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lifehacker guide

sneezymarble

By sneezymarble,
in OSx86 10.6 (Snow Leopard)

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sneezymarble
sneezymarble
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I've been using various Hackintosh distributions for several years with a lot of success, and have been avoiding the retail installations because the whole process seemed daunting. However, I decided to give this recent lifehacker guide a try. It wasn't clear to me from the outset that it would work on different hardware than the hardware the author used, but after following the instructions I was able to complete a retail installation of Snow Leopard without any installation trouble at all. My specs are as follows:

 

GA-P35-DS3L

Core 2 Duo 3.2GHz

8GB DDR2

8600GT

500GB SATA HD

 

The actual installation went smoothly. I've only noticed two problems since booting into SL. First, sound isn't working. Second, it appears that Quartz Extreme isn't working as it isn't reported in "System Profiler" under the "Graphics/Display" section. Other than those two things, everything seems to be working perfectly.

 

Anyone else use this guide? If so, how have things gone? Also, anyone have any ideas about how to get QE and sound working with this setup?

 

Edit: The article is here in case you missed it in the body of the text: http://lifehacker.com/5351485/how-to-build...start-to-finish

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jasjeet
jasjeet
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it works, but i cant get the HDD to boot, only the USB boots SL properly. When applying the method to make the USB bootable to the HDD youve installed SL too, it does boot but i get KP at the desktop.

 

I dont want to use the USB anymore, i want it just to be the HDD alone booting, im close, but somethings missing.

 

I put all the files from the Extra folder on the USB on to the HDD with SL on it, it went further than previously, up to the desktop, but i got a KP there.

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scrambler_455
scrambler_455
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I did this with the exact hardware configuration (except different brand of RAM), and had no problems with SL. It was so simple I was shocked. It only took me 30 mins to setup bios, install SL, and be browsing firefox in SL. Crazy easy.

 

Also, notice the second revision of the article, where the chameleon and pc_efi setup are automated into a script. It's even easier.

 

http://lifehacker.com/5360150/install-snow...acking-required

 

I haven't had a problem yet, but I also haven't used the system in much depth.

 

1. I haven't been able to install winxp yet since I don't have a floppy disk drive (since AHCI is necessary for SL, XP doesn't have the drivers for the intel SATA chip). I'm thinking about just going with windows7 which should be able to support ahci out of the box.

 

2. I tried installing NTFS-3G and when I booted into SL, I got an error about mounting a volume and not having the right kexts. I disabled NTFS-3G and remounted the NTFS volume with disk utility and it mounted fine, and I was able to read only.

 

jasjeet:

 

Did you use the same hardware configuration as the guide?

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clipper99
clipper99
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By far the most concise, easy to understand retail method I've ever followed! A million thanks to the genius's that put this together.

 

But................ ;)

 

Lets have some love for the Radeon users among us, as I had to rip a lowly 8800 GT 512MB (XFX) out of a media PC in my other room to get this to work. I'm gonna back up my iTunes and iPhoto libraries and wait for a way to install SL along with the XFX HD4870 Radeon. I believe they stuck pretty close to the reference design to need anything special in the driver. I've read too many different methods of installing Radeon HD's and can't really make heads or tails out of any of them.

 

 

 

1. I haven't been able to install winxp yet since I don't have a floppy disk drive (since AHCI is necessary for SL, XP doesn't have the drivers for the intel SATA chip). I'm thinking about just going with windows7 which should be able to support ahci out of the box.

 

I can confirm Win 7 x64 installs fine with AHCI enabled in the BIOS. Prior to all this I also found methods of shoehorning AHCI drivers into XP after it was installed. There are people who say they just did a simple "update driver" method in XP and they had the AHCI option there already, but that wasn't the case for me. Your milage may vary......

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Kobukson
Kobukson
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I've had issues T_T I'm trying to do it on a Lenovo T400, but the Apple appears and then I get the Mac "Shut Down" Screen due to an issue. I think it might be something in my BIOS, but I can't figure out what (Phoenix BIOS - pretty dumbed down so I can't really tweak anything advanced like the guide did).

 

Any help would be great (or direct me to a T400 resource...)

