The Doctor is in

Dell Latitude D531 A10 Bios with SLIC2.1 added

2011-12-23T16:04:00.000-05:00

I wanted to share a file I came across while trying to upgrade the bios on my Dell Latitude D531. This has SLIC2.1 info added in it so Dell Branded Windows 7 restore media will work properly.

D531_A10.rar (1.24 MB)

Nook Color

2011-09-11T19:59:00.001-04:00

I've been interested in Android based devices for a little while now, I purchased a unlocked Mytouch 3G from ebay last year and when I was eligible for for a upgrade from AT&T I got a Samsung Captivate. I loved the Captivate but hated how AT&T had locked the phone down so I immediately rooted it and removed all of the AT&T bloatware apps, which are pretty much useless unless you're paying extra for the services that they provide.

Later on I flashed my Captivate with the Cognition Froyo Rom which was awesome. Most Recently I flashed the Captivate with the new Cognition 5.2 Gingerbread 2.3.3 Rom. I must admit that each new rom just makes my Captivate better and better.

Anyways, back on topic.

I just purchased a Nook Color E-Reader that had been converted to a full Android Tablet running Cyanogenmod 7 Nightly Build 8-13-2011 Gingerbread 2.3.5, that is installed on the internal Memory. I must say, I really like this tablet, it's the perfect size, and it's really awesome to be able to run both the Nook Android App and the Amazon Kindle Android App on the same ~~e-reader~~ Android Tablet.

The Nook Color is the perfect size to carry with me all the time so now I'm using it to read books when I'm on the Atlanta MARTA train from North Springs Station to Five Points Station headed to work every day and back to North Springs Station when I'm headed home for the night. I'm almost to the point where I don't even need to carry my netbook with me every day.

Thanks Barnes and Noble for creating a device that is so easy to modify, I'll definately be buying books from you for my nook as well as from Amazon now.

I remain your obedient servant,

Doctor Evil

Dead Apple Mac Mini MA607LL/A Resurrection

2011-05-31T15:47:00.003-04:00

I wanted to follow up on my previous post. I wasn’t able to fix the 1.66 GHz Core Duo Mac Mini I originally bought off ebay, It wouldn’t do anything beyond the LED lighting up on the front of the mini. I would up buying a second mini off ebay that was a core 2 duo 1.83 GHz system but it too had some weird problems, it wouldn’t boot except in safe mode, and it wouldn’t boot off the snow leopard install dvd except in safe mode. I wound up going through the two units and came up with enough working parts to have a fully working mac mini except for the logic board which needed to be replaced. So I did a saved search on ebay for the part number on the logic board and decided to bide my time and wait for a chance to win a working logic board at a reasonable price. I got lucky and found a listing that the seller had listed it as a computer components pc motherboard instead of listing it in the apple parts section and I won it for $105 dollars with free shipping. All in all I wound up spending more than I wanted to spend on my project machine, but feel like it was worth it.

update: ga-965p-s3 hackintosh over 1 year in

2011-05-11T21:46:00.000-04:00

I wanted to give an update to everyone on how my ga-965p-s3 hackintosh PATA system has been holding up.

I just downloaded and installed 10.6.7 on it today, once again it totally killed my onboard Marvell network card as all of the other previous updates had.

This time I didn't feel like fooling with hacking kexts to get it working so I simply disabled the onboard network card and installed a generic Realtek 8139 pci network card, it worked without any need to hack kexts.

Also, instead of having to track down a compatible version of voodooHDA for the onboard sound card I disabled it and plugged in one of the c-media usb 7.1 sound cards that are widely available on ebay for under 10 dollars. once again this just worked and didn't require any third party kext files, as snow leopard sees it as a built in apple sound card with microphone input and sound output jacks. It's fun to tinker with getting stuff to work, but sometimes it's really nice just to have a bulletproof install that doesn't break when you install updates from apple.

Also an update on the mac mini I mentioned before, it was a no go, wouldn't do anything beyond powering on, I even tried doing a reflow on it using a heat gun, and it didn't work.

I bought a 1.83 core 2 duo parts machine mac mini off ebay that boots, but has a really weird ass issue where it will only boot into the osx snow leopard desktop if booted in safe mode, it also has to boot from the install DVD in safe mode. I'm not sure how to go about fixing it, my local Apple genius bar quoted me 200 dollars to replace the logic board, considering that I'm now into it and the other dead parts machine for approximately 250 dollars I'm not sure if I want to spend any more money, or if I should list it and the other remaining parts from the other mac mini on ebay and try to recoup my investment.

Possible new Project: Dead Apple Mac Mini MA607LL/A Resurrection

2011-04-04T18:49:00.001-04:00

OK I just bought a as-is Apple Mac Mini Core Duo 1.66 GHz (late 2006) MA607LL/A off eBay as a parts machine. The seller describes the unit as powers on, the power on light lights up, but system doesn’t chime (or bong, whatever you want to call it) and doesn’t boot. the hard drive and memory have been removed from the unit, and it doesn’t have the AC power brick with it. I got it for 100 dollars with shipping. I purchased a new power brick for 38 dollars with free shipping, so now I’m just waiting for everything to ship in. I like Mac OSX Snow Leopard and have been running it on my Gigabyte Hackintosh Core 2 Duo system, and I’m excited to get the chance to maybe get to run it on an actual Apple Mac Mini system. I’ve downloaded the official Apple Service Manuals for this model Mac Mini and it sounds like I’ve got a pretty good chance of being able to revive the Mini. It sounds like the Pram battery has died, or the PMU needs to be reset, we’ll see. hopefully it didn’t die because of the infamous 10.6.3 Snow Leopard update that I’ve read about that caused some mac mini systems to die.

I’ll post an update article later on in the month after I’ve gotten the Mini and the AC Adapter in and have had a chance to work on it. I'm working a 12 hour work shift now that has me off on Sunday-Tuesday every week, and Sunday-Wednesday every other week depending on my shift rotation. Some of my work weeks are Wednesday – Saturday other weeks are Thursday – Saturday.

Until then I remain your Obedient Servant,

Doctor Evil

How-to upgrade from Windows Vista Home Basic to Windows 7 Professional

2011-04-03T17:29:00.001-04:00

My girlfriend is currently a student at the University of Phoenix and she found out that she could purchase a academic version of Windows 7 Professional Upgrade for $30 dollars at the Microsoft Ultimate Steal website, so she bought it. Her Toshiba laptop came with Windows Vista Home Basic, and in Microsoft’s infinite wisdom they don’t allow you to upgrade from this version of Vista to Windows 7 Professional. When she attempted to run the setup for windows 7 it told her that she couldn’t upgrade and that she had to do a clean install. When she told me this I did some research on the internet through Google’s search engine and found that everyone was recommending that to do this upgrade we format the hard drive and then do a clean install of windows 7 professional and then do the registry hack that I have referenced in a previous article to allow you to use a upgrade license key without having to run another upgrade over the current version.

To me this simply was unacceptable, as My Girlfriend didn’t want to lose her settings and documents and didn’t have the time to fool with doing this procedure as she’s still currently in the middle of a class and couldn’t afford the downtime…

In my continued research I found a method for Windows 7 that allows you to do a upgrade “downgrade” from any version of Windows 7 to a lesser version by editing two registry keys. I tried this method on Windows Vista Home Basic and was able to fool the upgrade installer into doing the upgrade as I changed the info from Windows Vista Home Basic to Windows Vista Business and it worked.

This is how you do it.

1. Run regedit and go to this location

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion

look for these two keys

EditionID - Change the value from basic to Business

ProductName – Change the last part of this value from basic to Business

Do not restart, run the setup for windows 7 Professional and the upgrade checker will pass the check after looking at these two registry keys and will do the upgrade for you.

This should work for upgrading to any other version of Windows 7 besides Professional that normally requires you to do a clean install for, just make sure to match the values for the two registry keys for the version.

Disclaimer: Use this information at your own risk, it worked for me but I make no guarantees and can not and will not be responsible if you mess up your computer. Regedit is a powerful tool but can mess up your system if you are not careful.

I remain your obedient servant.

Doctor Evil

Mini vacation

2011-02-26T18:27:00.001-05:00

I am currently down in panama city beach had to get away for a few with my girlfriend. My divorce is finally official......

