The Hackintosh Thread

[Kaido]

What amazes me, is the SandyBridge i7 Hackintosh I built a year BEFORE this thread...(my SIG machine) is still running strong! It's had quite a few upgrades since then, but it's still getting the job done, rock solid.

I've toyed with the idea of replacing it with a newer one many times, but just have never really needed to.

Same. Plus Unibeast 8.0 is out, with support for macOS High Sierra: (they include a script if you'd rather stay with HFS instead of APFS)

https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/unibeast-8-0-update.230901/

I'm thinking mine is due for a clean install over Thanksgiving. I only have one Hackintosh at the moment (mostly for my wife, for photo editing). iirc I built it in 2011. Solid as a rock!

 

[corinthos]

Hackintosh newbie here. Could someone please tell me what exactly are the barriers to creating a Hackintosh that is 100% compatible and stable, as solid as a real Mac, if one were to select the exact same parts used in a Mac?

For example, with the imminent release of iMac Pro, there will be native support for Vega 56 and 64. So, if I were to configure a system using i7-7700K KabyLake CPU, AMD Radeon Vega 64, 16GB of DDR4, SSD, why couldn't it be recognized by OSX as a legitimate Mac and be just as stable and 100% functional (iMessage, FaceTime, iTunes, sleep/resume, QuickSync all working)?

What am I missing?

 

[Kaido]

Hackintosh newbie here. Could someone please tell me what exactly are the barriers to creating a Hackintosh that is 100% compatible and stable, as solid as a real Mac, if one were to select the exact same parts used in a Mac?

For example, with the imminent release of iMac Pro, there will be native support for Vega 56 and 64. So, if I were to configure a system using i7-7700K KabyLake CPU, AMD Radeon Vega 64, 16GB of DDR4, SSD, why couldn't it be recognized by OSX as a legitimate Mac and be just as stable and 100% functional (iMessage, FaceTime, iTunes, sleep/resume, QuickSync all working)?

What am I missing?

1. Pick a compatible motherboard (see the Tonymac hardware list). Hardware support is usually a generation behind from the latest stuff. Here are the November 2017 recommendations:

https://www.tonymacx86.com/buyersguide/november/2017/

2. Pick a compatible video card.

3. Build a system based on someone else's successful forum thread - someone who has tested everything & made sure it all works. Great shortcut to success:

https://www.tonymacx86.com/forums/golden-builds.87/

4. If you want to go the extra mile:

a. Get a USB sound card (ex. the Syba stereo adapter), which has native support (no drivers required)

b. Get a PCI/PCIe network card, which has native support.

c. Stick the bootloader on a USB stick & boot the motherboard to that first. That way your boot drive stays 100% Mac, with no Hackintosh files on it.

That's about as optimized as you can get, without it turning into a research project in terms of trying to get drivers working & so on. My 2011-era Hackintosh has been running steadily for the last six years without a hiccup, and I can replace every single part myself without ever stepping foot in an Apple Store for help, so that's pretty nice.

 

[corinthos]

1. Pick a compatible motherboard (see the Tonymac hardware list). Hardware support is usually a generation behind from the latest stuff. Here are the November 2017 recommendations:

https://www.tonymacx86.com/buyersguide/november/2017/

2. Pick a compatible video card.

3. Build a system based on someone else's successful forum thread - someone who has tested everything & made sure it all works. Great shortcut to success:

https://www.tonymacx86.com/forums/golden-builds.87/

4. If you want to go the extra mile:

a. Get a USB sound card (ex. the Syba stereo adapter), which has native support (no drivers required)

b. Get a PCI/PCIe network card, which has native support.

c. Stick the bootloader on a USB stick & boot the motherboard to that first. That way your boot drive stays 100% Mac, with no Hackintosh files on it.

That's about as optimized as you can get, without it turning into a research project in terms of trying to get drivers working & so on. My 2011-era Hackintosh has been running steadily for the last six years without a hiccup, and I can replace every single part myself without ever stepping foot in an Apple Store for help, so that's pretty nice.

