The Hackintosh Thread

[Zaap]

Another nice trick to do is to make an image file of a master OSX install, so you only have to install OSX once and then just re-image the master from then on.

Nice. I just started doing this after reading your post. Now have my main system and laptop backed up to a sparse image bundle with regular backups scheduled. I like that this method keeps the system backup completely up to date yet only takes a minute or two. Only difference is I use Carbon Copy Cloner rather than SuperDuper.

 

[Kaido]

Nice. I just started doing this after reading your post. Now have my main system and laptop backed up to a sparse image bundle with regular backups scheduled. I like that this method keeps the system backup completely up to date yet only takes a minute or two. Only difference is I use Carbon Copy Cloner rather than SuperDuper.

The nice thing about a sparseimage bundle is that you can use Disk Utility to restore it (at least in the case of SuperDuper, but I'd imagine CCC is the same). So if you make a Unibeast USB stick (bootable OSX install CD on a stick), you can restore your sparseimage bundle from Disk Utility in the Tools menu, without actually needing a second system or drive to boot up from. Really handy!

 

[mosslack]

In case you hadn't seen this:
http://myhackmac.blogspot.com/
&
http://tkware.info/2013/01/29/unibe...day-same-drm-shenanigans-and-hypocrisy-apply/

Interesting. TonyMacx86 has always been less community oriented and more about trying to be the ONLY source of information for the Hackintosh community since it's inception. I'm sure part of the reason is monetary, but there also just seems to be a snide or snooty attitude by certain posters there. It' s kind of like they are better than the rest of us. Maybe it's just me, who knows, but I get that impression.

 

[Kaido]

Interesting. TonyMacx86 has always been less community oriented and more about trying to be the ONLY source of information for the Hackintosh community since it's inception. I'm sure part of the reason is monetary, but there also just seems to be a snide or snooty attitude by certain posters there. It' s kind of like they are better than the rest of us. Maybe it's just me, who knows, but I get that impression.

Really? They seem pretty community-oriented to me. I think part of the attitude comes from being very careful around the legal lines of Hackintosh. As the TKWare blog link points out, the Tonymac installer apparently patches DSMOS to do the install and thus breaks DRMs anyway, but I think the dividing line for Tonymac is the straight-up pirating stuff outright, like offering direct links to pre-patched OSX installs like Kalyway and such. It keeps them out of most of the hot water.

My only real complaint with the Tonymac stuff is that it's still really disorganized...if you were to visit the main site, you'd have to dig around to learn what Unibeast & Multibeast are, where the latest resources are, etc., and the amount of "noob threads" reflects that confusion. But, it's still better than most of the other resources in the OSx86 scene imo, especially since they do updates on a regular basis and do a really good job solving the little problems that crop up along the way. I'm all for them relying on ad support because they do a really good job with that stuff!

There's a lot of silliness in the community in general. I think part of it comes from people assuming that they know what everyone wants. For example, the old 1-click installer I worked with PCWiz on got specifically called out on the sojugarden myHack website:

It is NOT a replacement for the human brain and is not intended as a 1-click solution to install OS X on PC. Such “1-click install solutions” ultimately fail (just like “OSx86 Distros”) because they do not educate the end users as to why something is done, how something is done and where something is done.

But then myHack turns around and offers a 1-click download installer of their own :biggrin: Also, they assume that everyone wants to learn the intricacies of install OSX from a hacker's perspective (terminal commands, DSDT editing, etc.). To me, part of the big idea of making progress in the Hackintosh scene is making things easier so that it's not a headache to install it. The bottom line is that most people just want a cheap Mac clone with minimal effort and don't want to become Terminal jockeys just to get up & running on customized hardware.

I've never really understood the flamewars that go on from this. A lot of the long-time users on InsanelyMac don't even like the basic help tools...they feel that everything should be doing manually, by-hand. That's certainly one perspective, but imagine if we were all still using DOS instead of Windows, you know? I got a lot of flack just for writing step-by-step guides back in the early days, even before those tools came out, and still get trolled here occasionally. I got burnt out for awhile and just did private "betas" (or whatever you'd call guides-in-progress haha) on Twitter & here via PM for awhile because of that.

