The Hackintosh Thread

[Kaido]

Oh yeah, and to restore:

You can use SuperDuper or Disk Utility to restore. Format the partition as GUID with Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Restore the DMG. If you're doing it from the bootable USB stick, you can only do it from Disk Utility because it's the only thing built into the OSX installer.

Once you have it on the drive, if you need to expand it to fill the rest of the drive, just go into Disk Utility, delete any other partitions, and draw the boot drive partition box down to fill the gap. It will automatically grow the boot partition to fill the entire drive, if that's what you want.

 

[Kaido]

If you like the white Apple mouse, but hate the touch functionality, do a search on eBay for "white 2.4ghz apple mouse". There is a knockoff out there that is basically the same slim white design (even with an Apple logo lol), but doesn't have the annoying touch strip. I can't say it's the best mouse ever, but it was under $10 shipped and works. I actually got it to replace a friend's mom's horrible Magic Mouse, hehe.

 

[Kaido]

Also if you want to turn on AirDrop, run this command in Terminal & reboot:

defaults write com.apple.NetworkBrowser BrowseAllInterfaces 1

Then it will show up on the left nav pane in Finder:

http://i.imgur.com/ZhLJk23.png

This works over both wireless & Ethernet connections. There are some quirks.

 

[Kaido]

Happy to report I have Mavericks DP1 installed on my GA-P35-DS3L. Tried the myHack 3.2 beta 8 installer first, but kept getting loss of video signal and nothing else. Finally went back to the drawing board and used this method:

http://rochetechnology.com/quick-hackintosh-tip-installing-10-9-mavericks-developer-preview/

Presently installing on my Foxconn G33M system. Fun, fun, fun!

Update: Installed fine on the Foxconn system, but video is a bit wonky. May have more to do with the old, old monitor I am using on that system. Probably all I will do with Mavericks for awhile. Just wanted to check it out a bit.

Hah awesome! You are really keeping those things alive, nice job man! What GPU do you have on the DS3L?

 

[Kaido]

I just tested out my install system on a 32gb USB 3.0 Patriot USB stick with great results: ($35, tested at 16 MB/s write, 37 MB/s read with Blackmagic Disk Speed Test)

http://www.amazon.com/Patriot-Supers...dp/B008R6OPJQ/

I only tested a USB 2.0 port (I don't think USB 3.0 will work, but I dunno). I restored both the uncompressed and highly compressed images to the onboard SATA-III SSD. They both took about the same amount of time (around 2 minutes 37 seconds, although the compressed DMG seemed to restore a few seconds faster), so it was an EXTREMELY fast restore from USB stick to bare drive! Would highly recommend this drive! I have it split into two partitions - an 8gb partition for the Tonymac Desktop install, and the rest (about 23 gigs) for data. I threw various tools on it, including a copy of the ML installer from the MAS (so I can create a new USB stick quickly if needed without having to wait for it to download all 4.46 gigs again) as well as my Master Installer:

http://i.imgur.com/VfNm1Fs.png

I'm running a 240gb Mushkin SATA3 SSD, which clocks in at 232 MB/s write, 474 MB/s read - pretty dang zippy. Currently $175 on Newegg:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820226226

I use a Bytecc 2.5" to 3.5" adapter to fit it in the bay: ($5, I prefer it over the one they include because it's easy to use & can fit a second 2.5" drive if needed, such as an old mechanical laptop drive to storage a boot drive clone if needed)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817994085

So the process, in summary:

1. Boot up the Tonymac stick to OSX installer
2. Format boot drive in Disk Utility
3. Use Disk Utility to restore your Master Image DMG (under 3 minutes from the Patriot stick, tested twice!)
4. Reboot to desktop (again using Tonymac stick as the bootloader) & install Multibeast etc.

So in about 2:30, I can go from a totally blank boot SSD to a ready-to-boot drive that gives me a pre-configured desktop to my liking. AWESOME! I should note, you may want to turn on admin rights (read/write) on your boot drive after booting up initially so you can run speed tests (Aja requires this OOTB, but Blackmagic only needs it after a restore) - just right-click on your boot drive and changing the sharing permissions for everyone to read/write and then it will let you run the speed tests.

 

[Kaido]

Also just tested sleep on the GA-B75M-D3P, worked right OOTB with no DSDT. Only thing that doesn't work natively is audio, which I didn't even bother setting up because I use a driverless $9 Syba USB analog stereo sound card:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16812186035

I prefer the sound of this over onboard anyway - cleaner. Only reason to use onboard for me would be if I wanted 5.1 via digital audio.

