DIY Hackintosh Tutorial: Build a Mac Pro for Cheap

Your hackintosh will die in about 3 weeks. That stuff with a 350PU, hope you don’t care of the data you have inside.

    -130

32bit only O-o?

    -33

Wow great tutorial here - and it looks like a good build you chose. If you bought a genuine PowerMac case, or an old one even, you would be set.

    +24

Wow, what an informative tutorial!
Thanks so much for posting it I have missed building PC’s. I was planning on building a Windows PC this summer, but now I’m going to build a Hackintosh. I hope you keep us posted about its performance.

    +18

I just wonder how noisy this thing is. In my experience, PCs tend to be much louder than Macs, which I dislike very much.

Could you please make that comparison too?

Thanks!

(subscribed to comments)     -3

Is it upgradable though? Meaning will the system break down when doing software update?

    +26

Nice article.

Some alternative bios settings for your motherboard that you might want to consider:

Virtualization Technology [Enabled]

You can turn on virtualisation and use it with parallels if you want. Not too important. Having it on does not seem to cause problems with overclocking

Enhance C1 Control [Auto]
CPU Internal Thermal Control [Auto]
Intel(R) SpeedStep(tm) tech. [On - or auto or whatever]

I found that if I didn’t have speedstep and C1 on, sleep would not work. If I enable them and use the real apple kernel with efi boot, then sleep will work. Unfortunately having these enabled limits your overclocking potential as you can not increase the cpu voltage. It is up to the individual to decide what is more important. You have done a mild overclock so it probably doesn’t mater that you can’t increase cpu voltage in your case.

Hyper Path 3 [Disabled or off or whatever]

It is normally recommended to disable Hyper path 3 if you want to be doing overclocking above a certain amount. You have done a mild overclock so it probably doesn’t mater in your case.

I would like to stress that if people are doing overclocking, it is important to do thorough stress testing of cpu and ram. This is most easily done using windows tools such as orthos/prime95 and also using ram testing such as memtest86+. Overclockers might want to research this.

    +16

Could you mention some of the limitations of a Hackintosh? I am interested in ditching my Mac mini and building one of these.

Also, I hear the line-in, sleep and shutdown don’t function on this configuration. Could you verify this?

Thanks!

    +7

OMG how amazing.

Hum, initial price, price per work hour, any downtime/productivity loss, resale value, etc.

Is it really that cost effective? Or is this that ugly girl can really kiss?

    -13

Wow I really enjoyed this article and hope to see more like it here soon.

So I have just began sourcing parts for this experiment, and should have everything I need in a few days. I went with your _exact_ build except added a hard drive in order to setup RAID. I’ll report back when I have everything ready to roll…

Can anyone comment on the gaming potential running this setup and gaming through VMware Fusion on a Windows VM? Possible?

(subscribed to comments)     +0

Ive done this and its just not worth it, you can’t upgrade anything unless you wait for it to be hacked etc. also it was no where near stable when I was doing it (I have heard it has gotten better).

(subscribed to comments)     -19

I’m intrigued and am considering doing this. One question though: your hard drive appears on your desktop with an orange drive icon, indicating OS X sees it as an external drive…meaning it could be accidentally ejected. Is this the case, or did you just customize the icon (I notice the dock is customized)?

    -3

Plug your HD into the black port.

It wont show up as an external HDD then.

The red port is meant for a eSATA adapter that plugs into that port, then goes on the backplane.

    +10

EFI lets you update it, you don’t need to wait for it to be hacked.

    +11

So yes, you can apply ALL offical apple updates, including the yet-to-be-released 10.5.2

    +11

It was an interesting article. This is great as a low end mac pro. Type system. So the headless imac. However it misses alot of things that people pay for in the mac pro. For example you can’t put 32gb of RAM into it. It would be some serious work to fit 4 hard drives into it(mind you thats just what case you pick) Also no optical in. But for most people thats not a problem. Noise level can be fixed with some fan controls but this will add to the cost. Remember this is also compared to the old mac pros. So the benchmarks don’t mean a thing. Because to make this same system when the 2006 mac pros came out the costs would be alot closer. The Mac Pros were cheap back then compared to dell etc. Its short on firewire ports too…only one. The FSB is slower too…..in real world performance the mac pro would win out. Particularly the new ones. But anyway this is a GREAT option for a headless imac. As long as you have some technical knowledge to do it.

