Spin2Win's Build: Core i3-3245 - GA-H77N-WIFI - 16GB RAM

[Spin2Win]

Spin2Win's Build: Core i3-3245 - GA-H77N-WIFI - 16GB RAM - with Atheros AR5B195 WiFi & Bluetooth

Spin2Win's Build: Core i3-3245 - GA-H77N-WIFI - 16GB RAM - Atheros AR5B195 WiFi & Bluetooth

Components

GIGABYTE GA-H77N-WIFI
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128567

Intel Core i3-3245 3.4GHz HD4000 Graphics
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116923

IN WIN BP655.300TB3L Mini-ITX Computer Case
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811108428

SAMSUNG 840 Pro Series MZ-7PD256BW 2.5" 256GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147193

2 x Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 Desktop Memory
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148540

IOGEAR GBU521 Bluetooth 4.0 Micro Adapter USB
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833139027

Power Up Internal Media Card Reader - 3.5"
http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4368596

HP 23" IPS LED Backlit Monitor with 7ms Response Time (23BW)
http://www.bestbuy.ca/en-CA/product...326&path=117979cadbcd1562051ce00dd5922ba3en02

Apple Magic Mouse
http://www.bestbuy.ca/en-CA/product...a255a4a8b2cac9438accf8ben02&SearchPageIndex=1

Apple Wireless Keyboard - English
http://www.bestbuy.ca/en-CA/product...add8f50939dfe013d6fae13en02&SearchPageIndex=1

Apple OS X Mountain
https://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/os-x-mountain-lion/id537386512?mt=12

Atheros AR5B195 Wireless Wifi N Bluetooth Bt Half Mini PCI-e Card
http://www.ebay.ca/itm/171083210502?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1497.l2649


Comments

We are a Mac family, except for my wife, who uses a Windows laptop for work. My 2 daughters and I have MacBooks, but our home PC was an 8 year old IBM tower. My wife had been complaining that it is very slow to boot up so as to be almost unusable.

A quick check revealed some malware, but even cleaning that up didn't help. She suggested a new Mac. I thought of updating the IBM PC, but everything in the case would have to be replaced. I was keen to do my own build, and stumbled on the Hackintosh Universe.

Wanted mini-ITX for the small footprint, and possible future Home Theatre driver.

Cost was a consideration. I knew I didn't need a graphics board, and would not be over-clocking. This is not a high-end games machine - but would mainly be used for browsing, possibly as a media server, and light photo editing.

I considered an i7 processor, but I knew I wouldn't be using its capabilities. The i5 was $100 cheaper, and the i3 was lower by yet another $100. The i3's clock rate of 3.4GHz was very good. I had a couple of sleepless nights, seeing that any Intel computer sold these days has at least an i5 processor, but I am very happy with the i3. We just don't do that much hard-core computing to require more than 2 CPUs and all that cache.

No gaming - mainly just to be used as a browser, possible media server, and light photo editing.

Important features were Airplay support, Bluetooth keyboard & mouse, fast boot, enough RAM to run VM-Ware & Windows.

Airplay may be a problem. I'm getting sound through our Apple TV, but VLC crashed when I tried to screen share.

I ordered the Atheros Ar5b195 Wireless Wifi N Bluetooth Bt Half Mini PCI-e Card from eBay at the same time I ordered the other hardware from NewEgg. Because I didn't expect it to be delivered for some time, I had ordered the IO Gear BlueTooth USB adapter, which I used for my initial installation.

Geekbench shows a score of 7764. Just fine for browsing!


Installation

Unibeast Setup

Downloaded UniBeast, and ran it on my Mountain Lion MacBookPro per the standard instructions. It bombed, but worked fine after I purchased a copy of Mtn Lion from the iTunes store. That gave me my USB key to proceed.

Hardware Assembly

I love the IN WIN BP655 case. There are Audio In/Out and 2 USB 3.0 plugs on the front panel, and a 5.25" opening. The drives are set in front of the motherboard, so there are no problems with the height of the CPU cooler or memory heat sinks if your chips have them.

The wires are generously long, and I had absolutely no problems plugging everything in and getting the top on. About the only thing I might have done differently, is make sure the drives (SSD & 3.5" internal card reader) are installed in the rack before I screw in the motherboard. The rack bumps into the motherboard, and you have to be a bit careful getting it hooked around.

There is a USB 2.0 header on the Gigabyte WIFI board, and it was simple to plug the card reader into it.

I used an old USB keyboard & mouse for the initial setup.

BIOS Settings

I booted up the box, and hit Delete to get to the BIOS settings. Where I did the following:

• Pressed F7 to load the optimized defaults
• Under Peripherals Changed EHCI Hand-off to Enabled
• Under BIOS Features changed High Precision Event Timer to Enabled
• I looked for VT-d, but could find no such setting.

These were based on bitdoctor's install process.

Software Installation - UniBeast

I first ran Unibeast with the -v (verbose) option, and noticed that it hung on the Bluetooth driver install, so I booted with -x.

At the Mac OS-X installation screen, I had to partition the SSD prior to installing the OS via the Disk Utility.

• I chose my SSD in the Disk Utility, and clicked on the Partition tab
• Set the partitions to one, and the format to Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
• Click Options, and set the partition scheme to GUID Partition Table
• Click Apply

I continued with the install, which took about 10 minutes. The system rebooted (entered -x again), and was prompted for my password.

I enabled Bluetooth, and connected my Apple keyboard and Magic Mouse.

