Small Form Factor Hackintosh Project

[racolvin]

Originally I gave up on the idea of a Hackintosh because I simply didn't want to mess with it. I wanted a headless Mac (I have my own 24" monitor that I love) and a MacPro was more machine than I wanted. So the new Mini seemed like it was going to work out satisfactorily. However Apple, in its not so infinite wisdom, decided to make the new Mini with a non-socketed CPU, so you'd be stuck with whatever options you could get from them. This made the Mini unacceptable, so here I am going back to the Hackintosh idea.

I have today received the hardware (thank you Newegg) that I will be using in an attempt to build my own Hackintosh project. I wanted something relatively small but still very powerful - better than an iMac, not quite a MacPro. So lets jump right into it shall we?

The Hardware and Prices
Shuttle SP35P2 (full specifications here) $239.99
-----Intel P35 + ICH9R chipset
-----1066 FSB
-----4x240 DDR2 DIMM slots (supports DDR2 667/800)
-----Realtek ALC888 sound
-----Marvell 88E8056 Onboard Ethernet
-----4 Onboard SATAII
-----2 eSATA ports on the back
-----1 PATA JMICRON JMB358
-----1 Firewire 400 (TI TSB43AB22A)
-----1 PCI-E x16 slot
-----1 PCI slot (No SLI/Crossfire here guys but I don't personally care about that)

Intel Q6600 Core 2 Quad processor @ 2.4Ghz $197.99
4x2Gig ADATA DDR2-800 memory sticks 4@$21.99 = $87.96
WD 500G SATA hard drive (WD5000AAKS) $64.99
Pioneer DVR-2910 SATA DVD Burner $44.99
Gigabyte 9500GT video card $89.99

For a grand hardware total of $725.91 + $18.96 shipping = $744.87 at the door

The Software
1 copy of Mac OSX Leopard 10.5.6 from Amazon @ $109.99 (free shipping)

For a grand total of $844.86

Now my original plan was to buy a Mini for $599, add a better HD, 4G of RAM, and upgrade the processor with one from Newegg. All of that would have cost me in the realm of $450, so I would have been pushing over $1000 for that config and not have ended up with a system anywhere near as powerful as the one I'm building - if it works

Anyway, the hardware arrived today, the software from Amazon should arrive later this week, so hopefully by the weekend I'll start to work on the whole thing. I'll post updates when I make some progress.

Update 3/21/09

Added a 750G drive to this machine today as a "storage" drive. Moved my home directory to it, just in case something happens to the startup volume. After a week of playing with it, I've shut down my Windows XP machine that was my main email/contacts/websurfing machine and have moved entirely to the Hackintosh now. Transferred my email, documents, etc and with the exception of a few issues (xfering email from Outlook was spotty), I'm perfectly happy with the machine so far. I still have a Shuttle X38 w/Vista64 that I use as a game machine and it's on a KVM with my Hackintosh, sharing speakers, keyboard, mouse, and 24" monitor. Loving it!

 

[Kaido]

Nice! That's gonna be a tight little machine! Are you following a guide or rolling your own driver kit for this project?

 

[racolvin]

What is this "guide" of which you speak?

My current plan is to wing it and see how far I can get I'm planning on using iPC 10.5.6 as the basis for this project. I've never done anything like this before, just been reading about it alot lately.

 

[Zaap]

Nice project.

I know that setup used to work with Kalyway and some of the older 'distros'. You shouldn't have much problem then with iPC and selecting the right drivers for your hardware.

Kaido's right about the guide though for a retail install- it's a bit more involved to figure out from scratch, and there's no guarantee it'll work on just any hardware. But if you've got a lot of time and like figuring things out, it should be a fun endeavor.

 

[secretanchitman]

subscribed! i definitely want to see how this goes!

i like the shuttle you are using. my friend has the same one and its pretty darn good. you should try out xxx 10.5.6 as well.

 

[skulkingghost]

Ideneb has been a favorite of mine for hackintoshes, be sure to check it out, also osx86project.com has some amazing forums. Good luck!

 

[racolvin]

Originally posted by: Zaap
Nice project.

