I love OS X but at this current juncture, Apple doesn't offer a computer that truly meets all my needs. I considered the 27 inch iMac (with the additional GeForce GTX 780M and Core i7) but graphically, it left too much to be desired as it even the mighty GeForce GTX 780M isn't nearly as powerful as desktop GPUs, like my aging ATI Radeon 6870 in my Mac Pro.
A few weeks ago something that's always seemed like a pipe dream became a reality once I discovered the "Quo Computer Z77MX-QUO-AOS" motherboard browsing these forums. Its a redesigned Gigabyte motherboard with a wink-wink, none-too-subtle-nod, and nudging of the elbows, "Run any OS". By any OS, they meant none other than OS X.
After reading up on the Quo Computer, it started off as a successful kickstarter project that actually resulted in a working motherboard (although they never were able to deliver some of the promised stretch goals like built in Wifi/Bluetooth) which left a lot of the funders feeling burned. I took a risk ordering the motherboard and I received it 3 days later. Not bad.
Despite its short comings, Quo produced a motherboard that spec wise resembled a Macintosh: Firewire 400? Check. Firewire 800? check. USB 3.0? Check. Thunderbolt? Check, with 4 PCIe slots (two 3.0 and two 1.0), 4 DIMM slots (max 32 GB of ram) and an LGA1155 socket for a Core i3/i5/i7 CPU.
It wasn't the motherboard to end all motherboards being a CPU socket generation late, limited RAM, one solo 16x PCIe slot (and a secondary 8x PCIe slot), one PCIe slot that'd enviably be blocked by a graphics card but it had something no one else had; a special uEFI rom for the motherboard that allowed it to magically boot OS X. Magic indeed, the ROM isn't provided by Quo but a mysterious group called HermitCrab Labs.
For my computer I decided to use the following hardware:
The Holy Bible for this Crusade was a single lone article by TechSpot using the Quo Computer motherboard.
http://www.techspot.com/article/720-building-a-hackintosh/
It provided everything one needed to get the Quo Computing mobo going on a single page. So based on this one article and TonyMacX86 I ordered roughly $1100 of PC hardware to built my own Hacktintosh. All my storage was already in my existing Mac Pro.
Putting together my PC took a usual amount of time, the Fractal Design R4 is a very large case, roughly the same dimensions as a Mac Pro (mid-tower seems like a short sale). PC cases are still as unsightly as they were about a decade ago: plexiglass and glowing LEDs seem to be still all the rage with the kids.
Once with the BIOS, I plugged into my computer a USB thumb drive containing the latest ROM for the quo computer mother board, and hit the END key and brought up the motherboard rom flasher. SUCCESS! Next I plugged in my SSD from my Mac Pro... and it booted! The screen was jibbled up (after a quick read, I forgot to enable the video) Once enabled OS X booted! I tested both bootable volumes, a copy of 10.8.5 and 10.9.2, already installed on previous volumes.
Once the computer was booted, RAM seated securely the biggest problem was my video card which meant dropping $270 on the computer, raising the price from $800ish to roughly $1100ish.
Strange Problems Encountered:
Minor annoyances
Had it not been for the QUO computer motherboard, I don't know if I'd undertaken this project. Once the computer was set up, I literally was able to take my copy of OS X from my Mac Pro to my Hackintosh (and even back to my Mac Pro and back yet again to my Hackintosh).
I would have gladly paid for a Apple Mac with a user replaceable PCIe graphics card preferable a few drive bays. My previous Mac Pro lasted me 6 years. That's an incredible feat! I can't imagine a 2013 Mac Pro lasting until 2019 as good chunk of the longevity was locked up in upgradability.
Will this replace my Mac Pro? Its looking very promising. I played Borderlands 2 via Steam with friends to test it out. SATA3 makes a world of difference.
A few weeks ago something that's always seemed like a pipe dream became a reality once I discovered the "Quo Computer Z77MX-QUO-AOS" motherboard browsing these forums. Its a redesigned Gigabyte motherboard with a wink-wink, none-too-subtle-nod, and nudging of the elbows, "Run any OS". By any OS, they meant none other than OS X.
After reading up on the Quo Computer, it started off as a successful kickstarter project that actually resulted in a working motherboard (although they never were able to deliver some of the promised stretch goals like built in Wifi/Bluetooth) which left a lot of the funders feeling burned. I took a risk ordering the motherboard and I received it 3 days later. Not bad.
Despite its short comings, Quo produced a motherboard that spec wise resembled a Macintosh: Firewire 400? Check. Firewire 800? check. USB 3.0? Check. Thunderbolt? Check, with 4 PCIe slots (two 3.0 and two 1.0), 4 DIMM slots (max 32 GB of ram) and an LGA1155 socket for a Core i3/i5/i7 CPU.
