Re-entering Hackintoshes, need build advice for "MacMini" type

I’ve been using my Mac Mini (late 2012) since about the time they came out. I do also have a old history of hackintosh creating three builds prior to moving back to a real Mac, way back in 2008/09 (hard to believe it was that long ago).

Anyway, back then was a much more challenging process and after many, many, many issues I gave up and went back to real Macs. But my Mac Mini is giving me heartburn lately and I’m leaning back to creating the machine “I want” and not the machine Apple is trying to sell me.

I have looked thru the “Building a CustoMac” guides which are quite good but I still have questions about putting the pieces together. As in…does anything listed there play well with each other? Can I mix and match between the components and maintain a solid build? And most importantly what is the most stable in terms of each component?

My requirements:

A very basic computer for Excel, Word (ver 15 and with little desire to upgrade), regular low demanding apps (iTunes, web, mail), very few games (also on the low end), lightroom and final cut pro (but with both are on the home movie/amateur photographer level)

Currently I run Yosemite and would really only like to upgrade if it is needed to bring stability to the new build.

Silence is golden and that is of vital interest to me. I have a FreeNAS system running inside a Fractal Define R4 case and just love it so that would be my choice unless someone has a better suggestion.

I don’t have a budget but want to keep it low, however I feel the needs/uses of what a computer is for me should quite frankly be on the lower cost side. Hey, that's why I bought a MacMini.

But I do want stability. I would really like a machine that I will be able to use for 4-5 years as I have with the MacMini. Keeping in mind that I’m not first in line to upgrade software, I do want something that can be at least a little future proof.

Any and all thoughts would be very welcome.

You could follow this guide https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/guide-el-capitan-on-the-skylake-h170n-wifi.178197/ and substitute an I3 or I5 to save some money. You won't need to pay 300 usd for an I7. You can also use a standard SATA ssd instead of what Ammulder uses in his guide. Many people have built these GA mini-itx systems and been happy with them and El Capitan. You also won't need to spend a lot of money on the case. You can get a basic ITX or mATX case for 50 dollars or less. To keep it quiet use a quiet LP CPU cooler and case fans. You won't need a lot of sound dampening in the case then.

trs96 said:

You could follow this guide https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/guide-el-capitan-on-the-skylake-h170n-wifi.178197/ and substitute an I3 or I5 to save some money. You won't need to pay 300 usd for an I7. You can also use a standard SATA ssd instead of what Ammulder uses in his guide. Many people have built these GA mini-itx systems and been happy with them and El Capitan. You also won't need to spend a lot of money on the case. You can get a basic ITX or mATX case for 50 dollars or less. To keep it quiet use a quiet LP CPU cooler and case fans. You won't need a lot of sound dampening in the case then.

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Thanks, I'll look at that. I should have also mentioned that my current Mac is ethernet and so I don't need wifi so this build looks good since I could drop the wifi card as well.

Being a moderator I suspect you too have been at the hackintosh game for awhile. Is if fair to say that maintain system stability is easier now than it was 5-8 years ago? As I mentioned I went back to a real mac because it just became a real pain to keep things working thru each dot dot OS update. I'm not expecting something as seamless as a real mac but I'm hoping things like ethernet, etc can manage to stay stable thru an update or two.

gmacman17 said:

Being a moderator I suspect you too have been at the hackintosh game for awhile. Is it fair to say that maintain system stability is easier now than it was 5-8 years ago? As I mentioned I went back to a real mac because it just became a real pain to keep things working thru each dot dot OS update. I'm not expecting something as seamless as a real mac but I'm hoping things like ethernet, etc can manage to stay stable thru an update or two.

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I'm still using my Gigabyte Z68 motherboard. It's more reliable and stable than any Mac I've owned. I'm not on the latest macOS Sierra yet but I'm sure it'll even be able to run that. So for the small investment, around $120 I got a real gem. No freeze ups, kernel panics. Runs completely silent, seems like it will last another 4-5 years but who knows ? I got started here because of the outrageously high cost of a replacement Mac Mini mobo. New boards will all have UEFI and you'll use Clover as the bootloader. You can get a build working just as well as a real Mac with maybe even better performance.

My work/production machine has been a Hack since 2011, like trs, I'm using a Z68 board and 2600K-i7. This machine is powered on 24/7 since it was built, and I 100% rely on this for monthly income. So for me, Stability is very important, and "Failure is not an option." I have a 2TB spare bootable clone of my 2TB system drive.... plus other data drives hooked up via SATA and USB.

I don't jump on the latest and greatest OSX dot-update, just because Apple put it out there. For several years, I remained on 10.8.4 while a lot of people were running 10.10, or 10.11. Only last June I finally did update to 10.11.5 (due to the fact that a lot of programs I need to use don't run on my old 10.8 OSX anymore).

