building hackintosh from scratch

[starsbravo]

Hi everybody, im new to this hackintosh thing, but I need a mac and im planning to get a new pc to fullfill my needs for a speedy win7/osx box. Already researched a little and found this on newegg, and sticking to my budget it could be as follow:

• SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 500GB 3.5" SATA 3.0Gb/s Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive
  Sony Optiarc DVD/CD Rewritable Drive Black SATA Model AD-7240S-0B
  Rosewill TU-155 Black Mid Tower Computer Case + 400W PSU
  Intel Core i5-750 2.66GHz LGA 1156 95W Quad-Core Processor
  GIGABYTE GA-P55M-UD2 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard
  GeForce 9500 GT EN9500GT/DI/1GD2/V2/A Video Card
  G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory
  PQI U339H 8GB Flash Drive (USB2.0 Portable)
  

I just researched a little more at newegg and found that for $60 more I can change the ram & video for the following:

• 
  GIGABYTE GV-N250-1GI GeForce GTS 250 1GB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI
  OCZ Gold 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model OCZ3G16004GK

I think most of it is as tonys rig, I just changed the videocard because I really want an hdmi out, and the other thing I dont know is if the psu could handle the system consuption, but I found it to be a gang, let me know if I'll need mor power and how much.. Thank U!!

U Guys rock =D

 

[Jocelyn84]

Build looks great, and wonderful HDD pick. The only thing I'm questioning is that crappy PSU (bad reviews of it even on newegg) that'll come with the Rosewill case and your decision to go form the 9500 to the gts 250.
The Psu should or rather might suffice, but I wouldn't go with anything lower than a good brand 450w (Corsair, Antec, OCZ, etc) with a 250 (Gigabyte's site calls for 450w on that card). Moreover, I don't believe you're going to get that HMDI port working in MAC os, and if you really would like a GTS because you might game in Windows or something, I'd get a 250 with a double DVI port for compatibility reasons. DVI/VGA tend to have problems being recognized, and this is true even more so with built in HDMI. You can just get a DVI -> HDMI connector (some cards even come with them) for a double DVI card and know your card will work oob. If you don't plan on gaming or doing major video/photo editing, there's really no need to get the 250 over the 9500 imo.

Good place to look for Nvidia card compatibility for SL.
http://wiki.osx86project.org/wiki/index ... 0.6#NVIDIA
http://wiki.osx86project.org/wiki/index ... 6.1#NVIDIA
http://wiki.osx86project.org/wiki/index ... 2#NVIDIA_2

If you have any other questions, feel free to ask

 

[wlp5]

FYI, I have a Gigabyte 4850 1gb (the silent one without a fan) on which I got (after trouble which is well known how to solve now) all the ports working, VGA, DVI and HDMI. Works great in both dual-view and mirror monitor mode. I'm driving a 24'' IPS monitor with the HDMI with no problems at 1920x1200 with a 19'' one as second (on DVI) at 1280x1024.

Haven't been able to solve my wake after sleep problems but apparently some others with the same video card got it working. It must be my motherboard-graphics combo but that's really the one problem right now.

 

[starsbravo]

ok, thx for the feedback, I have a few questions:

-In the lists of compatible hardware, all the listed devices are compatible, but not all work out of the box right? (the "yes/no" last column)

-Why some videocards that are displayed in 10.6, arent displayed in 10.6.1 or 10.6.2 and viceversa, is it because nobody added them to the other table?

I dont need my pc to be amazingly fast with graphics, just decent,I have about $150 budget for graphics.. I just have seen an "MSI GTS 250 512 MB Overclocked edition" for $120 but I've seen other gts250 cards in the compatibility list but none MSI, so thats why I'm asking.

I want the HDMI to connect my tv to the pc when I want to see Movies, it can be done from win, no problem there, but the thing is, im building this pc from the ground with the solid intention to have a mac xD, so comnpatibility and budget are my main prioritys =)

Here are some options I have from my local hardware store (I just realized newegg doesnt ship to PO Boxes lol)

• MSI 250 GTS -512mb ddr3..........115
  Evga 250 GTS -1gb ddr3 SLI......155
  Zotac 9800 GT- 512 mb SLI.........89
  eVga 9800 GT- 512mb SLI............109
  PNY9800 GT- 1GB ddr3 SLI....119
  ATI HD 4650 - 1GB ddr2........59.99
  XFX HD 4670 -1Gb Hdmi ddr3..75
  ATI HD 4670 - 1Gb ddr3 Hdmi...79

Another question that came up is if I'll need an actual mac for something, during my hackintosh building, any large flash usb (8gb for example)

Thank you guys sooo muuuuch for your patience you are being really helpfull

By the way.. the reason I want a mac is so I can develop apps for Ipod and Iphone ^^ so, any advices about that are trully apreciated =)

 

[Jocelyn84]

-In the lists of compatible hardware, all the listed devices are compatible, but not all work out of the box right? (the "yes/no" last column)

Correct

-Why some videocards that are displayed in 10.6, arent displayed in 10.6.1 or 10.6.2 and viceversa, is it because nobody added them to the other table?

