The Brewdy Bawler

Hackintosh Build – November 2011

Several friends have requested that I post details about my “Hackintosh” build. It was a time consuming process, but it was worth it, since I saved about $2000!

First of all, I want to clarify that although I’m referring to this as a “Hackintosh”, there is no actual hacking involved. There are a few hoops to jump through to get it to work correctly, but I think you’ll agree that they are minor, in relation to the return you get from your time invested. Therefore, I prefer to refer to it as a MacClonePro.

Researching hardware:
To begin, I heavily referenced tonymacx86.com to decide on the hardware to buy and for OS X installation instructions. This page contains a matrix of several confirmed hardware combinations that have worked. I would recommend not straying far from these options at all to help save you frustration or disappointment after you build. NOTE: I did not bother to get a Bluetooth chip or a WiFi chip. I can add those as USB adapters later on.

Purchasing hardware:
Mostly I used Amazon.com to research prices (I have no faith in eBay at all). I also compared prices over at Newegg.com, since they have had competitive prices in the past and are a reputable company to work with. Each of the parts below are linked to the actual product page from the site that I purchased it from.

Here is a list of hardware that I chose for my MacClonePro:

Motherboard:     Gigabyte X58A-UD3R
CPU:             Intel i7-960 Core - 3.2 Ghz Quad-Core
CPU Cooler *1:   Corsair A70 Dual Fan High-performance CPU Cooler
RAM:             Corsair 8 GB (2x4 GB) Vengeance DDR3
Graphics Card:   Gigabyte ATI Radeon HD 5770 1GB GDDR5 PCI-e
Harddrive *2:    Samsung Spinpoint 1 TB 7200 rpm SATA
PSU:             Corsair TX850W
DVD:             Sony Optiarc 24x DVD Burner SATA
Case:            Corsair 600T Graphite Series Mid-tower

*1 – I had to remove one of the fans because it didn’t leave enough clearance for the RAM chips.
*2 – When I first priced these drives, they were $65, but due to the flooding in Thailand where the drives were made, they doubled in price.

Hardware Installation:
Read the product instructions!!!!! Here are some snapshots of the build process:

Photos courtesy of Vince Ammann

Snow Leopard OS X Installation:
As I mentioned above, I heavily referenced tonymacx86.com for this project, including the OS X installation. I followed this page to the letter, and it worked perfectly. In case it’s not clear enough, I’ll spell it out a bit more:

1. I downloaded iBoot and created a CD from that ISO. I then set the CDROM as the first boot device in the BIOS.
2. I booted the computer using the iBoot CD and then followed the instructions on the guide page that I linked above.
3. During installation of Snow Leopard, I created a partition that was only 100GB in size and left the rest of the HDD as free space. I did this because I intend on triple-booting my computer with Windows 7 Professional and Kubuntu. I’ll probably write another blog post about that project.
4. I went to my university to download the 10.6.8 upgrade DMG, since it is a bit over 1 GB in size. My internet connection just isn’t fast enough to make that a viable download time.
5. When I got to the part about installing MultiBeast, I read in the installation guide about getting a pre-edited DSDT for my setup. You’ll have to register with his site, in order to get to that database. I found the appropriate DSDT for my motherboard and put it on the desktop and chose UserDSDT in MultiBeast.
6. After this, Snow Leopard worked as expected, but the PC wouldn’t boot from the HDD alone and required the iBoot CD to boot into Snow Leopard. So, I did some research and found a post in TonyMac’s forum that solved that issue. I can’t post a link to it, since you have to be registered to even read the forum. But the post that I found was under the topic called “System Specific 10.6 Guides Based on iBoot + MultiBeast only” by the user named TheSmartGuy and the post title was “Installing Snow Leopard (GA-P67A-D3-B3 + Core i5 2500K + GTX 460) – Everything works; no DSDT used – Includes workaround for random freezing due to Fermi graphics cards”.

I should say that the boot up isn’t seamless like if you bought an actual Mac, but I don’t have a problem with hitting the Enter key to continue the boot. Also, there were a couple of configurations that I had to set to get the system to work totally smoothly.

1. I disabled the Energy Saver from putting the monitor to sleep, as I couldn’t get it to wake from it after it had gone to sleep. This isn’t an issue for me, since I use a screensaver.
2. To switch from Line Out to Headphones, I have to do this manually under System Preferences -> Audio -> Output

Total build cost: $1218 with shipping (The monitor, mouse and keyboard are not included in that amount).
As spec’d on the Apple Store: $3274

Let me know if you have any questions!