The Hackintosh Thread

[bradl]

Note of advice.

Those of you wanting to attempt a Hackintosh build should cross-reference your builds with someplace like the recommendations at TonyMacX86. They have a good buyer's reference guide for what makes good Hackintosh builds. Definitely worth a look there, as most builds prefer Gigabyte boards, as they are known to work. Have a look there when considering your builds.

Here's the latest one.

http://www.tonymacx86.com/building-customac-buyers-guide-july-2015.html

BL.

 

[NOTNlCE]

LOVE my hacks. At present, I own five. However, this year will be my 6th year of Hackintosh-ing, so I've grown to understand the intricacies. My main tower is a hack, and I'm typing this on my iMac G4 mod, which has an Intel NUC inside it. Personally, if you can deal with the quirks of it and the occasional bug, it's excellent. For me, after my 3,1, a hack was the only option.

 

[Hughmac]

Personally I've mainly hacked laptops, during the Leopard / Snow Leopard era.
The only one I have left is a Dell Mini 10V with an SSD and running 10.6.8 - I leave it at work for when I have time to play.

I'd love to know more details about the iMac G4 hackintosh ↑↑ @NOTNICE

Cheers

Hugh

https://forums.macrumors.com/members/notnlce.852290/

 

[NOTNlCE]

Personally I've mainly hacked laptops, during the Leopard / Snow Leopard era.
The only one I have left is a Dell Mini 10V with an SSD and running 10.6.8 - I leave it at work for when I have time to play.

I'd love to know more details about the iMac G4 hackintosh ↑↑ @NOTNICE

Cheers

Hugh

The TonyMac thread is here: http://www.tonymacx86.com/imac-mods/130689-ics-20-imac-nuc-flowerpot.html

If you would like to give it a read. It's hit a standstill - SUPER busy with work for the past year, and my friend who was assisting me got a new job, but we're hoping to finish everything up within the coming months. It's fully functional though - only thing is that the NUC is not yet mounted in the base. Have to say a big thank you to Ersterhernd over there - he was the original pioneer after DremelJunkie for the mod, and has given me a load of advice through the project.

 

[Hughmac]

Great read, thanks. Unfortunately I sold my 20" 1.25 a couple of years ago (for a lot of money - funded a G5 iMac + more ). I don't think I can afford another at present.

Cheers

Hugh

 

[kwikdeth]

i love my hacks. ive built about 20 now for myself and friends & family. some things work great, some dont - i advise all hack users to avoid using a fusion drive as ive found them to have nearly 100% failure rate over time in hacks, but otherwise, they're great. and if you have any PCI hardware around still, most of them will still work great even in Mavericks. Im using a MOTU PCI424 card on PCI to drive my audio interfaces - its absolutely rock-solid.

 

[Tucom]

Asus X99-S
Intel Haswell-E 5960x
32GB Kingston DDR4 3000Mhz
Nvidia Gigabyte GTX 980 G1
Kraken X61 Water Cooler - NZXT S340

Now that was in September 2014, prices have dropped considerably since.

YEEKS - You definitely want to change the orientation of the close loop liquid cooler hoses - that's some SEVERE droop on your GPU because of them, at least it look like it, and that's horrible for the motherboard (and most likely GPU).

 

[Cindori]

YEEKS - You definitely want to change the orientation of the close loop liquid cooler hoses - that's some SEVERE droop on your GPU because of them, at least it look like it, and that's horrible for the motherboard (and most likely GPU).

I know it looks like that but it is actually the GPU itself that is hanging down because of it's own weight.

Hoses are not touching the GPU:

The Gigabyte GTX 980 G1 is one beast of a graphics card.

 

[Tucom]

I know it looks like that but it is actually the GPU itself that is hanging down because of it's own weight.

Hoses are not touching the GPU:


The Gigabyte GTX 980 G1 is one beast of a graphics card.

