Can you turn pretty much any Win7 PC into a hackintosh now?

[Ichinisan]

I want to do it to my mother's HP Pavilion Slimline S3700f. It has an Athlon 64 x2 5000+ -- slow, I know. Also only 3GB RAM. She's only going to be typing documents and searching the web. After decades of trying, she just can't wrap her head around the way a Windows computer works. Also, I think her iPhone 5c will just work better with OSX and I might be able to get her to manage her pictures and such.

The computer originally came with Windows Vista and a free Win7 upgrade. Something's wrong with the current install and I'm going to have to back-up and restore the whole machine -- something I'm not looking forward to. If I could make her life simpler with OSX, I want to do that.

For mother's day, I recently hooked her up with a Logitech K400 compact wireless keyboard + large trackpad, a large 27.5" viewable Hanns-G HG281D 1920x1200 display, and an NVIDIA GeForce GT 520 for digital HDMI/DVI outputs. Then I was able to mostly-hide the computer and cables. She no longer has to use the Hanspree HSG1075 TV as a computer monitor and she can sit right in front of it. It should be a lot easier for her to use...but I haven't seen her use it even once.

The S3700F is known to overheat and this was no exception. This one served as a media center PC for years and it would get incredibly hot. I'm pretty sure this was manufactured after the capacitor plague, so those bulged capacitors are almost surely due to the incredible heat. I heavily modified the system to improve cooling and the results were fantastic.

I just can't afford to buy anything else right now (cat needed $1,000+ surgery). I do have my OSX Snow Leopard from a previous hackintosh attempt long ago. Hoping I can work with what I have...

[edit]
Got it. Thanks.

I always knew an AMD hackintosh was tricky, but I didn't know if the scene had worked past those problems or not. I guess that won't happen because updates from Apple will always risk that the hacked kernel will be replaced.

 

[Kaido]

It all boils down to driver support. AMD support is more difficult because it is not natively supported (you have to replace the mach_kernel with one with baked-in AMD support before initial installation), which makes running updates a headache because when the kernel gets updated, your machine gets borked unless you swap back in the modified AMD kernel. But it is possible:

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/294868-guideamd-athlon-x2-x6-with-mavericks-1091/

Be sure to disable automatic system updates after installation:

http://www.tekrevue.com/tip/disable-automatic-app-updates-mac-os-x-mavericks/

A tip on configuring GPU support:

http://www.tonymacx86.com/mavericks-desktop-guides/113546-ga-h55m-d2h-gt-520-1156-users-you.html

If things end up not working out & you have to go back to Windows, there's a couple things you can do to mitigate the issues. First, install Avast 2014 Internet Security - it includes a feature called SafeZone, which is basically a virtualized Chrome browser. Remove the shortcuts to all other browser & rename the icon to Internet Browser. Anything that gets infected stays within the bubble (instead of infecting her computer), and you can reset it (wipe it out completely) in the settings at any time. Also, if you want better iPhone support, it's worth checking out DiskAid: (like iTunes on steroids, much easier access to the iPhone's files)

http://www.digidna.net/diskaid

SafeZone & DiskAid make a pretty great combo. DiskAid also has access to iCloud & Photostream, as well as supporting Wifi transfer from an iPhone on the local network, so you can transfer photos to the desktop super easily. I'd highly recommend installing Picasa (free photo album software from Google) to manage the photos automatically: (has both Mac & PC support)

http://picasa.google.com/

 

[ponyo]

Save yourself the trouble and buy her a Chromebox. $179 and you won't have to worry about the computer for at least 5 years.

 

[vailr]

As Kaido mentioned: AMD CPU's are not ideal for Hackintoshing.
However: if still interested in re-purposing your existing AMD hardware, try the Niresh 10.9 installer:
http://www.niresh.co/

 

[Zaap]

For your mother?

No.

A decent spec'd Intel-based Hackintosh with mobo/vid card that has plenty of community support? Sure.

AMD? Horrendous idea.

 

[Eug]

No.

As for your mother, I'd say you'd be better off just having her stick with her Windows PC until you can afford to buy her a Mac.

 

[mmntech]

I had a OS X Tiger running on an Athlon 64 rig many years ago. It ran, but there were hardware comparability issues with sound and ethernet. The big problem with Hackintosh is that driver support is very limited. It's best to run identical hardware whenever possible. Gigabyte mobos seem to have the best compatibility.

Tonymacx86 has some guides to building a Hackintosh.
http://www.tonymacx86.com/home.php

I'd just restore to Windows. Otherwise go with a user friendly Linux distro like Linux Mint or Ubuntu.

 

[JasonCoder]

You have to have a serious surplus of free time to make this even slightly cost effective. In the time you spend on troubleshooting @ minimum wage you would have had at least a decent used Macbook air.

However for pure experimentation and learning it sounds fun ;o)

 

[Kaido]

I always knew an AMD hackintosh was tricky, but I didn't know if the scene had worked past those problems or not. I guess that won't happen because updates from Apple will always risk that the hacked kernel will be replaced.

That doesn't mean you shouldn't try it. It just means it's a bit more work & you'll want to disable automatic updates. My in-laws were running 10.6 or whatever for years without updates, rock-solid! Just keep in mind that it's a project.

 

[aaksheytalwar]

You can consider macincloud.com over your existing OS.