It's all baloney. It's just a computer, nothing to get too excited about

 

[Zaap]

^Agree totally with Kaido.

Heh. I never realized how deep these little 'factions' within OSx86 were until I got slapped down on Insanelymac for even mentioning Tonymac. Some people over there get so pissy about taking sides they'll refuse help to noobs simply because they initially used a competing tool like Unibeast or whatever. (I personally think some of it is envy, because TM has really taken off, whereas Insanely has fallen into a jumbled mess IMO).

I can definitely see both sides- it IS hugely helpful to actually understand what's going on under the hood and know what an installer is doing. If you started from the early Hackintosh days, you'll have gone through the more archaic methods and have that insight to draw from. But that doesn't mean every single noob that just wants to run OSX on their PC needs to know all of that. If a one-click installer gets the job done for people, then great. If they later ask for help after something went wrong, rather than sneer at them, that's the time that a lesson of more in-depth understanding would be better.

I have to believe that anyone trolling over making a one-click installer are either hard core Mac-heads that can't stand anyone making it so easy to foil Apple's hardare monopoly, or just sour grapes from the "I want everyone to know how hard this is!" types.

I readily admit it: The type that annoys me are so-called tech 'journalists' that write nonsense like insisting the iPad killed off the Hackintosh! (What the heck does one even have to do with the other?)

 

[Kaido]

I can definitely see both sides- it IS hugely helpful to actually understand what's going on under the hood and know what an installer is doing. If you started from the early Hackintosh days, you'll have gone through the more archaic methods and have that insight to draw from. But that doesn't mean every single noob that just wants to run OSX on their PC needs to know all of that. If a one-click installer gets the job done for people, then great. If they later ask for help after something went wrong, rather than sneer at them, that's the time that a lesson of more in-depth understanding would be better.

Yeah, I definitely think that knowledge is a Good Thing, but my first guide was something on the order of 15 or 20 pages of step-by-step instructions (Intel Bad Axe 2 iirc) and now all you have to do is download Unibeast & Multibeast. Far, far easier :biggrin: My only real complaint is that finding all of that information is still pretty difficult. I've been tinkering on the Wiki, trying to organize the basic information in a class-style manner where you can read the basics & move up from there, so you don't get lost when say you lose audio after a system update. Alas, free time is in short supply...

So yeah, there's some silliness in the community. That's one of the reasons I really like the Anandtech forums...it's a more technical crowd, which is more focused on the tinkering than the politics, which I appreciate :thumbsup:

 

[mosslack]

Really? They seem pretty community-oriented to me. I think part of the attitude comes from being very careful around the legal lines of Hackintosh. As the TKWare blog link points out, the Tonymac installer apparently patches DSMOS to do the install and thus breaks DRMs anyway, but I think the dividing line for Tonymac is the straight-up pirating stuff outright, like offering direct links to pre-patched OSX installs like Kalyway and such. It keeps them out of most of the hot water.

Yeah, the community of Tonymacx86! Sure, everyone wants to avoid being sued by Apple, but I think it's pretty clear that unless someone is profiting from sharing this knowledge then Apple could care less, and Tonymacx86 has the most to lose, have you seen the number of ads on their sites?

My only real complaint with the Tonymac stuff is that it's still really disorganized...if you were to visit the main site, you'd have to dig around to learn what Unibeast & Multibeast are, where the latest resources are, etc., and the amount of "noob threads" reflects that confusion. But, it's still better than most of the other resources in the OSx86 scene imo, especially since they do updates on a regular basis and do a really good job solving the little problems that crop up along the way. I'm all for them relying on ad support because they do a really good job with that stuff!

I'm not knocking Tonymacx86 for their utilities and such, they are usually first rate. As for updates, I'm not a fan. But of course I'm not running the latest hardware so I'm sure their updates are meant for those who can afford the latest stuff.