Yeah that's why I would stay away from lengthy overly heavy GPUs like that, can't stand them and their ridiculous weight and sag they cause.


Cards like the Fury X or Fury Nano are ace for those reasons alone.

I also don't get why case manufactures (and to an extent GPU manufacturers) don't include some kind of support bracket to fix the sag. It's silly.

 

[ActionableMango]

Yeah that's why I would stay away from lengthy overly heavy GPUs like that, can't stand them and their ridiculous weight and sag they cause.


Cards like the Fury X or Fury Nano are ace for those reasons alone.

I also don't get why case manufactures (and to an extent GPU manufacturers) don't include some kind of support bracket to fix the sag. It's silly.

[Old fart alert] Way, WAY back in the day, they all or mostly all used to do that. Full-length cards were always a specific length, and the back end of the card (front end?) slid into a slot. Sometimes there was also a bracket that screwed down onto the top of all of your cards. At least if my memory serves me right.[/Old fart alert]

I do like that the official Apple 5770/5870 had a plastic extender so that it became a full length card and slotted into the fan bracket.

 

[Tucom]

[Old fart alert] Way, WAY back in the day, they all or mostly all used to do that. Full-length cards were always a specific length, and the back end of the card (front end?) slid into a slot. Sometimes there was also a bracket that screwed down onto the top of all of your cards. At least if my memory serves me right.[/Old fart alert]

I do like that the official Apple 5770/5870 had a plastic extender so that it became a full length card and slotted into the fan bracket.

That's awesome, why in the world did we deviate from that?

With Apple's cMP BTX layout, it doesn't really matter if it has an extension or not (which were actually metal ;P Hehe, sorry), as it merely just rests on top of the plastic coated shelving that sits atop the aluminum shelving above the CPU/RAM tray.

As for other workstations, HP's 600 and 800 series also do the same thing; have a support bracket that goes from the GPU into a slot in the workstation. Just like Apple. Also when you order an HP Envy or Phoenix desktop, they have a metal support bracket that bolts the heavy GPU in place, which I literally searched everywhere for to buy aftermarket when I had an Envy (great PCs, btw, worlds better than HP's lower end stuff). But alas, seems to be only available with the machine itself via BTO from HP.

Dells new and beautiful (but HUGE) Alienware Area 51 also has the same metal extensions from the GPUs into a retention slot.

This alone is reason enough for me to greatly consider a prebuilt PC vs. building myself (which I can do in my sleep and have built them for years and years), plus you get roughly 12,395 times better resale value with a prebuilt, too. Plus Wifi. And BT.

/rant over

 

[bradl]

This alone is reason enough for me to greatly consider a prebuilt PC vs. building myself (which I can do in my sleep and have built them for years and years), plus you get roughly 12,395 times better resale value with a prebuilt, too. Plus Wifi. And BT.

/rant over

The latest gigabyte boards do come with WiFi and BT. Starting with the H77 and Z77 series chipsets, they all have come with BT and WiFi. The latest one, with the Z97 chipset definitely has it, at least in the mini-ITX form factor.

http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=5287#ov

Yes, prebuilts will get you more resale value because they have the brand on it, but that doesn't mean that you couldn't put better together for cheaper.

BL.

 

[Tucom]

The latest gigabyte boards do come with WiFi and BT. Starting with the H77 and Z77 series chipsets, they all have come with BT and WiFi. The latest one, with the Z97 chipset definitely has it, at least in the mini-ITX form factor.

http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=5287#ov

Yes, prebuilts will get you more resale value because they have the brand on it, but that doesn't mean that you couldn't put better together for cheaper.

BL.

I'm well aware of boards that do come with BT and WiFi. It's still crap that you have these gaudy antennas sticking out or sprawled all over your tower with those FM tuner jokes. It's hilarious, and one of the few main reasons to not waste money building your own.

Also, I said that I can build my own, easily, and I've done so many times in the past. It's just not worth it, unless you don't care about selling it for 35% of what you put into it, should you need to sell it.

