What was the most compatible (old) mini-ITX 1155 board..?

[attenborough]

So I'm planning on building a custom HTPC out of an old 8-Track player. The machine doesn't need to be powerful as it'll just be running Plex etc.

I dont want to spend a fortune making this so I'm putting it together with old parts from left over builds. I already have a old i5-3570 (1155 socket) CPU and a spare 4gb of DDR3 Ram, so I want to find a cheap 2nd hand motherboard on eBay to finish off the build.

My question is what was the most compatible and easy to install mini-ITX 1155 socket motherboard from a few years ago? I've had a quick search in the forums here and there's plenty of discussions on mini-ITX 1155's but it's hard to see which were the best and most successful. If you had to pick one (or two so i have options on eBay) which model would you choose??

Bonus if any come with HDMI! Other wise i'll have to get a DVI -> HDMI cable which wont look as sexy.

For those interested here's the old 8-track I'm going to try and mod. I'm hoping to get the vu meters working as well as the majority of the button and knobs (fan speed, volume control etc). The cassette slot with hopefully house a SSD hotswap bay!

Hope someone can help. Thanks team Tony!

 

[jaymonkey]

Best ITX 1155 I've used in the past was the Gigabyte H77N-WiFi ..... very reliable for OSX ...

https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/GA-H77N-WIFI-rev-10#sp

I used that board for multiple hackingtosh builds back in the day ..... I also used the H87N-wifi which was the next generation of the board (1150 skt) take a look at my Monkey-Media-Mac Build ....

https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/...mate-osx-xbmc-media-centre.121196/#post739107

Although that motherboard and my guide are now quite old in Hackingtosh terms, my HTC system is still going strong .. the only thing i've done since then is migrate the bootloader to to Clover and update the OS to Yosemite ... since all it does is run XBMC i have no need for any of the new features introduced with later OSX versions ... If it ain't - broke don't fix it ...

Cheers
Jay

 

[attenborough]

Thanks for the swift reply Jay! I've found just one H77N on UK eBay for £30/$49 sold untested so it's a bit of a gamble (http://r.ebay.com/QPTehI). I might wait and keep and eye out for one that's 100% working, thanks for your advice though!

 

[VioletDragon]

Thanks for the swift reply Jay! I've found just one H77N on UK eBay for £30/$49 sold untested so it's a bit of a gamble (http://r.ebay.com/QPTehI). I might wait and keep and eye out for one that's 100% working, thanks for your advice though!

I was looking at that board a couple of days ago. I didn't buy it because it has bent CPU Pins. I have done a guide for both Z77N-WIFI & H77N-WIFI and ACPI Patches. Take a look at this. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Gigabyte-...051741?hash=item4669d18ddd:g:SbkAAOSwGo1ZlIzN

Z77-DS3H is a stable board also only problem is that onboard Ethernet is Atheros and ALXEthernet has problems in 10.12+.

 

[P1LGRIM]

I've found just one H77N on UK eBay for £30/$49 sold untested so it's a bit of a gamble

If there was a Google translate for ebay speak then "untested" would be "I know it doesn't work but I still want some money for it and you can't say I didn't warn you".

 

[VioletDragon]

If there was a Google translate for ebay speak then "untested" would be "I know it doesn't work but I still want some money for it and you can't say I didn't warn you".

I don't get how people can bend the CPU Pins.

 

[jaymonkey]

I don't get how people can bend the CPU Pins.

Me neither .. i must have built around 12 osx systems back in the day based on gigabyte H77n, z77n, H87n & z87n wifi itx boards never had a single problem with any of them and all are still running to this day ... i guess some people must teat them with a heavy hand.

The only thing you have to do is swap out the intel wi-fi/BT mpcie card for a broadcom based one ....

Jay

 

[VioletDragon]

Me neither .. i must have built around 12 osx systems back in the day based on gigabyte H77n, z77n, H87n & z87n wifi itx boards never had a single problem with any of them and all are still running to this day ... i guess some people must teat them with a heavy hand.

The only thing you have to do is swap out the intel wi-fi/BT mpcie card for a broadcom based one ....

Jay

My H77N-WIFI is stable. It's a good little board. Problem is some people are not careful. There's loads of boards on eBay that are damaged bent pins or thermal paste in the pins.

 

[Going Bald]

Asus P8Z77-I Deluxe was an extremely easy board to install Mac OS X.
https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/guide-asus-p8z77-i-with-i5-3570k-mountain-lion.72439/