Contribute
Register

Making a hackintosh using MacBook parts

Status
Not open for further replies.
Joined
Jul 11, 2018
Messages
2
HI!
I have a mid 2012 MacBook Pro without the Retina display. With 4GB RAM and 500GB HDD SATA. i5 processor. It’s battery recently died on me and I plan to use the parts of this laptop to build a hackintosh by putting them all into a NUC. Do I need to install Unibeast and Clover to get things done in my case or should I straightaway purchase a NUC, fit in these parts and boot the system?
 
Hi,
You will be using a motherboard not from Apple. Apple has a special chip on their mobos to that macOS to verify that "yep, I'm on a Apple Mac". So, even if you are repurposing Mac parts, macOS still won't recongize the NUC mobo; you will still need UniBeast/Clover. But, if you can retrieve the WiFi/Bluetooth module, that will save a lot of compatibility hassle. I assume that you will still need a fresh storage device to setup UniBeast/Clover, and transfer data later; you can, however, still try boot up first with the drive from your MBP (provided that you backed them up).
By the way, if it's only the battery that is dead on the MBP and the rest is fine, why not just replace that battery? That could be potentially cheaper, easier, better, and more stable than a NUC Hackintosh.
 
Oh great news!
Well, actually.. I miss a key on the keyboard and I have cracked yet still functional trackpad. Now instead of fixing all these from the Mac, I figured it would be easier to just build a computer by retrieving parts and still have the Mac experience. Add a Bluetooth keyboard and an already in use mouse. All I need to get going is a screen. But I also want to know.. if it is cheaper to use the thunderbolt port to an external monitor? I am just unable to decide!
 
Well, if you don't really want to fix it, then yeah.
The part you can fetch from the donor are DDR3 204 pin SO-DIMM RAMs, (probably) the WiFi antennae, and the HDD; the CPU on the NUC and on the MBP should be soldered; I'm not sure if the fan, speakers, and optical drive will do you any good.
Pc2N4o6qW5nYURxE

Photo from iFixit.
Surprise! Apple used special connectors for the Airpost card. You probably can't use it else where. Gonna need a Broadcom M.2 card, I'm afraid.

If you want to use the donated HDD, you need to make sure the NUC you will buy can fit a HDD; otherwise, you can consider investing on a M.2 SSD. You will still need to at least borrow a storage device. somewhere for backup and restore purposes; you might want a new one, as HDDs aren't that expensive, and NVMe SSDs are really, really fast.
if it is cheaper to use the thunderbolt port to an external monitor?
Emm... I take it that you want to use thunderbolt on NUC, right? It can quickly get expensive. Intel had recently launched this bad boy, containing a i7-8809G with AMD Radeon Vega M integrated GPU and 2 Thunderbolt 3. In general, your best best on graphics output is DisplayPort, mini-DisplayPort (which shares the same physical interface with Thunderbolt 2), or HDMI. VGA just won't work with macOS (unless you use some active converters).
Here is Intel's NUC lineup for your reference. Other major mobo vendors also make NUC factor computer or mobos; you might also be interested in mini-ITX.
 
Last edited:
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top