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Buying a new PC... which one?


davecool
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Hi all.

 

Most of the postings here seem to describe installing OS X on PCs you already own. A lot of people are just trying to make it work because they're stuck with the box they already have. What about someone who is in the market to buy a new PC and can pretty much buy any box?

 

Is there one type of machine that would serve me best? Can anyone say, "buy x from Dell/HP/etc. and install y and things will run smoothly"? If so, what do you recommend?

 

On the other hand, it wouldn't even need to be a brand name box, I suppose -- just a list of components since I'm willing to have it put together if need be. There's a huge list of components on the wiki, but it's hard to know which ones are the "best" ones to use in this situation and which ones work well together.

 

I'd love to hear what some of the regulars here think on this topic. Thanks for all your help.

David

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I suggest you buy the Asus P5LD2-VM Motherboard. It's a great motherboard and is also completely OS X compatible. Along with that buy an Intel Core 2 Duo E660 [sSE3, PAE, HPET, NX, Intel Enhanced Speedstep, 2.6 GHz]. Go for a Sony DRU-835A DVD Writer and a Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 series 200 (Or any other size you want!) GB HDD (SATA). All of these work well with OS X, and are also quite good hardware.

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The only two components that really have to be looked into for compatibility are the motherboard and video card. Pretty much any CPU, hard drive, and optical drive will work. I think the Intel E6320 can't be beat for value though. For about $160, you can have a chip that will easily overclock to speeds above the standard E6600, and often E6700.

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Hi again. Okay, so I've jumped in and bought the recommended Motherboard and CPU. Everything else was pretty much standard so I just got random components for HD, DVD, case, memory, etc. Should be arriving soon, I'll let you know how the install/setup goes. Thanks! David.

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Hi all! Well, I've done it... and... success!! Like, amazing, beyond my hopes success!

 

Quick overview of the components:

-Asus P5LD2-VM (version 2.0) Motherboard

-Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 CPU

-Crucial Rendition 2GB PC2-5300 DDR2-667 Memory

-Western Digital Caviar SE 80GB SATA Hard Drive

-Seagate Barracuda 320GB SATA2 Hard Drive

-Pioneer DVR-112D DVD-RW Burner

-Microsoft Comfort USB Keyboard & Optical Mouse

-Acer AL1916AB 19" LCD Monitor

 

I should mention that this is really my first PC since I started using Macs back when I was fifteen in 1995. It's certainly the first time I've built a computer from parts.

 

Putting all the components together was straight-forward. There were some "gotchas" that forced me to take it all apart, re-do one of the first steps, and then put it all back together. Nothing big, I mean, one was as simple as not realizing that I needed to use the riser screws in order to make sure the motherboard didn't touch the case. Any difficulty on this step was just my lack of knowledge on building PCs.

 

Once everything was together, it was time to start it up. I installed Windows first. Even if everything else failed, I knew that at least I'd still have a Windows box. That was straight-forward, except that I couldn't get the XP installer to install on the correct drive. I bought two hard drives because I wanted to keep the Mac OS and Windows completely away from each other and do a "dual boot" via the BIOS. Eventually, I just unplugged the Mac drive and XP installed correctly.

 

Next was the moment of truth. Popped in the JaS.10.4.8.SSE3.Intel.Only DVD and god damn if this PC didn't just turn into a Mac right in front of my eyes!

 

It took a couple erase and installs to get the installer settings right. Eventually I followed some instructions on this forum on how to install for this motherboard and it worked perfectly.

 

http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showtopic=41685

 

Then I installed JaS.10.4.9.Combo.Update.Intel.SSE3 and it worked without any trouble. I downloaded all the Software Updates from Apple, installed a bunch of applications and got their updates too. Everything still working. I won't be downloading any system updates, don't worry.

 

Then I noticed that the Mac OS was reporting my CPU speed as 1.8 GHz when this is a 2.4 GHz chip. This was also causing my clock to run fast, video playback to stutter and various other strange things. This was solved by setting the FSB kernel variable to 266 (fsb=266) thus forcing the Mac OS to run at the correct speed.

 

Then I needed to get my wireless internet working (this Ethernet cable draped across my computer room wasn't going to work out). Problem was, the PCI card didn't show up on the Mac. So, after some searching, I found another posting that described how to make it work correctly. Though, I only needed to follow the first half of the posting.

 

http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showtopic=44114

 

The only things that aren't working right now are Apple DVD Player and Sleep. DVD playback stutters and freezes every few seconds, fortunately, VLC plays fine -- don't know what's up with Apple DVD Player. As for Sleep, when I try to wake it up (by clicking the mouse or using the keyboard), the system reboots rather than wakes up. I've tried fiddling with settings in the BIOS and other low-hanging fruit, but nothing seems to work. I'm sure there will eventually be an answer to this, but for now, I say 'who cares.' This machine boots faster than my G4 wakes from sleep (or almost anyway).

 

 

So, in conclusion, I am extremely happy about this new machine. It's running both the Mac OS and Windows like a dream. It tested my hardware and software skills and I really proved something to myself. I also managed to get an awesome "Mac" for a lot cheaper than the real thing.

 

Thank you to everyone for suggestions on components and help on setting it up. Everyone here is amazing.

 

Thanks! David.

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Followup: I was able to get Apple DVD Player working by changing the "fsb" kernel flag. I had it set to 267 for my 1066 MHz board, but after seeing that the board is actually 1064 MHz, setting the fsb flag to 266 is actually the correct number (1064/4=266). I should have just listened to what others said, but I like to meddle. Still no fix for sleep, but see my last post for my thoughts on that. Thanks, David.

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  • 1 month later...

Hi! I'm not a superpro linux/mac os terminal user... So I don't know how to change the FSB Kernel Terminal Variable, is there any way you can help me to do it? I have a Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 (2.4Ghz) and it show as 1.8 inside System Profile...and I want to fix this.

Thanks!!

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Hi! I'm not a superpro linux/mac os terminal user... So I don't know how to change the FSB Kernel Terminal Variable, is there any way you can help me to do it? I have a Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 (2.4Ghz) and it show as 1.8 inside System Profile...and I want to fix this.

Thanks!!

Ok here is the easiest way, you can edit it with textedit and avoid the terminal!

 

- Make sure textedit is in your dock. If not, drag it in from applications.

 

Now open finder and navigate from your mac partition to the folder /(your startup disk)/Libary/Preferences/SystemConfiguration.

There should be a file called "com.apple.Boot.plist".

 

Drag this file to your desktop. Drag it from your desktop onto textedit to edit it.

 

Look for a part like this:

 

<key>Kernel Flags</key>

<string></string>

 

- Change it to say

<key>Kernel Flags</key>

<string>fsb=266</string>

 

Close textedit and select save changes.

 

Now drag the new file back into the /(your startup disk)/Libary/Preferences/SystemConfiguration directory where it came from. Click "Authenticate" and type your password, and click "Replace"

 

Hope this does the trick!!

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  • 1 month later...

As you said, I bought that :

- ASUS P5LD2-VM SE (Intel 945G Express) Motherboard

- Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 CPU

 

I try to overclock the processor in the BIOS. I tried with the guided mode (5%-10%-15%-20%-30%) but it does not work after 10%. So my processor is runing at 2.6GHz, but I think I can do better.

 

How can I overclock more (like 3.0GHz). Until what speed can I go with the standard fan? On some forums, I saw 3.2GHz.

 

How can I setup this without risk?

 

Thank you!

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