(subscribed to comments)     -10

Great Article and Very Interesting though like others I already own a Mac Pro system.

Jayden makes a good points about not being able to upgrade memory to 32GB of RAM, but then who can afford 32GB of DDR2 FB RAM needed for Mac Pro. Mac Pro memory is WAY over priced for something we are not getting, but the present system design doesn’t offer any other options.

Thanks for the info and I’ll look forward to updates since I may end upgrading my GFX card sooner or later.

Brian…

(subscribed to comments)     +0

Well, for starters, it’s not a Mac Pro because it doesn’t have Xeons with at least four cores (the minimum you can get on any of them). (I do wish Apple would fill that gap: Core2Duos in a mini tower.)

    -2

I think this was a great piece. DIY(ing) it can be hard the first couple of times, and giving clear instructions can help to get you going. The machine may not be a powerhouse, but it’s a project piece, and a learning tool. If the made for 1st year computer science students do this in lab they might come out of school with more skills they could take to the market. You made a great tutorial with a lot of detail.

    +3

32GB of ram? Sure that board only supports 8GB… but I think that’s more than enough unless you’re rendering Hollywood movies on it. In which case you wouldn’t be building a hacked together Mac.

The motherboard in this build is a great choice, I have it myself running Leopard without any issues at all. Solid!

    +6

Nice, so you’re saying we’ll spend $935 bucks, plus tax in some instances and we have to spend a few hours shopping around and a few hours working to make sure everything is right. That’s great, I like that you’ve got this done and it will help some people, but I just had to order mine online and unpack it. It works the way it’s supposed to work the moment it’s out of the box. Plus with a few minutes of shopping around I paid less than what a student would pay for a new Mac Pro. I guess the cost is about the same in the end, unless you’re a teenager and time has no value.

    -43

Bloody Razor buys DVDs at Blockbuster for full MSRP because his time is too valuable to justify checking Target to see if it’s 10 bucks cheaper there instead. Bloody Razor goes to a car dealership and asks how much the car he wants costs, then writes a check for it without any haggling or effort, because his time is too valuable to bother with researching or counter-offering or any of that mess. He just goes into the car dealership and drives out with a new car. So what if if cost him a few extra thousand dollars…he’s not some teenager whose time isn’t worth anything.

saving a couple thousand dollars on a machine that costs a couple thousand dollars is probably worth the couple of hours it takes to make this happen. I wonder how much Bloody Razor got paid to watch the Steve Jobs keynote this year?

    +21

I must say i strongly dislike people like bloody Razor saying teenagers time has no value. People like him piss me off. We aren’t all lazy butts thank you very much.

(subscribed to comments)     +15

Jayden and Ben,

I agree with both of you for a few reasons. I’m well beyond the teenage years, but know personally many young computer users who do more then play games and complain about having too much homework.

I have too much homework, mine just revolves around web development for clients at 2AM in the morning.

One things is clear though, Apple needs to move on and open the door to someone else when it comes to computer systems. As much as I like my Mac Pro workstation, anyone thought about upgrading their memory or gfx card lately. Last I checked, it is pretty hard to login to Nvidia and ATI and find the latest drivers for Mac OS.

I understand Apple’s hesitation (supporting Mac Clones in the past didn’t go well, lowering their price point, etc), but companies like Dell are not going to build Mac systems with just “OkiDoki” hardware that barely works.

I’m sure Dell is also not the only ones willing to try something else beside Windows Vista and the standard Redmond failures.

I say if your motivated…you should go for it, build a Mac compatible system and do it Legit! Buy your own copy of Leopard, Mac Apps and try it out for yourself. If you need the professional workstation like the Mac Pro workstation, take the leap and enjoy what Apple really has to offer.

(subscribed to comments)     +5

Hi,
I’d like to know if it’s possible to do a hackintosh with an AMD processor instead of an Intel pross?..

