Silent Hackintosh Zalman TNN300,few questions left!!

[Snapsdrossel]

Hi there,this is my first post here as I am new to Hackintosh world.
I bought a Macbook Air last autumn because it has enough power for my needs on the road and its really f... sexy.And I was getting tired of using windows,now I got addicted to the mac os so I want to go for a hackintosh.
My primary concern for my first hackintosh is that I can use as much of my PC equipment as possible put it (or leave it) in my slightly modified Zalman TNN300 case and have a dead silent little workhorse for my photography editing (wich is done with Lightroom)

So I got the following equipment:
Zalman TNN300 (Totally no noise) with built in PSU 350Watt (but a really good one,didn´t have any problems at all powering my passed away HD4850 wich is a hot card)
ASUS P5E-VM HDMI (mATX)
Core 2 Quad Q9300 4x2,5Ghz
8GB A-Data Vitesta DDR2 800 Ram (4X2GB)
120GB Corsair Force Series F120 SSD (SATAII)
4x Samsung 200GB Notebook HDD (SATA)
1x Samsung DVD-Writer SH223L Lightscibe (SATA)

My graphiccard passed away two weeks ago,I guess using a Radeon HD4850 cooled passively is not the best idea...

So I was thinking of bying a Geforce 8800 GT for this thing as I really don´t care that much about graphic power and this card doesn´t use too much power,but any thoughts there would be appreciated.
I hope that I will not get into trouble with the mainboard.But if there is any trouble with that I would consider buying a new one.I have no problem with buying a soundcard or NIC either.
My plan is to install Snow Leopard 10.6.7 on the SSD,clone the SSD on one of the 4 Notebook drives and use the other 3 as data storages.Before you ask,power consumption is quite important and even more important for me is that this thing is silent.And these notebook hdds are absolutely silent inside the case.I worked in a cleanroom,maintaining notebook displays and all day long there was this vent,I just can´t bare to hear anything from my pc at home... But for the occasional gaming that I do every now and then I installed two really silent 12cm vents,while gaming I can´t hear them anyway.Pics will follow..

I would appreciate any help from you guys.

Ah,another thing:For this board,or any other board with the socket 775 and ddr2 ram,i would use iBoot Legacy and MultiBeast?

When the hardware questions are solved I will post a few pictures.The case is the best I have encountered so far.Passively cooled,modified in a way that it can take hotter graphic cards than Zalman suggests and some really nice workmanship from Zalman as well.

Thanks in advance,this is a really good place for advice and I would really like to take part and help here and there if I can.Hackintosh it will be!

 

[notshy]

Hi there,this is my first post here as I am new to Hackintosh world.
I bought a Macbook Air last autumn because it has enough power for my needs on the road and its really f... sexy.And I was getting tired of using windows,now I got addicted to the mac os so I want to go for a hackintosh.
My primary concern for my first hackintosh is that I can use as much of my PC equipment as possible put it (or leave it) in my slightly modified Zalman TNN300 case and have a dead silent little workhorse for my photography editing (wich is done with Lightroom)

So I got the following equipment:
Zalman TNN300 (Totally no noise) with built in PSU 350Watt (but a really good one,didn´t have any problems at all powering my passed away HD4850 wich is a hot card)
ASUS P5E-VM HDMI (mATX)
Core 2 Quad Q9300 4x2,5Ghz
8GB A-Data Vitesta DDR2 800 Ram (4X2GB)
120GB Corsair Force Series F120 SSD (SATAII)
4x Samsung 200GB Notebook HDD (SATA)
1x Samsung DVD-Writer SH223L Lightscibe (SATA)

My graphiccard passed away two weeks ago,I guess using a Radeon HD4850 cooled passively is not the best idea...

So I was thinking of bying a Geforce 8800 GT for this thing as I really don´t care that much about graphic power and this card doesn´t use too much power,but any thoughts there would be appreciated.
I hope that I will not get into trouble with the mainboard.But if there is any trouble with that I would consider buying a new one.I have no problem with buying a soundcard or NIC either.
My plan is to install Snow Leopard 10.6.7 on the SSD,clone the SSD on one of the 4 Notebook drives and use the other 3 as data storages.Before you ask,power consumption is quite important and even more important for me is that this thing is silent.And these notebook hdds are absolutely silent inside the case.I worked in a cleanroom,maintaining notebook displays and all day long there was this vent,I just can´t bare to hear anything from my pc at home... But for the occasional gaming that I do every now and then I installed two really silent 12cm vents,while gaming I can´t hear them anyway.Pics will follow..

I would appreciate any help from you guys.

Ah,another thing:For this board,or any other board with the socket 775 and ddr2 ram,i would use iBoot Legacy and MultiBeast?

When the hardware questions are solved I will post a few pictures.The case is the best I have encountered so far.Passively cooled,modified in a way that it can take hotter graphic cards than Zalman suggests and some really nice workmanship from Zalman as well.

Thanks in advance,this is a really good place for advice and I would really like to take part and help here and there if I can.Hackintosh it will be!

I've only had experience of the i-series CPUs so you might need to use iBoot Legacy. If you want to stay up to date then consider one of the Sandy Bridge builds and there's more info coming very soon on these from the TonyMac team. Or alternatively the Gigabyte X58 series are proving very popular.