You can put together something that works for cheaper, but by far does not make it "better" - Any high end Dell or HP will have a quality OEM board, either by ASUS, Gigabyte, or MSI, or a high end Foxconn board (just as good as anything else). Dell's high end PSUs are some of the best - even people on Tomshardware will tell you the same. That leaves what, the HDD? Get an SSD and re-image the install on it. And HP uses Delta PSUs in their Envy and up towers (what Apple uses).

RAM, CPU, and GPU are all what you would get if you build your own, and in most cases better due to the secure support bracket.


Enjoy your builds, I'm done with them.

EDIT - I should add I am in NO way dumping on any builds in this thread; I still love the idea of putting something together yourself, and enjoy looking at the builds people have put time and effort into.

I'll say this, too; if I had the money to get something like the Muderbox Xforma, even just the case, I'd consider building my own rig again.

Continue on!

 

[lowendlinux]

You build yourself (or at least I do) because you want to express something or have a specific need.

 

[filmak]

I 'm very disappointed with the absence of a nMP update.
I can say that I'm also disappointed with the lack of upgrade path for the nMP. This is also is valid for the all glued rimac.

Thinking very seriously to built a hackintosh for Lightroom - DTP - Graphics use.
Probably will use a Gigabyte GA-Z97X-UD5H-BK, i7-4790K, GTX970-4GB, 32 gb ram.
Is this setup ok? Any better recommendations please ?

I have heard that the hacks are always unstable and always ready for problems, and not all OS X features work. Is that true?
I also wonder, If someone stays with a specific built of OS X - Yosemite, with no updates, will there be suddenly arising problems?
I would like to have some opinions.

Thank you in advance,

 

[lowendlinux]

Stability in any computer system is reliant on the skills of the maintainer of the system.

 

[filmak]

Stability in any computer system is reliant on the skills of the maintainer of the system.

I completely agree.
I think that Hacks need a special treatment. It's not like running natively OS X on macs. or windows on generic hardware, I think it needs special procedures for installing and maintaining (?), or it's about the same?

 

[Fl0r!an]

You can't answer this in general as it greatly depends on the compatilibty of your hardware. If you choose wisely in first place then things will be easy, but obviously not as easy as buying and unboxing a real mac.

 

[filmak]

You can't answer this in general as it greatly depends on the compatilibty of your hardware. If you choose wisely in first place then things will be easy, but obviously not as easy as buying and unboxing a real mac.

Thinking very seriously to built a hackintosh for Lightroom - DTP - Graphics use.
Probably will use a Gigabyte GA-Z97X-UD5H-BK, i7-4790K, GTX970-4GB, 32 gb ram.
Is this setup ok? Any better recommendations please ?

 

[bladerunner2000]

I completely agree.
I think that Hacks need a special treatment. It's not like running natively OS X on macs. or windows on generic hardware, I think it needs special procedures for installing and maintaining (?), or it's about the same?

Special treatment is only needed for the install. Once it's done, it pretty much behaves like a real mac... except of course the performance is better.

 

[bladerunner2000]

Thinking very seriously to built a hackintosh for Lightroom - DTP - Graphics use.
Probably will use a Gigabyte GA-Z97X-UD5H-BK, i7-4790K, GTX970-4GB, 32 gb ram.
Is this setup ok? Any better recommendations please ?

Fantastic motherboard. I've got the GA-Z97X-UD3H-BK, one step below, and it's great.

I have heard that the hacks are always unstable and always ready for problems, and not all OS X features work. Is that true?

YES, there are issues you might run into! I sure as hell did, so here are some tips (our motherboards are almost identical)

1) Be VERY sure to get RAM from Gigabyte's Qualified Vendor List. Here's the link below that will almost guarantee you'll have a fully functioning system should you go with 4 sticks of RAM:

http://download.gigabyte.us/FileList/Memory/mb_memory_ga-z97x-ud5h-bk.pdf

Gigabyte motherboards have been known to cause issues with all 4 dimms used up. There are some people that have had issues on the Hackintosh too.