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sneezymarble
sneezymarble
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By far the most concise, easy to understand retail method I've ever followed! A million thanks to the genius's that put this together.

 

But................ -_-

 

Lets have some love for the Radeon users among us, as I had to rip a lowly 8800 GT 512MB (XFX) out of a media PC in my other room to get this to work. I'm gonna back up my iTunes and iPhoto libraries and wait for a way to install SL along with the XFX HD4870 Radeon. I believe they stuck pretty close to the reference design to need anything special in the driver. I've read too many different methods of installing Radeon HD's and can't really make heads or tails out of any of them.

 

 

 

 

 

I can confirm Win 7 x64 installs fine with AHCI enabled in the BIOS. Prior to all this I also found methods of shoehorning AHCI drivers into XP after it was installed. There are people who say they just did a simple "update driver" method in XP and they had the AHCI option there already, but that wasn't the case for me. Your milage may vary......

 

Are sound and Quartz Extreme working for you?

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clipper99
clipper99
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Are sound and Quartz Extreme working for you?

 

Sound - yes right out of the box. The article mentions a small settings change that I made and it's all good. Haven't had a chance to try digital out yet though......

 

QE - I'm not in the Hack box at the moment. Can you do a screen print and show me where to look in the system properties? I'll be in MAC mode after some Photoshopping on the PC gets done in a hour or so...

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sneezymarble
sneezymarble
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Sound - yes right out of the box. The article mentions a small settings change that I made and it's all good. Haven't had a chance to try digital out yet though......

 

QE - I'm not in the Hack box at the moment. Can you do a screen print and show me where to look in the system properties? I'll be in MAC mode after some Photoshopping on the PC gets done in a hour or so...

 

Well, in Leopard and Snow Leopard you can select the Apple icon on the left side of the menu bar, then select "About this Mac" then click "More Info" to open System Profiler. Then if you select "Graphics/Display" from the left pane of the Profiler window you'll get a system info report in the right pane about your display hardware. I went back to Leopard on my Hack, and this is what it looks currently looks like:

 

Leopard (Hack)

picture1hu.png

 

Notice that it reports "Supported" as to the status of Quartz Extreme. When I installed Snow Leopard on that same system the Graphics/Display info didn't even have Quartz Extreme listed. However, I just finished installing Snow Leopard on my Macbook Pro and it turns out I get exactly the same result with Snow Leopard on this genuine Mac as I do with Snow Leopard on my Hack; both with video cards that ought to support Quartz Extreme.

 

Snow Leopard (Mac; this is also the same thing I saw with Snow Leopard on my Hack)

screenshot20090918at120.png

 

My guess is that it's working on both machines but in Snow Leopard it's no longer reported in System Profiler.

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wcr3d
wcr3d
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I have tried it with no success. It boots into the flash drive and immediately KP's with unknown CPU, I have tried some kexts for that and if it gets by it then it KP's with some error of expecting 2 threads and getting 3.

 

I have successfully installed kalyway and ideneb with updates to 10.5.8 on this same machine.

 

My specs are below, any help would be greatly appreciated.

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scrambler_455
scrambler_455
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I have tried it with no success. It boots into the flash drive and immediately KP's with unknown CPU, I have tried some kexts for that and if it gets by it then it KP's with some error of expecting 2 threads and getting 3.

 

I have successfully installed kalyway and ideneb with updates to 10.5.8 on this same machine.

 

My specs are below, any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

Dude, the guide has kexts for this specific hardware configuration, I really don't see how its helpful for a different motherboard.

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rheneas
rheneas
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Anyone else use this guide? If so, how have things gone? Also, anyone have any ideas about how to get QE and sound working with this setup?

I found the original guide to be comparatively straightforward and easy, even though I have had little terminal experience. SL installed the first time with sound and Ethernet working; to get sound I had to change the sound output setting as LifeHacker shows in his updated guide, but I have to do that with a Leopard install as well.

 

My only remaining problems are an inability to see the IDE drive I use with 10.5.8 to share files with Windows, and no support for my wifi card, which works in 10.5.8 and XP (intermittently with Windows 7).

 

I also tried the Tseug method with his bootCD, and it got me to the same place as LifeHacker's method, but with more work. I never was successful with BlackOsx's method, despite his strong support and superb guide.

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bbourizk
bbourizk
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I have tried it with no success. It boots into the flash drive and immediately KP's with unknown CPU, I have tried some kexts for that and if it gets by it then it KP's with some error of expecting 2 threads and getting 3.

 

I have successfully installed kalyway and ideneb with updates to 10.5.8 on this same machine.

 

My specs are below, any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

have a look at this thread...http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=184437

 

try removing the DSDT.aml kext from the extra folder and that should get you to at least install

 

but you will need to find kexts specific for your motherboard for sound, internet etc to work.

 

the last few posts have links to many kexts that could help you

 

good luck

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sneezymarble
sneezymarble
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Yeah, I just re-installed SL using the lifehacker guide again. I followed it exactly with the exception of the alc889.kext thing at the end. Everyone works beautifully, and I was even able to update to 10.6.1 with no problems, but I too don't have any sound. Here's what I get in System Profiler:

 

post-134016-1253284082_thumb.png

 

And, unfortunately, System Preferences looks like this:

 

post-134016-1253284095_thumb.png

 

I don't know if I need to add a kext somewhere or what, and if I do just need some kext or other, do I just drag it into "System/Library/Extensions" and call it a day or is there more to it than that.

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Lamneth
Lamneth
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WHOA WHOA WHOA GUYS!!!

 

I DON'T MEAN TO WRITE IN CAPS OR ANYTHING, BUT THE PACKAGE FROM LIFEHACKER IS ONLY ONLY ONLY ONLY ONLY ONLY ONLY ONLY ONLY ONLY FOR THE EP45-UD3P.

 

The DSDT inside the package is motherboard specific.

 

-Stell

 

Hi Stellarola,

I've read your blog and appreciate all you do to help us newbies.

 

I am trying this guide http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=187151

The guide seems great, but when a newbie gets a kernel panic, well, we actually panic.

 

I have a few questions that probably seem obvious but are keeping me stuck.

For example: In disk utility it shows "owners enabled: NO" on my target HD - can this be the cause of the kernel panic during installation?

Thanks again,

Lamneth

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sneezymarble
sneezymarble
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WHOA WHOA WHOA GUYS!!!

 

I DON'T MEAN TO WRITE IN CAPS OR ANYTHING, BUT THE PACKAGE FROM LIFEHACKER IS ONLY ONLY ONLY ONLY ONLY ONLY ONLY ONLY ONLY ONLY FOR THE EP45-UD3P.

 

The DSDT inside the package is motherboard specific.

 

-Stell

 

I understand that, and to be honest, I was surprised that the installation worked at all. I'm just not very familiar with all the ins-and-outs of Vanilla OSX installations. Yesterday I tried using some of the DSDTs people have posted for GA-P35-DS3L. Some of them, I take it, were missing the CMOS patch because my BIOS kept resetting after restarts. The other ones apparently worked but they didn't seem to fix anything; in other words, the system seemed identical with installations using the lifehacker DSDT. In every case, using lifehacker's DSDT or the DS3Ls posted around here (with CMOS patches), I've been able to get totally functional installations with no problems at all with the single exception of working sound.

 

So, I just don't know what to do. Is getting sound just a matter of dropping some kext or other in the S/L/E folder? Do I need to build my own DSDT? Honestly, I'm intimidated by the whole DSDT building process. My understanding is that I have to have Windows installed to do it, so that's another barrier. Also, if I create my own DSDT do I have to edit smbios.plist, com.apple.boot.plist, or something else? If I made my own DSDT, would I still follow the lifehacker guide but just replace the DSDT in the extra folder that's provided with that guide with the DSDT I create? Coming from distro installations like iDeneb to Vanilla installs is overwhelming...

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grendelkhan
grendelkhan
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My guess is that it's working on both machines but in Snow Leopard it's no longer reported in System Profiler.

 

I can confirm this on my desktop and laptop, it's not reported but it's supported and working. iMovie fires right up with no complaints.

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