Getting ready to dip my toes into the realm of the Hackintosh

[pastrychef]

Finally I grabbed a Logitech keyboard and mouse combo today but only the mouse is working. Does anyone have any experience getting Logitech wireless keyboards and mice working with the USB dongle? Should I return it and grab a better wired keyboard?

Lastly is there any way to make my machine register as a Mac Pro instead of a iMac?

USB keyboard and mice should work fine. I have wireless Logitech keyboards and mice that work once the receiver is plugged in. I don't know why your keyboard is not working.

In Clover Configurator, go to the SMBIOS section to set the system definition. It's best to use a system definition that best matches your hardware. For example, if you are using a Core 2 Duo T7400, using iMac5,1 or iMac6,1 is probably best.

 

[EnderBeta]

USB keyboard and mice should work fine. I have wireless Logitech keyboards and mice that work once the receiver is plugged in. I don't know why your keyboard is not working.

In Clover Configurator, go to the SMBIOS section to set the system definition. It's best to use a system definition that best matches your hardware. For example, if you are using a Core 2 Duo T7400, using iMac5,1 or iMac6,1 is probably best.

The specs are:

Intel Core 2 Quad Q9650
ASUS P5Q-E
Two nVidia GeForce GTX 560 TI cards (not sure how to tell if the second card would be used in iMovie or Final Cut pro.)
SanDisk SATA 6GB/S 960GB SSD on a SATA2 port (I know not as fast as it could be but it beats a 7200RPM drive)
A beat up old Apple keyboard that is clear with dark keys and a Logitech G600 mouse (I gave up on the wireless mouse and keyboard for now until I get the Apple wireless features and will then move to a bluetooth mouse and keyboard.)
D-Link Wireless G PCI (Not yet working, not sure it ever will, no big deal if it doesn't).

Currently internet on this machine is working through the ethernet port and sharing internet from my iMac's Wireless AC through the iMac's ethernet port.
[doublepost=1490585056][/doublepost]I found how to make the graphics boot up with the GeForce GTX 560 TI cards. In Clover Configurator I mounted the EFI drive. Then I opened the plist in the clover folder and in the graphics I changed inject intel to no and inject Nvidia to yes. It turned out that I didn't need to worry about the load video bios box.

At this point I am waiting on the USB3 card that I ordered on Amazon and have to order the wireless PCI card that enables a airport and bluetooth in the machine.

I'll put a video together to share my results for anyone interested. In the mean time I'm going to install Diablo 3 to this machine and see what it can do.

 

[pastrychef]

macOS only supports a very limited number of Wifi/Bluetooth cards. I always recommend to stick with cards that are used in real Mac, such as:
Broadcom BCM94360CS 867Mbps 802.11AC WLAN BT 4.0 PCI-E PC Desktop Card for MAC | eBay

 

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macOS only supports a very limited number of Wifi/Bluetooth cards. I always recommend to stick with cards that are used in real Mac, such as:
Broadcom BCM94360CS 867Mbps 802.11AC WLAN BT 4.0 PCI-E PC Desktop Card for MAC | eBay

That is actually a lot less expensive then the one I was looking at!

This is the thread I was looking at. Have you found that continuity works with that Broadcom card?

Edit: I see the title says for Mac! Oh man thank you. The one I found was hundreds of dollars. This is a great price. I'm snatching it up right now.

 

[pastrychef]

That link is basically showing the same thing. There's no reason Messages/continuity/Handoff won't work with a Broadcom card since Apple uses these cards in real Macs.

I got Messages/Continuity/Handoff working properly by following this guide:
An iDiot's Guide To iMessage | tonymacx86.com

 

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It looks like MacOS 10.12.4 works.

I have the Broadcom card you suggested ordered. I'm going to Crestron masters next week so I won't be in front of the machine for most of next week. However I'm hoping that maybe the network card should arrive by then.

In the mean time some bench mark results.