So, theoretically, if you followed the above steps you would effectively have a "true Mac" as far as OSX is concerned, no? installation should be the same (no need for modified Kext and what not, every feature should work, things should be stable, and upgrades should work like a genuine Mac without any hacks. So I'm trying to find examples of anyone who has tried and succeeded in putting together such a config.

 

[Kaido]

So, theoretically, if you followed the above steps you would effectively have a "true Mac" as far as OSX is concerned, no? installation should be the same (no need for modified Kext and what not, every feature should work, things should be stable, and upgrades should work like a genuine Mac without any hacks. So I'm trying to find examples of anyone who has tried and succeeded in putting together such a config.

Correct. Like I said, #4 is optional, I just like to do it because it keeps my boot drive 100% OSX-only & also because the idea of having an unmodified Mac drive tickles me, haha. There may be boards now with natively-supported sound & network, I haven't kept up that much on the hardware side of things, but it's worth browsing through the forums to see what other people are doing these days. There's also InsanelyMac, reddit, and other places to read through if you want to take a more DIY approach; TonyMac just has a nice set of easy tools for getting you up & running quickly.

With that said, these are still what I consider to be "science projects", so do your research, pick good hardware, and then don't be surprised if there's still a few monkey wrenches thrown into the system. Although as mentioned, my hack has been up & running for many years without a hiccup, so it is possible to build a nice, solid machine. I am curious to see what Apple will be doing with the modular Mac Pro, and whether or not the not-updated-for-1000+ days Mac Mini will factor into that or not.

 

[vailr]

The main difference between a genuine Mac and a Hackintosh would be: the bios firmware.
Apple keeps insisting on using a peculiar EFI bios firmware, as opposed to the true UEFI firmware found in modern Windows compatible PC's.
Which prevents the Hackintosh from making the standard "chime" sound at boot-up, for one example.
As well as placing hindrances on the casual user from installing macOS on such a machine, without cumbersome work-arounds.
Note: be careful what you post at the tonymacx86.com web site.
My account was summarily deleted from there, for simply providing a link to a youtube video that I found useful:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kezN2JKmMOw

 

[corinthos]

The main difference between a genuine Mac and a Hackintosh would be: the bios firmware.
Apple keeps insisting on using a peculiar EFI bios firmware, as opposed to the true UEFI firmware found in modern Windows compatible PC's.
Which prevents the Hackintosh from making the standard "chime" sound at boot-up, for one example.
As well as placing hindrances on the casual user from installing macOS on such a machine, without cumbersome work-arounds.
Note: be careful what you post at the tonymacx86.com web site.
My account was summarily deleted from there, for simply providing a link to a youtube video that I found useful:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kezN2JKmMOw

Ah, good point. I didn't think about the BIOS.

 

[Kaido]

Ah, good point. I didn't think about the BIOS.

The Hackintosh bootloader is what emulates the Mac BIOS/EFI. Clover is the latest & greatest EFI bootloader for regular PC hardware. Tonymac wraps it up with some additional goodies to make it user-friendly to install on a USB stick:

https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/unibeast-8-0-update.230901/

You can then use MultiBeast, which is the post-installation tool for putting the bootloader on the boot drive, along with whatever drivers you need:

https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/multibeast-9-2-update.229691/

Or, optionally, just keep Unibeast on the USB stick as the first boot target & then buy natively-supported hardware so you don't need anything modified on the boot drive. Depends on which route you want to go. Most people just install the full suite on the boot drive for convenience. The catch is that if you clone the drive, it doesn't clone the hidden partition that the bootloader installs to, so you'll need to reinstall MultiBeast again, if only for the bootloader portion.

