Starting from Scratch with Haswell and Snow Leopard

Newbie to Hackintosh here. Have ordered all the hardware pieces, as follows:

1) Chassis: Thermaltake SD101 Min ITX Case
2) Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-H87N (mini-ITX Intel-compatible)
3) CPU: Intel Core i7 4770K
4) RAM: Kingston HyperX Blu (16 GB kit)
5) Storage: Two Samsung 840 EVO 250 GB SSDs
6) Optical Drive: Pioneer BDR-208DBK
7) Graphics card: EVGA nVidia GeForce GT 610

None of these have arrived yet, expect all to be received about March 28.

Reading the forums here, I have the following issues:

YOU WILL NEED

• A computer running an Intel Processor - [Does this refer to the one to be built, or an existing Windows computer?]
• A blank CD - [no problem]
• A Mac OS X Snow Leopard Retail DVD - [no problem - on order from Apple]
• To leave any fear of your computer at the door. - [My existing computer is an early 2005 liquid-cooled 2.7 GHz dual CPU PowerPC G5; no fear of it except for possible future leaks]
• Patience and humility- it may not work out perfectly the first time- but with enough tenacity and grit, you'll reach the promised land. It's easy to get frustrated, but don't give up! There are a community of users with similar hardware in the tonymacx86 Forum to provide support if you get stuck. - [I do appreciate this site and its members/moderators.]

BEFORE YOU BEGIN

• Use only 1 graphics card in the 1st PCIe slot with 1 monitor plugged in. - [Yes.]
• Remove any hard drives besides the blank drive being used for OS X. - [2 blank SSDs here]
• Remove any USB peripherals besides keyboard and mouse. - [No problem; none here]
• Remove any PCI cards besides graphics- they may not be Mac compatible. - [Should I leave out the MSI R6570 initially? Or can it be installed?]
• It's best to use an empty hard drive- you will have to partition and format the drive. - [No problem]
• Always back up any of your important data. - [It's all on my PPC G5, which is why I want to run 10.6.8; it's the latest Mac OS that contains Rosetta!]

STEP 1: BIOS SETTINGS - [and here is the real issue... how is this done with no Windows OS present on the new build?]

Thanks for your help!

---- Bill

Bill

As to building the hack - not sure if that video card will work... ( Will not work w Snow Leo)

We don't use and dedicated GFX cards for haswell hacks when installing Snow Leo... we use the onboard GFX of the CPU. HD4600

So if you can hold off on that video card for now then you can order it later.

Also have you done any research on that card too see if it's working w Mavericks.

Many of the older points in the Old SL Guides have not been updated to cover Haswell

But you can follow them and see what additional information you can get from these links.
http://www.tonymacx86.com/snow-leop...os-x-10-6-snow-leopard-haswell-based-pcs.html

Totenkopf4,

Thanks for your response. As I wrote, the non-starter for me is the apparent need to have Windows on my new build in order to set up the BIOS per your instructions before doing anything else. Can you confirm that?

Unfortunately the first item to arrive was the MSI graphics card, but I can leave that out during the great fun of trying to put a Mac OS system on the new computer. I am somewhat disillusioned that I cannot leave SL 10.6.8 on permanently, as I was hoping to continue using PPC apps on the new computer. As I read the problems of people not having working Ethernet, the lack of OS X drivers for this graphics card, etc, it looks as if I would have to a) install Windows 7, and b) eventually wind up with Mac OS X 10.9.2 on the new computer. Not really happy about that.

Any further comments, i.e. recommendations for where to go from here?

wstrohm said:

Totenkopf4,

Thanks for your response. As I wrote, the non-starter for me is the apparent need to have Windows on my new build in order to set up the BIOS per your instructions before doing anything else. Can you confirm that?

Unfortunately the first item to arrive was the MSI graphics card, but I can leave that out during the great fun of trying to put a Mac OS system on the new computer. I am somewhat disillusioned that I cannot leave SL 10.6.8 on permanently, as I was hoping to continue using PPC apps on the new computer. As I read the problems of people not having working Ethernet, the lack of OS X drivers for this graphics card, etc, it looks as if I would have to a) install Windows 7, and b) eventually wind up with Mac OS X 10.9.2 on the new computer. Not really happy about that.

Any further comments, i.e. recommendations for where to go from here?

Click to expand...

wstrhom
BIOS should not require windows for setting up. You just need to press a key during boot up - and the BIOS program will display on the screen. you should also be able to upgrade the BIOS (if needed) from a USB stick by a Bios option.

Suggest since the Video Card has arrived you may want to see if this card works w Mavericks - search forum and w Google for it.

Haswell hardware has no support for OSX Snow Leo as Apple has closed any development support on that platform some 4 years ago. Hence no update for this or Ivy Bridge CPU's etc.

If your needs for Power PC apps is urgent then you will need to seek out some older hardware - such as Sandy Bridge processors and motherboards.
This will run SL and your PPC apps THe forum has plenty of successful builds on Sandy Bridge hardware that you can use. The problem maybe getting the older parts and you may have to look for used components.

totenkopf4,

Thanks for your help. I understand now that BIOS will open without any OS at all. Sorry for my ignorance. I will check on MSI graphics card compatibility with Mac OS X 10.9.x.

wstrohm said:

totenkopf4,

Thanks for your help. I understand now that BIOS will open without any OS at all. Sorry for my ignorance. I will check on MSI graphics card compatibility with Mac OS X 10.9.x.

