How to set up a Fusion drive on a Hackintosh

Recently, Apple released the Fusion Drive, a new technology that increases hard disk performance by setting up a 128GB solid state disk and a 1TB normal hard disk to work together as a single virtual drive. By allocating most of the heavy lifting to its solid state portion, the Fusion Drive allows for much faster overall performance while still providing a lot of storage space.

Since the Fusion Drive is a proprietary technology, it's usually unavailable to PCs. However, you can still set up your own Fusion Drive on a Hackintosh. Fusion Drives are set up in an extremely similar way to RAID 0 arrays, an alternative different method for increasing hard disk performance. We've previously covered how to set up a RAID 0 array on your Hackintosh; setting up a Fusion Drive isn't really isn't much harder. Interested? Read on.

How to set up a Hackintosh on RAID 0 in Lion, Mountain Lion, or Mavericks

RAID 0 is a method used to increase hard disk performance, by setting up multiple hard disks to work as a single virtual disk. For instance, if you set up a RAID 0 array to combine two 50 GB hard disks into a single 100GB virtual disk, that single virtual disk will have (roughly) two times faster performance than a normal disk.

Setting up a RAID system on a Hackintosh is very tricky, but it's definitely possible. For starters, there are two basic ways to set up a RAID system: with a hardware controller, or with a software controller. The hardware method offers better performance, but the software method is far more convenient. For this guide, we will show you how to set up a software RAID 0 system on Mac OS X in a Hackintosh.

Multibeast 4.7.0 Update

Today, tonymacx86 and MacMan released version 4.7.0 of Multibeast 4, their post-installation tool for Hackintoshes running Mac OS X Lion. We have updated our comprehensive guide to Multibeast 4 to reflect this update.

Users of Mac OS X Lion rejoice-- though development of Multibeast 4 has languished since the release of Multibeast 5 for Mountain Lion, the 4.7.0 update improves Multibeast 4 dramatically. First and foremast, all of the improvements introduced by Multibeast 5 have finally been pushed to Multibeast 4. Multibeast 4.7.0 now has a greatly simplified section for audio drivers, the old "System Utilities" section has been removed (Multibeast now repairs file permissions by default), several options have been given simpler names, and many options have been updated. In addition, the "Miscellaneous" section has been split into two separate sections, though the actual distinction between these two sections is arguably murky. For full details on the update, jump past the break.

Multibeast 5.2 Update

Earlier this week, MacMan and tonymacx86 released version 5.2 of their Multibeast post-installation tool for Hackintoshes. We have updated our comprehensive guide to Multibeast to reflect this update.

The 5.2 update mostly consisted of incremental or cosmetic changes to the Multibeast menu. The only significant additions to Multibeast were a patch that enabled integrated graphics on mixed Sandy Bridge/Ivy Bridge computers, and the new Mac Mini (6, 1) system definition. Full details past the break.

How to edit "About This Mac" on a Hackintosh

Running either UserDSDT or Easybeast with Multibeast will automatically identify your computer as a 2008 Mac Pro, because the Mac Pro (3,1) system definition is installed by default. To recap, system definitions pretend that your Hackintosh is a real Mac, enabling a variety of model-specific features in Mac OS X. However, if you don't think that your "About This Mac" page is glamorous enough, it's actually possible to edit this system definition information.

How to set up an ASUS Hackintosh

It's always recommended that you use a Gigabyte-brand motherboard when building a Hackintosh. Compatibility-wise, they're always the easiest to work with. However, not everybody has the opportunity to use a Gigabyte motherboard. If your computer uses an ASUS motherboard, you can still turn it into a Hackintosh. There are just a few extra steps that you'll have to perform.