If you want to dive into some more advanced stuff, you can also do some neat tricks with backups & restores. OSX is bootable via USB, so you can clone your initial OSX installation to a (large) USB stick & make it bootable to use as an emergency restore disc. Then you can make regular clones of your boot drive (ex. with SuperDuper) & if something goofs up on your main drive (say, you have a drive failure), you can swap in a new drive & easily restore your last backup without having to reinstall the OSX & all your apps & files.

 

[Zaap]

Kaido is the king of Hackintoshing!

My 2cents: I've said it before- probably in this thread- Hackintosh is never going to be 'just like a Mac' as far as EXACTLY like it in how you install the OS, precautions to take before updating it, etc.

But it's just a computer with a different kind of operating procedure, and once you know and understand the proceedure, it's not a big deal.

The initial choice of hardware is the most crucial thing. Pick a motherboard and graphics card (the two main things) that are tried and tested by the TonymacX86 community, and you'll have a clear path to follow.

I also keep system clones religiously- though I've never needed to use them to restore my sig system. But it's peace of mind- if I ever did experience a flawed update or install- I've got multiple clone installs on multiple SSDs in this system. Complete recovery is always just booting a different drive away. I keep content and system separate on any system I use, so I never put critical data at risk and its always backed up.

I use my machine to edit animated TV shows- several hundred episodes since 2012 on this machine. I don't update it (mobo/graphics) because it still gets the job done. If I had a massive increase in what I needed to render, I'd update it, but my work has remained the same level of system-resource use, so really nothing would speed up much anyway.

Anyway, the Hackintosh experience has even taught me that its better to practice the same precautions on a real Mac as well. I keep regular system clones on externals so I can always get back in even if I had a fatal system error. It strikes me as a little foolish NOT to have multiple booting/restore options on any system, hacked or not. Believing a computer is infallible just because it has Apple or Dell or whoever's stamp of approval... well, I've personally witnessed a LOT of lost time/data/effort/hair pulled out from that belief.

If interested, I recommend try building a Hack. Best thing to remember- it's just a PC. Capable of running ANY OS- Windows, Linux, even Mac OSX if the stats are right. People tend to think of it as just a 'Hack' as if the contents of a single hard drive defines it. At the end of the day, thats all ANY Operating System really is- just what boots the PC from a particular drive/SSD. With a PC with lots of open SATA slots (that situation Apple frowns on! Bad user! Bad!) then your PC is really whatever and however many OS's you want to boot on it.

 

[corinthos]

Thanks for the references!

The Hackintosh bootloader is what emulates the Mac BIOS/EFI. Clover is the latest & greatest EFI bootloader for regular PC hardware. Tonymac wraps it up with some additional goodies to make it user-friendly to install on a USB stick:

https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/unibeast-8-0-update.230901/

You can then use MultiBeast, which is the post-installation tool for putting the bootloader on the boot drive, along with whatever drivers you need:

https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/multibeast-9-2-update.229691/

Or, optionally, just keep Unibeast on the USB stick as the first boot target & then buy natively-supported hardware so you don't need anything modified on the boot drive. Depends on which route you want to go. Most people just install the full suite on the boot drive for convenience. The catch is that if you clone the drive, it doesn't clone the hidden partition that the bootloader installs to, so you'll need to reinstall MultiBeast again, if only for the bootloader portion.

If you want to dive into some more advanced stuff, you can also do some neat tricks with backups & restores. OSX is bootable via USB, so you can clone your initial OSX installation to a (large) USB stick & make it bootable to use as an emergency restore disc. Then you can make regular clones of your boot drive (ex. with SuperDuper) & if something goofs up on your main drive (say, you have a drive failure), you can swap in a new drive & easily restore your last backup without having to reinstall the OSX & all your apps & files.

