- Joined
- Jan 29, 2012
- Messages
- 133
- Motherboard
- GA-Z77X-UP5-TH
- CPU
- Intel i7 3770K
- Graphics
- GTX 670 FTW
- Mac
- Classic Mac
- Mobile Phone
Ubermick's Build - The Yeti
Core i7 3770K / Z77X-UP5-TH / 16GB RAM / GTX 670 FTW / BLU RAY
Previously: Core i7 2600K / GA-Z68XP-UD3 / 16GB RAM / XFX HD 6870 2GB
Components:
CPU: Intel i7 2600k
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004EBUXSA/
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z68XP-UD3
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0054OWTQU/
Heatsink: Noctua NH-D14
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B002VKVZ1A/
RAM: 16GB Corsair Vengeance LP
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0058J1QII/
Case: Corsair 600T Special Edition
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004O0PAKW/
PSU: Corsair AX850 Gold
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B003PJ6QW4/
GFX: XFX Radeon 6870 2GB
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005FPT37Q/
Mac HD: Crucial M4 128GB
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004W2JKZI/
Optical Drive: LG UH12LS28K Blu-Ray/DVD/CD Reader/Drive
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004U65FM8/
Input: Logitech Wave Wireless MK550
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B003VAHYNC/
Bluetooth: Rocketfish RF-MRBTAD
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001D8CCYK/
Wi-Fi: DIY Apple Airport Card (BCM94321MC and PCI-e X1 card from ebay
viewtopic.php?f=19&t=1143
Webcam: Logitech C910
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B003M2YT96/
Monitor: Dell U2410
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00302DNZ4/
Already Owned
Mac Storage: 1TB WD Caviar Black
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0036Q7MV0/
PC HD: OCZ Agility 3 256gb
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004Z0S6S4/
PC Storage: 1TB WD Caviar Blue
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0036Q7MV0/
Operating System: Apple OSX 10.7 Lion
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/os-x-lio ... 3913?mt=12
Comments
Be warned. I tend to ramble.
Well, my 2008 iMac 24" was doing the job for the most part, but the time had come for me to invest in a new box. I checked out the Mac Pros, wanting to avoid an all-in-one system that while beautiful, is extremely unupgradable, and limited in it's customization.
When I woke up several minutes later (passed out from sticker shock), I embarked on researching the wonderful world of the Hackintosh. Three weeks of lurking and asking dumb questions from various forumites here, I started ordering. I signed up for a 30 day trial of Amazon's Prime service, which gave me free 2-day shipping on most of the parts I ordered. I intend to cancel before the trial period ends, now that I've gotten everything, but it was a nice bonus not having to wait the two weeks that their free "Super Saver Shipping" can take. Also, before you order anything, have this site open in a separate window when shopping, and click the referral links on hardware you've earmarked. This site's given us the tools to make our machines work, least we can do is give back a wee bit, right?
I should preface this by saying I've never built a computer before. I'm pretty comfortable opening a box up and doing minor things like installing memory or a hard drive, but have never started from scratch. To be honest, on build day I was terrified, and convinced I was going to fry something. Various points in the build were accompanied by panic, notably doing ANYTHING around the CPU, and installing the motherboard. But I found that the key was to just take my time, and if I was unsure about anything, stop and refer to the internet. There are so many youtube videos and guides out there to help a novice builder along, that by the time I had the system fully assembled and ready for software, I wondered what I was worried about. So if you've never built before, and are nervous, don't worry. Take a breath, take your time, you can absolutely do it.
With overclocking in mind, I wanted a case that had decent ventilation, but was still quiet. Poring over review after review, I settled on the Corsair 600T. The special edition version came with improved fans, and the built in controller was nice. I also found this case really easy to build in, with plenty of room on the "blind side", anchors for zip ties, lots of rubber cable grommets, as well as looking quite good. To keep things even cooler, I opted for a Noctua NH-D14 cooler. Much chunkier (chunkier on the wallet, too) than the popular Hyper 212, it got great reviews and I read plenty of reports from folks who had their i7 2600k processors up to 4.8ghz without issue. I didn't go that extreme, settling on 4.3ghz, but I'm still happy I paid the extra $40 to protect a $319 CPU. The thing's a monster tho, so I ensured I went with low profile memory, since the heatsink overhangs the motherboard's memory slots. The Vengeance LP fits nicely, but I don't think the standard DIMMs with the fins would.
My plan was to snag a Corsair 750TX power supply, but stumbled on a great "buy it now" deal on ebay for an AX850 that had only been used for a week, and I could pick it up locally. I was absolutely DELIGHTED with the modular PSU, and would UTTERLY recommend going that route to anyone planning a build.