2) Always load 'optimized defaults' in the BIOS when installing OS X

3) USB connectivity has proven to give me issues. I've figured it mostly out; try not to use USB 3.0 ports on standard peripherals with hubs. I kept getting random 'freezes' because I had my monitor connected to the computers rear USB 3.0 port. The monitor has a hub. I have my Apple keyboard hooked up to the monitor's USB hub. And then I had my mouse connected via the keyboard. Moving the monitor to a USB 2.0 plug seems to have it running pretty stable (15 hours uptime without a freeze as opposed to a few minutes to a couple hours max.

I also wonder, If someone stays with a specific built of OS X - Yosemite, with no updates, will there be suddenly arising problems?

It'll be the same as on a Mac. Updating from 10.10.4 to 10.10.5 won't be as easy though, however if you install via Clover it likely will be pretty close to a real Mac. Some tweaks you might have to do.

 

[filmak]

Fantastic motherboard. I've got the GA-Z97X-UD3H-BK, one step below, and it's great.



YES, there are issues you might run into! I sure as hell did, so here are some tips (our motherboards are almost identical)

1) Be VERY sure to get RAM from Gigabyte's Qualified Vendor List. Here's the link below that will almost guarantee you'll have a fully functioning system should you go with 4 sticks of RAM:

http://download.gigabyte.us/FileList/Memory/mb_memory_ga-z97x-ud5h-bk.pdf

Gigabyte motherboards have been known to cause issues with all 4 dimms used up. There are some people that have had issues on the Hackintosh too.

2) Always load 'optimized defaults' in the BIOS when installing OS X

3) USB connectivity has proven to give me issues. I've figured it mostly out; try not to use USB 3.0 ports on standard peripherals with hubs. I kept getting random 'freezes' because I had my monitor connected to the computers rear USB 3.0 port. The monitor has a hub. I have my Apple keyboard hooked up to the monitor's USB hub. And then I had my mouse connected via the keyboard. Moving the monitor to a USB 2.0 plug seems to have it running pretty stable (15 hours uptime without a freeze as opposed to a few minutes to a couple hours max.



It'll be the same as on a Mac. Updating from 10.10.4 to 10.10.5 won't be as easy though, however if you install via Clover it likely will be pretty close to a real Mac. Some tweaks you might have to do.

I'm really grateful to you for your help and taking the time to give so useful informations.
Many thanks...

 

[MacUser2525]

Fantastic motherboard. I've got the GA-Z97X-UD3H-BK, one step below, and it's great.



YES, there are issues you might run into! I sure as hell did, so here are some tips (our motherboards are almost identical)

1) Be VERY sure to get RAM from Gigabyte's Qualified Vendor List. Here's the link below that will almost guarantee you'll have a fully functioning system should you go with 4 sticks of RAM:

http://download.gigabyte.us/FileList/Memory/mb_memory_ga-z97x-ud5h-bk.pdf

Gigabyte motherboards have been known to cause issues with all 4 dimms used up. There are some people that have had issues on the Hackintosh too.

2) Always load 'optimized defaults' in the BIOS when installing OS X

3) USB connectivity has proven to give me issues. I've figured it mostly out; try not to use USB 3.0 ports on standard peripherals with hubs. I kept getting random 'freezes' because I had my monitor connected to the computers rear USB 3.0 port. The monitor has a hub. I have my Apple keyboard hooked up to the monitor's USB hub. And then I had my mouse connected via the keyboard. Moving the monitor to a USB 2.0 plug seems to have it running pretty stable (15 hours uptime without a freeze as opposed to a few minutes to a couple hours max.



It'll be the same as on a Mac. Updating from 10.10.4 to 10.10.5 won't be as easy though, however if you install via Clover it likely will be pretty close to a real Mac. Some tweaks you might have to do.

