Hackintosh Mini

If you are looking to build a fast, stable and economic OSX86 machine try this one, hackintosh mini for less than $600.  According to Adam Dachis over at LifeHacker, he was able to put this hackintosh mini together for a very reasonable $599.65 and that includes intel i3 processor and a pretty nifty Silverstone case and power supply.

The article states that this machine will run best if you stick with the Snow Leopard OS (which is just fine with me) and the instructions include the latest and what is believed to be the final update, 10.6.

I will be building this because (I need an excuse really) having since loaded the Lion OS I have been anything but impressed and I am pretty unhappy with the lack of Rosetta PowerPC support.

The Build

• Gigabyte GA-H55N-USB3 Motherboard $104.99
• Intel Core i3 Processor i3-540 3.06GHz 4MB LGA1156 CPU $110.00
• ZOTAC nVidia GeForce GT240 512 MB DDR3 DVI/HDMI PCI-Express Video Card $84.99
• 2x2GB Corsair PC3-10666 1333Mhz Dual Chanel 240-pin DDR3 Desktop RAM $43.99
• Western Digital 1TB SATA III 7200 RPM 32MB Cache Desktop Hard Drive $59.99
• SilverStone SG05BB-450 ALL Black Plastic/SECC Mini-ITX Computer Case with SFX 450W 80+ Bronze Certified/Single +12V rail Power Supply $119.99
• Sony Optiarc 8X SATA DVD+/-RW Slim Drive $34.99
• 13-pin to Standard+Power Slimline SATA Cable $7.75
• Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard $29.00

OSX86 Lion

iAtkos has released the new install for Mac OSX Lion, you download it here as well as the instructions.  I have not tested nor tried it yet. Let me know if you have and what you think.

The forum, for more info and help, is here: http://uphuck.ggrn.org/forum/

How to run Snow Leopard via Ubuntu

Instructions on how to run OSX via a virtual box in Ubuntu :)

http://solancer.blogspot.com/2011/05/snow-leopard-on-ubuntu-using-virtual.html

Hackintosh Useful Links

Snow Leopard kernels

AnV 10.2.0 SSE2/SSE3 Intel AMD
PJC 10.2.0 v8 SSE2/SSE3 Intel AMD
Black-night 10.2.0 SSE2/SSE3 Intel AMD
PJC 10.2.0 v9 SSE2/SSE3 Intel AMD
Intel Atom 10.2.0 Only
Mobdin 10.0 SSE3 AMD Only
Legacy 10.2.0 SSE2/SSE3 Intel AMD

Boot Loader - Chameleon RC4

DOWNLOAD

Chameleon RC3 with PC EFI 10.3/4.1/5

Chameleon RC3 PC EFI 10.5
Chameleon RC3 PC EFI 10.4.1
Chameleon RC3 PC EFI 10.3
Chameleon RC3 only

Man gets hackintosh repaired at Genius Bar?!

Have to pass on this article because, well, it made me smile.  Man Gets His Hackintosh Air Repaired at Genius Bar 

New update to Asus P5ers OSX86 install

Here is the latest install for osx86 on Asus P5s:

http://osx86sv.wordpress.com/2009/10/22/os-x-10-6-snow-leopard-universal-on-pc-news/

Conti saved my weekend!

I really wanted to get this Psystar crap of my Hackintosh so I did a search and found this thread on Insanely Mac that seemed to address my exact issue.  I had a working Hackintosh that would only boot from my Rebel EFI CD (totally not acceptable).

I went to Conti's site, http://www.osx86.sojugarden.com   new site here and followed his VERY easy instructions... all I had to do was install his hack, remove the rebel EFI cd and reboot... upon reboot I had a fully working Hackintosh.  Thank-you Conti.  You rock.  I am a SUPER stoked Hackintosher now.

Here is a list of the kexts that I have installed (using the kext helper app) to get everything working:

• Snow Leopard NVenabler kext
• VoodooHDA.kext
• USB2 ECHI, for graphics
• Realtek USB WLAN client utility, for wireless
• Wifi Driver

The Hackintosh parts

The parts are here and unpacked, now all I need to do is sneak outta' some family x-mas functions so I can start putting it al together.

My first attempt, not so great...

I started this whole project and minor obsession because my MacBook Pro has been a blessing, a curse and a cause for anxiety for over a year. It runs hotter than normal (just had a dream last night that the cpu overheated and when I pulled it out it was bubbling!) and I am scared that it is going to down soon. I need to send it off to Apple for warranty work but that means I am out of an Apple for at least two weeks maybe more. I have a few PCs but... well you know, not the same.

So, I started shopping around for used and new Macs and was frustrated at the $$$ I was going to have to spend for a "back-up" MacPro or iMac. So, I looked for alternatives.

I found Life Hacker !!! ah-hah.

I first tried to install Snow Leopard on an old Gateway Media Center PC I have but it doesn't seem up to the task. It has a Pentium D cpu with hyperthreading and a 104572 - Intel (Cortez) 945G Motherboard. I tried installing new memory (4 x 1g sticks) and a new (recommended by Gateway but it didn't work with my mobo) cpu to see if that would improve chances, no luck at all. The motherboard did not seem to be compatible with new cpu so I out the old one back in, sent back the "recommended" one to Gateway's retailer and decided to take the plunge!

I figured for my first foray into the world of Hackintoshes I should probably stick with what it tried, tested and approved. So I am building an Hackinotsh (hopefully) based on this 2 year old build parts list because I do not want to invest to heavy into this project (rememeber board and boots) and I would like to be able to follow LifeHacker's BIOS settings etc for the hardware they have already tested. I found all the parts on ebay and Amazon for a fraction of the cost listed because most of the parts are used.

This build, if all goes well, will allow me to upgrade for less $$$ without selling my soul to Steve Jobs every time I want more power/memory/updated video etc... I love OSX but hate Apple's ethos of "we price our products for snobby people". I feel a small rebellion building in my belly...

Parts total cost with shipping about $450:

• 4 x Kingston ValueRAM 1 GB DDR2 667 MHz 240-PIN Memory Module - $105.96 ($26.49 each)
• Samsung SpinPoint F1 Desktop Class - Hard drive - 750 GB - internal - 7200 rpm 32 MB - $75.99
• Intel Core 2 Duo E4500 2.2 GHz 2M L2 Chace 800MHz FSB LGA775 Dual-Core Processor - $88.49
• PNY Geforce 7300GT, 256MB DDR2 Pci-e .dvi + VGA + HDtv/s-video Outputs - $34.49
• Linkworld 431-06 C.2222 Black SECC/SGCC ATX Mid Tower Computer Case 500W Power Supply - $39.99
• ASUS P5W DH Deluxe / WiFi-AP Motherboard Intel 975X 775 - $75.00