Official CustoMac Mini 2011 Guide and Notes (in progress)

[thoric]

Re: Exploding CD!

With the rapid RPM & heat from the burning process existing imperfections expand & may fracture. Most commonly happens with rewritable & low end disks. I've stopped using RW disks & write at slower speeds because I've gone through 3 burners in as many years.

 

[gspro]

gspro
Try upgrading to 10.6.6 first to see if it's working. Maybe you can upgrade to Lion from there.

First - thanks for all the help and suggestions on the board; I'm up and running with 10.6.8 with ethernet, 1080p, and booting from the hd. Not sure about sound yet.

What is the sleep issue people have mentioned? Is it when the os starts to load, the machine just goes to sleep? I've got that, but it could be worse, at least it wakes up!

So I'm downloading Lion again; before I try it, I want to be able to get back to this point. Will a time machine back up do it, or should I be using some clone software? I've only got a single drive partitioned into 3 partitions.

 

[barry505]

I built my CustoMac Mini using exactly the same case, motherboard, cpu, and hard drive that were listed in the article. It's working good right now, but here are some observations after a couple of evenings frustrations.

1. Do not upgrade all the way up to 10.6.8, it doesn't work, even with UpdateHelper.zip. Just go up to 10.6.6, so the App Store works.

2. Install Lion using xMove + MultiBeast 4.0.2. Print out the MultiBeast Settings Screenshot, you're going to need it more than once. When installing Lion, use rBoot, and make sure you use the -x option when booting, or it will crash part way through the installation.

3. Upgrade to 10.7.1, run MultiBeast 4.0.2 with the exact settings shown in the screenshot.

4. Download and run the customac_mini_tuneup_kit_v2 to enable sound. You also need to download KextBeast to install the tuneup kit.

5. Download the 10.7.2 Combo upgrade. Install the upgrade and reboot. (I used Carbon Copy Cloner to clone my 10.7.1 installation before installing the upgrade.)

6. After rebooting, run MultiBeast 4.0.2 again, using all the same settings as shown in the screenshot. Some people on here have been saying they just set the AppleHDA Rollback, but I found that didn't work on the CustoMac Mini.

7. So far - so good.

My last real Macs were an iMac with core duo Intel, a white Intel MacBook, and most recently a new gen Mac Mini. I don't have any real benchmarks to base it on, but the CustoMac feels much faster than any of my old Macs.

I just ran Geekbench (32bit) and got a score of 6624.

Is anyone using a Hackintosh for their main or production machine? I'm just curious about reliability, etc.

 

[matelot]

Download Superduper (it's FREE) and make a copy of your hard drive. Save it somewhere so you can restore at a later time. When you create your installer partition and put Lion using xMove. Make an image copy to your USB flash drive using disk utility. You should now be able to install Lion directly from USB without upgrading to SL in the future using Gordo's method.

For sleep, you should be able to hibernate. I used to have the same problem as kapfinger. The screen goes blank but the fan is still spinning. What I did was to reinstall Lion using Gordo's method. Run MB and select user DSDT so you can boot from HD. Reboot and test sleep. You should hear the fan stops and the system goes into hibernation. To wake, click on the power button and wait a few seconds. Tap your keyboard a couple times to turn on the screen. If you use your keyboard instead of the power button, you will loose your USB connection. Then you have to disconnect and reconnect to the USB port.
Next install network using Gigabit realtek driver. Reboot. You should have network connection now. Install audio driver and reboot. Don't forget to repair cache/permissions every time.
If you want to use HDMI audio, you need to find the CustoMac mini tuner kit.

Good luck. Let us know if it works out.

 

[longtom]

I built a similar machine (same mainboard) and I can't get sleep to work.

What I did/tried so far:
Took the SSD (with Lion installed) from my MBP, booted Lion with rBoot.
Used MultiBeast UserDSDT with the DSDT-GA-H67N-USB3-B3-F7-HDMI.aml from the database.
Installed the CustoMac Mini Tuneup Kit.

When I initiate Sleep, only the screen goes black, hard disks and fans keep spinning. I can't wake it up again (neither with one time, nor with two times pressing the power button).

What now?


Model Identifier: Macmini5,1
Intel Core i5-2500K
Gigabyte GA-H67N-USB3-B3 F7
2x4 GB Ram
OCZ Vertex 2 (1st generation, firmware updated to current version) as boot drive.
Two more SATA hard disks, no optical drive.
No graphics card beside the HD3000.


