Hackintosh 10.5.5 Retail Rig - Starting at $305

[scootermaster]

If you want to try it again, I have now updated the guide and files to go directly to 10.6.4. Plus I fixed the com.apple.Boot.plist file as I had left a line or two out of previous releases, mainly dealing with the built-in ethernet. My system has been completely updated and is running just fine so far.

Thanks for all of this.

And you can tell 10.6.5 is coming soon, because we're just starting to get a handle on 10.6.4.

(Of course, I'm personally still stuck on 10.5.8 because my 10.6.4 install is so clean and pretty, I'm scared to actually use it, lest if get unneeded files and bad app installs etc etc).

 

[Kaido]

Looking at X58 boards. Considering an MSI Big Bang right now:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813130289

A little pricey, but it's a beast! Although I might just end up going with the X58 Pro-E.

 

[scootermaster]

Looking at X58 boards. Considering an MSI Big Bang right now:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813130289

A little pricey, but it's a beast! Although I might just end up going with the X58 Pro-E.

Gotta love a board who's accessory bag costs more than my entire mobo.

 

[alfa147x]

ugh! I can't use my 10.6.3 disk with out KPs

 

[Kaido]

Gotta love a board who's accessory bag costs more than my entire mobo.

I've worked with the MSI X58 Pro-E before, which I really liked and is much cheaper at $189.99:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813130226

I do like the multiple PCIe ports on the Big Bang board, though - lots of room for expansion. My dream setup is:

1. GTX 480 video card
2. RAID card (SSD boot array, whee!)
3. RED Rocket encoding card
4. Blackmagic Decklink HD Extreme 3D video input/output card
5. 10Gb Ethernet card

Although I could probably ditch the RED Rocket card and build a Hackintosh render farm for about the same price I'm glad window shopping is free, haha.

 

[Kaido]

Hey mosslack - how about a Hackintosh with not one, not two, but THREE GTX 480 graphics cards?

http://www.s155158671.websitehome.co.uk/modifiedg5hackia.html

aquamac is my hero :awe:

 

[Kmax82]

Ok.. just finished switching out components from my P35-DS3L to a P55M-UD2 with a Core i5 2.6 Ghz. So far so good.

What I did:

1) Downloaded and burned the "iBoot Supported" boot disk.
2) Downloaded MultiBeast and the DSDT for my board.
3) Switched out components.
4) Booted via iBoot into my SL install
5) Removed old Chameleon Boot loader and extras in the /Extras folder.
6) Installed MultiBeast for the recommended configuration.

All good. It's running, a big amount of HDD thrashing when I first booted up though, so not sure if that's a result of OS X switching out kexts or me not installing the correct HDD kexts. So we shall see how it goes, but I'm really happy now. Only an hour down time.

 

[alfa147x]

It seems like most of the guides are not happy with 10.6.3 disks

 

[alfa147x]

Hey mosslack - how about a Hackintosh with not one, not two, but THREE GTX 480 graphics cards?

http://www.s155158671.websitehome.co.uk/modifiedg5hackia.html

aquamac is my hero :awe:

That is one clean looking case! I'm now looking for a old PowerMac G5 case!

 

[Zaap]

I'd love to try this board: SUPERMICRO MBD-X8DAL-i-O Dual LGA 1366 At $289 it's a steal, all things considered.

It's supposed to be perfectly OSx86 compatible- I've hacked dual proc (771) supermicro boards before and they do tend to work well.

Imagine this thing with DUAL 6 core 1366 Xeon 5600's and 12GB or even 24GB of RAM running snow on par with the new 12-core MacPros for much less than the 5k asking price from Apple.

 

[Zaap]

The Samsung setup sounds cool, but I'll probably just add 3 more like I have to make them all match. I just to do it to say I did it, if you know what I mean. I've been getting into VM's a lot more, have Parallels running Windows 7 and VirtualBox running Ubuntu. so that is 2 screens taken up right away. I did a short video of this system running 3 different videos on 3 different screens using 3 different OSes on all on the same computer. Actually worked pretty well considering.

