New Hackintosh Project: GA-Z68MA-D2H-B3

It's been a while since I've had the time or interest in working on another Hackintosh how-to guide, but after helping a neighbor with getting a old systemax Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 system up and running with OSX Lion I've decided it's time for a new project.

I have Purchased the following parts for my super budget build Customac Hackintosh system.

1. GA-Z68MA-D2H-B3 Socket 1155 Motherboard Version 1.3 with F9 Bios
2. Intel Pentium G620 2.6 GHz dual-core Socket 1155 CPU
3. 16 GB of DDR3 Ram

I am recycling the Case, Sata DVD burner, and sata hard drive from my old D945GCLF Snow Leopard Hackintosh system.


I've been successful with getting it up and running OSX Lion (10.7), and I am in the process of writing up a How-to guide which I hope you will find useful.

In the interim check out TonyMacX86's website LINK as I used info and software from his site to get my GA-Z68MA-D2H-B3 Hackintosh up and running.

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

 

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

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

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

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

Snow Leopard on a Intel Atom D945GCLF?

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

Installing a PCI Nvidia 8400 GS graphics card on a D945GCLF

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???