Leopard 10.5.7 Vanilla Installation on EVGA X58 SLI [GUIDE/TUTORIAL]

ihavearedcouch · June 27, 2009

EVGA X58 MAIN BOARDS COMPATIBILITY CONFIRMED: 121-BL-E756-TR, 132-BL-E758-A1, 132-BL-E758-TR, 141-BL-E757-TR

When I first got here I found X58 tutorials on the Gigabyte and ASUS boards but not for the EVGA X58 board, so I private messaged a lot of people (mainly those who had successful reports of installation on their EVGA X58 board) and kept a chronological log of information here.

The EVGA X58 board is a GREAT board. Extremely reliable, well constructed, deeply customizable/overclockable and has great support. The only reason why this board isn't as popular is because pretty much the hackintosh on X58 got spearheaded by the Gigabyte UD5 board, but in all honest opinion I believe the EVGA X58 board is better.

First things first. To clear up some things.

A vanilla installation means that there are no modifications (as in replacing and/or removing) to the Mac OS System Library. But the only way this can be possible is if you configure a startup "shell" to make the system believe it is indeed in a mac. This consists of specialized Extensions (as .kexts) and other files which load up initially before the Mac OS loads thus overriding them but leaving them intact. The beauty of this installation is apple updates work normally.

S/L/E stands for System/Library/Extentions, which translates to the folder you don't want to be tinkering with (unless its by an official installer.

In a nutshell this is what you're trying to do: You want to get any copy of Mac OS running so that you can install a definite vanilla copy of Mac OS. For the final vanilla copy of Mac OS X we WON'T be starting up from a disc. Once you have a drive which has a vanilla install with the proper extensions you can pretty much continue the process off from that drive.

So lets get started (read the whole thing before starting and print this out if you wish):

LINKS are absent because insanelymac forum removed it as I pressed post! Please scroll down to bottom of this post for the rtf attachment which has all of the juicy links inside!! My apologies.

1. Prepping up your installation area. WATCH OUT--LONG LIST

a. Using another Mac OS finished installation, whether it's genuine (on another mac), vanilla (on another pc), or a distro (Kalyway). I recommend Kalyway because it worked for me with minimal customization on the EVGA X58 board. Kalyway is available here for torrent freaks. Burn it to a DVD SL. A great ISO burning program in windows with minimal hacking setup is Magic ISO, available here for torrent freaks.

b. I recommend burning a boot-132 cd which can get around incorrect extentions, incorrect boot flags, and sudden malfunctions. It saved my kiester many times thus I recommend it to you too. It's available at the end of the first post here. You'll want to download the Original Boot-132 .iso and then, of course, burn it to a CD. Keep it on the side.

c. An original Mac OS X Leopard 10.5 installation disc/Image. Torrent freaks check it out here and burn to a DVD DL. You'll have to use Disk Utility. There are four official Leopard installation discs (10.5, 10.5.1, 10.5.4, 10.5.6 as stated here) and either disc will work. If you want to save time you can turn the disc into an Image by going to Disc Utility, selecting the disc (after its been put into the DVD-ROM drive), clicking on "new image," selecting Image Format as read-only.

d. The 10.5.7 updater. Since there is no such thing of a 10.5.7 disc you'll have to download the combo updater here (729 MB) or just the 10.5.6 to 10.5.7 updater here (442 MB).

e. A whole other hard drive in your computer (your target for the Mac OS X Vanilla Install).

f. If you're using a distro or another mac to do the installation you'll need yet another storage medium for that. You can use the dustiest cheapest drive for Kalyway or bringing it over with a drive enclosure. Heck, a 16GB USB key will do.

g. Digital_Dreamer's X58 Mobo Patch Installer located on this page. You're looking for the download link approximately halfway down the first post. The download is 21.8 MB.

h. Airwalks776's EVGAx58Kexts.zip @ quickfilepost.com. These are all the extensions (.kexts) that works for this board (including yes, the audio ports).

i. Download the bootloader Chameleon 2 located on the right side of the page under "Releases" here.

j. Download the smbios.plist here.

k. The latest bios for the EVGA X58 board available here. Please note that the Google Chrome Web Browser has a hard time downloading from the ftp server. Use Firefox or Internet Explorer. Follow the instructions (depending on your options) to update your bios.

l. Burn an DVD or CD (with items d, g, h, i, and j). Or depending on the cheapster drive/USB size you can put it on there after you've installed the distro or vanilla mac os x. You can get MacDrive here for torrent freaks and still use windows to transfer the files over if you're not using an actual mac.

THATS A LOT OF FILES! But hey at least all the files you need are in one place right?

2. Minting a Mac OS X Installation of 10.5.7

a. Change bios settings: This is where it can get messy. Mac OS X works best when your SATA mode is on AHCI, which can break your other boots of windows (forcing you to "repair" the window installation so it can then work with AHCI. Either way if this is a brand new machine you might have to install windows twice (first initially to download the prep files and burn the .iso(s) and secondly if you rather not have windows "repaired"). But keep in mind that your boot drive of windows will work flawlessly again if you manually switch the SATA mode back to IDE. Use this to your advantage when working back and forth between boots. An image of what to set bios settings to is located here. To get to your bios, press and hold your delete key (on mac keyboard it is the backwards delete key) as you turn on your pc.

b. Have you decided to use a distro or another mac? If you're using another mac skip to g otherwise continue.

c. I hope you burned your copy of Kalyway. Now you're gonna install it. Start it up on your computer by press and holding the esc key as you turn on your computer. Open the DVD drive tray, put it in, and then select CD-ROM on the screen and then the name of Disc Drive you're using.

e. It should start up and before continuing select Disk Utility from the menubar and reformat the USB key or cheap drive as GUID and name it Mac Restore.

f. Quit Disk Utility and follow all the instructions to install Kalyway. You don't even have to customize it. Install it on Mac Restore. Once its done it will ask to restart your computer. I've had mixed results but I don't even think the restart works; just shut off your computer. And startup with esc to select the drive accordingly.

