Hackintosh 10.5.5 Retail Rig - Starting at $305

[edvardlee]

I posted a while ago, basically i want to build a core i7 build using mATX DFI Lan party X58 Mobo. I have read some where that some one used this for their hackintosh using Digital-dreamers build. If any of the experts out there can give some comments on this build and let me know wether there are any red lights before i order my parts. This is going to be overclocked to maybe 3.5Ghz in a small Thermaltake Lanbox!! That's gotta be a pretty good build right? The PSU has to be taken out and the fan direction has to be reversed so that it is blowing down to the MOBO so that i won't fight the air flow of the heatsink fan. I'm using a Modular PSU so wiring will be a little easier in this small Box. The wireless card according to this forum works OOB.I also want to ask which is the easiest high performance graphic card to install gfore 9600 gt or ati 3870? any other suggestions? I plan to install using bootloader 132 method. here are the parts.

CASE:Thermaltake Lanbox
CPU:Intel Core i7 Nehalem 2.66Ghz
MOBOfi Lanparty Jr x58-t3h6 lga 1366 mATX
RAM:2xCorsair XMS3 (3x2Gb) 240 Pin ddr3 sdram
HeatSInk:Thermaltake Axp 140
HeatSinkFan:Aerocool Silver Lightning 140mm Silent Fan
PSU:ENERMAX INFINITY EIN720AWT 720W ATX12V
ThermalCompound:Artic Silver Thermal Compound
LCD Touchscreen embedded:Thermaltake A2413 Lcd Monitor 7 Inch
HD:2XSeagate Baracuda 7200Rpm 32Mb Cache 3Gb/s 1TB SATA
Wireless:Asus WL-138g V2 IEEE 802.11b/g PCI
GFXMSI RX3870X2-T2D1G OC Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB 512-bit (256-bit x 2) GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card

PLs Let me know for better suggestions if any. For musicians out there, with the embedded touch screen and the handle bar on the CPU u wouldn't need to bring a monitor. Actually i have figured out a way to use my iphone as a screen for the computer and u can change ur keyboard patches with ur iphone touchscreen while on a live gig!! email or pm me if you want more info about that. I know sound card doesn't work but i plan to use a external firewire apogee duet sound card for live gigs and RME fireface 400 for studio work at home. Total cost for this build came up to $1672. Same specs on Apple store for a mac pro is $5-6k!!! Also let me know wether 720 watts will be enough. thanks

 

[Eastwind]

I've been away as work has been demanding lately. So, again, thanks to Kaido. I have a very easy to make hackintosh. Damn easy. A talented person on ISM has posted HDA kexts so now I get 5.1 out of SPDIF! I have nothing else I need at the moment, but I'll take audio over HDMI when it comes.

I did a retail 10.5.5 install on a USB external, used UInstaller, dropped a DSDT and 4 kexts (OpenHaltRestart, a hacked HDA, SMBIOSResolver, Disabler), put it in the case and I was off and running. 20 minutes, maybe? I did learn a lot from my failed attempt using the E7AUM. I guess there's learning in suffering.

Anyway, now I have Plex running flawlessly on it, all my movies, streaming Netflix, music and all on my HD Projector w/ a 98" image. It's badass.

Thanks again!

 

[mosslack]

@ Kaido, for the wiki, looks like the PNY 8400 GS is to be avoided as it won't work with the Uinstaller. It's been awhile since I've seen the wiki and have forgotten which versions of the 8400 GS work. I know my Gigabyte 8400 GS (256 Mb) works fine.

@ Eastwind, welcome back, that work can be a nasty thing, people expecting you to show up and actually perform some menial task in exchange for a monetary contribution. BTDT

 

[Zaap]

Eastwind- awesome! I always enjoy hearing when people have success with a Hack.

A Hackintosh HTPC is really a special kind of guilty pleasure, I have to say. OSX on a big screen, on custom hardware, without having to have settled for less, or paid way too much for overkill. Toast yourself, dude! (And while you're at it, download Boxee, and get the Boxee touch-remote for iPhone/iTouch if you have one! Truly awesome, and you can launch it from Plex.)

Sorry you had trouble with the E7AUM board. I'd say many of us who've been at this for any amount of time have run across a few setups we've wanted to throw out a window- I know I have. In particular, an ECS G31T board had me ready to take a hammer to it trying to get OSX running on it. Ditto a handful of ASUS and Intel boards.