EDIT: I don't really need sleep, I want hibernate / suspend to disk. But I guess there is no way to get it working without sleep working.

Use standard settings in system settings @ power saving

 

[SweetAmmonia]

What do you think of this being as being a dual bootable build? I've read on here that the Sapphire HD 5670 worked out of the box, I might go with that card instead of the one listed. Also one question, do think does the jump from the 2500K to the 2600K makes much of a difference for the $100 hike in price? I'm planning on using this computer for music programs like Logic and Reason.

 

[freestyle_gus]

I built my CustoMac Mini using exactly the same case, motherboard, cpu, and hard drive that were listed in the article. It's working good right now, but here are some observations after a couple of evenings frustrations.

1. Do not upgrade all the way up to 10.6.8, it doesn't work, even with UpdateHelper.zip. Just go up to 10.6.6, so the App Store works.

2. Install Lion using xMove + MultiBeast 4.0.2. Print out the MultiBeast Settings Screenshot, you're going to need it more than once. When installing Lion, use rBoot, and make sure you use the -x option when booting, or it will crNJash part way through the installation.

3. Upgrade to 10.7.1, run MultiBeast 4.0.2 with the exact settings shown in the screenshot.

4. Download and run the customac_mini_tuneup_kit_v2 to enable sound. You also need to download KextBeast to install the tuneup kit.

5. Download the 10.7.2 Combo upgrade. Install the upgrade and reboot. (I used Carbon Copy Cloner to clone my 10.7.1 installation before installing the upgrade.)

6. After rebooting, run MultiBeast 4.0.2 again, using all the same settings as shown in the screenshot. Some people on here have been saying they just set the AppleHDA Rollback, but I found that did
n't work on the CustoMac Mini.

7. So far - so good.

My last real Macs were an iMac with core duo Intel, a white Intel MacBook, and most recently a new gen Mac Mini. I don't have any real benchmarks to base it on, but the CustoMac feels much faster than any of my old Macs.

I just ran Geekbench (32bit) and got a score of 6624.

Is anyone using a Hackintosh for their main or production machine? I'm just curious about reliability, etc.

Nice work. I have this setup too bit my geek score is about a 1000 lower than yours, any thoughts on what it could be?

I'm loathed to run multibeast again when all is running well.

Thanks.

 

[longtom]

Flickering white noise... WTF? What is that?
Maybe your framerate is bad? :?

I'll check framerate with MacMini, with CustoMac it is 60Hz at 1920x1200 (should be OK).
I use HDMI cable with HDMI to DVI adapter on LCD.[/quote]

Same settings in Macmini and CustoMac![/quote]

PCI Root Fix?[/quote]

Is in the .plist
With VGA only, it doesn't boot till the login screen.

So, Customac Mini will be sold....

I stay with my original Mac Mini, no Hackintosh anymore.... (too time consuming).

 

[tvalenti03]

I have same build except for i72600k and a wd 500gb drive (thats what i had lying around.) I can't get it to install sl. Install failed.

I followed guides to a t. tried 4 and 8 gb ram setups and nothing. I have read that this is ok and not a problem but when I go to iboot my drive isn't showing up but in sl install I can select the drive. I was up late trying this 8 times before going to bed.

I noticed in the guide by tonymac it says to use iboot 3.1.1 but its not available for down load just 3.2 is.

any help will be greatly appreciated.

ps has anyone experienced heat issues with the apex case? I didn't think it was gonna be so tight and no fan but cpu and psu. anyone fix this?

 

[kapfinger]

I built a similar machine (same mainboard) and I can't get sleep to work.

What I did/tried so far:
Took the SSD (with Lion installed) from my MBP, booted Lion with rBoot.
Used MultiBeast UserDSDT with the DSDT-GA-H67N-USB3-B3-F7-HDMI.aml from the database.
Installed the CustoMac Mini Tuneup Kit.

When I initiate Sleep, only the screen goes black, hard disks and fans keep spinning. I can't wake it up again (neither with one time, nor with two times pressing the power button).

What now?


Model Identifier: Macmini5,1
Intel Core i5-2500K
Gigabyte GA-H67N-USB3-B3 F7
2x4 GB Ram
OCZ Vertex 2 (1st generation, firmware updated to current version) as boot drive.
Two more SATA hard disks, no optical drive.
No graphics card beside the HD3000.


EDIT: I don't really need sleep, I want hibernate / suspend to disk. But I guess there is no way to get it working without sleep working.

Use standard settings in system settings @ power saving

Except for the two timers everything is set to default there. But how could that possibly help?