Clearly the SATA2 is holding back the SSD drive but it's really not too terribly bad while using the machine.

The Nova Bench results for anyone interested.

 

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I ended up not using the PCIe USB3 card because I only have one available PCIe slot not obstructed by the graphics cards and that is for the Wireless card coming.

So to get the USB ports on the top of the case working I installed this.

Here it is installed in the machine. It's very difficult to actually see it though. If you look directly under the Ge in GeForce you'll see a blue internal USB2.0 connector that supports two USB 2.0 ports and in it the little bit of the cable that is coming out from the opening in the sleeve hiding the power supply and cables.

 

[esk]

I've also build 2 hackintoshes in the past and I can say that I will never do it again. Although I got both hackintoshes in pretty reliable state in destroys all the reason why I actually favoured mac os over windows. You must spent so much time tinkering around with your system. A Hackintosh turns the great mac OS into a bigger hassle than Windows.

 

[pastrychef]

How long ago did you try? I built my first one in mid 2016 using the newest chipset/CPU (at the time) and it has been quite trouble free and reliable. Of course, there was a bit of tinkering required in the beginning, but once everything was setup there was no longer any tinkering required.

In my limited experience, I've found systems with UEFI to be pretty easy to get up and running reliably. I experimented briefly with an old, non-UEFI system and it was indeed considerably more complicated. However, I found a guide written by another user of that same motherboard, followed it closely, and it turned out to be as solid as any Mac would be. Again, after following the guide, no tinkering was required. What I learned was, stay as close hardware-wise to what Apple uses in their systems as possible and look for and use systems with UEFI.

Even OS updates have proven to be pretty painless. I've just made sure to upgrade to the latest versions of Clover prior to upgrading and everything just worked and I have been able to perform every upgrade directly over the Mac App Store within a day or two of release (I have to wait for Nvidia to release their web drivers).

I was so impressed with how well my system ran that I recently took a chance and purchased a used Dell laptop. With a bit of assistance from a very knowledgeable member of the hackintosh community, We got everything(!) working perfectly in a day or two. Again, I have not had to do an ounce of tinkering since the beginning and updates have been as simple as any real Mac. I have found it an absolute pleasure using this laptop especially compared to the ancient 2008 MacBook5,1 it replaced. The $190 I spent on that laptop might be the best $190 I ever spent.

 

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macOS only supports a very limited number of Wifi/Bluetooth cards. I always recommend to stick with cards that are used in real Mac, such as:
Broadcom BCM94360CS 867Mbps 802.11AC WLAN BT 4.0 PCI-E PC Desktop Card for MAC | eBay

My card from that link has arrived. I have it installed however it doesn't appear to be working. Do I have to install a kext for it? If so do you know where I can locate a copy of it?

 

[pastrychef]

No additional kexts are required for that card. These cards are used in real Macs and macOS has all the drivers built-in.

Are you seeing any signs of it in System Information? Does Bluetooth show up under USB?

 

[EnderBeta]

No additional kexts are required for that card. These cards are used in real Macs and macOS has all the drivers built-in.

Are you seeing any signs of it in System Information? Does Bluetooth show up under USB?

I found the issue and it absolutely makes me want to cry.

I accidentally ripped the wires out of the connector on the adapter cable with internal USB2 to the connector on the PCIe card.

I'm going to have to see if I can find another one of those cables.

 

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On the bright side my DDR2-1066 arrived today as well.

I don't understand why macOS is saying the processor is running at 3.6GHz because I have it at 8.5x400 in this screen shot by my calculation is 3.4GHz. It also seems like the RAM speed is not properly being recognized either because it is still saying 800MHz.

That said the performance has gone up for sure.

 

[pastrychef]

I found the issue and it absolutely makes me want to cry.

I accidentally ripped the wires out of the connector on the adapter cable with internal USB2 to the connector on the PCIe card.

I'm going to have to see if I can find another one of those cables.

Even without the cable, Wifi should be functional. That cable is just for Bluetooth.