Building a ITXMac

[Nichod]

If yours has fixes that work, submit it here. Unfortunately, I don't believe our Gigabyte fixes will work verbatim on that DSDT.
viewtopic.php?f=14&t=4462

Will do! May take me awhile since I'm bogged down with work, but I'll get to submitting it. These forums distract. May try the ECS board though first to get a definitive answer on whether that one works or not.

Selling the system soon....I think.

 

[Am Yisrael Chai]

I kind of shy away from proprietary components. I wouldn't ever suggest a Shuttle system because of this. Not to mention if you are spending that much money I'd rather be able to easily upgrade to a different Mini-itx board in the future.

The new XPC Shuttle X58 systems can be "upgraded" to mini-itx, just check the specs. I don't think we will see a mini-itx motherboad that can be considered an upgrade to that motherboard any time soon (x58 and dual x16 PCI).

On another note, are you going to be working on coming up with a good DSDT fix for the Zotac H55ITX-C-E motherboard? That is one sweet mini-itx board. It is the only thing I think is comparable to Shuttle's motherboards. Over on insanelymac people have reported phenomenal success with the Zotac board even with out a DSDT fix. A DSDT fix would make that board a hackintosh dream. I am sure there are quite a few people that would like to see that happen.

 

[Nichod]

I kind of shy away from proprietary components. I wouldn't ever suggest a Shuttle system because of this. Not to mention if you are spending that much money I'd rather be able to easily upgrade to a different Mini-itx board in the future.

The new XPC Shuttle X58 systems can be "upgraded" to mini-itx, just check the specs. I don't think we will see a mini-itx motherboad that can be considered an upgrade to that motherboard any time soon (x58 and dual x16 PCI).

On another note, are you going to be working on coming up with a good DSDT fix for the Zotac H55ITX-C-E motherboard? That is one sweet mini-itx board. It is the only thing I think is comparable to Shuttle's motherboards. Over on insanelymac people have reported phenomenal success with the Zotac board even with out a DSDT fix. A DSDT fix would make that board a hackintosh dream. I am sure there are quite a few people that would like to see that happen.

My biggest problem with the Zotac is the inconsistent wireless cards and the need to contact Zotac to get a replacement. I almost wonder if recommending the Gigabyte as the core choice would be best. I may actually be selling my system to a friend. (he really wants a mac) If I have time I'll try to get create a DSDT but I can't make any guarantees. My next experiment will be either the ECS or Gigabyte.

 

[Am Yisrael Chai]

From what I have read on the insanelymac Zotac thread if you get the wireless right card the wireless system runs recognized as Apple Airport right out of the box without any fixes at all; consequently, I don't think you have to take it into consideration in the DSDT at all. Besides not getting the compatible wireless card is not a big deal as Zotac will ship you the compatible card if you request it. Even if you had to replace the wireless card yourself they are REALLY cheap and readily available. I just don't consider the wireless card to be an obstacle at all. The availability of another expansion card slot (mini pcie) on the Zotac board is a huge selling point. When you are locked into a small motherboard with little expansion options every little bit counts. The Zotac board outshines all the other H55 mini-itx boards by far.

 

[tonymacx86]

I could be wrong, but I'd be willing to bet that there are issues with USB post 10.6.3 on the Zotac board if you don't use a DSDT. Also, you won't get sleep, and fans/temps will run higher with NullCPUPowerManagement.

 

[Am Yisrael Chai]

I could be wrong, but I'd be willing to bet that there are issues with USB post 10.6.3 on the Zotac board if you don't use a DSDT. Also, you won't get sleep, and fans/temps will run higher with NullCPUPowerManagement.

Tony, I am sure you are correct; however, you can look over the feedback yourself and see what you think. The thread on insanelymac has been going on for a while.

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index. ... pic=217492

It actually started off on your forum, but the main players moved it over to insanelymac because they thought you were trying to keep this a pure Gigabyte motherboard forum. There are a couple of build guides in that thread. All of the people are using iBoot and Multibeast. They seem quite happy with the performance they have gotten so far. It would be really nice if it could be improved.

 

[tonymacx86]

Good work over there. Post up your DSDT extract from the Zotac- I'd be interested in taking a look to see if it can be optimized.

 

[mactition]

Good work over there. Post up your DSDT extract from the Zotac- I'd be interested in taking a look to see if it can be optimized.

Hey Toni;

We finally got your attention.

Neil and I have worked out a lot of the details to make this a great build. My goal was to stick with your utilities to keep the install simple. I thank you for your great work, many times while scouring the web for variants to try I would end up back at your selections.

There are only two obvious issues to resolve, sleep and wake from sleep are partially functional and vary, depending on where you call sleep from, menu selection, keyboard or energy saver. A new one that I'm working on today is that the iPod Touch 4G doesn't connect to iTunes. I'm looking into Hardware UUID, so far I have found it's not set correctly. I don't know if I'm on the right path, but looks like this should be dealt with anyway.

I tried editing a DSDT, attacking all the usual things, but had no success. This is all new for me so I could be way off track on what I tried. I have some programming skills that make comprehension OK, experience is the lacking.

On the Mac side of things I know this machine is running exceptionally well as is. Performance shatters that of the original Mac Pro 2.66 GHz. The benchmarks are great but don't mean so much, real tasks for example such as encoding video are mind blowing.

My DSDT extract is attached below. I'm running Snow Leopard 10.6.4. The CPU is Core i5-750.

If you need anything else I can be reached via the forum messaging system.

Thanks

 

[SpeedracerX]

Good work over there. Post up your DSDT extract from the Zotac- I'd be interested in taking a look to see if it can be optimized.

Hi Tony,

This is my dsdt, from my board the Zotac-H55ITX-C-E. It's the exact same board as the A-E, with additional USB3 ports. And officially supports i7, (mine is i7 870). I'm only using FAKESMC.kext in /extra since I use it as a server I have sleep set to never. When I first set it up, I know I had problems with sleep. But I wasn't using a dsdt at that time and had other kext files installed.

My biggest wish is to be able to use my Nvidia GT240 for hdmi audio, but this requires a modified dsdt and I don't have enough skill to attempt this yet.

 

[mactition]

. . . This is my dsdt, from my board the Zotac-H55ITX-C-E. It's the exact same board as the A-E . . .

Hi;

Could you please tell me what version the C-E BIOS is.

Thanks