Second Hack Build, DIY All In One Hackintosh for the "Ole'Lady"

[bstrang6]

Well after a week or two with my first hack running great, Im bored again, and ready for another build. This time I think I may build the lady one.

I am intrigued by the Thin-ITX boards, and the thought of building an all in one PC. The case I have chosen will allow me to use a 20 inch LCD monitor I already have, and mount it directly to the stand the case comes with, slick. Later I may opt to get her a different all in one case with a larger screen, but for now this will get her up and running. This hack would see mostly Twitter, Facebook, and Web Browsing duty, so the lack of a dedicated GPU will be no big deal.

After searching the internet and forums for a while I couldn’t really find much about anyone using these new Thin ITX boards, for hackintosh’s. I did see one but it was with an intel board and for what ever reason I am really wanting to use the Gigabyte board, for nothing more than brand loyalty. How ever if it wont be compatible I will indeed go with any board recommended There is no need for Wifi or Bluetooth, how ever the mini PCI slot will be able to be used for this if need should arise down the road.

In Win k1 Thin Mini-ITX Case
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811108415
Gigabyte GA-H77TN LGA 1155 Thin Mini-Itx Mother Board
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128587
Intel Core I3 Ivy Bridge 3.3GHz Dual Core w/ HD4000 Graphics
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116774
G.Skill 8GB DDR3 1600Mhz SO-DIMM Ram
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231579
Sasmung Internal Slim 8x DVD Writer
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827151261

Hard Drive Choice is up in the air, I may even order and build with no hard drive, and simply run SATA outside the case and use one of the dozens of 3.5 drives laying around for now, how ever this is what I think I would get her, until I change my mind.

Intel 525 Series M-Sata 30GB SSD for Mountain Lion
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820167143
El-cheap-O 7200RPM 500 GB 2.5 drive for storage
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822145587

This would bring me to around 560 bucks all said and done with, and this machine should run pretty darn quick I’d imagine.

Any issues or concerns raised by looking over this list? Any tips or opinions are greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance!

 

[bstrang6]

Looking for a little advice here, surly someone has some, TTT


No disrespect ment to anyone in this forum by this post, just a little bit of comical relief lol...

 

[totenkopf4]

Looking for a little advice here, surly someone has some, TTT


No disrespect ment to anyone in this forum by this post, just a little bit of comical relief lol...

bstang

Only Issue I see is that use of the Intel SSD - this is not been tested so its not approved - have you looked at the approved items we have
SSDs can be a real problem to isolate issues w - also 30 GB is small - suggest 64 Gb.

 

[bstrang6]

I think I may just end up getting her a larger 2.5 sd, 120 gig or so, maybe a 520 Intel Series, then she can just access the 1TB I have that will soon be plugged into an airport extreme. I cant for the life of me think of anything she would store on her computer, but you never know. Thanks for the advice. Looks like I need to sell off a few toys to fund this project.

Any opinions on purchasing used CPU's and other components?

 

[zaptoons]

Looks like an interesting build. Very unique choice of hardware. Hopefully the 120W PSU with that case is enough to power everything.

I can't comment on the motherboard as I've never seen one of those used for a Hackintosh. Hopefully it works fine. I think you may be a trail blazer with it.

If possible, I'd recommend dual-channeling the memory- or I guess you'll see if it works first and then add another 8GB?

Let us know how the build goes. I'm betting a lot of people would like that kind of all-in-one option as a build.

 

[bstrang6]

Im busy freeing up funds the lady of the house wont kill me for using by liquidating my toy gadget collection on ebay a bit, contemplating selling my tablet, and a windows laptop I have laying around, if I were to do that I should be able to start collecting parts shortly. Look to have this built in two weeks time or so. It seems like everything should be compatible, I see no reason why this wouldn't, as all the parts of the board are the same on the larger gigabyte boards, just scaled down and no pci stuff. 120 should be fine for just a main board, one HDD ( and an optical down the road ) Worst case I return the board and ram, buy a mini itx board thats confirmed to work and some DDR3 desktop ram, and build something different.

 

[teddykgb]

Any update on this build? I really like that AIO case so I'm curious if you got it done.

Thanks!

 

[bstrang6]

No sorry I abandoned this build in effort to pour more look into my machine.

 

[teddykgb]

No sorry I abandoned this build in effort to pour more look into my machine.

No worries. I may try to give it a shot.