Hackintosh Reliability?

[hethin]

Hello everyone!

I have a quick question. How stable are the June 2014 Hackintosh builds? We are in the market for a new desktop. Right now we have a 2008 21' iMac that has been rock solid and trouble free. I just discovered these "Hackentosh" PC's. I was blown away at the bang for your buck that you get with these builds. But I need reliability.

 

[clipper99]

What's the primary use of the computer?

 

[Shiitaki]

Hello everyone!

I have a quick question. How stable are the June 2014 Hackintosh builds? We are in the market for a new desktop. Right now we have a 2008 21' iMac that has been rock solid and trouble free. I just discovered these "Hackentosh" PC's. I was blown away at the bang for your buck that you get with these builds. But I need reliability.

I am using the recommended build for a year and a half ago. I ended up using a USB audio adapter and a ethernet card sold for a mac pro that is supported by Apple in OSX. I then turned off the audio and network port in the bios. As a result I can do Apple update like a real mac, and installing is a breeze. I only need FakeSMC, and a boot loader. iMessage can take some work, it can be hit or miss. I am having to do virtualization for college and have run 5 other guest operating systems on top of OSX concurrently with great stability. I rarely have to restart my computer. The only issue i have is that usb 3.0 ports aren't reliable, and I have tracked down a usb 3.0 add in card to solve this problem for good. I think a mackintosh is a great way to go, but it is not a real mac. So some work and experimentation is to be expected. The usb 3.0 issue is supposed to be better with the newer motherboards from what I read the forums. This isn't that big of an issue because PC motherboards have so many usb ports, and unlike a real Mac, you can put more than one hard drive inside, and do so without using a heat gun to soften the glue on an iMac.

Don't be tempted to save ten bucks here or there, the key is compatible hardware. There are several great motherboard companies, but Gigabyte is the least work. Also, don't buy a motherboard with more features than you need, it will take longer to boot, and can cause more work. The recommended list is a very good resource. The couple of times iMessage has not worked I find myself shopping Apple.com, but I just can't justify buying a disposable computer. I've been updating my computer with new parts, but my wife has a real iMac, other than iMessage there hasn't been anything my computer won't do better faster and just as reliably. I'd like to add a SSD to her's, but I'm not willing to take on that challenge despite the fact that her's is prior to the new chassis that is glued.

PS, get a usb audio adapter if you need analog audio out for headphones or speakers, it can save you a lot of grief and they are so cheap. Protected video, movies and television shows in iTunes store don't play. You can still stream them to a Apple tv or other Apple devices. Otherwise iTunes works like it should.


I love my Hackintosh and appreciate that Apple allows this to happen. I also need to say thank you to this website for their handwork.

 

[p5ld2vm]

Hello everyone!

I have a quick question. How stable are the June 2014 Hackintosh builds? We are in the market for a new desktop. Right now we have a 2008 21' iMac that has been rock solid and trouble free. I just discovered these "Hackentosh" PC's. I was blown away at the bang for your buck that you get with these builds. But I need reliability.

If your work depends on it, get the real thing.

You will save money and countless headaches should anything arise. You will get support from other companies if you have a real mac, not with a hackintosh.

You may be able to get a reliable machine now, but who knows later with new updates, Yosemite on the way, and al....

If it's for fun, then sure!

For example, my new hackintosh doesn't play well with my audio interface, so I can't use it for recording.
It may change along the way, but for now, it is unusable.

 

[hethin]

Thanks for the replies guys! Clip, the machine needs to be a do all computer. The kids play games like WoW and WoT. The wife does accounting and I run ballistic programs. We have a P.C. also, but no one uses it. Everyone wants to use the Mac! Too the point that they wait in line to use it. Even if it's just to surf the web. I think we'll but a new iMac and I'll gut the P.C. to build my 1st Hackintosh.

 

[Rankel]

Good plan. It is best to tinker with a second machine until you get good at keeping the machine up and running in the face of issues. If you know how to handle issues, uptime is not a big deal, but the learning curve can be steep if you are just getting into it. Welcome to hackintosh!

 

[dougoftheabaci]

Yeah, I'm going to second the statement of others and say if you really care about complete stability and hassle-free use, especially over a long period, then Hackintosh is not for you.

When I made the switch it was because work had provided me with a laptop to use and my home computer was now relegated to general use, media consumption and gaming. It was great for the first two but rubbish for the third. My choices were either buy a really high end iMac (the Mac Pro hadn't been updated yet) and drop close to $3,000 or I could build a Hackintosh and save a third of that.

In the end I decided to go with a Hackintosh because I knew I'd have my work laptop (which was and is a Mac) that I could fall back to for normal use and basically keep my desktop as a strictly gaming rig sort of thing. It paid off and now I have a pretty solid Hackintosh that's really powerful.

But I wouldn't have done it if it was my primary work machine and I was still working on my own. If your Hackintosh dies you have to fix it yourself out of your own pocket in whatever time you have. If your iMac dies, you drive to an Apple store and they fix it, for free if you're under warranty, and it's fast.

You build a Hackintosh, as far as I'm concerned, for three reasons:

1. If the computer goes down it's not the end of the world, just inconvenient.
2. You actually like tinkering and don't mind servicing your own hardware.
3. You don't want to or can't afford to spend the price needed to get the real thing.

If all three of those don't match up then you probably shouldn't go Hackintosh.

 

[bmoag]

If you have no experience building or updating PCs and have no understanding of partitions I would not try to build a hackintosh as a first project.

If you are a typical Mac user you have no experience building or upgrading hardware because the Apple/Jobs philosophy prevents or shields you from that, depending on your point of view. Very few Mac users have ever opened terminal and may have never heard of a command line. Apple users do not need the kind of tools built into Windows to manage partitions because Apple machines have only one drive. Apple users never have to consider boot options, BIOS/UEFI configurations etc because of all of that is purposefully hidden from the user, for good or bad. Apple users do not have to make hardware choices because there is nothing to choose except a prepackaged, in point of fact usually one generation or more behind Wintel, machine. In particular Apple video systems are primitive compared to PC options. Apple users trade choice and high end hardware and pay a premium for what they believe is stability and reliability and most seem satisfied with that choice.

I have a genuine Mac Mini. It has hardware of the quality of a comparably priced Windows notebook sans monitor, keyboard, optical disc drive and pointing device. It is reliable but it should be for the cost and simplicity of the device. Moving from one OS to the next, e.g. Mountain Lion to Maverick, was not much different than on the Hackintosh: all did not go smoothly. I also own a retina based notebook: the 13 inch model is better priced than Windows machines with comparable displays. Its a great machine but I have to use a virtualizer to run necessary and only available in Windows business software.

For even a modestly experienced PC builder the tools on this website make it quite easy, not that there isn't a bit of trial and error, to construct and maintain a computer more powerful than most of what Apple sells for a fraction of the cost with hardware unavailable in and superior to what Apple sells. If you do not want a machine that boots into both OSX and Windows then it is even easier. Most Apple updates install without problems, at worst you may have to re-run Multibeast to reinstall audio or network functionality. I do not anticipate problems with the upcoming "new but same ancient GUI" from Apple unless they insert code designed to frustrate the hackintosh community.

If you run the same high end digital imaging and printing hardware/software on the OSX and Windows sides of a Hackintosh you may begin to wonder, like me, why I bother to keep OSX running at all. Going to the Windows side I find color management, the core of high end digital image processing, is easier and more reliable with dedicated graphics panels and profiling devices.