HOW-TO GUIDE: Snow Leopard Retail 10.6 on Asus P6T Deluxe V2

[wziard]

Snow Leopard Retail Install on Asus P6T Deluxe V2

 

Intro: This guide is basically pulling together bits and pieces from a hundred different things I read in the process of figuring this out, but I do believe I now have a good, clean method of installing Snow Leopard a432 (retail edition) on my hardware. This should work with most similar hardware configurations, just be aware that I've written the audio/ethernet/graphics section specifically for the P6T Deluxe V2 and my graphics card. My setup:

 

Asus P6T Deluxe V2

Intel Core i7 920 @ 3.3ghz

nVidia GTS 250

1gb WD SATA drive

 

*note before beginning: I use the terms "copy" and "move" interchangeably; I'm not being specific.

**other note: Since you will be doing all of the setup from a drive/OS other than the 10.6 installation you're installing, keep in mind that "/System/Library/Extensions" is on your current system, while "/Volumes/Snow/System/Library/Extensions" is the Snow Leopard drive. Just make sure you're not accidentally doing anything to your own system throughout the guide.

 

 

I. Installing Snow Leopard

 

This can be done a variety of ways, all we're trying to do is get a clean retail installation of SL onto a fresh disk/partition. Since I have a MacBook Pro and an external SATA enclosure, I just attached my drive to the laptop and installed straight from the disc, so that is what I will describe. If you have multiple internal drives you could copy the retail DVD to a drive and run the installer from there, or run it straight from the disc onto the drive you'll be installing on, whatever. All you need to end up with is a hard drive with a clean 10.6 install on it.

 

a. Connect USB SATA drive to Mac

 

b. Open Disk Utility. Select the USB drive in the sidebar and erase/reformat it, I used Mac OS X Extended (Journaled). In this guide I will assume the name of the drive is "Snow." Ensure that the Partition Map Scheme is GUID. If it's not, click the "Partition" tab and setup a single partition (or more, if you desire, one is easiest though) with GUID.

 

c. IMPORTANT: Once the reformat/partitioning is complete, go to "Get Info" on the drive and look toward the bottom. Unlock the "Sharing & Permissions" section and uncheck "Ignore Ownership."

 

d. To run the installer, open Terminal and enter the following:

 

open '/Volumes/Mac OS X Install DVD/System/Installation/Packages/OSInstall.mpkg'

* This assumes you're running it straight from the disc. If this is not the case (for instance if you made a .dmg of the disc and then restored it to a separate drive/partition), amend the file path appropriately.

 

e. Click through the install dialogue, click "Customize" and deselect printer driver, additional fonts, additional languages that you don't want. Let the install go, should take around 15-20 minutes.

 

 

II. Installing Bootloader and DSDT patch

 

a. Download this pack of useful materials that I have generously put together: click

 

b. Run the Chameleon installer (Chameleon-2-1.0-r431.pkg) and be sure to change the install location to the drive you just put 10.6 on.

c. Run this in terminal:

 

sudo -s
rm /Volumes/Snow/boot

* Remember to change the above path if your 10.6 drive is not called "Snow"

 

d. From the download pack, move "boot" to the root directory of your Snow drive. (The last step was deleting the old one, you're just replacing it with one that will work.)

 

e. Copy "dsdt.aml" from the download pack to the root directory of your Snow drive, but only if you have the same motherboard/cpu setup as me. If not, or if you encounter weird problems later, use the DSDT patcher GUI (also in download pack). To use that, just open the app, choose "Darwin/Mac OS X," check "Apple DSDT Patch to:", select your 10.6 drive from the drop-down, and hit "Run DSDT Patcher."

 

 

III. Kexts and smbios

 

a. Open the folder "Kexts" in the download pack and copy them all to /Snow/Extra/Extensions. You can also throw in any kexts I didn't include that you know you will need, if you're using different hardware.

 

b. Put "Kext Utility" (from the download pack) in Applications, your dock, wherever, and drag the folder /Snow/Extra/Extensions onto it. This will repair the kext permissions and create a new Extensions.mkext file.

 

c. Move "smbios.plist" from the download pack into /Snow/Extra.