g. Okay now that you're running off the distro or another mac you can begin installing Mac OS X on the target hard drive (or your usb key). Open up Disk Utility and format the target drive as GUID. Personally I named mine "Macintosh HD" but you can name yours whatever you want. FOR DISTRO: I've had problems where the USB key would only be recognized if it was plugged in as the computer started up.

h. Put the CD/DVD (with items 1d, 1g, 1h, 1i and 1j) into your computer and open up DD's Script (named as "RUN-PATCH INSTALLER). Select your drive from the prompt (what you named it) and select option 3 (Set partition as active). Continue through. Quit.

i. Mount the Mac OS X DVD (take out the other dvd/cd first if you don't have two Disc Drives) or using Disk Utility to mount the Image.

j. Double click the installer and select your drive (what you named it), if you wish to save some time and MBs/GBs you can customize the Installation to install fewer language packs and/or printer drivers. INSTALL THAT {censored}!

k. It won't ask you to restart because.. you installed with another system running live (not the disc). Anyways unmount the Mac OS X DVD and reinsert the CD/DVD (with items 1d, 1g, 1h, 1i and 1j) so you can install the 10.5.7 updater. This is fairly straight forward for it requires you to mount the .dmg, start the installer, select your drive (what you named it) and install it.

3. Installing the boot-loader, overriding extensions, etc.

a. Install Chameleon 2 from CD/DVD (with items 1d, 1g, 1h, 1i and 1j) to the drive (what you named it). This is fairly straight forward as well.

b. If you look into this drive you should see a new folder named "Extra." This is the overriding folder! Inside this folder you should see a folder named "Extensions." In here you'll want to get rid of any files.kexts, and then copy over all the EVGA X58 kexts from the EVGAx58Kexts.zip

c. Install the proper Graphics Card Extensions. There are a bunch of cards which are already supported by Mac OS X but if your card isn't supported, there is an injector which will allow to push the video out of the video card port. This extension is located in "X58_Mobo_Patch_Installer>Kexts>_Graphics" as ATY_Init.kext. Drag this file into the Extensions folder. There are even more alternatives inside the "_repository" folder. Bottom line to have the boot-loader GUI work graphically you'll need something.

d. Get back to Digital_Dreamer's Script and run option 7 (Run DSDT patcher). This will create a "dsdt.aml" file in your extensions folder which allows the mac os x system to see all of your processor cores.

e. Inside of the "Extra" folder there should be a file that goes by the name of "com.apple.boot.plist" this file also needs to be edited. Open it up in TextEdit. Here's mine but you should make some changes:

<key>Boot Graphics</key>

<key>Graphics Mode</key>

<key>Kernel</key>

<string>mach_kernel</string>

<key>Kernel Flags</key>

<string>busratio=20 -v macmodel=MacPro2,1</string>

<key>Timeout</key>

For the Graphics Mode set it to the resolution, color depth and refresh rate accordingly.

Kernel Flags are very important. the "-v" makes it so that instead of seeing a gray screen with the apple logo as you start it up you'll see blocks of texts telling you what's being started up, etc. Take it away if you want a clean boot up process. macmodel has to be MacPro2,1. If you want it as 4,1 you'll have to delete the AppleTyMCEDriver.kext in your S/L/E which I don't recommend because then it will no longer be vanilla otherwise the OS will hang on startup. Honestly, having it as MacPro2,1 doesn't seem to change anything. timeout is for how many seconds until it will automatically boot your mac drive. Get rid of the entire timeout thing if you don't want a timeout. If you try to save it it will prevent you from doing so saying you need authentication, so save as to the desktop and then copy it over, and authenticate it with your password to overwrite the old one. You'll be doing this with the next step as well.

f. If you're installing from another computer skip this step. From the CD/DVD (with items 1d, 1g, 1h, 1i and 1j) put the smbios.plist into the Extra folder. Open the file in TextEdit and it should look something like this:

<key>SMbiosversion</key>

<key>SMexternalclock</key>

<key>SMmanufacter</key>

<string>Apple Inc.</string>

<key>SMmaximalclock</key>

<key>SMmemmanufacter_1</key>

<key>SMmemmanufacter_2</key>

<key>SMmemmanufacter_3</key>

<key>SMmemmanufacter_4</key>

<key>SMmempart_1</key>

<key>SMmempart_2</key>

<key>SMmempart_3</key>

<key>SMmempart_4</key>

<key>SMmemserial_1</key>

<key>SMmemserial_2</key>

<key>SMmemserial_3</key>

<key>SMmemserial_4</key>

<key>SMmemspeed</key>

<key>SMmemtype</key>

<key>SMproductname</key>

<string>MacPro2,1</string>

<key>SMserial</key>

<string>SECRETSERIAL</string>

<key>SMsystemversion</key>

Your ram speed might be different so change it accordingly.

g. Restart and start up from the drive (what you named it)

4. Setting correct info

a. Open up Digital Dreamer's Script one more time and select option 9 (Modify Mac model name). Set the Mac model as MacPro2,1

b. Then run option 10 (Modify processor info). This should be automatic.

4. Installing additional video card drivers

a. Since I've been running 2 Nvidia GTX 260-216s (honestly 2 of these cards are the best bargain for graphic performance overall compared to the gtx 295 and ATIs power-hungry cards) I installed specialized drivers which went into the S/L/E folder (the official installer did so). Since this is extra you can download these two files first try this one and if that one doesn't work alone install this one additionally. These drivers start up after the gray screen. Which means you should still keep the ATY_Init.kext in your extensions folder.

Thats pretty much it.

This guide isn't perfect, and I'll admit, it looks like a mess, but the truth is there are so many ways of installation based on what hard drives, Blank Discs and other computers you might have. Like if you had a huge USB drive you can do it with only that, or let say you don't have another mac, you'll be forced to use the distro initially. There are just so many ways of doing it but bottom line I've provided you with links to all the files needed, so you have everything you need. If you have questions please post, so I can continue to refine this guide.