I know that setup used to work with Kalyway and some of the older 'distros'. You shouldn't have much problem then with iPC and selecting the right drivers for your hardware.

Kaido's right about the guide though for a retail install- it's a bit more involved to figure out from scratch, and there's no guarantee it'll work on just any hardware. But if you've got a lot of time and like figuring things out, it should be a fun endeavor.

I'm afraid I'm still not sure what you're talking about when you refer to a "guide for a retail install" - could you elaborate?

As far as I know, and I'm certainly open to being wrong here, the iPC install will do everything I need it to from an OS perspective. The retail copy of OSX I purchased is just to put on a shelf so I can feel good about paying for the OS

 

[Zaap]

Originally posted by: racolvin
I'm afraid I'm still not sure what you're talking about when you refer to a "guide for a retail install" - could you elaborate?

As far as I know, and I'm certainly open to being wrong here, the iPC install will do everything I need it to from an OS perspective. The retail copy of OSX I purchased is just to put on a shelf so I can feel good about paying for the OS

Ahh, no worries then!

I thought since you were buying the OS, you were also going to try installing it directly from the retail disks- IE: a retail install. It is possible, just it usually requires a good guide, a boot disk (Boot-132) and driver file kit to work properly (such as one put together by Kaido for various setups in the 10.5.5 Retail Rig thread).

But anyway, you're right, a good distro like iPC should do all you need anyway, and yes, it's good to own the actual OS just to keep everything on the up and up.

 

[racolvin]

Update 3/12/09

Well everything was here, I had some time this evening so yippee I was gonna assemble the hardware!

Everything went together just dandy with one exception: the video card.

The vid card was an "open box" special on Newegg, which normally doesn't bother me. However I failed to notice in the picture that the passive cooling on the card (heatpipes) wrapped over to the back of the card - big problem. You see the PCIe slot on the SP35P2 is on the outer edge of the mobo, a scant centimeter or so from the case wall, so there was NO way those heatpipes could stay - I wouldn't be able to close the case.

So I removed the heatpipe but that meant no power up testing for tonight. I'll have to hit a local parts store tomorrow to get an aftermarket VGA cooler thingy so I can hopefully work on this baby this weekend

More updates later...

 

[MBony]

Thanks for posting this! I actually sent Kaido a PM today in reference to a good mATX mobo. I will be watching to see how you come out on this build. Good luck!

 

[racolvin]

Update 3/14/09

Ok, got the video problem fixed but now there is a new difficulty ... I'll also post this in another forum to see if I can get some answers to this problem.

If I put the memory speed to anything beyond 400Mhz it simply won't come up.

I set the CPU clock to 400Mhz and the multipler to 6x, for a Q6600 (2.4Ghz), so I'm not overclocking the CPU.

I try to set the CPU:Memory multipler to 1:2 (800Mhz) since the RAM and the NB for the SP35P2v2 is rated at DDR2 667/800, so this shouldn't be an issue.

But when I do this, it won't come up. I have to clear the CMOS and start over. I've tried dozens of combinations but any time I put the memory over 400Mhz it's a no-go.

Any ideas out there? I know the memory is good for it (it came out of another shuttle)

 

[racolvin]

Update #2 3/14/09

I am here posting from my SP35P2v2 using MacOSX 10.5.6 and Safari!

I still haven't solved the memory speed thing yet but it wasn't a show stopper

My big problem right now is the graphics. I loaded an NVidia driver but it doesn't appear to have worked, since I can only do 1024x768 but I'm still working on that. If anyone has a suggestion on how to change graphics drivers, I'd appreciate it

 

[secretanchitman]

Originally posted by: racolvin
Update #2 3/14/09

I am here posting from my SP35P2v2 using MacOSX 10.5.6 and Safari!

I still haven't solved the memory speed thing yet but it wasn't a show stopper

My big problem right now is the graphics. I loaded an NVidia driver but it doesn't appear to have worked, since I can only do 1024x768 but I'm still working on that. If anyone has a suggestion on how to change graphics drivers, I'd appreciate it

did you try nvinject? 9500GT = 8600GT 65nm i believe, so maybe try using an 8600GT kext?