How to install Mac OS X Snow Leopard on an Ivy Bridge Hackintosh (experimental)

Earlier this year, Intel released Ivy Bridge, its newest generation of computer processors. As a result, a majority of new Hackintosh builds now use Ivy Bridge. However, while Mac OS X Lion 10.7.5 and all versions of OS X Mountain Lion support Ivy Bridge natively, Mac OS X Snow Leopard does not. This is a major problem, since Snow Leopard is the only modern version of Mac OS X that can be installed on PCs without the help of a real Mac, existing Hackintosh, or Mac OS X virtual machine. Luckily, it turns out that there is still a way to install Snow Leopard on Ivy Bridge after all-- with the help of iBoot Ivy Bridge.

Quick Tip: Sound not working on your Hackintosh? Just buy a USB audio adapter.

Getting sound to work on your Hackintosh isn't always as easy as running Multibeast once or twice. Instead, some computer motherboards have "nonstandard" audio codecs, which don't work with the normal Realtek audio drivers included with Multibeast. In this case, your only option may to be to install VoodooHDA, the notoriously unreliable Hackintosh sound driver known for its poor sound quality (and tendency to cause kernel panics). If you don't want to use VoodooHDA, or you're simply having problems with your Hackintosh's audio in general, you might want to buy a USB audio adapter instead.

UPDATE: ASUS WL-138g V2 added to our list of Hackintosh wifi adapters

We recently updated our list of Hackintosh-compatible WiFi adapters to include the ASUS WL-138g V2. Though the WL-138g V2 is no longer available from most major retailers, it qualifies for the list because it still works out of the box with all recent versions of OS X. This addition increases the count of our list of WiFi adapters to four. If you have any more suggestions for WiFi adapters that work out of the box in Hackintoshes, please email us at info@macbreaker.com, or leave a comment on any relevant article on our website.

How to enable AirPlay Mirroring on a Hackintosh

AirPlay Mirroring is a useful feature in OS X Mountain Lion that allows you to "mirror" the display of your Mac onto your Apple TV. Unfortunately, AirPlay Mirroring rarely works with Hackintoshes by default. If you're encountering problems with AirPlay mirroring on your Hackintosh with OS X Mountain Lion, try these steps.

The Best Hackintosh Laptops of 2012 - For Mountain Lion

It's very difficult to find a laptop that can easily be turned into Hackintosh. As mentioned in our Hackintosh compatibility guide, most laptops aren't good Hackintoshes, because the compact design of laptops makes it very difficult to replace non-compatible parts.

With this in mind, I've compiled a list of Hackintosh-compatible laptops, all of which can run OS X Mountain Lion without the need to replace any hardware. As expected, many of the laptops on this list were also on our previous list for Mac OS X Lion-- after all, the hardware requirements between Lion and Mountain Lion are relatively similar. Most of the guides provided below are from tonymacx86, and have files attached to them. To view and download attached files on tonymacx86, you have to register an account on the website.

The Best Hackintosh Bluetooth Adapters

LATEST UPDATE (January 13, 2013): Added IOGEAR GBU521 to the list.

All Macs have built-in Bluetooth, so setting up Apple wireless accessories on a Mac is always a quick and simple process. However, if you want to use an Magic Mouse, Wireless Keyboard, or Magic Trackpad with your Hackintosh, you'll have to buy a third-party Bluetooth adapter. This article is here to help!

The Best Mini-ITX Hackintosh Motherboards

Hackintoshes are often stereotyped as big, lumbering workstations with full-size ATX boards and 40-pound computer cases. In reality, there are quite a few Hackintosh builds based around mini-ITX motherboards, which are smaller alternatives to more standard micro-ATX and ATX motherboards. Though we might never be able assemble a computer as small as Apple's super-tiny Mac Mini, it's still easy to assemble a respectably size-conscious Hackintosh for your personal use. So in the interest of saving you time, I've put together a list of Hackintosh-friendly mini-ITX motherboards, all of which can run OS X Mountain Lion with Unibeast.

How to use Multibeast 5: a comprehensive guide for Mountain Lion

LATEST UPDATE (October 27, 2013): Updated guide to reflect Multibeast 5.5 updates.