 

[Kaido]

I just learned that relocating your user's Home drive is now cake (thanks shaveblog!). Just go into System Prefs > Users & Groups > right-click on your username & select "Advanced Options", and choose a new home directory:

http://i.imgur.com/IIyUTDd.png

This makes using a small boot SSD much easier if you keep a lot of data in your home directory, because you can remap your stuff to a different (larger mechanical) drive for data storage. Time Machine takes care of backup, and the only quirk upon an OS reinstall is that some apps will need to be reinstalled because the licenses & preferences are on the boot drive library, so nothing too major. VERY nice trick - this used to require a lot of hacking to do properly, and even then I had trouble with it. Yay!

 

[TheStu]

I just tested out my install system on a 32gb USB 3.0 Patriot USB stick with great results: ($35, tested at 16 MB/s write, 37 MB/s read with Blackmagic Disk Speed Test)

http://www.amazon.com/Patriot-Supers...dp/B008R6OPJQ/

I only tested a USB 2.0 port (I don't think USB 3.0 will work, but I dunno). I restored both the uncompressed and highly compressed images to the onboard SATA-III SSD. They both took about the same amount of time (around 2 minutes 37 seconds, although the compressed DMG seemed to restore a few seconds faster), so it was an EXTREMELY fast restore from USB stick to bare drive! Would highly recommend this drive! I have it split into two partitions - an 8gb partition for the Tonymac Desktop install, and the rest (about 23 gigs) for data. I threw various tools on it, including a copy of the ML installer from the MAS (so I can create a new USB stick quickly if needed without having to wait for it to download all 4.46 gigs again) as well as my Master Installer:

http://i.imgur.com/VfNm1Fs.png

I'm running a 240gb Mushkin SATA3 SSD, which clocks in at 232 MB/s write, 474 MB/s read - pretty dang zippy. Currently $175 on Newegg:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820226226

I use a Bytecc 2.5" to 3.5" adapter to fit it in the bay: ($5, I prefer it over the one they include because it's easy to use & can fit a second 2.5" drive if needed, such as an old mechanical laptop drive to storage a boot drive clone if needed)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817994085

So the process, in summary:

1. Boot up the Tonymac stick to OSX installer
2. Format boot drive in Disk Utility
3. Use Disk Utility to restore your Master Image DMG (under 3 minutes from the Patriot stick, tested twice!)
4. Reboot to desktop (again using Tonymac stick as the bootloader) & install Multibeast etc.

So in about 2:30, I can go from a totally blank boot SSD to a ready-to-boot drive that gives me a pre-configured desktop to my liking. AWESOME! I should note, you may want to turn on admin rights (read/write) on your boot drive after booting up initially so you can run speed tests (Aja requires this OOTB, but Blackmagic only needs it after a restore) - just right-click on your boot drive and changing the sharing permissions for everyone to read/write and then it will let you run the speed tests.

Have you had an opportunity to investigate using Fusion Drive with a Hackintosh? Do we know if it could even work?

 

[Kaido]

Have you had an opportunity to investigate using Fusion Drive with a Hackintosh? Do we know if it could even work?

Yes, it works. Various guides:

http://rochetechnology.com/quick-hackintosh-tip-create-a-fusion-drive/

http://www.tonymacx86.com/mountain-...ion-drive-using-tonymacx86-tools-chimera.html

http://www.tonymacx86.com/mountain-lion-desktop-guides/78409-create-fusion-drive-your-customac.html

http://www.tonymacx86.com/mountain-lion-desktop-guides/78465-understanding-using-fusion-drive.html

I haven't bothered to use it on my home machine because I like the simplicity of having a single boot drive for installation purposes, particularly because I'm using a decently-sized speedy SSD. I also haven't bothered relocating my home folder to another drive because I just use my secondary 2TB data drive as the target for saving my files & keep a regular disk image clone of the boot drive on it. But it's definitely a neat option if you want fast performance + large storage capacity! I hope someone comes out with an easy tool or something, that would be slick.

 

[TheStu]

Yes, it works. Various guides:

http://rochetechnology.com/quick-hackintosh-tip-create-a-fusion-drive/

http://www.tonymacx86.com/mountain-...ion-drive-using-tonymacx86-tools-chimera.html

http://www.tonymacx86.com/mountain-lion-desktop-guides/78409-create-fusion-drive-your-customac.html

http://www.tonymacx86.com/mountain-lion-desktop-guides/78465-understanding-using-fusion-drive.html

I haven't bothered to use it on my home machine because I like the simplicity of having a single boot drive for installation purposes, particularly because I'm using a decently-sized speedy SSD. I also haven't bothered relocating my home folder to another drive because I just use my secondary 2TB data drive as the target for saving my files & keep a regular disk image clone of the boot drive on it. But it's definitely a neat option if you want fast performance + large storage capacity! I hope someone comes out with an easy tool or something, that would be slick.