New post over on insanelymac forum

2011-02-11T12:23:00.000-05:00

I purchased an ASUS 1005PE netbook off ebay as a "parts machine"

looking for a site to get the asus restore disk for it as I fixed it and have it working.

I want to turn this into a hackintosh, but want to be able to put it back to factory settings later on so I can resell it when I'm done using it.

ASUS wants $50 for the restore disk, which is fracking ridiculous. apparently this model only came with the restore image on a hiddent partition. Well I didn't get the original hard drive with my netbook, the seller had pulled it and the ram.

Update

2010-10-23T17:03:00.000-04:00

I haven’t been posting to my blog much lately, sorry. I’ve have some major crap going on in my life. My soon to be ex wife kicked me out of our home on July 29th 2010, so I’ve been dealing with trying to fix my marriage, only to discover that it was a lot more busted than I thought. My wife’s claiming now that I’ve been mentally abusing her, (WTF, and I suppose that the way I’ve been treated wasn’t abuse?). So I’m now living with with a roommate down in the Roswell, GA area and in the process of filing for a divorce. I don’t have the time or resources right now to tinker or work with stuff in the hackintosh scene. If this changes I’ll try to start posting new articles and responding to questions from my readers. For now I highly suggest that you go over to The Insanely Mac web forum as there are many knowledgeable forum members there who are willing to help with any issues you might be running into with your hackintosh build, all you need to do is ask nicely and be patient, and be willing to try to learn as much about the inner workings of the Mac OSX operating system as possible as this will help you a lot.

Thank you for visiting my Blog

Best of Luck with getting your hackintosh running

Doctor Evil

Snow Leopard on an Acer Aspire one ZG5 netbook

2010-08-17T08:29:00.000-04:00

I just found a good article I wanted to share with everyone from a fellow blogger who has written up a guide on how to get snow leopard running on an AcerAspire One ZG5 netbook. the article can be found here

I have this same netbook so I may try to work on a guide myself, hopefully with the goal of getting sleep working properly and being able to use the factory wireless card so the laptop doesn't have to be taken apart and the wireless card swapped out for a compatible card.

Dropbox Online file storage - 2GB of storage for free

2010-08-14T07:31:00.000-04:00

I signed up for this service after a friend recommended it to me, and I must say it's pretty sweet. I really like the fact that they have Windows, Mac, and Linux client software that lets you integrate the service so it appears as a local storage location on your computer. I've got it installed on my Netbook and my Notebook, they both have Ubuntu Netbook Remix installed. I currently don't have access to my Hackintosh system or my Windows 7 gaming PC but I'll be installing it as soon as I can go pick them up and bring them to where I'm currently staying.

Here is a referral link to sign up for the free service if you are interested. If you use my link I get a free additional 250 megabytes of storage space, and you also get an additional 250 megabytes of storage space added to your dropbox account.

how to fix your Acer Aspire One netbook if it has the Blank screen and doesn't boot problem

2010-08-04T08:09:00.005-04:00

I picked up an Acer Aspire One A150 ZG5 netbook off ebay as a parts or repair system. the hard drive was removed but it came with everything else. It wouldn't display anything on the screen and wouldn't POST so I got on google and did some research and found this info on several different websites. I don't know who the original poster was for this info but thank you, as it worked perfectly for me. I now have a working netbook for less than $100 dollars total (I already had a sata notebook drive I could use)

anyways here is the info.

1) Format a USB memory key with the FAT mode.
2) Download the latest version of the BIOS from Acer support website:

* HERE if you have a Aspire One A150
http://support.acer-euro.com/drivers/notebook/as_one_150.html

* HERE for the Aspire One A110
http://support.acer-euro.com/drivers/notebook/as_one_110.html

3) Extract the files from the zip and put both the FLASHIT.EXE and the BIOS file in the root directory of the memory key.

4) Rename the BIOS file to ZG5IA32.FD and then remove the disk.

5) Turn the AA1 off, insert the battery and connect the AC adapter.

6) Insert the USB Memory Key into one of the USB port of the Aspire One.

note: I've read different reports stating that it usually works better if you use the usb ports on the left side of the netbook, I used one on the left when I did my flash and it worked for me

7) Press Fn+Esc, keep it pressed and press the power button to turn the AA1 on.

8) Release Fn+Esc after a few seconds, the power button will be blinking.

9) Press the power button once. The AA1 will start the BIOS flash, do not interrupt for any reason. After some minutes the power button will stop blinking, and then the AA1 will reboot. Wait till the AA1 has completed all this operations.

If you're having issues with a D250 aka KAV60 Acer Aspire one Netbook try these instructions

http://gadgetmix.com/netbook/acer-aspire-d250-bios-recovery/

Something went wrong with your Aspire D250 BIOS? Download the latest BIOS from support.acer.com and follow these instructions:
First format an USB stick with FAT, if this option is not available use a smaller USB stick (eg 1Gig)
Download the latest BIOS, and put both FLASHIT.EXE and the BIOS file in the root directory of the stick. Do NOT rename the BIOS file, it should be KAV60.fd
Now connect the USB stick to the AA1
Turn the AA1 off, DISCONNECT the battery but leaving the AC adapter connected. Press Fn+Esc, keep it pressed and press the power button to turn the AA1 on. Release Fn+Esc after a few seconds. Press power button if it begins to blink, otherwise do nothing. The AA1 will now initiate the BIOS flash, do not interrupt it under any circumstances. The AA1 will reboot shortly after. Wait patiently.

The BIOS has been flashed and all settings reset to default.

new myHack v1.13 released

2010-08-03T16:41:00.000-04:00

Wanted to share this with everyone.
There is a newer version of myhack available, this is the same software that is on the empire efi disk.

Enjoy

new myHack v1.13 released

New Kernel – 10.6.4 is out (for AMD and legacy intel users)

2010-07-10T23:13:00.000-04:00

New Kernel – 10.6.4 is out (for AMD and legacy intel users)

saw this over on Prasys's blog He's the guy who does the awesome empire efi boot disks that help get mac osx up and running on your hackintosh

how to use a upgrade windows 7 serial number on fresh installed full install

2010-06-28T11:47:00.001-04:00

I didn't come up with this info, I found it on a forum that was talking about academic upgrade versions of windows 7

this info is supposed to let you use a upgrade disk to install windows 7 on a clean system without a previous OS installed without having to do the upgrade trick where you install the same version using the disk without putting in the serial number then run a upgrade to the same version and put in the serial number trick that Vista introduced.

here is the info, credit goes to whoever originally figured this out. I haven't had a chance to try this yet.

First, perform a normal clean install of the OS by booting the PC with the Upgrade Setup disc and stepping through Setup.

After performing the clean install, ensure that there are no Windows Updates pending that would require a system reboot. (You'll see an orange shield icon next to Shutdown in the Start Menu if this is the case).

Then, open regedit.exe with Start Menu Search and navigate to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Setup/OOBE/

Change MediaBootInstall from "1" to "0" if it isn’t already set to “0”

Change RetailInstall from “1” to “0”

UPDATE: added Change RetailInstall from “1” to “0”

(found this when I actually got around to trying it, used to only have to do the MediaBootInstall entry for vista, this has changed for windows 7)

Open the Start Menu again and type cmd to display a shortcut to the Command Line utility. Right-click this shortcut and choose "Run as administrator." Handle the UAC prompt.

In the command line window, type: slmgr /rearm

Then tap ENTER, close the command line window and reboot. When Windows 7 reboots, run the Activate Windows utility, type in your product key and activate windows. It should just work.

Creating your own EmpireEFI (the easy way)

2010-04-23T22:07:00.001-04:00

Creating your own EmpireEFI (the easy way)

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Star Trek Online Review

2010-04-07T15:57:00.001-04:00

I am sure you have probably seen other reviews for Star Trek Online that were written by journalists, this isn’t one of them.

I bought a digital copy of Star Trek Online on March 21st 2010, and played it up until today when I cancelled my monthly subscription to it. I’m not a stranger to MMO games, I was a beta tester for Sierra Online’s MMO game “The Realm” and most recently I have purchased and played all of the different campaigns for NCsoft’s Guildwars series. I’ve never played World of Warcraft and have always avoided subscription based games unless they have an affordable yearly fee (I used to pay the 50 dollar yearly fee to play “the realm")

After playing STO for a week or two I have a few observations and thoughts for the game.

