Clean Budget Build - Lion - Gigabyte GA-H61M-S2H - i3-2125

[magpies]

So on the whole is this board a good option?

 

[samisnake]

So on the whole is this board a good option?

via audio and atheros lan.
if it can be avoided, i would go for another one personally.

 

[shorn]

So on the whole is this board a good option?

via audio and atheros lan.
if it can be avoided, i would go for another one personally.

I agree, as I mentioned at the top if I was doing it over again I'd get a board with Realtek audio and LAN.

 

[shorn]

Did you try the dsdt for the H61M-S2H yet?
http://www.tonymacx86.com/dsdt.php

Yes, both times I did the install, with the latest version each time.

 

[shorn]

I have one more question, how is the audio working?

It's fine, no problems detected so far.

 

[HBrainiac]

HEY SHRON DID YOU UPGRADE FROM SL OR JUST INSTALLED A NEW COPY OF LION? WHISN I INSTALL A NEW COP OF LION IT BOOTS UP AND IT GETS STUCK ON THE GREY APPLE SCRREN WITH THE APPLE LOGO AND NOTHING HAMEPPENS... MY MOUSE MOVES BT NOTHING POPS UP... ANY IDEAS I HAVE THE SAME EXACT SET UP AS YOU SO IM WONDERING WT YOU DID DIFFRENTLY... IF YOU COULD HELP ME OUT THAT WOULD BE AWESOME...

 

[sevoneone]

Let me share my experience. I also had difficulty making audio and sleep work.

First off, please be sure to check the motherboard's version. The OP's motherboard is an old one (rev. 1.2) with Via VT2021 codec on it. Mine is rev. 1.3 with ALC889 codec.

Do not install VoodooHDA if you have rev. 1.3. It strangely works on rev. 1.3 in the first place but you will see very frequent kernel panics. I just installed a generic USB sound card bought off from eBay at $2~, which works great. Just disable the on-board audio.

Sleep is a hit-or-miss but it works only by keyboard or mouse which is hardwired directly to M/B, not to a USB hub or wirelessly. My Logitech wireless combo has never waken it up.

Installation was rather tricky. It never went through with my video card installed. Thus, I had to boot with on-board VGA (with -x option). Then, I ran MultiBeast (transferred from a USB stick) with a downloaded DSDT. After that, I installed my Zotec GeForce GT220, and, then, voila, it went through.

Ethernet did not work so I downloaded Atheros AR8151 kext and installed it with KextBeast.

I have struggled with the ACL889 for a while with every single kext combination but no success. So I installed a USB one. I disabled sleep and now everything works beautifully. Very stable so far.

I picked up a rev 1.3 version of this board and a i3 2125 this weekend. I was able to get everything up and running doing a fresh install of Mountain Lion using UniBeast and EasyBeast. No DSDT!

I got ALC889 audio working by installing the following kexts from the latest MB:

After rebooting audio was working for me from the rear jacks. I haven't tested front panel audio.

It took me forever to get the HD 3000 Graphics figured out, but what ended up working for me was:

Adding the device id 0x01128086 to the plist for AppleIntelHD3000Graphics.kext
Using the MacBook Pro 8,1 definition in MultiBeast
Adding PCIRootUID=1 to my /Extra/org.Chameleon.Boot.plist

I have access to all resolutions via DVI and HDMI, QE/CI enabled, and no artifacting that some are reporting. UI is smooth as butter and crystal clear at 1920x1080 via HDMI to my Vizio E422VA. The only strangeness is that, immediately after boot, the video crops in to basically the top-left 1/4 of the screen. It is easily fixed by changing the resolution then quickly changing back to 1080p. After that, everything works perfect.

Geekbench scores are coming in around the high 6900's. Very impressive little system. Very happy for a sub $300 build.

 

[shorn]

I did not have the experience sevoneone did installing Mountain Lion. Wonder how different the rev 1.2 and 1.3 boards are?

I used UniBeast for Mountain Lion to install, no switches at boot, and on first boot nearly everything including Ethernet worked, except no audio. I was surprised that Ethernet worked. Ran MultiBeast for Mountain Lion and tried as sevoneone did to do it without DSDT. This did not work. Wrong video mode followed by kernel panic soon after boot, and Ethernet now broken.

Re-did install with MultiBeast and DSDT V5, which worked fine except still no Ethernet. Re-ran MultiBeast and installed the Atheros LAN driver, and that worked well.

I have not had to do anything to get Intel HD3000 graphics working. I left out the AMD HD6570 card I was using with Lion, and won't bother with it again unless there are video problems with HD3000. So far, totally smooth.

Also haven't bothered trying to get on-board audio working, I've been using a USB outboard solution for a while now. Was never happy with the sound quality of the on-board.