It wasn't the motherboard to end all motherboards being a CPU socket generation late, limited RAM, one solo 16x PCIe slot (and a secondary 8x PCIe slot), one PCIe slot that'd enviably be blocked by a graphics card but it had something no one else had; a special uEFI rom for the motherboard that allowed it to magically boot OS X. Magic indeed, the ROM isn't provided by Quo but a mysterious group called HermitCrab Labs.
For my computer I decided to use the following hardware:
- Fractal Design R4 Case
- Quo Computer Z77MX-QUO-AOS Motherboard
- Intel Core i7 3770k (3.5 GHz)
- Gigabyte GeForce GTX 760 2 GB*
- SeaSonic Platinum SS-860XP2 Power Supply
- Crucial Ballistix Sport 16 GB DDR3 Ram (PC3-12800)
- Lite-On Super AllWrite 24X SATA DVD+/-RW Dual Layer Drive
The Holy Bible for this Crusade was a single lone article by TechSpot using the Quo Computer motherboard.
http://www.techspot.com/article/720-building-a-hackintosh/
It provided everything one needed to get the Quo Computing mobo going on a single page. So based on this one article and TonyMacX86 I ordered roughly $1100 of PC hardware to built my own Hacktintosh. All my storage was already in my existing Mac Pro.
Putting together my PC took a usual amount of time, the Fractal Design R4 is a very large case, roughly the same dimensions as a Mac Pro (mid-tower seems like a short sale). PC cases are still as unsightly as they were about a decade ago: plexiglass and glowing LEDs seem to be still all the rage with the kids.
Once with the BIOS, I plugged into my computer a USB thumb drive containing the latest ROM for the quo computer mother board, and hit the END key and brought up the motherboard rom flasher. SUCCESS! Next I plugged in my SSD from my Mac Pro... and it booted! The screen was jibbled up (after a quick read, I forgot to enable the video) Once enabled OS X booted! I tested both bootable volumes, a copy of 10.8.5 and 10.9.2, already installed on previous volumes.
Once the computer was booted, RAM seated securely the biggest problem was my video card which meant dropping $270 on the computer, raising the price from $800ish to roughly $1100ish.
Strange Problems Encountered:
- When installing my CPU I managed to bend (without realizing) two of the CPU pins on the motherboard. I had to use an exacto knife to straighten these out.
- By default the internal video chipset isn't enabled, this requires enabling it. Its clearly outlined in the guide but I still managed to skip it.
- I couldn't use my old AMD Radeon HD 6870 in my Hackintosh with my 27 inch monitor (2560 x 1440). This was likely due to the EFI rom that I loaded onto the card. Not all the ports are detected due to the flash so perhaps the EFI rom doesn't play nicely with the motherboard's uEFI rom (despite displaying video at the BIOS). The only solution was to buy an nVidia card if I wanted to keep my display.
- A slightly loosely seated ram caused powering up to fail randomly. Since it was booting occasionally, I didn't think to check the RAM at first.
- It appears the loosely seated RAM caused the BIOS to corrupt, fortunately the vanilla BIOS reinstall automagically and reapplying the new ROM for uEFI only takes seconds
- Installing the GeForce drivers were a pain. My drivers installed were from 2011. I found on TonyMacX86 a user who was kind enough to upload the drivers he had, however these did not work. After much digging, I found that nVidia quietly has OS X drivers for its graphics cards which can be found here. http://www.nvidia.com/download/driverResults.aspx/73628/en-us Installing these and the sequential update (found in the control panel for the nVidia card) did the trick. I also installed the optional CUDA drivers during the process, it is unknown if this helped.
Minor annoyances
- Cubase's stupid USB eLicenser complains that the hardware configuration is different. Isn't the point of damned USB Dongle that I should be able to plug and play? I already hate the damn thing so much that I keep debating if I want to remain in their DRM hellish scheme. Now I need to contact them? C'mon. Shouldn't I be able to plug this thing into any computer I please and launch cubase? This is a problem with Steinberg, not Apple or Hacktinosh related.
- iTunes gives me an error -50 but appears to work. Messages asks for my keychain access not sure which password its requiring, it isn't the admin.
- Audio doesn't work out the box, it requires installing kexts.
Had it not been for the QUO computer motherboard, I don't know if I'd undertaken this project. Once the computer was set up, I literally was able to take my copy of OS X from my Mac Pro to my Hackintosh (and even back to my Mac Pro and back yet again to my Hackintosh).
I would have gladly paid for a Apple Mac with a user replaceable PCIe graphics card preferable a few drive bays. My previous Mac Pro lasted me 6 years. That's an incredible feat! I can't imagine a 2013 Mac Pro lasting until 2019 as good chunk of the longevity was locked up in upgradability.
Will this replace my Mac Pro? Its looking very promising. I played Borderlands 2 via Steam with friends to test it out. SATA3 makes a world of difference.