 

[corinthos]

I plan to use the following:

- Intel i7-7700K Quad Core KabyLake CPU (this should be in the latest iMacs)
- GigaByte z170x Gaming 6 motherboard (heard GigaByte is best for Hackintosh, too)
- 4K Monitor
- AMD Radeon Vega 64 8GB (this should be natively supported in High Sierra)
- SSD and Mechanical hard drives
- Possibly a DVD-RW/ROM drive
- Onboard LAN
- Onboard Audio
- Maybe a bluetooth add-on card

I'm not sure why the above couldn't be fully stable and as close to a genuine Mac as possible, since nothing stands out as incompatible. I want it to be as stable as a genuine Mac and reasonably simple and safe to upgrade to whatever comes after High Sierra without having to fresh install from scratch - although that is an option and maybe not a big deal since I'd just need to re-install apps and move my data over.

I plan to use the system for Hackintosh for 4K video editing, for Windows 10 for gaming. I'll have separate SSDs for each OS. Since those are activities where you're either doing one or the other but not both at the same time, it'll be possible to timeshare the system for dual purposes.

I'll be evaluating software development environments and gaming performance on Hackintosh to see if they're decent enough to do away with Windows entirely (can always run office apps in VM).

For on-the-go, I'm going to use a Macbook 12 to do 4K video editing, office work, software development. I'll likely have to use lower resolution proxy media on the Macbook to make the video editing performance usable but that seems ok to me.

I have used OS/2, Linux, most flavors of Windows and find myself leaning towards spending less time making do with lack of quality software, tinkering with configuration files, rebuilding kernels, and wanting to free up more time for actual productivity and living. It was neat when i was younger spending hours learning Linux and using OS/2 and Windows, but now I just want more UI consistency, polish, quality software applications and tools, stability, and relatively good security out of the box, so I can spend my time on other things.

So I'm hoping I can build a good, solid Hackintosh with minimal hassle. Don't see myself forking out the cash for an iMAC 5K. It's a nice machine and great display, but $2500 or so for something that no longer supports Target Display Mode to allow me to repurpose the 5K display once the CPU and GPU get long in the tooth isn't something I want to do. I could surely sell the iMac at some point and just buy a new one with more power for the same money later, but it's not certain that I'd get top dollar for it to make it worthwhile.

iMac Pro will be cost prohibitive, starting at $5K. I suspect that the next Mac Pro will also be expensive and out of reach. That leaves me with Hackintosh. I can sell the CPU and GPU and buy new ones and build a new Hackintosh that gives the iMAC Pro or Mac Pro a run for its money at a fraction of the price instead.

That's the plan anway. Will see how that goes.

Kaido is the king of Hackintoshing!

My 2cents: I've said it before- probably in this thread- Hackintosh is never going to be 'just like a Mac' as far as EXACTLY like it in how you install the OS, precautions to take before updating it, etc.

But it's just a computer with a different kind of operating procedure, and once you know and understand the proceedure, it's not a big deal.

The initial choice of hardware is the most crucial thing. Pick a motherboard and graphics card (the two main things) that are tried and tested by the TonymacX86 community, and you'll have a clear path to follow.

I also keep system clones religiously- though I've never needed to use them to restore my sig system. But it's peace of mind- if I ever did experience a flawed update or install- I've got multiple clone installs on multiple SSDs in this system. Complete recovery is always just booting a different drive away. I keep content and system separate on any system I use, so I never put critical data at risk and its always backed up.

I use my machine to edit animated TV shows- several hundred episodes since 2012 on this machine. I don't update it (mobo/graphics) because it still gets the job done. If I had a massive increase in what I needed to render, I'd update it, but my work has remained the same level of system-resource use, so really nothing would speed up much anyway.

Anyway, the Hackintosh experience has even taught me that its better to practice the same precautions on a real Mac as well. I keep regular system clones on externals so I can always get back in even if I had a fatal system error. It strikes me as a little foolish NOT to have multiple booting/restore options on any system, hacked or not. Believing a computer is infallible just because it has Apple or Dell or whoever's stamp of approval... well, I've personally witnessed a LOT of lost time/data/effort/hair pulled out from that belief.

