[TUTORIAL/GUIDE] ASUS P6T (Non-Deluxe) Snow Leopard Installation Guide

[vincentjames501]

Introduction

 

Recently I've been trying to get Snow Leopard on a friends ASUS P6T Non-Deluxe with an i7 920, after countless attempts I've finally got snow working with all cores just like a normal mac machine. I've basically taken a little from nearly every tutorial on the internet so hopefully this tutorial will work for you too. By following this tutorial hopefully you will never see a dreaded kernel panic as I did so many times and you'll have everything working (Including all 4 cores and HT)!

 

What You'll Need:

 

1) iAtkos v7 Leopard Installation DVD

2) DSDT Patcher Here

3) OS86Tools Here

4) EFI Stuido Here

5) A Retail Snow Leopard DVD or .DMG file

6) Kext Files/USB Boot scripts Here

 

The Outline

 

Pretty Simple Outline:

1) Setup BIOS

2) Partitioning Drive(s)

3) Install Leopard

4) DSDT Patch - Leopard should be fully working after this point

5) Create Bootable USB Flash Drive For Snow

6) Install Snow

7) Installing final kext - Snow should be working flawlessly after this point

 

Setup BIOS

 

Ok, initially we are going to have to set the bios up to install leopard. To make things simple reset the BIOS back to default settings and only change these parameters to avoid errors upon install.

1) On the main BIOS window go to "Storage Configuration>Configure SATA as" and set to AHCI

2) Go to "Advanced>CPU configuration>Intel HT Technology" and set to Disabled

3) Go to "Advanced>CPU configuration>Active Processor Cores" and set to 1

4) Go to "Advanced>CPU configuration>A20M" and set to Disabled (more than likely already disabled)

If you've set everything back to default before changing what's above, everything from this point on should be good to go!

 

Partitioning Drive(s)

 

There is quite a bit of room to do as you please here. For me, I used one hard drive and had one partition for Snow Leopard and one partition for Leopard (feel free to use separate hard drives). Please ensure that there is nothing on the disk that hasn't been backed up because following this setup process will erase the disk.

 

1) Insert the iAtkos v7 installation disk (verify that the DVD Drive is set to boot first)

2) At the menu press F8

3) At the prompt type "busratio=20 cpus=1 -v" (without the quotes) (the busratio is different for different cpus other than the 920)

4) Wait patiently and please report if there are any hangs getting to the install screen

5) Once booted, go to "Options>Disk Utility"

6) Click on the drive you'd like to install leopard and snow leopard on and click the "Partition" tab (This is if you are installing leopard and snow on the same drive, otherwise just format the two drives both as a GUID partition table)

7) On "Volume Scheme" select "2 Partitions"

8) Click on Partiton 1 and at the bottom push "Options" and select "GUID Partition Table"

9) Feel free to name the volumes as you please (for this tutorial I chose "leopard" and "snow") and make sure that both have "Format:" set to "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)" and simply push "Apply" when finished

10) Close out of disk utility

 

Install Leopard

 

1) Continue with the installation until you see the "Customize" button on the bottom left of the window and press it.

2) Select "Network>Wired>Realtek>Realtek R1000"

3) If you know which graphics driver you need feel free to select it from here

4) Leave everything else as is and continue with the installation. It should take between 10-20 minutes to complete so just be patient.

 

Once the system reboots do the following:

1) Pull the iAtkos v7 DVD out so it doesn't boot to it

2) You should hopefully see the Chameleon Bootloader and just press one of the arrow keys to see the drives.

3) You should see here your "snow" and "leopard" partitions we created earlier - select the partition which you installed leopard to and type this before pressing enter: busratio=20 cpus=1 -v -x (Note: if you are confident that the graphics driver you selected is correct the -x flag isn't necessary)

4) Wait for what seems like forever (It took me close to about 8-10 minutes) and you will see the Introduction video if you booted with -x otherwise you will see the snow setup after a while.

5) Set up leopard however you so please

 

At this point you should have a working leopard partition. To boot to it just use what you typed above (Don't worry we will get all 4 cores working and make is so you don't have to type anything here shortly). Once inside leopard your ethernet and sound should be working fine (again, on a P6T Non-Deluxe). So now we need to patch the DSDT in leopard.

 

DSDT Patch - Leopard should be fully working after this point

This is all we need to do in order to enable all 4 cores and HT

 

 

1) Extract the "DSDT_Patcher1.0.1e.zip" contents to your OSX desktop in folder named "DSDT_Patcher1"

2) Run the DSDT patcher file and when asked enter "0" to emulate Darwin OS.

3) Open the terminal and type: cd Desktop/DSDT_Patcher1 -> Press Enter

4) Now type: nano Debug/dsdt.dsl -> Press Enter

5) In nano, delete all lines that start with "Alias" (there are 3-5 of them IIRC)

6) Press Ctrl+o and then Enter to save the file, then press Ctrl+x to close nano.

7) In the terminal now type: ./DSDT\ Patcher Debug/dsdt.dsl

8) Run the patcher again, you will get 3 errors about files not existing or already existing, that's fine, don't worry about it

9) In terminal again type: cp dsdt.aml /DSDT.aml

10) Close terminal.

 

If you get an error about not having privileges just type "sudo" before the command and enter your password!