Away team missions are NOT fun, in fact they are extremely boring!!

Space combat missions are generally balanced but some missions are impossible to complete at the character level that they are assigned at. (Crystalline Entity mission)

My overall impression of this game?

Let me know when this becomes a Free to play game as it currently isn’t worth paying a monthly subscription for. I might try it again if the monthly subscription fees are transported away.

I’m uninstalling STO and headed back to play Guild Wars

Update: M68M-S2 Hackintosh system successfully updated to Snow Leopard OSX 10.6.3

2010-03-29T23:30:00.002-04:00

I wanted to advise that the AMD Hackintosh system I built and did the guide for previously has just successfully finished updating to 10.6.3 using the update function in Snow Leopard OSX. No issues have been detected so far. I am still using the chocolate kernel that comes with the Myhack boot loader install package that’s a modified version of the 10.0.0 kernel.
I’ve repurposed my D945GCLF system as I needed a Linux workstation for a project I’m working on but based on prior performance I would say that the 10.6.3 update probably would work fine on it also. I’ll fire up my GA-965P-S3 hackintosh tomorrow and will try the update on it as well. I don’t anticipate any problems with that system either.

EDIT: my GA-965P-S3 Hackintosh also was able to download and install 10.6.3 without any problems either.

That’s all for now.
I remain your obedient servant,
Doctor Evil

Instructions for using Empire EFI 1.085 R2 AMD compatible Boot CD to Install Snow Leopard 10.6 (original retail) on an M68M-S2 motherboard with an AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000 with PATA (IDE) drives AKA Doctor Evil Builds his first AMD Hackintosh

2010-03-19T11:58:00.001-04:00

System Specs for system that this guide was written for:
AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000 2.6 GHz
2 GB DDR2 Memory
IDE (PATA) DVD/CD-RW combo drive
IDE (PATA) 80 GB Maxtor Hard Drive

Software needed: Empire EFI 1.085 R2 AMD compatible Boot CD found here
Mac OSX Snow Leopard Retail 10.6 DVD disk
Nforce ATA Kext, Nforce Lan Kext and Kext Utility file found here

VoodooHDA Kext (found on the Empire EFI 1.085 Boot CD)
NVenabler kext found here or on the Empire EFI 1.085 R2 AMD boot CD link previously given above.
Instructions:
download the Empire EFI 1.085 R2 AMD compatible Boot CD Iso images using the link I provided at the start of this guide. You may want to try both versions of the iso on a rewritable disk to determine which works better for you. On my particular M68M-S2 Motherboard I have to use the Legacy version as the regular version reboots my system and doesn't load properly.
Boot your system using the Empire EFI Boot CD, after it has booted eject it and insert your Snow Leopard install DVD and then wait until the drive stops flashing and then press F5, this should refresh the menu options so that you now see Mac OSX Install DVD instead of Empire EFI.
Press Enter to Boot your Mac OSX Install DVD and start the OSX Snow Leopard Operating System Installation.
make sure you partition your hard drive as a MacOS Journaled drive with GUID format, select the desired fonts,etc. and then install Snow Leopard.
If you get an error about the system not being able to bless the drive don't panic, this is common, you'll be using the empire efi boot cd to boot your system until you get the myhack bootloader software installed.
When the install finishes reboot your system, remove the Snow Leopard install DVD and reinsert your empire efi boot cd and allow the system to boot from it.
At the chooser screen select the hard drive (named to whatever you named it to during the install) and then hit enter to boot. If you want to watch a verbose boot to watch for errors press the down key after selecting this disk and choose the verbose option and then press enter to boot.
after the system has booted you'll want to go into the post-installation folder on the empire efi disk, and run the myhack installer.
Do a customized install and then select the chocolate kernel as you'll need this before you attempt to download and install any updates from apple for Snow Leopard.
If you are using a USB keyboard and Mouse, then all you'll need to do is select the chocolate kernel option and go with the other previously selected options, but if you are using a PS2 Keyboard or Mouse you need to also select PS2Controller in addition to the other selected options. This will add the needed Kext file to make your PS/2 Devices work.

Note: I don't advise using the sleep enabler kext, as you'll run into problems with updating your kernel if you use this kext, it's not really needed unless you absolutely want or need the ability to put your hackintosh to sleep.

After Myhack is done installing we need to get the nforce ata kext and the nforce lan , voodoohda sound and nvenabler nvidia video kexts installed.
1. copy AppleNforceATA.kext to /Extra/Extensions and copy nForceLAN.kext to /System/Extensions
2. copy the voodoohda.kext file from the Empire EFI boot CD that is found in the /post-installation/universal drivers(kexts) folder to /System/Extensions
3. extract the nvenabler_64-1.kext.zip file found in this same location or use the one I provided the link to and then copy the nvenabler 64.kext to /Extra/Extensions
Use the Kext Utility program I provided with the kexts to repair the file permissions for these files and then generate new cache files with these files added to the cache.
Remove the Empire EFI Boot CD and then restart your Hackintosh. If everything went ok you should now be able to boot into OSX from the myhack (chameleon) bootloader that you installed.
If everything went well you should now have the ability to change your video resolution and you should have a fully working network card and sound card.
Congratulations on your new fully working AMD Hackintosh system.
A Final Note regarding this guide, I’ve ran into some issues with my system that seem to be related to the built in sleep functions for Snow Leopard and how the AMD Cool and quiet bios functions work.
This would cause the system to go to sleep even though I didn’t install the sleep enabler kext, and the system would ignore all input from the USB keyboard and mouse. I was able to work around this issue by going into the Snow Leopard power management settings and setting the sleep setting to never. At this writing my M68M-S2 system has been running for 3 days and hasn’t had anymore problems with this happening. I wanted to advise everyone about this particular problem and how to work around it if you experience it.

If you run into any problems head over to the insanelymac forum to ask for help
The main thing to remember when asking for help.

1. Patience, it may take a couple of days before someone answers your question, don't get pushy and don't keep posting the same question over and over.

2. scan the forum and make sure that someone else hasn't posted a similar problem, if they have you may already have the answer to your question.

3. understand that running a hackintosh isn't for the average person, you have to be willing to work on problems by yourself if you can't get anyone to assist you. Being pushy or disrespectful of others on the forum will cause your questions to be ignored.
4. Remember you're on your own if you do decide to build your own hackintosh. If you want a smooth out of the box experience, you should probably save up the money and buy yourself a real Macintosh system from Apple. I'm too cheap to do this, and I'm the kind of person that I think it's fun when you have to work a little to get something to run the way you want it to.
Having warned you about these things, I hope those of you who do decide to continue with building a AMD M68M-S2 hackintosh have fun and learn a lot from the process.

I remain your obedient servant

Doctor Evil 30564

Coming soon: Gigabyte M68M-S2 with PATA drives install guide

2010-03-14T20:25:00.000-04:00

I've successfully used the AMD compatible 1.085 R2 Boot CD made by Prasys to install Snow Leopard on a Gigabyte M68M-S2 system with the following config

AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000 2.6 GHz
2 GB DDR2 Memory
IDE (PATA) DVD/CD-RW combo drive
IDE (PATA) 80 GB Maxtor Hard Drive

I'm in the middle of doing the write-up for the guide so it'll take me a few days to get it polished up and ready.

The only issue I've noticed so far is that even with the nullcpumanagement kext installed and not having the sleep enabler kext installed I still had to go into the power management settings to turn off the systems ability to sleep due to a problem with it not wanting to wake up.

Other than this I haven't had any issues with the performance, I've downloaded and installed all available updates on this system. I'm using the chocolate kernel that can be installed with the myhack boot loader install package.

Stay tuned for the complete guide.