Well, what I think would be ideal (in a perfect world where I just trip over piles of money in my apartment), would be to have a 4TB platter drive paired with either a 128GB or 256GB SSD, and have multiple of those, basically super-powered hybrid drives really.

 

[Kaido]

I'll probably go with a GA-B75M-D3H ($73) for my second board, since the D3P is discontinued:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813128555

It looks like the D3H has a few changes, the major ones are:

* No onboard SPDIF digital audio port
* No Displayport connector
* 1x PCIe slot replaced with second PCI port
* No second set of Marvell SATA ports (two SATA3 ports + RAID)
* Unknown Realtek GbE LAN chip (D3P has 8111DP)

I haven't done extensive testing on the onboard Ethernet plug on my D3P yet (Bonjour support? Wake-from-sleep delay? 10/100 or actual Gigabit performance without lnx2mac driver?), so I'll see if I need to chuck my trusty old driverless PCI Encore Gigabit card in there or not. I prefer having the bootloader & Hackintosh support files on the USB stick & having a 100% bone-stock OSX boot drive, which has usually required the use of a USB sound card & PCI network card, so I'll see how that goes with more testing this week.

 

[Kaido]

Well, what I think would be ideal (in a perfect world where I just trip over piles of money in my apartment), would be to have a 4TB platter drive paired with either a 128GB or 256GB SSD, and have multiple of those, basically super-powered hybrid drives really.

Apparently things got easier in 10.8.3:

http://blog.macsales.com/17624-os-x...tup-option-for-non-fusion-drive-equipped-macs

Some interesting reading here:

http://arstechnica.com/apple/2012/10/more-on-fusion-drive-how-it-works-and-how-to-roll-your-own/

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6679/a-month-with-apples-fusion-drive

iirc some users on Tonymac had added more than 2 drives into their Fusion array with decent results. Just takes money

 

[mosslack]

Hah awesome! You are really keeping those things alive, nice job man! What GPU do you have on the DS3L?

Still using an old 256 Mb 8400GS. I now primarily use that system as a multi-OS machine, especially for testing new operating systems.

 

[Kaido]

Still using an old 256 Mb 8400GS. I now primarily use that system as a multi-OS machine, especially for testing new operating systems.

Yeah, when I first started playing around with ML, I used my trusty old 8400GS. Worked like a charm, surprisingly! I'm amazed at how well OSX runs on older machines - and how versatile it is on a Hackintosh vs. how limited it is on a real Mac. Screw planned obsolesce! :biggrin:

 

[TheStu]

Apparently things got easier in 10.8.3:

http://blog.macsales.com/17624-os-x...tup-option-for-non-fusion-drive-equipped-macs

Some interesting reading here:

http://arstechnica.com/apple/2012/10/more-on-fusion-drive-how-it-works-and-how-to-roll-your-own/

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6679/a-month-with-apples-fusion-drive

iirc some users on Tonymac had added more than 2 drives into their Fusion array with decent results. Just takes money

I guess what I really want isn't a proper Fusion Drive but rather a hybrid drive with a huge cache, like 64-128GB.

 

[Kaido]

I guess what I really want isn't a proper Fusion Drive but rather a hybrid drive with a huge cache, like 64-128GB.

I'm having trouble finding any articles & posts on it, but I thought people were doing multi-drive Fusion arrays with more than 2 drives. Again, not sure if there was any performance benefit or not. There's a good little article here on Fusion, with a discussion of Seagate's all-in-one hybrid drives:

http://www.zdnet.com/mac-fusion-drive-pro-users-beware-7000006661/

 

[Kaido]

[Easy Guide] ML: UEFI HDMI Audio:

http://www.tonymacx86.com/hdmi-audio/100492-easy-guide-ml-uefi-hdmi-audio.html

I bet this would work with one of those Monoprice adapters that lets you split the DVI signal from the SPDIF digital audio signal so you could route the audio to a receiver or speakers separately. Hmm...

 

[Kaido]

One glitch I noticed on my 10.8.4 installer update: using the Tonymac Desktop stick with 10.8.4, it would boot to the OSX installer but hang at a white screen with the mouse, before the language selection screen would appear. I fixed it by hitting the power button, which turned the monitor off, then hitting it again, which seemed to cycle the screen and it would pop the installer window open.

