Dirt Cheap ML Hackintosh!

[mosslack]

Just have to share this with you all. I picked this up on Ebay, they had 8 when I found the listing and none had sold. As you can see here: http://www.ebay.com/itm/HP-DC7800-s...Desktop_PCs&hash=item3a76d63d60#ht_1394wt_977 The price was only $69.90 with free shipping!

The specs looked good enough to make it a decent candidate for a Lion install, so when it arrived, I quickly installed Lion via iAtKOS L2. That ran great and was very smooth. I later did a retail install of Lion using both UniBeast and Kakewalk.

Then when Mountain Lion came out, I bought that on the app store and used the newly developed UniBeast for ML to do an install of that OS on the system. It also works very well, but you will need to supply a compatible video card for full resolution and QE/CI for any of the installs I have outlined.

The remaining stock on Ebay for that seller quickly sold out, but others are still available. They are available in 3 different versions, the best is the CMT, next is the SFF, and the one you want to avoid is the USDT (Ultra Slim Desktop) as it has no means to add a video card.

A good deal no matter how you slice it, guides for all the installs I described here can be found on the homepage of HQ-A - link in my sig below.

 

[Kaido]

haha awesome, thanks for sharing!

 

[Kaido]

Oh and as long as we're on the topic of cheap Hackintoshes, there's an HP ProBook on sale over in Hot Deals:

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2260506

Works on Snow/Lion/Mountain:

http://legacy.tonymacx86.com/viewtopic.php?f=259&t=43234

Snow Guide:

http://www.tonymacx86.com/hp-proboo...nstalling-snow-leopard-4530s-version-3-a.html

Lion Guide:

http://legacy.tonymacx86.com/viewtopic.php?f=259&t=41546

 

[Zaap]

Interesting project Mosslack! Do you know what motherboard is in those desktops?

I've been using an HP ProBook 4530s as a Hackintosh for several months now. Runs Lion perfectly. I haven't seen a good guide for Mountain Lion yet.

Tonymac users have guides for swapping out the screen and CPU on this model- you can go from an i3 to i5 and up to a 1080p screen very cost-effectively. I'm happy with the i3 performance, but I will eventually upgrade the screen.

 

[mosslack]

Interesting project Mosslack! Do you know what motherboard is in those desktops?

I've been using an HP ProBook 4530s as a Hackintosh for several months now. Runs Lion perfectly. I haven't seen a good guide for Mountain Lion yet.

Tonymac users have guides for swapping out the screen and CPU on this model- you can go from an i3 to i5 and up to a 1080p screen very cost-effectively. I'm happy with the i3 performance, but I will eventually upgrade the screen.

The mobo is strictly made for the HP as it is backwards and won't fit a standard case. It's got a Q35/ICH9 chipset, but requires a special kext so the internal hard drive can be seen.

There is a guy on the HQ-A list who has the same laptop and has been following that same thread on Tonymacx86. I believe he is getting ready to take the plunge so I'll let you know how it goes.

 

[Zaap]

I'm wishing I had picked one of those up for $70 just to screw around with it! Not that I need another computer- I've got a surplus of Hacks! All my old ones are now media centers and upgrades to my home servers.

But it's fun just to get something like that just to mess with for a while (especially with Mountain Lion) and then give away.

Your friend will probably have a pretty easy time of it- the ProBooks are easy to hack for the most part. The only problem I had (which is typical) is that the wifi chip it came with was incompatible with OSX. Has to be the right HP Atheros wifi/BT chip, and annoyingly, the BIOS will reject cards that don't pass HP's internal authentication. So it has to be just the right chip. (Luckily, easy to find on ebay for about $12).

There's also a new 4.0 version of the Lion installer that's supposed to be easier than ever. When I did it, it was the 'old' 3.0 method using modified Unibeast.

Man, I miss the heydays of Hackintoshing around here!

 

[mosslack]

I'm wishing I had picked one of those up for $70 just to screw around with it! Not that I need another computer- I've got a surplus of Hacks! All my old ones are now media centers and upgrades to my home servers.

But it's fun just to get something like that just to mess with for a while (especially with Mountain Lion) and then give away.

Your friend will probably have a pretty easy time of it- the ProBooks are easy to hack for the most part. The only problem I had (which is typical) is that the wifi chip it came with was incompatible with OSX. Has to be the right HP Atheros wifi/BT chip, and annoyingly, the BIOS will reject cards that don't pass HP's internal authentication. So it has to be just the right chip. (Luckily, easy to find on ebay for about $12).

There's also a new 4.0 version of the Lion installer that's supposed to be easier than ever. When I did it, it was the 'old' 3.0 method using modified Unibeast.

Man, I miss the heydays of Hackintoshing around here!

I know what you mean about the Hp's, I ran into a similar problem with the Mini 311.

I may try to pick one of the HP probooks up, sound like something I would like. I have a similar sized Toshiba, but can't get OS X to run reliably on it.

Yeah the HP DC7800 was a cool find, works very well with Lion and ML, but having to use VoodooHDA sucks as I get random KP's on the startup sometimes. I've got some USB sound dongles coming from HK to tryout and review for HQ-A.

We have an HP DC7900 coming and hope to Hack it as well. It's a Q45/ICH10 chipset I believe. They are selling at Compuvest for $159 shipped. Not a bad price at all and you even get a keyboard and mouse with Windows installed on it.

