A clean computer is a happy computer.

I just recently "re-virginized" a friend of mine's Mac Pro. He was seriously thinking about junking it because it was running badly, crashed a lot and was really noisy.
After moving his personal files, etc. off the drives, I did a square one reinstall - we put a larger system drive in the machine, reinstalled and updated the OS and then put back his software.
Total time for that, about four hours.

Then, I went into that noisy computer itself and started cleaning.

It sounds like a very basic thing but it's something that many people don't do. They figure that their house is pretty clean and it's probably not so bad.
Or it's something that they intend to to, but just haven't gotten around to. It's a pain in the next because the computer is on the ground, and a bazillion wires are coming out of the back...

Since I have pretty high end desktop computers that must work perfectly (hey, who doesn't?)
these inconveniences are not an excuse. I have my computer on a rolling dolly (i made it with four casters and a small plywood board) and roll it out enough to get in there and do my process... inside and out every two months.

Put it in your calender as a recurring event. It only takes ten minutes to do and will save you a lot of headache. Make it as much a part of your life as doing laundary, changing bedsheets, cleaning the bathroom or vacuuming the living room.

Get some compressed air. Turn the system off, open it up and blow that dust out.

Heatsinks: if you blow the dust off the fins regularly, that should suffice. If you haven't done it in a long time, get in there with a q-tip or small brush. Scrub. Even the thinnest layer of dust on these fins affects things in a big way.

Fans - obviously all the air flow fans (the big ones) are important, but as or more important are: CPU fans, GRAPHIC CARD fans and of course the PSU (power supply).

Hand turn all the fans to make sure that you haven't dislodged something that has caused the fan to get stuck.
Blow out all the ram, and then the entire motherboard.

If you have open vents, think about getting air-filters for them. You can go to any Home Depot and buy shop vac filters, cut them to size and duct tape them in there. it will go a long way to keeping dust out of the system.

Basic stuff that you've been told a million times.
Now do it.

You will be stunned by how much better, and quieter your computer is.

My friend- He had tears in his eyes when we were done and rebooted his computer. His love affair with it has begun all over again.

Bettter than Ever with Snow Leopard

Update: After grinding the machine through two relentless jobs, editing 1080p xdcamEX for a show, and doing heavy After Effects work, I am happy to say that everything continues to work perfectly. In fact, of all the systems we're using, the others being Apple Mac Pros, this system is running the best and smoothest. We were hit with a heat wave and even overclocked, the CPU fans managed to keep everything under control. So: if you're going to overclock, make sure to invest in a good CPU cooler as well as good, quiet internal fans and powersupply fans.

I highly recommend Snow Leopard with one caveat: CS5 does have some issues with the latest os x update. I find myself using cs4 more and am hoping that OSX 10.6.5 will resolve some graphics issues introduced in 106.4 What is interesting, and somewhat comforting to note is that these issues exist for Apple Mac Pro users too.

conversion to Snow Leopard absolutely perfect

I recently finished a huge Post Production job and have another coming down the pike. With this down time, I decided to update everything on the hackintosh. Using info provided on Insanely mac, I have done a complete Chameleon update. I am now running 10.6.4 Snow Leopard on a GA-EP44-ds3l board with zero issues. Everything works.
Once again, I am able to forget the fact that I'm not using a 'mac', and simply get on with using things.
Snow Leopard is fine and the one significant improvement I've noticed is Firewire speed.
Sweet.

in the middle of a major Sound Editing/ DVD authoring job

Hackintosh has been going well for the past three days as it renders an incredible d-noise video filter by neatvideo www.neatvideo.com I have worked with all of the major noise reduction plugins and standalone products and without a doubt, this is the best there is today. I have seen no smearing or blurring of the image. It's as if a took a towel and wiped away the video noise, leaving a beautiful picture. It takes a while to render and I have set up Final Cut Pro and Compressor to do the rendering. The Hac-Pro has been working perfectly for the last three days. The overall show has a running time of 18 hours so it is a major show, spanning nine DVDs.

While I am doing the actual encoding with Win XP, all editing, and authoring is done in OSX.

FLAWLESS!!!!

E SATA isn't standard on Mac Pro?

I was talking to a friend of mine with a Mac Pro and mentioned how I was shifting away from FW drives to SATA. The speed increase spoils you quickly. He said he didn't have an Esata port on his system, and when I checked it out at Apple.com, I saw that it's not standard.

Wow.

Anyway, it's really easy to install and IS a standard on my system. :)

Hackintosh as a total replacement for a Mac Pro

I started this blog to discuss the use of a Hackintosh (that's a 'mac' that wasn't made by Apple) for use in hard core apps. I'm not talkin' porn, though that can be included... I'm talking about serious applications requiring "no fucking around" processing.

For anyone who happened on this page in a search for wondering, can a Hackintosh really work?
Here's the deal.
1. Yes, they work
2. Yes, they work as well or better than a Mac Pro.
3. Yes, they are much cheaper to build.

Done. Anyone who says something else, simply doesn't know, or is lying.

I build and use a hackintosh computer daily for mission critical situations. More importantly, these aren't situations like, "typing a word document or an excel sheet" -- these are seriously intensive situations like, using the entire Final Cut studio suite - flawlessly, using Nuendo, etc.

My computer works so perfectly that I regularly, with clients, use -- Final Cut Pro 7, Apple Color, Compressor, Avid Media Composer 3, Nuendo 4.3

I import from an HD camera regularly. I edit 1080p footage in realtime.

Yes, it all works.

So, why talk about it?
Because I want to find other 'high end' users. Not just hobbyists, or hackers.
I want to share information.

Specifically, I want to know -- is anyone using Nuendo 4.3 (which means a legit copy, not some hacked version) with Leopard (or Snow Leopard) on a hackintosh and having perfect results?

I use this and it works. However, it does not run as smoothly as the XP equivalent. Is this an issue with Nuendo, or could this be an issue with the Hackintosh?