There's a lot of silliness in the community in general. I think part of it comes from people assuming that they know what everyone wants. For example, the old 1-click installer I worked with PCWiz on got specifically called out on the sojugarden myHack website:


But then myHack turns around and offers a 1-click download installer of their own :biggrin: Also, they assume that everyone wants to learn the intricacies of install OSX from a hacker's perspective (terminal commands, DSDT editing, etc.). To me, part of the big idea of making progress in the Hackintosh scene is making things easier so that it's not a headache to install it. The bottom line is that most people just want a cheap Mac clone with minimal effort and don't want to become Terminal jockeys just to get up & running on customized hardware.

Times change, you have to admit that was awhile ago when PCWiz was active. And maybe everyone doesn't want to learn about what's going on under the hood of their Hackintosh, but you have to admit it makes sense to know. And does MyHack not have the right to compete with UniBeast and Kakewalk and any others out there?

I've never really understood the flamewars that go on from this. A lot of the long-time users on InsanelyMac don't even like the basic help tools...they feel that everything should be doing manually, by-hand. That's certainly one perspective, but imagine if we were all still using DOS instead of Windows, you know? I got a lot of flack just for writing step-by-step guides back in the early days, even before those tools came out, and still get trolled here occasionally. I got burnt out for awhile and just did private "betas" (or whatever you'd call guides-in-progress haha) on Twitter & here via PM for awhile because of that.

It's all baloney. It's just a computer, nothing to get too excited about

Yep, agree on this. The feud between Tonymacx86 and Insanely seems to be the biggest. Why can't we all just get along? Why can't we all just agree to hate Google? I'm in the process of switching HQ-A over to Yahoo groups. Got so bad with Google that there was no obvious way to join a group.

As for your absence from the scene, I completely understand. I got that way from the Asus 1201N thread on Insanely. That thing went on forever and I couldn't get out. FInally someone started a new thread for Lion and I quietly disappeared. Hard enough running HQ-A let alone taking on a new project like that again. But we do miss your presence man.

 

[mosslack]

^Agree totally with Kaido.

Heh. I never realized how deep these little 'factions' within OSx86 were until I got slapped down on Insanelymac for even mentioning Tonymac. Some people over there get so pissy about taking sides they'll refuse help to noobs simply because they initially used a competing tool like Unibeast or whatever. (I personally think some of it is envy, because TM has really taken off, whereas Insanely has fallen into a jumbled mess IMO).

I can't say I ever had any problems with Insanely and until recently, we talked about utilities like UniBeast regularly. That and MultiBeast definitely put Tonymacx86 in the forefront of Hackintoshdom.

There is still plenty of good information to be gleaned from Insanely. As always, you have to know how to search. LOL

I can definitely see both sides- it IS hugely helpful to actually understand what's going on under the hood and know what an installer is doing. If you started from the early Hackintosh days, you'll have gone through the more archaic methods and have that insight to draw from. But that doesn't mean every single noob that just wants to run OSX on their PC needs to know all of that. If a one-click installer gets the job done for people, then great. If they later ask for help after something went wrong, rather than sneer at them, that's the time that a lesson of more in-depth understanding would be better.

No, I'm sure some are plenty happy if the installer just works. They could give a rats behind what it's doing. Me, I'm not a coffee drinker, so I usually sit in front of the computer monitor while the installer does it's thing. I much prefer looking at the MyHack play-by-play instead of wondering if my system went bye-bye. Just my opinion.

I have to believe that anyone trolling over making a one-click installer are either hard core Mac-heads that can't stand anyone making it so easy to foil Apple's hardare monopoly, or just sour grapes from the "I want everyone to know how hard this is!" types.

I readily admit it: The type that annoys me are so-called tech 'journalists' that write nonsense like insisting the iPad killed off the Hackintosh! (What the heck does one even have to do with the other?)

Yeah, those people are out there. They were definitely present on the Asus 120N thread. Dealing with those people and helping the noobs became quite the balancing act. Guess that's why I no longer walk the wire.

Don't get me started on the tech journalists. I got caught up for awhile until I figured out they live in another dimension. Never heard that the iPad killed off the Hackintosh, but I did hear that it was the end for the PC. LOL I was listening to one of the Twit programs when Leo himself informed me of this fact. I got a good laugh as I watched my 6 monitors, all happily doing different chores on each one. Try that on an iPad! yuck yuck yuck.