Lastly I must thank Airwalk776, Digital Dreamer, radov4n, and jplee4907 for all of their help. Airwalk776, radov4n, and jplee4907 all have had successful installations of Mac OS X 10.5.7 vanilla on their EVGA X58 board. And Digital Dreamer wrote a beautiful script for the Gigabyte X58 UD5 board which is useful on other boards as well. I figured out that building my own mac would be half as expensive with double the power, and I set out to do so, buying all the parts and then checking the insanelymac forums daily for new info. Since there wasn't anything dedicated to this board, I decided to PM those who got it done on theirs and then in gratitude create a tutorial, so that more others can use the same board.

Cheers,

Alan / ihavearedcouch

PS: as this is the Guide the Guide Prep is located here if you want to see most of the PM exchanges.

Update: So far my workaround will be to attach a rtf of this guide (with the links still inside TYG I had copied and pasted it all before hitting post). It's a little complicated because it still has all of the forum posting tags.. I don't like censorship of links...

Update #2: One person has had problems with iATKOS after installing (exact same problems I had) which now tells me the right distro to download is Kalyway. Link to that torrent has been changed in the attachment. My apologies.

Addtionally there are more commands you can put in the "com.apple.boot.plist" file. Chameleon website has a lot on that. For one I've added:

<key>Quiet Boot</key>

Which helps in skipping the bootloader screen completely since I don't have any other operating systems on that harddrive. And yes I've removed "timeout."

Lastly you'll notice that if you try to boot windows (which is on another harddrive than the harddrive the bootloader is on) it will fail because it will try to put "bus ratio=20" for that and obviously it wont work. This is the minor gripe with chameleon being Release Candidate and all, but in the future I'm sure it will become more slipstreamed and flexible. To boot from another operation system just hold esc as your computer turns on.

Update #3: The 10.5.8 update isn't recommended because it breaks audio support, (not unless you're using separate pci cards or usb), so unless you don't want audio from the jacks, don't install!! Jplee4907 confirmed this.

Update #4: put quickfilepost links as rapidshare links (more annoying) but I don't know of any other dependable file hosting..

cheers!,

Alan

Leopard_10.5.7_Vanilla_Installation_on_EVGA_X58_SLI__GUIDE_TUTORIAL.rtf

StaticRain3 · June 28, 2009

Thank You so much i have been following your progress for a while now, and yep your method works wonders. Expect the video drivers they need to install the drivers on the evga website for the gtx200 series. Well for gtx280 and 285. I used that then i installed the enabler and it works fine. 1920x1080 works fine. playing high graphical games such as crysis. thank you for the amazing tutorial.

jymboche · July 9, 2009

Hello there... Im getting closer and closer to building my i7 system and have been reading up on different boards. I'm pretty sure I will get this board:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16813188049

I'm not sure exactly what the difference is, but the model numbers are different. Also judging from the pictures it only has one LAN port. Do you think the install will be the same? same hardware?

ihavearedcouch · July 9, 2009

Hello there... Im getting closer and closer to building my i7 system and have been reading up on different boards. I'm pretty sure I will get this board:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16813188049

I'm not sure exactly what the difference is, but the model numbers are different. Also judging from the pictures it only has one LAN port. Do you think the install will be the same? same hardware?

jymboche, i recently saw that board, its a powerful board at a great price, but alas I do not know if a vanilla install will work, because its possible that they've made certain hardware changes. I do know it will work with the EVGA E758-A1 and EVGA E758-TR board (boards are identical except the latter has a shorter warranty).

So far the general gist in the forums is that Mac OS X 10.6 Snow leopard will work very well on all i7 boards in the future but its not 100% sure. Now its possible that your board will work with a distro, but then again since the board you want to buy is relatively new I don't know of any proven results. Chances are distros are supposed to be very flexible and it should work. Again, I am not 100% sure this is just speculations. So overall, no I do not know if this install guide will work with your board. Sorry,

Alan

wikkid · July 22, 2009

Hiya.. First time poster, rather new lurker.

Found your guide via google. Proud owner of an evga x58 myself.

I gave it a shot last night, even purchased a retail copy of osx as I figured it was worth it.

I followed your guide exactly, but didn't make it very far.

Following your instructions I was able to get iATKOS to install, but that's as far as I got.

Once installed it would appear to boot ok up till a flickered white screen and a reboot.

I've tried to see if there's an error message using -v and there doesn't appear to be one. Albeit it's quite hard to catch the info as it flies by, even spamming pause. I'm pretty sure it's not spitting out an error before it reboots.

I tired, as you suggested, without customizing it, and got the above results. I also tried customizing it, adding the intel ahci sata drivers, and had the same results.

I'm using iATKOS 5i.

I'm not sure what additional info I could provide, considering you know my mobo, processor, and ram. I am running dual gtx 295's in sli, if that matters (which I assume it certainly could).

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. With how detailed your guide is, I didn't expect to hit hurdles..

Edit: I've tired some things mentioned in other threads. -f at darwin. I've tried -s. I'm also downloading iATKOSv7 now in case it may be more compatible.

ihavearedcouch · July 23, 2009

Hiya.. First time poster, rather new lurker.

Found your guide via google. Proud owner of an evga x58 myself.

I gave it a shot last night, even purchased a retail copy of osx as I figured it was worth it.

I followed your guide exactly, but didn't make it very far.

Following your instructions I was able to get iATKOS to install, but that's as far as I got.

Once installed it would appear to boot ok up till a flickered white screen and a reboot.

I've tried to see if there's an error message using -v and there doesn't appear to be one. Albeit it's quite hard to catch the info as it flies by, even spamming pause. I'm pretty sure it's not spitting out an error before it reboots.

I tired, as you suggested, without customizing it, and got the above results. I also tried customizing it, adding the intel ahci sata drivers, and had the same results.

I'm using iATKOS 5i.

I'm not sure what additional info I could provide, considering you know my mobo, processor, and ram. I am running dual gtx 295's in sli, if that matters (which I assume it certainly could).

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. With how detailed your guide is, I didn't expect to hit hurdles..