UPDATE: The Guide has been written up and can be viewed here

I remain your obedient servant

Doctor Evil

Creating a Recovery USB Drive for OSX86 Snow Leopard

2010-03-01T18:01:00.001-05:00

Creating a Recovery USB Drive for OSX86 Snow Leopard

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Guide to installing OSX Snow Leopard version 10.6 (original Retail Disk) on a Intel D945GCLF with SATA drives

2010-02-11T17:57:00.002-05:00

instructions for using Empire EFI 1.085 Atom compatible Boot CD to Install Snow Leopard 10.6 (original retail)

System Specs for system that this guide was written for:

Intel Motherboard D945GCLF with Intel Atom 230 CPU

2 Gigabytes of DDR2 533 MHz Memory (Generic)

Seagate 120 GB ST3120026AS Sata hard drive

HL-DT-ST Sata Dual Layer DVD +/- DVD Burner

Onboard Intel GMA 950 Video

Onboard Realtek R1000 Network card

Onboard Sound card

Cooler Master CM-360 Case

Apevia Java Power 500 Watt 24 Pin ATX Power Supply

Software needed: Empire EFI 1.085 Atom compatible Boot CD found here

Realtek R1000 Kext, and Kext Utility file found here

VoodooHDA Kext (found on the Empire EFI 1.085 Boot CD)

DSDT.aml file for a D945GCLF series (needed to have ability to chose supported resolutions higher than 1024 x 768 32 bit. Found here

Instructions:

download the Empire EFI 1.085 Atom compatible Boot CD Iso images using the link I provided at the start of this guide. You may want to try both versions of the iso on a rewritable disk to determine which works better for you. On my particular D945GCLF Motherboard I have to use the regular version as the Legacy version has the same isolinux image is corrupt error that caused me to develop the USB Snow Leopard on a D945GCLF Guide found on my blog.

Boot your system using the Empire EFI Boot CD, after it has booted eject it and insert your Snow Leopard install DVD and then wait until the drive stops flashing and then press F5, this should refresh the menu options so that you now see Mac OSX Install DVD instead of Empire EFI.

Press Enter to Boot your Mac OSX Install DVD and start the OSX Snow Leopard Operating System Installation.

make sure you partition your hard drive as a MacOS Journaled drive with GUID format, select the desired fonts,etc. and then install Snow Leopard.

If you get an error about the system not being able to bless the drive don't panic, this is common, you'll be using the empire efi boot cd to boot your system until you get the myhack bootloader software installed.

When the install finishes reboot your system, remove the Snow Leopard install DVD and reinsert your empire efi boot cd and allow the system to boot from it.

At the chooser screen select the hard drive (named to whatever you named it to during the instal)l and then hit enter to boot. If you want to watch a verbose boot to watch for errors press the down key after selecting this disk and choose the verbose option and then press enter to boot.

after the system has booted you'll want to go into the post-installation folder on the empire efi disk, and run the myhack installer.

If you are using a USB keyboard and Mouse, then all you'll need to do is do a standard install for Myhack, but if you are using a PS2 Keyboard or Mouse you need to do a customized install and select PS2Controller in addition to the other selected options. This will add the needed Kext file to make your PS/2 Devices work.

Note: I don't advise using the sleep enabler kext, as you'll run into problems with updating your kernel if you use this kext, it's not really needed unless you absolutely want or need the ability to put your hackintosh to sleep.

After Myhack is done installing remove the Empire EFI Boot CD and then restart your Hackintosh. If everything went ok you should now be able to boot into OSX from the myhack (chameleon) bootloader that you installed.

Next we're going to work on getting your sound card and network card working.

copy the realtekR1000.kext I gave you a link for to /system/extensions along with the voodoohda.kext file from the post-install folder on the Empire EFI Boot CD and then run Kext Utility to update your kext caches and fix your file permissions

If you get an error about either of these two kexts being installed improperly before Kext Utility finishes running don't worry as Kext Utility will fix the problem before it finishes running. All you need to do now is reboot your hackintosh and if everything went ok, you should now have a working network card and a working sound card in Snow Leopard.

Next we are going to work on giving you the ability to select resolutions for your video display so you aren't stuck at 1024x768. This will require two things to be done.

1. You'll need to open finder (the two tone blue smiley face in the lower left corner on the dock) and go to the /Extra folder, copy the com.apple.boot.plist file that is in the folder to your desktop so we can edit it. double click on the file on your desktop and use textedit to remove the following info Graphics Mode 1024x768x32 This info hard codes the display to only display at 1024 x 768 32 bit resolution so we need to get rid of it. after editing this save the file and then copy it back into the Extra folder. You'll get a prompt for your password, if you created one for your user account enter it, otherwise just click ok.

2. copy the DSDT.aml file I provided the link to earlier into the /Extra Folder Then reboot your Hackintosh. When you reboot you should now have the ability to change your display resolution

before you install the 10.6.2 update from apple's website be sure to install the Nawcom 10.6.2 kernel found here

After installing the new patched kernel you should be able to download the 10.6.2 update directly using the Apple update utility.

After running all of the updates you should wind up with a fully patched and operational Hackintosh system.

Congratulations.

If you run into any problems head over to the insanelymac forum to ask for help

The main thing to remember when asking for help.

1. Patience, it may take a couple of days before someone answers your question, don't get pushy and don't keep posting the same question over and over.

2. scan the forum and make sure that someone else hasn't posted a similar problem, if they have you may already have the answer to your question.

3. understand that running a hackintosh isn't for the average person, you have to be willing to work on problems by yourself if you can't get anyone to assist you. Being pushy or disrespectful of others on the forum will cause your questions to be ignored.

4. Remember you're on your own if you do decide to build your own hackintosh. If you want a smooth out of the box experience, you should probably save up the money and buy yourself a real Macintosh system from Apple. I'm too cheap to do this, and I'm the kind of person that I think it's fun when you have to work a little to get something to run the way you want it to.

Having warned you about these things, I hope those of you who do decide to continue with building your hackintosh have fun and learn a lot from the process.

I remain your obedient servant

Doctor Evil 30564

The New Apple Ipad.. Hot or Not??

2010-01-27T20:13:00.001-05:00

Well today Apple officially announced their tablet device the Ipad.

What do I think of the Ipad? well I’m not impressed, If the marketing PR guys at Apple want me to take a testdrive with a Ipad and give it a honest review I’ll do it, I’m not stupid I don’t turn down free hardware. but unless something like that happens I’m not going to spend $499 or more on a device that is basically a huge version of the Itouch or Iphone. I’d rather have a Netbook running OSX on it than the Ipad, it looks too limited for what I’d want to do with it.

Just my 2 cents on the subject, I haven’t posted anything for a while so I wanted to give my opinion on the Ipad

I remain your obedient servant,

Dr. Evil 30564

Guide to installing OSX Snow Leopard version 10.6 (original Retail Disk) on a Gigabyte GA-965P-S3 with PATA drives

2010-01-12T20:36:00.002-05:00

This is a general guide to installing OSX Snow Leopard Version 10.6 (original retail Disk) on a Gigabyte GA-965P-S3 that has PATA (Parallel ATA AKA IDE) drives instead of SATA drives.

This guide should also work for Systems using this motherboard with SATA drives with a few minor changes.

I'll try to do a guide a little later on for installing OSX Snow Leopard on this same motherboard using SATA drives.

Please note: my guide is written for my particular system config, if your system doesn't have similar components you may or may not have success with installing Snow Leopard. Also this guide is written for those who are familiar with computers and technology, I'm not going to go into a step by step breakdown of how to burn a ISO for the boot CD,etc. You're on your own there.

My system's current configuration is as follows:

Thermaltake 430 Watt 24 Pin ATX Power Supply

Gigabyte GA-965P-S3 with Bios revision F14

2 Gigabytes of Patriot DDR2-800 Memory

Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 2.13 GHz CPU, stock setting, not overclocked.

Onboard Network card (Marvel Yukon 88E8056)

Onboard Sound card

ASUS EN8800GT 512 megabyte NVIDIA PCI Express Video card

Sony Dual Layer DVD +/- RW Burner (IDE / PATA configured as Slave)

Western Digital WD2000JB-00DUA0 200 Gigabyte (IDE / PATA configured as Master)

Generic Texas Instruments Chipset PCI Firewire card

List of Software, boot disks,etc. that I used to install OSX Snow Leopard on my GA-965P-S3 based computer.

1. Empire EFI Version 1.085 Boot CD found here

2. MyHack bootloader (found on Empire EFI Version 1.085 Boot CD )

3. Snow Leopard compatible Kext for Marvel Yukon 88E8056, VoodooHDA Kext for Sound and the DSDT file from here

4. A Retail Copy of Snow Leopard, (copies that come with mac systems are specific for that system and normally will not work when trying to install them on a hackintosh.

