Yearly Archives: 2011

The HackMini

Hackintosh

Keeping it cool.

When I bought the Mac Mini as a home theater PC, I knew it was but a temporary solution until time to make my own became available. I named it the Mac Fry and so it has proved, with CPU temperature soaring to 168F when ripping/compressing a movie with Handbrake. The service limit is 176F for the C2D CPU and all that thermal cycling so close to the limit is not consonant with a long life.

So when the opportunity arose, I procured the parts to make my own, and the Mini will move to a less demanding home for near zero net outlay. But first I will have to replace the slot loading DVD drive because, like every other Mac slot loading drive I have owned, it has just failed.

As before, ace builder TU Steve writes what follows:

To keep things simple, I used the same parts as in the HP10, my utility machine which runs super cool and has performance comparable to all but the fastest iMacs at a fraction of the cost. The only thing which would change is that an elegant case would be used, as the HackMini is very much on show below the TV screen.

Well, I thought I was using the same parts, but the restless people at Gigabyte conspired to change the audio chip used on their mini H67M-D2-B3 motherboard from the Realtec ALC888b in HP10 (v1.0) to the ALC889 in the HackMini (v1.1), meaning the build started with no sound until I applied the fix here. Then OS Lion refused to allow login to the AppStore – essential for software updates – and a few seconds here quashed that little bug.

As I had a couple of small notebook drives in a drawer, remaindered from fried Apple laptops, I used those doubled up on a Silverstone adapter plate, allowing installation in a 3.5″ slot.

I spent a long time choosing a case, wanting something less than full sized but not so small that cooling would be an issue. This machine is going to be worked hard, and must have front USB slots for sneakernet movement of movie VOB files. I finally decided on the Silverstone LC03S in unpainted alumin(i)um, as I really dislike black, with neat front flaps covering the USB sockets and the full size tray loading Sony DVD reader/burner. I have never had one of the latter fail and they are dirt cheap.

The build was dead easy, taking just two hours from box opening to start up, and I had prepped the drives using HP10 while waiting for the parts. The case is premium priced but you get rolled steel edges inside, meaning no injuries when building.

There are two small, silent case fans, so I had to procure a two-into-one connector as the mobo sports but two fan connectors, the other used by the CPU cooler. Another $2 was blown on a small beeper speaker which announces itself with a single beep at power-on, indicating all is well. Just like in a crappy Windows machine. As you can see, there’s tons of room in there, with space for another 3.5″ device – I will likely add an SDHC card reader – and several more drives. Many build their HTPC Hacks with micro ITX mobos but that makes for small boxes and hosts of issues. This case will actually accommodate a full size ATX mobo, but that would be overkill for the intended use. As it is, the Gigabyte mobo used sports no fewer than eight rear and two front USB sockets, including USB3 if desired, so it’s not like connectivity is an issue.

Finally, the motherboard includes two SATA3 sockets which will support the latest 6gb/s fast HDDs and SSDs. The two notebook drives are ancient SATA2 devices, and as disc access is infrequent in this application, that’s just fine.

As you can see, space is abundant inside:

The over-spec’d Thermaltake PSU, at 430 watts, will not break a sweat and I like the brand for it’s neat cloth covered cable sheaths.

And that’s about it. Here it is in place, happily replacing the awful Mac Mini which may just be the worst designed computer I have ever owned.


The ugly small black ‘wires’ are optical fiber cables for an IR blaster.

Here’s the parts cost – I used the awesome Intel Core i3 Sandybridge CPU:

Case $86
Wifi card 38
GT430 GPU 75 (EVGA with HDMI/VGA/DVI)
Motherboard 96
Drive plates 16
RAM/DVD/CPU/PSU 237 (8gB Corsair 1333mHz)
Beeper 2
Y fan cable 3
EVGA rebate (15)

Total $538

To be fair, the cost of an HDD has to be added to strike a comparison with the MacMini which is certainly price competitive. Until it fries, that is. And the current Mini no longer includes a DVD burner.

Performance is everything you would expect of the Core i3 and the outstanding GPU:

Start-up and Geekbench run, using the stock Intel CPU cooler.