Edit: I've tired some things mentioned in other threads. -f at darwin. I've tried -s. I'm also downloading iATKOSv7 now in case it may be more compatible.

don't! try kalyway! I believe that could've been the only error i had in making this guide. I burned ideneb, iatkos, and kalyway and tried all of them and i know for a fact that ideneb didn't work with defaults but either kalyway or iatkos worked. but it could be that it actually worked with kalyway! so download that instead and try installing that. Sorry! Let me know how it goes

wikkid · July 23, 2009

don't! try kalyway! I believe that could've been the only error i had in making this guide. I burned ideneb, iatkos, and kalyway and tried all of them and i know for a fact that ideneb didn't work with defaults but either kalyway or iatkos worked. but it could be that it actually worked with kalyway! so download that instead and try installing that. Sorry! Let me know how it goes

I ended up getting iAtkos 5i working, but only in safe mode.

Luckily that was enough to get the vanilla install on the partition I wanted.

Took a bit of a while to get video working properly. But all appears well now.

Thanks for the awesome collection of information.

exim13 · July 24, 2009

hey ihavearedcouch, just letting you know that your guide worked perfectly for my EVGA X58 SLI LE 141-BL-E757-TR board. Everything is up and running perfectly, even my GTX260 at 1680x1050 when I installed the drivers.

Thanks so much for this guide! This was a lot more difficult than my last AMD osx86 install lol Totally worth it though! Nice work!

eylee · July 26, 2009

yeah i just ordered my I7 components with EVGA X58 3x SLI. If i were to go through with this. Can I dual boot with Windows? I'm new to this so sorry for the nubness.

ihavearedcouch · July 26, 2009

yeah i just ordered my I7 components with EVGA X58 3x SLI. If i were to go through with this. Can I dual boot with Windows? I'm new to this so sorry for the nubness.

sure, but you'll need a separate hard drive for that. I suggest you go through installing mac os x first since you have a nice extra hard drive to use, but you might need windows first to burn and prep everything? unless you have another computer with a dvd burner.. its your call. but yes you dual boot, you can triple, quadruple boot, but you just need their respectable hard drives (not if you partition but thats slightly more complicated). and its all as easy as holding esc as you turn on the computer and choosing the drive. cheers!

PS remember from the start you'll probably want to set the SATA mode to AHCI first!

ztjangle · July 31, 2009

Hi Alan and the Insanely Mac family,

Thanks for your generous tutorial on EVGA X58 3X SLI mobo installation.

I have a few questions after fiddling with my installation for 2 days and a stalled boot.

(see http://img55.imageshack.us/img55/4819/i7stall1.jpg)

My hardware is:

EVGA X58 SLI (E758-A1)

3x2GB Corsair XMS3 1600MHZ (currently only one card in)

Intel 920 i7

2 WD 1TB Black Caviar SATA drives

EVGA GTS250 graphic card

LG 22x SATA DVD DL RW

Antec 900-two case

TX750W Corsair PS

Cooler Master V8 CPU cooler

Second computer: Dual boot Lenovo ThinkCentre dual core intel 1.8GHz XxX Hackintosh 10.5.7/Windows XP (The 10.5.7 is rock solid on that one).

I put in the latest E758 BIOS smoothly.

I also did a smooth Windows XP installation on one of the WD drives. Installed Chipset and Graphic drives in XP easily.

After I switched over to AHCI SATA mode in BIOS (according to your pic (http://img188.imageshack.us/img188/5121/img0033z.jpg) not only would XP not boot, but I couldn't even get to BIOS without disconnecting the HD. After that and restored BIOS defaults, I was able to get the XP back. So Dual boot wouldn't work with AHCI unles there is a workaround.

I decided to prepare the other Caviar in my Lenovo Hackintosh. Connected it in place of my Windows drive there. Did everything you said, used Digital Dreamer's script, run-patch installer to activate the GUID-formatted and partitioned HD and install the Retail 10.5.5 macbook OS and upgraded to 10.5.7.

Didn't quite understand what the need for a Hackintosh installer DVD would be although I have an XxX and an iPC OSX86. The i7 wouldn't let either run (unlike dual core CPU machines). I didn't find the instructions on when and how to use the Boot-132 CD either.

Installed Chameleon 2.0 RC2-r640 and replaced the contents of Extra/Extensions with those of the EVGAx58Kexts folder. I didn't bother to look for the Graphic card driver at this point.

The DSDT patcher warned me that it needed to be run on the same hardware it would be used on, so I chose to do that later on the i7 since Lenovo only has a dual core. I also skipped editing the "com.apple.boot.plist" file as the Chameleon lets me chose the verbose mode as well.

At this point I shut down, took the Caviar HD out and put it in the i7. Made it the boot choice in BIOS. At boot, Chameleon opened nicely. I chose verbose mode. Seemed the OSX booted nicely, but stalled after 2 minutes. (see pic)

I'm thinking of using a USB drive instead to experiment as removing SATA drives is slow.

Can somebody offer an advice?

I would be very grateful and include all my detailed posts after a successful installation.

Thanks so much,

Zoran

Vancouver, BC, Canada

ihavearedcouch · August 1, 2009

Hi Alan and the Insanely Mac family,
Thanks for your generous tutorial on EVGA X58 3X SLI mobo installation.

I have a few questions after fiddling with my installation for 2 days and a stalled boot.

(see http://img55.imageshack.us/img55/4819/i7stall1.jpg)

My hardware is:

EVGA X58 SLI (E758-A1)

3x2GB Corsair XMS3 1600MHZ (currently only one card in)

Intel 920 i7

2 WD 1TB Black Caviar SATA drives

EVGA GTS250 graphic card

LG 22x SATA DVD DL RW

Antec 900-two case

TX750W Corsair PS

Cooler Master V8 CPU cooler

Second computer: Dual boot Lenovo ThinkCentre dual core intel 1.8GHz XxX Hackintosh 10.5.7/Windows XP (The 10.5.7 is rock solid on that one).

I put in the latest E758 BIOS smoothly.

I also did a smooth Windows XP installation on one of the WD drives. Installed Chipset and Graphic drives in XP easily.