 

[mosslack]

Yeah, I definitely think that knowledge is a Good Thing, but my first guide was something on the order of 15 or 20 pages of step-by-step instructions (Intel Bad Axe 2 iirc) and now all you have to do is download Unibeast & Multibeast. Far, far easier :biggrin: My only real complaint is that finding all of that information is still pretty difficult. I've been tinkering on the Wiki, trying to organize the basic information in a class-style manner where you can read the basics & move up from there, so you don't get lost when say you lose audio after a system update. Alas, free time is in short supply...

So yeah, there's some silliness in the community. That's one of the reasons I really like the Anandtech forums...it's a more technical crowd, which is more focused on the tinkering than the politics, which I appreciate :thumbsup:

Yep, I wouldn't admit it back then, but I thought your guides were a bit over-the-top. I understood why you did it, gotta help the noobs. Heck, what am I saying, I'm still learning! But I also try to pass on whatever knowledge I have and do it in a way as to help people learn what's happening. I suppose this comes from my need to know why something does what it does, not just the fact that it does it. I'm just wired that way.

Agree on Anandtech, no problems here. No politics or religion, just people sharing information.

 

[Tyranicus]

In case you hadn't seen this:
http://myhackmac.blogspot.com/
&
http://tkware.info/2013/01/29/unibe...day-same-drm-shenanigans-and-hypocrisy-apply/

I honestly don't have a problem with this in the slightest. Unibeast requires that you legally purchase OS X. This is a good thing. Using a hackintosh does not make you a thief. The person who wrote that first link sounds like an entitled asshole. "How dare they make me pay for this software! It's hypocritical!" There is a big difference between violating the EULA by installing OS X on unsupported hardware and stealing OS X outright.

Also, I don't like how they say "You should probably be familiar with the command line before making a modification like this anyways, and if not, you’re going to have a bad time hackintoshing." I've been running hackintoshes in one form or another for five years. When I run into a problem, I research it and fix it. However, I am still not really at home in the terminal. The only commands I actually know are really basic things like ls and rm. If I find a command that I need to do a specific thing, I am perfectly capable of copying and pasting it, but don't ask me to come up with it on my own or expect me to prefer it to a GUI-based solution.

 

[Kaido]

Yep, I wouldn't admit it back then, but I thought your guides were a bit over-the-top. I understood why you did it, gotta help the noobs. Heck, what am I saying, I'm still learning! But I also try to pass on whatever knowledge I have and do it in a way as to help people learn what's happening. I suppose this comes from my need to know why something does what it does, not just the fact that it does it. I'm just wired that way.

Agree on Anandtech, no problems here. No politics or religion, just people sharing information.

Yeah, they were way detailed, but there was like zero information on how to do stuff back in the day, which is why we then created the 1-click system for automating commands so you didn't have to memorize (and possibly mistype & screw up) endless commands. Actually, they were both two sides of the pendulum - one was extremely detailed, the other extremely simplistic. myHack is a really nice middle ground because they automate it, but show you what's going on if you're interested - a really good compromise of the two extremes.

What I would really like to see is a prefPane plugin for Hackintosh that keeps track of what was installed and when (sort of like the historical list for Windows Updates in Control Panel), and gives you a Chameleon Wizard-style panel for doing changes and rolling back in patches for sleep, audio, networking, graphics, etc. after doing updates. I don't have the programming skills to do it, but I'm sure someone out there will eventually come up with something nifty - and hopefully before things get too messy with all of the branches, i.e. Chameleon, Chimera, Clover, etc.

My biggest shortcoming in the past was never just pulling the trigger on releasing a finalized guide, and building it up over & over again, which is something I apologize and take full responsibility for (eternal beta, blech!). The conundrum was post-release support...there were always quirky little bugs, and I never wanted to release a guide where there would be glitches, because then I'd get millions of support emails & PM's and just get deluged with support requests. It was a lot of fun at the time, but giving out (endless) free support into the wee hours of the night isn't so appealing anymore, haha.

