br0adband Posted April 25, 2008 Share Posted April 25, 2008 Well, it's been awhile since I've been a part of the community, but I was just messing around earlier today and noted the Leo4All v3 release and started wondering, "What would it take to redo the original $199 Hackintosh project - which I had some input on - with something new and more up to date?" And just as with the original concept and idea, the principle is to build a fully functional, 100% compatible OSX ready - or OSx86 as the case may be - machine that works, for the least amount of cash. It's not about blazing top of the line perrformance, the best graphics card on the planet, the fastest DVD burning possible, etc. It's about building a Hackintosh that runs OSX/OSx86 on the cheap. I'm going to pass on a keyboard and mouse this time also as those items are pretty "personal" and many people already have spares so, again we're looking to do this on the cheap - that's the overriding principle above and beyond everything else. And here's what I found with some research and a bit of luck. For starters, instead of going the old route of finding a mobo, a case, a power supply, etc, it would be easier this time around to get a barebones - if I could locate one that's compatible and was cost-effective. As luck would have it, I found one. I think... Shuttle KPC K45 Socket 775 Barebone PC Take a look at that little wonder from Shuttle and go over the specs with me for compatibility: - Intel 945 chipset - Check! - Intel GMA 950 video - Check! - Socket 775 support for current processors - Check! - Complete package in one - Check! - Intel ICH7 hard drive controller - Check! - DDR2 support for dual channel faster RAM - Check! For $99.99, that's a tough thing to beat considering it has everything in the box already. The one issue we'll have with this would be an optical drive, obviously, as this case wasn't really designed for one. So, taking a cue from the Macbook Air, we'll actually pass on the optical drive this time - an external USB drive can always be used as required (for the OS installation, obviously, but then again), but more than likely people would just use a networked optical drive from another machine for daily usage, movie watching, etc. Since we're passing on an optical, and we're looking at $100 gone already, we have a chip, RAM, and a hard drive to go. Let's see what I can wrangle up. The obvious choice for processor would be: Celeron E1200 dual core Look at that price, folks - $40!!! $40 for a freakin' dual core processor these days, with full SSE3 and EM64T support too! Newegg has the same chip for $50, so TigerDirect is the clear winner here. I doubt this processor can be found for less anywhere, so that's that. Here's a great review of the Celeron E1200 with some benchmarks that show it's not that bad after all: X-bit Labs reviews the Celeron E1200 Moving on to RAM... We'll build this with a single 1GB stick since Leopard is going to need at least that much for some useful performance. Cheapest place I know of for RAM is Fry's, so... 1GB A-Data DDR2 667 MHz RAM $17, give or take a few cents. They're out of stock at the moment, so no really big deal there, we can wait, or perhaps get something else - they have a 1GB stick of Corsair DDR2 667 MHz for $17.99, also out of stock. That's about as cheap as RAM is going to get; if anyone knows of something cheaper that's workable, post a link and this will be updated as required. In fact, if you can find cheaper prices for any of it, share the info and we'll see what happens. Now, the big puppy: a hard drive. And with only ~$40 left to spend, give or take a buck either way, we're obviously not going to be getting a terabyte monster in this Hackintosh, sorry. So the quest for a low cost high capacity drive begins... 20GB really isn't enough for Leopard, we all know that, so let's shoot for at least 40GB and see what turns up, and we'd prefer SATA over ATA these days too. Aha... a candidate can be found at: 40GB Western Digital Serial ATA 7200RPM Hard Drive White Label $22!!! Can you beat that? But let's see if we can eek out just a bit more storage and still be under the $199 mark. A little more digging and I find this: Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9 120GB 7200RPM UATA/133 Hard Disk Drive, 8MB Cache, Refurbished $41... and yes it's a refurb but, for the price we might not find better. I did find this one: 250GB Hitachi 7200RPM Serial ATA/150 8MB HDD But that $47 price pushes us above and beyond the $199 price mark we're aiming to match or beat. In the end, the choice is yours as a builder; I've never had issues myself