Hackintosh Build #2 Part 4: The Results

I used my time without the hard drive to do a little research to try and find out if there was any explanation for why it would not boot into the hard drive without the USB drive. My research uncovered a couple of possible causes. One possibility was that it could be related to the size of the hard drive. Some people indicated that if the hard drive was partitioned more than 1 TB in size then it could cause some boot issues. Another possible cause of the problem was that it is a green hard drive. Several people indicated that they had issues with a Western Digital green hard drive. Even though my hard drive is a Seagate green hard drive, I still thought that it was reasonably possible that this could be the cause of the problem.

Once I received the new hard drive I got back to work on the project. Another thing I discovered while waiting on the new hard drive to come in from Newegg is that my SATA 3 ports are not Mac compatible. Therefore, I connected the hard drive to the SATA 2 port, but this did not solve my booting issues either. I went into disk utility and formatted the hard drive again.  This time I decided to partition the hard drive in 2 to 750 GB partitions rather than a single 1.5 TB partition. I also chose to install from a time machine backup. However, once I completed this process the results were the same. I was still unable to boot into the hard drive without USB. I spent quite a bit of time on both the OSX86Project.org forum and the TonyMacX86.com forum and tried various workarounds, but I never could get the hard drive to boot without the presence of the USB stick. So I finally came to the determination that the cause of the problem must be related to my green hard drive. I thought about sending the hard drive back and getting a different hard drive, but I got such a great deal on the hard drive I don’t think I could find a better deal on another one. (I got it for $69.99 on a day after Thanksgiving sale).  So I decided to go ahead and see if I can get everything else working properly and to be content with having to first boot into the USB before booting into the hard drive. To me this seems like a reasonable compromise since I can easily replace my USB drive and I have plenty of USB slots on my motherboard. (My USB drive will have to permanently reside plugged in to my Hackintosh so I’ll have to buy another one for day to day use)

The next thing I tried to do was work my way through the various functions of the computer to determine what was working out of the box and what was going to need tweaking. The ethernet was working perfectly. However, the audio and video were not working properly. I decided to tackle the video issues first since they were affecting my screen resolution and, frankly, the poor screen resolution was driving me crazy. It showed that I had two displays that were available and all of my programs or Finder windows that opened would open on the second display which is not a real display and I couldn’t see them. This was extremely frustrating but I finally temporarily resolved the issue by mirroring the displays. This did not fix my screen resolution, but it did allow me to see the Finder windows that were being opened and it allowed me to begin troubleshooting the problem.

The best screen resolution I could get was 1024 x 768. It showed my video card as a Radeon 5000 series which was correct, but it still would not give me the full resolution that my graphics card and monitor are capable of. I did some looking on the forums and found that other people were experiencing the same problem. However, none of the solutions I saw on the forum seemed to fix my problem. This became extremely frustrating and I spent several evenings working on it with no results. I finally decided to move on to a different issue and come back to this issue later.

I decided to move on to the audio. I tried several of the kexts that are included with MultiBeast, but could not get the audio to work. I finally discovered that my problem was that I had actually installed several audio kexts and, therefore, the computer did not know which one of them to use. I uninstalled all of the kexts, then reinstalled only the ALC 889 kext, and my audio worked perfectly!  I then got back to work on my video issues. I wish I knew what I did to finally fix the problem. I know that I tried using some of the older legacy kexts that are included with MultiBeast even though those are intended for the ATI 4800 series and I have the ATI 5000 series. However, just as you might expect, these did not fix my problem. All I know is that at some point I was able to go in to my System Preferences and adjust the display screen resolution to 1920 x 1080 and my display was no longer being mirrored as if there were two displays present. Once I had that working properly I decided to see if I could get my HDMI working. Much to my delight and surprise, it worked the first time I tried. I was then able to go in to my System Preferences and adjust the display screen resolution to1080p and run full HD on my monitor.

This was a very exciting day for me. I now had the Hackintosh booting into the USB and then into the hard drive (which I had already decided was going to be a reasonable compromise). Once I was booted into Lion, my networking, audio, and video were all working perfectly. It was now time to start looking at some of the peripherals I had purchased such as my DVD drive, bluetooth adapter, and webcam. Fortunately the DVD drive worked perfectly out-of-the-box and no other tweaks were needed. I then started working on the bluetooth adapter but could not get Lion to recognize it was even there. After doing some research on the forums, I realized that I simply made an error when I purchased this particular USB bluetooth adapter. Yes, there were a few people who were using that particular adapter, but the vast majority of people who had tried that adapter did not have success. Therefore I decided to cut my losses and return the USB adapter to Newegg and purchase a new USB adapter. I found a USB adapter that both InsanelyMac.com and TonyMacX86.com said would work perfectly out-of-the-box. However, this adapter was no longer being produced. I was able to find a refurbished adapter on Amazon and ordered one. I will update this entry as soon as it arrives and I have had time to test it. I will be surprised if it does not work out-of-the-box. UPDATE: The D-Link DBT-122 Bluetooth adapter arrived and works perfectly out-of-the-box with no issues at all!

The webcam I purchased worked out-of-the-box with no problems at all except that it seemed to be dropping a lot of frames and the video was very choppy. After doing some research, I discovered that Newegg head incomplete information on their website. Newegg stated that the camera would get 1280 x 960 pixels at 15 to 30 frames per second. However, Rosewill states on their website that 1280 x 960 will only get 5 to 9 frames per second. This was simply unacceptable to me I need a camera that hsd a better performance. Therefore, I located a new Logitech C510 and ordered it from eBay. I also returned the Rosewill RCM 2655V back to Newegg. The Logitech C510 arrived a few days ago and it is working perfectly. I have a demonstration of it in the video below.

Once I got everything working I decided to run the Macintosh through its paces and through several benchmark tests. I also did this for my iMac and I’ve included the in-depth analysis in a lengthy video attached below. In case the video is too long for you, I’v also included some screenshots below which will show you a side-by-side comparison of the performance of the two computers. I understand that this is not an apples to apples comparison (no pun intended) . However, it is the best comparison that I can do.

I understand that the hardware of the iMac is inferior to the hardware of the Hackintosh and, therefore, it will not perform at the level of the Hackintosh. However, this is not just a comparison of hardware, this is also a comparison of value. The iMac was purchased about six months ago on eBay for $800, used. The Hackintosh was built with brand-new hardware for $1100. So one must simply decide if a used iMac is worth saving $300 over a brand-new Hackintosh, and one must also consider if the headache and hassle of trying to get everything to work on the Hackintosh is worth the time. As I pointed out a previous post, to build a brand-new Apple computer with the same or very similar specifications as this Hacintosh, it would have cost me between $2800 and $4500. Yes, this did take much more time and lost of frustration, but I enjoy that sort of thing and find a lot of satisfaction in troubleshooting and solving these problems. I look at it as if I spent a couple of weeks working on a pet project, and at the end of the project I got to keep a really powerful computer. I also got that computer at a much cheaper price than I would have if I had ordered it directly from Apple.

There is no question if you look at the side-by-side comparisons in the videos or the images, that the Hackintosh video performance is far superior to the video performance of the iMac. I’m able to run my live podcast at full 720p streaming video and not even come close to maxing out the graphics card. The iMac could never even dream of giving me that type of capability with my video. As you can see the demonstration video, if I even attempt it on the iMac, the video is extremely choppy and cuts out frequently. Not to mention that it was putting the computer in danger of shutting down or causing damage because of the demand that was being put on the graphics card.

So now it’s time for you to give me your thoughts. Do you think was this a worthwhile process and did I did get a good value for my time and money?