Why in the World: Hackintoshes (Y40-70)

Why don't you think so?

Oh now I see why.... Yeah OSX doesn't like SoC's 3:

The basic Macbook uses similar SoC's to mine, my biggest concerns were actually WiFi and getting the keyboard to work before logging into the system. This stupid keyboard drives me up a wall because only Windows seems to play well with it.

VoodooPS2 and mouse drivers will do the trick. No KB, unless external, works in OSX natively. If USB it does. As for wifi you'll have to look up the drivers. I would be more concerned with GPU and audio actually. Though I assume VoodooHDA would work just fine for audio.

The keyboard is Bluetooth only (which is why Linux hates it), which is why I'm concerned.
WiFi I don't think is covered yet because Apple only uses Broadcom IIRC, whereas I have the Intel 7265. I found somebody working on a driver, but development seems to have stopped :(
Are integrated Intel graphics not OSX friendly? I thought they were generic or something.

I don't know, I may just see if I can get Linux sorted first and then go for OSX. I got like three days to do it too.

Depends on the graphics. The HD4400 in the Y40 only works my chance because the chip is similar to its bretheren (4500 4600) used as passive chips to M270's and M380's in MBP's and imacs. The bluetooth thing could be an issue but there is a generic BT driver. Wifi can be done via USB. Thats what I am doing.

Hackintosh Buyer Guide and Builders Idea List

Part 1: Buyers Guide.

You have 2 basic camps: One doesn’t give shit and use wants a working machine with OS X (me), while Two is pretty paranoid about having a machine that is as close as possible to the real deal. In my camp theres more research to do towards what machine you want to use. As a power user that literally carries a moving lab with me, I care about weight, form factor, and power. For someone who wants an Apple Clone / Compatible they are probably more concerned about how they can get what hardware that works here here and here and most of the time in laptops the hardware is older or rather meh from what I have seen TBH.

I can really only talk from my angle, which is based on learning how all of this works and to get the user system I prefer, so if I have something slightly off tell me sos I can take note of it for later.

Desktops

For a desktop you don’t have to look for as many drivers as you would for a laptop. There certainly are some boggles with it but there is much more custom stuff you can do. I won’t suggest boards to get because I don’t have any of them on hand, but I will point to companies.

CPU

As a desktop you will want a powerhouse. OS X runs OK on a dual core, but Quads are pretty good. Hexa cores are off and on as far as I can tell but thats dependent on the motherboard. I would build on Intel platforms. AMD is super doable, but thats a pain in the ass. Theres a separate kernel you have to weave in. X99 i a good platform from what I have seen. I would aim at Quads and Octa cores and maybe a dual system, but then you’re back to motherboards. If you want Sierra be sure your CPU has SSE4 and 4.1. The new graphics system (metal) is dependent on it.

MOBO

From what I have seen, 85, 99, and 170 platforms work well. I haven’t seen much for 79 yet but there have been one or two project started but I never saw the end of those projects. Gigabyte seems to be pretty widely used as well as Asus. Dual Processor builds have been done, however I can’t find information on those systems. Sometimes those are custom, other times I have seen it be just a system built on a Foxconn board that happened to have a lot of the same ID’s so that it all picks up and just works. If you want to do a dual chip box I would look at server boards or desktop foxconn boards. Anything bigger like tri-proc’s and quads just do linux. You might be limited by what you can really do. If you are thinking about multiGPU setups keep in mind that if you set up for 4 full X16 PCIe slots you can only use 1 as a display card. All other cards will be set as basically separate processors. Speaking of…

And yes you can do UEFI on your mobo. No need to set it to legacy mode. There i an interesting boot system called Clover that will emulate tho Apple EFI and Scan system and be rather useful to you after setup.

GPU’s

First off, most Nvidia cards will work right off the bat. With AMD cards you will have to be careful about companies. For example, my mac pro can’t recognize the device ID’s of my 250X in system. In terminal it can see it, but because the kexts aren’t there for it and the build system can’t see certain things you’ll have a hard time, possibly, with some specific cards. As its non-apple hardware, I couldn’t say for certain. With Nvidia cards you’re going to be dependent on who has what kext and what card it is. 970, 980, go for gold man. I don’t know if the 10 series has compatibility yet but if it does then you’ll be after Sierra. Come to think of it if you have a titan you’re set. With the AMD side you might be worried about the GPU company more. OS X doesn’t play nice with XFX cards for whatever reason. Seems stupid to me but… whatever. I know ASUS and Gigabyte cards work so if you’re after AMD then go for them. If you’re going to build on Sierra the RX 400 series cards have native drivers.

