10 replies to this topic

[b419kid]

Hey all,
As the title indicates, I am looking for a laptop with:

• the ability to install OSX -----> install OSX with near-full support
  
  • Wouldn't mind replacing wifi card or using external
    
  • Would love for sleep to be working*
• mildly good hardware (for moderate gaming)
  
• maximum budget of $1000

|-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Maybe my head is in the clouds, but I can dream right?   |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------|

But seriously, does this exist somewhere? (Can you hackintosh any Alienware or Digital Storm laptops?)

Thanks,
/3 /<

[styrian]

b419kid, on 29 December 2012 - 01:56 AM, said:

Hey all,
As the title indicates, I am looking for a laptop with:

• the ability to install OSX -----> install OSX with near-full support
  
  • Wouldn't mind replacing wifi card or using external
    
  • Would love for sleep to be working*
• mildly good hardware (for moderate gaming)
  
• maximum budget of $1000

|-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Maybe my head is in the clouds, but I can dream right?   |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------|

But seriously, does this exist somewhere? (Can you hackintosh any Alienware or Digital Storm laptops?)

Thanks,
/3 /<

Look at www.nvida.com. They have listed under their GTX.... cards many gaming laptops. Most of them have Optimus. With this onboard, nvidia does not work on hacks. Asus G7...sx  all don ´t have optimus, but a new one is out of your budget. Look for a used Asus G73sx or 74sx. Threads are here in.

Have fun.

[b419kid]

styrian, on 29 December 2012 - 03:32 AM, said:

Look at www.nvida.com. They have listed under their GTX.... cards many gaming laptops. Most of them have Optimus. With this onboard, nvidia does not work on hacks. Asus G7...sx  all don ´t have optimus, but a new one is out of your budget. Look for a used Asus G73sx or 74sx. Threads are here in.

Have fun.

Thanks for the reply. I'd rather not go for a used computer, you know? I'll look at nvidia's site next ---> but do all there new laptops have optimus?

[styrian]

b419kid, on 29 December 2012 - 04:14 AM, said:

Thanks for the reply. I'd rather not go for a used computer, you know? I'll look at nvidia's site next ---> but do all there new laptops have optimus?

et
Yes, most of them. You will not get a new one with an GTX card without optimus for under 1000 bucks, even not a 15" one.  I am looking by myself for a laptop with only dedicated gfx. It is hard to find. Even an ATI one.

Have fun.

[jimmyco2008]

Most laptops these days have integrated graphics, which aren't as bad as they used to be, especially the AMD APUs like Trinity...but hackintoshing AMD is, well it usually doesn't work or you're stuck with like 10.6 Snow Leopard. So that leaves Intel and the HD4000, which runs Black Ops pretty well, low settings of course but native resolution, no 800x600 or anything like that.

I have the HP m6-1045dx ($700 when I bought it, but in the wake of touchscreen laptops it's on sale at BestBuy for $529.99) with Ivy Bridge i5, HD4000, backlit keyboard, and 3/4 USB ports are 3.0. And a hackintoshing guide already exists for it!

[b419kid]

Thanks for the reply Jimmy. Honestly, whenever I get to upgrade my laptop I'll be going for a laptop with a real graphics card. Looking at sites like CyberPowerPC, Digital Storm, and Xoticpc. I actually wonder whether their intel/nvidia based products work on hackintosh. I mean that's the first step, right?

[b419kid]

These are the specs on a custom xoticpc laptop. Any way to know whether hackint0sh will be good on it?
   Display: 15.6" FHD Super Clear Glare-Type Screen (1920x1080) Processor   Processor:
  Chipset: 3rd Generation Intel Core i7-3610QM   (Upgradeable)
Intel HM76 Chipset Hard Drive & Optical Drive   Standard Hard Drive:

  Standard Optical Drive:
750GB 5400RPM Hard Drive   (Upgradeable)
1 Detachable 2.5" 9.5mm (H) SATA Hard Disk Drive
8x DVDRW/CDRW Super Multi Combo Drive   (Upgradeable)
1 12.7mm (H) Optical Drive Bay, ATA Interface, Interchangeable with ±R/RW Combo drive Graphics   Graphics Controller: nVIDIA® GeForce GT 650M GDDR3 (2.0GB)
PCI-Express™ 16X
Microsoft® DirectX® 11 Compatible Memory   Standard Memory:
  Number of SODIMMS:
4096 MB DDR3 1600MHz  (Upgradeable - 16GB 1600MHz / 8GB 1866MHz Max)
Two 204Pin SODIMM Sockets
64-bit Wide DDRIII Data Channel Audio Features   Audio Features: SRS HD Audio
Speakers (2 x 2W)
Microphone-in
Headphone-out Network   Network / Communication:
Built-in Gigabit Ethernet LAN
Integrated 802.11 b/g/n wireless LAN + Bluetooth™ 3.0 Slots / Interface   Card Reader:

  Input / Output Ports: 3-in-1 Card Reader
SD / MMC / MS
2 x USB 3.0
2 x USB 2.0 w/ Power USB feature
1 x RJ45
1 x D-Sub VGA Port
1 x HDMI
1 x Microphone-in
1 x Headphone-out
                                                  

Without optimus thankfully.                                  

[jimmyco2008]

I don't blame you, sometimes I wish I looked a little harder for a laptop with some dedicated graphics chip. Well this may be obvious but if you find a graphics chip, even a desktop version (because afaik ATI cards are only in desktop Macs) in a REAL Mac, I would think you can't go wrong with a Hackintosh. I would think.

b419kid, device IDs are more important than a spec sheet... The processor is 100% compatible, and if what I just said about graphics from real Macs holds true, you should be good with the graphics card, although I'd Google around to make sure. The integrated WiFi/Bluetooth probably won't work, the SD card reader... I would say probably won't work as well, it's mostly older SD card readers there are kexts for, but it's custom not mainstream so I dunno, you'd need the device ID for it to know if there's support. OSX likes that RAM setup for sure so that's good, SRS audio is probably Realtek or Intel HD audio with SRS speakers, which usually suck in my experience, but hey it'll work with VoodooHDA as with really any laptop speakers.

USB 3.0 and sleep will probably be the biggest issues, with everything I've read it seems there's poor support, many 2.0 devices won't work with the 3.0 ports, often times people report OSX freezing after plugging something into a 3.0 port, but everything 3.0 should work, and at 3.0 speeds, so for someone with only 1 fully-functional (2.0) port, that's something to keep in mind.

And then of course you may need a new WiFi/Bluetooth card, the AR5B195 is cheap and readily-available on sites like eBay... Also be sure your laptop doesn't have a whitelist, I don't think it will being custom, but it wouldn't hurt to check.

Good luck! And I'm not Captain Hackintosh, so if someone wants to add info, feel free to do so.

[b419kid]

What exactly are device ids? How would I find them for a device I don't yet own? <--- Any idea on that one lol?

Thanks for the info. Definitely learned something. Spec sheets are pretty useless.

[jimmyco2008]

Linux is the best way to find device IDs. Boot live a disto of your choice, open Terminal and type in...

Well lspci or lsusb as you may guess lspci lists the devices on the PCI bus and their IDs, lsusb does the same thing for the USB bus.

One of those commands will turn out what you're looking for, you may have to google the device IDs to figure out what's what.

Example Id: 138a:0018 and Google will tell you it's a fingerprint reader.

[b419kid]

Cool, thank you. I'll be doing that on my current laptop before I try to plunge into Mountain Lion.