My new approach is simply putting the information out there for general consumption, no support offered - just sharing what's worked for me, that's it. Much less stress! I enjoy writing and I have fun tweaking out my own system, and I've learned the hard way not to get more sucked in then that :biggrin: So after some recalibration, we have this thread - general discussion & some basic information. Plus, things are so easy now...my new Gigabyte board doesn't even require a DSDT and installation takes like 20 minutes! :awe:

 

[Kaido]

I honestly don't have a problem with this in the slightest. Unibeast requires that you legally purchase OS X. This is a good thing. Using a hackintosh does not make you a thief. The person who wrote that first link sounds like an entitled ahole. "How dare they make me pay for this software! It's hypocritical!" There is a big difference between violating the EULA by installing OS X on unsupported hardware and stealing OS X outright.

Also, I don't like how they say "You should probably be familiar with the command line before making a modification like this anyways, and if not, you’re going to have a bad time hackintoshing." I've been running hackintoshes in one form or another for five years. When I run into a problem, I research it and fix it. However, I am still not really at home in the terminal. The only commands I actually know are really basic things like ls and rm. If I find a command that I need to do a specific thing, I am perfectly capable of copying and pasting it, but don't ask me to come up with it on my own or expect me to prefer it to a GUI-based solution.

I think the rant started because of how the Tonymac installer deals with digital copies of Mountain Lion - you can't load an ISO, a DMG, a DVD, etc.; it must be from the Mac App Store. However, I've had problems with this as well - I downloaded Mountain Lion onto my Snow Leopard Hackintosh and the Unibeast installer refused to use it and would not see it as a valid, legal download, even though I had puchased & downloaded it directly from the MAS. Eventually I had to use a buddy's real Mac, download Mountain Lion again, transfer it to a USB stick, and copy it into my Applications folder on my Hackintosh in order to get it to work. So that's kind of a pain, but on the flip side, I also understand why they're so uptight about only supporting legal, downloaded copies of Mountain Lion. Plus, if you're using someone else's tools, you're more or less stuck with whatever decisions they make, unless you're willing to learn the commands to do it yourself. So, it is what it is I guess.

And you're right about the command line thing - the general attitude that you have to be a "hardcore hacker" or expert Terminal jockey in order to make a Hackintosh work is kind of silly, because the whole idea behind a Mac is to make things easy! In my mind at least, it'd be kind of dumb to do a start-to-finish OSx86 install using only Terminal commands, when you could just click a few buttons in a GUI app and be done (unless you're doing it for the learning experience, which is great!). For example, I struggled with making DSDT's for a long time because there were so many aspects to it and not enough documentation to make much sense of what you were doing, unless you were more of a programmer and really dug deep into things. And then better tools started coming out with better explanations, and instead of having to hang around IRC all day and search the web for tiny bits of information, you could just read up and figure it out fairly easily. That's what I personally like - clear explanations of how to use something and why.

 

[Kaido]

Also my new board showed up yesterday...a Gigabyte B75M-D3P. Current $95 on Newegg with a $20 MIR: (so ~$75 I guess)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813128556

I chose this board for a few reasons: first of all, I don't currently use any expansion ports aside from GFX & PCI NIC. So I didn't go with a full ATX board, just a very basic MicroATX board. Although it's basic & inexpensive (sub-$100 is awesome!!), it supports the latest 1155-based Ivy Bridge i7 chips and up to 32 gigs of RAM (which is currently available for under $200, which is ridiculous). Also, it doesn't require a DSDT, which is really nice, and since it's an LGA-1155 board, you get Sleep & SpeedStep. I don't particularly care about either of those (mine is usually on 24/7 doing some project or another at full-tilt), but a lot of people have asked for boards that support those features, so why not.

It does have onboard video out, so if you want to go with integrated graphics (HD3000 or HD4000), you can (I believe there's an i3 with HD3000 for under $150 if you want to do a budget build). I'm going with my ATI 6870 (natively supported in Snow Leopard, at least) - I'm not a particularly big fan of ATI, but I've actually been having a lot of fun in Final Cut Pro X lately, and it really likes ATI cards, so there you go. Plenty of great Nvidia options available now as well, from the 640 to the 680.