While the machine is used as an HTPC, it would also make an excellent desktop. I will likely replace the poor stock Intel CPU cooler with something better once I figure out sizing ($30) and will also add an internal multi-format card reader ($15). For a machine which is never switched off, an SSD makes little sense.

The HackMini is controlled with an RF Microsoft Mobile Mouse 6000, RF being far superior to Bluetooth in range and stability, not to mention battery life, and with Mobile Mouse on the iPad when typing names of movies into the DVDpedia database. This has interactive, clickable links to movie files residing on 10 tBs worth of external disc storage.

Audio is 2.1, with sound output from the motherboard routed to an ancient Sony receiver and thence to even older B&W DM4 speakers. With a little more hacking 5.1 surround sound using the multiple sockets on the motherboard would be easily added.

Want to add BluRay playback? Swap the regular Sony DVD burner for a BluRay SATA one ($60) and add this $50 software, and enjoy something Apple does not provide on any of its hardware.

Factory warranties are three years on the CPU, motherboard and graphics card and lifetime on the RAM, with only the Mobo being a pain to remove. No money wasted on AppleCare here. It should be added that of the many Hackintoshes in which I have had a hand, several used hard in professional settings, the sole failure over the past five years has been to one 1tB Samsung HDD, which was still within its three year warranty.

As befits an HTPC, the Hack Mini computer is silent as the grave.

* * * *

Thank you, TU Steve!

There are many reasons to avoid the poorly designed MacMini, even more so in its latest guise where the DVD burner has been deleted (though, arguably, that’s an improvement over the awful slot loader in mine); for the full scoop just click here. Hint: It’s nowhere near as cheap as you think.

Bluetooth update: To learn how to really get this fragile, wireless technology working well with the HackMini in its rôle as a keyboard-less home theatre computer, please click here.

Using reviews

Hardware

Where not to go.

One of the striking aspects of the many remembrances of Steve Jobs is how assiduously he cultivated big name journalists. He wasted no time marketing to Mac fan sites. Once you have used a Mac the number of switchers returning to the horrors of Windows probably compares with the number of Americans applying for resident status in North Korea. No, preaching to the converted is time wasted. Indeed, the ace fan site and magazine, Macworld, numbering many decent journalists in its ranks, admitted that not one of them had ever had a face-to-face discussion with Jobs, absent the occasional “Hi! Nice to see you” sort of thing at a product roll out. There’s a reason for that.

Jobs’s primary focus was on the NYT, WSJ and Time. Who do you think got pre-release versions of all the new hardware? And why? Big readerships, with lots of Windows and Android users ready for conversion. But while these publications have decent writers, they are converts also, so objectivity is not the reason you go there.

Let me put this in focus by explaining how I go about choosing parts for a Hackintosh. The two in my home do not have a single piece of Apple hardware, for good reason. I want proper ventilation, which rules out everything except the MacPro, I want a decent price which rules out the MacPro, and I want a mouse which has solid ergonomics, unlike the Magic Mouse which is an ergonomic disaster. I want a keyboard with mechanical scissor keys providing proper tactile and aural feeedback. The Apple keyboards, whether in a laptop or sold separately are a catastrophe in those regards. I want a matte screen which I can profile properrly with a colorimeter. No such device exists in the Apple hardware line. I write this having used just about every example of the Apple hardware I am criticizing. Their non-iOS hardware is simply so deficient in so many ways there’s nothing – absent maybe the MacBook Air – which works for me.

So my ‘go to’ places to assess hardware for OS X are different. They include AnandTech, Tom’s Hardware and buyers’ comments at Newegg.com.

Anandtech is written by engineers for engineers. The writing is of a high technical standard by experienced men. Take a look at their outstanding review of the iPhone 4S, largely written by an optical engineer. Note especially the stellar writing about the camera and video.

Click for the review

Did you know, for example, that AnandTech tested the latest iteration of Apple’s Airport Extreme router and found it massively changed and far superior to earlier ones? Apple didn’t even tell anyone about the changes, and you can read Brian King’s outstanding analysis here.

Tom’s Hardware has fine technical writing about motherboards and graphics cards, and the reviews and comparisons pull no punches. A high quality source for the computer builder.

And finally, Newegg is the place gamers buy their hardware. I’m not into games but game playing is usually the most demanding use of a computer’s processor and graphics, and the sheer number of reviews here makes the result statistically meaningful. Absent the usual number of cheaters writing for a manufacturer, the writers tell it as it is. If something sucks, you’ll read that here.