That's why I'm convinced: stick with what's known to work, and hopefully with a guide by Kaido!

 

[mshan]

Hi Zaap:

Do you know what best current install method for the Intel BoxDG31PR is?

 

[JMS4]

First, thanks to kaido! The install process went perfectly.

Here is my setup:

1. UD3P motherboard
2. Intel 3.0GHz E8400 C2D
3. 4GB G.Skill 1066 PC8500 RAM
4. 2 x WD Caviar Black 1TB HDD?s
5. MSI NVidia 9800GT 512MB OC Edition
6. LG 22X DVD Drive
7. Antec NSK4480B case with Earthwatts 380W PSU
8. Spent the extra 20 bucks for the SYBA sound adapter and Encore ethernet card
9. Retail Leopard 10.5.6

Got almost everything through NewEgg (highly recommended). So figuring CA sales tax, shipping & 40 bucks worth of rebates on the UD3P & MSI video card it works out to be just about the same cost as the $799 Mac Mini.

Because of the add-on sound & NIC board, I chose the No Sound and No Network installation option.

I had a quirky deal with my mouse (Logitech wireless USB) & KB (old Apple graphite USB from the G4 days) being recognized. I could not get into the BIOS setup as the KB wouldn't work. The fix was to take a flat blade screw driver and short the two CMOS Reset pins in the lower right corner of the UD3P. Restarted and got a screen that lets you select various BIOS options. On this screen the KB worked normally. I did not select any of the options but hit the ?del? key NOT the big ?delete? key. That took me to the start of the BIOS setup. Bottom line is the BIOS USB KB and mouse options were initially set to ?disabled? on my motherboard.

Total installation time?from setting up the BIOS to rebooting into Leopard?less than an hour!

Next, from item #4 on kaido?s Post-flight checklist:
1. Shutdown -> Yes
2. Reboot -> Yes
3. Sleep -> Yes, wakes with KB or mouse
4. Display sleep -> Yes, wakes with KB or mouse
5. Screensaver -> Nope, doesn?t work, never comes on.
6. Time Machine -> haven?t tried it but I did get a prompt asking if I wanted to use an external FW drive I plugged in for TM.

No obvious problems with the Msi/Nvidia 9800GT 512. I used the 8800GT 512 driver and all seems fine.

There were a couple of minor glitchy things that seemed to fix themselves after a couple of shutdown/boot cycles. For example, at first I could not unmount an external drive by dragging the icon to the Trash. It had to be ejected from the File menu. After a couple of restarts dragging the icon to the Trash worked normally.

Again, big thanks to kaido.

 

[Zaap]

Originally posted by: mshan
Hi Zaap:

Do you know what best current install method for the Intel BoxDG31PR is?

Try this guide: http://www.insanelymac.com/for...?showtopic=119042&st=0


I haven't messed with the DG31PR in quite a while, so if there's a newer, better method, I don't know it. I never had problems with this board, but I much prefer the Gigabyte G31M-ES2L for mATX setups. The retail installs I've done with it have all been flawless- everything works great, even wake from sleep via jiggling the mouse.

 

[mshan]

Thanks!

 

[DarkAmeba]

There's a sweet deal right now: GIGABYTE GA-EP45-UD3L at ewiz for $73 after rebate/cb. Will this board work as well for hackinosh as the UD3P? Looks like the same board w/o 2 pcie (no crossfire) and firewire. Crossfire doesn't work in OSX, so if it's compatible, it doesn't seem like I would be losing much by getting this cheaper board. I am most concerned with compatibility, so a few extra dollars for the UD3P would be worth it if i would get a better hack.

 

[Zaap]

The EP45-UD3L is certainly Hackintosh-ready. It works fine with retail boot-132 installs. I never like to recommend what I haven't personally built systems with, but I'm fairly confident in saying the UD3L is the same as the UD3P- just minus some of the UD3P's features as you've said.

 

[Jack Flash]

Anyone have a recommendation for a micro-ATX board? The parents were impressed and want a media-center style Hackintosh with Plex. Considered a $400 AR Mac Mini from MicroCenter but I picked up a Q8200 for them for $100 and want to see what I can do with $300.

 

[tranquilweeks]

I'm building a budget retail rig here in Korea. I'm a total n00b and if I can do it, anyone can...

