Boom Posted April 20, 2010 Share Posted April 20, 2010 Hey all! My name is Boom. Back in September I read Adam Pash's Hackintosh tutorial on Lifehacker, and was convinced it was finally time to "Go Mac". I use the tutorial to build just about exactly what Adam suggested, and it worked perfectly. I actually use the mac for blogging, photoshop and video editing. I have a background in building pcs, but these days I'm less of a pc tinkerer, and more of a software user. I was warned that building a Hackintosh might be more involved than I wanted, but I couldn't resist the power/price math. I'm currently working on designing and building a home office from scratch, and in the process, I'm designing a workstation with blogging in mind. My Hackintosh will be my primary (and hopefully only) pc in the room. My current plan includes 5 monitors. Here's the current layout of my 24" and (x4) 19" screens set to vertical for web pages. I discovered that the resolution of a standard 4x3 19" monitor is of course 1280x1024. So when you rotate it on end, that 1024 becomes the perfect width for viewing web pages. WOOT! Now I just need to get 4 of those working with my main 24". So here's my real problem. I've been reading through the forums and the wiki, trying to understand how to get a second (and third) video card to work. The problem is, because I used Adam's tutorial, I didn't really learn how all of this hacking works. So the guides for "how to use multiple cards" end up sounding like another language to me. Here's what I'm looking for. I have the following hardware from the Lifehacker guide: GIGABYTE GA-EP45-UD3P Intel P45 ATX Intel Motherboard Intel Core 2 Quad 3.0GHz LGA 775 95W Quad-Core Processor GeForce 9800 GTX+ 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 Patriot Extreme Performance 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory x 2 (for a total of 8GB) 10/ 100/ 1000/ 2000Mbps PCI Copper Gigabit Network Adapter My motherboard has the following slots: PCI-E X16 (currently used by the 9800) PCI-E X8 (OPEN) (3) PCI-E X1 (all OPEN) (2) PCI (one used by the NIC and the other OPEN) You can see the layout here: click here QUESTIONS 1. Because these extra monitors only need to run the web, is there a cheap video card that will run two monitors each? Can I fit two of these cards on this motherboard? Are there any PCI-E 1X cards that could work? 2. If I find the right cards, can someone point me to a couple guides that will get me caught up on the lingo necessary to understand the video card tutorials? I greatly appreciate any and all feedback. I'm putting so much work into this new workstation, and having 5 monitors is going to be critical. I'm prepared to start from the ground up and learn what I need to. I would just appreciate some help getting started. Thanks! Boom Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/216050-5-monitors-on-the-lifehacker-hackintosh-need-help/ Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boom Posted April 23, 2010 Author Share Posted April 23, 2010 So... did I post this in the wrong area? I'd really like to get moving on my 5 monitor project but really need some guidance. Is there a better place to post these questions? Boom Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/216050-5-monitors-on-the-lifehacker-hackintosh-need-help/#findComment-1454465 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alessandro17 Posted April 23, 2010 Share Posted April 23, 2010 If you want I can move it wherever you like, but the truth is that some questions never get a meaningful reply, and I am afraid yours is one of them. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/216050-5-monitors-on-the-lifehacker-hackintosh-need-help/#findComment-1454473 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boom Posted April 27, 2010 Author Share Posted April 27, 2010 If you want I can move it wherever you like, but the truth is that some questions never get a meaningful reply, and I am afraid yours is one of them. Alessandro, Thanks for the note. Don't worry about moving it. The more I search, the more obvious it becomes that not many people are running more than two or three monitors on a mac, let alone a hackintosh. I found the ATI firepro's and got pretty pumped, only to find thread after thread of mac people complaining about them being PC only. I'm going to start digging through every Hackintosh tutorial I can find, and try to learn from the ground up. Maybe if I figure out how video cards are handled, I can start asking more intelligent questions. Heck, I may even figure out how to get 3 video cards working myself! Boom Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/216050-5-monitors-on-the-lifehacker-hackintosh-need-help/#findComment-1456874 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alessandro17 Posted April 27, 2010 Share Posted April 27, 2010 The more I search, the more obvious it becomes that not many people are running more than two or three monitors on a mac, let alone a hackintosh. Exactly my point. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/216050-5-monitors-on-the-lifehacker-hackintosh-need-help/#findComment-1457118 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Giorgio_multi Posted May 2, 2010 Share Posted May 2, 2010 I have a system with 5 monitors. I explain what I did. You need: a sli motherboard, 2 Nvidia graphics cards series 8 or 9 and a PCI graphics card Nvidia 8 Series (8400GS mine). I have Snow Leopard 10.6.2 with a 0.2.1 nvinject modified by me for three graphics card. With your mothebord i doubt you can. Giorgio Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/216050-5-monitors-on-the-lifehacker-hackintosh-need-help/#findComment-1460048 Share on other sites More sharing options...
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