 

 

IV. Ethernet fix (only for Asus P6T's Yukon 88E8056)

 

a. Open up Terminal, enter the following:

 

 
sudo nano /Volumes/Snow/System/Library/Extensions/IONetworkingFamily.kext/Contents/PlugIns/AppleYukon2.kext/Contents/Info.plist

 

Find <key>Yukon-88E8053</key> and make it <key>Yukon-88E8056</key> (change 53 to 56)

Find <string>0x436211AB</string> and make it <string>0x436411AB</string></key> (change 62 to 64)

Find <string>Yukon Gigabit Adapter 88E8053 Singleport Copper SA</string> and make it <string>Yukon Gigabit Adapter 88E8056 Singleport Copper SA</string> (change 53 to 56)

 

Hit ctrl + o and then enter to save the file, then ctrl + x to exit nano.

 

 

AT THIS POINT YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO RESTART, SEE THE LOVELY CHAMELEON BOOTLOADER SCREEN, SELECT YOUR LEOPARD DRIVE, AND BOOT TO IT. If you don't see the lovely Chameleon bootloader screen make sure you're booting to the proper drive/partition, etc. If you encounter strange error(s) while booting, enter "-v" on the chameleon screen (just type it and it will show up on the bottom, then hit enter to boot) and see what it reports.

 

Edit: at this point you should be doing the last couple steps from your new Snow Leopard system, not from the remote system. Cleverly, we fixed ethernet before the first boot, so that should work.

 

V. Graphics fix

 

Props to Aquamac for his work on this. I'm just reposting his instructions here for convenience.

 

a. Download the necessary files for your nVidia graphics card (I'm not sure what to do for ATI cards, look around) from this page (the one in the download pack is for GTS 250): click

 

b. Copy the two files you downloaded (gfxutil and in.plist) to your desktop.

c. Enter this in Terminal:

 

 cd ~/desktop 
./gfxutil -f display

 

You'll get something like this returned: PciRoot(0x1)/Pci(0xe,0x0)/Pci(0x0,0x0)

 

d. Copy that string, open "in.plist", and replace the provided string with the one you copied. Save in.plist.

 

e. Back in the same Terminal window, do this:

 

./gfxutil -i xml -o hex ./in.plist ./out.hex

 

f. A file called "out.plist" has appeared, magically, it seems, on your Desktop. Open it in a text editor and copy the string (or memorize it).

 

g. Open "/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.Boot.plist" in a text editor, and add some lines at the bottom before </dict></plist>:

 

<key>device-properties</key>
<string>PASTE YOUR LONG HEX STRING HERE!</string>
<key>Graphics Mode</key>
<string>1280x1024x32</string>

*Stick your own screen resolution in there so system startup looks nice.

 

h. Save that file, or if it won't let you, save it under a different name somewhere else, delete the original, and copy the new one over (with the same name as the original, com.apple.Boot.plist).

 

i. Also put the new com.apple.Boot.plist in /Volumes/Snow/Extra/.

 

 

VI. Sound Fix

 

a. Terminal:

 

 
rm /System/Library/Extensions/AppleHDA.kext

 

b. From the downloaded package, drag "VoodooHDA.kext" to Kext Utility, it will install it.

 

That's all.

 

Run Kext Utility again to make sure all permissions are set right, restart, and you should have working graphics and sound. Only the line-out works and not my front headphone jack, but this is the best I could do. If anyone gets it fully working let us know. Also I can't get IDE devices to show up even with the AppleIntelPIIXATA.kext, if someone figures that out I'd love to know.

 

 

Good luck.

 

 

- wziard

[scott_donald]

Date 250110... there is now a new guide provided kindly by dgobe...

 

link is here -

 

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php...p;#entry1394042

[brio2]

Thanks a lot wziard!!

Just a few additions for my case, maybe it helps others as well.

 

 

II. Installing Bootloader and DSDT patch

b. Run the Chameleon installer (Chameleon-2-1.0-r431.pkg) and be sure to change the install location to the drive you just put 10.6 on.

c. Run this in terminal:

sudo -s
rm /Volumes/Snow/boot

* Remember to change the above path if your 10.6 drive is not called "Snow"

d. From the download pack, move "boot" to the root directory of your Snow drive. (The last step was deleting the old one, you're just replacing it with one that will work.)

