- Joined
- Jan 1, 2014
- Messages
- 14
- Motherboard
- GA-B85-HD3
- CPU
- i5-4690S
- Graphics
- GTX660ti
- Mac
- Classic Mac
- Mobile Phone
DSMEDIC10's Haswell Build:
GA-B85-HD3 - i5-4690S - GTX 660 Ti
GA-B85-HD3 - i5-4690S - GTX 660 Ti
Components
Intel Core i5-4690S Haswell CPU
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00J2LIF3C/
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116990
Gigabyte GA-B85-HD3
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00E36XNQ0/
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128629
Already Owned
Gigabyte GTX 660 Ti
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B008UG2W20/
Antec EA-650 Power Supply
http://www.amazon.com/Antec-EarthWatts-EA-650-Green-BRONZE/dp/B004NBZAES/
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371044[/SIZE]
8 GB Corsair XMS3 DDR-3-1333MHz RAM
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B003N8GVUY/
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145315
Antec P280 Tower Case
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005X3E5BO/
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129179
Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000A6PPOK/
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA4831KK0962
Logitech Wireless Mouse M705
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0034XRDUA/
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16826104390
Samsung 830 SSD 128GB
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0077CR60Q/
Samsung EVO 840 SSD 250GB
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00E3W1726/
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147248
Seagate External USB 3.0 HDD 2TB
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00834SJS0/
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822178474
Comments
This was my first hackintosh build. I'd say overall it was a success. I ran into some problems as I'll outline below. But overall this was a fun project. On a build scale of 1-10 where 1 would be considered a pre-built computer that had all the software already configured and running, and 10 being a complete disaster where I returned most of the parts because of problems, I'd say this was a 3.
I built the hackintosh because of two reasons. One was because it seemed like a fun project. Two was because I really wanted to run Logic Pro for my recording studio and didn't want to spend thousands of dollars on an actual Mac. I have no problems with Mac's and I've used them in the past, and really enjoyed Logic Pro as a DAW package. But building a hackintosh seemed like a less expensive way to get the system I wanted.
Goal:
I've always built my own computers and installed versions of Windows on them. This time my goal was to build a Mac OS and Windows 7 dual boot computer. I wanted the ability to play my Windows games (Skyrim, X-Plane, Civ5, etc) while still using the excellent DAW software package Logic Pro X. Since I was currently using an AMD Phenom II 965BE and Asus motherboard, the first thing I needed to do was research on an Intel motherboard/CPU.
Part Selection:
Using information from this website and reading a lot of posts, I selected a Gigabyte GA-B85-HD3 motherboard. I selected this motherboard for the fact that I would be able to install Mac OS easily. The B85 chipset is similar to the more common Z87/H87, but it lacks a few features, namely SLI support and RAID support. Since I didn't need either of those features, I selected this motherboard over others due to lower cost.
Next was the CPU. My goal here was to have a quad core CPU that had turbo boost and was low power. I really wanted to have a low-power computer, especially coming from my overclocked AMD. Intel recently refreshed it's Haswell CPUs and I bought the fastest "S" series (65W) CPU released, the i5-4690S. It's a 3.5GHz CPU that turbo-boosts to 3.9GHz and still keeps within it's 65W TDP.
My existing components would suffice as compatible hardware, including my Gigabyte GTX 660 Ti, 8GB Corsair RAM, Antech P280 case and power supply. I reused my Samsung 830 and EVO 840 SSD for the drives and selected the 830 as my Mac OS drive, while retaining my existing Windows 7 install on the EVO 840.
Installation Procedure:
Before I began the hardware install, I booted my AMD system one more time, booted Windows 7, made a system backup, then proceeded to uninstall all the AMD specific drivers (LAN, audio, chipset, etc). Once uninstalled, I shutdown Windows.
Next was the removal of my AMD hardware and installation of the new Gigabyte motherboard/CPU. I booted the new system and entered the BIOS to enable my Samsung 830 SSD on which I would be installing Mac OS. I disabled the Samsung EVO 840 which had Windows 7 on it.
After installing the new hardware, I followed the Mavericks install guide found on this website. I created my Unibeast USB with Mavericks 10.2 and MultiBeast 6.3 using my wife's MacBook Air. Then I booted my new computer and entered the BIOS to configure it as outlined in the numerous Z87 BIOS guides. I configured my drives and disabled the on-board graphics (using the GTX 660 Ti instead). I enabled USB support and set those options to "Auto". In fact I set every configurable option to "Auto". I enabled the LAN and audio. I setup my CPU and case fans to run in "Silent" mode. I configured the memory speed to 1333 MHz (appropriate for my RAM) and disabled the RAM profile.
I booted the UniBeast drive and installed Mavericks on the primary SSD (Samsung 830). Note that in order to actually get to the Mavericks install screen I needed to boot using the "-x" boot command flag. Mavericks installed as expected without problems. Upon reboot (again booting using the Unibeast USB with the "-x" flag) I installed MultiBeast. I selected typical options in MultiBeast including USB support, Fake SMC, Realtek LAN, ALC892 audio, etc. I also installed the Chimera boot loader (3.0.1) via MultiBeast.
After installing the drivers, I rebooted and entered BIOS. There I enabled the Samsung EVO 840 SSD (with my existing Windows 7 install). I set the primary boot drive to the Samsung 830 (Mac OS drive) and secondary to the EVO 840 (Windows 7).
Now I was able to boot the computer (without the UniBeast USB) and the first boot drive (Samsung 830 with Chimera installed) was booted and I was presented with the Chimera boot menu. I had a number of choices including Mac OS, Windows 7, and "System Reserved". As we know from experience, Windows 7 actually boots from the "System Reserved" partition. I selected that and booted Windows without a problem. I installed the necessary Windows drivers for my new motherboard.
Once Windows was installed, configured and happy, I rebooted to Chimera and selected Mac OS. The system booted with a KP. So I tried to boot again and the system booted successfully.
From here, I configured Mac OS to my liking. I went so far as to edit the Chimera boot file and hid the "Windows 7" partition and renamed the "System Reserved" partition to "Windows764". This only applied to the Chimera boot menu. So now when I boot the machine, I have two choices, Mac OS or Windows764.
One problem I had was random freezes. I installed, reinstalled, uninstalled and deleted many kext files with no success. I finally tracked my problem down to using the standard Mac OS NVidia drivers. I downloaded the NVidia Web Drivers and updated them via the NVidia app. This fixed my random freezing problem. However I was having a GPU-not-clocking-down problem. For this, I researched this web site and found that the latest 10.9.3 Mavericks and newest NVidia drivers fixed this problem. I tested this by running the Heaven benchmark. After exiting the benchmark, my GPU remained at high frequency. Using the latest NVidia drivers with Maverick 10.9.3 fixed this. Incidentally I installed the "combo update" for Mavericks 10.9.3 rather than using the App Store. Once I installed the 10.9.3 update, I reinstalled my LAN and audio drivers from MultiBeast and rebooted.
Overall I am quite happy with my hackintosh computer. I'm just beginning my stability tests before I install my DAW software. I'd say that the system is quite stable right now, but further testing will be done. Windows 7 boots without any problems and is very stable and fast. One thing I will mention is that I use Windows Backup and Restore. With the drive setup I have (Mac OS primary drive, Windows 7 secondary), Windows Backup and Restore fails with a VSS and SPP error. I fixed this by entering the BIOS and disabling the Mac OS drive, forcing the Windows drive to become the primary. I then boot the system (no Chimera of course) directly into Windows 7, use my Backup and Restore to backup my system, then reboot into BIOS and change all the drives back. A little cumbersome, but it works.