I suspect that the GPU detection in 10.8.4 has changed, either in OSX or in the Tonymac settings, and that my monitor is displaying as a secondary monitor instead of the primary one, and that by hitting the power button it cycles the detection procedure out to reset it to detect my existing monitor. Or something. It worked flawlessly on 10.8.4, and I've only tested the new stick on my B75M with the ATI 6870 GPU via an HDMI cable, so I'll have to screw around with it some more this week.

Minor issue. Works great. Just a weird glitch.

 

[Kaido]

OK, just tested out the 10.8.4 boot stick on a different machine with an Nvidia GPU, worked perfectly fine, so I'm guessing it's either an ATI issue or a port detection issue in 10.8.4. However, on the initial boot after restoring the master image to the Nvidia-equipped machine, it did hang white for about 15 seconds with just a cursor before the desktop loaded initially.

Also, confirming that the new 3GB Nvidia Quadro K4000 works like a champ. $755 on Newegg:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814133485

768 CUDA cores & currently have a 1920x1200 LCD monitor hooked up via Displayport without any hiccups. This is on a Gigabyte GA-Z77MX-D3H with i7-3770K & 32GB RAM. Some pics:

About this Mac

Overview

Displays

Memory

K4000 GPU

Ethernet

USB 3.0 (driver now included with Unibeast)

CINEBENCH - GPU results

CINEBENCH - CPU results

iirc my ATI 6870 beat out the Quadro 5800 in CINEBENCH, so it's interesting that the K4000 comes in under that.

 

[mosslack]

Yeah, when I first started playing around with ML, I used my trusty old 8400GS. Worked like a charm, surprisingly! I'm amazed at how well OSX runs on older machines - and how versatile it is on a Hackintosh vs. how limited it is on a real Mac. Screw planned obsolesce! :biggrin:

Right you are! And to that end I regularly scour ebay for bargain components to be used in these older, less expensive systems for those wishing to build a Hackintosh on a budget. Being retired now I've found I have to manage my $$$ more carefully and can appreciate those wanting to do the same.

You can view this info by clicking the link below for the HQ-A website and checking out the TO BUILD A HACKINTOSH section in the right column. HTH

 

[Zaap]

iirc my ATI 6870 beat out the Quadro 5800 in CINEBENCH, so it's interesting that the K4000 comes in under that.

Not surprising at all. The Quadro cards are built for compatibility with older entrenched editing/compositing/CAD/medical software, but not for anything close to maximum performance compared to standard graphic cards. I'm curious why the choice of that card?

 

[Zaap]

I'm amazed at how well OSX runs on older machines - and how versatile it is on a Hackintosh vs. how limited it is on a real Mac. Screw planned obsolesce! :biggrin:

What I've always found truly ironic, is you can find plenty of instances where in a very real sense people have had to actually Hackintosh a real Mac to get beyond an artificial OS limitation imposed by Apple. Of course, generally in Apple's case, the limitation exists because the hardware was too underpowered in the first place, and can't be upgraded easily if at all.

 

[Kaido]

Not surprising at all. The Quadro cards are built for compatibility with older entrenched editing/compositing/CAD/medical software, but not for anything close to maximum performance compared to standard graphic cards. I'm curious why the choice of that card?

The Quadro K4000 just happened to be on my workbench for a Windows-based CAD Engineering build. Have had a lot of problems using ATI cards (Firepro's in particular) for CAD under Windows, especially in the higher-end $20k+ packages, so Nvidia it is.

I went with the ATI 6870, my first ATI card in a long, long time, for FCP-X compatibility. It's awesome with FCP-X! I don't regret it at all.

 

[Kaido]

At the request of a friend, I did a full desktop install with onboard networking & audio on the D3P to verify functionality. Multibeast 5.3.1 settings based on Moarfish's build are as follows:

http://i.imgur.com/bKMonNh.png

Front panel headphone jack detection is automatic (tested). Sadly this board is not in production anymore, only the lesser-equipped D3H is readily available, and probably not for long now that Haswell is out.

 

[Kaido]

For the price, I may check out Haswell. The top chip is $350: (84w 3.5ghz i7-4770K Haswell)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819116901

Chimera added Haswell CPU support with model and speed detection in version 2.1, although OS X support is not yet native in 10.8.4, which I think means that it still won't boot yet. However, they have the same board I just built on Ivy Bridge, but with the 1150 chipset, for $85 - the Gigabyte GA-B85M-D3H:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813128607

Although if I go with the Ivy Bridge D3H, I'll probably just lock the machine down at 10.8.4 (and maybe 10.8.5) and hold off on Mavericks for awhile and just use it as-is.