I've been very happy with my MSI P455-GD80 so far, but I do want to bump up the RAM to 8 Gb when I get the new monitors. Who knows, I might want to run a couple more VM's!

I love VMs. I'm using VMWare Fusion 3.1 myself- loving it. Currently running Win7, several flavors of linux, and testing Android.

I have a home file server running an older linux kernel, but I've been reluctant to do a full OS upgrade it since it's working great and I didn't want to wreck it. Recently, I duplicated the file server in a VM and then ran the upgrade in that to see what would happen. Sure enough, I ran into some issues (you just can't escape some serious CLI hell with Linux servers) but I was able to run through the entire upgrade procedure in a VM and use it like a training session. Then I knew exactly what to do to upgrade the real McCoy without bricking the install and wrecking my server. So the real upgrade went exactly as planned -I avoided several pitfalls I learned from the VM- and all my many fileshares, samba setup, users permissions, etc came through the upgrade unscathed. I couldn't have done it without a VM.

 

[Kaido]

I love VMs. I'm using VMWare Fusion 3.1 myself- loving it. Currently running Win7, several flavors of linux, and testing Android.

I have a home file server running an older linux kernel, but I've been reluctant to do a full OS upgrade it since it's working great and I didn't want to wreck it. Recently, I duplicated the file server in a VM and then ran the upgrade in that to see what would happen. Sure enough, I ran into some issues (you just can't escape some serious CLI hell with Linux servers) but I was able to run through the entire upgrade procedure in a VM and use it like a training session. Then I knew exactly what to do to upgrade the real McCoy without bricking the install and wrecking my server. So the real upgrade went exactly as planned -I avoided several pitfalls I learned from the VM- and all my many fileshares, samba setup, users permissions, etc came through the upgrade unscathed. I couldn't have done it without a VM.

I love VM'ing so, so much - I would rather run Windows in a VM, than on actual hardware, lol. It's just so much easier to manage - quicker boot times, dynamic resource allocation (need another 4 gigs in the VM? easy!), snapshot backup, clone your system as a sandbox by just copy/pasting the VM file, etc. etc.

I wish OSX was better in a virtual environment - I'm always tinkering with different apps and it'd be nice to not make my primary system messy, haha.

 

[Kaido]

I'd love to try this board: SUPERMICRO MBD-X8DAL-i-O Dual LGA 1366 At $289 it's a steal, all things considered.

It's supposed to be perfectly OSx86 compatible- I've hacked dual proc (771) supermicro boards before and they do tend to work well.

Imagine this thing with DUAL 6 core 1366 Xeon 5600's and 12GB or even 24GB of RAM running snow on par with the new 12-core MacPros for much less than the 5k asking price from Apple.

Wow, oh man - that is neat! I haven't seen that board before! That Old Spice commercial popped into my head...look at your Hack, now back to me, look at your Hack, now back...to me. This is the Hack your Hack could look like :awe:

 

[mosslack]

Hey mosslack - how about a Hackintosh with not one, not two, but THREE GTX 480 graphics cards?

http://www.s155158671.websitehome.co.uk/modifiedg5hackia.html

aquamac is my hero :awe:

Very cool indeed, mine has three 9400 GT's and is working almost perfectly. aquamac was in the process of working with me on mine, but kdawg came up with a working DSDT and I haven't had time to try what aquamac sent me yet. Only problem I'm having with my MSI P55-GD80 is it won't shutdown. Restarts just fine, just won't completely shutdown. Still waiting for some extra $$$ to get 3 more monitors, another vacation coming up soon so I can't do it until after that.

It seems like most of the guides are not happy with 10.6.3 disks

How true, I still don't have one, but I plan to get one so I can develop a better guide for my 1201N thread. If you think it is bad for a desktop system, try it on a netbook running an Atom processor, they dropped Atom support with 10.6.2.