I've got a used P35-DS3L that cost me US$60 (a new UD3P costs US$166 here!). I'm also planning to get:
[*] E5200 2.5GHz (US$73 in Korea)
[*] 256MB 7300GT (US$25 in Korea)

Three questions:

1. Am I doing anything really dumb so far? Is there an obvious better processor or graphics card that costs virtually the same?

2. Can I use dual monitors with the 7300GT? Everything I've read says it's possible, but I wanted to double-check. (I know it's an old card, but I'm not interesting in gaming.)

3. If anyone here speaks Korean (or even if you don't, MB and GHz and nm are the same in all languages!), it'd be great if you could click on the links above to check that I'm not buying something obviously completely wrong or different from what I think I'm buying!

Many thanks to all, especially the big K! (and if the answer is 'wait for the new thread', I will do that...)

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: tranquilweeks
I'm building a budget retail rig here in Korea. I'm a total n00b and if I can do it, anyone can...

I've got a used P35-DS3L that cost me US$60 (a new UD3P costs US$166 here!). I'm also planning to get:
[*] E5200 2.5GHz (US$73 in Korea)
[*] 256MB 7300GT (US$25 in Korea)

Three questions:

1. Am I doing anything really dumb so far? Is there an obvious better processor or graphics card that costs virtually the same?

2. Can I use dual monitors with the 7300GT? Everything I've read says it's possible, but I wanted to double-check. (I know it's an old card, but I'm not interesting in gaming.)

The E5200 is a great chip for the price, it's currently the one I recommend for that price. The 7300GT is great video card, just keep in mind that it has one DVI and one VGA - if both of your monitors have DVI, you will need to find a different video card.

 

[s44]

Maybe I should wait for the new thread, but what's the best midprice ($100-$150) video card for a FCP hack? ATI seems to have better prices, but Nvidia's G92 cards work without driver issues. Is relative application performance between the architectures similar to game performance? Or is the best option to get a cheap card and wait for Snow Leopard/OpenCL before choosing?

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: s44
Maybe I should wait for the new thread, but what's the best midprice ($100-$150) video card for a FCP hack? ATI seems to have better prices, but Nvidia's G92 cards work without driver issues. Is relative application performance between the architectures similar to game performance? Or is the best option to get a cheap card and wait for Snow Leopard/OpenCL before choosing?

9800GTX+. I *think* the new GT250 should work since it's based on the same card, but I don't know anyone who has tried it yet.

 

[Gymnae]

AWESOME!!1

Thank you Kaido and the whole community.
After my failed attempt to set up a Hackint0sh back in 2006, everything went absolutely smooth this time!

Currently I am transferring my User Account via Migration Manager over from my MacBook Pro. The Hackint0sh works perfectly (maybe the NIC is a little sloooow, but that is ok) My GPU works perfectly as well and it's a Radeon 4850. Thanks to the Installer from Netkas it's easy to install. So, let's wait for Snow Leopard to really enjoy the quad core goodness :-D

Thank you again for your great work, Kaido.

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: Gymnae
AWESOME!!1

Thank you Kaido and the whole community.
After my failed attempt to set up a Hackint0sh back in 2006, everything went absolutely smooth this time!

Currently I am transferring my User Account via Migration Manager over from my MacBook Pro. The Hackint0sh works perfectly (maybe the NIC is a little sloooow, but that is ok) My GPU works perfectly as well and it's a Radeon 4850. Thanks to the Installer from Netkas it's easy to install. So, let's wait for Snow Leopard to really enjoy the quad core goodness :-D

Thank you again for your great work, Kaido.

What hardware do you have?

 

[Gymnae]

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L
CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 (show up as unknown...)
Graphics: Powercolor Radeon 4850 512MB
RAM: Corsair XMS2 2x2GB PC 8500 1066Mhz
HD: WD Blue Caviar 500GB
onboard sound + wlan
Bluetooth USB stick: works
Generic Firewire 400 PCI card: works

 

[Jack Flash]

My 4850 that I traded my 9800GTX+ is working well using Netkas' installler but I'm hoping 10.5.7 brings EFI strings (whatever that is ) for these GPUs.

