Building My Dream Hackintosh in a G5 Case

me2621a · Post by **me2621a** » Tue Mar 03, 2009 7:19 pm

Hey Guys im about to begin a build:
It is a fairly nice PC inside a modified Power Mac G5 case. I would like to go through the build, post pictures as it goes along and ask for advice when snags arise. My first question is, would anyone be interested, SPCR is my first choice because out of all the forums i belong to this is by far the most helpful and vocal group Ive met. Please let me know.

The build Specs
AMD Phenom II 940 (overclocked, not sure how far yet)
4Gb of Kingston Ram at 1066
Asus M3n78-EM Motherboard
nvidia 8800GTS flashed to look like a macpro 8800GT with GTS clocks
120gb OCZ apex series Solid State Drive (OSX Boot Drive)
1x 1TB western digital green drive (osx data storage drive for my HDV editing, and animation)
2x750GB Sata II drives (in a raid 1 for my media collection)
320GB Sata II drive (Windows Vista (will be 7))
150 GB IDE Drive (Ubuntu)
Sata DVD Burner
500 Watt Powersupply

Cooling
Cooler Master V8
4x92 mm Scythe GentleTyphoon Fans
2x 120mm AeroCool Turbine 2000 fans
Zalman 6 channel Fan Controller

Case
Power Mac G5

again please let me know if this would be of interest to anyone. Thanks

Trav1s · Post by **Trav1s** » Tue Mar 03, 2009 7:40 pm

I would enjoy it, especially considering you are going AMD for processor.

incorrect · Post by **incorrect** » Tue Mar 03, 2009 8:06 pm

planning on the voodoo kernel? and onboard graphics? and you're sure that sata optical drive will let you boot the install disc?

also i'd really think twice about having that many hard drives. it just seems really unnecessary. if you want to isolate the systems that badly, go with e-sata, at least that way the systems that aren't being used can sit safely outside the box and powered down.

lowpowercomputing · Post by **lowpowercomputing** » Wed Mar 04, 2009 12:06 am

I'd rethink the CPU and motherboard choice. If you want a Hackintosh, Intel is the better route. You can use retail discs, unmodified kernels etc.

I also feel strange about the number of hard disks and fans. Sure you'll need that many? As for HDs, I'd narrow it down to maybe 3. One for OS X, one for the other OSes and one as a common storage drive, partitioned into two or more partitions if necessary.

LodeHacker · Post by **LodeHacker** » Wed Mar 04, 2009 8:57 am

Yeah Ubuntu and Windows are happy to share the same HDD. One HDD for them and one for OS X. Use an external enclosure to use a third HDD for common storage. This way you make everything much less complex. Also, not only do Intel's CPU offerings sound great, for a Hackintosh Intel is a must have.

rei · Post by **rei** » Wed Mar 04, 2009 11:10 am

for hackintosh, never go amd. you will save yourself unimaginable hassle.

go intel and go as close to actual mac spec as you can get.

me2621a · Post by **me2621a** » Wed Mar 04, 2009 6:30 pm

oh i probably should have informed you all that i already have the parts running in a small little case. Mac OSX as well as windows and linux are all working perfectly. This post would be purely focused on the case modd, however if anyone is interested i can go into how i got everything running properly in osx. Surprisingly everything on my board was supported without kexts thanks to the new support for nvidia. The only addition i needed was the voodoo kernel which is great.

As far as the Hardrives are concerned. The two 750 GB hardrives are already filled (only about 100Gb left) with data (I have a bunch of blueray rips that i stream to several mac mini's around the house running plex)

the 320 for windows will most likely fill very quickly ( i have alot of games that i have not had a chance to install for sometime, plus i work in 3ds max and maya in windows alot)

The 150 for linux is just a old ide drive for messing around with my ubuntu install.

I normally attempt to avoid partitions because if the drive fails thats two OS's i loose. Surpassingly drive failures are kinda common for me

Im happy to see that there is interest, as soon as the final few parts come in ill update the thread with pics and plans

[img]/Users/Sam/Desktop/Picture%201.png[/img]

me2621a · Post by **me2621a** » Wed Mar 04, 2009 6:34 pm

incorrect wrote:planning on the voodoo kernel? and onboard graphics? and you're sure that sata optical drive will let you boot the install disc?

also i'd really think twice about having that many hard drives. it just seems really unnecessary. if you want to isolate the systems that badly, go with e-sata, at least that way the systems that aren't being used can sit safely outside the box and powered down.

sorry its now been updated, the graphics card is an 8800GTS, and yes ideneb 1.3 and 1.4 boot perfectly on the system.

incorrect · Post by **incorrect** » Wed Mar 04, 2009 7:31 pm

me2621a wrote:I normally attempt to avoid partitions because if the drive fails thats two OS's i loose. Surpassingly drive failures are kinda common for me

hrm make sure you monitor those temps then. are they just going in/out of sleep too often? i've never had a drive die on me before it was so old i replaced it outright. if it happened to me more than once i'd take a good long look at possible triggers, lest you lose any more!

me2621a · Post by **me2621a** » Wed Mar 04, 2009 7:42 pm

incorrect wrote:
me2621a wrote:I normally attempt to avoid partitions because if the drive fails thats two OS's i loose. Surpassingly drive failures are kinda common for me
hrm make sure you monitor those temps then. are they just going in/out of sleep too often? i've never had a drive die on me before it was so old i replaced it outright. if it happened to me more than once i'd take a good long look at possible triggers, lest you lose any more!

i think it was to to temps from an external case, plus a friend plugged in the wrong plug grr and killed 2 of them in a raid 1 funny right. However this time i think i have a cooling solution that will work. I will explain it more soon.

me2621a · Post by **me2621a** » Sun Mar 08, 2009 4:52 pm

so i wanted to give an update.

Today i sat down and took the board out of my temporary case and put the cooler master V8 on and began to overclock. I am happy to say that i have achieved 3.7GHz stably on my AMD 940. And it is blazing fast. The 700MHZ bump raised my geekbench score in osx by 1700 points from 5000 to 6700 and my xbench score from 188 to 212. I think this is very impressive performance increase. I was also in windows vista able to rase my World in Conflict average frame rate with two screens from 25 to 32

Its a little loud but i have a feeling once the case comes monday (i hate USPS with a passion) i will be able to turn it down a bit because I will have 2 92mm behind it and 2 120's in front of it.

So here is a question i do have. I noticed my (a assume north-bridge) is running very hot now (51 degrees Celsius) any ideas how to cool it better than the heat sink thats currently on it. Thanks and please leave comments. I should be updating with pics tomorrow

maxberggren · Post by **maxberggren** » Sun Mar 15, 2009 2:18 am

I have the same motherboard. Would the bultin graphics card work aswell?

lm · Post by lm » Sun Mar 15, 2009 3:22 am

me2621a wrote:[img]/Users/Sam/Desktop/Picture%201.png[/img]

You do realize that this picture is only visible on your own computer, because you are linking to a local file, right? Everyone else just sees the text /Users/Sam/Desktop/Picture 1.png

me2621a · Post by **me2621a** » Sun Mar 15, 2009 11:21 am

yah i thought i pulled that link out already. Sorry i still need to upload all the photos ive taken. In response to the question about motherboard, no you need to buy a card. I highly suggest the at 3870 if you don't care that much about frame rates in windows games because the QE and Open GL support is significantly better for ati cards in osx.

maxberggren · Post by **maxberggren** » Tue Mar 24, 2009 11:39 am

still would love to se pics!