Some folks advise that Google is your friend for the copy of Snow Leopard, but my advice is to spend the money and buy a Legal retail copy of Snow Leopard, It's only 29 American dollars and is well worth the money.

For your Empire EFI Boot CD, you may want to burn a copy of the regular disk ISO and a disk for the legacy disk iso, I ran into a problem with the current version 1.085 where I would get a memory error for the regular disk, I was able to successfully use the legacy disk to boot my system and then start the Snow Leopard installation

Press Enter to Boot your Mac OSX Install DVD and start the OSX Snow Leopard Operating System Installation.

make sure you partition your hard drive as a MacOS Journaled drive with GUID format, select the desired fonts,etc. and then install Snow Leopard.

When the install finishes reboot your system, remove the Snow Leopard install DVD and reinsert your empire efi boot cd and allow the system to boot from it.

At the chooser screen select the hard drive (named to whatever you named it to during the install and then hit enter to boot. If you want to watch a verbose boot to watch for errors press the down key after selecting this disk and choose the verbose option and then press enter to boot.

after the system has booted you'll want to go into the post-installation folder on the empire efi disk, and run the myhack installer.

do a customized install and select the following items in addition to the items that are already checked.

1. graphics enabler

2. ahciportinjector

3. AppleIntelPIIXATA.kext and IOATAFAMILY.kext

4.IOAHCIBlockStorageInjector.kext

5. JmicronATA.kext

If you want to be able to download updates directly from Apple, I suggest that you don't install the sleepenabler.kext file I did this and then updated to 10.6.2 and then I had to boot the OSX installer disk to be able to get into a working terminal so I could remove this KEXT file, it was causing an immediate kernel panic because it didn't match the version of the kernel. so I advise to stay away from this one, it's only needed if you want your hackintosh to be able to go to sleep, not a big deal in my book.

Ok back to the instructions.

After you get done making your selections, click install, after the install finishes eject the Empire EFI disk.

Copy the DSDT.aml file I provided a link to earlier in this guide to the /Extra folder in your hard drive in the finder

Reboot your Computer and verify that you are able to successfully boot into OSX Snow Leopard.

You should now have the ability to change your display resolution, as the graphics enabler and the DSDT file should now give you full functionality for your Nvidia video card.

The next thing you will need to do it get your network and sound card working

Unzip the Stuff for GA-965P-S3 SL Hackintosh install zip file I provided the link to earlier and then open the folder. You're going to need the Kext Helper program in this folder to install the network kext you need for the Marvel Yukon 99E8056 network card, as it's not recognized by the default network drivers for Snow Leopard. run the Kext Helper program and then open the marvel Yukon folder that's in this folder and drag the Kext file contained there into the Kext Helper Program. Next drag the voodooHDA.kext file into the Kext Helper and then click the easy install button, this takes care of rebuilding the system cache files,etc. so your network and audio will now work.

Reboot your hackintosh and if everything went well you should now have a fully working Hackintosh system running Snow Leopard OSX 10.6

If you see any problems or mistakes in my guide please leave me a comment and let me know.

If you run into any problems I highly recommend going over to the insanelymac.com web forum to ask for assistance.

The main thing to remember when asking for help.

1. Patience, it may take a couple of days before someone answers your question, don't get pushy and don't keep posting the same question over and over.

2. scan the forum and make sure that someone else hasn't posted a similar problem, if they have you may already have the answer to your question.

Having warned you about these things, I hope those of you who do decide to continue with building your hackintosh have fun and learn a lot from the process.

Thanks

Doctor Evil

New Project Gigabyte GA-965P-S3 Hackintosh

2010-01-08T20:50:00.002-05:00

I found a deal on a MSI DKA790GX Platinum Motherboard Combo that came with a AMD Phenom II X4 940 3.0 GHz Black Edition processor and bought it. I rebuilt my gaming system that had a Gigabyte GA-965P-S3 Motherboard and a Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 2.13 GHz chip in it.
I’m still working on getting the best parts to do the build on the cheap. I may switch my D945GCLF Atom hackintosh system back over to PATA drives and use the SATA drives from it in the system.
I found a post over on insanelymac that had a link to download a kext set for a Gigabyte GA-965P-S3
I used the current legacy version Boot CD from Prasys for EMPIRE EFI and was able to get the system I used the GA-965P-S3 motherboard in to boot and install snow leopard but It keeps having the waiting for root device error when I try to boot it using chameleon instead of using the boot CD to boot the system. I’ve read that this means that I need to use different kexts or something to that effect. I’m fixing to head to bed, but I’ll post my results for this system tomorrow.

EDIT: New Post with guide for installing Snow Leopard on a Gigabyte GA-965P-S3 system with PATA / IDE Drives

Sorry It’s taken me so long to post. I’ve been depressed due to being unemployed and I haven’t felt like messing with my Hackintosh systems. I’ll try to post more often, whenever I run across any interesting news to share and discuss.

Happy Holidays to everyone

2009-12-23T12:02:00.001-05:00

I wanted to wish everyone a safe and happy holiday this week.

I haven’t had much time to work on anymore articles or tutorials for running OSX Snow Leopard on my Intel D945GCLF, I’ve been busy working on several different website projects. I did take some time to build a new computer system using a lot of used parts that I had in my parts bin. System specs are as follows.

Recycled Gateway Mid tower ATX case and 350 Watt ATX Power Supply

New Gigabyte M68M-S2 Motherboard with an recycled AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000 2.6 GHz CPU with a Stock AMD Athlon 64 CPU cooling fan

2 Gigabytes of DDR2 Ram – recycled from an upgraded system

IDE CD-RW/DVD-Rom combo drive – recycled with the gateway case

IDE 80 GB Hard drive – recycled with the gateway case

PNY Nvidia 9400 GT PCI Express Video card – recycled from an upgraded system.

I’m using the built in Ethernet card and sound card. total cost for this system is about 50 dollars (cost of the motherboard).

I currently have the system loaded with Ubuntu Linux 9.10 and I’ve been enjoying it very much. I turned on all of the visual effects and I must say this is the nicest version of Linux I’ve ever used. I may reformat and reload this system later on with Snow Leopard, but I need to research and come up with the best set of kexts and the best method for installing Snow Leopard on an AMD based system.

If you have any suggestions or want to share some links with everyone send me a comment on this article and I’ll approve and show the comment.

Unemployment……

2009-12-01T14:56:00.001-05:00

Well at 9 AM this morning I was called into the HR office at work and told via a Conference call from some guy I don’t even know at another corporate branch of the company that I no longer have a job because the company is reorganizing the corporate IT department, and that my skills weren’t a good fit for the company so my employment was being ended effective as of today….. It’s never a good feeling when you’re wondering how the heck you are going to make your mortgage payment…

If anyone can help me out and send me in the right direction with job leads for my area I’d appreciate the info.

Thanks,

Doctor Evil

patched 10.6.2 kernel for Snow Leopard is out

2009-11-25T13:20:00.004-05:00

I just saw this over on Prasys' blog

http://prasys.co.cc/2009/11/patched-10-6-2-kernel-is-out/

Nawcom has patched the new 10.6.2 “qoopz” kernel for legacy processors and as well as for AMD processors. on top of that he has made an installer to get it all up and working. Before you install the Snow Leopard 10.6.2 update , be sure to run this . There is nothing much changes which have been done to XNU. The package includes the 10.6.2 kernel for AMD processors and Intel SSE2/SSE3 such as Pentium 4 and patched SleepEnabler.kext
Thanks nawcom !

UPDATE: 11-26-09 9:33 PM

I have successfully upgraded my D945GCLF to 10.6.2

I used the Nawcom kernel patch software package installer, then ran the apple updater and updated to 10.6.2

system rebooted with no issues. I noticed that the software package edited the /extra/com.apple.boot file and changed the kernel option to use the new kernel called legacy_kernel

first boot I did have to tell chameleon to ignore caches and I'm using onyx to rebuilt all of my cached kexts,etc.

Warning: Snow Leopard update 10.6.2 disables Intel Atom based Hackintosh systems

2009-11-03T08:42:00.001-05:00

saw this one today over on the wired website.