with refurb drives, and they come with a warranty anyway from the manufacturer. Not quite the same amount of time, but a warranty nonetheless. So let's tally up the price so far: $99.99 for the Shuttle barebones case/PSU/mobo $39.99 for the Celeron E1200 dual core CPU $16.99 for the A-Data 1GB DDR2 667 MHz RAM $41.00 for the Maxtor 120GB SATA hard drive -------- $197.97 I think we have a winner here, folks... with superior performance over the original $199 Hackintosh, with a few trimmings of course, more (and faster) storage, double the RAM, in a nice neat package that saves on electricity in the long run and performs well. Get a mouse of choice, a keyboard of choice, and an LCD panel and you could end up with a fully compatible Hackintosh running Leo4All or some other variation of OSx86 using less electricity than a 100 watt light bulb. Think you can do better? Well, prove it. Let the price searching and price comparisons begin... I'd love to see what you folks can come up with, following this simple principle: A fully working Hackintosh, ready to run Leo4All or some other variation of OSx86, with minimal fuss and definitely the least amount of modification to the OS possible (primarily kexts, of course). Optical drive we'll consider an option these days, using the Macbook Air-style model of networked optical drives as that solution. Of course, if you can piece together a totally different Hackintosh, with a "real" case meaning a mid-tower, with a full blown working optical drive to boot (no pun intended), then by all means do it and post the hardware specs and links here. I hope to spur some interest in the lackluster Hackintosh creation side of things with this post. Sure it's relatively easy to just get Leo4All working on whatever you've got laying around - my interest is in building a Hackintosh from scratch, with the least amount of... well... scratch. Have fun, always... ps And I've ordered all the components I have listed at the price points I show above, minus shipping, taxes, etc. All together the total was just around $227 complete. Just wanted that on the record... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cyberderf Posted April 25, 2008 Share Posted April 25, 2008 Incredible ! It could become a lifehacker.com legendary post if it was not for the lack of a cd/dvd tray and the loud psu fan! I am still looking at ordering the full list tought. But what about OSX86 stability on this system? Have you or someone tested the Shuttle KPC K45 Socket 775 Barebone PC to be 100% working yet ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
D day Posted April 25, 2008 Share Posted April 25, 2008 Damn, thats amazing, you could use it as a media centre pc or something. Anyway good luck with your pc and see if you can get your story done on engadget, gizmodo or lifehacker. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
glitchbit Posted April 26, 2008 Share Posted April 26, 2008 pfff... let's have a real challenge, how bout a $100 Hackintosh? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snackole Posted April 26, 2008 Share Posted April 26, 2008 Is that before or after your $229.95 case? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UnaClocker Posted April 27, 2008 Share Posted April 27, 2008 Your first link, the Shuttle barebones.. It says pretty clearly "This item is no longer available".. Try to find currently available parts, so this guide isn't out of date before you've even written it. Doesn't the 945 chipset limit people to 1GB per slot? Kind of a showstopper since most cheap boards only have 2 slots. Try a newer chipset. ICH9 controller works swimmingly in Leopard, no need to limit yourself or ICH7. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maclinux Posted April 27, 2008 Share Posted April 27, 2008 It is available at newegg though... and maybe a google search would show it available at many other shops. And I think the point is to make it for under $200, not the most powerful. Would be nice though to have a more powerful hackintosh for just $200... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mage66 Posted September 3, 2008 Share Posted September 3, 2008 I bought one of these, and I can't get it to work with Leo4ALL or any 10.5.4 release I've been able to get. The networking doesn't work, and none of the options for Intel Networking make a difference. I was able to install a $25.00 Combo Drive I bought from Geeks.com with an inexpensive adapter I bought from an eBayer named Ziggs-place.com He also sells metal front panels with the cutout for the CD-Drive for $10.00 along with the CD-ROM Adapter for another $10.00 I found one post that said to apply the "IONetwork" patch. But, there's no such option on any of the DVD images, and there's no link to get it. I tried someone's fix to a .plist file, but didn't find the key that was needed to be changed in the place it said it would be. Anyone get this to work? Or, can anyone recommend a NIC that "just works" that I can install in the PCI Slot? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yoni Yoni Posted January 14, 2009 Share Posted January 14, 2009 I'm just bringing this topic back to life because I have built more than 5 hackintosh with similar configuration. The most expensive one I have built (keeping in mind this is an economic yet powerful PC goes as following): Shuttle KPC K45 = $95.00 Intel Core 2 Duo E7300 2.66GHz = $120 Western Digital 500GB = $60 Kingston 2 x 1 GB DDR2 667MHz = $22 Yes, there are optical DVD Drives for the Shuttle. This box features a Slimline CD-DVD Drive bay. All you need to buy is the right device and the little extra front panel plate... Slimline DVD Drive Internal = $50 Face plate kit = $20 Extra cables and fan = $10 (Slimline Sata cable for your Optical DVD Drive) Total cost = $ 377 If you are building a shuttle in a tight budget you can go for the following parts. Shuttle KPC K45 = $95.00 1 GB RAM GSKill DDR2 667MHz = $10 Intel Celeron Dual Core 1.6 GHz = $49.99 Seagate Barracuda 160GB = $42 Total Cost: $196 Don't panic with the Celeron! it is fast enough in many ways. You won't believe how good your $196 hackintosh performs in such hardware configuration. The guy that mentioned the NIC driver issue. All you need is the proper driver (Marvell NIC driver) - download bellow and enjoy. Greetings Marvell_NIC_Drivers.zip Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MoonDogg Posted January 14, 2009 Share Posted January 14, 2009 So hows it work for ya... and what distro you use? Cause this might be my next hackintosh... BTW ever tried it with 4gb RAM? I'm just bringing this topic back to life because I have built more than 5 hackintosh with similar configuration. The most expensive one I have built (keeping in mind this is an economic yet powerful PC goes as following): Shuttle KPC K45 = $95.00 Intel Core 2 Duo E7300 2.66GHz = $120 Western Digital 500GB = $60 Kingston 2 x 1 GB DDR2 667MHz = $22 Yes, there are optical DVD Drives for the Shuttle. This box features a Slimline CD-DVD Drive bay. All you need to buy is the right device and the little extra front panel plate... Slimline DVD Drive Internal = $50 Face plate kit = $20 Extra cables and fan = $10 (Slimline Sata cable for your Optical DVD Drive) Total cost = $ 377 If you are building a shuttle in a tight budget you can go for the following parts. Shuttle KPC K45 = $95.00 1 GB RAM GSKill DDR2 667MHz = $10 Intel Celeron Dual Core 1.6 GHz = $49.99 Seagate Barracuda 160GB = $42 Total Cost: $196 Don't panic with the Celeron! it is fast enough in many ways. You won't believe how good your $196 hackintosh performs in such hardware configuration. The guy that mentioned the NIC driver issue. All you need is the proper driver (Marvell NIC driver) - download bellow and enjoy. Greetings Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yoni Yoni Posted January 14, 2009 Share Posted January 14, 2009 It runs just fine. I used Kalyway 10.5.2 and upgraded it to 10.5.6 The marvell driver has to be re-installed after the upgrade. For the price I have paid in every build I can't complain at all. Compare it to the mac mini and decide it yourself. Note: The Shuttle KPC appears to support only 2 GB RAM but I have used 3 and 4GB and it recognizes it. Maybe there is a 3.3GB limitation as in the Mac mini... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HMaster Posted January 22, 2009 Share Posted January 22, 2009 I am new to the OSx86 project and formerly a Windows guy. I have purchased the barebones kit and had all the other parts laying around. Every thing is running great, but I have a few questions How do I install the NIC update that I have downloaded (onboard works but cuts off after a while and needs a reboot)? and Can I run any mac updates with Kalaway 10.5.1 installed? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vfx Posted January 23, 2009 Share Posted January 23, 2009 I installed Kalway 10.51 and IATKOS 10.5.4. on K45. It only boots if i leave the disc inside my SATA DVD Drive. I went to Preferences and Start Up disk. No start up disk is found. How to make it boot without leaving the disc inside DVD drive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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