Click to expand...

Bill
As you have another computer (PowerPC) with internet access I assume you can download the BIOS file for this motherboard if needed and use the USB method of updating it.

I only suggest using newer BIOS if its known to help a Hack (doing research) otherwise not important.

If you install windows first you may have issues w trying to do the hack volume later ....

We do have several write ups on doing dual boot - which to me means having separate HD.
Suggest you start here ....
http://www.tonymacx86.com/other-operating-systems/

totenkopf4,

Thanks for your help! After some more research, I have returned the MSI Radeon R6570 and bought an EVGA 02G-P3-2619-KR GeForce GT 610, which probably has better odds of running under Mavericks. I'm still waiting for delivery of the CPU, so no real problems yet.

wstrohm said:

totenkopf4,

Thanks for your help! After some more research, I have returned the MSI Radeon R6570 and bought an EVGA 02G-P3-2619-KR GeForce GT 610, which probably has better odds of running under Mavericks. I'm still waiting for delivery of the CPU, so no real problems yet.

Click to expand...

wstrohm

Good to hear...

As to other items needed....

As your other computer is a PPC Mac - which you should be able to use to download files and utilities for building your hack.

But it appears that we will need to use Snow Leopard in-order to install Mavericks.
So that means we will need the Retail Copy of the Snow Leopard DVD from Apple . Do you have one.

Since you have two SSD's and you may want to install Windows on one of them (which is how I would do it)
Suggest you read up on some DUAL Booting links here ...
http://www.tonymacx86.com/multi-booting/

Windows will make use of the UEFI bios which could affect OSX install so be aware....( which is why I suggest your read up on DUAL Booting.)

totenkopf4,

Thanks for your replies and for your continuing support. Yes, I have been using my G5 to download and burn "iBoot Haswell," and I intend to use the 2nd SSD as a backup for the OS X Mavericks system, with disk utilities on both drives. No Windows OS planned currently.

I finally received the i7 4770 CPU, installed the Noctua CPU cooler on it, installed the assembly into the Thermaltake SD-101 chassis, the Kingston 16 GB RAM kit, the EVGA nVidia GT 610 video card, and the 2 SSDs. I only hooked up the "SATA 0" SSD, leaving the 2nd SSD disconnected as recommended. I have one issue at the moment, which I have submitted to Gigabyte Tech Support. On the motherboard, there is an area designated "F Panel," which apparently is the interface to the Thermaltake front panel power switch, Reset switch, Power LED, and "HDD" LED indicators. The Gigabyte "Multilingual Installation Handbook" page 4, Step 7, shows two diagrams for this area, neither of which matches the actual terminals on the motherboard. So I have no idea which 4 of the 5 Thermaltake 2-pin connectors go to which of the color-coded terminal pairs of the motherboard. There are two rows of 4 pins each on the motherboard, and each pair has a unique color code: aqua, blue for the two pair closest to the board edge, and red, green for the inside pairs. The Thermaltake functions are identified by printing on each connector, so if I knew which motherboard pairs were which, I could finish the hardware portion of my project.

If you have knowledge of motherboard functions vs. color, I would appreciate some help, as for the moment I am stuck!



If I flip the Guidebook picture both horizontally and vertically, I come up with a match between the guidebook and the motherboard, like this:



... but if I take this literally, I still don't know how to get the polarities right since the Thermaltake connectors don't have polarity shown.

Edit: The answer is in the manual on page 26 (except for polarity), and as it turns out I got it right as above. Sorry for the waste of bandwidth! Onward...

First problem after completion of the computer:

Connected the Apple USB keyboard/Kensington Turbomouse to the USB 2.0/1.1 port of the computer. Connected the rear panel DVI port of the motherboard to the DVI input of the monitor, using the same DVI cable as from the G5 to the same monitor input. Pressed the power button on the computer, blue LED comes on, all fans come on. No monitor display. Tried re-booting and holding down the "Delete" key of the keyboard. If the key is held down prior to powering the computer, I see one flash of the yellow LED, then it goes out. If I power up first and then press and hold the Delete key, the yellow LED flashes continuously. The Pioneer BDXL optical disk tray opens and closes properly. But no monitor display. (I have only one of the two SSDs connected, per instructions on this site.)

I did notice that the DVI cable connector has only a flat horizontal terminal in the area where the DVI-to VGA adapter that I bought has one flat terminal and 4 small terminals arranged in a square around the flat terminal. But this cable works with the G5's ATI Radeon X800XT video card, so I don't think that is a problem. I have no "spare" leads in the Thermaltake chassis, and I believe I have connected everything correctly.

I also tried using the DVI-to VGA adapter plus the VGA cable into the 2nd, VGA, input to the monitor. Same problem; black screen.

I have complied with the "Before you begin" paragraph in the "iBoot Plus Multibeast" article in your blog. Only the keyboard and mouse are connected, plus power.

Any clues here? Thanks!