Hi guys. Just got delivery of the Psystar Open Pro with Mac OSX Leopard. Cannot afford to get the Mac pro so I figured what the hell, it is worth a try. Nice system:
http://store.psystar.com/featured/openpro-osx.html
Nice specs too. 2.66GHz Core2Quad, Upgraded to 6GB DDR2 RAM, 750GB hard disk, Nvidia Geforce 8800 GT with 512MB memory.
The first thing I noticed was the packaging. Very awkward, It was in an ANTEC box. Remember Antec that makes wonderful casing for desktops? At least Psystar should have done some branding. After opening the box everything inside was neatly packed. Eventually brought the big and heavy tower out and the first thing I usually do, checked the power pack to see if it would have 220V selected but luckily, it was a universal voltage/auto switching powerpack with 700W (too much for my needs). I also noticed that there were a lot of fans in the case. Although it would make it a noisy system, I didn't mind because I need that amount of cooling. I plugged it in (making sure that there was no fluctuation in the power supply (PHCN). So eventually I fired it up and the first thing was the usual POST screen, weird but it IS an open computer. It then showed the Psystar logo and progressed to an OS selection screen but the system was configured with only Mac OSX so straight on to the Apple white screen, which was AWESOME!!! It took a while to boot up (1st boot, which was expected) and viola! I saw the Leopard welcome animation, complete with sound. Yay! Exited that and straight to the desktop. Clicked on "About this mac" and it brought the dialog box that could not tell what kind of processor was installed but read the RAM well. Clicked on "More info" that launched the System profiler. I checked the basic configuration and was ok as it detected all hardware.
Now for some testing. I installed VLC and Divx and began to play HD footage and that was when the wahala started. While playing, I tried to drag windows around (to give the VGA card some work to do) and the system started hanging. I tried to change the screen resolution but even System preferences didn't even launch and the only thing that came to my mind was "I have been scammed!" I reset (yes a reset button on a mac, Cool!). While booting I pressed DEL to enter BIOS setup. When I got in I looked for the settings for PCI slots but there was no settings for it then I tried to cool down and decided to open up the casing. When I opened it up, I saw the Gigabyte board, which was fully loaded I must say 2 PCIe slots, 2 PCI 1X slots, 3 regular PCI slots, 2 gigabit ethernet ports, I noticed that the Nvidia card was installed in the 1st PCIe port, which was a X16 port but the card was an X8 card. But then I thought the BIOS should be able to detect this and switch. So I decided to change the position of the VGA card to the 2nd PCIe slot (X8). I fired it up again and after booting, I gave it more work. I installed Adobe After effects CS3 and played HD footage while scrubbing footage in After effects and it was responsive. I dragged windows and it was very smooth. So now I could rest. It was the 24th of December and I shut down the office to enjoy the holidays. We are resuming on the 2nd January so then I can finish testing, Install Avid media composer, Final Cut studio and do some proper testing. I may even install Windows XP through Bootcamp.
More adventures coming soon,

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