I'd check that DVD drive with the Wiki supported drives list - but I'd recommend Sony Optiarc drives

 

[Snapsdrossel]

Thanks for the reply notshy.I didn´t think the DVD could cause any trouble,but I will look into that and see if I better get the Sony Drive.
But regarding the mainboard respectively the CPU,I simply have to insist on using my Q9300.It is still a powerfull processor and has plenty enough juice for my needs.And upgrading everything is not really an option.But I would change the mainboard if that is necessary.
My preferences regarding mainboard are socket 775 and mATX (both are necessities) and I wouldn´t mind 6 SATA connectors,otherwise I would have to change my drive configuration.

 

[Going Bald]

Thanks for the reply notshy.I didn´t think the DVD could cause any trouble,but I will look into that and see if I better get the Sony Drive.
But regarding the mainboard respectively the CPU,I simply have to insist on using my Q9300.It is still a powerfull processor and has plenty enough juice for my needs.And upgrading everything is not really an option.But I would change the mainboard if that is necessary.
My preferences regarding mainboard are socket 775 and mATX (both are necessities) and I wouldn´t mind 6 SATA connectors,otherwise I would have to change my drive configuration.

For socket 775 definitely use iBootLegacy, not iBoot. From there, MultiBeast to add sound and network and chameleon bootloader/themes. decide on 32 bit or 64 bit boot screens, etc.
For the new GPU, how about this one - http://www.amazon.com/EN210-SILENT-1GD3 ... B004I8W4VI
Will work oob, doesn't need updated driver packages, no fan so no noise. low profile to fit in small HTPC case....
The only thing I am not sure of is if the HDMI will work in OS X. DVI and VGA should work no problem.

 

[Snapsdrossel]

Thanks for the advice on iBoot Legacy.Regarding the graphics,the TNN has Heatpipes so I can get the heat out of the case,if I use a passively cooled graphic card it will get really hot,so thats maybe not so good.But you are right,its probably better to buy a newer card with better support.Ah,and the card should have two working DVI connectors.

 

[Snapsdrossel]

Ok,so I am taking the plunge and get some new stuff,I found someone who wants to buy my old pc components,so my new setup will be:

Case: Zalman TNN300 Case with 350Watt PSU
Mainboard: Gigabyte GA-H55M-USB3, H55
CPU: Intel i5-760 4x2,8Ghz
RAM: Kingston HyperX DIMM Kit 8GB PC3-10667U CL7-7-7-20 (KHX1333C7AD3K2/8G)
Graphics: XFX GT240 550M 1GB DDR3
SSD: Corsair Force Series F120 120GB
HDD: 4x 200GB Samsung Notebook HDD 2,5"
DVD: Sony Optiarc AD-7260S
Bluetooth: ASUS USB-BT211 Nano
Apple Keyboard USB and Magic Mouse
Displays: Eizo Flexscan S2202W and Samsung Syncmaster 172X

I hope this is looking good and I wont run into too big problems,but I think this should work out fine.
Any input is highly appreciated,and as soon as the mainboard and the CPU reach me I will take some pictures to show you my little baby

Cheers,Lorenz

 

[Snapsdrossel]

Success!!!
So everything worked out,except for bluetooth.But I have the Asus BT211 wich isn´t supported as far as I know.Now!
But everything else,sound,ethernet,graphics,sleep,time machine.... everything working like it was a genuine mac.I love it.By the way,I installed with the 8GB of RAM,didn´t think of removing one of the two RAMs.
I used the latest iBoot and MultiBeast.
In addition to UserDSDT I checked the ALC sounddrivers and AudioRollback,Lynx2Mac Ethernet and the 64bit bootscreen.After the first reboot I installed the Nvidia Updater.
Sadly I am not a 100% sure if I checked something else cause I thought I would have to fiddle with the setting a litte to get everything to work flawlessly,and I was still .
Because of that and because I wanted to give something back for all the help and of course the tools needed for the installation I "ordered" a CustomBeast setup just in case I have to reinstall some time in the future.
Thank you all for the help and I will take a few pictures and write a little thread in the successfull builds section.

 

[harycoz]

Success!!!
So everything worked out,except for bluetooth.But I have the Asus BT211 wich isn´t supported as far as I know.Now!
But everything else,sound,ethernet,graphics,sleep,time machine.... everything working like it was a genuine mac.I love it.By the way,I installed with the 8GB of RAM,didn´t think of removing one of the two RAMs.
I used the latest iBoot and MultiBeast.
In addition to UserDSDT I checked the ALC sounddrivers and AudioRollback,Lynx2Mac Ethernet and the 64bit bootscreen.After the first reboot I installed the Nvidia Updater.
Sadly I am not a 100% sure if I checked something else cause I thought I would have to fiddle with the setting a litte to get everything to work flawlessly,and I was still .
Because of that and because I wanted to give something back for all the help and of course the tools needed for the installation I "ordered" a CustomBeast setup just in case I have to reinstall some time in the future.
Thank you all for the help and I will take a few pictures and write a little thread in the successfull builds section.

Dear Snapsdrossel,
I just buy the same mobo (second hand) one week ago, but I decided at first to install win7 on my 120G SSD and not Mac OS X because this computer is for use as an HTPC, and I am concerned that the 5.1 audio is not going to work in OS X... Am I wrong.
Did U manage to make it work?