The motherboard is not without its quirks - the USB 3.0 ports only work with USB 3.0 devices, so you lose a couple ports there if you need more USB 2.0 space. I've also read that 10.8.2 has some bootup issues, so I'll see how I fare this weekend during installation. I won't be using onboard audio or networking since I want native compatibility (through add-on hardware). So here's the current plan:

* i7-3770K CPU
* Gigabyte B75M-D3P motherboard
* 32GB RAM
* 1GB ATI 6870 GPU
* Encore PCI NIC (gotta see if it's still supported in ML)
* Syba USB stereo sound card
* Mushkin SSD for boot (and some multi-terabyte drives for storage)
* 4GB USB boot stick (for Chimera & the Extras folder)
* DVD burner

The goal of this project is to have a 100% Mac-only, pure-vanilla hard drive. All of the Hackintosh stuff will reside on the USB stick, which will be first in the BIOS's boot order. The network, audio, and graphics card are all natively-supported, so no re-patching of drivers required after doing updates. The performance will come from a combination of the i7 chip, 32 gigs of RAM, and SATA-III solid-state boot drive (plus a decently modern 6870 video card). I like to run a VM or two all the time, plus I do a lot of video stuff, so having a lot of RAM is really nice. I'll be using 4 sticks of 8GB DDR3-1600 G.Skill memory for $42 a pop, for a jaw-droppingly low price of $168 total for 32 gigs of RAM:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820231636

That tickles me

 

[Kaido]

So here's my current stable:

* Gigabyte ES2L
* Gigabyte DS3L (both P35 & EP35)
* Gigabyte UD3P
* MSI X58 Pro-E

And my upcoming projects:

* Gigabyte B75M-D3P
* Intel NUC (dual HDMI)
* Foxconn R30-H1 (barebones SFF PC that can possibly be Hackintoshed)
* Gigabyte GA-H67N-USB3-B3 (mini-ITX)

The H67N-USB3 isn't sold anymore, but I had one leftover from my Tivo-mod project (it got converted into a gaming HTPC with a GTX470), so I don't know how much use that will be to anybody, but I have one! Haha. Ultimately it will be running Windows for Plex, Steam Big Picture, and Hyperspin in my basement theater (separate project with a custom-built projector screen & custom-built speakers, plus a 40"-tall subwoofer, hehehe).

The ES2L and both DS3L's are being retired after I Hackintosh them a bit more - I did one of the DS3L's recently with Mountain Lion, an 8400GS, and an SSD, and it was actually wicked fast! All 3 of those boards are going into my next project (three Hyperspin arcade cabinets) at some point (time permitting, as always).

So ultimately the 1155 D3P will be my new main rig, the X58 will replace my wife's UD3P (i7 + 24GB RAM, but it's LGA1366), the NUC will be the kitchen computer (hopefully as a casemod into my G4 Cube, unless the new i5/i7 models from Gigabyte work awesome, which they should, in which case I'll have to snag one of those!), and the Foxconn will be my living room HTPC (ML + Plex).

I've got my master ML 10.8.2 image made and a variety of USB sticks for testing, and a pile of hardware on my workbench. The next step is to assemble the D3P computer and start testing that guy, then transfer my data over when it's finished and start swapping out the rest. I'd like to get the new Wiki rolling by next week, starting out with the D3P guide (assuming I'm successful with it, haha), and then adding the rest of the walkthroughs after that (ES2L, DS3L, UD3P, etc.). I'll also have random articles on setting up vanilla systems, making DMG install image masters, etc. so that all of the information is centralized and not spread out in a huge thread

 

[uallas5]

Hey Kaido, I did something similar just before Christmas, though not as vanilla. I took my UD3P, got a new case, hard drive, an MSI 6450, and built my brother-in-law a ML Christmas gift. He used to be in commercial printing so was way into MACS backs in the day, but hadn't used one since the early 90's, so he was pleasantly surprised and happy

To replace it I got myself I got an Gigabyte B75M-D3V (with 8Gb of Free RAM from Newegg) and an i5-3570k. The D3V installed easie-peasie using Unibeast and since it has a supported NIC, the only thing I had to load up was sound. Ran the 10.8.2 combo update then slapped in my MSI 6850, no prob. It's not exactly the same board as yours but I haven't had any boot problems with it. I like your idea of running chameleon, etc. from a flash drive. I'm thinking about getting a Z77 board and giving the B75 to wife so i can overclock. If I do I I'll give the USB drive a try. Can't wait to here your results!

