danielmramos Posted September 16, 2010 Share Posted September 16, 2010 In my opinion purchasing a brand new desktop PC computer for direct conversion to a hackintosh does not make a lot of sense. The price is still too high to justify the purchase given the alternative and the inherent problems you may inherit due to proprietary parts and motherboards. There is one area where the price, performance, and convenience you get from a commercial "complete desktop" might certainly be worth it. This would be previous generation desktop systems that you can now get at a very reasonable price as refurbished systems. I believe the HP Pavilion Elite HPE-170f is one of those systems and therefore worth the effort of the hackintosh community's research into making it a vanilla snow leopard complete desktop candidate. Take into account the specifications: HP Pavilion Elite HPE-170f Processor Intel Core i7 920(2.66GHz)Memory 9GB DDR3 1066 Hard Drive 1TB SATA Optical Drive 1 SuperMulti DVD Burner with LightScribe Technology Graphics NVIDIA Geforce GTX 260 graphics card with 1.8 GB dedicated graphics memory Audio High Definition Audio with up to 7.1 surround sound capabilities Ethernet 10/100/1000Base-T network interface Wireless Card Wireless LAN 802.11a/b/g/n Now, you have to admit those are some nice specs for a system that can be purchased as a refurbished system for about $700 factory sealed and recertified by HP. Refurbished system prices off of google. Another factor that I think makes the box appealing is its x58 motherboard that was built by ASUS under the OEM brand of Pegatron. Granted, it is probably not the most fancy x58 motherboard, but it is an matx x58 motherboard which fits the bill. Heck, even today matx x58 motherboards from ASUS are about $220 for the motherboard alone. Here is a link to the motherboard description on HPs website: Motherboard Specifications, IPMTB-TK (Truckee) So, the question is simply will it do OS X with a little help from [url="http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/"]#####[/url] and other tools? If anybody has any ideas or information please discuss and share. Ultimately it may entice more people to go hackintosh if they know they don't have to go through the chore of building a system in order to get a performance SL system. Thanks in advance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danielmramos Posted September 16, 2010 Author Share Posted September 16, 2010 Just to note, HP produced quite a few desktop PC systems with this motherboard. All of these used i7920 or even i7975 processors. Many of these can be purchased as complete systems for less than $800 with hefty specs. By the way it is worth noting that early on HP had problems with the initial run of that motherboard; however, they sorted it out and from what I read it was rock solid after they (ASUS) fixed it. The refurbished systems factory sealed by HP should be fine as they would have fixed any MB issues. Even non refurbished systems should be fine as HP recalled and RMAd the defective MBs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danielmramos Posted September 21, 2010 Author Share Posted September 21, 2010 I do not know why I didn't check the OSX86 Wiki HCL 10.6.0? http://wiki.osx86project.org/wiki/index.ph...10.6.0#Pegatron So, the answer to the question I posed to you all is a definite yes. This motherboard is most certainly compatible and all of the HP Pavilion PCs that use this motherboard are consequently prime candidates for "Complete Desktop" hackintoshes. The difference in these systems is in their installed components. For example the HPE-270F has a blueray drive, while the HPE-170F has a DVD burner. The HP Pavilion Elite 9100 series systems also use this motherboard, but they are older builds around the same motherboard. I have also exchanged private messages with some hackintosh users that were successful in turning their Pegatron IPMTB-TK into a fast hackintosh. This seems to me to be quite an inexpensive way to get a higher end hackintosh. I suppose the next step would be to extract the DSDT file from a HPE-170F desktop for modification. That seems to be the best way to ensure shutdown and sleep issues are solved. I guess I have to study up on that subject. Hey, has anybody installed Snow Leopard on one of these PCs using [url="http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/"]#####[/url] and [url="http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/"]#####[/url]? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danielmramos Posted September 21, 2010 Author Share Posted September 21, 2010 I was looking around and found this great deal over at geeks.com for a PC with just this motherboard but without an operating system so you do not have to pay the M$ tax!!! It is as if you are purchasing a prebuilt hackintosh. http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=TS...0-R&cat=SYS Your Price: $549.99 Here it is a little cheaper yet. http://www.evertek.com/viewpart.asp?auto=61948&cpc=RECOM Price for Buying 1+ $ 535.00 Cool, I bet there are a lot of "debranded" HP systems that make perfect hackintoshes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thekingisdead Posted October 17, 2010 Share Posted October 17, 2010 Hi, were you able to successfully hackintosh your PC? Any issues? (LAN, freezing, etc.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zaq123 Posted November 27, 2010 Share Posted November 27, 2010 I have this system from HP for about a year ( I had the initial run. After an ordeal got them to replace the motherboard and it has been rock solid since.) I had osx 10.6.2 installed on a separate hd using both ideneb and leohazards distro. Leohazards distro was painless just need to boot using busratio=20 cpus=1. I could not get my gtx 260 1.8gb to work fully (I did not have the black screen problem). It seems that HP's oem card has a different identifier than the standard gtx 260. Recently I have tried again because better support for these cards exist but I do not remember what my selection were and I can not get it to install. So any help would be appreciated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danielmramos Posted November 30, 2010 Author Share Posted November 30, 2010 I have this system from HP for about a year ( I had the initial run. After an ordeal got them to replace the motherboard and it has been rock solid since.) I had osx 10.6.2 installed on a separate hd using both ideneb and leohazards distro. Leohazards distro was painless just need to boot using busratio=20 cpus=1. I could not get my gtx 260 1.8gb to work fully (I did not have the black screen problem). It seems that HP's oem card has a different identifier than the standard gtx 260. Recently I have tried again because better support for these cards exist but I do not remember what my selection were and I can not get it to install. So any help would be appreciated. Zaq, thanks for sharing your experience. I have not read about people having problems with their GTX 260 graphic cards. Most of what I have read stated that the GTX 260 was supported OOB. In the spirit of absolute compatibility have you read the latest post on tonymcx86's blog? http://tonymacx86.blogspot.com/2010/11/ful...hics-cards.html I following Tony's advice should alleviate any compatibility problems. BTW, did you ever try installing using [url="http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/"]#####[/url] and [url="http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/"]#####[/url] using a retail DVD instead of a distro? Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
loozerboyz Posted November 30, 2010 Share Posted November 30, 2010 just for the record. i have this same hpe-170f system. osx through vmware 7.0.0 build-203739. host os it win7 x64. and its working great so far. i know its not a hackintosh but works well never the less. except i have no audio yet. thats the only problem. still working on it. as far as the video with the "hp" gtx 260. no problems with vmware tools installed. used the darwin311 iso. maybe ill just have to hackintosh the thing and make the complete switch!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danielmramos Posted December 1, 2010 Author Share Posted December 1, 2010 just for the record. i have this same hpe-170f system. osx through vmware 7.0.0 build-203739. host os it win7 x64. and its working great so far. i know its not a hackintosh but works well never the less. except i have no audio yet. thats the only problem. still working on it. as far as the video with the "hp" gtx 260. no problems with vmware tools installed. used the darwin311 iso. maybe ill just have to hackintosh the thing and make the complete switch!! Keep us up to date. It would be interesting to see what your experience would be like going from a vmware setup to a vanilla hackintosh install. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
loozerboyz Posted December 1, 2010 Share Posted December 1, 2010 maybe ill just grab one of my hard drives layin around and try it. ive done a handful of other hackintosh, dual boot, and tripple boot systems. i guess i see how it turns out lol. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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