Mac OS X Leopard 10.6.2 will break your hackintosh. The forthcoming OS update will not run on the Intel Atom processor, a rather petty move from Apple which, if true, will break many netbooks which have been hacked to run as more than passable Macs.

This news comes from Stellarola, the hacker who helped us out extensively with the original (and still the best) Gadget Lab hackintosh. Here’s what he has to say:

In the current developer build of 10.6.2, Apple appears to have changed around a lot of CPU related information. One of the effects of this is Apple killing off Intel’s Atom chip.

The important word there is “current”. The latest seed could change before being released as an actual update. But Stella knows what he’s talking about (he’s one of the guys behind the OSx86 method for easily installing the Mac OS on non-Apple machines), and recommends keeping your frankenmacs loaded with 10.6.1 for now.

This wouldn’t surprise us, especially as Apple seems to have gotten a taste for locking out unauthorized hardware with the Palm Pre cat and mouse game.

UPDATE: It’s official the Snow Leopard 10.6.2 update has been released and this update drops support for Intel Atom Processors. Do not install the 10.6.2 update directly from the Apple on your Intel Atom Hackintosh, keep an eye on insanelymac and other hackintosh sites for a modifed version of the 10.6.2 update.

Link to the updated Blog entry for Stell’s Blog where I saw this info here

method for using USB Flash Drive or USB hard drive to install Snow Leopard on a D945GCLF 100% working

2009-09-19T21:41:00.008-04:00

EDIT: I've finally been able to find a boot cd that works for installing Snow Leopard on my D945GCLF the new article can be found here

OK I’ve gotten Snow Leopard to install successfully on my D945GCLF Intel Atom hackintosh.
This method requires the following things.
1. A working Leopard install that you can use to prepare the USB device
2. a Retail Snow Leopard DVD
(yes you should actually buy Snow Leopard, dude it’s only $29 dollars unless you buy the family pack or the version that comes bundled with all the other software), and yes the $29 dollar disk is a honest to god full version install, not a upgrade or cpu drop-in disk)
3. a USB Flash drive that is at least 8 GB in size, or a USB Hard drive that you can dedicate to using as a installer
4. You’ll need the SL Macloader 0.4 software from here and the kext_4_D945GCLF_USB_install.zip file from here
follow the instructions found in this insanelymac forum post by MACinized
replace the kexts in the SL macboot kext folder with the ones from the kext_4_D945GCLF_USB_install.zip file from the first link.
use the DSDT.AML file that I have a link to in this post to get full video resolution and ability to have system go into full sleep mode.

using these instructions and files I was able to get snow leopard installed on my D945GCLF.
you will need these kexts to get the network card and sound working in Snow Leopard on the D945GCLF motherboard

The psystar Realtek R1000 kext file,The voodoohda sound driver kexts are in the kext_4_D945GCLF_USB_install.zip file these need to be installed using the included kext utility

you’ll need to copy any kexts that I have referenced to use after you have installed into /system/library/extensions then run kext utility which can be downloaded from here
After you have updated your kext files follow the instructions in the SL macboot folder for installing the boot loader but before you reboot replace the com.apple.boot.plist file in the /extras folder on your hard drive with the one from the /extras folder that is on your usb boot device that you used to install snow leopard. the file that the sl_macboot software creates is missing the kernel flag arch=i386 and this will cause a kernel panic for you when you reboot if you haven't done this.

You'll need to edit the com.apple.boot.plist file to set your screen resolution, as it will be stuck at 1024x768 otherwise.

You can fix the graphics issue by editing the com.apple.boot.plist file and adding the following into the file

~~key>Graphics Mode</key>~~

~~<string>widthxheightxdepth</string>~~
~~replace width, and height, and depth with your preferred settings, just make sure your screen supports these settings.~~
~~for my system I’m running 1280x1024x32~~
~~I added these setting just before the timeout settings.~~
You’ll probably need to copy the file out of the extras folder to another location like your desktop, edit it with textedit then save the file then copy it back into the extras folder, the system will prompt you for your password as it needs root authentication to replace the file.
UPDATE:
using the DSDT.aml file that ugokind had uploaded in the file found in this post that is for a D945GCLF2 (has same bios as a D945GCLF board) I am now able to change my resolution under display settings in Snow Leopard. I didn’t need any of the other files so I am uploading just the DSDT.aml file here
just replace the DSDT.aml file in your Extras folder with this file after you have installed your boot loader from the SL macboot software before you reboot. After you reboot you should no longer be stuck at 1024x768 resolution and you should be able to change your resolution to higher settings. I am currently running my system at 1920x1080 which is the native resolution for my 24” LCD monitor
Thanks for the comments and feedback Tester, you helped steer me towards the missing pieces for the puzzle and I appreciate your feedback.
Sorry it took me so long to finally get these instructions up. I am finally finished up with my College Algebra Class (and I am proud of myself for passing and making a 83 in this class as I suck at math) so now I should have more time to devote to my hackintosh and getting Snow Leopard working 100 percent.
I hope these instructions help you with your quest to get Snow Leopard up and running. Good luck and most importantly have fun.
until my next post,
I remain your obedient servant,
Dr. Evil

Success! I've made a working usb boot device that I can install snow leopard from

2009-09-18T22:46:00.004-04:00

I'll post the necessary files and instructions tomorrow.

one final step remains to be finished though so be advised.

I need to find a snow leopard compatible R1000 Kext file.

I'm holding off on actually doing my install on my hackintosh until I locate this last file.

if you know where I can get a Snow Leopard compatible (32 bit and 64 bit) version of the R1000.kext Psystar Realtek network driver or another specific kext that works with the onboard network card in a D945GCLF please leave a comment for me and I'll add it to the files and instructions that I am working on. I'll be sure to give credit where credit is due. I'm a rank amateur compared to all the other guys in the osx86 hackintosh scene, and I don't want to step on anyone's toes.

Update on progress on getting Snow Leopard installation method working for D945GCLF motherboard

2009-09-11T14:29:00.001-04:00

Guys I wanted to apologize for my lengthy silence on this subject. I have been swamped with work related tasks after being off from work for over a week on an unpaid furlough. I also got behind on my College Algebra Homework and I’ve been struggling to get caught up. (God I hate Parabola, Ellipse, and Hyperbola algebra problems!!!!!).

I am close to having a working method for installation of Snow Leopard on a D945GCLF intel atom motherboard. I haven’t been able to come up with a working Boot-132 CD method, none of my Boot-132 disks will work. I keep getting the ISOLINUX Image is corrupt error, even though I followed the instructions of others who have made good working snow leopard boot-132 disks for other motherboards. The method I am working on involves backing up your snow leopard install dvd to a disk image then restoring it onto an 8 GB removable flash drive. After following instructions from the insanelymac website (credit to those who posted these instructions, I don’t have the post handy or I would give you credit) I was able to get my flash drive to boot my system. However I need to work on which kext files I am using to boot, because as soon as it begins to boot I get the graphical error message that instructs me to to reboot my system…..

So I’m headed back to the drawing board for a little more research and development. As soon as I get it figured out I’ll post links to the needed files and the instructions on how to do it.

Until then, I remain your obedient servant.

Dr. Evil

Booting Snow Leopard Retail in 3 easy steps!, Snow leopard retail DVD boot

2009-08-30T20:06:00.001-04:00

Credit goes out to kdetech over on the insanelymac forum for his post Booting Snow Leopard Retail in 3 easy steps!, Snow leopard retail DVD boot which details steps for installing snow leopard and had links for a modified boot-132 disk that will boot the snow leopard retail DVD.

Kdetech notes “This will only work on a vanilla capable PC, so no AMD. “

I’m still waiting on my Snow Leopard DVD to arrive from Macmall, it’ll probably arrive at my home while I am gone to dragon-con.

I’ve already downloaded the special boot-132 cd ISO image and I will be using kdetech’s guide to try to install Snow Leopard on my hackintosh

I promise to report my results and any needed software or steps to get snow leopard up and running on my D945gclf Atom Hackintosh.

I remain your obedient servant,

Doctor Eviil

Snow Leopard on a Intel Atom D945GCLF?

2009-08-27T13:17:00.001-04:00

Well I bought a copy of Snow Leopard 10.6 online from MacMall.com for $24.99 after reading that the snow leopard “upgrade” disk is in fact a full copy that doesn’t check for the previous OS and will install on a Intel Mac system with a blank hard drive.