 

[Kaido]

Hey Kaido, I did something similar just before Christmas, though not as vanilla. I took my UD3P, got a new case, hard drive, an MSI 6450, and built my brother-in-law a ML Christmas gift. He used to be in commercial printing so was way into MACS backs in the day, but hadn't used one since the early 90's, so he was pleasantly surprised and happy

To replace it I got myself I got an Gigabyte B75M-D3V (with 8Gb of Free RAM from Newegg) and an i5-3570k. The D3V installed easie-peasie using Unibeast and since it has a supported NIC, the only thing I had to load up was sound. Ran the 10.8.2 combo update then slapped in my MSI 6850, no prob. It's not exactly the same board as yours but I haven't had any boot problems with it. I like your idea of running chameleon, etc. from a flash drive. I'm thinking about getting a Z77 board and giving the B75 to wife so i can overclock. If I do I I'll give the USB drive a try. Can't wait to here your results!

Yeah, there's not much difference in the boards (16gb vs. 32gb RAM support for the most part), except that the D3V has Atheros LAN and the D3P has Realtek (8111DP). That's pretty slick that it has native Ethernet support! I would have gone with that board, except I wanted 32 gigs of memory for doing video editing stuff & VM's. Very nice!

 

[uallas5]

Yeah, there's not much difference in the boards (16gb vs. 32gb RAM support for the most part), except that the D3V has Atheros LAN and the D3P has Realtek (8111DP). That's pretty slick that it has native Ethernet support! I would have gone with that board, except I wanted 32 gigs of memory for doing video editing stuff & VM's. Very nice!

When I saw it for $75 on Newegg over Thanksgiving with 2x4GB G.Skill Ripjaws thrown in for free I couldn't help myself . I was expecting an Atheros chip as well so i was pleasantly surprised when I realized the 1.1 version came with the Realtek.

 

[Kaido]

When I saw it for $75 on Newegg over Thanksgiving with 2x4GB G.Skill Ripjaws thrown in for free I couldn't help myself . I was expecting an Atheros chip as well so i was pleasantly surprised when I realized the 1.1 version came with the Realtek.

Oh nice! Didn't realize there was a v1.1 update - 8111F, excellent! That's kind of hard to beat for a budget board :biggrin:

 

[Zaap]

I can't say I ever had any problems with Insanely and until recently, we talked about utilities like UniBeast regularly. That and MultiBeast definitely put Tonymacx86 in the forefront of Hackintoshdom.

There is still plenty of good information to be gleaned from Insanely. As always, you have to know how to search. LOL

True, true. Insanely still has some really knowledgeable users and info- just I can see why Tonymac tries to limit the span of hardware a bit more. Insanely often gets bogged down with noobs asking the same "will this random AMD computer work for a Hackintosh?" over and over again 10,000 times to the point that finding actual relevant information is much harder.

Don't get me started on the tech journalists. I got caught up for awhile until I figured out they live in another dimension. Never heard that the iPad killed off the Hackintosh, but I did hear that it was the end for the PC.

I quoted it on page 3 of this thread. Apparently, the $500 iPad put the final nail in the Hackintosh coffin. Of course, anyone that was actually using and building Hacks then and since has no freakin' idea how that makes an ounce of sense- but for people that that write "tech" columns there's some kind of profound logic there.

 

[mosslack]

True, true. Insanely still has some really knowledgeable users and info- just I can see why Tonymac tries to limit the span of hardware a bit more. Insanely often gets bogged down with noobs asking the same "will this random AMD computer work for a Hackintosh?" over and over again 10,000 times to the point that finding actual relevant information is much harder.