After I switched over to AHCI SATA mode in BIOS (according to your pic (http://img188.imageshack.us/img188/5121/img0033z.jpg) not only would XP not boot, but I couldn't even get to BIOS without disconnecting the HD. After that and restored BIOS defaults, I was able to get the XP back. So Dual boot wouldn't work with AHCI unles there is a workaround.

I decided to prepare the other Caviar in my Lenovo Hackintosh. Connected it in place of my Windows drive there. Did everything you said, used Digital Dreamer's script, run-patch installer to activate the GUID-formatted and partitioned HD and install the Retail 10.5.5 macbook OS and upgraded to 10.5.7.

Didn't quite understand what the need for a Hackintosh installer DVD would be although I have an XxX and an iPC OSX86. The i7 wouldn't let either run (unlike dual core CPU machines). I didn't find the instructions on when and how to use the Boot-132 CD either.

Installed Chameleon 2.0 RC2-r640 and replaced the contents of Extra/Extensions with those of the EVGAx58Kexts folder. I didn't bother to look for the Graphic card driver at this point.

The DSDT patcher warned me that it needed to be run on the same hardware it would be used on, so I chose to do that later on the i7 since Lenovo only has a dual core. I also skipped editing the "com.apple.boot.plist" file as the Chameleon lets me chose the verbose mode as well.

At this point I shut down, took the Caviar HD out and put it in the i7. Made it the boot choice in BIOS. At boot, Chameleon opened nicely. I chose verbose mode. Seemed the OSX booted nicely, but stalled after 2 minutes. (see pic)

I'm thinking of using a USB drive instead to experiment as removing SATA drives is slow.

Can somebody offer an advice?

I would be very grateful and include all my detailed posts after a successful installation.

Thanks so much,

Zoran

Vancouver, BC, Canada

thats incorrect. Dual boot will work if windows xp was installed with AHCI initially active. since you set it afterwards, windows xp is getting confused. Try it, put it on AHCI and try reinstalling windows xp, it will work.

the hackintosh installers are there so that those who don't have the privilege of using another mac system to start can set one up first. fact is that the i7 will work with kalyway and the link to that is provided.

wait hold up, did you say "Retail 10.5.5 macbook OS" as in it came with the macbook or did it come in a box of its own? I've provided the a torrent link to the original dvd-in-the-box dmg image.

i remember getting that error when i was troubleshooting my first install. In fact it is also a fairly popular error encountered in the hackintosh community. A search in google will show you people are having problem with not the actual firewire but from the sata ports to the dvd and even oddly the firewire itself sometimes too, (so strange) heres a couple things you must check/try:

busratio=20 and MacPro 2,1?

AHCI is set to every SATA connection.

Because you're not using all of the SATA ports you can shut down the ones run by the jmicron controllers (the ones in red and the PATA on your mobo) to do so you need to go to the same screen provided in that jpg and turn the JMB362 (red sata) to off and the JMB363 (PATA) to off, which should even skip past all those jmicron scroll downs during the verbose boot

the boot-123 cd is super easy to use. just put it in and start up from the dvd drive (holding esc) and as it starts up select the drive using numbers such as 80,81,82 etc (it might vary) and then it should recognize darwin on there and can start up from it.

in a nutshell to try:

try turning off the jmicrons, make sure busratio and macmodel is set proper (use a boot123 cd to check on this maybe), or use an actual retail from the box leopard installer/image.

let me know how it goes,

alan

ztjangle · August 1, 2009

thats incorrect. Dual boot will work if windows xp was installed with AHCI initially active. since you set it afterwards, windows xp is getting confused. Try it, put it on AHCI and try reinstalling windows xp, it will work.

the hackintosh installers are there so that those who don't have the privilege of using another mac system to start can set one up first. fact is that the i7 will work with kalyway and the link to that is provided.

wait hold up, did you say "Retail 10.5.5 macbook OS" as in it came with the macbook or did it come in a box of its own? I've provided the a torrent link to the original dvd-in-the-box dmg image.

i remember getting that error when i was troubleshooting my first install. In fact it is also a fairly popular error encountered in the hackintosh community. A search in google will show you people are having problem with not the actual firewire but from the sata ports to the dvd and even oddly the firewire itself sometimes too, (so strange) heres a couple things you must check/try:

busratio=20 and MacPro 2,1?

AHCI is set to every SATA connection.

Because you're not using all of the SATA ports you can shut down the ones run by the jmicron controllers (the ones in red and the PATA on your mobo) to do so you need to go to the same screen provided in that jpg and turn the JMB362 (red sata) to off and the JMB363 (PATA) to off, which should even skip past all those jmicron scroll downs during the verbose boot

the boot-123 cd is super easy to use. just put it in and start up from the dvd drive (holding esc) and as it starts up select the drive using numbers such as 80,81,82 etc (it might vary) and then it should recognize darwin on there and can start up from it.

in a nutshell to try:

try turning off the jmicrons, make sure busratio and macmodel is set proper (use a boot123 cd to check on this maybe), or use an actual retail from the box leopard installer/image.

let me know how it goes,

alan

Hi Alan,

Thanks so much for your speedy reply.

As for Windows, I did try reinstalling it with AHCI on (the only way Mac OS will boot) but it always freezes half way through. I have looked into it though, and found some XP installers that have AHCI support. DL-ing as we speak.

Your tips on SATA ports are very helpful and I will use them to further finetune the installation.

I did get through yesterday though, a few hours after I posted that desperate reply. That ingenious RUN_PATCH_INSTALLER by DD did the trick.

Yes my version of Mac OS did come with a Macbook. But I guess somehow the 10.5.7 combo updater straightened it out..?! I was too impatient to wait for the 10.5.6 retail to finish downloading... but now it's almost done and I will immediately try with the non-book version.

A couple of things I noticed as I fiddled with the newly installed 10.5.7 on the i7:

A ghost CD image, named "Bluebirds", sits on the desktop, disappears when I eject the (already empty) DVD drive, gets replaced if I put in a real disk, but reappears as soon as i close the empty tray!! Weird!! If I open it, it has some exe files on it. Would be nice to get rid of that.

