Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Hackintosh Update

If you want to run iWork 09 or iLife 09 (I heard iLife 09 kicks butt!), you need the newest version of Leopard. I found out that iDeneb v1.4 (OSX 10.5.6) is out, so I'll try that out in the coming days and update the post below.

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Hackintosh Experience (Running Mac OSX Leopard on an ordinary PC)

This is how to install the *best* OS in the world on a PC. If you're interested in doing so, you can just take note of the hardware I bought, go to Gilmore, and build your own Mac.

Getting the Software Needed

1. iDeneb v1.3 Leopard 10.5.5 (Google it!)

2. The DS3L Kit (contains all drivers needed for the DS3L series)
3. Kext Helper (already included in the package above)

Hardware List


1. Motherboard: Gigabyte EP35-DS3L - P5,200
The most important component of your Hack Pro is the motherboard. Many onboard features may not work under OSX if your motherboard is not supported.
After months of researching, I finally found the best board for this project -- the Gigabyte EP35-DS3L motherboard which is based on the Intel P35 + ICH9
Chipset. I got this for around P5,200 (~ $110), which is quite expensive for a year-old PC component. This board is pretty good if you're into overclocking and basic computer/gaming use. It has all-solid capacitors (capacitors bulge or leak over time, but these don't), 3 PCI slots for maximum upgradability, and an 8-channel Intel HD audio with optical/SPDIF output!

2. Processor: Intel Pentium Dual Core E5200 2.5GHz - P3,800


Based on the 45nm manufacturing process, this dual core processor runs faster, cooler, and yields much higher overclock than normal manufacturing processes. I got mine running at 3.2GHz @ stock voltage.

3. Memory: Team Xtreem Dark DDR2 800 2Gb (2x1GB) Dual Channel Kit - P1,900
I got this kit because of its overclocking capabilities, but if you're not into it, budget DDR2 800MHz RAMs will do.

4. Video Card: Palit GeForce 9800GT 512MB Dual Heatpipe - P6,400
This graphics chip fully supports Quartz Extreme in Leopard. if you're a gamer, this card is a must! If not, you can do with at least a 9500GT card.

5. Hard Drive: Any size. Just make sure it's SATA because you need to enable AHCI in the BIOS.

6. Any SATA DVD Drive

7. Any USB Keyboard and Mouse

8. A USB thumb drive to store all the drivers you downloaded earlier.

Installation
1. Download all the files above, burn iDeneb into a DVD (burn as image not as data), and save the unzipped DS3L Kit into your USB stick.
2. Go to the DS3L bios (press delete at the start-up screen), look for "Integrated Peripherals" and make sure the SATA Mode is set to AHCI. Also, under "Power Management", from S3 set it to S1, then press F10 and select yes and restart.
3. While at the start-up screen, press end to choose a boot device. Choose your DVD drive and wait for the iDeneb disc to boot.
4. Once asked by Darwin (Mac's version of DOS), boot the DVD in verbose mode by typing "-v" (without the ")
5. Wait for it to boot, select your language, then go to utilities, then disk utility.
6. Go to the "Erase" Tab, select your hard drive on the left, and format it to Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Wait for it to finish, then exit Disk Utility.
7. Now you're back to welcome screen. Click continue, select agree, then select the hard drive you wish to install OSX in, after that, click continue.
8. Click the customize button, then deselect everything except for the following: X11, Under FIX/SMBIOS, choose SMBIOS 800, under applications, choose all.
9. Install Leopard and wait for it to reboot.
10. After reboot, fix all the necessary components that don't work by using Kext Helper (already installed in the applications folder) and the drivers you downloaded earlier which you saved in the USB stick.
11. Enjoy your new Hack Pro! :)

Note:
The DS3L board is a very popular Hackintosh board and if you get lost somewhere, I'm sure you can easily find the solution using Google. I hold no responsibility if your machine goes up in smoke (which is very unlikely to happen)!