Hackintosh - Salvage your HD PCI cards - You Can Do It Too!

[jeremyroberts]

Originally Posted by fatcode

I was looking at similar guides and they talk about running the DSDT fixer and then running Multibeast with User DSDT (at least on 10.6.8..)

Do I need to follow the same here ? Could you please give details at the Multibeast stage ?

Thanks !

NO DSDT! Not for the Jetway mobo. Talk about DSDT all pre-dates UniBeast and recent MultiBeast (with Lion).

You "simply" use the "EasyBeast" setting in MultiBeast and you are D-O-N-E (except for the networking kext)

If your goal is a close to OOB experience, ignore DSDT with the Jetway.

[fatcode]

oh I didn't get that ! Now this is really interesting !

Thanks for the explanation!

[fatcode]

Hi Jeremy,

I've put together a similar set up. Only differences are the GT520 (I have the model with VGA and DVI) and an OCZ SSD drive.

Installing Lion 10.7.4 with Unibeast is a breeze much better than Snow Leopard.

I got pro tools HD10 to run with a Core card but I get freezes at start up when I put in the Process card. I'm investigating but I cannot think of anything...

I am wondering if card revisions can matter here - could you share card revisions of your system ? I'm wondering if my cards are too old...

Thanks !

[jeremyroberts]

Originally Posted by fatcode

I am wondering if card revisions can matter here - could you share card revisions of your system ? I'm wondering if my cards are too old...

How many cards?
Did you try core in pci slot 4 and accel in pci slot 3?

Slot order seems to matter here -- I had freezes when core was in PCI1 -- and although this slot order is contrary to the way it works in regular macs, it seems to be the way it is for this mobo.

Try ONLY the core in slot 4 -- test. THEN add the accel in slot 3, test, etc...

Good luck.

[fatcode]

Hi Jeremy,

Thanks for your reply. I thought to report the issues I'm having as I'm not sure how many tried the method you suggested yet! Also my system is very close to yours so I should get there eventually.

Absolutely, slot order matters, on the slot closest to the PSU Pro Tools HD emitted just noise when I pressed play. In my case Core + process card makes the USB system freeze at log in window (I cannot type anything, it's like if the system doesn't see keyboard and mouse). I'll try to re-install... the only difference in my setup is a PCI-e TP-Link card for wireless - it's recognized as an airport card OOB, but I wonder if that messed up something...

I've just (finished 10 min ago!) gave a shot to Areed set up for Snow Leopard 10.6.8 and I don't seem to have any issue at first testing - and now my core card is the closest to the PSU.

I'm making a backup of the Snow Leopard set up right now so I can dig back to the Lion install (I love 10.7.4 and Unibeast) and play with it - good thing I'm on holidays !

Still, when you have a moment, could you run the digi utility and give details about your cards revision etc ?

Thanks

[jeremyroberts]

Did you try CORE ONLY in slot pci4 (slot is closest to edge of mobo) ?

[fatcode]

Yes - if I have the core there it works...and it works well, having 10.7.4 on the SSD gets the system to boot in 5 seconds - it made me go 'whoa' !

The core card on its own works in 3 slots, the only slot giving trouble is the one closest to the PSU

Trouble starts when I add a process card - I get this kind of system hang at log-on.

The only thing I noticed is that the core and process have different revisions, but then a core+process combination seem to work on Snow Leopard (under Areed method) which makes this puzzling. I'll try later to add another process card (so I'll get an HD3 system) on the Snow Leopard system to check how it behaves...

Cards work fine in the G5 so I can exclude issues on these...

But maybe:

Did you do anything after installing Pro Tools HD10 ? Areed instruction involve deleting the Digidal.kext file after installing Pro Tools and before rebooting - after restart the Digidal.kext gets re-installed using kext wizard. Did you do anything like that ? I think there might be a step I've missed

To recap I used 10.7.4 on unibeast for the initial install - then under Multibeast used Easybeast and NVidia drivers for the GT520. So far so good very very nice system. Then I restart, put the core card in and install Pro Tools HD10. And it works. If I add a process card then I get system to hang at log-on. Maybe something missed in this procedure ?

Thanks for your time Jeremy, any ideas are welcome

[jeremyroberts]

Originally Posted by fatcode

deleting the Digidal.kext file after installing Pro Tools and before rebooting - after restart the Digidal.kext gets re-installed using kext wizard. Did you do anything like that ?

Not sure... I wiped my SSD 3 or 4 times and installed Lion fresh each time because I made rookie mistakes on multibeast -- I should have simply left it alone and I tried to get tricky. So I may have done the Digidal.kext swap -- but on later installs I may have just ignored that too.

FYI, I am only using a core card in PCI4 and one accel in PCI3. I have not yet put in a 2nd accel card. Except for sessions at 88.2k+, I have been just fine. I have no experience with a process card.

HTH

[fatcode]

yes some trial and error will get it working - I might check tonymac as well for some ideas

[Niels B]

Jeremy, are you going to put in a second Accel-card?

Fatcode, do you have a process card working now?

Thanks, Niels