Is a hackintosh reliable long term?

[ajmartin]

Hi guys,

I'm seriously considering building my first hackintosh and am comparing it with the latest haswell i7 iMac. I've been reading through the forums here, and online in general, and it seems like a hackintosh can be relatively painless... but could go horribly wrong. I want this purchase to be my workhorse for the next few years (including occasional graphic and video editing), and I don't want to be stuck spending hours fixing bugs.

So how reliable is a hackintosh? Is it worth the hardware savings over the life of the machine? Or would I regret not spending a little bit more now to live hassle free in the future?

Here's what I'm considering based on the buyers guide and parts available down under:



The motherboard is a Z87M-D3HP, and the only difference with the Z87M-D3H seems to be more USB 3.0 ports. And the RAM is C9, not C10 - I'm not sure of the difference or any implications... (I'm new to this).

Thanks!

 

[nobodynose]

Hi guys,

I'm seriously considering building my first hackintosh and am comparing it with the latest haswell i7 iMac. I've been reading through the forums here, and online in general, and it seems like a hackintosh can be relatively painless... but could go horribly wrong. I want this purchase to be my workhorse for the next few years (including occasional graphic and video editing), and I don't want to be stuck spending hours fixing bugs.

So how reliable is a hackintosh? Is it worth the hardware savings over the life of the machine? Or would I regret not spending a little bit more now to live hassle free in the future?

Hundreds, maybe (probably) thousands of people on this forum have been running Hackintoshes for years. My own experience has been that my Hackintosh is more reliable and stable than my Macbook Pro that I had before was.

 

[Goldie01]

Hi guys,

I'm seriously considering building my first hackintosh and am comparing it with the latest haswell i7 iMac. I've been reading through the forums here, and online in general, and it seems like a hackintosh can be relatively painless... but could go horribly wrong. I want this purchase to be my workhorse for the next few years (including occasional graphic and video editing), and I don't want to be stuck spending hours fixing bugs.

So how reliable is a hackintosh? Is it worth the hardware savings over the life of the machine? Or would I regret not spending a little bit more now to live hassle free in the future?


Thanks!

Both my hackintoshes are extremely reliable. I use one of them as my daily computer and it has never let me down. My hacks have given me less grief than my MacBook pro. Lots of good guides, and lots of helpful people on these forums.

 

[ajmartin]

Thanks nobodynose and Goldie01, that's good to hear.


How about updating software? Most of the resources and guides here (that I have found) relate to building a machine and installing OS X. Is there a guide or best practise for performing software updates? I could imagine with everyone having difference hardware it could get tricky, and the risk of getting errors is more likely the longer you have a machine (and the older your hardware). Your thoughts?

 

[ajmartin]

How about updating software? Most of the resources and guides here (that I have found) relate to building a machine and installing OS X. Is there a guide or best practise for performing software updates?

Ok, so I found the updates section (I have no idea why I didn't stumble across it before now). The instructions there seem pretty straight forward.

Still, I'm wondering if I should expect some issues and mucking around each time I update? Or am I going to be relatively "safe" by sticking to the buyer guide based build I posted?

 

[chmod]

Ok, so I found the updates section (I have no idea why I didn't stumble across it before now). The instructions there seem pretty straight forward.

Still, I'm wondering if I should expect some issues and mucking around each time I update? Or am I going to be relatively "safe" by sticking to the buyer guide based build I posted?

There is no hack without issues. Expect to do some tinkering.

If you buy laptops or system parts according to advice on this forum, you already have a good idea of what you are going to have to deal with. Take some time and read some of these relevant threads to get an idea of what to expect.

As for me, I read through many threads on various hackintosh sites and came to the conclusion that I was going to buy mainstream parts or laptops that seem the most solid for hacking. That lead me to purchase a Gigabyte motherboard for my desktop and a HP ProBook 4540s as my laptop. Both give me very little problems with performance and upgrading. I upgrade both directly from the App Store with only the issue of reinstalling a few patches.

My very first hack was my MSI U100 Netbook which is about 4 years old now. I really got my feet wet with learning how to hack it. It taught me a lot. The good thing for me was that it was the most difficult one of my hacks outside of an Intel MB I did for a friend of mine. With a little bit of confidence, you can deal with any issue you may come across. I think that as time has passed, hacks have gotten much easier to do and maintain with fewer problems.

 

[ajmartin]

There is no hack without issues. Expect to do some tinkering.

If you buy laptops or system parts according to advice on this forum, you already have a good idea of what you are going to have to deal with. Take some time and read some of these relevant threads to get an idea of what to expect.

As for me, I read through many threads on various hackintosh sites and came to the conclusion that I was going to buy mainstream parts or laptops that seem the most solid for hacking. That lead me to purchase a Gigabyte motherboard for my desktop and a HP ProBook 4540s as my laptop. Both give me very little problems with performance and upgrading. I upgrade both directly from the App Store with only the issue of reinstalling a few patches.

It sounds like a hack with the right parts is relatively reliable and easy to maintain then. My selected parts are pretty much what's recommended, so I think I'm prepared to jump in the deep end here and have go.

Thanks for your feedback

 

[Fokke]

Is a Hackintosh reliable? Yes, if it works it works.

Is a Hackintosh plug and play? No. Even with the Golden builds and buyers guide you will find some oddities that you have to solve. With poplar builds you have a big chance it will be solved because you'll find many users here who been through the same. If you go the Hackintosh route you have to be a little interested in computers and software and give yourself some time to read the forum and tweak the software.

 

[Adrian B]

It sounds like a hack with the right parts is relatively reliable and easy to maintain then. My selected parts are pretty much what's recommended, so I think I'm prepared to jump in the deep end here and have go.

Thanks for your feedback

As with any computer and any operating system - if you value your data then take steps to backup that data. Having a cloned boot drive to test updates is a wise precaution as using PC components is outside of Apple support.

As others have stated reliability is very good and performance can be excellent for the price.

Adrian B

 

[vienna01]

I agree with folks who say that Hackintosh PCs are stable.

If you allow your implementation to automatically be updated by Apple you likely will find the new version sometime breaks your Hackintosh. Apple changes things based on their known control of their hardware.

If you do not allow Apple to install automatic updates on your PC and you wait until an update has been available for several weeks and you follow posts reporting problems with the new version until the problem has been solved, you should be OK.

Just in case make sure you have a backup copy that wasn't updated. I use Carbon Copy Cloner to make my backups. It has saved my s_____ several times. Oh the missing word is system!