Beyond those minor deviations, my build went along Tony's CustoMac specs. I earn my living as a creative director, so stability was/is the main priority in this build. The only decision on the graphics card was to go with the Gigabyte 6870, or spend the extra $35 on the 2GB XFX version. Since I'm a designer, and will (eventually) go with a dual monitor setup, I thought the extra couple bucks was worth the investment.
Once the machine was assembled, I did have some extremely minor teething problems during installation. I used Tony's guide for Unibeast featured here:
http://tonymacx86.blogspot.com/2011/10/ ... using.html
I discovered that it's pretty easy to get frustrated and nervous when things don't go smoothly, but it was down to me being eager to get things running. Be sure and set your bios correctly. Once you think it's set correctly, go over it again. That minute of checking will likely save you a half hour of furious resetting, wondering why it's not working. My issue was that even when I told the machine to boot from the USB drive, it would just hang for an extended period, and then just tell me that there was no operating system found. (I hadn't set HPET to 64 bit):
1 - Load Optimized Defaults
2 - Set Bios to AHCI mode (for my board, found under "Integrated Peripherals", second option)
3 - Set HPET to 64 bit (for my board, found under "Power Management Setup")
After I finally got to the Chimera screen, I fortunately had zero issues getting Lion installed. Rather than dealing with updates, I just downloaded the most current version (10.7.3) from the App Store to use with Unibeast. With everything installed, I followed the instructions, booting from the USB drive again. Slight problem occurred here - I'd inserted a second USB drive with Multibeast and my motherboard's kext on there, and the compter seemed confused as to what drive to try and boot from. So make sure your Unibeast thumb drive is the only one attached at this point, and wait until OSX is fully loaded before popping in your second one.
Multibeast was a snap, and I simply followed Gordo's guide, replicating his settings: download/file.php?id=14188&mode=view
And as of right now, that's it! Restarted the beast, and it ran like a champ. I've had no issues of note yet, other than a sticking mouse pointer that others have also documented but beyond that everything's worked nicely. I'm sure I'll encounter a few more teething problems along the way, but for now I'm just enjoying having a Mac that brings down 14,148, in Geekbench that I built myself. Thanks to everyone in the tonymac86 community that helped me get this done, as well as the boys themselves for writing the software to make this possible.
UPDATE:
Hokay, another week, another pile of boxes delivered by Brown Santa!
Webcam was ordered purely because it offers compatibility out of the box. Again, 'nuff said.
The airport card's thread explains it all better than me. Wi-Fi isn't something I desperately needed, since this machine will be living in my office, next to my router, and will be connected via ethernet cable. But it's handy to have for communicating with other boxes in the house if I run into any of the documented ethernet problems. (None yet, touch wood.) And for less than $30, why not? Only thing I had to do was rename the card under the network System Prefs, since it was showing up as Bluetooth PAN. Weeeird.
The Bluetooth adapter took a little work to get going, and had me editing some kexts. Here's the scoop:
- Plug dongle in (dur!)[/*:m:457455x7]
- Head to System/Library/Extensions, and find IOBluetoothFamily.kext. Holding down command to copy it, drag it to the desktop, rename it to IOBluetoothFamily.kextBACKUP. Just in case.[/*:m:457455x7]
- Fire up Terminal and type defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles YES[/*:m:457455x7]
- Hit return to show hidden files. Next type killall Finder and hit return.[/*:m:457455x7]
- Right click on the original IOBluetoothFamily.kext and hit Show Package Contents[/*:m:457455x7]
- Open the Plugins folder, right click BroadcomUSBBluetoothHCIController.kext, and show package contents.
- In the corresponding Contents folder, open up the Info.plist file in TextEdit[/*:m:457455x7]
- Scroll down to the first indented section of code - Broadcom2045FamilyUSBBluetoothHCIController. Last four lines are what we're interested in.
- Open up About This Mac/More Info/System Report. Click on USB in the left, and highlight your Rocketfish Bluetooth Adapter. In the info window, note the Product ID and the Vendor ID. For me it was 0x4d75 and 0x0461.
- Convert those two numbers to Hex using your Apple calculator in your Applications folder. Just click the 16 in the top right corner of the calculator's window, enter your four characters (the four following the "0x") and then hit the "10" next to 16 to convert to decimal. 4d75 becomes 19829, for example.[/*:m:457455x7]
- Replace the values for "idProduct" and "idVendor" with your new numbers, and save.[/*:m:457455x7]
- Back to Terminal, type defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles FALSE and return.[/*:m:457455x7]
- Reboot, and you SHOULD be good to go.[/*:m:457455x7]
And that's it. Far as I can tell, aside from getting around to installing windows, my build is finished! Hooray!
Now if only I could figure out a way to stop this @#$# sticking mouse pointer problem...
(And I warned you about the rambling!)
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