RAM and Other things

Near as I can tell RAM doesn’t matter. Could be DDR4 and the system doesn’t really seem to give a crap. It may or may not lock the ram to a certain speed, but in all the builds listed on mackintosh sites people seem to be building DDR4 based machines with only a few minor setbacks. PSU doesn’t matter. If your PSU has RGB in-OS control you’re not going to be doing anything with that (personally I think all the RGB stuff is really annoying). Monitor? OS X scales. If your GPU can do it OS X will not bitch about the resolution. Like at all. Which I find really funny.

BUT WHAT ABOUT LAPTOPS?????

Alright now you’re really in my territory that I am still shoveling. If you just have some random laptop that you aren’t using for anything, chances are that OS X hasn’t been put onto one o them yet (example, my Y40-70). You mot likely won’t be the first to try but you won’t be the last either. You have to worry about each of the components individually. Furthermore, there are limited wifi drivers for your built in cards so its much easier to just get a broadcom apple chip and put it in. It works so I won’t complain.

Will the system know what this CPU is automatically or do I have to tell clover what it is?

Will the system underclock my CPU to match an Apple spec?

Will the Intel / NVAMD witching really be that much of a pain in the ass? [yes it will]

Will I even be able to boot the system?

All normal questions and rather good concerns that no one really has answers for your specific unit. Example, OS X can run on Atom CPU’s but its finicky about what exact ones. Some laptop GPU’s get accidentally matched to desktop ones and they get over clocked and burnt out (have only seen one post about that but I’m skeptical, not ruling it out though). There are many things that can go wrong with a laptop so I only have a few recommended laptops.

1: Asus G50VT-X5 / G70 / 90

The GPU’s get detected in OS X 10.8 and up. Outside of running Niresh’s Mavericks, these systems are pretty sturdy in a custom system. If you run Niresh’s mavericks you will have to figure out how to keep WIFI stable. With a native chip it just kinda crashes out after 2 hours online. If you do a localchip / non - apple I can’t tell you what will happen because I didn’t have a chip that also had a driver. Just do a UB and you’ll be better off I’m pretty sure.

2: Lenovo Y50-70

The guide and info I followed to do my Y40-70 was for a Y50-70. I don’t know the difference in the hardware, but the guide works from Mavericks to Sierra. Here is a link.

Pretty good that.

3: Lenovo T400 Series Laptops

The irony here is many people on this site love these stupid things. The other half of it is that a lot of people build with them inn OS X. The hardware is generic enough that it mostly works. Can’t say too much more than that.

4: An Old Macbook

Say you have a 2007 macbook. Good right? 4 gigs of ram, decent speeds… Well, get an image that isn’t supported on your machine, set it up with unibeast, install. You have a hackintosh macintosh! This does work you can ask @wendell in the Lounge.

4: Your intel based laptop maybe

I said no one had done it with a whatever laptop I didn’t say yours would not work. It doesn’t hurt to try! Certainly write down everything you did along the way and make sure to post it somewhere.

So thats it for this post. Next will be a video probably and all the nonesuch that I did to make my Y40-70 work. Maybe later on do an update post. Again this is the guide I followed for my Y40-70…

…and for the most part it all works (M275X not included, there isn’t a driver!!).

Enjoy.

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Hey! Ive had a lenovo y40-70 and its odd that you have the 50ac, mine came with the 3160. (i got mine a long while ago for $700 though, im attempting to hackintosh it too. hopefully we can bounce stuff off eachother cause i am NEW to this

MOD STOP WAIT DON’T CLOSE THIS YET

Are you new to the forum?

Well in case you are, welcome. I want to introduce you to the idea of Necroing. Please look at the TOP RIGHT corner of each post. It says minutes, days, weeks, months, and years with each incriment of time. After 6 months a topic is considered too old without continued conversation every once in a while. So in this case you necro’d a thread which is more annoying to the mods than it is to most people. I’m one of those weirdo’s that gets annoyed, but often a necro isn’t asking anything its just a random comment that has nothing to do with the thread in the first place.

So in this case, instead of rebooting the thread, its advised to make a new thread based on the topic desired and you can LINK BACK to the thread of interest.

In this case I would just say to PM me for more information as I am not running OSX on the machine anymore.

Welcome to the forum.

1 Like

Got permission from the OP to close this.