Recently, tonymacx86 released Multibeast 5, a version of Multibeast customized specifically for OS X Mountain Lion, Apple's newest version of Mac OS X. The layout of Multibeast has been revamped, and many incompatible and outdated options have been removed. Even so, opening Multibeast can be an intimidating experience for anybody new to Hackintoshes. This guide is here to help. 

How to install OS X Mountain Lion on a MBR partition with Unibeast

When you install Windows on a hard drive, it automatically sets the partition scheme of your hard disk to MBR (Master Boot Record). Mac OS X doesn't support this partition scheme, but you can still install OS X Mountain Lion on a hard disk with the MBR partition scheme by modifying "OSInstall.mpkg" and "OSInstall", two installation files inside your Unibeast USB drive. This means that you can install Mac OS X on a hard drive that already has Windows installed.

How to set up the UEFI of your Hackintosh's Gigabyte motherboard

In their newest series of motherboards, Gigabyte has replaced the traditional motherboard BIOS with UEFI, a newer (and better-looking) interface for managing motherboard settings. The layout of the UEFI on Gigabyte motherboards is different from the old BIOS layout, and there are a few new settings that need to be changed to work optimally with Mac OS X. Rather than adding yet another section to our standard OS X installation guides, we've put together a separate guide to cover the UEFI setup process.

How to install OS X Mountain Lion in Virtualbox with Hackboot

We've already shown you how to use Virtualbox to install Mac OS X Snow Leopard and Mac OS X Lion on virtual machines in Windows, since it's great practice for installing Mac OS X on your actual computer. And now that OS X Mountain Lion 10.8 has been officially released, we can finally demonstrate how to do it with Mountain Lion too.

How to speed up your Hackintosh's boot time in Mountain Lion 10.8.0

After I updated my Hackintosh from Mac OS X Lion to Mountain Lion, the amount of time it took Mac OS X nearly doubled. The boot time of my SSD increased from 20 seconds to 40 seconds, while the boot time of my normal hard drive increased from 1 minute to 2 minutes. If you're experiencing similar problems with your Hackintosh after making the upgrade to Mountain Lion, you've come to the right place; it turns out there's an easy solution after all!

Enable HD 4000 graphics on your Hackintosh (updated)

OS X Mountain Lion added support for Intel HD 4000 integrated graphics this week. However, it does not work by default on Hackintoshes. To enable graphics support for HD 4000, you have to install the newest version of Chimera bootloader and make a few adjustments.

How to install OS X Mountain Lion on your PC with Unibeast

LAST UPDATED: January 3, 2013

If you're interested in running Mac OS X, but you don't want to pay ridiculous prices for a normal Mac, then a Hackintosh just might be for you. Right now, the newest iteration of OS X is 10.8, known as Mountain Lion. Installing Mountain Lion on a PC is pretty much the exact same as installing Mac OS X 10.7 (Lion). This guide is based off tonymacx86's method for installing Mountain Lion, except that we cover it with more detail (and pictures!).

Enable HD 4000 graphics on your Hackintosh (experimental)

By default, Intel HD 4000 integrated graphics are not supported by Mac OS X. You cannot change the screen resolution on a Hackintosh that uses HD 4000, and there's no graphics acceleration. However, in the recent Macbook Pro software update, Apple included graphics drivers that added support for Intel HD 4000. Though nobody was initially able to get these drivers to work with Hackintoshes, this has finally changed.

Dell XPS 8300: The Pre Built Hackintosh That You Can Buy From Any Store

We generally recommend that you build your own Hackintosh, since setting up Mac OS X is a lot easier when you know exactly what parts your computer uses. There are very few prebuilt desktop computers that have been confirmed to work with Mac OS X. However, if building your own computer is not practical, you've still got one good option: the Dell XPS 8300.