 

Used EFI 10.1 instead. Works like a charm and no need for exchanging the boot files etc.

 

 

III. Kexts and smbios

a. Open the folder "Kexts" in the download pack and copy them all to /Snow/Extra/Extensions. You can also throw in any kexts I didn't include that you know you will need, if you're using different hardware.

 

I removed some of your kexts. Currently everything works fine with just these:

 

- AHCIPortInjector.kext

- fakesmc.kext

- IOAHCIBlockStorageInjector.kext

- NullCPUPowerManagement.kext

- OpenHaltRestart.kext

- PlatformUUID.kext

- VoodooHDA.kext

 

No IDE-Drives etc connected.

 

 

V. Graphics fix

Props to Aquamac for his work on this. I'm just reposting his instructions here for convenience.

a. Download the necessary files for your nVidia graphics card (I'm not sure what to do for ATI cards, look around) from this page (the one in the download pack is for GTS 250): click

b. Copy the two files you downloaded (gfxutil and in.plist) to your desktop.

c. Enter this in Terminal:

 cd ~/desktop 
./gfxutil -f display

You'll get something like this returned: PciRoot(0x1)/Pci(0xe,0x0)/Pci(0x0,0x0)

d. Copy that string, open "in.plist", and replace the provided string with the one you copied. Save in.plist.

e. Back in the same Terminal window, do this:

./gfxutil -i xml -o hex ./in.plist ./out.hex

f. A file called "out.plist" has appeared, magically, it seems, on your Desktop. Open it in a text editor and copy the string (or memorize it).

g. Open "/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.Boot.plist" in a text editor, and add some lines at the bottom before </dict></plist>:

<key>device-properties</key>
<string>PASTE YOUR LONG HEX STRING HERE!</string>
<key>Graphics Mode</key>
<string>1280x1024x32</string>

*Stick your own screen resolution in there so system startup looks nice.

h. Save that file, or if it won't let you, save it under a different name somewhere else, delete the original, and copy the new one over (with the same name as the original, com.apple.Boot.plist).

i. Also put the new com.apple.Boot.plist in /Volumes/Snow/Extra/.

 

Simply put a plain EFI-String to my com.apple.Boot.plist.

Inserted a <key>device-properties</key> hex, works A-OK. No file creation needed.

 

 

VI. Sound Fix

a. Terminal:

 
rm /System/Library/Extensions/AppleHDA.kext

b. From the downloaded package, drag "VoodooHDA.kext" to Kext Utility, it will install it.

 

Thanks, finally have my sound up and working!

[sirdemonbrown]

thanx guys! i'm building my system this week.

just got my parts from Newegg. muchas gracias!

[brio2]

NOTICE: There are currently problems with SATA hard drives on the P6T Deluxe V2, except for your system drive which will work well. So if you are planning on installing only one hard drive to your system, you can go ahead with no worries.

 

The ICH10R chipset on the P6T Deluxe V2 makes secondary drives slow down near null. At the moment the only fix for me (using two SATA HDDs) is to change the sata mode from AHCI to IDE (compatible) in BIOS. See also this thread: http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=181981

[wziard]

brio2 -- Yeah, I probably have unnecessary kexts, I just copied what ended up working for me after many hours of messing with things. I couldn't remember what was necessary and what ended up being irrelevant. Also for the graphics, it seems the "hard way" works for some people (like me) and simply adding the string will work for some other cards... don't know why but that didn't work when I tried it.

 

NOTICE: There are currently problems with SATA hard drives on the P6T Deluxe V2, except for your system drive which will work well. So if you are planning on installing only one hard drive to your system, you can go ahead with no worries.

 

The ICH10R chipset on the P6T Deluxe V2 makes secondary drives slow down near null. At the moment the only fix for me (using two SATA HDDs) is to change the sata mode from AHCI to IDE (compatible) in BIOS. See also this thread: http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=181981

 

That's interesting, because I ran some Xbench tests and noticed my disk scores on 10.6 were miserable compared to my old 10.5.7 setup (CPU and other areas were much improved, though). I have two SATA drives installed so I guess the secondary one was messing up the score... although copying files from the second drive seems to go at full speed, and I haven't noticed it being slow in regular use.