I’ve been researching and have found that for the most part most people can install Snow leopard on their hackintosh systems by using the boot-132 boot cd method and either the latest version of chameleon or the pc efi software from netkas.

I’m going to be switching my hackintosh over to using a serial ata 120 GB hard drive from my original 40 gig IDE so I’ll document the steps I had to take to get my hackintosh back up and running and I’ll post my results in a later article.

Next week I’ll be headed down to Atlanta, GA Thursday evening 7-3-2009 to attend the Dragon-Con Sci-Fi & Fantasy Convention and I won’t be back home until the sometime in the afternoon on Labor Day so it’ll be a little while before I have time to actually sit down and work on getting snow leopard installed on my hackintosh.

Until then, I remain your obedient Servant…

Doctor Evil

Well my D945GCLF Atom Hackintosh survived the new 10.5.8 update

2009-08-05T22:30:00.001-04:00

I noticed after my system had rebooted it had reverted me again to 1024x768 resolution which doesn’t look nice when you are using a 24 inch monitor.

Possible solutions to fix this issue are to hard code the boot.plist file to use the proper resolution but I didn’t feel like messing with that so I just reinstalled the D945GCLF2 driver package found here and then I rebooted the system again, and Bamm I’m back to 1920x1080 on my Gorgeous Dell S2409W 24 Inch Monitor. God I love the picture on this monitor.

I may investigate an easier way to keep my monitor running at the native resolution, but for now I have to finish up the Internet College Algebra class I’m taking. the website doesn’t work too well on non windows computers so I’ve been having to spend all my time on my Windows Vista Ultimate system (soon to be Windows 7 Ultimate as soon as Technet releases the ISO images and serial numbers to technet suscribers)

Anyone have any experience with a Dell Vostro A100 Intel Atom system as a hackintosh?

2009-07-09T09:07:00.001-04:00

I saw a listing on ebay for a barebone Dell Vostro A100 for $125 with free shipping, and it intrigued me.

When I used google to search for this model I got this page from Dell

Vostro A100 Mini Tower

apparently this model was sold only in Europe and it came with Ubuntu Linux installed.

From the Tech Description It sounds like it has a D945 Mini-ITX motherboard installed, but I’m not sure which model.

This sounds like it might be a good system to turn into a Hackintosh. It would be funny as hell to show this one to your friends and co-workers sitting there running OSX Leopard on a ……GASP! Dell computer system.

The only thing I didn’t like about this one it that it doesn’t appear to have a IDE Port so it would require a SATA Hard Drive, and a SATA DVD , CD-RW DVD Combo, or DVD Burner Optical Drive and a stick of DDR2 Memory.

If anyone has used this model from Dell can you leave comments about it and let me know how it works as a hackintosh system?

Installing a PCI Nvidia 8400 GS graphics card on a D945GCLF

2009-07-08T14:42:00.001-04:00

Otherwise known as how to really screw up your OSX Leopard Installation

Because the onboard Intel GMA950 video card on my Intel D945GCLF isn’t able to decode Hulu video smoothly (jumps and jerks) I got the brilliant idea to purchase a Sparkle Nvidia 8400 GS 256 meg PCI video card for my Hackintosh, this should give it a nice little boost, and OSX Likes Nvidia graphics cards right?

WRONG!

I have reloaded my system twice now, and have tried adding EFI strings for my video card, and have tried Netkas’s ATY_Init Injector found here http://netkas.org/?p=107

without either of these methods I get a 1024x768 display with severe visual artifacts, smears,etc. on screen.

after I use either method to get my 8400 gs recognized by the system I lose system stability. My system randomly freezes for no apparent reason. After doing a little research I determined that OSX is recognizing my PCI video card as a PCI Express video card and this most likely is why OSX is flipping out.

Thank god for Carbon Copy Cloner, I cloned my hard drive on my hackintosh before I installed the new video card so this evening I will be removing this PCI video card and then restoring my hard drive to before the new card was installed, this will put me back to when my system ran great other than the hulu problem.

Anyone want to buy a used 8400 GS PCI video card???

DUBL: Darwin Universal Boot Loader

2009-07-01T15:58:00.002-04:00

I got a interesting newsletter email from Psystar today that had an article about a new graphical boot loader that they will be using with all of their systems as of July 1st called DUBL: Darwin Universal Boot Loader

As of July 1st all new Psystar computers will feature our exclusive DUBL graphical bootloader technology. In the coming weeks existing Psystar customers will be able to upgrade thier current systems via the OpenRestore application provided your system is under warranty. Upon its availability to existing customers, you will be notified via email. Shortly after that we are planning an open source release for the general public.
New Features
Graphical boot menu
Advanced XNU option support
Automatic detection of multiple OS's
Legacy IDE ATAPI support

I fully believe that Psystar is using code from PC EFI and Chameleon’s EFI software, but I think it’s a good step in the right direction that they are taking in that they are going to release an open source version of the Darwin Universal Boot Loader software.
Since a large majority of their software was derived from Open Source OSX86 software and drivers, the least they can do is share their changes to the code.
Good for you Psystar, You may just have won me back as a future Customer if I ever get tired of tinkering with and building my own Hackintosh computers.

Intel D945GCLF ATOM Hackintosh

2009-06-27T17:47:00.003-04:00

After reading the article over on OSNEWS Building a Hackintosh Apple Can't Sue You For I wanted to build myself a Legal Hackintosh system.

I’m not rich so I had to buy the stuff I needed one piece at a time. Some of the components in my New Hackintosh are used parts that I recycled from my spares drawer.

here are the new parts I used for my hackintosh.

COOLER MASTER Elite 360 RC-360-KKN1-GP Black Steel / Plastic ATX Mini Tower Computer Case $39 dollars at frys

Intel D945GCLF Mini-ITX motherboard $64 dollars at frys

HP DVD1140 22x Internal Double-Layer PATA DVD±RW/CD-RW Drive $37 at frys

The rest of the parts that I used to build my hackintosh were used.

Mac OS Leopard (Retail box copy Version 10.5.6) purchased from ebay for $60 dollars with free shipping

2 GB PC2-5300 DDR2 memory stick (pulled from another project system)

Maxtor Fireball 3 ATA/133 40 GB PATA hard drive

Micro ATX 150 Watt Power Supply that was pulled from a Gateway desktop system that had a bad motherboard (bulging capacitors)

The Cooler Master Elite 360 case didn’t come with a power supply, but because CM built this case to stealth the power supply inside the case, I was able to scrounge through my spare parts bin and find a low wattage Micro ATX PSU that I couldn’t use in a ordinary case. I was able to bolt it to the side of the CM Elite 360 case as seen in this photo.

The Intel D945GCLF board mounted into the case very easily. I would have liked to had a smaller case but most of the ones I looked at required a laptop optical drive. I didn’t have any suitable spares, so that is what made me decide on just buying the HP DVD Recorder drive and using the CM Case. My goal was to be as cheap as possible but still build a hackintosh system that could boot using the Boot-132 boot CD and install from a vanilla (unaltered) Mac OSX Leopard retail install DVD

OK On to more pictures of my hackintosh.

Exterior shots. (please note the Apple Sticker that has been applied to the top of the case, so I’m complying with the EULA in that I’m installing OSX on a Apple Branded system)

Interior shots

Screen shot from OSX Leopard with my system info

Notes about installing OSX Leopard on the Intel D945GCLF Mini-ITX

You will need these software packages

Intel D945GCLF2_ISO boot-132 package

OSX86 Tools

The Realtek R1000 Kext driver from PsyStar as the driver installer in the Intel D945GCLF2 boot package link above doesn’t work with the ethernet card on the Intel D945GCLF motherboard. Use the install kext option in OSX86 Tools to install the R1000 kext

Notes for installing Leopard.

Boot the boot-132 boot cd, when prompted hit enter, on the next screen remove the boot-132 cd and insert your retail OSX Leopard installation DVD, then hit enter after the disk is finished reading the leopard install DVD.

be sure to partition your hard drive as a GUID type partition

after you have finished installing osx reinsert the boot-132 cd and use it to boot the primary hard drive.

