Node 2.0 - a Hackintosh build

[at0mac]

Yet another view of the card, I could look at it all day... Looks better in real than these pictures.
I tried to fit the stripes right to the edge, so it looks like its part of the actual plastic.

Btw, also gave my firewire card some carbon, it is not going to be seen so much, because the graphics card kind of hides it, but in the right angle from above the pci brackets it would be possible to spot the red, so "had to" do it.

I even went to the lengths of polishing the heat pipes on my DirectCU II cooler (just like I have done it with my CPU cooler, a little of Brasso Silver Polish, same as used on jewelry, and a really soft cloth and voila, totally bling-bling)!
Very shinny in real, but very hard to catch on a picture, because if I use flash it just bounces off on the silvery shine and distorts.

Final view of the cards installed, all four PCI slots occupied like it would be on a real mac (have you ever seen a iMac og Mac Mini with an empty slot on its back? Nah)

For the past week I have not really slept, I come home from work at about 7pm, then play/showers/feeds my daughter and am together with the wife until they go to bed and I can start building - which ends with me dozing off at around 4am were I go to bed, before I have to wake up again at 8am.... Hopefully soon done!
One great thing about all this nightly business is the show this machine puts on when I turn the lights on, looks epic!

 

[at0mac]

Just before I closed the machine off I took some finishing pics.
It´s not the last update, don´t worry I´m not done yet - but it is the the last you will see of it´s internals.


From the front

From the side (notice the unusual placement of the PCIe power cable, could not fit any more cables trough the cutout holes in the MB tray, so had to route a different way)

Different angle (see were the LEDs are mounted, wanted to go below the CPU tower, but there the light was very weak, too many obstructions)

Say hello to my little friend (the official hackintosh logo)

Finished off top view

From a different angle

...time to upload more pics for you guys to see, update coming later




//stay sharp

 

[at0mac]

As this is a hackintosh, which on it´s own also categorizes as modding (because I´m modding OSX to be ran on PC hardware), there is a lot of software involved.


As hackintoshing is kind of a grey area, I can´t really tell you to use this as a recipe - and if the forum mods ask me I will of course happily edit my software posts to make them better suited for everybodys taste.


First I have a little story to tell, as some might have noticed I was away from the updates for some days, because I ran into software trouble (google me and you will most likely find the recipe anyway).


I have a few pics of the whole process, starting with the boot loader after I had booted off an emergency USB stick.

Second up manual injection of boot1h (because for some odd reason that was not part of the installer) - it does though bring me back to the good old days of Basic and Commodore 64 (yes, I am actually that age).

After that it booted, but did not come past the Apple logo...

Needed to inject a SMC kext too, doh!

Booted off the emergency USB again and installed all the kexts I could think of!

For some odd reason that SMC kext did not work... So had to boot off the USB again and retry that + another little tidbit that might seem to help

Every 2013 machine should be connected to the big ol'web, so I need some Ethernet...

And voila machine now boots and can go online!
It is actually the machine I am writing this from - even using my bluetooth keyboard and Magic Trackpad directly off the Bluetooth dongle and it´s native Mac drivers! (btw, the range was not as good as hoped so luckily my Dell 2009WA screen has a build in USB2 hub, so the dongle sits nicely on the backside of the screen well within reach of the keyboard/mouse).

Even iCloud works!!

A CUDA driver later...

...and it thinks it´s a Mac Mini server from 2013, fair enough, it kind of is according to it´s specs. But as a true mac mod'er I will of course mod the system info whenever I am close to be done with installs (wait for it)

Funny fact, because of the mini moniker it also got a software update for Thunderbolt, even that this machine does not have that port

So what do I need to do now?
RAID'em!!!


The RAID is just sitting there ready, now back to the installs...

//Talk to you later friends

 

[at0mac]

Almost done with this project, but have still not settled down and played one single game as there is a thousand things to install, setup and bug fix.


About installing and bug fixing I have run into a few unexpected problems:


Problem 1:
First and most annoying is that I am apparently not able to run flash content with hardware acceleration, if I do then the whole screen starts flicking pink/green, just like it´s described here.