(subscribed to comments)     +4

Yes, http://wiki.osx86project.org/wiki/index.php/HCL_10.5.1#AMD

(subscribed to comments)     +6

You omitted the cost of Leopard in your price totals. At least, if you wanted to be as legit as possible. So that’s another $110 or so (at amazon.com at least).

    +6

Cool article! Rather than fork out for an iMac that comes with a screen that I don’t want, a Mac Mini that’s woefully underpowered, or a Mac Pro that is simply overpriced, this is the great fourth option that Apple doesn’t want to give its users.

And for those whining about pointless this all is because “it’s not that cheap” and how we should all be good customers and just go buy a real Mac Pro instead: yeah, well, we’re not all BMW owners.

Plus, if you already have the hard drive, casing, optical drive etc, all you’ll need to do is upgrade the motherboard, processor, RAM and maybe the graphics card. With new copy of Leopard added, that should cost about $300 to $500 (depending on speed you choose). So that’s, what, about a third the price of an iMac?

No wonder Apple doesn’t want to release OS X to other platforms.

    +4

to dilmah actually the mac pro is underpriced….by over $1000 compare it to a Dell Precision 690 with the same CPU and a competitive GPU.

(subscribed to comments)     -1

Sorry the Precision T7400 not the other one i mentioned.

(subscribed to comments)     +1

Would be any problem if using RAM: 4GB DDR2 800 Mhz in two dimms ?

(subscribed to comments)     +0

And 8 gigas of pc800 ddr2 memory? Hacked-Macosx is 64bit or would I loose 4 gigs cos is 32bit?

(subscribed to comments)     +2

Which disc did you use to install leopard?
Retail? Kalyway? Brazil? ToHs? or iATKOS?

(subscribed to comments)     -3

Got it. Sorry read the article a bit hastily.

(subscribed to comments)     -1

can i buy a pc laptop and do this hack.
what kind would be better?

(subscribed to comments)     +0

The video card driver you referenced ( http://scottdangel.com/blog/?p=15 ), i cant seem to download the file. (i just get HUGE text files (30mb)) Ive asked for help there but got no answers, can you help me?
or link me to another way to drive this vid card with the same build as your hackintosh?

thanks

(subscribed to comments)     +0

I have a PC running vista now,
gigabyte ga-965p-ds3
2 gb ram 800
core 2 duo e6600

do u think if i bought a separate hard drive i could do this hack and run parallels? or do the BIOS configurations not work with windows?

    +0

Hi all,

I am new to this forum. I tried to install hackintosh in my PC, immediately when it shows up the Darwin boot loader is loading it restarts. My machine configuration is as follows:

1. Intel 102GGC2 motherboard
2. Nvidia 7300 GT
3. Pentium D 3.2 GHz
4. 120 GB Seagate IDE HDD
5. 250 GB Seagate SATA
6. Creative Audigy Value
7. 1024 MB DDR2.

If anyone succeeded in installing Hackintosh in this config kindly let me know the procedure.

Thanks in advance.

(subscribed to comments)     +1

pwr2thepenguins: regarding the video driver you’re having trouble with ( http://scottdangel.com/blog/?p=15 ) it’s a .PKG file, which is an archive format for use with OS X once it’s been loaded.

It will NOT be usable on your Windows box.

    +0

And now for something completely off topic…

I always thought the Realtek logo looked like a crab, not a scorpion.

    +6

I’m confused, why do those who believe their time is of such great value search and read posts in forums, let alone leave comments? If you’re not interested in the article’s topic, why bother? Possibly for the opportunity to just bitch and moan…?

In general, a DIY approach, if taken seriously, can almost always (if nothing else) lead to a better understanding of how our world works. Simply accepting the process and mechanics of any idea or device without understanding it’s core system leads to a lack of progression and allows for those in higher power to better control the masses. Take auto repair for example; imagine if it were included in our academic development growing up (as it once was), and presented as an extremely important requirement, how much stress, time, and most importantly, money we could avoid/save? Car repair does involve some tools most would not have access to in their home garage, but there’s a long list of DIY receipts that in fact, after the initial learning process, can provide the average person an opportunity to rely less on the auto repair shops. What other choice do we have but to take their word on the matter… if they say it needs replaced, then it must… right?

