One More Picture Posted December 28, 2009 Share Posted December 28, 2009 Hi, after buying a first gen macbook pro Core Duo the day they came out with Intel chips, I've outgrown the speed and power of it. I'm using photoshop heavily and now high-def video editing (nothing commercial just personal creativity) so I'm on a budget and have been looking over a hackintosh, so for me, 64bit and lots of memory are important. I've got this lot in a basket ready to order from Novatech, a good uk based suppler and very local to me : Intel Core 2 Quad 4x2.50 Ghz Gigabyte EP45-UD3LR 4gb Ram at the moment, hoping to get 8gb very shortly. Novatech GeForce 9500GT 1gb Ram. generic DVD drive I'm pretty sure from looking this should work with a little tweeking (whats a self build without tweeking!) I've Hard drives, case and power supply from previously built PC stuff, wireless networking isnt a big think at the moment. But having used snow leopard on my macbook up to 10.6.2. anyone have any thoughts or watch-outs for this? Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/204243-another-noob-getting-into-a-self-build/ Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zaap Posted December 28, 2009 Share Posted December 28, 2009 Is that the EP45T-UD3LR? If so, I just helped a friend Hackintosh his system with the same board, following the Lifehacker 'no hacking required' Snow Leopard guide. Everything went perfectly, and SL runs beautifully on it. I think you should have little trouble installing with that setup so long as all your drives are SATA. One thing to consider- some knowledgeable people around here like LogicalUser have pointed out that it may not be a good deal anymore to buy a quad-core socket 775-based system, vs. spend a little bit more and go for a compatible P55 -i5/i7- based system. Personally I'm not up on the newer boards and install methods, but you might want to look into it before you pull the trigger. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/204243-another-noob-getting-into-a-self-build/#findComment-1370702 Share on other sites More sharing options...
One More Picture Posted December 28, 2009 Author Share Posted December 28, 2009 Thanks, I did look over a few guides here for that motherboard and the lifehacker... I was a little worried about the Graphics Card but dug around and found some positive things on the 9500GT. I did look at the i7's kit, but the price is a BIG jump, the i5 I dont know much about - I'll look into them, thanks. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/204243-another-noob-getting-into-a-self-build/#findComment-1370713 Share on other sites More sharing options...
One More Picture Posted January 1, 2010 Author Share Posted January 1, 2010 Ok so I kinda need some help on this. I decided to buy this setup : MSI-P55-CD53 motherboard, PNY geForce GT220 1gb Ram, 4 gb DDR3 ram, and an i5 CPU. So far I've got to the stage of using tonymac's MSI boot CD to install and get snow leopard 10.6.2 up and running. However the snow leopard HDD dosnt boot, just sits at 'system uptime' freeze state that a few others have. I can however boot from the CD and run snow leopard ok - though its not fully making use if the graphics card. I'm really struggling to read through all the posts about the best way forward - I thought I had it sorted at one point, and have been following Tony's excellent instructions but am lost and cant seem to see the forest for the trees. I am assuming that as the CD boots fine, and have copied over as required from the cd to the HDD, that the desktop HDD could be the issue with not booting?? thanks Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/204243-another-noob-getting-into-a-self-build/#findComment-1373901 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zaap Posted January 1, 2010 Share Posted January 1, 2010 Is there a guide for that specific motherboard? Did you choose it based on others using it successfully, and posting their results and links to the guides they used? Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/204243-another-noob-getting-into-a-self-build/#findComment-1374250 Share on other sites More sharing options...
LogicalUser Posted January 2, 2010 Share Posted January 2, 2010 hmm.... when you say "boot from the CD and run snow leopard ok" I assume you mean your using the tonymacx86-P55BootCD-MSI CD's bootloader to startup from your snow leopard hard drive? If so, it seems you've lucked out with at least a somewhat compatible motherboard, and if i had to guess your issues are with the bootloader & related stuff you installed on your HD, and not the OSX install itself. When you use the bootCD your loading the OSX install using its DSDT, kexts, plists, etc... instead of the ones located on your HD. Be sure you've got the required files in their correct locations on your HD That is, assuming you didn't miss one of the requisite BIOS changes (SATA AHCI, etc...) Personally, I've always went with Chameleon/PC-EFI bootloaders on external USB boot sticks for versatility, and easy modification/backup of working configs. I find the ability to pop the USB stick out of the back of a troublesome hackintosh and toss it in a working machine to tweak stuff very useful, but there are many different viable setup options. As for the graphics card, yeah, you likely will need to experiment a bit with EFI strings in order to obtain full functionality, the GT220 is one of the new 40nm GPUs and does not share a core with anything else yet. Take a look around here, I started a thread a few months back inquiring about the G210/GT220/GT240/etc.... and last time I checked someone had a working GT 220. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/204243-another-noob-getting-into-a-self-build/#findComment-1374378 Share on other sites More sharing options...
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