When 1,200 customers/buyers say something emphatically does not suck, you know you are onto something.

So if you want real analysis, go to these places and avoid the fan sites and national press at all costs.

It’s fairly easy with computers – most of the variables can be measured and few are subjective, such as keyboard/mouse feel and display rendering. Everything else can be pretty much reduced to data – speeds, capacities, temperatures and so on.

With cameras it’s far harder. You can find lots of technical sites on the web which tell you about the knobs and dials and lens resolution

They have some value but none can answer whether the feel and operational realities work for you. I have extolled the virtues of the MFT format in the Panny G1 and G3 here, and have told you that both render files good for large prints. But until you try it for yourself, that opinion is non-transferable. So, unlike with computers, the best way with camera gear is to try it and see. And if you pay $5,000 for a Leica lens, you can convince yourself and all who care to listen to your mental meanderings that you can really feel that Leica glow. It’s actually the red ink on your bank statement.

Google Art Project

Paintings

Exceptional.

I make no bones about my dislike for Google’s ‘anything for a buck’ raison d’être but its Google Art Project, which has been around a couple of years now, is really special. You can wander through the halls of many of the world’s great art collections, manna for photographers and the visully inclined everywhere, and examine these at a level of detail and in simply stunning definition that no docent would ever permit, lest your nose make contact with the hallowed canvas in question.

Here’s a perfect example, Holbein’s extraordinary portrait of Thomas More in the Frick Collection in Manhattan:

Click the picture for the interactive site.

The extent to which you can zoom in, with the image refreshing for ever greater detail, is breathtaking.

MOMA NYC, The Met, The Uffizzi, The Frick, Versailles, The Hermitage – they are all there. Sadly, the Louvre is not.

And you want to feel Van Gogh’s passion in his vase of gladioli? Look no further than his eponymous museum in lovely Amsterdam.

For many viewers these picture are simply too remote to be seen in person. You might argue that the Google Art Project experience is superior. You need Flash to view, so iDevices will not work.

Metropol

Dining, Photographs

Another from the storefront series.

Metropol. G3, kit lens @43mm, 1/250, f/5.6, ISO 1600.

The original needed quite a bit of work, and there was no way of avoiding the utility pole at the time I pressed the button.

Original snap.

Content Aware Fill and the Clone Stamp tool, taken in several small bites, got rid of the lamppost and selective application of Curves lifted the dark interior. On Sutter Street in San Francisco.

iPhone auxiliary lenses

iPhone

Clutter or value added?

A friend sent along a link to Olloclip (eh?), a maker of auxiliary lenses for the iPhone 4/4S. Click the picture to go to their site.

Click the picture

This particular variant adds wide angle, fish eye and macro capabilities when clipped over the iPhone’s rear facing lens.

Auxiliary lenses are nothing new. Zeiss Ikon in their Contaflex and Kodak in their Retina IIc/IIIc folders and Retina Reflex cameras used this approach in the 1960s. The standard lens would have a small removable element which could be replaced with wide and long focus front elements, invariably gargantuan and, in the case of the Contaflex, there was even a macro and a monocular adapter. The bulk and clutter these added to the camera bag were in no way repaid by image quality. The wides were not very wide, typically 32-35mm, and you could get better long focal length quality by simply enlarging the 35mm negative more, in preference to using the attachment. Most of the ‘teles’ were 75-80mm with the Retina Reflex boasting a 200mm.

Accordingly, I confess I have mostly negative opinions of this sort of thing. First, auxiliary lenses seldom are much to talk about when it comes to definition. Look at the fish eye examples on that site and the definition is pretty awful. Second, you are fiddling about with attachments rather than taking pictures.

So the Olloclip device, and its cousins, none of which I have used by the way, fail the test of ‘small and simple’. Futzing about with add on gadgets when snapping with the quite decent camera in the iPhone 4S seems, to me, to destroy the small and fast concept, and the displayed images suggest that anything larger than a wallet sized print will embarrass both photographer and viewer. On the other hand, I just made some 13″ x 19″ prints from my naked 4S and the quality needs no excuses. I see no pressing reason to mess with that.