The Difference Between Chimera and Chameleon

Since Mac OS X cannot normally boot from PCs, Hackintoshes use their own special bootloaders to start the operating system. Nowadays, people have two main choices in Hackintosh bootloaders: Chimera, the bootloader supported by tonymacx86, and Chameleon, the bootloader supported by pretty much everyone else. Unfortunately, the difference between Chimera and Chameleon isn't very clear, which is why we've put together a short explanation to end the question once and for all. 

Is your Hackintosh's second monitor lagging? Try switching ports.

In the past, one of the monitors in my dual-monitor Hackintosh setup would always lag when I did anything processor-intensive from the other monitor. For instance, all of the apps in my first monitor would experience a performance drop whenever I watched fullscreen videos in my second monitor. Luckily, there's an easy fix available. It turned out that the problem was with the connector ports on my graphics card.

Choosing The Right CPU For Your Hackintosh

Choosing the right processor for your Hackintosh is usually a pretty straightforward process. Just about any standard Intel processor will work. However, the choice becomes much more complicated once you get into the details, which is why we've put together this short guide on how various lines of computer processors work with Mac OS X.

How to set your Hackintosh bootscreen to a widescreen resolution (VESA modes)

At boot time, your Hackintosh's bootloader can only display the basic resolutions programmed into your graphics card; these are known as VESA modes. VESA resolutions usually aren't widescreen, so if your Hackintosh uses a widescreen monitor, all of the images on your bootscreen may be stretched and distorted. This can be fixed by changing the VESA modes in your graphics card, but it isn't easy.

What Mountain Lion Means For Hackintoshes

OS X Mountain Lion will be released to the public this July. Though the front-end of OS X will remain mostly unchanged by this impending update, it does include a few Hackintosh-friendly updates under the hood.

The Right Graphics Cards For Your Hackintosh

After your motherboard, the graphics card is the most important part of your Hackintosh. However, Mac OS X wasn't designed to support a wide variety of graphics cards, so it's not always clear which graphics card is the best choice. To answer this question once and for all, we've put together this guide on choosing the right card for your own Hackintosh.

Enable the NVIDIA GTX 670 on Mac OS X Lion (experimental)

Mac OS X Mountain Lion will add support for NVIDIA's GTX 600 series and AMD's Radeon 6900 series of graphics cards. However, if you want support right now, it is now possible to enable full resolution and graphics acceleration for the NVIDIA GTX 670 in Mac OS X Lion, by following alfa's method.

The Complete Guide To Backing Up Your Hackintosh With Carbon Copy Cloner

Though Hackintoshes are usually pretty stable, you can never be too careful when updating your Hackintosh's version of Mac OS X. You don't want to lose your personal files if your Hackintosh becomes unbootable-- always make a backup! With Carbon Copy Cloner, backing up your Hackintosh is nice and easy.

The Difference Between Unibeast, myHack, and Kakewalk

LAST UPDATED: December 22, 2012

Unibeast is by far the most popular installation software for Hackintoshes, but alternatives like myHack and Kakewalk have their own followings, respectively. However, it is not completely clear what the difference between these three tools is. Forums that support myHack and Kakewalk specifically avoid talking about Unibeast, while forums that support Unibeast specifically avoid talking about myHack and Kakewalk.

To answer this question once and for all, I've put together a comparison of these three pieces of Hackintosh software. For each app, I summarize its feature set, and then compare its capabilities to the other two apps. The results may surprise you.

Install Mac OS X Lion on an Ivy Bridge Hackintosh

Intel recently released Ivy Bridge, the successor to their Sandy Bridge line of processors. There aren't any Macs that use Ivy Bridge processors yet, which means that Mac OS X doesn't natively support the chipset. However, you can still install Mac OS X on a PC using an Ivy Bridge processor, by using the tool Bridge Helper (along with some hackwork in the Terminal).

How Much Money Will A Hackintosh Save You?

