couple pages but didn't see anything really. Also is it possible to use a 3870 with snow leopard?

 

[mosslack]

Does anyone know if a 9400GT 1GB is Snow Leopard compatible? Fry's has one for $30 but I don't want to get it if it's going to be a PITA to install..

I'm pretty sure it is, I've run across it many times on the web while searching for solutions to my dual video card. I believe the graphics card detection in PC EFI will detect and enable it. I haven't actually tried it, but perhaps some others can back me up.

 

[mosslack]

Has a guide for snow leopard been posted yet? I went back a couple pages but didn't see anything really. Also is it possible to use a 3870 with snow leopard?

Kind of wondering where that DS3L guide is myself, but I think Kaido has been on gadget patrol lately so perhaps it's not finished just yet.

 

[KeypoX]

Kind of wondering where that DS3L guide is myself, but I think Kaido has been on gadget patrol lately so perhaps it's not finished just yet.

yeah i would love to see that guide. The methods i have tried have been very crappy. Im thinking i should take everything i can out of the dsdt. IE video, etc. And see if that makes it more stable.

But its been horrible. It was running ok after bios update then all of the sudden it died.

Do you know what kaido is doing in his guide?

 

[Kaido]

yeah i would love to see that guide. The methods i have tried have been very crappy. Im thinking i should take everything i can out of the dsdt. IE video, etc. And see if that makes it more stable.

But its been horrible. It was running ok after bios update then all of the sudden it died.

Do you know what kaido is doing in his guide?

Tried sorting out the power issues before Halloween, but no one has had any luck. For now, we'll just have to live with the 10-15C CPU temp increase. Not a huge deal for the benefits of a hack, I guess. The latest UD3P kit is available here:

http://stellarola.tumblr.com/post/238461982/lifehacker-10-6-2-update-ud3p-v3

The official guide will add a BootCD & instructions. DS3L & ES2L kits will follow, probably over Thanksgiving when I get a free weekend off. It's getting so simple now it's ridiculous - a nice BootCD with a GUI & a zero-config installer. Life is good :biggrin:

 

[dr_cure]

Just updated to 10.6.2 on my UD3P rev 1.6 using Stell's v3 upgrade. Everything is working except for the detailed memory info under System Profiler (getting the "There was an error while gathering this information"). I checked my smbios.plist and doesn't seem to be picking up the info (also tried injecting in boot.plist). The "About This Mac" info is working automatically via netkas 10.5 efi boot. I've also rolled back to my prior patched DSDT, but still getting the same error. Any suggestions? Thanks.

 

[Kaido]

Just updated to 10.6.2 on my UD3P rev 1.6 using Stell's v3 upgrade. Everything is working except for the detailed memory info under System Profiler (getting the "There was an error while gathering this information"). I checked my smbios.plist and doesn't seem to be picking up the info (also tried injecting in boot.plist). The "About This Mac" info is working automatically via netkas 10.5 efi boot. I've also rolled back to my prior patched DSDT, but still getting the same error. Any suggestions? Thanks.

That's odd - 2 questions:

1. What BIOS release are you using?

2. How did you install Snow Leopard? Did you run the .2 update using the HDD-install method?

 

[Kaido]

Just FYI, with the new Chameleon, it looks like if you're planning on using Leopard you'll need a 10.5.4 install DVD or newer, due to the drivers. Which is a bummer because I only have a 10.5.0 disc and there's not an easy method of slipstream updatings, and the HDD-install method is bad for your permissions haha.

 

[mosslack]

@Kaido, I hope you didn't take my little gadget joke seriously, it was a joke, hence the wink at the end. You are hopelessly addicted to gadgets and we all know that and accept you for who you are. The faithful have remained for they know that your guides are the best, most complete and functional guides available anywhere, bar none. You do what you do without compensation and with little thanks a lot of the time. I know most here are very appreciative of your efforts even though we don't say if often enough. The faithful try not to judge you when you miss your self-imposed deadlines, we are just glad to have whatever you give us when it happens. Do keep up the great work please...

