tank27 Posted August 16, 2008 Share Posted August 16, 2008 I am confused about people comming on here complaining about performance on this rig. It is a atom processor. If you care about performance so much spend more and get a real computer. You get the atom because it is very low power. I have a 60w power supply on mine compared to some peoples 300W. It also takes up very little space and can be put in a fanless rig. built the system in my sig for around one 170 today, much better than the atom. Minus the video card of course, i could've used the gma950 but decided otherwise. i personally just watch the frys ads. they normally have an core 2 duo with an ecs board for around 129 once a week. and build out from there, it can be done. Ok so add a hd and optical drive ram case. what are you up to now. 350-400. btw ecs is a very crappy board. I used to use them when I started building computers and they suck Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JaE-V Posted August 16, 2008 Share Posted August 16, 2008 not complaining, just saying lol...have a seat calm your nerves lol that mozart case is huge...i saw it in microcenter the other day I am confused about people comming on here complaining about performance on this rig. It is a atom processor. If you care about performance so much spend more and get a real computer. You get the atom because it is very low power. I have a 60w power supply on mine compared to some peoples 300W. It also takes up very little space and can be put in a fanless rig.Ok so add a hd and optical drive ram case. what are you up to now. 350-400. btw ecs is a very crappy board. I used to use them when I started building computers and they suck not really this all depends on where and how you shop in the great world of ebay and closeout deals, and what you consider {censored} is your opinion....i've had quite a few, some have worked well, some haven't. all manufacturers have their faulty devices Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bibendum Posted August 16, 2008 Share Posted August 16, 2008 I built one because for less than $300, I built my daughter a new "G4" cube that runs circles around her old G4 Cube, but looks just the same... Patrick Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
keypox Posted August 16, 2008 Share Posted August 16, 2008 sounds like a great machine...two questions. 1) do you really need a 350w ps? seems like overkill for the atom. think a 60w would suffice?2) think this thing could handle any hd content? no way, i have problems with hd on a 3ghz core 2 duo... i doubt 720 and i know 100% 1080 will not. Leopard has problems with hd, windows is far better for hd content Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fxsts Posted August 16, 2008 Share Posted August 16, 2008 I decided to go with a celeron...only cost me 50 bucks. Also came with a fully compatible mobo ...lil better performance than the atom How "fully compatible" is the ECS motherboard? I have read the ECS 945GCT-M/1333 thread before, and it didn't seem to be any better running Leopard than D945GCLF, or actually I thought it was even worse. Have all the problems been solved since? Or, do you still need to use the mic-in for the sound. Can you hot plug USB memory sticks and get them recognized 100% of the time? Does it come back from the sleep without any issue what so ever? Can you use Apple updates without causing any problem? I have also seen Fry's selling the ECS board and celeron combo for $49. I have to say that it was very tempting. However, I picked this D945GCLF Atom board over the ECS/Celeron combo for the following reasons. 1) Smaller Size: You can make a lot smaller system with Mini ITX board vs. Micro ATX 2) Lower Power Requirement: 4W for Atom vs. 35W for Celeron 440 3) Less Noise: No CPU fan and smaller power supply requirement 4) More Compatible with Leopard: From reading two threads, I thought that D945GCLF would be more compatible, but let me know if it were not the case. Of course, Fry's ECS/Celeron 440 combo was going to have some advantages as follow. 1) Faster: Celeron 440 would probably be quite a bit faster than Atom 230. For me, I have Core2Quad running at 3.6Ghz as my main system so I didn't need anything fast for this. Atom 230 is adequate for web surfing, emailing, doing basic MS office tasks, playing MP3, watching DVD, and etc. I have never installed Windows XP to run any benchmark to compare it with other CPU's, but I suspect that it runs probably comparable to Athlon XP running at similar clock speed or maybe a bit faster. 2) Cheaper: $70 shipped for D945GCLF vs. $49 + tax (or $54) for Fry's ECS/Celeron combo. 3) Better Upgradability: More memory slots, PCI-E slot, more PCI slots, and on and on. At the end, it all depends on what you are looking for. Comparing these two systems is not really comparing apple to apple. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bibendum Posted August 16, 2008 Share Posted August 16, 2008 no way, i have problems with hd on a 3ghz core 2 duo... i doubt 720 and i know 100% 1080 will not. Leopard has problems with hd, windows is far better for hd content Dunno what your system is smoking, but I have no problems with Leopard and HD content. Maybe on this ATOM system, but my duals and certainly my quads have no trouble playing back full HD content full screen... Patrick Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JaE-V Posted August 16, 2008 Share Posted August 16, 2008 How "fully compatible" is the ECS motherboard? I have read the ECS 945GCT-M/1333 thread before, and it didn't seem to be any better running Leopard than D945GCLF, or actually I thought it was even worse. Have all the problems been solved since? Or, do you still need to use the mic-in for the sound. Can you hot plug USB memory sticks and get them recognized 100% of the time? Does it come back from the sleep without any issue what so ever? Can you use Apple updates without causing any problem? I have also seen Fry's selling the ECS board and celeron combo for $49. I have to say that it was very tempting. However, I picked this D945GCLF Atom board over the ECS/Celeron combo for the following reasons. 