Point is, in certain cases (e.g. computer, auto and home repair) where the item, device, machine, whatever is a major part of our everyday lives and involves such intricate workings, wouldn’t it be wise if we were all better educated and overall less afraid to take matters into our own hands…? I think so.

So… take control and make your own Mac damn it, fight the power!

Wow… I really need to cut back on the Adderall.

(subscribed to comments)     +10

Thanks man, your article inspired me to give it a shot. After some hours of trial and error, I am ecstatic with my oc’d 45nm E8400 based result. Under Leopard 10.5.2, it has turned out to be a very fast and stable machine. Faster than the Mac pro in all bench marks except threading.

While I admire the Apple engineering, as a long time Mac head, it bothered me that I could not build a fully customized machine like the PC folks could. It also seemed wasteful to me to watch a machine go obsolete without being able to upgrade CPU etc. to squeeze more life from it.

I hope that Apple will find a way to embrace this market segment and not try to stifle it. Producing their own reasonably priced, customizable, mid sized tower for hobbyists might be the solution.

    +8

Hi Darwinian,
You are a lifesaver. I was having a big headache tweaking the BIOS. I didn’t get this thing working properly, until I found your guide!.
I just wanted to thank you for your effort writing this. Keep up the good work!.

(subscribed to comments)     +1

Sistema operativo con más futuro…

El sistema mas usado va a ser. MAC OSX, es mucho mas veloz, versatil, dinamico, seguro, estable, bonito y barato que cualquier otro..
Pero para que Mac OS sea el m……

    -1

Idiots like Bloody Razor don’t know that people also can buy their computers that can work straight out of a box. And yes, they deliver too. And as a matter of fact, i felt i wasted about a million bucks replying about his comment. Cuz you know, I’m a busy man!

Anyway, great writeup, and i am going to do this to my newly acquired, $600 laptop!

    +0

Hi Guys,

Owning a Mac has been elusive for me….

I have several PCs with different purposes though

This is a great leap for me

I’ll build one with an 8 gig memory, 500 gig HDD, Intel Quad Core processor, and a High End ATI Graphics Card

I have some questions though….

I want to put in some peripheral cards….

If I buy a Tuner, does it have to be a PCI or PCIe TV Tuner developed for Macs?

What about Scanners….

Using a Mac has its appeal for me for multimedia and graphics purposes

Anyone here can give me some tips?

I’d appreciate it if there would be some.

The last time I used an apple was in the Apple IIc and IIc days

Nowadays, the only apple I own is an IPod

Having the Ipod sync in its native environment would be a thrill for me

    +0

Marlou for scanners anything that will work with a normal mac will work as all you need is drivers. So anything that says its mac compatible will work. And even some things that aren’t might.

(subscribed to comments)     +0

Hi

Do you have any successtion how i can get Leopard from My SD Card on my EEE Started ?

Installation is no Problem but the startup…
I will keep Windows XP on my SDD Harddrive….

Thanks in advanced

Tiilt

(subscribed to comments)     +0

Hi. Thanks for the great article. This has really made me want to have a go, partly because I don’t trust Microsoft operating systems and partly because I don’t trust Apple hardware. I’m writing this on a broken G4 Powerbook by the way. The screen hinges snapped (common problem) and the screen is glued together, so to fix it is to more or less destroy it. The other G4 fried its own brain (common problem) and a new board costs about as much as the machine was worth.

Anyway, I was curious when I read some earlier comments about how you can’t fit 32gb in your machine, wondering what it would cost if you could, so I priced up a top spec mac and then looked up some of the components listed on Bizrate. The result? Well, it looks like a 32gb, twin 3.2 Xeon box with 4TB storage and an Nvidia Quattro will set you back $18399 from Apple, or $8058.10 if you build it yourself. Truth to tell, I didn’t factor in mouse, keyboard and OS, and the ram was 667, not 800, but then I couldn’t be bothered to obsess more, having already proved a point. Apple gear is way overpriced, but then, that’s not news. It’s just nice to know that the best gear can now be married to the best OS for less than you used to have to pay.