 

[Kaido]

@Kaido, I hope you didn't take my little gadget joke seriously, it was a joke, hence the wink at the end. You are hopelessly addicted to gadgets and we all know that and accept you for who you are. The faithful have remained for they know that your guides are the best, most complete and functional guides available anywhere, bar none. You do what you do without compensation and with little thanks a lot of the time. I know most here are very appreciative of your efforts even though we don't say if often enough. The faithful try not to judge you when you miss your self-imposed deadlines, we are just glad to have whatever you give us when it happens. Do keep up the great work please...

lol of course not, no sweat. That guy who posted has been spamming me everywhere, I just got annoyed. I shouldn't have reacted like that. He's right in some ways, that I'm terrible at deadlines. So I apologize for over-promising things, I just get really excited when things progress

And thanks for all your support. You, Zaap, and everyone else are huge contributors to this thread & project, I've learned so much from the collaboration here. So thanks for putting up with my crazy delays :awe: I think we've come a long way since the early Bad Axe days, having to do scripts and 17-page guides. The new guide will probably only be a page or so long, thanks to the latest developments and stella's hard work figuring out all this DSDT stuff.

My next break is over Thanksgiving, so I'd like to put in some time and hammer things out. I really like my new Wiki format (very similar to the old format, just a bit more structured with a standardized article format), and I've been uploading new articles regularly. I'd also like to put up some videos on my Youtube channel, because I think reading through pages and pages of stuff is not as easy as simply watch a video tutorial on it.

So, thanks everyone, it's a treat to work on this with you guys

 

[dr_cure]

That's odd - 2 questions:

1. What BIOS release are you using?

2. How did you install Snow Leopard? Did you run the .2 update using the HDD-install method?

- Running bios FB for rev 1.6 UD3P (the most recent)
- Originally installed SL via Stella's working test package back on the first insanelymac ud3p thread (http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=183502)

Maybe I'll try a fresh install and see if that fixes the problem. Just thought someone else might have seen this issue come up.

 

[Kaido]

Well, it looks like the Psystar issue is finally resolved - the court ruled in Apple's favor:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-10397876-37.html

Hopefully the OSx86 project won't get anymore bad press...

 

[Rosebud1]

Tried sorting out the power issues before Halloween, but no one has had any luck. For now, we'll just have to live with the 10-15C CPU temp increase. Not a huge deal for the benefits of a hack, I guess. ...

Kaido, Huge thanks for all of your efforts. Fixing speedstepping on the ep35-ds3l appears to solve the temp increase in SL. I have not tried this yet (still on a very stable 10.5.7 with your previous guide).

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=192518&pid=1331580&start=500&#

 

[Kaido]

Kaido, Huge thanks for all of your efforts. Fixing speedstepping on the ep35-ds3l appears to solve the temp increase in SL. I have not tried this yet (still on a very stable 10.5.7 with your previous guide).

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=192518&pid=1331580&start=500&#

Yeah, I've been through all the latest developments on the forums - no good for some reason. It does add SpeedStepping & it does fix the temperature issue, but it introduces (1) kernel panics, and (2) completely breaks sleep (wake from sleep causes a fresh boot from BIOS). There are 3 variations or so currently posted via DSDT injections, but they all have the same results - either KPs @ boot or within a few minutes (or even on load), or the broken sleep issue, or a combination of both.

It's really been driving me nuts lol. But I don't know enough about the power system to fix it, and documentation simply doesn't exist anywhere, so everyone is kinda poking around in the dark

 

[Shwymie]

To change the subject a little...

I have a rock-solid GA-P35-DS3L with a GeForce 8600 GT 256MB set-up thanks to Kaido's guide.

I just recently purchased a plasma TV (actually a monitor, so no tuner) that does not have a coax plug for my comcast cable to go into. I just have basic Comcast cable, so no cable tuner "box".

Could I purchase an external video tuner adapter for my hack such that I can plug in the comcast coax cable into it and either record Tv or stream it live form my hack to my monitor (via DVI from the video card)? Would something like the Elgato EyeTV 250 plus (USB), Elgato EyeTv Hybrid (USB), or the SilconDust HDHomerun (ethernet) work? If so, any suggestions as to which one would be the best and cheapest way to go? Any other tuners that you would recommend? I remember reading something about the ethernet not working properly on the GA-P35-DS3L, so maybe the SilconDust HDHomerun wouldn't work so well...