If interested, I recommend try building a Hack. Best thing to remember- it's just a PC. Capable of running ANY OS- Windows, Linux, even Mac OSX if the stats are right. People tend to think of it as just a 'Hack' as if the contents of a single hard drive defines it. At the end of the day, thats all ANY Operating System really is- just what boots the PC from a particular drive/SSD. With a PC with lots of open SATA slots (that situation Apple frowns on! Bad user! Bad!) then your PC is really whatever and however many OS's you want to boot on it.

 

[vailr]

I plan to use the following:

- Intel i7-7700K Quad Core KabyLake CPU (this should be in the latest iMacs)
- GigaByte z170x Gaming 6 motherboard (heard GigaByte is best for Hackintosh, too)

That Z170 motherboard needs to have an updated version bios firmware installed, in order for a Kabylake CPU to work with it.
If you were to get an older stock board, you'd first need to temporarily install a Skylake CPU in order to flash update the bios.

 

[corinthos]

That Z170 motherboard needs to have an updated version bios firmware installed, in order for a Kabylake CPU to work with it.
If you were to get an older stock board, you'd first need to temporarily install a Skylake CPU in order to flash update the bios.

That's exactly what I had to do. I wound up using a Skylake CPU to boot and then flash an updated BIOS. At the time of purchase, the 270 boards were a good bit more expensive compared to the price of the 170 I saw, and it was more or less the same thing.. even the 170 supports the UHD Blu-ray playback requirements, which was what I wanted to have in case I ever wanted to try that one day.

 

[Kaido]

On a tangent:

How to Install macOS High Sierra Final on VMware on Windows

 

[MotionMan]

Haha, you'll be first for the next 5 years! :awe:

Five years, and counting.

MotionMan

 

[Kaido]

Five years, and counting.

MotionMan

Haha! You still got any rigs in action? Kind of makes me nostalgic for the good old days when I could spend my free hours every night tinkering with all of this stuff, back when simply passing classes was my biggest worry, lol.

I'm doing a fresh install this week + some hardware upgrades...High Sierra and a used 1070 (if I can get it working!). Finally got around to replacing my old Dell LCD from like 2009; upgraded to a 2K LED screen:

https://www.amazon.com/Acer-EB321HQU-Awidpx-Monitor-Display/dp/B077BSWLTL/

Technology & prices are ridiculous these days...$279 shipped, 32" diagonal, 2560 x 1440 resolution, IPS panel. 4ms response time & 0.273mm pixel pitch aren't the best, but I really can't complain for the price. 4K was a little too high-rez for my eyeballs at 32" & 1080p was too large (although nicely readable, haha!), so I settled on the WQHD resolution. Oddly enough, you'd think 32" would be enormous, but it's really not. imo, it's actually the perfect size for a computer monitor to work on (I personally don't like multiple monitors). Just finished a wedding shoot, definitely looking forward to having a better screen to work on!

If the install goes as easy as last time, it was just:

1. Download latest OS from App Store
2. Use Unibeast to create a bootable drive & copy Multibeast over to it
3. Install the OS & run Multibeast & make sure everything checks out OK

Just about as easy as doing a real Mac...

 

[MotionMan]

I never did get around to building a Hack.

Maybe when I retire

MotionMan

 

[Kaido]

I never did get around to building a Hack.

Maybe when I retire

MotionMan

It's pretty easy these days. Tonymac maintains an up-to-date hardware list:

https://www.tonymacx86.com/buyersguide/may/2018/

Buy recommended parts, install per their guides, voila - nice, stable Hackintosh! Of course, if you're in it for the learning experience, InsanelyMac still has a ton of resource for doing a manual installation (if you're brave!). A lot of people still criticize unified convenience tools like Unibeast, but to me, the whole point of the project (aside from getting it working & stable) was to get it to the point where it was as easy to install as a regular Mac, instead of having to have a 20-page checklist to get your machine operational, lol. If you are interested in it as a research project, then the manual method is a great way to go, but if your personal goal is to create a machine to use for work & play, then it's hard to beat something like Tonymac, where the parts list is already tested & defined and the tool set is setup ready-to-go for that hardware.