Ok.. just finished switching out components from my P35-DS3L to a P55M-UD2 with a Core i5 2.6 Ghz. So far so good.

What I did:

1) Downloaded and burned the "iBoot Supported" boot disk.
2) Downloaded MultiBeast and the DSDT for my board.
3) Switched out components.
4) Booted via iBoot into my SL install
5) Removed old Chameleon Boot loader and extras in the /Extras folder.
6) Installed MultiBeast for the recommended configuration.

All good. It's running, a big amount of HDD thrashing when I first booted up though, so not sure if that's a result of OS X switching out kexts or me not installing the correct HDD kexts. So we shall see how it goes, but I'm really happy now. Only an hour down time.

Excellent, glad that worked out okay for you. Gotta love the iBoot+MultiBeast, I used the supported version and everything worked right off the bat with my system. Wish it would have worked that well when I tried it on the DS3L.

I love VMs. I'm using VMWare Fusion 3.1 myself- loving it. Currently running Win7, several flavors of linux, and testing Android.

I have a home file server running an older linux kernel, but I've been reluctant to do a full OS upgrade it since it's working great and I didn't want to wreck it. Recently, I duplicated the file server in a VM and then ran the upgrade in that to see what would happen. Sure enough, I ran into some issues (you just can't escape some serious CLI hell with Linux servers) but I was able to run through the entire upgrade procedure in a VM and use it like a training session. Then I knew exactly what to do to upgrade the real McCoy without bricking the install and wrecking my server. So the real upgrade went exactly as planned -I avoided several pitfalls I learned from the VM- and all my many fileshares, samba setup, users permissions, etc came through the upgrade unscathed. I couldn't have done it without a VM.

Yeah I went through the CLI Hell when I switched my data files back over to a new P4 server running Tiger. Chronosync was having a devil of a time trying to sync some of those files left over from the FreeNAS OS and I had to use Terminal to go in and remove those. Plus I was doing it over VNC, which made it all the more difficult to do. But I got it done and just checked today, no more errors, which is great! Cool idea using VM's as training tool, what a great way to test out any new procedures.

 

[Zaap]

Wow, oh man - that is neat! I haven't seen that board before! That Old Spice commercial popped into my head...look at your Hack, now back to me, look at your Hack, now back...to me. This is the Hack your Hack could look like :awe:

Haha- for sheer badassness, nothing beats the EVGA Classified SR-2.

No idea if this thing is hackable or not, but man, what a beast. Dual 1366, also 12 RAM slots (48GB) and get this: 7 full size 16x PCIe 2.0 slots that all run at full speed! Even mosslack probably couldn't max out monitors using this board.

Of course, you'd have to find a case this monster will even fit in, it's HPTX form factor is bigger than any other mobo including the EATX server boards.

 

[mosslack]

Haha- for sheer badassness, nothing beats the EVGA Classified SR-2.

No idea if this thing is hackable or not, but man, what a beast. Dual 1366, also 12 RAM slots (48GB) and get this: 7 full size 16x PCIe 2.0 slots that all run at full speed! Even mosslack probably couldn't max out monitors using this board.

Of course, you'd have to find a case this monster will even fit in, it's HPTX form factor is bigger than any other mobo including the EATX server boards.

I only have one word for this mobo... WOW!

I do have a full-sized tower server case just looking for new tenant, but at $600, this project may have to wait awhile. A long while at that. Not to mention I would go broke trying to fill the RAM and gfx card slots!

 

[alfa147x]

Haha yeah netbooks / laptops are a PITA! Hackintoshed my gf Dell 1525 and boy was that fun

Currently trying to get my hands on a old broken PowerMac G5 (dead water pump / dead CPU) that the school might be throwing away D:

 

[mosslack]

Haha yeah netbooks / laptops are a PITA! Hackintoshed my gf Dell 1525 and boy was that fun

Currently trying to get my hands on a old broken PowerMac G5 (dead water pump / dead CPU) that the school might be throwing away D:

I take it you have plans for the case?