Yes, if it worked in 10.6 it'll work in .1 and .2 Likewise if it worked in 10.6.1 it'll work in .2

I want the HDMI to connect my tv to the pc when I want to see Movies, it can be done from win, no problem there, but the thing is, im building this pc from the ground with the solid intention to have a mac xD, so comnpatibility and budget are my main prioritys =)

Yeah, you just use DVI->HDMI converter, which usually comes with most cards.

Here are some options I have from my local hardware store (I just realized newegg doesnt ship to PO Boxes lol)

• MSI 250 GTS -512mb ddr3..........115
  Evga 250 GTS -1gb ddr3 SLI......155
  Zotac 9800 GT- 512 mb SLI.........89
  eVga 9800 GT- 512mb SLI............109
  PNY9800 GT- 1GB ddr3 SLI....119
  ATI HD 4650 - 1GB ddr2........59.99
  XFX HD 4670 -1Gb Hdmi ddr3..75
  ATI HD 4670 - 1Gb ddr3 Hdmi...79

When you figure out which series of card you want, let me know and I'll try to find you a lower price.

Another question that came up is if I'll need an actual mac for something, during my hackintosh building, any large flash usb (8gb for example)

I have no personal experience without using an actual mac, but I'd imagine you'd just go the cd/iso route.

 

[starsbravo]

I have no personal experience without using an actual mac, but I'd imagine you'd just go the cd/iso route.

Sorry, I didnt expressed it correctly, what I meant is: Are we needing an original Mac (not hackintosh) in the process of building a hackintosh, because I dont have any Mac I could use. Im asking this, because I readed somwhere, when listing the steps to build a hackintosh, that you had to conect the Hdd to a real mac to perform some strange update or something, thats I was asking, and if i'll need a secundary storage device (another Hdd or an usb memory) because I only have another hdd (pata) and I'll have to buy anything needed =), BTW I just readed that "auntyjamima" has the MSI gts 250 working

I decided to complete this build with an Antec EarthPower 650W PSU (for just $60)

BTW2, do I need an extra hdd for dual/triple booting to win7/ubuntu ?

 

[thelostswede]

Using the tonymac boot disc, you do not need a Mac, that's what makes it so great

 

[idrinkjava]

"BTW2, do I need an extra hdd for dual/triple booting to win7/ubuntu ?"

With my setup, I have two SATA drives. One contains the Win7 and Ubuntu (d1) and the other holds SL (d2). The easiest way to do this is to set up the first drive with a Win7 partition (p1), Linux swap partition (p2), and Ubuntu distro (p3). You can give this an NTFS boot record and SL won't be affected by it.

Plug d1 into the mobo.
Unplug d2 from the mobo.

Install Ubuntu first. Select p2 as the swap (I partitioned it with 20GB) and set the system volume for p3. Right before you start writing the OS to disk you will see an advanced button below a prompt that shows your partition set up. You need to set the boot loader to get installed to p3 which will probably be sda3 or something like that. The default is sda. By doing this, you allow the Chameleon boot loader that will get installed later to boot off that volume. After the Ubuntu installation has finished, run the Win7 installer on p1. This does not require a special set up of the boot loader. Just set it to the right partition and let it go.

Unplug d1 from the mobo.
Plug d2 into the mobo.

Intall SL onto d2 and partition however you would like. Make sure that the partition table is GUID in the disk utility option in pre-installation menu. After the install completes install OS X 10.6.4 or latest OS update BEFORE RESTARTING THE SYSTEM AFTER INITIAL LOGIN. Then run Multibeast with the appropriate settings. Shut down the computer.

Plug d1 into the mobo.

When the Chameleon boot loader appears, you should see the apple logo and a sliding progress bar with text below it that says something like "press any button to enter boot menu". If you don't press any buttons, the computer will boot into OS X. If you do, you will see a logo for the SL, Win7, and Ubuntu installations.

Once you have verified that you can boot into all of the OSs, you will now have a native tri-booting machine.