Need Help Assembling New Computer

[buzzer]

Hi,

I'm building a PC desktop (sort of). Recent developments in the form of a chip have made it possible for me to make it a PC, a MAC, or Linux - or all three.

What I want is all three, but am primarily interested in it being a MAC. I'm looking for help, to prevent my blowing up the thing by some bonehead error on my part, and to keep away from dishonest Thai computer equipment sellers selling equipment that has been re-badged to look like the real thing, instead of the inferior product they are trying to pass it off as. If you're interested in helping, please PM me, and I'll send you some more info, including some links to sites about the new product.

The end product should be, for the most part, a more powerful, custom designed MAC, with more freedom with regard to overclocking, videocards, inputs and outputs. There are some limitations, as you have to follow the company's list of recommended motherboards, to assure that it works. So, if interested, let me know. I'm living in Bang Rak.

Thanks - Buzzer

[bluechipit]

So basically you're trying to get hold of certain computer parts? Or you're building these PC's (running MAC OS I guess?) to sell?

Whatever you do make sure you get a good earthed UPS on it (APC is the only brand to use in my opinion)

Matt.

You can PM me if you want any parts or prices for parts. I can get just about anything.

[buzzer]

Hi,

Thanks for your response. I'm just building 1 for personal use. I accidentally saw a video of a US program called Tekzilla and they talked about Hackintoshes, and said the newest and easiest way was by installing a EFIX USB V1.1, which is, I guess, a boot manager, and contains all the drivers and bios to turn your PC into whatever. Here's a link to the site that explains about them. The second link is to the original Tekzilla program.

<http://www.expresshd.com/p136/EFiX-USB-V1.1/product_info.html?osCsid=2dom6hmk3k5ea6tv1in5n8t0d5>

<http://revision3.com/tekzilla/satadock>

I just was looking for someone who has had experience putting computers together, and knows what options are possible. Otherwise, I was planning on a computer shopping trip to Bangkok, where I think I can find someone to help me.

I have an APC that handles about 1000W because I have an amateur recording studio, and everything runs through it, not just the computer. I'll be selling it when I move back to the US in a couple months.

Thanks - Buzz

So basically you're trying to get hold of certain computer parts? Or you're building these PC's (running MAC OS I guess?) to sell?

Whatever you do make sure you get a good earthed UPS on it (APC is the only brand to use in my opinion)

Matt.

You can PM me if you want any parts or prices for parts. I can get just about anything.

[Rooo]

Moving to computer section for more dedicated help. Leaving link in source forum Samui.

[buzzer]

Hi,

This was originally posted in the Ko Samui forum, because, that's where I live, and, chances are, plan to do the assembly. If I decide to do it in Bangkok, I probably have someone that can help me there.

Sorry for the confusion,

Buzzer

[Forkinhades]

I am interested in this.

I think basically once you have got your components, the first step would be to make 3 partitions on your hard drive, one for each operating system.

I think you should have 2 hard drives as well, SATA compatable the second one will hold all your data, which again should be partitioned at least a couple of times.

[bluechipit]

If you want performance for hard drives, look in to short-stroke several drives in a raid-0 setup.

My setup on my main machine:

System Drive:

4 x Western Digital WD5002ABYS RE3's 500GB 16MB SATA2 3.5" running Intel ICH10R RAID-0, 128kb Stripe. All drives short-stroked to 25GB Each.

Which gives me these performance figures:

385.9 MB/s min,

439.5 MB/s max,

421.8 MB/s avg,

7.4ms access,

1838.0 MB/s burst.

All for the cost of a single SSD. Sure, access time doesn't compare to an SSD but the write times smoke an SSD about 5 times over!

I use Acronis to image my system drive across to my storage drive in case of a single drive failure in the Raid-0 setup.

My Storage Drive is a 1TB Western Digital Caviar Black, which is pretty quick also.

Matt.

