h61n-usb3 i3 2015 plex build

[netcastle]

I have been searching for the perfect Plex Hackintosh for a long time. In fact, I started hackintoshing in 2007 in an effort to achieve this goal. Unfortunately, my video collection is all very high bit rate stuff. For the last four years I haven't had much success in setting up Plex on a machine that can handle many of the videos in my collection. But none of the C2D systems I set up played video well enough, so until now I have been stuck using XBMC on Linux (a very capable system, but nowhere near as extensible or easy to use as Plex). All that changed when the sandy-bridge i-series processors came to the os x world. Now I want to share with anyone who is interested a low cost Plex build that, so far as I have tested it, plays even the highest bit-rate stuff as smoothly (if not better) than my XBMC set up.

The hardware is in my sig. My install procedure was pretty simple, but I did experience some hiccups along the way. Since I have a macbook pro, I installed lion directly to a hard-drive via USB. With a working 10.7.2 install I plugged the disk into my working hack (in my sig) and ran MultiBeast. My motherboard shipped with F2 bios so I used the DSDT from the database that already supported hdmi audio. This DSDT requires no further editing. In fact no part of this setup requires any editing of anything.

In MultiBeast, I selected UserDSDT, Lnx2Mac Ethernet, 3rd party SATA, and Mac Mini smbios. I installed audio from http://www.tonymacx86.com/Public/AppleHDA-2.1.1-889+HDMI.zip. In the BIOS, I made sure it was set to AHCI, HPET 64, and onboard graphics set at 384 + 2mb. This is what ultimately gave me a working system with HDMI audio.

I would be lying if I claimed that the process above went as smoothly as all that. In reality, I started out having the wrong Ethernet kext installed, the wrong smbios, and the wrong audio kext. So when I first fired the machine up, networking was totally unreliable, HDMI out didn't work, and the graphics looked like crap. After a few hours of trial and error I arrived at the above working configuration. I gave it the Avatar Blur-ay rip test (average bit rate of 26mbits/sec) and it all ran very well. Still doesn't do the lossless HD audio, but I am very impressed with the playback quality.

If anyone has any questions, I am happy to answer them, but since I have found very little about a reliable hackintosh that can run Plex with very high bit rate videos I wanted to post this for the record in case someone else wants to try it. I will update this post periodically as I improve this system with a remote, plugins, etc...

 

[netcastle]

As my testing continues, I have found that like my other Plex experiments in the past, this hack doesn't retain EDID information very well. It was kind of hit or miss. Oddly enough, when EDID was lost, so was audio over HDMI.

Putting an HDMI detective in line between the computer and the receiver resolved this issue.

Also, I plugged in a Macbook Pro IR receiver that I got as an aftermarket component somewhere a couple of years back. It is plug and play and integrates with Plex very nicely. I use a Harmony One and with a little bit of programming, the whole thing is now set up to be controlled with it. It is very smooth.

Estimating the costs:

DVI detective: ~$80
MBP IR: ~$35
H61n: ~$80
mitx case with power supply: ~$45
RAM: ~$40
Hard Drive: ~$50
i3 2105: ~$120
Lion: ~$30

Total: ~$480

Because I had a lot of these parts already on hand I only had to buy the motherboard, processor and case. But if you wanted to build this system from scratch I would expect to pay the above total. On balance, you can probably buy a refurb mac mini for not much more than this, so this system might not be in the cards for most people. Also, there are other HTPC solutions that are considerably cheaper, though I don't think they can do everything that Plex can do.

 

[netcastle]

Haven't been around in a while. Had back surgery last week.

To answer your first question, as I recall I was having what I suspected were some EDID problems that seemed to affect audio over HDMI. I had purchased the HDMI detective a year ago and tried it out in this setup and it worked! I haven't had the time or the will to mess around with the setup without it in the signal chain so there is sits, doing what it is supposed to do. You may have a different experience because you probably have different upstream audio and video components than I do.

I looks as though the appleHDA.kext that I am using enables analog audio as well as digital and HDMI. I only have two analog outs listed in AudioMIDI so it looks as though you might have to mess with the kext a bit if you want to enable multiple outputs (just as an FYI).

 

[LJSeinfeld]

Any issues with tearing (I'm running the same setup as you) -- I wound up going back to Toslink audio as I was getting tearing in Plex.

Also, do I recognize you from another hackintosh forum --possibly working with a GA E7AUM board?

 

[Gordo74]

Also, do I recognize you from another hackintosh forum --possibly working with a GA E7AUM board?

Please keep all discussions to Intel chipsets only.

I use XBMC instead of Plex with a NAS for storing all my media. I find it runs much better.

 

[LJSeinfeld]

UM... OK.

Thanks for the help, sorry to add context when asking if I knew someone from somewhere else.

Scolding received.

 

[netcastle]

UM... OK.

Thanks for the help, sorry to add context when asking if I knew someone from somewhere else.

Scolding received.

Yeah. I set up that board in winter of 09' for the same purpose. It ended up being my main computer for two years once the ram issue got tweaked out. Who would have thunk that back then we were still three years from a good plex box. Now, of course, plex client has some bugs, so it's still a struggle.