Are there any PCI tuner cards that would work and be compatible with my set-up?

Thanks for any advice and recommendations.

Otter

 

[Kaido]

To change the subject a little...

I have a rock-solid GA-P35-DS3L with a GeForce 8600 GT 256MB set-up thanks to Kaido's guide.

I just recently purchased a plasma TV (actually a monitor, so no tuner) that does not have a coax plug for my comcast cable to go into. I just have basic Comcast cable, so no cable tuner "box".

Could I purchase an external video tuner adapter for my hack such that I can plug in the comcast coax cable into it and either record Tv or stream it live form my hack to my monitor (via DVI from the video card)? Would something like the Elgato EyeTV 250 plus (USB), Elgato EyeTv Hybrid (USB), or the SilconDust HDHomerun (ethernet) work? If so, any suggestions as to which one would be the best and cheapest way to go? Any other tuners that you would recommend? I remember reading something about the ethernet not working properly on the GA-P35-DS3L, so maybe the SilconDust HDHomerun wouldn't work so well...

Are there any PCI tuner cards that would work and be compatible with my set-up?

Thanks for any advice and recommendations.

Otter

imo the EyeTV 250+ is the best product for this on the market. Plus you can record old VHS tapes & camcorder stuff, which is really convenient for flipping to DVD. And, you can use a remote-control and use the full-screen interface for recording & selecting shows to watch.

 

[u3laptoper]

Could I purchase an external video tuner adapter for my hack such that I can plug in the comcast coax cable into it and either record Tv or stream it live form my hack to my monitor (via DVI from the video card)? Would something like the Elgato EyeTV 250 plus (USB), Elgato EyeTv Hybrid (USB), or the SilconDust HDHomerun (ethernet) work? If so, any suggestions as to which one would be the best and cheapest way to go? Any other tuners that you would recommend? I remember reading something about the ethernet not working properly on the GA-P35-DS3L, so maybe the SilconDust HDHomerun wouldn't work so well...

Otter

You should have to take a bit caution. USB and PCI Devices compatible with Hackintoshes have success rate of 50/50 chance. It doesn't always work right out of box. Sometimes the drivers have to be specifically tweaked in order for the device to function, other times it's smooth as silk compatible.

Network devices should have greater success, because it is independent of the hacked machine.

 

[Kaido]

You should have to take a bit caution. USB and PCI Devices compatible with Hackintoshes have success rate of 50/50 chance. It doesn't always work right out of box. Sometimes the drivers have to be specifically tweaked in order for the device to function, other times it's smooth as silk compatible.

Network devices should have greater success, because it is independent of the hacked machine.

USB devices are fine, since USB is standard, but PCI is more picky. The reason is that the only Macs that have PCI cards are G4/G5 rigs, so the drivers typically aren't Universal. Mac Pros using Intel chips have PCI Express slots exclusively, so it's rare to find a product that is a PCI card AND has a Universal Binary driver. But USB drives, I've never had any issues with any - USB is just USB, fortunately!

 

[Ka0t1x]

I don't know if anyone else is getting this problem.. but I thought I'd post it to get some feedback:

Just about 20mins ago, my hack just started acting weird, total system fail, processes running crazy, couldn't SSH in from MBP to see what was going on. Reboot, try to mount a disk image for an installer, to finish what I was doing.. DMG mount fails, multiples not just the single one.

So I boot back up, no errors, no KP nothing. Verify Disk... needs to be repaired so I put it as an external to my laptop, Repair it, everything's gravy. Now as I'm typing this on my hack, everything seems okay, but I still cannot mount DMGs?? I'm starting to think this drive is going bad..