Good thing though, is that it was easy to solve, just uncheck hardware acceleration for flash and all is fine. Also not to forget, it seems this issue is not only a Mac issue but an actual nVidia driver issue so should soon be fixed for good.


Problem 2 + 3:
Because of this issue apps that use Flash also have a hard time, I experienced that in the newest edition of a mac app called Clear Day, it completely froze the machine until I found a work around and shut the app down. What was even worse is that uninstalling it gave me even more trouble - it resat my whole icon arrangement throughout the system (Launchpad and Finder and everything) so had to arrange a fresh - but that was not enough, it deleted my bluetooth devices!
Took quite some time to get everything back to work...
A mac would never really have this issue as very very very few macs use GeForce GTX graphics cards (only the Mac Pro can do that).


Problem 4:
Then there was the issue of not being able to see my temps in the OS, I always use a app called iStat for that kind of info - but it had no sensors to read from.
Hmm what is wrong now - a wrong SMC patch.... Had to manually inject a new one...
And now it works! (look up in the corner)

Problem 5:
Steam... Installed, loged in and authorized - and then it said it could not connect... Eh, but how could I log in if you could not connect? Something wrong right there...
Spend the most of 2 hours to try and solve the problem via all the suggestions here.
Solution? I eventually uninstalled everything that had to do with Steam, restarted and downloaded a fresh version from the steam website - and this time it downloaded 96MB instead of the 46MB it had downloaded the first time I got the app. On to something here.... And voila, it worked!
Seems that there is something fishy going on with the steam servers, like one of them still have an old version of the software so until you get past that one and get a fresh copy it will not work.

So far I only have one problem left, my favorite download manager for mac, speed download 5, don't want to work on this new machine, it only downloads in the kb range, which results in files that don´t work off. Have not tried it yet, but am pretty sure I will go for this one instead.




-Not done yet, so stay afresh for more updates friends

 

[at0mac]

Just realized I have skipped pics of the raid install, will do so as soon as I connect my cam.
Anyway, will be later, for now im sure you want something more exciting - benchmarks:


The good old mac mini 2011:

vs. this new machine (you should know the specs by now)


First, HDD vs SSD RAID0:

That is absolute awesome speeds!!!
Actually, I just went to see how it compares to SSDs out there now (as I bought these more than a year ago, a week after they was on the market).


A brand new SanDisk Extreme II 240GB will do this on its own

So according to a graph like this I am not that far behind, more than a year after!
A really good investment, but a really pricey one too... (could actually buy one Crucial M500 960GB now for same price I gave for these two).


Moving on, GeekBench on the old one:

And on the new one (forgot to save it before I uploaded to the browser):

A small increase, but then again I am also only upgrading from a 2011 dual core i7 to a more recent dual core i3, and from 1866MHz 8GB to 1600MHz 16GB.
Geekbench only covers RAM and CPU.


NovaBench covers more parameters, on the old it looks like this:

On the new one:

A BIG upgrade, but then again one is RAID on SSDs and have a powerful graphics card, so would be odd if the difference would not be like this...


XBench old:

vs
XBench new:

Actually my new machine is not so underpowered as some might think, see here how it fares up agains some other PCs with the same XBench values:

Last, Cinebench old:

vs

//stay tuned for more updates soon, take care

 

[at0mac]

Just want to show off a quick little software mod I just did...

What does it do?


First off it moves my download folder to an external drive (a normal 1TB FW800 drive partitioned into 4 pieces) - because of that I lost the original icon, so had to re-find it (except it does not work anymore in sidebar, but who cares).
Then it hides two of the partitions - the "downloads" and the "time machine".
Also, I have hidden the Alias arrows throughout Finder (shortcut icons), so every alias looks like the real deal. Lastly, a little mix and match of files in the system and all heavy apps can now write to the external partition "Scratch Disc" instead of eating up both the life and the space on my SSDs.


Looks something like this in the end:

See there is only three drives (out of total 5) in the devices list, the lower two from the FW disc I am talking about (the clone is the install drive that will be removed as soon I am done).
Not yet sorted is an alias that links to the disc Scratch Disc (thats where all new imported music ends before being sorted out), also my iMovie, Toast and Parallels use the scratch, just to mention the heaviest apps doing so.


