opscott Posted May 27, 2009 Share Posted May 27, 2009 Ok, this is my first post so let me tell you a little bit about me so you guys can help me out more easily fixing these last few issues I have. I'm a seasonsed systems administrator and have been around comptuters for a long time. Although, I run Windows and Linux on my servers, after seeing some of the Apple stuff I've decided that I like it the best for my desktop OS. In addition to that I have been wanting to get into editing video and other things, and it seems that Apple is still king in this area. So, because of these factors I decided the best/cheapest way for me to do what I wanted to do was to build a Hackintosh! I also want to let you know that I am a total Mac noob, the last time I used an Apple PC was in 1991 - a lot has changed since then! And the closest I have come to a Mac since then is the iPhone. I'm not a PC fanboi or anything, I've just always used Windows because it's what came with my PC's and it's always what is used wherever it is that I am working atm. THE HARDWARE ------------ I did a lot of research before choosing my hardware. I wanted to do a cheap hackintosh, because if it didn't work for me I didn't want to have too much invested in it. Below is the hardware I chose. GIGABYTE GA-G31M-ES2L Motherboard (Purchased new) Intel Pentium E5200 Wolfdale 2.5GHz (Purchased new) OCZ Reaper 4Gb DDR2 6400 (Pulled from other system) Western Digital Caviar SE WD800AAJS 80GB (Purchased new) Palit nVidia GeForce 9600 GT 512mb (Pulled from other system) Liteon SATA DVD drive (Pulled from other system) LOGISYS Computer CS206BK ATX Mid Tower Case 480W Power Supply (Purchased new) HARDWARE NOTES -------------- The hardest part of the hardware to choose was the video card. From my research it seemed that some cards work better than others, but nearly any nVidia card can be made to work. In the spirit ot trying to keep things cheap, I figured I'd try the video card I already had instead of purchasing one. THE INSTALL ----------- Being a total Mac noob, and new to the Hackintosh scene as well I thougt it best to try to use a motherboard that had a good guide to go with it. From my research I also new that I wanted to use a retail install DVD method as I wanted a machine that is close to a "real Mac" as possible. So, once I got my retail DVD (10.5.6), all I needed was the guide. The best guide I could find is: http://an43.com/osx/install2.htm I don't know who wrote this guide (it doesn't say on the site), but many thanks to them! This guide was awesome, I followed it to the letter and nearly everything worked straight out of the box. Once I went through the guide everything worked except: Sleep (it works, just not automatically) Front panel Mic In (I think it doesn't work because of my particular headset, front panel audio works with no issues) Two days before my hardware arrived Apple released the 10.5.7 update, and sure enough the gentlemen (or lady) that wrote the guide above already had a guide to update to 10.5.7 that can be found here: http://an43.com/osx/install3.htm Once, the update was installed I tested everything again and the same two things still didn't work (not that I expected them to). At this point I began installing all my software that I wanted. Everything I did seemed to work great!! I moved my iTunes library over with no problem, installed several applications (FireFox, Adium, iLife 09 from a friends family pack, WoW, Sim City 4 etc.). All the app installs worked flawlessly and at this point I was just waiting for the my machine to catch fire because everything had gone so smoothly I just knew that it was too good to be true. PROBLEMS / ISSUES ----------------- I've had my hackintosh for about a week now and am very happy I went this route, as almost everything "just works"! I'm still astounded with how easy and how well this system works, but as is true with every computer I've ever touched none of them are perfect and this one is no exception. Below are the issues I'm still working on, and hopefull you guys can help me with. Also, please do not just tell me to "search the forums" for answers to my questions. I have read for hours and hours on end until my eyes are ready to bleed and am only posting now because I have hit a brick wall with the few issues I still have unresolved. Also, I believe in contributing as much as possible so once I have these issues worked out I plan to post my own guide for the absolute beginnner, to make the perfect hackintosh. SLEEP ----- Sleep works, but not automatically. In addition to that I noticed that if I put my machine to sleep, when it wakes up I get an error about USB. I have sense fixed the error using this guide: http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=155345 But I have yet to get the machine to sleep automatically. This is not that big of an issue, but would be nice to get working. If any of you have any suggestions on how to get this working I'd really appreciate it! MIC in ------ I think this actually works, but believe that my headset (Logitech) is what the problem is, as it sometimes gave me issues under Windows as well. Can anybody with this same motherboard confirm that MIC in on either the back panel or front panel works? If indeed it does work can any of you make suggestions about which Headset I should use (it's for playing WoW)? This isn't a huge issue either, but I really do need MIC in to work on either the back or front panel as it's going to make it difficult to play WoW without my headset working