10.11.6 came out, and now Sierra came out... guess what? I'm still on 10.11.5. I'm in no hurry to upgrade. This has been a sweet, very stable machine for me.

I'm also rocking an old 6870 video card. No need for 3rd-party drivers. Running native since Snow Leopard. No problems... and now with (3) monitors hooked up; 2 Apple cinema displays and (1) 21" Samsung.

Thanks guys. It gives me even more motivation to get back to creating the computer I want.

As I remember back I think I tried to do the right things by focusing on hardware that multiple others had running well and researched components that seem to work well together. And in reality it wasn't that I had multiple problems, it was just that I would try to update the system periodically and as you point out that is not necessarily what has to be done.

So thank you both. I'm going to scope out build and will post back for added thoughts/edits/suggestions.

After much thought, I think stepping into the Skylake game is not something I want to do, even though it appears that platform is gaining more stability.

Since both my current Mac Mini's are running Yosemite, a move up to EC is about as far as I really want to go at this point. Looking at some of the Golden Builds, I've narrowed in on working with the Gigabyte GA-Z97MX-Gaming 5 board that n3oNLit3 had in his guide (as well as several others I viewed). I've chosen this one since it appears to be very solid and stable and the costs of the components since they aren't the latest and greatest save some extra $$$$.

I also liked the fact that I could find very detailed and well thought out guides to help me in the build and install process.

I've modified my build to be a bit lower in umph than these other builds since I really don't need the extra horsepower (and heat, and fan noise, and cost, and...)

So my build as I have it scoped right now will look like this:

Gigabyte GA-Z97MX-Gaming 5
Core i5-4590
Crucial Ballistix Tactical (16GB)
Samsung 500GB 850 Evo SSD
EVGA GT 740 SC
Corsair CS 550 Watt

Thermaltake Slim X3 Low Profile
Fractal Design Define R4

Ideas, thoughts or suggestions are always welcome.

Hi, these are just my *personal* opinion... so take it FWIW. You did say you wanted stability in your orig post.

For me, I avoid 3rd-party kext if possible. I'd prefer to use hardware that's supported natively by Apple supplied kext/drivers. So yes, while Realtek NICs and the newer/modern nVidia cards (with web drivers) can work with OSX, I prefer to stick with native kexts. It's not the latest and greatest, but I think it's just more STABLE and DEPENDABLE in the long run, *even* after multiple major OSX updates (10.6, 10.7, 10.8, ---> 10.11). My NIC is using the native Yukon kexts, and my GPU is also using native OSX kexts. ... same with my Firewire card, it's using TI chipset so it's supported natively by OSX.

If you can't splurge for 32GB, upgrading to at least 24GB is a noticeable jump in performance from a 16GB. (Less disk swapping, faster performance. Running a VM, its very noticeable the increase in speed 16GB vs 24GB.)

USB3 is the only feature I don't have that would probably be nice to have.

I'm using an 850W Corsair. Sometimes it's only few dollars difference between a lower rated vs. higher rated PSU. Plus, it's better to have a beefy PSU and it not being stressed, than a PSU operating nearer/close to it's max rating. I've kept my Hack powered on 24/7 the last 5 years.

powerpcg5 said:

You did say you wanted stability in your orig post...

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You got that right, and major thanks, I like the direction you are pointing me.

I should say the way I looked at stability in my researching what board to get was along the lines of what many others are able to achieve without too many headaches. So I dig deep into others builds looking for guides, success stories, etc with many comments like "great guide, this was an easy build" kind of thing.

Like you, I would like USB3 as a nice have. But more importantly a sound and reliable network (again ethernet, no need in my case for wifi) is key. But as I looked at guides I tried also to stay semi-close to current so that I could at least find the components for sale on Amazon/NewEgg. But maybe I'm staying a bit too close to current?

Agreed, memory is so cheap I'm cutting it too close and might as well go up.

The other thing I was thinking was perhaps not going with any gpu card at all and sticking with onboard HD4600 which one of the guides for this board had done. Which I believe is native and would avoid any driver issues. So I may go that route, again, not a big gamer here.


EDIT: I can get that sonnet presto card I believe you have for like $43. But even then (although taxing my mind now to remember how these things are done) wouldn't I be turning off onboard lan in the bios and then having to use some means (again forget a lot of this stuff) to have the system recognize the lan card?

I don't think a Skylake system would be any less stable than a Haswell system running hackintosh.

If you really want to to avoid having to install kexts/drivers, look for:

1. Yukon based ethernet PCI-e card.
2. USB audio adaptor.
3. FL1100 based USB 3 PCI-e card.
4. Nvidia GTX 600-series video card.
5. BCM94360CS wifi/bluetooth card with PCI-e adaptor.