1) Smaller Size: You can make a lot smaller system with Mini ITX board vs. Micro ATX 2) Lower Power Requirement: 4W for Atom vs. 35W for Celeron 440 3) Less Noise: No CPU fan and smaller power supply requirement 4) More Compatible with Leopard: From reading two threads, I thought that D945GCLF would be more compatible, but let me know if it were not the case. Of course, Fry's ECS/Celeron 440 combo was going to have some advantages as follow. 1) Faster: Celeron 440 would probably be quite a bit faster than Atom 230. For me, I have Core2Quad running at 3.6Ghz as my main system so I didn't need anything fast for this. Atom 230 is adequate for web surfing, emailing, doing basic MS office tasks, playing MP3, watching DVD, and etc. I have never installed Windows XP to run any benchmark to compare it with other CPU's, but I suspect that it runs probably comparable to Athlon XP running at similar clock speed or maybe a bit faster. 2) Cheaper: $70 shipped for D945GCLF vs. $49 + tax (or $54) for Fry's ECS/Celeron combo. 3) Better Upgradability: More memory slots, PCI-E slot, more PCI slots, and on and on. At the end, it all depends on what you are looking for. Comparing these two systems is not really comparing apple to apple. I have zero problems! USB and everything else works flawlessy, no sleep however. Thats the only thing. The iaktos 10.5.4 disk gave me problems such as video and ethernet, also system was lagging. Popped in kalyway and all went smoothly. And thats exactly what i bought. I just threw in one of my ide drives i previously owned. My system was well under 250. And yes i agree, it all depends. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fxsts Posted August 16, 2008 Share Posted August 16, 2008 With the help of the following thread by LioNext, I think that I was able to fix the USB hot swap problem of devices not being recognized all the time. Link Just like LioNext explains in the thread, my kernel version did not match with system.kext version (9.2.0 for kernel and 9.2.2 for system.kext). I downloaded the file (usb_fix_1.3.mpkg.zip) and installed it accordingly. Actually, I didn't even go into customize and installed it straight up. Now the versions both match (9.2.0), and so far, it seems that I have been able to plug and play USB devices (3 different USB sticks and 1 USB mouse) 100% of the time without rebooting. I probably want to test it more, but so far so good. MrFlooD, You might want to add this step to your tutorial as being able to hot swap USB devices makes the system a lot more useful and make it a step closer to being "perfect". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
puma7 Posted August 16, 2008 Share Posted August 16, 2008 1. Why do I need to partition the drive? And into how many pieces of what size? (for 10.5.2) 2. For the Combo Update, how do I install it? They are .pkg files. 3. The 10.5.2 Kalyway came with a folder that says "ADD_KEXT_TO_DVD" and then has some stuff in there. Do I need to bother with it? Or can I just burn the img? Thanks, sorry for the questions, I am new to mac & hackintosh. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
puma7 Posted August 17, 2008 Share Posted August 17, 2008 1. Why do I need to partition the drive? And into how many pieces of what size? (for 10.5.2) 2. For the Combo Update, how do I install it? They are .pkg files. 3. The 10.5.2 Kalyway came with a folder that says "ADD_KEXT_TO_DVD" and then has some stuff in there. Do I need to bother with it? Or can I just burn the img? Thanks, sorry for the questions, I am new to mac & hackintosh. Can anyone help me? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fxsts Posted August 18, 2008 Share Posted August 18, 2008 1. Why do I need to partition the drive? And into how many pieces of what size? (for 10.5.2) 2. For the Combo Update, how do I install it? They are .pkg files. 3. The 10.5.2 Kalyway came with a folder that says "ADD_KEXT_TO_DVD" and then has some stuff in there. Do I need to bother with it? Or can I just burn the img? Thanks, sorry for the questions, I am new to mac & hackintosh. 1) I am not sure if you are using a brand new drive or recycling an old drive, but either way, you need to have the drive partitioned and formated to work for Mac and that's why you are going to be partitioning the drive. If you are just installing Mac Osx, just make one partition using the entire size of the drive. If you are installing other OS's, make partitions accordingly. It makes things a lot more complicated with multiple OS's, considering from the type of questions you are asking, just make one partition using the full drive capacity.. 2) Installing stuff on Mac is very easy. Just double click on the package, and it's going to guide you to the next step. 3) Just burn the image. You might wanna just go ahead and do things, and ask questions if things do not work instead of asking things in advance. The worst thing which can happen would be that the system does not work so that you will need to reinstall. Going through all the trials and errors is the fun part of dealing with this kind of things, and that's what you should be doing before asking all the questions in advance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zachery Posted August 18, 2008 Share Posted August 18, 2008 Does anyone know of a PCI video card that would offer a slight performance bump on this system? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