Sleep function doesn't work as it should.

Haven't had a chance to try audio yet.

Changing display resolutions is a pain in the butt. A blue screen often hangs, if I press the Pwr button briefly to engage sleep it sometimes helps. Often have ro restart. I guess mainly because my GTS250 card doesn't have a full support but I'm using that ATY_Init.kext injector? Or is it my cheesy 17" LCD run through a DVI to VGA adapter? Maybe I should replace the card with a 9800 card...I know so little about graphic cards... The goal for this machine is to be a very potent video and image editor and also be able to handle Pro Audio apps (like Logic Studio) with ease.

I'm hoping the regular PCI slots are being supported as I plan to use 2 older Lynx AES16 audio cards.

I did boost the clock up to 3800 in the smbios.plist. I guess i should also change the memory frequency from 1066 to 1600? Do these settings override the BIOS ones? Next step is to mess with the voltage settings, too scared for that right now.

Would be nice to install some utilities trapped on my XxX OSX86 installer DVD that doesn't work on the i7....Now I'm getting greedy, hours after my first successful i7 installation!

Hey, thank you so much, I will definitely post a condensed EVGA X58 installation "tutorial for dummies" as soon as I get through this first cyber-shock!

--Zoran

A_RocC · August 1, 2009

ey how do you identify what CD u have when u start installing it? ive got it installed though but i dunno if my cd is kalayway or w/e. My brother just gave it to me without telling me what it is.

ihavearedcouch · August 2, 2009

A ghost CD image, named "Bluebirds", sits on the desktop, disappears when I eject the (already empty) DVD drive, gets replaced if I put in a real disk, but reappears as soon as i close the empty tray!! Weird!! If I open it, it has some exe files on it. Would be nice to get rid of that.

in what way do you eject it? the button or drag to trash? i never heard of that problem also i wonder when did it start to appear? since the beginning. I googled it and people have had that problem on ubuntu, which is weird considering you're on mac os x. honestly i do not know because i never ran into it, but, it could be that you're using a macbook dvd installer...

Sleep function doesn't work as it should.

thats correct, with me it doesn't work either, that is so far the only major downside, its also a very popular one too (with the gigabyte boards as well

I did boost the clock up to 3800 in the smbios.plist. I guess i should also change the memory frequency from 1066 to 1600? Do these settings override the BIOS ones? Next step is to mess with the voltage settings, too scared for that right now.

although I might be wrong, i do not believe overclocking works like that (from the smbios plist) Overclocking is only done in the bios or with the evga e-leet tool in windows. the reason why you put it in your smbios is so your mac system knows itself better (for lack of words) however i might eat my words on that if you actually end up with a faster system. lastly memory frequency is also applied in the bios as well, and then you follow up with the smbios info. check evga forums for tons and i mean tons of very useful information on overclocking your ram and processor, however I suggest testing it with a windows os for stability.

Changing display resolutions is a pain in the butt. A blue screen often hangs, if I press the Pwr button briefly to engage sleep it sometimes helps. Often have ro restart. I guess mainly because my GTS250 card doesn't have a full support but I'm using that ATY_Init.kext injector? Or is it my cheesy 17" LCD run through a DVI to VGA adapter? Maybe I should replace the card with a 9800 card...I know so little about graphic cards... The goal for this machine is to be a very potent video and image editor and also be able to handle Pro Audio apps (like Logic Studio) with ease.

Graphic Cards seems to be another very popular issue among hackintosh users. I suggest going to http://netkas.org/?paged=2 and check out the mac drivers half way down, but then again you must google or search within these forums for individual graphic card support. dd's patch also has a lot of extra kexts..

let me know..,

alan

ey how do you identify what CD u have when u start installing it? ive got it installed though but i dunno if my cd is kalayway or w/e. My brother just gave it to me without telling me what it is.

Hi, you'll know once you start the installer it should tell you in bold letters next to "leopard", for example this dude: http://cache.lifehacker.com/assets/resourc...aly-welcome.png is the kalyway breakdancer. for other ones like iatkos it will tell it to you there as well, but you'll want to get kalyway. I suggest you achem*download it.

cheers,

alan

jplee4907 · August 2, 2009

Hi...

Great! Actually, I've been away from my i7 Hackintosh for awhile I haven't had a chance to update since I installed 10.5.6 with DD's Guide in Feb.

Now, I'm back to LA and I'm doing update as I should.

1. I followed exactly the DD's new guide v.3.91. But failed. I was at loss. Previous DD's guide works perfect but not the new one. Whenever I tried with a new HDD with DD's installation, the system was looping.

2. So, I've been researching how I should updated to 10.5.7!!

3. I found yours naturally. Thanks God! And Great guide with well written kindly.

4. This time, I see a difference from your guide to DD's. On com.apple.boot.plist, while DD's eliminated the busratio=20 -v, yours kept that flag!

5. After installing with your guide, I can confirm it works!

6. Only thing this time, I have a graphic card trouble. On the screen, I see the blue dots on black background. I still was able to hear the welcome musik happily.

7. I have two graphic cards. ATI 3870 and ATI 4850. Initially, when I follow your guide, I placed two kexts into Extensions under EXTRA folder of the target Drive from DD's patch; ATY_init and Natit by Mortmot thinking that will do for 4850. (DD's installation never got me trouble installing 3870) It didn't work. So, I switched back with 3870 and took out Natit kext from Extensions folder, but still the same problem.

8. I think I can work around but if you have any suggestion, that will be greatly appreciate...

9. Quick question, is there way to boot with -v -f -x under the Chameleon booting?

Thanks for your great guide!!

JP

ihavearedcouch · August 3, 2009

Hi...

Great! Actually, I've been away from my i7 Hackintosh for awhile I haven't had a chance to update since I installed 10.5.6 with DD's Guide in Feb.

Now, I'm back to LA and I'm doing update as I should.