[brio2]

That's interesting, because I ran some Xbench tests and noticed my disk scores on 10.6 were miserable compared to my old 10.5.7 setup (CPU and other areas were much improved, though). I have two SATA drives installed so I guess the secondary one was messing up the score... although copying files from the second drive seems to go at full speed, and I haven't noticed it being slow in regular use.

Must be a different cause here. You really would have noticed immediately when accessing the drive that something was wrong, if you had the same issue as i do. Just reading the mere device tree structure is halting the drive.

 

A side effect, as some other users have posted, is that whenever you access the main system drive, the bad secondary drive delivers some data. It seems to be a sign for some ICH10 chipset malfunction.

 

Additionally strange is that under Leopard both drives can be accessed OK. Kexts possibly? DSDT? Admittedly i dont have much knowledge about the technical side of driver files yet, so maybe someone can dig into this? I would post some hardware info screenshots if needed.

[wziard]

Must be a different cause here. You really would have noticed immediately when accessing the drive that something was wrong, if you had the same issue as i do. Just reading the mere device tree structure is halting the drive.

 

A side effect, as some other users have posted, is that whenever you access the main system drive, the bad secondary drive delivers some data. It seems to be a sign for some ICH10 chipset malfunction.

 

Additionally strange is that under Leopard both drives can be accessed OK. Kexts possibly? DSDT? Admittedly i dont have much knowledge about the technical side of driver files yet, so maybe someone can dig into this? I would post some hardware info screenshots if needed.

 

Oh. Admittedly I don't know much about it either, but it was working fine in Leopard and still seems to be working fine, although I do have my storage configuration set to IDE so that could be it.

[tuck1989]

Thanks all for the helpful info. Two questions though. First, does anyone see any reason why a usb to sata adapter would work any less well than an enclosure? (it's cheaper cause I don't have an enclosure at the moment, and my dvd drive died on my hackintosh). Second question is for those experiencing sata slowdowns with multiple drives. Is the problem that you just can't access the non-snow leopard drives at reasonable speed, or does the whole system crawl to a halt? I have a working dual boot setup with leopard and vista and I want to make sure I can have something similar with snow.

 

Thanks!

[smx2]

great guide I hope you can keep it updated. Also instead of modifying the network drivers why not modify and copy the whole kext to the extra folder. That's what I am doing with leopard, keeps it clean and you won't have to go through it after every update.

[teosardel]

Hi.... I am doing all the steps but always get a kernel panik in first boot... I have the same system except that i am trying to install snow in the second partision of my drive...(10.5.8 is in the first partision ) What is your bios settings;; (sorry for my bad English)

[scott_donald]

ye i am all set to go too... but with a perfectly working 10.5.8 and 6 hard drives in there... scared to try with 10.6 without all 6 working hard drives...

 

is there any light in the tunnel???

[wziard]

Hi.... I am doing all the steps but always get a kernel panik in first boot... I have the same system except that i am trying to install snow in the second partision of my drive...(10.5.8 is in the first partision ) What is your bios settings;; (sorry for my bad English)

 

Does the panic say anything specific about what's causing it? Does it list any kexts in the backtrace thing?

 

ye i am all set to go too... but with a perfectly working 10.5.8 and 6 hard drives in there... scared to try with 10.6 without all 6 working hard drives...

 

is there any light in the tunnel???

 

Are they SATA or IDE drives? If they're SATA you should be fine by installing 10.6 and switching storage configuration to IDE in BIOS, this makes both of my internal sata drives run as they should.

[gecko]

What are your bios settings? Are you running AHCI or IDE?

 

I've not been able to get this working after 3-4 install tries today.

 

I can install from a working 10.5.8 install. I do get an error at the end that says something about installer is unable to write files to'/ or something like that.

 

I can boot -v -x just fine... but if I don't do -x it kernel panics. I'm adding the efi string for video and have even tried removing nvinject.

[rhalph]

Hi, My Specs are as follows:

 

Asus P6T Deluxe Socket 1366 (v1)

Intel Core i7 920

Asus nVidia GeForce 9800GTX+ 512MB

Seagate Barracuda 500GB 720RPM SATA HD

6GB DDR3 OCZ

====================================

 

I have installed OSX 10a432 on the above dedicated hard drive.