puma7 Posted August 18, 2008 Share Posted August 18, 2008 1) I am not sure if you are using a brand new drive or recycling an old drive, but either way, you need to have the drive partitioned and formated to work for Mac and that's why you are going to be partitioning the drive. If you are just installing Mac Osx, just make one partition using the entire size of the drive. If you are installing other OS's, make partitions accordingly. It makes things a lot more complicated with multiple OS's, considering from the type of questions you are asking, just make one partition using the full drive capacity.. 2) Installing stuff on Mac is very easy. Just double click on the package, and it's going to guide you to the next step. 3) Just burn the image. You might wanna just go ahead and do things, and ask questions if things do not work instead of asking things in advance. The worst thing which can happen would be that the system does not work so that you will need to reinstall. Going through all the trials and errors is the fun part of dealing with this kind of things, and that's what you should be doing before asking all the questions in advance. Oh, I misunderstood. I thought by partition he meant into more than once piece. I might install XP later on. I haven't gotten the parts yet, so I was just asking some curious questions that I had from reading the directions and seeing the files. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jjumper Posted August 18, 2008 Share Posted August 18, 2008 Ok for all those people who talk about this build costing in the $300+ range.... I stumbled upon this: edit: Gone no longer available... http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/Se...&CatId=1210 Price: $149.99 (after $10.00 mail in rebate) Intel D945GCLF & Atom 230 1.60GHz Crucial 1024MB DDR2 Western Digital Caviar SE 80GB Hard Drive Power Up Mid-T w/450-Watt PSU Barebone system with the same motherboard... Add the DVD burner for $24.00 and you get out the door for $179 (plus shipping) If you add a wireless for $23.00 you are right at about $202.00 Now that is cheap!!Still..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
puma7 Posted August 18, 2008 Share Posted August 18, 2008 Ok for all those people who talk about this build costing in the $300+ range....I stumbled upon this: http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/Se...&CatId=1210 Price: $139.99 (after $10.00 mail in rebate) Intel D945GCLF & Atom 230 1.60GHz Crucial 1024MB DDR2 Western Digital Caviar SE 80GB Hard Drive Power Up Mid-T w/450-Watt PSU Barebone system with the same motherboard... Add the DVD burner for $24.00 and you get out the door for $169 (plus shipping) If you add a wireless for $23.00 you are right at about $200.00 Now that is cheap!! Aw, I already ordered! Oh, well. For $283, I got 2GB RAM, 160GB HDD, mini-ITX case w/ 250W PSU (that one has ATX), and the ability to return the RAM or motherboard in-store because I bought them at Fry's. I hate having to return RAM or mobo by shipping it. It's a big hassle, and to me just buying those 2 parts in store is probably worth $83. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bibendum Posted August 18, 2008 Share Posted August 18, 2008 Does anyone know of a PCI video card that would offer a slight performance bump on this system? OSX uses the GFX card to do much of it's UI drawing - it specifically excludes PCI cards and I think you won't find a PCI GFx card that will improve on this board's integrated GFx... Patrick Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zachery Posted August 18, 2008 Share Posted August 18, 2008 OSX uses the GFX card to do much of it's UI drawing - it specifically excludes PCI cards and I think you won't find a PCI GFx card that will improve on this board's integrated GFx... Patrick Thanks. I was afraid that was probably the case. Are other people noticing choppiness in window animations, for example, Exposé? I'm wondering if it has to do with me using the iDeneb 10.5.4 disc... Otherwise, everything works great, including sleep and restart. I can't tell whether I'm just being picky because I'm used to using a MacBook Pro. Oh, one other thing I've noticed about the iDeneb disc in this hackintosh and another: Rosetta doesn't work. But I guess that's for a different thread. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
puma7 Posted August 18, 2008 Share Posted August 18, 2008 What do you guys think will run faster & smoother on this machine, OS X or Ubuntu? I'm definitely going to install OS X, but I was thinking of dual-booting Ubuntu. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
webdude12 Posted August 18, 2008 Share Posted August 18, 2008 My parts will be here today. Has anyone tried to run the iPhone SDK on this little bugger yet? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darksamus Posted August 18, 2008 Share Posted August 18, 2008 I have tried using OSX and ubuntu 7.10 on this box and ubuntu is a lot faster than OSX because of the 2gb of ram. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
puma7 Posted August 18, 2008 Share Posted August 18, 2008 I have tried using OSX and ubuntu 7.10 on this box and ubuntu is a lot faster than OSX because of the 2gb of ram. Have you dual-booted? If so, what guide did you follow (if any at all)? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nousernameavailable Posted August 18, 2008 Share Posted August 18, 2008 Has anyone else got problems with mouse artifacts even after aplying the grapfic fix? Can somebody tell me what could cause this error? (specs see prev. post) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gospel71 Posted August 19, 2008 Share Posted August 19, 2008 Try changing media. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maccompaq Posted August 19, 2008 Share Posted August 19, 2008 Use a DVD-RW, but erase it before burning. That is the only way I got it to work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darksamus Posted August 19, 2008 Share Posted August 19, 2008 Have you dual-booted? If so, what guide did you follow (if any at all)? Did not do a dual boot. Install OSX first and erase the drive and installed ubuntu. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts