- Joined
- Dec 18, 2011
- Messages
- 143
- Motherboard
- Gigabyte GA-Z77-UD5H rev. 1.1
- CPU
- i5 3570k
- Graphics
- GTX 660; HD4000
- Mac
- Mobile Phone
Ok so looking around the internet trying to find compatible hardware for a Lion OS X install for my particular Dell Optiplex 745 mini tower was not easy. However with perserverence I finally have a pretty sweet system running 10.7.3 dual booting with Windows 7 Ultimate.
1st here is what I am running:
Dell Optiplex 745 Mini Tower - $250 used
Intel Core 2 Quad Processor 2.66 gHz - $150 on ebay (this is the best proc for this board)
7 GB DDR 2 Ram - (Corsair PC5300 three 2GB @ $24 and 1GB @ $15)
500 GB Sata HDD - ($75)
Asus Radeon HD 6450 1GB Graphics Card - ($45)
LG 19' LCD monitor (already had)
Targus BT Dongle (MN - ACB10US1) - ($34 @ Office Depot)
Apple Wireless Mouse ($79)
Broadcom Apple MacBook Wireless card adapted to PCI-E 1x adapter ($40 total)
All in my system costs $760 vs $2100 for new Mac Pro. Add the $70 I spent on Snow LEopard and then Lion combined and I am still way ahead of buying a Mac. I am waiting to build from scratch a new system when Mountain Lion is released I'll upgrade to an i5 or i7 system then. But for under $1000 you can't beat it
Install Method:
Set Dell BIOS to SATA Legacy Mode (Same as ACHIA)
Boot with the iBoot Legacy Disk
Use the Snow Leopard Retail DVD (10.6.3) and install base system (see instructions on this site)
Reboot with iBoot Legacy and select your Snow Leopard drive
Use Multibeast to install Chimera and install a theme and Kexts. (Make sure you save to your Snow Leopard drive and NOT download folder) Follwow instruction on this site to update to 10.6.8 so you can get the App Store - Install Chimera, Theme, Multibeast, FakeSMC, AppleRTC, EvOReboot, NullCPUPowerManagement, Sleepenabler. Also make sure your identifier is a Mac Pro 3,1 - this is important for downloading Lion. Remove disks and reboot once 10.6.8 update and Multibeast install are complete
Now in order to download Lion from the app store it is important to include the following KEXT in both the /System/Extensions folders AND your Extra/Extensions folders in order to recognize your password in the App Store: BCM5722D.kext. Use kext wizard to install and reboot. You should recognize the wireless card OOB since it's an apple card - however if you cannot find the time to rig the card on your own there are plenty on eBay. Also if you like, you can also buy a cheap USB wifi adapter. I have used the Tenda wireless that uses a Ralink chipset. Ralink actually has a Mac wireless utility which works pretty well too.
Add the built-in and ethernet locations to the Network Preferences and reboot. Upon reboot check the app store - you should be able to log in with your apple account. If not you need to delete the com.apple.Network.plist and deletes all Network preferences and reboot and re-add the preferences this should solve the problem. Download Lion and save to your Snow Leopard install location.
At this point you are still running the Dell BIOS in legacy mode. In order to get the UniBeast install method to work you will need to switch the Dell BIOS back to normal SATA mode. However by doing this your install will only recognize the USB drive you use to inistall Lion. Have no fear, google the IOATAFamily.kext and use Kext wizard to install it in the USB drive you are using for the UniBeast Lion install (there is a hidden Extra/Extensions folder) also install it in the /System/Library/Extensions and your Extra/Extensions folder in the Snow Leopard install. Complete the UniBeast instructions found on this site and reboot. Choose Unibeast at the bootloader screen and install Lion. Once done (it's pretty fast) you should be good to go - since you upgraded an existing SL install you should not need MultiBeast to update any KEXT. And now you have a recover USB drive if you ever want to do a clean install of Lion again. The above Radeon Graphics card BT Dongle and the wireless card all work OOB and all are very affordable. Plus you can boot either in 64 or 32 bit mode depending on your apps. I have not had to upgrade the OS yet as I downloaded the 10.7.3 version - however since this is a vanilla system you should be able to upgrade when and if they upgrade ther current version.
I know most folks are building systems from scratch and DELL MOBOs can be a pain so I wanted to show you can install Lion and with a small bit of tweaking the system runs with a pretty vanilla install. I love how easy the DELL case and MOBO are to upgrade the hardware and as Apple has moved to an intel based OS you can run just about everything that a real Mac Pro or system can run.
1st here is what I am running:
Dell Optiplex 745 Mini Tower - $250 used
Intel Core 2 Quad Processor 2.66 gHz - $150 on ebay (this is the best proc for this board)
7 GB DDR 2 Ram - (Corsair PC5300 three 2GB @ $24 and 1GB @ $15)
500 GB Sata HDD - ($75)
Asus Radeon HD 6450 1GB Graphics Card - ($45)
LG 19' LCD monitor (already had)
Targus BT Dongle (MN - ACB10US1) - ($34 @ Office Depot)
Apple Wireless Mouse ($79)
Broadcom Apple MacBook Wireless card adapted to PCI-E 1x adapter ($40 total)
All in my system costs $760 vs $2100 for new Mac Pro. Add the $70 I spent on Snow LEopard and then Lion combined and I am still way ahead of buying a Mac. I am waiting to build from scratch a new system when Mountain Lion is released I'll upgrade to an i5 or i7 system then. But for under $1000 you can't beat it
Install Method:
Set Dell BIOS to SATA Legacy Mode (Same as ACHIA)
Boot with the iBoot Legacy Disk
Use the Snow Leopard Retail DVD (10.6.3) and install base system (see instructions on this site)
Reboot with iBoot Legacy and select your Snow Leopard drive
Use Multibeast to install Chimera and install a theme and Kexts. (Make sure you save to your Snow Leopard drive and NOT download folder) Follwow instruction on this site to update to 10.6.8 so you can get the App Store - Install Chimera, Theme, Multibeast, FakeSMC, AppleRTC, EvOReboot, NullCPUPowerManagement, Sleepenabler. Also make sure your identifier is a Mac Pro 3,1 - this is important for downloading Lion. Remove disks and reboot once 10.6.8 update and Multibeast install are complete
Now in order to download Lion from the app store it is important to include the following KEXT in both the /System/Extensions folders AND your Extra/Extensions folders in order to recognize your password in the App Store: BCM5722D.kext. Use kext wizard to install and reboot. You should recognize the wireless card OOB since it's an apple card - however if you cannot find the time to rig the card on your own there are plenty on eBay. Also if you like, you can also buy a cheap USB wifi adapter. I have used the Tenda wireless that uses a Ralink chipset. Ralink actually has a Mac wireless utility which works pretty well too.
Add the built-in and ethernet locations to the Network Preferences and reboot. Upon reboot check the app store - you should be able to log in with your apple account. If not you need to delete the com.apple.Network.plist and deletes all Network preferences and reboot and re-add the preferences this should solve the problem. Download Lion and save to your Snow Leopard install location.
At this point you are still running the Dell BIOS in legacy mode. In order to get the UniBeast install method to work you will need to switch the Dell BIOS back to normal SATA mode. However by doing this your install will only recognize the USB drive you use to inistall Lion. Have no fear, google the IOATAFamily.kext and use Kext wizard to install it in the USB drive you are using for the UniBeast Lion install (there is a hidden Extra/Extensions folder) also install it in the /System/Library/Extensions and your Extra/Extensions folder in the Snow Leopard install. Complete the UniBeast instructions found on this site and reboot. Choose Unibeast at the bootloader screen and install Lion. Once done (it's pretty fast) you should be good to go - since you upgraded an existing SL install you should not need MultiBeast to update any KEXT. And now you have a recover USB drive if you ever want to do a clean install of Lion again. The above Radeon Graphics card BT Dongle and the wireless card all work OOB and all are very affordable. Plus you can boot either in 64 or 32 bit mode depending on your apps. I have not had to upgrade the OS yet as I downloaded the 10.7.3 version - however since this is a vanilla system you should be able to upgrade when and if they upgrade ther current version.
I know most folks are building systems from scratch and DELL MOBOs can be a pain so I wanted to show you can install Lion and with a small bit of tweaking the system runs with a pretty vanilla install. I love how easy the DELL case and MOBO are to upgrade the hardware and as Apple has moved to an intel based OS you can run just about everything that a real Mac Pro or system can run.
