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GA-H61N-USB3 for an Mini-ITX MediaPC

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Jul 16, 2011
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Motherboard
Asus Z97I-Plus
CPU
i7-4790K
Graphics
Zotac GTX 780 3GB @ Dell U2711
Mac
  1. MacBook Air
  2. Mac mini
Classic Mac
  1. 0
Mobile Phone
  1. iOS
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This month I created a Media PC Hackintosh for the main purpose of watching movies on my TV in the living room. It is my second Hackintosh based on the GA-H61N-USB3 - the other one was a gaming machine in the BitFenix Prodigy case (I'll post another Guide about that soon)


Used parts:

If you're located in Europe you can order the parts from this wishlist, otherwise you have to look for a shop by yourself: http://geizhals.at/de/?cat=WL-254280

Gigabyte GA-H61N-USB3, H61 (B3) (Sockel-1155, dual PC3-10667U DDR3)
Intel Core i3-2125, 2x 3.30GHz, boxed (BX80623I32125)
G.Skill RipJaws DIMM Kit 8GB PC3-10667U CL9-9-9-24 (DDR3-1333) (F3-10666CL9D-8GBRL)
Chieftec Flyer FI-02BC, 200W TFX12V, Mini-ITX
be quiet! TFX Power 300W TFX12V 2.3 (TFX-300W/BN136) (not necessary, but I don't like the china-PSU shipped together with this case)
Scythe Kaze Jyu Slim 1000 (SY1012SL12L) (you definitvely need that for the selected case otherwise you get temperatures up to 50°C during idle)
Apple Remote Receiver, see my post here for instructions about that

Instructions:

The installation worked fine by just following the instructions in the current Unibeast Tutorial.
Use one of the two DSDTs attached to this post during MultiBeast installation depending on whether you want to have HDMI Audio via the internal graphics card or not. Don't pick any FakeSMC plugins, since they cause kernel panics - if you insist on temperature and fan speed for iStat menus or something, pick the most recent ones from this page http://www.projectosx.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=1643 (just copy them over from Terminal via "sudo -i" [root login] and "cp -R /extraction/directory /System/Library/Extensions" - but delete the OemSMBIOS.kext when you're updating to 10.8.2 !!)


What's working, what's not..

I'm using the Hackintosh for the most part for watching movies with Plex on my TV, so I've connected it via HDMI and picked the proper DSDT for HDMI audio.
For this case most things are working fine, you can play movies fluently, have HDMI audio and access to you network and internet, also sleep mode is working. Even USB 3.0 is working after updating to 10.8.2 with the quite uncommon "Fresco FL1009" chipset, since Apple implemented native support for that thing.
Now to the big 'but..'
I've had some problems with the original Realtek kext, during the time when I've used that it was like playing a gambling game if Bonjour is working after the next reboot or not, this concerns shares in Finder as well as the iTunes library shares and also the announcement of the Plex Media Server. After installing the Lnx2Mac driver everything worked fine and Bonjour is running all the time, but the disadvantage of this driver is.. if you replug the ethernet cable, you can reboot since it doesn't get the connection back.
Another thing that you better not do is to switch the input of you TV during startup (when the apple and spinning wheel show up) this will cause a kernel panic for some reason and you have to get up, walk to the computer and press the reset button. However, after boot, when the desktop is fully loaded it doesn't harm. If you switch back to your SAT receiver or something the system will turn off QE/CI (you can check this from Remote Desktop since the bar at the top gets opaque with turned off QE/CI) and it switches back on when you pick the HDMI input of your computer again. It will also cut the audio output if you switch the input of your television or plug out the HDMI cable - some applications, and unfortunately Plex is one of them, don't re-activate the audio output after you switch back to the right input or plug the cable back in. So you have to restart Plex if you want to switch to TV for the daily news and then back to your paused movie if you're not coincidentally watching a silent movie.
 

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wow! that's impressing!

May I ask what sort of CPU fan you are using?
 
This case is big enough for the boxed cooler that comes together with the CPU. Since the "Core i" Series there's no need for a bigger cooler unless you want to play with overclocking etc. Even the i5 in my gaming machine runs at 60°C max. during Battlefield 3 or any other game - the fan is below 2000rpm at this temperature, so even the hard drive is louder than the fan :D

If you want to grab a smaller case, there's the Scythe Kozuti which is only 40mm tall. But then you have to grab another Ram.
 
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