I have used hack for going on eight years now always with Gigabyte motherboards. In fact still on the same retail disk install I did in early 2008 with Leopard that has been upgraded over the years through the various releases. While there can be problems if you do your research properly and make sure you have compatible hardware it will be mostly smooth sailing. The most important thing to doing this is always have backup partition with your install cloned onto it where you can either right before updating the system clone to it then boot from to do the upgrades then testing on or you can do it on your main install then if problems boot the backup and clone back. To your points here.

1) I in my 87 version of the board that you are responding to of the OP am using DDR3 server ram that I had left over from my foray into real MP land. Hardly on the qualified list using four sticks of it with no problems whatsoever.

2) Always good advice no matter the OS to be installed in this case making sure to go into the BIOS to disable the VT-d or it will never boot OS X. There are plenty of guides on this out there a board name plus hackintosh on the end in a google search will get you the best settings to have enabled/disabled in the BIOS.

3) Never seen that I have two four port USB3 hubs connected to the USB3 ports with six devices connected no problems again, my Apple wired keyboard is connected to a two port USB3 connector that connects to the onboard USB3 header works great. My uptime at the moment is close to three days and have gone weeks at a time without needing to reboot. In short with the right parts you can have rock solid install with no difference from a real mac other than the case with these things.

 

[bladerunner2000]

1) I in my 87 version of the board that you are responding to of the OP am using DDR3 server ram that I had left over from my foray into real MP land. Hardly on the qualified list using four sticks of it with no problems whatsoever.

Just because you don't have problems doesn't mean others aren't experiencing it:

http://www.tonymacx86.com/general-help/125717-fix-gigabyte-4-dimm-memory-instability.html

and this

http://www.tonymacx86.com/general-h...s-freeze-when-using-4-healthy-sticks-ram.html

Go to newegg.com and read some reviews of gigabyte motherboards in the last few years and you'll see reports of 4 dimms issues as well.

3) Never seen that I have two four port USB3 hubs connected to the USB3 ports with six devices connected no problems again, my Apple wired keyboard is connected to a two port USB3 connector that connects to the onboard USB3 header works great. My uptime at the moment is close to three days and have gone weeks at a time without needing to reboot. In short with the right parts you can have rock solid install with no difference from a real mac other than the case with these things.

GenericUSBXHCI kext has given people issues as well:

http://www.tonymacx86.com/general-h...usb-device-cause-mavericks-10-9-1-freeze.html

People run into all sorts of problems though so there will likely be some tinkering required to get things right. Some have problems with LAN, sleep, audio after sleep, HDMI audio, etc.

 

[MacUser2525]

Just because you don't have problems doesn't mean others aren't experiencing it:

http://www.tonymacx86.com/general-help/125717-fix-gigabyte-4-dimm-memory-instability.html

and this

http://www.tonymacx86.com/general-h...s-freeze-when-using-4-healthy-sticks-ram.html

Go to newegg.com and read some reviews of gigabyte motherboards in the last few years and you'll see reports of 4 dimms issues as well.



GenericUSBXHCI kext has given people issues as well:

http://www.tonymacx86.com/general-h...usb-device-cause-mavericks-10-9-1-freeze.html

People run into all sorts of problems though so there will likely be some tinkering required to get things right. Some have problems with LAN, sleep, audio after sleep, HDMI audio, etc.

I only speak to what I have experienced as I have never had them problems I cannot comment on having had them, my board is natively supported USB3 I had to do nothing to use it the OS just loads its own driver for them ports.

Edit: I would add my Linux server that is identical board running zfs filesystem for backup of my data has the same idea four sticks of server ram that was left over in it as well runs flawlessly too.

Edit2: Now I think about it more my second data backup machine a P55 Gigabyte board also has the server ram four sticks in it as well. So excuse me if I am a little skeptical of these claims made by others when I have never experienced them with three different boards.