It’s well-known that Macs have an extremely high price tag, which is why low cost is one of the biggest advantages to building a Hackintosh. However, it’s not always clear exactly how much money a Hackintosh will save you, compared to buying a real Mac. To answer this question once and for all, I’ve assembled a price analysis to compare the price of a real Mac to the price of a Hackintosh.

Enable Intel HD 2000 graphics on your Hackintosh (experimental)

If you have a Hackintosh running Mac OS X Lion, it's pretty easy to enable the HD 3000 graphics built into Intel processors. However, Mac OS X Lion doesn't natively support Intel's HD 2000 graphics, so Hackintoshes with HD 2000 have been out of luck-- until now. Thanks to recent developments, it is now possible to enable HD 2000 graphics on Hackintoshes running Mac OS X Lion, by replacing several default graphics kexts with modified versions and installing a modified version of Chameleon bootloader.

Hackintosh SSDs: All You Need to Know

One of the easiest ways to speed up your Hackintosh is to install Mac OS X on a SSD. Using a SSD will make a Hackintosh boot faster, apps start faster, and files copy faster. In case you don't know, a SSD is a "solid state drive", which is essentially a speedier version of your normal computer hard drive. SSDs don't use any moving parts, so they're much smaller, longer-lasting, and faster than traditional hard drives, but they're also much more expensive. Interested in using a SSD for your Hackintosh? Read on.

The Easy Guide to Installing Lion with Kakewalk

If you want to install Mac OS X Lion on your PC, Kakewalk makes the process incredibly easy. When you normally set up a "Hackintosh", you have to do a lot of extra work to enable things like sound, ethernet, sleep, and even the ability to boot from the hard drive. Kakewalk does all of this for you, by installing the appropriate kexts and configuration files for your Hackintosh beforehand. This way, after your initial installation, you can immediately boot into a fully-functional copy of Mac OS X Lion. Everything works out of the box!

Speed up your Hackintosh's boot time by changing the boot priority

If your Hackintosh is taking 10-20 seconds to get past the "Loading Operating System" screen every time it boots, there's an easy solution to your problem: adjust your boot priority. Hackintoshes have to use AHCI mode for their BIOS, but AHCI mode wastes a lot of time searching for extra boot devices, like DVDs or USB drives. If you're just trying to boot from your Hackintosh's hard disk, setting the hard disk at the top boot priority can speed up your boot time noticeably.

The Best WiFi Adapters For Your Hackintosh

If you want to connect your Hackintosh to the internet via WiFi, you'll have to install a wireless adapter (also known as a WiFi card). However, finding the right wireless adapter for your Hackintosh can be tricky, since Mac OS X only supports an extremely limited number of wireless chipsets. Instead, to save you a lot of time, we've compiled a short list of the most Hackintosh-compatible wireless adapters on the market.

Fix screen artifacts on your Hackintosh

Source

Any Hackintosh with Intel HD 3000 integrated graphics can get full graphics support in a relatively easy process, but these HD 3000 graphics are known to cause occasional freezing and screen artifacts in OS X. Luckily, these graphics issues seem to be fixed by the newest release of FakeSMC 4.2.

Lion legacy kernel finally released!

A legacy kernel for Mac OS X Lion was recently released on OSx86.net, allowing AMD Hackintoshes to run Lion for the first time. The kernel is currently in beta, but any brave souls who wish to install Lion on their AMD Hackintosh should feel free to try it out (just be sure to make a backup beforehand).

The Best Lenovo Hackintosh Laptop of 2012

Today we've added the newest member to MacBreaker's 2012 list of Hackintosh laptops: the Lenovo IdeaPad B570. Touting a 2nd-generation Intel processor, and almost full compatibility with Mac OS X Lion, the IdeaPad B570 is an ideal choice for any veteran Hackintosher searching for a reliable, mid-size laptop.

The Ultimate Xeon Hackintosh Server

Most Hackintosh builds use standard Intel Core processors, and even high-end Hackintosh builds rarely use anything better than a Core i7 2600K. However, if you're looking to assemble the most powerful Hackintosh possible, then you'll want to check out the record-breaking Xeon Hackintosh build assembled by lightinhopkins of tonymacx86.