I have finished everything including Step (IV).

 

I am stuck at "Still waiting for root device".

=====================================

 

When I start the Snow Leopard with "-v", I see:

 

kxld[org.netkas.fakesmc]: The Mach-O file is malformed: invalid magic number: 0xbebafeca

can't load kext org.netkas.fakesmc - link failed.

failed to load executable for kext org.netkas.fakesmc.

kext org.netkas.fakesmc failed to load (0xdc008016).

failed to load kext org.netkas.fakesmc (error 0xdc008016).

couldn't alloc class "FakeSMC"

 

Also similar message comes for VoodooHDA.kext

 

kext org.voodoo.driver.voodooHDA - library kext com.apple.iokit.IOAudioFamily not found

can't load org.voodoo.driver.voodooHDA - failed to resolve library dependencies.

 

And then after some stuff...

"Still waiting for root device".

=======================================

 

I thought the downloaded kext files were corrupted, so I re downloaded them from different source and did the "Kext Utility" thing on the new files.

 

I have tried both "AHCI" and "IDE" mode setup in BIOS but ....

 

Still the same messages are coming.

 

========================================

 

Any help would be very much appreciated!

 

Do I need to change UUID on the smbios? also in PlatformUUID.kext?

 

Also the "AHCIPortInjector.kext" provided here doesnt even have any ICH10 ids, I am wondering whether it is being used or working as it is suppose to on this board?

[passw]

Hi, My Specs are as follows:

 

Asus P6T Deluxe Socket 1366 (v1)

Intel Core i7 920

Asus nVidia GeForce 9800GTX+ 512MB

Seagate Barracuda 500GB 720RPM SATA HD

6GB DDR3 OCZ

====================================

 

I have installed OSX 10a432 on the above dedicated hard drive.

I have finished everything including Step (IV).

 

I am stuck at "Still waiting for root device".

=====================================

 

When I start the Snow Leopard with "-v", I see:

 

kxld[org.netkas.fakesmc]: The Mach-O file is malformed: invalid magic number: 0xbebafeca

can't load kext org.netkas.fakesmc - link failed.

failed to load executable for kext org.netkas.fakesmc.

kext org.netkas.fakesmc failed to load (0xdc008016).

failed to load kext org.netkas.fakesmc (error 0xdc008016).

couldn't alloc class "FakeSMC"

 

Also similar message comes for VoodooHDA.kext

 

kext org.voodoo.driver.voodooHDA - library kext com.apple.iokit.IOAudioFamily not found

can't load org.voodoo.driver.voodooHDA - failed to resolve library dependencies.

 

And then after some stuff...

"Still waiting for root device".

=======================================

 

I thought the downloaded kext files were corrupted, so I re downloaded them from different source and did the "Kext Utility" thing on the new files.

 

I have tried both "AHCI" and "IDE" mode setup in BIOS but ....

 

Still the same messages are coming.

 

========================================

 

Any help would be very much appreciated!

 

Do I need to change UUID on the smbios? also in PlatformUUID.kext?

 

Also the "AHCIPortInjector.kext" provided here doesnt even have any ICH10 ids, I am wondering whether it is being used or working as it is suppose to on this board?

 

Use Chameleon V2 RC1 and pcefi 10.1

set your system disk (SL) on SATA0.

[gecko]

Use Chameleon V2 RC1 and pcefi 10.1

set your system disk (SL) on SATA0.

 

 

Definitely put the disk on SATA 0!!!! That should get you past the "waiting for root device error". But does anyone know why this is?

 

Lastly... I did that and still can't get it all to work.

[Wyzco]

i was trying to follow ur guide but there is no file for download at Aquamac for a Gtx 295

[sroddy]

Hi, My Specs are as follows:

 

Asus P6T Deluxe Socket 1366 (v1)

Intel Core i7 920

Asus nVidia GeForce 9800GTX+ 512MB

Seagate Barracuda 500GB 720RPM SATA HD

6GB DDR3 OCZ

====================================

 

I have installed OSX 10a432 on the above dedicated hard drive.