I am very interested to see what they announce at WWDC this year. Rumor is that there will be a cheap ARM-based Macbook introduced. While this would effectively kill the Hackintosh project (unless they can figure out how to get OSX on ARM operational, assuming Apple doesn't custom-make their own ARM chips, which is a distinct possibility, in which case this project would be closed forever for future ARM hardware), it would be a pretty cool move for efficiency, distributed power (over more than the typical quad-core Intel chips), and hopefully cost.

 

[ZGR]

Anyone plan on a 10.14 Hackintosh? I am not. I use 1 drive for both Windows 10 and MacOS 10.13.6 and will be moving them both (reinstalling Windows) to a new m.2 SSD. I hope it goes smoothly, but Time Machine has always worked really well for Hackintoshes in my experience.

I am also wondering if anyone here uses Gsync on MacOS? I don't game on MacOS, apart from testing my GPU, and have had some trouble keeping it enabled.

But I have been using this PC as a Hackintosh for a long time now, and 10.13.6 has been rock solid, with zero beach balls or kernel panics.

I have been using Tonymacx86 for a long time now, and I have to admit, the site really needs an overhaul. Does anyone else feel the future of the Hackintosh looks kinda bleak?

I love helping people make Hackintoshes for fun. It is still surprisingly easy if someone has the right hardware.

 

[Kaido]

Anyone plan on a 10.14 Hackintosh? I am not. I use 1 drive for both Windows 10 and MacOS 10.13.6 and will be moving them both (reinstalling Windows) to a new m.2 SSD. I hope it goes smoothly, but Time Machine has always worked really well for Hackintoshes in my experience.

I am also wondering if anyone here uses Gsync on MacOS? I don't game on MacOS, apart from testing my GPU, and have had some trouble keeping it enabled.

But I have been using this PC as a Hackintosh for a long time now, and 10.13.6 has been rock solid, with zero beach balls or kernel panics.

I have been using Tonymacx86 for a long time now, and I have to admit, the site really needs an overhaul. Does anyone else feel the future of the Hackintosh looks kinda bleak?

I love helping people make Hackintoshes for fun. It is still surprisingly easy if someone has the right hardware.

I'm doing Mojave on our 2011-era Hackintosh, along with a boot drive upgrade. Hopefully Monday, as I'm taking a couple days off for the holidays.

Haven't messed with any Gsync stuff myself yet.

Tonymac is still updating the main site with updates, plus their forums are pretty active still. I haven't bothered writing a guide in ages, as it's so easy now...buy from the supported hardware list, build a Unibeast boot stick & copy Multibeast to it...ridiculously easy now.

I still vastly prefer working on x86 hardware, as opposed to real Macs. It's so much easier to swap out parts & keep your system update with DIY hardware. As far as the future goes, I dunno. Apple seems to really be focusing on self-driving systems & A.I. lately. I feel like smartphones have peaked. Maybe apps, too...not that we still won't see more good apps in the future, especially games, but we have a pretty good breadth of programs available for the iPhone & iPad, and there's not much left to add to the hardware at this point, at least that I can think of!

Will Hackintosh ever be killed? There's always a chance, at least until Apple makes a hardware move, say to ARM, and eventually x86 support is deep-sixed, but even then, the Windows world would probably be parallel, and with the licensing of *nix being what it is, there's always a chance it'd stay afloat.

I mean, I'd love to buy my wife a 5K-res iMac Pro or a fully-loaded Macbook Air or Pro, but I don't really want to spend thousands & thousands of dollars to do so. A fully-loaded new Mini is over $4,000 these days. An iMac Pro starts at $5k and goes all the way north of $13,000 with all the bells & whistles. You can build a pretty sick Hackintosh for a grand, in comparison.

