- Joined
- Jan 6, 2014
- Messages
- 17
- Motherboard
- MSI Z87-GD65
- CPU
- i7-4770K
- Graphics
- GTX Titan X (Maxwell)
- Mobile Phone
epmasters's Build: i7-4770k - MSI Z87-GD65 - 2 x GTX 660 - 16GB RAM - TRI-Boot - OS X 10.9.4 - Windows 8.1 Pro - SteamOS
Components
Motherboard: MSI Z87-GD65 Gaming Edition
Processor: Haswell 4th Gen i7-4770k
Memory (RAM): G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 16GB (4 x 4GB)
Video Card (x2): EVGA SuperClocked GeForce GTX 660
Case: COOLER MASTER HAF X RC-942
Blu-Ray Drive: LG Black 16x Blu-Ray BDXL
Hard Drives:
Liquid Cooling: Cooler Master Eisberg 240L Prestige
Power Supply: CORSAIR AX series AX760 760W ATX12V
Keyboard: Razer BlackWidow Ultimate Elite Mechanical Gaming Keyboard
Mouse: M325 Wireless Mouse (Black) - Logitech
Monitor: LG 22EN33S Monitor - 21.5" Full HD LED *I think, I may be off on the model*
Comments
So, after a few months of doing some digging around here on tutorials and watching video after video I figured I would go ahead and give this hackintosh thing a go. Did not really know anything off hand of what it was going to take but I figured I would give it a shot. Luckily, the only thing that cost me was time; perhaps an additional hard drive as well.
Where to begin, oh yes. As noted in the title I have 3 OS's running on 3 separate hard drives in the hackintosh. They are:
1. OS X Mavericks (10.9.4) - 500 GB
2. Windows 8.1 Pro - 1TB
3. Steam OS - 1TB
OS X Mavericks and SteamOS were a free download and Windows 8.1 Pro was at a really great price with my student discount as I was graduating college this past May I could not pass it up.
Now let's get into the good stuff: Hardware
I did the build last summer in 2013 just after the Haswell processors were announced and figured it was a good thing I had waited to build myself a PC.
Steps / Procedures:
Okay, so originally I had just Windows 8.1 and OS X installed before even thinking about having SteamOS. Little did I know you could seriously screw up your whole system if you have no idea what you are doing whenever it comes with SteamOS....so, what did I do? Screw everything up . So then, I had erased everything on all my HDD's and decided to start over. First, I picked one of my two 1 TB HDD and installed SteamOS on it nice and easy. That's done. Let's move on to Windows 8.1 Pro.
Choosing my second 1TB drive I re-downloaded my copy from the Windows Store (legitimate) and was able to reinstall it back over a copy of Windows 7 I put on there. So then that was done, which leaves me to my last HDD and last OS.
OS X Mavericks installed fairly simple on my 500GB. I chose a smaller hard drive for this one just in case things did not go in my favor therefore would not be out of too much money. Anyhow, these were the steps I took in order for me to get this up and going:
1. I used the very well written guide posted here I was able to create my UniBeast Drive with ease! *This was before UniBeast 4.0's release. I recently just made myself a new boot drive using OS X 10.9.4 & UniBeast 4.0.*
2. Using pmpatch I patched the latest BIOS file that was out for my particular motherboard. So, at the time I actually did this it was 1.8. Since then version 1.9 and 1.A have been released. My motherboard now has been patched to 1.A using UEFIPatch. From here I loaded the patched BIOS file to an empty flash drive.
3. I shut off the PC, disconnected all my HDD's (BIOS flashing has been a pain for me for some reason, then I read somewhere that unplugging your HDD's solves the issue, so it did!) and flashed my motherboard from 1.1 to 1.8. Flashed with no issues. Then proceeded with a shut down.
4. I reconnected my hard drive I had chosen for the OS X installation, 500 GB, and plugged my MAVBOOT drive via USB and booted into my MAVBOOT drive.
5. Using NO boot flags whatsoever, installation was cake from here on out. Once I was able to make it past installation I used the EasyBeast settings in MultiBeast (pics included) as well the ALC1150 option to get my audio to work with my Logitech speakers.
6. I had noticed that I was unable to actually boot into Mavericks without the help of the USB drive. (boot0 issue, etc) So, after following this helpful tutorial I was able to fix that issue.
7. Once that was done I was pretty much finished! I shut down the PC, reconnected my HDD's and from Chimera I was able to choose between Mavericks and Windows. Still works to this day and I'm very fortunate for all this website has provided for me.
Overall, the process took about a week to do. My internet is so poor where I live that downloading these things literally took hours. To give you an idea, its about 3mbps down and 1mbps up on a good day. My WISP is sometimes helpful then again sometimes it isn't. (Rural area FTW)
Updates are a breeze to deal with. Just have to reinstall the audio drivers and I am good to go.
*If anyone would know where to start with adding my SteamOS to Chimera boot loader upon start that would be awesome. I know that's the complete opposite direction of what this website does and operates so I can completely understand if having guidance with that issue cannot be discussed.*
Hopefully you all can see the pictures pretty well. All were taken with Snagit on my Mac and my S4.