I have finished everything including Step (IV).

 

I am stuck at "Still waiting for root device".

=====================================

 

When I start the Snow Leopard with "-v", I see:

 

kxld[org.netkas.fakesmc]: The Mach-O file is malformed: invalid magic number: 0xbebafeca

can't load kext org.netkas.fakesmc - link failed.

failed to load executable for kext org.netkas.fakesmc.

kext org.netkas.fakesmc failed to load (0xdc008016).

failed to load kext org.netkas.fakesmc (error 0xdc008016).

couldn't alloc class "FakeSMC"

 

Also similar message comes for VoodooHDA.kext

 

kext org.voodoo.driver.voodooHDA - library kext com.apple.iokit.IOAudioFamily not found

can't load org.voodoo.driver.voodooHDA - failed to resolve library dependencies.

 

And then after some stuff...

"Still waiting for root device".

=======================================

 

I thought the downloaded kext files were corrupted, so I re downloaded them from different source and did the "Kext Utility" thing on the new files.

 

I have tried both "AHCI" and "IDE" mode setup in BIOS but ....

 

Still the same messages are coming.

 

========================================

 

Any help would be very much appreciated!

 

Do I need to change UUID on the smbios? also in PlatformUUID.kext?

 

Also the "AHCIPortInjector.kext" provided here doesnt even have any ICH10 ids, I am wondering whether it is being used or working as it is suppose to on this board?

for voodoohda the quickest way is to put the kext inside the /S/L/E instead of E/E

for fakesmc the problem is that you are using the leopard kext instead of the Snow one.

 

I've menaged to install it but it's very instable and lot of things keep it crashing. Every time i try to install anything it panics on "optimizing system performance". Safari often makes it panic. I think the main error i made was to import everything from my existing leopard partition, so now i'm trying to reinstall everything from scratch. For now i'm still at leopard 10.5.7 and i think i'll stay there at least until the new chamaleon will handle to inject the Extensions.mkext in the right folder!

[Dojomann]

I can't reboot after resuming from standby. Anyone else have this problem? If not can I have your dsdt.aml for your asus p6t deluxe v2 (if you have a core i7 920)

 

Or how did anyone fix this?

 

EDIT: by the way guys,

 

here's a near perfect sound output kext. it has jack detection and all ports work (front panel too)

 

surround output only via aggregate device however.

 

Ad2000b_hdaenabler_snowleopard.zip (64-bit ready)

 

all credit goes to The_KiNG, he posted it here

 

http://www.projectosx.com/forum/index.php?...entry2278

[rhalph]

for voodoohda the quickest way is to put the kext inside the /S/L/E instead of E/E

for fakesmc the problem is that you are using the leopard kext instead of the Snow one.

I finally got rid off "FakeSMC" and "VoodooHDA" problem:

• I got the 64bit compiled version of both the kexts
  
• I put both the kexts inside the /S/L/E instead of E/E
  

Use Chameleon V2 RC1 and pcefi 10.1

set your system disk (SL) on SATA0.

I am using Chameleon V2 RC1 and pcefi 10.1 and system disk (SL) on SATA1(there is no SATA0).

 

I am still getting the "Still waiting for root device".

 

 

 

 

Any more ideas guys? Thanks sroddy and passw.

[Dojomann]

there has to be a SATA0... in your BIOS is the hard disk at the top of the list?

[rhalph]

there has to be a SATA0... in your BIOS is the hard disk at the top of the list?

 

Yes, its at the top of the List.

 

I don't understand how this guide works for some and not for me, given that we all have the same specs...

 

Do I need to remove/add more kexts? it clearly doesn't get the HD. see in the screenshot, its waits for the device with that UUID...

[Dojomann]

Do you have your sata drives set to AHCI mode?

[absolutenot]

I was having the other hard drive speed issues until I cleaned up some of the extra kexts from the original install... Mainly, I think the one that probably nixed the issue was removing ApplePIIXATA.kext

 

I also got rid of ATAPortInjector.kext as well.

 

Other than that -- I left everything else in place....

 

Asus P6T-SE

 

 

EDIT -- Removing those kexts did make the problem less severe, but the problem most definitely still exists.