On reboot, UniBeast didn't offer the USB boot option. I booted from the SSD. After a few seconds, the keyboard and mouse were recognized and connected.

Software Installation - MultiBeast

I looked at a few Multibeast configs, and chose the options that made sense. I used a DSDT from this site to support sound over HDMI, but haven't tested that feature yet. These are the settings I used:

I would consider the Miscellaneous settings as optional. I originally ran MultiBeast without them, and the USB 3.0 ports on the IN WIN case seemed to be working fine (though I was just using USB 2.0 media, mouse & keyboard).

Although the BIOS settings for the IN WIN case fan were set to "Quiet", it appears to be running at full speed. With my initial MultiBeast settings (without the FakeSMC Plugins) I could not get any info from the BIOS (temperatures or fan speeds). After re-doing MultiBeast, I was able to read all BIOS info through the HWMonitor Info-Bar app. This confirms that my fan is blowing hard, and is noisy. Any fan control apps don't seem to have any effect. The case fan is always on full blast.

Atheros AR5B195 Installation

I used the IO Gear Bluetooth dongle for about a week before the Atheros WiFi/BT combo mini IDEs card arrived. Installation was simple, and the wires that connect the antenna from the back-plate to the card clip right on the the Atheros card.

I located the driver package on osx86.net. Following the instructions there, I updated the Vendor ID and Product ID. This is non-trivial. OS X could not see the hardware at all, so I created a bootable Ubuntu USB stick. Of course, Ubuntu booted right up, and the Atheros card was immediately functional.

Dropping into Terminal, and running dmesg, I could see that the Vendor ID was 0x0CF3, and the Product ID was 0x3005. These were consistent with what others had reported. These numbers needed to be converted to decimal and entered into the 10ath3kfrmwr.kext's info.plist file.

After a few hours of research to figure out how to find the info.plist, I was able to right-click on the 10ath3kfrmwr.kext file, and select "Show Package Contents". I located the info.plist file, and edited it to change the existing idProduct key from 12573 to 12293 and the idVendor key from 1008 to 3315.

I downloaded KEXT Wizzard to manage the installation of these KEXTS. I selected the 3 new .kext files, and installed. The program reported that they installed correctly. I rebooted, and was able to click on the WiFi icon on the Info-bar. After selecting my home SSID, I was able to connect.

The Bluetooth was not enabled though, and I could not see any sign that the edited kext had been installed. I downloaded "Kext Utility", and used that to install the 2 Bluetooth support kexts, and Bluetooth came right up.

The kexts were dropped into the System/Library/Extensions directory, and I was able to confirm my edits to the info.plist by showing the package contents.

I now have working Bluetooth without the IO Gear dongle.

Issues

Some of these are one-offs, and others are persistent problems. I'll add comments as I gather more info.

Airplay caused VLC to crash.

I installed VM-Ware Fusion 4.1, but the VM-Ware Tools did not install in Windows 7. I cannot dynamically resize the Windows Window, nor mirror any Mac drives in Windows.


Future

I will be testing and confirming audio over HDMI, Airplay, some Bluetooth dropouts by the Magic Mouse, and trying to fix VM-Ware Fusion.

I'll clean up this post as things get resolved.

I found this an exciting project, and I learned a lot. I was blown away by the ease of installation - of Ubuntu. I may just spend some time playing with that environment!

 

[Spin2Win]

Spin2Win's Build: Core i3-3245 - GA-H77N-WIFI - 16GB RAM - Atheros AR5B195

I have been having problems with my Magic Mouse. It works just fine for a while, then seems to hang - it just stops responding.

When I go to Bluetooth status, it shows as connected. If I turn it off, it shows as disconnected. When I turn it back on, it will connect. If I just leave it, it starts working after a minute or 2, as if nothing was wrong.

I picked up a Magic Trackpad, thinking it might be the mouse, but it shows the same behaviour. Interestingly, they rarely go south together. If the trackpad stops responding, I can just pick up the mouse and go. When the mouse hangs, I move to the trackpad.

I'm having no problems with the Apple Wireless Keyboard.

I've got the Atheros AR5B195 in the PCIe slot previously taken by the Intel Wifi/BT card that came with the Gigabyte H77-WIFI card, and the antenna connections attached.

The kext drivers are from here.

Anyone have any suggestions?

 

[grndplane]

I really like your build. The great look of the IN WIN case, and the front usability of the card reader. This is a very practical build, and I would like to own something similar. Thanks for the hard work.

 

[Spin2Win]

Bluetooth Update & Airplay Confirmed Working

While using the Hackintosh the other day, Bluetooth just stopped working. No BT available. Could not enable - it was as if the card had been pulled.

I tried plugging in the IO Gear USB BT adapter, but had no better luck.

I swapped out the Atheros AR5B195 for the Intel card that came on the Gigabyte MB, and everything came up perfectly.

Now when I think back, prior to installing the Atheros card, just after my build, I had the Intel card installed, but plugged in the IO Gear BT adapter. My BT was flakey - things would only work if very close to the case. A number of other people had reported the same problem.

I suspect it is caused by not hooking up the external BT antenna that came with my Gigabyte H77-WIFI MB.

I was assuming that OS-X was using the IO Gear BT, but it must have been using the Intel card. With no antenna, BT connectivity would have been inconsistent.

All is working well, except I have no WiFi - which I don't need at the moment.

I've also gone over all the Airplay functionality, and all is well. The upgrade to 10.8.5 is installed - as easy as if it was a real Mac.