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: Gymnae
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L
CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 (show up as unknown...)
Graphics: Powercolor Radeon 4850 512MB
RAM: Corsair XMS2 2x2GB PC 8500 1066Mhz
HD: WD Blue Caviar 500GB
onboard sound + wlan
Bluetooth USB stick: works
Generic Firewire 400 PCI card: works

For your "Unknown" bug, download this:

http://www.mediafire.com/file/vv0miimi1mf/atmm.zip

You will have to run it twice - it crashes the first time on 10.5.6, then click Relaunch and then type in your values again (type into the hidden boxes next to "Processor" and "Memory"). For example, my values are:

3.01 GHz Core 2 Quad
8 GB 1002 MHz RAM

:thumbsup:

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: Jack Flash
My 4850 that I traded my 9800GTX+ is working well using Netkas' installler but I'm hoping 10.5.7 brings EFI strings (whatever that is ) for these GPUs.

Basically the EFI Strings are just code snippets injected into the boot plist. What that means is it stores the info for your card in the boot file so that it doesn't get overwritten when you run updates. The problem is that the 4000-series cards don't have the supporting architecture in 10.5.6 (although you can hack it to do so, kinda), while 10.5.7 should have all that stuff. So once you get the support files in, all you have to do is whip up a string for your card with the correct info and then it points it to the support files to work. That's the basic idea, anyway

 

[tranquilweeks]

Originally posted by: Kaido

Originally posted by: tranquilweeks
I'm building a budget retail rig here in Korea. I'm a total n00b and if I can do it, anyone can...

I've got a used P35-DS3L that cost me US$60 (a new UD3P costs US$166 here!). I'm also planning to get:
[*] E5200 2.5GHz (US$73 in Korea)
[*] 256MB 7300GT (US$25 in Korea)

Three questions:

1. Am I doing anything really dumb so far? Is there an obvious better processor or graphics card that costs virtually the same?

2. Can I use dual monitors with the 7300GT? Everything I've read says it's possible, but I wanted to double-check. (I know it's an old card, but I'm not interesting in gaming.)

The E5200 is a great chip for the price, it's currently the one I recommend for that price. The 7300GT is great video card, just keep in mind that it has one DVI and one VGA - if both of your monitors have DVI, you will need to find a different video card.

Thanks for the reassurance, I'll put in my order today and get building!

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: tranquilweeks

Originally posted by: Kaido

Originally posted by: tranquilweeks
I'm building a budget retail rig here in Korea. I'm a total n00b and if I can do it, anyone can...

I've got a used P35-DS3L that cost me US$60 (a new UD3P costs US$166 here!). I'm also planning to get:
[*] E5200 2.5GHz (US$73 in Korea)
[*] 256MB 7300GT (US$25 in Korea)

Three questions:

1. Am I doing anything really dumb so far? Is there an obvious better processor or graphics card that costs virtually the same?

2. Can I use dual monitors with the 7300GT? Everything I've read says it's possible, but I wanted to double-check. (I know it's an old card, but I'm not interesting in gaming.)

The E5200 is a great chip for the price, it's currently the one I recommend for that price. The 7300GT is great video card, just keep in mind that it has one DVI and one VGA - if both of your monitors have DVI, you will need to find a different video card.

Thanks for the reassurance, I'll put in my order today and get building!

FWIW I have an old VGA monitor, I'll slap that on my 7300GT and see if it does dual-monitors tonight, just to verify for you!

 

[defiant999]

Awesome guide

 

[mosslack]

Originally posted by: defiant999
<SNIP>
Right now I dual boot using the bios to load between two different bios' that I have saved. One is the standard bios that I had before I installed leopard and the other is a bios that's based on the included guide. I wanted to keep the gtx 280 as my main card for vista and use the 8400 as the one for leopard (because I couldn't find any kexts). I have it set up where on bios profile loads with PEG1 as primary (regular profile) and the other with PEG2 as the primary (leopard).

Ok now my main question is there a better way to do this or should I just stick with the method I using now? Also when I first tried to use just one bios setting vista x64 woudn't load which I believe has something to do with AHCI. Is there a way around this and how would you go about doing it? Oh and can anyone make any suggestions regarding a bluetooth adaptor? I'd like to be able to use the mac wireless keyboard and mouse which is bluetooth right? Not to mention it would be nice to have an adapter I can use with both vista and windows.

Thanks again Kaido and everybody else for making it so easy to build a hackintosh with this board.

I am a bit curious to know how you set your bios up for each OS. I have Vista Ultimate x64 running on my UD3P and it works just fine on the same bios as Leo.