I don't think the future of Hackintosh looks bleak, so much as not many people really care anymore. The genie is out of the bottle, so to speak, and it's really easy to make a rock-solid Hackintosh these days. So the challenge is kind of, well, gone to make one. Apple kind of shot themselves in the foot with the whole FCPX thing & lost a lot of professionals to Windows & Adobe & others like Resolve because of it. They're trying to recover, but their hardware prices are even more bananas these days, and the Mac Pro redesign (modular?) still doesn't exist yet.

I think a big part of it is that most people just use their jumbo smartphones now, and the rest use laptops. Chromebooks are amazing these days, as well as incredibly cheap. It can be a frustrating experience going from something like an iPhone 8 Plus & Chromebook back to Windows or even Mac, because they seem slow & somewhat poorly-designed compared to how user-friendly things are on other platforms. Heck, I've even switched over my entire smarthouse setup to Alexa, and everything "just works" as intended these days, and that's after years of babysitting the Wink thread!

You know, generally-speaking, there's been a really interesting shift in the ease-of-use in technology in recent years. I have a Roku TV, a single remote, and various services like Amazon & Netflix. I have an Alexa-driven smarthouse setup. I use an iPhone & a Chromebook, primarily. Even in cooking, I have an Instant Pot & sous vide machine, plus a vacuum-sealer...food is easy, the smarthouse is easy, entertainment is easy, all of the technology is pretty dang easy & stable & just generally solid & awesome these days.

I remember growing up without much in the way of technology, being born in the early 80's, and then hitting kind of a saturation point, and now everything is just kind of blending into the background, working as-advertised, prices are getting ridiculously affordable, and I don't have to be Mr. Super Geek all the time to maintain it. It's kind nice, actually...at least from a personal standpoint, I've kind of changed from being preoccupied with technology to using technology to do other things, which makes me a bit sad, as I love me some good tech hardware, but I also feel freed up quite a bit in life, as my equipment's maintenance requirements are super low these days!

 

[Zaap]

^ I think a lot of us have a similar path.

I used to be into hacking every PC I came across, and building and hacking them for other people. Recently I did hack several PC laptops and it was fun. Clover has made it incredibly easy.

But mostly I'm just too busy with everything else in life to spend much time at it anymore. Funny how it correlates almost to the day of having kids, and doing a lot less tech-fiddling.

I know I'll get into tech fiddling a lot more when my boys get old enough to be into it. It's been fun building a Raspberry Pi and mini-PC with my oldest son.

For him, the whole world works like what you describe- entertainment comes from devices that just do their thing, usually on voice command. Why have a PC to do the things the TV/entertainment/appliances/internet devices just do already themselves?

 

[DigDog]

I did a Yosemite build a couple years ago, took me a while as i went off specs (4970k instead of 3770k) but when i got it working, i realized how little i know of the OS from back in 1999.

Before that i was just booting into LogicPro and that was it.
In the end that mac just wound up gathering dust because the owner is the most dispersive, indecisive human ever born.

But myself, i just dont want to deal with OSX. Or Apple, but those are two different things, even if they were to become the most user-friendly company in computing, i still am not ready to do away with the UI standardizations that i am used to with Windows.

I guess if i was running a studio, id have a hackintosh for recording, and a pc for general use.

 

[QueBert]

I know this thread hasn't been posted to in many years, last week I installed 10.15 on my PC and am having some problems with it locking up. I went to the 2 main Hackintosh forums to ask for help. One I still haven't gotten a response, the other one of the mods took a look at my IOReg, list of Kext/EFI and a few other things and told me he didn't see anything that looked wrong.