Run OSX86 Tools and use the FDISK and install EFI options to properly prepare your hard drive for the EFI boot loader, and then install the Chameleon boot loader.

After this you should be able to boot your hackintosh without having to use the boot-132 CD

If you experience problems with Leopard looping back to the welcome video after the transfer files wizard there are a few different solutions suggested on insanelymac, but this one worked for me straight away.
Press F8 during boot, and type -s
then enter the following commands:

/sbin/fsck -fy

/sbin/mount -uw /

touch /var/db/.AppleSetupDone

passwd root

I’ve been able to install all updates from Apple without any problems or issues.

Please Support Apple by buying a legitimate copy of OSX Leopard, the whole point of building your own hackintosh is that you are expressing your disappointment and disgust for the current way that Apple handles it’s company as a hardware company that just happens to sell a few pieces of software. The cost for a legal copy of Mac OSX Leopard is very reasonable. $129 isn’t that expensive.

The Reason I built my own Hackintosh is that the Mac Mini is a poor excuse for a entry level machine. My Hackintosh system was built for around $200 dollars (including the cost for my used copy of Leopard) and not counting the used hard drive and power supply that I scavenged from my parts bin.

This Intel Atom Mini-ITX System is a good entry level system, Apple needs to get their head out of their ass and make a mid level desktop system, something with upgradable video, memory, and the ability to install more than one optical drive or hard drive. Psystar and several other companies are trying to fill this niche because Apple doesn’t seem to care or even want to address the DIY market of users who would gladly buy Apple equipment if Apple sold a product that met their needs.

Microsoft TechNet Subscription Discount Codes

2009-06-05T16:32:00.001-04:00

Saw this article over at Kristen Kenny's Digital Life blog

Late last month, I blogged about Microsoft Technet. I know there are a lot of you out there who want to subscribe to this amazing evaluation service, but at the same time you’re on a tight budget or you’re just trying to strech your dollar further. Well, today is your day.

Here are a few discount codes for Microsoft TechNet that will score you 15% off the purchase price (for new subscriptions, the price drops from $349 to $296):

* TMSAM09

* TMSAM10

* TMSAM13

* TMSAM12

* TMSAM15

* TMSAM16

And these discount code will score you 20% off the purchase price (for new subscriptions, the price drops from $349 to $279):

* TNCP210

* TNCP171

These coupons should work in both the United States and Canada, however I’m not sure if they work in other countries such as the United Kingdom and Australia. Also, if you’re a college student, be sure to check out Microsoft DreamSpark!

What is DreamSpark, you ask? From the DreamSpark FAQ: Here’s how it works: if you’re a current university or high school student, you can download professional Microsoft developer, designer, and gaming software through DreamSpark at no charge. Yes, students get to download software at no charge. DreamSpark enables students, like you, to download and use Microsoft tools to unlock your creative potential and set you on the path to academic and career success by advancing your learning in the areas of technical design, technology, math, science, and engineering! It doesn’t matter what classes you’re taking right now, just as long as you’re a current student in a verified, accredited School and use the tools in pursuit of advancing your education in one of these areas.

Want something more comprehensive than Google Analytics to track traffic to your website?

2009-05-24T11:00:00.001-04:00

I wanted something that was more real-time than Google analytics to help me track traffic to all of the websites that I am the webmaster for. Google Analytics is not bad, but I hated that you have to wait until the next day to see the traffic for the previous day. After searching for something else that would show me real-time traffic, I found goingup! and I must say I am very impressed.

One of the things I like best about it, is that it shows the alexa rank as well as the google page rank for your site. It also shows you how many inbound links your site(s) have from Google, Yahoo,MSN and Alexa. It also shows you how many pages from your site(s) are index on these same search engines. It also shows you what key words were used to find you if the traffic comes from a search engine. Another good feature is that it shows you the referring page that your traffic came from which helps to show you who is linking to your website.

I highly recommend goingup!

Technorati Tags: Website Analytics,SEO,Optimization

Just discovered a major annoyance for using windows live writer with Joomla

2009-05-23T00:16:00.001-04:00

Not really sure how to fix this so may have to quit using windows live writer to post to my joomla websites. I took two microsoft word documents my wife had written and inserted pictures into and copied and pasted them into windows live writer. the output looked great and I was quite happy with it. I uploaded the first document then uploaded the second document. then when I looked at both articles they both have the same pictures. I determined that windows live writer dumps the pictures from word in a strange format where the file names for the images are generated as the same thing. so if you copy two word documents into windows live writer and then publish both to joomla and both have 20 pictures the second articles pictures will overwrite the first articles pictures.

Not really sure how to compensate for this. I tried to setup ftp instead of letting WLW upload for me and it doesn’t work correctly gives an error after uploading most of the images then stops.

if anyone has any suggestions or a fix for this email me at my Gmail address

How to use Windows Live Writer to Edit Joomla

2009-05-21T15:39:00.001-04:00

I’m not going to take the credit for this one, found this today while researching for a better editor to use with joomla.

here is the link to the article.

How to Setup Windows Live Writer with Joomla

This will enable my wife to be able to edit and create her own topics for her websites. I want her to feel comfortable with creating and editing her own articles and the Windows Live Writer is very easy to use. I’m using it to blog right now ;)

My Experience with Joomla a Open Source Content Management System (CMS)

2009-05-20T22:16:00.000-04:00

I’ve been doing a major overhaul on my wife’s websites.

She had previously been using Web Studio 3.0 and after several years of changes the html code of her web pages things had gotten really messy.

I did some research and determined that the best thing to do to create a clean professional website that she could edit and change as needed with new information was to use a Content Management System (CMS)

I have some experience with MySQL and PhP due to the PhPBB3 web form I run Better Breeders Corner BBC Forum

I downloaded XAMPP which allowed me to setup a live in-house web server at my house on one of my spare computers. This way I could work on building the new site and then after I finished it and had it working like I wanted I could back up the mySQL database and the joomla files and then upload them, restore the mySQL database and then edit the configuration files so it recognized the new server.

Then I googled for CMS software and went through the list looking for popular Open Source CMS software and downloaded several different CMS software packages.

The software packages that I tried were.

WordPress - (not bad but a little limited for what I wanted to do)

Drupal - (didn’t have much luck with figuring this out, got it to run but couldn’t get it to do what I wanted, kinda complicated)

and then I tried out Joomla!

Joomla isn’t for beginners, but it was a lot easier for me to setup than Drupal. I had found the software I wanted to use to manage my content next came the configuration and design part.

I set down and looked over the page layouts for Web Studio (which looked horrible in Mozilla Firefox, the text was all jumbled up so badly I had to use Infernal Explorer aka Internet Explorer to view the pages) so I could copy and paste text as needed.

Next I accessed the ftp site for the old site and downloaded all of the images and html pages just to be on the safe side.

Then I sat down and started working on setting up the top menu with the menu entries and then linking those menu entries to place holder articles with plans on pasting in the text later.

Once I had all of the articles created with pictures I started working on coming up with a good web design template for the “look” of the site.

I highly recommend Artisteer for this, It allows you to design very nice templates, and has the ability to suggest designs if you are not sure how you want your site to look. If you don’t mind using a template that others may be using too for their site, there are plenty of free Joomla templates available if you google for this phrase in google or other search engines.

Here are two sites that I’ve setup using Joomla

Tsuwa Golden Retrievers and Snapdraggon Japanese Chins

The Japanese Chin Information Center

I had to do some manual hacking to create my own templates as I don’t have the money right now to buy Artisteer but It’s definately in my list of software to buy, as it’s worth every penny.

Technorati Tags: Japanese Chin,Golden Retriever,Joomla,free joomla templates,XAMPP,Drupal,WordPress,Info,Information,computer geek,geek,computer

Rest in Peace Duke Nukem Forever

2009-05-07T21:05:00.002-04:00

I just found out that 3D Realms has shut down.

Duke Nukem Forever, in development for over 12 years has officially became Vaporware.

I only hope that Take-Two who has stated that they do retain the rights to Duke Nukem Forever will either finish developing the game or will make the code that they currently have Open Source so others can finish the game and release it.

I'll always remember Duke as being the Wise Cracking Smartass who I spent many hours with whipping up on Aliens and mutated monsters with.

RIP buddy, and save a table dance for me up in Video Game Character Heaven.