    +2

Trev you do know Apple kills you on the RAM, no one in their right mind orders RAM from apple redo you comparison ordering RAM from a 3rd party like it should be done. Apple has underpriced that machine compared to other companies, compare it to a dell with the same CPUs etc. With apple you save over $1000. Now granted anything will be cheaper if you build it yourself.

(subscribed to comments)     -3

I most enjoy the apple-heads (now before you get offended I’m one of them too for the most part) talking about the “underpriced” mac pro. Yes, for what you are getting the price is more than fair - at time of release. Where apple makes a killing is on duration. That’s why they can underprice the MacPro upon release… because it will cost exactly the same amount in 6 months (or in the case of the last version 12+), however, they will be paying significantly less because the hardware will already be largely outdated and cheaper.

I have a mac… but I also have ‘hackintoshes’ that are all running perfectly with the exception of one of them not sleeping - which I don’t mind. They all run vanilla kernels, all take any software update apple pushes out, etc… etc…

The bottom line is that many people would like more power and flexibility than an iMac offers (i.e. run a 8800GT/8800GTS) with the latest graphics update, run a quad core CPU, run a very fast dual core (E8400@4GHz), etc…

All of these can be had for less than an iMac in basic configuration… and if you’re like me and have most of the hardware and cases just lying around from PC projects and clients… it’s win-win.

Not everyone needs 8way SMP - and not everyone needs 32GB of ram… sometimes you just want 2 cores running twice as fast and 4GB of much faster (albeit less reliable) Non-buffered DDR2

    +2

DON’T DO IT, DON’T USE A HACKINTOSH if u plan to use it with adobe CS3 suite, this suite is not working, there is a patch for installing but it crashs easily.

I coudn’t use cs3 suite properly yest so if there’s someone who knows how to do it PLEASE I beg u tell me at leicacanon(AT)gmail.com

(subscribed to comments)     -5

I only use Photoshop CS3 and it works rock solid (and amazingly fast) with my hackintosh.

(subscribed to comments)     +2

Interesting post, interesting comments.

To the Mac Pro defenders — yes, a Mac Pro can be a good deal if you want to buy something that works right out of the box and the Mac Pro has precisely the specs you need.

One of the central problems for a lot of people buying a Mac is that they don’t need the exact specs of a Mac Pro. If you’re buying a Dell (and especially if you’re building your own system), you have the option of scaling down when you don’t need some elaborate, expensive feature. With a Mac Pro, you often don’t have that option.

If what you need is a car that comes off the line really fast, a Porsche can be a very good investment. If what you need is a car to take you to work and back, a Corolla may be a better choice.

Ultimately, a Hackintosh is simply about people who like using Macs enough to want to use OS X, but want lower costs or more choice in hardware. If they weren’t Mac enthusiasts, they would just go build a system that ran something else. It’s certainly easier.

Personally, I prefer Ubuntu, though I can imagine buying a MacBook Pro to run it on (the price is in the same ballpark as a high quality ThinkPad, which is what I currently use). But I love the idea that people can buy whatever hardware they like the most and run whatever operating system they like the most on it.

    +7

DiGiCiD@L, the thing with that is most companys do the same thing with not lowering the price accordingly. If you configure a Dell precision 690 with 2 dual core 2.66ghz CPUs (same ones as the old Mac Pros) Then put a DVD burner in it. a 160gb drive(smaller then the old Mac Pros), A basic sound card. You will find the price is $3,018 This is still with a lower end GPU then the Mac Pros came stock with. That price is more expensive then the new Mac Pros, AND the old ones. Many companys do what apple does with not lowering their prices. Now i am not saying its right i am just saying don’t imply Apples the only one who does that.

(subscribed to comments)     +0

I’m a pro Editor, Certified in Final Cut Pro.

I build Hackintoshes because they are much more stable and I can use any Video card on the market at half the price… I can fit 8 SATA II HDD’s in a normal $30 case from Fry’s, bought it two weeks ago.