[welo]

I'd consider the price tag of 240 USD rather hefty, considering that it is probably possible to setup an EFI boot loader on a USB thumb drive yourself (well, maybe not for everybody, but for a more tech savvy person)

In mid-2008, a new commercial product, EFi-X, was released that claims to allow full, simple booting off official Leopard install disks, and a subsequent install, without any patching required, but this is possibly a repackaging of Boot-132 technology.[23] Rebel EFI is another commercial product that also seems to use open source software.

source:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OSx86#EFI_emulation

But maybe I'm missing something.

Edited June 26, 2010 by welo

[buzzer]

Hi,

Thanks for the many responses. Bluechipit convinced me of my need for a more professional hand - I didn't understand a single thing you said. In spite of using a Mac for about 25 years. A lot of us Mac users are just that - "Users". In my case I got into Macs because they were the easiest to use, and the only good option at the time for music. But I never became a "power user".

Welo thanks also. I was so hopped up on the EFiX chip that I had my sights set only on that. Then while responding to a PM last night, I discovered a pretty negative article that turned me around. It is available at <http://www.tomshardware.com/news/asem-efix-mac-chameleon,8617.html>

As there are other options out there to create a Hackamac, I think I'll start learning more about them, and forget about the EFiX chip.

BTW. Though this machine will have the capability to run Windows, and Linux, I might just forget about that. 4 years ago, when the intel mac came out and was able to run windows, I had it installed on a partition, but used it rarely, and eventually wiped it from my computer to regain the partition.

The idea of doing this is to make a Mac with more options for connections, and for monitors. Second to that is I can make it super fast. The Mac equivalent would probably cost me over 4,000 US. This should be a fraction of that.

Thanks all! Buzzer

[Mole]

Instead of partitioning harddrives, I would have just installed each OS on it's own dedicated harddrive.

I could then just chose in BIOS which one I'd boot from.

[buzzer]

My opinion as well.

Instead of partitioning harddrives, I would have just installed each OS on it's own dedicated harddrive.

I could then just chose in BIOS which one I'd boot from.

[siamect]

My opinion as well.

Instead of partitioning harddrives, I would have just installed each OS on it's own dedicated harddrive.

I could then just chose in BIOS which one I'd boot from.

To me this project seems to bee... I don't know? Are you doing this for fun or do you have any serious use for your computer?

The problem is not to dualboot or trippleboot. There are lots of free solutions to this. LiLo or GRUB will do it fine. Using proprietary boot loaders is just silly.

The problem is to run the MacOS on non Apple hardware. Yes, I know It has only been done a thousand times before and you are number 1001 or so... Highly experimental setups. Which means you are in minority. You have exactly zero support from Apple. You make an update and "bam" it stops working... If you can cope with that, fine...But most users need stability and productivity.

If you really need to run MacOS at all, you should do it on Apple hardware unless you are doing this setup just for fun. And that is a good reason...

But if you need the productivity you from the MacOS you should not run it on anything else that supported hardware. That's how it is once you are in the claws of Apple...

You can run GNU/Linux on Apple hardware too. But I would prefer to just go and get some cheap PC hardware and get a nice GNU/Linux distro installed and your problems will be gone...

Martin

[welo]

Then while responding to a PM last night, I discovered a pretty negative article that turned me around. It is available at <http://www.tomshardware.com/news/asem-efix-mac-chameleon,8617.html>

As there are other options out there to create a Hackamac, I think I'll start learning more about them, and forget about the EFiX chip.

That was an interesting read. It seems there are several reasons to stay away from this product: it's overpriced, non-upgradable, unstable, bad customer support, reaps the work of others without giving credit and violating (GPL) license terms at the same time, etc.

After doing some reading on the topic I doubt that this is a suitable project to do on your own. While it seems that systems are rock stable when choosing the right hardware, there is increased an increased maintenance level to be considered that requires advanced skills as well.

But I guess this was one of the reasons for your original post, to maybe find somebody who would team up with you. I think this was a reasonable move.

What to expect from a Hackintosh, read here. But make sure you don't ignore the comments warning about the downsides, because most of the Hackintosh user's are probably not 'standard' Mac users in terms of skill level.

welo