 

[Zaap]

Tiger currently has the ProBook 4530s for $449. Or check Craigslist, I got mine for $360 there from a local dentist office that bought too many computers, so it was brand new in the box.

According to the gurus at Tonymac, an i5 upgrade can be done for around $60, and the screen upgrade for about $100.

For best results, I'd recommend the A7K05UT model as it works perfectly. Other models work fine too, but I've seen people have mixed results.

Interesting on the DC7900. A Q45/ICH10 comp should run Lion great. For less than $200 that's pretty hard to beat.

 

[dlock13]

Do these even run Lion/Mountain Lion good at all? Like compare them to an actual MacBook Air/Pro with specs from the past 2 years.

 

[Zaap]

Do these even run Lion/Mountain Lion good at all? Like compare them to an actual MacBook Air/Pro with specs from the past 2 years.

See for yourself: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fwiImBgKDA&feature=related

Is it the same laptop as a MacBook Pro? Of course not.

Did it cost $1200-$2200 rather than $350-$450? Of course not.

 

[mosslack]

Tiger currently has the ProBook 4530s for $449. Or check Craigslist, I got mine for $360 there from a local dentist office that bought too many computers, so it was brand new in the box.

According to the gurus at Tonymac, an i5 upgrade can be done for around $60, and the screen upgrade for about $100.

For best results, I'd recommend the A7K05UT model as it works perfectly. Other models work fine too, but I've seen people have mixed results.

Interesting on the DC7900. A Q45/ICH10 comp should run Lion great. For less than $200 that's pretty hard to beat.

That is a good price, I may have to spend some money that I don't have!

 

[mosslack]

Your friend will probably have a pretty easy time of it- the ProBooks are easy to hack for the most part. The only problem I had (which is typical) is that the wifi chip it came with was incompatible with OSX. Has to be the right HP Atheros wifi/BT chip, and annoyingly, the BIOS will reject cards that don't pass HP's internal authentication. So it has to be just the right chip. (Luckily, easy to find on ebay for about $12).

There's also a new 4.0 version of the Lion installer that's supposed to be easier than ever. When I did it, it was the 'old' 3.0 method using modified Unibeast.

Man, I miss the heydays of Hackintoshing around here!

Okay Harry, he has it installed now and here is what he told me:

The bottom line is that it is done.

However, it wasn’t as straightforward as I had expected. I believed I could install ML over L and replace a few kexts.

I mentioned earlier that there are several guys on the tonymac 4530 forum who are tonymac/macman wannabees, and they are trying to create an installer rather than letting the community know what they believe the kexts are that need to be updated (such as for bluetooth, wherein HP uses a firmware download to the combo wifi/bt chip—took a good developer about 8 months to figure that one out; the hp touchpad, which isn’t quite a standard one so takes some kext mods; audio—a nonstandard chip that someone developed a kext for which relieves us from having to use voodoo; audio over hdmi, part of the aforementioned audio kext mod)

So, I tried a couple of the “installers” for ML, and that combined with the 4K sector drive problem, which I have only run into on the probook, caused 3 or 4 false starts.

What I ended up doing:

Used an 80gb drive to avoid the 4K sector problem
Installed ML from the usb stick I had built, that worked fine
Ran the probook version 4 (developed by tonymac users for Lion 4) and it did its thing with SSDT (needed for sandy bridge cpus lion 4 and later for proper speed stepping), bluetooth, audio, trackpad
Then installed a few kexts that had been modded for ML (there are a few 4530 forum guys who get it about “we don’t need no stinkin installer”), installed the DSDT from my lion install
Rebooted successfully

Since I planned to use migration assistant to rebuild my disk, when the new ML install wanted to be configured, I used a different name and acccount name for the new install

Then used CCC to clone the install from the 80gb to my 500mb test disk, ran chimera 1.11, rebooted fine.

Then used migration assistant from ML—apps—utilities to xfer everything from my untouched primary 500gb lion 4 disk.

Rebooted, logged out of the temp user acct I had created, logged into my “old” user acct, deleted the temp user acct

Rebooted and am now typing this.

Overnight, I’ll clone this 500gb drive to the “main drive” which is a 3-week-old one that HP replaced under warranty. It’s the same rotational speed but I swear it is quicker. Not sure why other than my imagination.

BTW, he also said if you wanted to contact him, he would be glad to help out any way he could. I'll send you a PM with his address and name.

 

[Zaap]

That's awesome that he got ML running on the ProBook. Thanks for posting that.

I'm pretty happy with Lion for now. I've got a ton of work to get done these days, so I'm not up for messing with the system at the moment. I mainly bought the ProBook so I could cost-effectively unchain myself from my desktop computer and take my work anywhere. It runs Final Cut 7 that I work with everyday perfectly.

But ML on it definitely intriques me. (Haven't had the chance to install it on my desktop yet either. Still waiting for an RMA replacement of an OCZ Agility 3 SSD- my 2nd RMA with them. Avoid OCZ Agility 3 SSDs is my advice!)

When I get a break in my schedule where I can mess with my ProBook I'd definitely like to try your friend's ML method.

Does he know if all the power states are working or not in ML? That's one thing I was glad the devs at TonyMac figured out- it'll be awesome of the same DSDT files work in ML as they do in Lion. The power-state fixes keep the fan from running at top speed constantly.

Any rate I'll contact him and get more info on installing ML.

I hope you get a ProBook as well- definitely worthwhile to hack.