1. I followed exactly the DD's new guide v.3.91. But failed. I was at loss. Previous DD's guide works perfect but not the new one. Whenever I tried with a new HDD with DD's installation, the system was looping.

2. So, I've been researching how I should updated to 10.5.7!!

3. I found yours naturally. Thanks God! And Great guide with well written kindly.

4. This time, I see a difference from your guide to DD's. On com.apple.boot.plist, while DD's eliminated the busratio=20 -v, yours kept that flag!

5. After installing with your guide, I can confirm it works!

6. Only thing this time, I have a graphic card trouble. On the screen, I see the blue dots on black background. I still was able to hear the welcome musik happily.

7. I have two graphic cards. ATI 3870 and ATI 4850. Initially, when I follow your guide, I placed two kexts into Extensions under EXTRA folder of the target Drive from DD's patch; ATY_init and Natit by Mortmot thinking that will do for 4850. (DD's installation never got me trouble installing 3870) It didn't work. So, I switched back with 3870 and took out Natit kext from Extensions folder, but still the same problem.

8. I think I can work around but if you have any suggestion, that will be greatly appreciate...

9. Quick question, is there way to boot with -v -f -x under the Chameleon booting?

Thanks for your great guide!!

JP

oh boy, how should i say this. This is my first pc i've ever built. first pair of graphics cards I've ever bought. so I know nothing about ati except that I had it in my 333mhz bondi imac. you're gonna need a card that is natively supported by mac os x, and if it isn't then you're gonna have to find 3rd party drivers. Thats what i did with the gtx260. In fact, I actually held off from buying all of the system until the hour I found out there was confirmed gtx260 support. Its very strange that now you've lost 3870 support altogether. Do you have a backup of the last kext you used? or do you think you could start from scratch with combing for support for it? I'm sorry, I just don't know anything about it. I mean I can google it for you, but that would take the fun out of it for you.

i dont know the flags -f and -x. have you tried it already? maybe its because its still RC?

JP, I learned from you! You actually helped me with the making of this guide!

Cheers,

Alan

jplee4907 · August 3, 2009

Hi

Thanks for info. I can't believe this was your first PC!!

As a matter of fact, I finally got thru everything running except ATI 4850. I'm using my old ATI 3870 with dual monitors. My mistake was to put ATY_init and Netkas kexts into EXTRA/Extensions at once where I should put Netkas.kext into S/L/E. It cleared up.

When I successfully installed 4850, it was good for minutes then mouse went to strange, then the system went down. Huh...But I was able to boot with 3870 without a problem. I think time will solve my situation but I might migrate to 260 as yours.

Above all, thank to you. My system's sounds works beautifully. That's great. I've been using my USB sound.

Just one thing, as I noticed from your com.apple.boot.plist, the busration=20 is still there. I thought it could no longer need as vanilla kernel available come with 10.5.7. Also, DD's guide said that we no longer need the busratio=20 thing any more. So, is it because of EVGA?

Anyway, thanks to your detailed guide. It worked beautifully.

I might get 260 pretty soon then I know I will have no trouble installing it.

Have a great day!!

JP

ihavearedcouch · August 3, 2009

Hi

Thanks for info. I can't believe this was your first PC!!

As a matter of fact, I finally got thru everything running except ATI 4850. I'm using my old ATI 3870 with dual monitors. My mistake was to put ATY_init and Netkas kexts into EXTRA/Extensions at once where I should put Netkas.kext into S/L/E. It cleared up.

When I successfully installed 4850, it was good for minutes then mouse went to strange, then the system went down. Huh...But I was able to boot with 3870 without a problem. I think time will solve my situation but I might migrate to 260 as yours.

Above all, thank to you. My system's sounds works beautifully. That's great. I've been using my USB sound.

Just one thing, as I noticed from your com.apple.boot.plist, the busration=20 is still there. I thought it could no longer need as vanilla kernel available come with 10.5.7. Also, DD's guide said that we no longer need the busratio=20 thing any more. So, is it because of EVGA?

Anyway, thanks to your detailed guide. It worked beautifully.

I might get 260 pretty soon then I know I will have no trouble installing it.

Have a great day!!

JP

whoa hold up though, before you buy a gtx ive heard there are some problems with dual monitor support, meaning only one of the dvi can be used on the card, however the drivers have been updated yet again, so the support might be in, I suggest you look into it to see if you indeed can use both monitors.

ztjangle · August 4, 2009

in what way do you eject it? the button or drag to trash? i never heard of that problem also i wonder when did it start to appear? since the beginning. I googled it and people have had that problem on ubuntu, which is weird considering you're on mac os x. honestly i do not know because i never ran into it, but, it could be that you're using a macbook dvd installer...

thats correct, with me it doesn't work either, that is so far the only major downside, its also a very popular one too (with the gigabyte boards as well

although I might be wrong, i do not believe overclocking works like that (from the smbios plist) Overclocking is only done in the bios or with the evga e-leet tool in windows. the reason why you put it in your smbios is so your mac system knows itself better (for lack of words) however i might eat my words on that if you actually end up with a faster system. lastly memory frequency is also applied in the bios as well, and then you follow up with the smbios info. check evga forums for tons and i mean tons of very useful information on overclocking your ram and processor, however I suggest testing it with a windows os for stability.

Graphic Cards seems to be another very popular issue among hackintosh users. I suggest going to http://netkas.org/?paged=2 and check out the mac drivers half way down, but then again you must google or search within these forums for individual graphic card support. dd's patch also has a lot of extra kexts..

let me know..,

alan

Hi, you'll know once you start the installer it should tell you in bold letters next to "leopard", for example this dude: http://cache.lifehacker.com/assets/resourc...aly-welcome.png is the kalyway breakdancer. for other ones like iatkos it will tell it to you there as well, but you'll want to get kalyway. I suggest you achem*download it.

cheers,

alan

Hi Alan,

thanks for your reply.

I did a fresh installation using the retail 10.5.6 followed by an update. It seems to be more stable now.

As for th ghost CD image, it comes from the LG drive. It's there in XP, too (on My Computer page). Doesn't bother me any more.