The Easy Way To Install Mountain Lion On a PC

Last month, we showed you how to install the developer preview of Mac OS X Mountain Lion on your Hackintosh, by manually creating your own installer USB drive. However, there is now an easier way to install Mac OS X Mountain Lion, by using the newly updated myHack app.

Four Cheap Hackintosh Builds Worth Your Money

For most people, Hackintoshes are meant to be a cheaper alternative to buying a real Mac. However, Mac OS X doesn't work with just any hardware, so building your own Hackintosh on the cheap usually need some extra research. In the interest of saving you time (and money), I've compiled a list of the 4 best discount Hackintosh builds, all of which can run Mac OS X Lion flawlessly. Best of all, every one of these builds costs less than $500 to assemble.

Disable internet download warnings on Mac OS X

You've undoubtedly seen warnings like the one shown above on your Hackintosh before; every time you download anything from the internet, Mac OS X drops you this warning before you can open the file. Ostensibly, this is for your own security. However, if you don't need Mac OS X warning you about everything that you download, it's actually very to disable this "feature". This tip isn't Hackintosh-specific, so it'll work with real Macs too.

The Best 14-inch Hackintosh Notebook

Last week, we looked at the four best Hackintosh notebooks of 2012. Today, I've added the HP ProBook 4430s ($600-700) to the list. At this time, the ProBook 4430s is probably the best 14-inch laptop that you could buy for Hackintoshing. It's cheap and compact, and like most of the HP ProBook line, it's almost fully compatible with Mac OS X Lion.

The Best Hackintosh Laptops Of 2012 - For Lion

SEE ALSO: The Best Hackintosh Laptops of 2012 - For Mountain Lion

It's very difficult to find a laptop that can easily be turned into Hackintosh. As mentioned in our Hackintosh compatibility guide, most laptops aren't good Hackintoshes, because the compact design of laptops makes it very difficult to replace non-compatible parts.

With this in mind, I've compiled a list of Hackintosh-compatible laptops, all of which can run Mac OS X Lion without the need to replace any hardware. Some of these laptops were chosen because they were exceptionally compatible with Mac OS X, while others were chosen because they had a large Hackintosh community backing them. Most of the guides provided below are from tonymacx86, and have files attached to them. To view and download attached files on tonymacx86, you have to register an account on the website.

Enable Intel HD 3000 graphics on your Hackintosh

In the past, Mac OS X didn't support integrated graphics cards, so you couldn't use the integrated graphics on the motherboard of your Hackintosh. However, this changed in 2011, when Apple released the Mac Mini and a new line of Macbooks. Now, with Mac OS X Lion, any Hackintosh with Intel HD 3000 integrated graphics can get full graphics support in a relatively easy process.

How to install Mac OS X Mountain Lion [Developer Preview] on your Hackintosh

A few weeks back, Apple gave the world a sneak peak at Mac OS X 10.8 (Mountain Lion). If you downloaded a copy of Mountain Lion from Apple's developer program, it's actually not very hard to install it on your Hackintosh. The folks at tonymacx86 won't release a tool for Mountain Lion until later this year, but you can already make a Hackintosh-ready installer for Mountain Lion by yourself.

How to dual-boot your Hackintosh with separate hard disks (with Chimera/Chameleon bootloader)

Update (March 8, 2016): Using OS X 10.10 El Capitan? Check out our updated dual-booting guide on El Capitan instead.

Running Mac OS X on a Hackintosh is great, but most people still need to use Windows every now and them. That's where dual-booting comes in. Dual-booting is the process of installing both Mac OS X and Windows on your computer, so that you can choose between the two when your Hackintosh starts. If you want to dual-boot, the easiest way is to install Windows and Mac OS X on separate hard disks. This method is the most hassle-free.