I have a Bios, I have control over my hardware, you have to go to the Apple store, Have fun waiting 3 weeks for it to get back to you. Every piece of Hardware has Manufacturer’s warranty for 3-years, for Free!!!

By the way I can build a 8 core 2.0ghz, EFI able HAckintosh for $2000, not $4000. Mine has 16GB of Ram, yours has 2GB stock.

i can run any Operating system I need to when New software omes out, Linux, Windows or OSX,

Red One footage renders better from PC hardware on Windows, Even though I’ll use FCP I transcode with a PC because its just faster.

    +6

Ugo Tognazzi said on

January 28th, 2008 at 7:58 pm

“You omitted the cost of Leopard in your price totals. At least, if you wanted to be as legit as possible. So that’s another $110 or so (at amazon.com at least).”

I have some swamp land in Florida for sale.

    +0

Ugo Tognazzi said on

January 28th, 2008 at 7:58 pm

“You omitted the cost of Leopard in your price totals. At least, if you wanted to be as legit as possible. So that’s another $110 or so (at amazon.com at least).”

Here’s the problem though: even if you purchased a copy of leopard, its still illegal (or least in violation of the end user agreement). As the EULA for apple states OSX can only be run on apple certified hardware.

(subscribed to comments)     +1

I have all the parts to build a 4-core 8 gig Hackintosh and I was wondering if I would be able to just use that computer as a Slave computer to my Macbook pro, to free up my resources. Some of my more high end Plug-ins for my music programs eat up my computers resources and I would rather not shell out the 3 grand for a new mac pro. Does anyone know if this works, or has anyone tried this?

(subscribed to comments)     +0

“Important: With the processor make sure you get the one that has G0 stepping (not B3 stepping). The G0 version runs cooler thus can be overclocked more with a stock cooler more so than its B3 counterpart.”

Where do I look for this info spec?

    +0

What monitors are you using with this Hackintosh? I think I can make out the Samsung logos, but what are they, and are they VGA or DVI?

    +0

Thanks for the inspiration mate.

I rushed out on the w/e to get myself some parts for my own Hackintosh project. My hardware:

Intel D975XBX2 motherboard
Intel C2Q Q6600
4×1GB DDR2-667
El cheapo Nvidia GF 7500 - 256MB (ASUS)
160GB HDD (system)
250GB HDD (data)
iMic USB Audio
Antec 650W PSU (a bit overboard but all I had)
old AOpen case

The only thing that didn’t want to work out of the box is audio. The situation is similar to yours, audio hardware doesn’t show up in the profiler but is shown in the audio settings. Difference here is that it didn’t work. So I got myself an iMic USB audio adapter (others will probably work too) and all is fine.

The system runs Kalyway 10.5.2 and updates perfectly via the software update. All I need now is a niceer looking case. I have an old Power Mac G5 case here from a dead Mac but I don’t have the skills to convert that one, so it’ll have to be something more “main stream”.

I bloody love my Hackintosh. I love it so much that I’m gonna try to turn my Laptop into a Hackbook

Thanks a bunch for this article, Thanks to Kalyway and all the others for making this possible.

    +0

Thats just a sub-standard gaming pc (667 RAM? 8600? LOL!) made useless by installing a sub-standard OS.

    -3

hi , Im sorry for my english but i install with the following hardware:

Asus M2NPV-VM
2 Gb Kingston ddr2 667
Athlon X2 4200+
Gforce 8600 GT 512M
hard disk 80 IDE
Ethernet 3Com Etherlink C905

Xbenk mark 103

Everything run fine

The version of the OS leopard is Leo4All

Thanks

Norberto

(subscribed to comments)     +2

I have all the parts that was listed in this install guide in an already recently built computer running Vista and want to switch over to Leopard as I already have a copy I bought from Newegg.

My question is can you update the apple software online like windows or there is no way to keep updating because it’s not apple hardware?

    +0

@Awethentik

That depends on the OSX you are using. I don’t think you can use a standard OS X disc as your PC will fail the hardware check. You can use something like Leo4All but you won’t be able to use the regular software update because the OS is hacked quite a bit and software updates would destroy the hacks.