correctly. World of Warcraft/Games ----------------------- The performance on this machine is awesome, except for games. I installed Sim City 4, and WoW both of which are totally unplayable at any resolution or graphics settings. Although video worked out of the box, About This Mac did not properly identify my video card so from my research I knew I probably needed the EFI string. So, I used OSX86 tools and NVDarwin and it fixed that problem, but did not fix the slowness of either game. I have run all the OpenGL tests, tried all kinds of different video types, have tried everything I could find on the forum and everything works perfect except for WoW. I have tried it on two different monitors (Dell 30" and a LG 22"), I have tried different resolutions and graphics settings in the games and they are just not playable at all. I'm getting less than 15fps in WoW with everything turned all the way down, in windowed mode on the lowest resolution. Common sense tells me there is a problem with my card (I know this card is more than capable of handling WoW), I just don't know what it is. I'm at my wits end in this regard and this is my biggest and most important issue to solve, as I do not want to have to dual boot with Windows to play WoW. Also, I don't know if it makes a difference but the card is PCI-E x16 2.0 and the slot in the motherboard is only 1.0. In About This Mac, the video card has QE/CL enabled and everything outside of the games works flawlessly. Is there something I am missing here? Am I doing something wrong, or is this video card just not the right one to use? I'll be more than happy to purchase a video card if it will work. The only requirements for the card is that it be able to play WoW and that it will drive my 30" Dell Monitor (resolution of 2560x1600), and it would be nice if it was a silent/fanless card. If any of you have any suggestions on how to make this card work rigt, or any suggestions on which card would be best to purchase please do let me know! NOISE ----- The system is fairly loud, which is to be expected with the giant fan on my video card, the stock heatsink/fan for the CPU and the cheapy case. But as the goal of this project was to get as close to a real Mac as possible I'd like to find ways to try to eliminate some system noise. If I'm able to fix the WoW problem with a new fanless video card, I know that will cut down on the noise a lot, but do any of you have any suggestions for what I should replace the stock heatsink/fan with to make things less noisy? I'm probably going to end up putting the machine in the closet anyway, but the quieter I can get it the better. WIRELESS -------- I'm going to be moving my servers and network equipment to another room and would like to add either a USB wireless adapter or preferably a PCI wireless card. I had a Dynex DX-WGDTC laying around and researched this card first and saw a few people who said it worked out of the box. It did not work for me at all, and made the system extremely unstable and after a while the machine would no longer even boot. It took me sometime to figure out that this is what was causing the problem, but once I removed it everything went back to normal. Essentially what I am looking for is the most hassle free card/usb adapter available, any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. BLUETOOTH --------- I don't even know if this is possible to add, but if so any recommendations on what I would need to purchase? The reason I would like to add bluetooth is for my iPhone and possibly an Apple remote. Now that I am thinking about it, this may also be useful for my headset and keyboard/mouse, if I decided to go wireless - would this work? KEYBOARD/MOUSE -------------- I'd like to get a wireless keyboard and mouse, nothing to fancy. I have no idea if I should buy an Apple wireless keyboard and mouse, or if a regular wireless keyboard and mouse will be sufficient. Any suggestions here would be great as well. FINAL THOUGHTS -------------- This machine is pretty awesome, this is one of the "cooler" things I've done with a computer. I'm very happy with the results and hope I can get these last few issues cleared up, thank you all for creating this community and thank you in advance for any help you extend to me. I had never used OS X before and am really liking it thus far, it seems to have the best of the Windows and Linux worlds (with the exception of some games not being made for Mac) and none of the headaches (the problems I've had are related to hackintosh, not OS X). In fact, I have been so happy with the results that since I am needing a laptop I am going to make my next purchase either MB or a MBP (I'll take suggestions on either)! It's kind of funny how all this has worked out, I would have loved to buy an Apple desktop but they just don't make one that has the specs I need in a price range I'm willing to pay (I'll have to save for several months for the laptop). Anyway, that's been my experience with my Hackintosh so far. Overall, I'd say on a scale of 1 to 10 (1 = not working, 10 = using a Mac) I'd rate my experience a 7 so far. Thanks in advance to all those who try to help me out, and don't forget I'm a total Mac noob, so if you have some good Mac tips/tricks you'd like to throw my way I'm all ears (or eyes as the case may be)!! Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/168138-1st-hackintosh-retail-install-almost-perfect-please-help/ Share on other sites More sharing options...
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