 

[tranquilweeks]

The official guide will add a BootCD & instructions. DS3L & ES2L kits will follow, probably over Thanksgiving when I get a free weekend off. It's getting so simple now it's ridiculous - a nice BootCD with a GUI & a zero-config installer. Life is good :biggrin:

Oh, yes. I can't wait and if there's anything I can do to help (editing/proofreading is probably my most likely contribution) I'd be happy to lend a hand.

This will be my first hackintosh install (P35-DS3L / E5200 / 256MB 7300GT). Should I wait for the SL kit or practice first with the 10.5.9 release, if it's still online somewhere? I'm not saying I expect the Thanksgiving deadline to be missed, I'm just... cautious!

 

[DougoMan]

To change the subject a little...

I have a rock-solid GA-P35-DS3L with a GeForce 8600 GT 256MB set-up thanks to Kaido's guide.

I just recently purchased a plasma TV (actually a monitor, so no tuner) that does not have a coax plug for my comcast cable to go into. I just have basic Comcast cable, so no cable tuner "box".

Could I purchase an external video tuner adapter for my hack such that I can plug in the comcast coax cable into it and either record Tv or stream it live form my hack to my monitor (via DVI from the video card)? Would something like the Elgato EyeTV 250 plus (USB), Elgato EyeTv Hybrid (USB), or the SilconDust HDHomerun (ethernet) work? If so, any suggestions as to which one would be the best and cheapest way to go? Any other tuners that you would recommend? I remember reading something about the ethernet not working properly on the GA-P35-DS3L, so maybe the SilconDust HDHomerun wouldn't work so well...

Are there any PCI tuner cards that would work and be compatible with my set-up?

Thanks for any advice and recommendations.

Otter

While we are on this topic, has anyone been able to match up their Hackintosh resolution with that of their HDTV. I can get it oh so close, but the sides are always cut off just enough to hide the menu bar at the top.

 

[Ka0t1x]

I didn't have a problem with my Sharp 46", but I had to enable 1:1 mapping on the HDTV. And this was using a DVI->HDMI converter. Also for my MBP, I use the MD->DVI->HDMI routine and its flawless.

 

[ViRGE]

To change the subject a little...

I have a rock-solid GA-P35-DS3L with a GeForce 8600 GT 256MB set-up thanks to Kaido's guide.

I just recently purchased a plasma TV (actually a monitor, so no tuner) that does not have a coax plug for my comcast cable to go into. I just have basic Comcast cable, so no cable tuner "box".

Could I purchase an external video tuner adapter for my hack such that I can plug in the comcast coax cable into it and either record Tv or stream it live form my hack to my monitor (via DVI from the video card)? Would something like the Elgato EyeTV 250 plus (USB), Elgato EyeTv Hybrid (USB), or the SilconDust HDHomerun (ethernet) work? If so, any suggestions as to which one would be the best and cheapest way to go? Any other tuners that you would recommend? I remember reading something about the ethernet not working properly on the GA-P35-DS3L, so maybe the SilconDust HDHomerun wouldn't work so well...

Are there any PCI tuner cards that would work and be compatible with my set-up?

Thanks for any advice and recommendations.

Otter

I've used my HDHomeRun with my Hack, and it has worked great. You would need to make sure it's compatible with the front-end software you want to use though.

Also, if you're on Comcast, watch out for encryption. Since the FCC gave them the encryption wavier for DTAs, they have started encrypting everything above Limited Basic. For example, where I'm at the channels are getting the axe tomorrow.

 

[Kaido]

I don't know if anyone else is getting this problem.. but I thought I'd post it to get some feedback:

Just about 20mins ago, my hack just started acting weird, total system fail, processes running crazy, couldn't SSH in from MBP to see what was going on. Reboot, try to mount a disk image for an installer, to finish what I was doing.. DMG mount fails, multiples not just the single one.

So I boot back up, no errors, no KP nothing. Verify Disk... needs to be repaired so I put it as an external to my laptop, Repair it, everything's gravy. Now as I'm typing this on my hack, everything seems okay, but I still cannot mount DMGs?? I'm starting to think this drive is going bad..

Sounds like a drive error to me. iirc, when my drive went bad I started having trouble mounting DMGs too. Could be RAM as well, so run Memtest on it for 6 passes.