I swapped my GTS250 card for a 9800GTX and installed aquamac's latest driver. It only worked after I installed the ATY_Init.kext injector. Not any better than GTS250.

The overclocking is now the main issue. True, the smbios settings don't do a thing. I started in BIOS followed by E-Leet in XP. E-Leet settings don't stay after rebooting in Mac OS, and are hence useless. Good for checking overall OC-ing abilities of the system. Even in Windows, I was only able to OC up to 3.9/1600. And that only after raising voltages in BIOS as recommended by this guide:

http://www.evga.com/forums/tm.asp?m=642527...page=1&key=

When I ran the geekbench test in XP, I was only able to get a score of 10100 or so. (compared to some guys that bragged of 12000 in 10.5.7)

Momitoring CPU temperatures on E-Leet, they showed 47-50 Celsius at idle to over 70 at stressed CPU. Scary!

With those settings I rebooted in Mac OS. It crashed right after the chrome apple logo! I started lowering voltages and ratios, but OS X was crashing over and over.

Finally I had to load default Bios settings and only readjust SATA to AHCI.

Such a turtle-slow clock only yielded a geekbench score of 8700.

That's where I am now...do you think I should start my way up, slowly raising ratios and voltages? I hope I haven't fried anything, the system still works....even at my highest voltage settings I was still on the bottom green setting in BIOS. What are your BIOS Frequency and Voltage settings? Do you have an image anywhere at hand?

thanks a lot again,

--Zoran

ihavearedcouch · August 4, 2009

Hi Alan,
thanks for your reply.

I did a fresh installation using the retail 10.5.6 followed by an update. It seems to be more stable now.

As for th ghost CD image, it comes from the LG drive. It's there in XP, too (on My Computer page). Doesn't bother me any more.

I swapped my GTS250 card for a 9800GTX and installed aquamac's latest driver. It only worked after I installed the ATY_Init.kext injector. Not any better than GTS250.

The overclocking is now the main issue. True, the smbios settings don't do a thing. I started in BIOS followed by E-Leet in XP. E-Leet settings don't stay after rebooting in Mac OS, and are hence useless. Good for checking overall OC-ing abilities of the system. Even in Windows, I was only able to OC up to 3.9/1600. And that only after raising voltages in BIOS as recommended by this guide:

http://www.evga.com/forums/tm.asp?m=642527...page=1&key=

When I ran the geekbench test in XP, I was only able to get a score of 10100 or so. (compared to some guys that bragged of 12000 in 10.5.7)

Momitoring CPU temperatures on E-Leet, they showed 47-50 Celsius at idle to over 70 at stressed CPU. Scary!

With those settings I rebooted in Mac OS. It crashed right after the chrome apple logo! I started lowering voltages and ratios, but OS X was crashing over and over.

Finally I had to load default Bios settings and only readjust SATA to AHCI.

Such a turtle-slow clock only yielded a geekbench score of 8700.

That's where I am now...do you think I should start my way up, slowly raising ratios and voltages? I hope I haven't fried anything, the system still works....even at my highest voltage settings I was still on the bottom green setting in BIOS. What are your BIOS Frequency and Voltage settings? Do you have an image anywhere at hand?

thanks a lot again,

--Zoran

honestly, what i did after so much oc trouble even after airwalk's exact bios configurations crashed for me, was i just turned on dummy oc and stuck with 1066mhz ram. dummy oc will bump up the 2.6 to 3.2. not that shabby, maybe you need a meaner graphics card. I'm happy withe the fact that I'm running an exclusive i7 macintosh. Leopard simply isn't perfect for the i7 but what everyone is crossing their fingers for is snow leopard working with even less fuss. Trust me when I say that when the snow leopard gets broken onto the i7, there will be guides a plenty, first come, everyone served.

so if you want to know my plans: they are: chillin with 3.2 ghz and 1066mhz ram until snow leopard comes out, then i'll reinstall everything and pull out overclocking from scratch, and i really mean, from scratch, starting up and restarting and testing bit by bit, all the prime 95 testing stuff too. heres another page which accounts overclocking in another fashion: http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/evga_x58_sli/8.htm

let me know,

alan

jplee4907 · August 5, 2009

Hi

10.5.8 is out!1

Have you updated yet?

It should be Ok to update right?

jeremychan17 · August 6, 2009

Hello All, this is my first time posting. I followed this guide exactly up until step 3g. Everything had worked and I got my retail installation installed on a separate hard drive. I followed your guides for com.apple.boot.plist and smbios.plist. My i7 is running at all stock speeds and the ram is at 1067 mhz. I have tried to boot up many times with no success. I am using an Nvidia 8600gt and tried ATY_Int.kext to get the graphics to work at 1920x1200. I tried to use the other to NV kexts but neither of them worked. I also tried with an Nvidia gtx 285, but to no avail. I am not sure what information you need to correctly guage the problem, or if you can even solve it, but any help would be appreciated! Let me know if you need any other information.

CPU: Core i7 920 2.66 Ghz

RAM: OCZ 6gb @ 1067 mhz

Mobo: EVGA x58 SLI 3x

GPU: Nvidia 8600gt 256mb/gtx 285

PSU: Corsair 850tx

ihavearedcouch · August 6, 2009

Hi

10.5.8 is out!1

Have you updated yet?

It should be Ok to update right?

so far ive been scared as an elephant

jplee4907 · August 6, 2009

so far ive been scared as an elephant

Hi...

I just did. It's OK to do it except the sound.

I did it from the previous 10.5.6 (installed by DD's guide).

I booted up with my old HDD and installed 10.5.8 update toward the new HDD.

I didn't do anything. Just update.

And changed the cables, reboot with the new HDD.

Initially, the booting time was a bit long, but it appears safe.

But the sound is not working.

I went back to my USB sound again. I think probably if we reinstall chameleon, this problem will go away.

I will be looking up the sound references a little more and try later.

Thanks and good luck!

JP

Leopard 10.5.7 Vanilla Installation on EVGA X58 SLI [GUIDE/TUTORIAL]

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