 

[racolvin]

I'm afraid I don't know how to do that. When I went through the install process I'm certain I chose NVinject but it never gives me an option to tell it what sort of card I have.

 

[racolvin]

Update #3 3/14/09

Graphics success!

I used the NVinstaller (9f23) and EFIStudio. I told it my card was an 8500GT (rather than a 9500, since its just a rebranded version anyway). Now it even knows what sort of monitor I have (Dell 2405FPW), sets the resolutions correctly and everything.

A few more odd things to work out, like why sometimes it loses its mind over the CD/DVD drive - it won't eject or anything, requiring a reboot. After that it works dandy but at some point it will freak out again. Not sure whats going on there...

 

[racolvin]

Update 3/15/09

I left the computer running overnight to see if the screensaver and monitor "sleep mode" would kick in and recover properly - worked like a charm.

Guess now I need to test whether it will wake from sleep if I let it put the whole computer to sleep. Shutdown and restart work fine too.

I downloaded and ran Xbench and got an overall score of 181. It seems like a pretty good score if I compare it to others on the site that don't cheat. By cheat I mean using a RAMdisk to run the test from, rather than a real hard disk.

I also just downloaded and installed the trial version of iWork '09 and I'm running Pages, Numbers, and Keynote all at once as I write this - never used them before so I thought I'd give them a shot

 

[Kmax82]

Yea. I don't think xBench is a great way to test system performance, personally. I don't know of any alternatives though.

Thanks for all the heads up on the build. I'm looking to potentially move my setup over to something like this, so it's not this huge box sitting next to my TV. I'll probably end up doing it after I do my taxes, but we'll see.

 

[racolvin]

Ok so as of now I'm running a fully updated (Software Update) 10.5.6, I downloaded a trial of iWork and I bought a copy of iLife. All of which work fine, installed fine, etc. I've got several thousand pictures loaded into iPhoto, 40G worth of music in iTunes. I've synced using USB to an iPod Shuffle.

I'm still fiddling with some thing and testing. I haven't yet burned a CD/DVD, I haven't tried playing a DVD movie, and I haven't yet tried to wake the machine from sleep. That's to be done this week but I don't think I'm too premature in saying that its a success.

 

[Goosemaster]

Originally posted by: racolvin
Ok so as of now I'm running a fully updated (Software Update) 10.5.6, I downloaded a trial of iWork and I bought a copy of iLife. All of which work fine, installed fine, etc. I've got several thousand pictures loaded into iPhoto, 40G worth of music in iTunes. I've synced using USB to an iPod Shuffle.

I'm still fiddling with some thing and testing. I haven't yet burned a CD/DVD, I haven't tried playing a DVD movie, and I haven't yet tried to wake the machine from sleep. That's to be done this week but I don't think I'm too premature in saying that its a success.

Fasntastic work. Thank you and keep us updated.

Request: Vmware Fusion (windows and see if direct X works well)

 

[racolvin]

Goose:

I'm afraid I have no plans to purchase a virtualization package, since I run a Vista machine (also a Shuttle) right next to this "Shackintosh" (Shuttle+Hackintosh ) With that machine on a KVM I don't need virtualization on the other box.

 

[racolvin]

Update 3/17/09

The Sleep function works (it goes to sleep) but I can't wake it up again and have it resume, so that part doesn't work. Not a huge dealbreaker for me but I thought I'd report it.

 

[racolvin]

Updated OP today

 

[GabeA23]

Can someone tell me which drivers from iPC to install?

I have no idea which kernel, patches, drivers, etc to check off from the list.

Here is the list:
list of iPC drivers

My system is a SP35P2 with an E8400 processor and an 8600GT grpahics card.

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: racolvin
Update 3/17/09

The Sleep function works (it goes to sleep) but I can't wake it up again and have it resume, so that part doesn't work. Not a huge dealbreaker for me but I thought I'd report it.

FWIW, sometimes that has to do with the Video Card driver.

 

[Plester]

intalled iDeneb 10.5.6 about 2 months ago on this xpc - very quick and easy and works well.