 

[mosslack]

I have now updated my DS3L guide and files on HQ-A to use either the 10.6.0 or 10.6.3 retail DVD for the install. It really wasn't very difficult to do, but I wanted to do a test run before posting the changes.

I have also completely removed the UD3P guide as I no longer use that system and have not tested a similar procedure for that board. There are so many guides available for this system that mine wasn't really that necessary.

 

[mosslack]

I have now updated my DS3L guide and files on HQ-A to use either the 10.6.0 or 10.6.3 retail DVD for the install. It really wasn't very difficult to do, but I wanted to do a test run before posting the changes.

I have also completely removed the UD3P guide as I no longer use that system and have not tested a similar procedure for that board. There are so many guides available for this system that mine wasn't really that necessary.

(Note: I tried to delete this extra post, but see no option for that now. Has this function been eliminated?)

 

[alfa147x]

I take it you have plans for the case?

Yup! Too bad they threw it away stupid government contracts

 

[scootermaster]

Finally started using my 10.6.4 install and...bonjour issues again.

Life fail.

 

[alfa147x]

Finally started using my 10.6.4 install and...bonjour issues again.

Life fail.

P35-DS3L?

Bonjour works using this install for me:
http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=222316&st=0&p=1496169&#entry1496169

 

[mosslack]

Finally started using my 10.6.4 install and...bonjour issues again.

Life fail.

Don't feel bad, you aren't the only one. I'm beginning to think the R1000 kext from PCWiz might be the problem. I may try to find another source for it to see if that helps. So it worked fine in 10.6.3?

EDIT: I just found this on Kext.com and ran it on my DS3L. It now sees my networked printer via bonjour. Give this a try and see if it fixes it for you also.

http://www.kexts.com/view/125-bonjour64:_afp-bonjour_fix_for_64-bit_snow.html

If this works okay for everyone, I will substitute it for the present one in the DS3L installer files.

 

[scootermaster]

Don't feel bad, you aren't the only one. I'm beginning to think the R1000 kext from PCWiz might be the problem. I may try to find another source for it to see if that helps. So it worked fine in 10.6.3?

EDIT: I just found this on Kext.com and ran it on my DS3L. It now sees my networked printer via bonjour. Give this a try and see if it fixes it for you also.

http://www.kexts.com/view/125-bonjour64:_afp-bonjour_fix_for_64-bit_snow.html

If this works okay for everyone, I will substitute it for the present one in the DS3L installer files.

Now I get the same behavior in SL as I do in Leo. Before, in SL, the remote wouldn't even show up. Now, in both SL and Leo, it shows up but hangs when the passcode is entered (for Apple Remote on my iPhone).

I can't help but think this is [another] router issue. The only issue being I haven't changed a single thing with the router. What DID happen is that when I booted to my SL partition (after weeks of not doing so) it's possible that it got a new DHCP lease. That is, quite literally, the only thing "networking" wise that's changed. But like I said, when I booted back into my Leo partition, Bonjour was dead (and was was working Friday). Also no bonjour when booting into one of my backup partitions (I tested this because the only other thing that'd changed was the installation of some new apps and the latest SL security update). But no dice with that either.

The most troubling thing is that it just stopped working in Leo. I can't imagine any kext, working or not, in my SL partition should change what's going on with Leo (although I guess I could have inadvertently installed something on my lep partition, but I don't think so).

So blame falls to the router. Although I'm not sure how, since like I said, I don't think anything's changed.

The culprit last time -- having "filter multicast" checked was the first thing I looked for, but that's still unchecked. I'm going to try swapping it out for another router. I'd buy a PCI network card in a second if I thought it'd fix anything, but my gut tells me that's not going to solve the problem.

Sigh.