I followed the OpenCore guide, it installed fine, and it seems to work normally. But I get random lock ups where I have to reboot. And if I leave it on when it locks up, it eventually shuts off. There's no kernel panic, and nothing's showing up in the error log. Some days it'll work 7 hours before it locks up, today it locked up after a few. Sometimes I'll get 3 lock ups in an hour, doesn't matter what I'm doing. Sometimes I'm on Chrome, or Safari, or Serato DJ, and it even locks up sometimes when I'm not on it. I'm running Intel's system monitor and it's reporting my CPU temp at 42c max, so if it's accurate it can't be from overheating. When it locks up and I reboot a few times I've gone right into the BIOS which is reporting the same temp. Here are my system specs

ASRock Z77E-ITX
HD4000 video
Samsung 830 SSD.
I do have a few USB devices plugged in and they're all class-compliant.

These are the Kext's I have installed

GenericUSBXHCI.kext
Lilu.kext
SMCProcessor.kext
SMCSuperIO.kext
USBInjectAll.kext
VirtualSMC.kext
WhateverGreen.kext
AppleALC.kext
FakePCIID.kext
FakePCIID_BCM57XX_as_BCM57765.kext
FakePCIID_Intel_HDMI_Audio.kext


The only ones I added not from the Opencore guide were to get my NIC working. I know it's a long shot, but there are some wizards here so maybe someone might know something. I'm a DOS/Windows guy so I'm still adjusting to even the basics of troubleshooting OSX. Same box my Windows 10 never locks up, but something isn't right and after 5 days of Googling things to try to fix it I'm pretty much out of ideas what to do next.

 

[MotionMan]

Haha, you'll be first for the next 5 years! :awe:

8 years and counting!

MotionMan

 

[Kaido]

I know this thread hasn't been posted to in many years, last week I installed 10.15 on my PC and am having some problems with it locking up. I went to the 2 main Hackintosh forums to ask for help. One I still haven't gotten a response, the other one of the mods took a look at my IOReg, list of Kext/EFI and a few other things and told me he didn't see anything that looked wrong.

I followed the OpenCore guide, it installed fine, and it seems to work normally. But I get random lock ups where I have to reboot. And if I leave it on when it locks up, it eventually shuts off. There's no kernel panic, and nothing's showing up in the error log. Some days it'll work 7 hours before it locks up, today it locked up after a few. Sometimes I'll get 3 lock ups in an hour, doesn't matter what I'm doing. Sometimes I'm on Chrome, or Safari, or Serato DJ, and it even locks up sometimes when I'm not on it. I'm running Intel's system monitor and it's reporting my CPU temp at 42c max, so if it's accurate it can't be from overheating. When it locks up and I reboot a few times I've gone right into the BIOS which is reporting the same temp. Here are my system specs

ASRock Z77E-ITX
HD4000 video
Samsung 830 SSD.
I do have a few USB devices plugged in and they're all class-compliant.

These are the Kext's I have installed

GenericUSBXHCI.kext
Lilu.kext
SMCProcessor.kext
SMCSuperIO.kext
USBInjectAll.kext
VirtualSMC.kext
WhateverGreen.kext
AppleALC.kext
FakePCIID.kext
FakePCIID_BCM57XX_as_BCM57765.kext
FakePCIID_Intel_HDMI_Audio.kext


The only ones I added not from the Opencore guide were to get my NIC working. I know it's a long shot, but there are some wizards here so maybe someone might know something. I'm a DOS/Windows guy so I'm still adjusting to even the basics of troubleshooting OSX. Same box my Windows 10 never locks up, but something isn't right and after 5 days of Googling things to try to fix it I'm pretty much out of ideas what to do next.

Have you run memtest overnight on it? Could be hardware-related. The new one auto-installs to a USB stick: (direct link)

https://www.memtest.org/download/5.31b/memtest86+-5.31b.usb.installer.zip

 

[Kaido]

8 years and counting!

MotionMan

Haha! It may be time to retire the final one. My wife wants a laptop and that M1 Air is looking pretty good for the money! Might turn her old tower into a OpenCore dev box or something.