I know this is not case modding, this is more in general the whole complete story of what makes this computer awesome




//Stay alive people

 

[at0mac]

Yes, I am not done yet...


Ran into some trouble - reason: The pink flickering issue also covered apps that use hardware acceleration (which means encoders or games). So pretty damn useless...
Needed a fix!


Found out it had something to do with the driver I had installed and the SMBios used (Mac Mini 2013 6.2), but when I tried to change my SMBios something came up:

Should not have been so difficult to fix, but after a few tries I gave up, deleted my RAID and installed all over... Also, part of it is that my boot loader and some other few tidbits has been updated since I first installed (due to them being now Mavericks ready), so seems to be a good time to reinstall.


When I was at it re-installing the OS a package arrived:

My second WD MyBook Studio - the most silent external hard drive I have ever used.
I already own the 1TB edition, but here is the 2TB - for a total of 2+1+0.480 = 3.48TB space!
I have not told, but I am replacing a broken NAS with this machine so need a good deal of space for everything we have.

These drives are beauties, black and anodised alu, mmm... FireWire 800 FTW!


Back to the installs...

"Thank you, your HACK is setup and ready to use"

"Start using your HACK!"

 

[at0mac]

Yes, NOW I am done!


Final pictures have ended up on my Flickr which will be updated with full blog in native resolution for those who are curious.


Here you have a few of them:

See more at my flickr here.




Btw, the quick will notice the new geeklets on my wallpaper and the mods I have done to the menubar and dock - check out my modified geeklets, DockMod, how I have hidden Synkron apps dock icon, hidden a few rarely used menubar icons and in the end fixed the last strange hiccup.




This machine runs smooth as butter now!
Could be slightly faster in terms of CPU, but im waiting for the 3770T or S to go down in price - I have reached well beyond all my requirements already.


Thank you for following my little diary
Hope I inspired a few.






//Enjoy!


:rock:

 

[thierry37]

Really nice build and moding !
Always nice to follow all the steps with pictures.

I just discover it now, after jumping from a link to another link to your flickr, to your blog, to here.

I was wondering if it is running really really quiet?
It seems you have many fans in this little "box".

Did you think of using a CPU fanless heatsink?
(would the case airflow be sufficient?)

(I was looking at the FT03 and it seems the latest version has already few fans inside.)

 

[at0mac]

Really nice build and moding !
Always nice to follow all the steps with pictures.

I just discover it now, after jumping from a link to another link to your flickr, to your blog, to here.

Quite a journey you have been on to end up here, but yea this thing is pretty many places around the web already.

I was wondering if it is running really really quiet?
It seems you have many fans in this little "box".

The plan is in the near future to make a video of the machine running, because you would not believe it if you were here - the backlighting in my 4 years old IPS LCD screen is louder than the computer (I have a good old Dell 2209WA).
The machine is 1.5 meters away and dead silent - even when gaming on highest possible settings in all the games I have!
Biggest reasons I am sure is the passive PSU and the SSDs (actually I am using mechanical drives, WD Studio drives as you can see further up, they are build in a block of aluminium and hard plastic solid that suppress any noise).

Did you think of using a CPU fanless heatsink?
(would the case airflow be sufficient?)

(I was looking at the FT03 and it seems the latest version has already few fans inside.)

[/QUOTE]

In the beginning my point was to make a 100% passive machine in a Streacom chassis, but as time went on and I researched specially passive graphics cards I changed my mind. They are pretty low end to run without fans - so I had to go for a version with very silent fans. But as high end graphics card turn kind of hot and then spreads that heat to other components I would need a few fans. One more point, the passive PSU is placed pretty badly in this chassis, at the very bottom - so all the heat from it transfers up trough everything else and needed a little airflow not to build up too much heat. Best material and best shape for a chassis would no doubt be something build out of thick aluminium and looking like a chimney - so thats why this case works so well. All my fans are extremely low RPM ( i don´t know about the Silverstone fans as my edition is from NoFan and hence the name come without any fans).

So to answer your question short, yes I thought about it but found out it was a bad idea in the long run for anything else than a basic HTPC. (I also want to be able to game)


//Cheers