I used Kalyway OS X, which doesn’t hack the OS itself, jus the installer and it adds drivers for other hardware. I’ve used the automatic software update and it worked without a glitch.

Hth

    +0

I noticed some people saying PC’s are louder then macs, and questioning how stable these are.

They are FAR quieter then Macs, or at least can be. The great thing about this is you choose what fans you want, I have mine overclocked from 1.6ghz to 2.7ghz my temps are 30c and I can’t hear a darn noise from my computer.

This should really be a punch in the gut for apple, they have horrible customer support. Thats right sir $59.99 for one problem, which we can’t guarantee we can solve. Or how about a $700 charge for a hinge replacement on my old powerbook ?! Are you kidding me. They are the biggest taxers ever, I’m not talking about government taxes. But this thing I like to call paint it white, apple taxes.

Apple makes a great running system, but besides that everythings a crock. It’s really simple to make these computers. It’s all plug and play. You can get all the information you need here.

http://www.insanelymac.com

Good luck with your build everyone, you won’t regret it. These things are FAST and stable, just read up and build one right.

    +4

Yes yes yes yes yes, I did it!!!! And it works like a charm. Leopard 10.5.2 in a 19″ rack is up and running:
• Motherboard: Asus P5W
• Processor: Intel Core™2 Quad Q6600 LGA775
• RAM: Mushkin 4×2GB DDR2-800 PC2-6400
• Video Card: eVGA eGeForce 8600GTS w/256 Megs RAM
• Hard Drive: Western Digital Caviar 640GB SATA. 7200RPM. 16MB buffer
• DVD Drive: Samsung WriteMaster DVDWriter SH-S203P, DVD-DL, SATA
• Case: Compucase S4UT6, 19″/4U

I had to patch the Finder.app and some other apps to complete the german language pack. All applications are running very fine, woooohooow!

Recently, I bought a MacBook and a iMac, so I can salve my consience

Thank you for support.
Pim

    +1

Is there a Tiger OS X build for a hackintosh? I use Macs for music production and Leopard is not compatible with all of my programs.

(subscribed to comments)     +0

@musicman83

Well not that you could easily get a hold of anyways. You’d have to have the original disc (at the time of the intel macs release), and most people are just getting leopard. You might just have to wait til the developers upgrade the music software. But basically you won’t likely find Tiger, prepatched and precracked for a hackintosh setup like you will find leopard at times.

(subscribed to comments)     +0

Thanks….I have an Intel-Tiger OS X disc that came with my macbook pro. I’ll try to patch that dvd. Am I going to be able to use this hackintosh as a slave cpu to give my macbook pro more power or visa-versa?

(subscribed to comments)     +0

hi, i have the same build, P5W DH Deluxe & q6600, same MB and CPU. re BIOS settings above, IDE Detect Timeout (Sec) [0] i found that with set to zero then the internal sata DVD reader was not seen by the system, set it to at least 5. and ALPE and ASP [Disabled] i found this prevented wake from sleep, set to enabled.

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la la la

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test2

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Ditto on having the same board, these BIOS tweaks helped. I am running an almost completely vanilla retail install on my machine and everything works, especially sleep! Thank you.

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Also for SirToby, you need to use the EFI route (check Netkas) as I am installing from a retail DVD, no hacking required! I have had to change a few files after the install and had to read up on how to get the system to recognize my built-in ethernet, HD audio and nvidia 8800GT video card on startup(secret is EFI strings…again from Netkas’ forums) but I can assure you, this system is fully updateable. When it comes to a major system update, I’d probably hold off and check the forums furst, but then if it ain’t broke, why fix it.

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This is uncharted territory for Apple and it shall be interesting to watch what they will do about all those clever folks who bypasses their vendor lock inn. I aim to gradually move to FOSS for all my computing needs and pre installed Ubuntu machines from Dell are priced for my sort. If the dual core £350 computer can run OS X Tiger then it’s bye bye Apple store. This Hackintosh thing is great fun