I agree, but it's not difficult to pass by those threads which only contain a few posts when searching for info on a particular board. I've solved a lot of my Hackintosh problems from reading Insanely and I don't plan to stop doing that.

quoted it on page 3 of this thread. Apparently, the $500 iPad put the final nail in the Hackintosh coffin. Of course, anyone that was actually using and building Hacks then and since has no freakin' idea how that makes an ounce of sense- but for people that that write "tech" columns there's some kind of profound logic there.

Yep, as I said, they are in another dimension, completely ungrounded. When they actually have to start paying for stuff, then it's a different ballgame.

 

[purbeast0]

so about 6 months ago i updated my dell inspiron from osx 6.6 to i think 6.8 (i think that is the correct version number honestly don't remember anymore).

my dumbass just did it through the software update instead of the proper way to do it on a hackintosh. now i can't boot the laptop.

anyone have any clue how to recover from this error? i can give more details about what the log says and stuff if anyone has any clue wtf could be causing this. i just went on a vacation and it was the first trip i didn't have my laptop with me, and it just made me realize i should probably try to fix my laptop lol.

 

[Zaap]

so about 6 months ago i updated my dell inspiron from osx 6.6 to i think 6.8 (i think that is the correct version number honestly don't remember anymore).

my dumbass just did it through the software update instead of the proper way to do it on a hackintosh. now i can't boot the laptop.

anyone have any clue how to recover from this error? i can give more details about what the log says and stuff if anyone has any clue wtf could be causing this. i just went on a vacation and it was the first trip i didn't have my laptop with me, and it just made me realize i should probably try to fix my laptop lol.

Inspiron 1525 by chance?

If so, that laptop is a real SOB to update to 10.6.8 or to Lion.

I broke my rule of NEVER doing laptops for other people (never again BTW) and did a Dell Inspiron 1525 install for a friend's teenage daughter so she could have a cheap 'MacBook'.

10.6.6 worked perfectly on it and was easy to install. I tried everything to get 10.6.8 stable on it. Not only was it a major PITA to install, but the wireless that had previously worked no longer worked in 10.6.8.

Tried Lion on it. No go. Nothing would work right.

So I took it back to 10.6.6 and instructed my friend's daughter leave it alone and not update. OF COURSE that went really well. She updated it after a month or so (ran the 10.6.8 update) and borked it. I redid it back to 10.6.6 and there it stayed until she got an iPhone and Apple required an OS update in order for the iPhone to work with it.

She now uses Windows 7 on it.


Anyway, IF that's the laptop you're talking about, or similar, you might want to look at this post:

http://dailyblogged.com/1508/snowleopard/comment-page-10/#comment-37375


Basically, the Inspiron 1525 needs kexts from 10.6.7 in order to run 10.6.8, and even then it can still have flaky issues like the wireless not working. If you don't really need to update beyond 10.6.6, then I would just take it back to that, and leave it.

You could recover your borked install of 10.6.8 by booting OSX externally and installing the needed kexts from 10.6.7.

 

[purbeast0]

it is a 1545 not 1525.

i will take a look at that link tomorrow when i have my laptop around, or some time over the weekend. if it's easy to "back out" the update i'll gladly do that. i honestly don't even know why the hell i was updating. i think i kept having issues with my wireless crapping out randomly and figured updating would fix it. looks like i was completely wrong in that too.

 

[drozay]

What do you guys think

Gigabyte Z77 UD5H
Intel 3570k
16GB Patriot Black ram
128gb intel 540 ssd
seagate 1tb

 

[mosslack]

My HP DC7800 is up on 10.8.3. I got an unexpected error while the update was being installed and it said the update could not be installed, but on the reboot all appears normal with About This Mac reporting 10.8.3. Preliminary check seems to indicate the system is functioning normally. More later if problems crop up.

EDIT: I also just finished the update on my GA-P35-DS3L with no problems reported, with the exception of the expected HDA rollback for sound. I believe this only applies to those using AppleHDA for sound, but it seems that even VoodooHDA had to be re-applied sometimes as well.

Video, sound, networking all working just fine. BTW I updated via the App store.