 

We're almost done here, just one more step - Modifying the com.boot.plist file

1) Open EFIStudio that you downloaded earlier

2) Click the "boot.plist Editor"

3) Overwrite what is there with this (Note: change busratio to the appropriate value if you have a CPU other than a 920):

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>Kernel</key>
<string>mach_kernel</string>
<key>Kernel Flags</key>
<string>busratio=20</string>
<key>Timeout</key>
<string>1</string>
<key>device-properties</key>
<string></string>
</dict>
</plist>

4) Save The Changes

5) Reboot - Make sure to enable all cores and HT

 

You should now be able to boot into leopard without having to type anything (it should take less than a minute). If you receive a kernel panic or it doesn't boot try booting with the "-v -x" flags and report where it hangs!

 

Create Bootable USB Flash Drive For Snow

 

For this section I will be primarily following this wonderful guide http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=189052 . So if you'd like to see more pictures or alternative instructions take a look at that tutorial.

 

1) Ensure that the flash drive is AT LEAST 8GB!

2) Open Disk Utility from leopard

3) Click on the flash drive and click the "Partition" tab

4) Under "Volume Scheme" select "1 Partition"

5) Set "Name:" to "Installer" and "Format:" to "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)"

6) Press "Options" and select "GUID Partition Table"

7) Press "Apply"

8) Now either insert your Retail Snow Leopard DVD or mount a Retail Snow Leopard .DMG

9) Now click the "Mac OS X Install DVD" and click the "Restore" tab

10) For "Source" just drag the "Mac OS X Install DVD" to it and for "Destination" just drag "Installer" to it

11) Press "Restore" and sit back and watch until it's complete.

 

Install Snow

 

Ok, now it's time to actually make the USB bootable

1) Unzip the P6T SE Essentials that you downloaded earlier

2) First, go to the folder and go to "ScriptFiles>Ready" and move smbios.plist to just "ScriptFiles"

3) Open "2_Boot Prep" and type "Installer" (or whatever you named the thumb drive)

4) The drive should now be bootable, so reboot and go to the BIOS and set it to boot from the USB drive

5) In Chameleon loaded from the USB drive select "Installer" and boot with -v

6) From here just install snow to the "snow" partition or whatever you named it (needs to be GUID Partition Table)

7) Once it is installed just reboot back to the thumb drive

8) Select the snow partition and boot with "-v" (if it fails try "-v -x")

 

If you have trouble booting to the snow leopard installer, try doing the following (This is what I had to do, I was having the IOAPIC hang issue what many think is related to the memory):

1) Go to disk utilities in leopard

2) Right click on the thumb drive and copy your "Universal Unique Identifier:"

3) Open the smbios.plist in the "ScriptFile" directory

4) Change this:

<key>SMUUID</key>

<string>00000000-0000-1000-8000-00146C8ECD91</string>

and insert your Universal Unique Identifier in the <string></string>

5) Also change these to the appropriate value. In my case I had OCZ memory at 1333MHz:

<key>SMmemspeed</key>

<string>1333</string>

<key>SMmemmanufacter</key>

<string>OCZ</string>

6) Change the com.apple.Boot.plist to this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>EthernetBuiltIn</key>
<string>Yes</string>
<key>GUI</key>
<string>No</string>
<key>GraphicsEnabler</key>
<string>Yes</string>
<key>Kernel</key>
<string>mach_kernel</string>
<key>Kernel Flags</key>
<string></string>
<key>Legacy Logo</key>
<string>Yes</string>
<key>Timeout</key>
<string>1</string>
</dict>
</plist>

7) Download this DSDT.aml Here and overwrite the one in the folder

8) Rerun "2_Boot Prep" and try to boot to the snow installer again

 

Installing final kext - Snow should be working flawlessly after this point

 

Ok, hopefully you are now in Snow and we can finish the final process to get this working flawlessly.

1) First let's try this: Download chameleon RC4 from Here and install it on your leopard partition

2) Take out the thumb drive and try to boot into snow with just the chameleon on leopard (use -v and report any errors you may have)

 

Hopefully you were able to boot with out the thumb drive, if not, do the following:

1) Boot back to the thumb drive and load snow

2) Open "3_MacLoader" From the P6T SE Essentials folder

3) Push "Y" and Enter

4) Type "snow" and press Enter twice

5) Try to boot again with out the flash drive

 

And finally, if you are still unable to boot into snow without the thumb drive do this:

1) Boot back to the thumb drive and load snow

2) Go to the "Snow/Extra" directory

3) Modify the com.apple.boot.plist with the one in the troubleshooting above.

4) Modify the smbios.plist like the troubleshooting above (This time use the Universal Unique Identifier for your snow partition).

5) If you have a directory called Extensions inside "Snow/Extra" skip this next step

5b) Copy the "KEXTs" folder to "Snow/Extra" and rename it to "Extensions"

6) Finally try to reboot without the thumb drive and hopefully you are golden.

 

Please let the community know if you have any issues so we can help resolve them. Maybe someone who finds this tutorial useful can provide some pictures (I'm not going to redo the install :-p)?

[vincentjames501]

Edited a few things...

[vincentjames501]

I find this very depressing that nobody found this useful :-(

[Village Idiot]

I find this very depressing that nobody found this useful :-(

 

This is exactly what I was looking for. I'm going to try and make time to test it out this evening. I'll report back with my experience when I'm done.

[Village Idiot]

Freezing after Leopard install while trying to boot on line mdworker[61]: (Error) SyncInfo: Boot-cache avoidance timed out!

 

Any help on this?

[Village Idiot]

I'm going to try again tonight, but I'm going to start from the Snow Leopard instructions. I already have a MBP, so I can build the boot disk and install that way. I'll let you know if I at least have any luck from that portion of the guide.

[iatomic]

would this work on a hp ? or only the asus p6t?

[qubew]

Hi, many thank for the guide

 

 

 

i'm the one who using i7 720 and P6T

 

i'm try your guide step by step but i just struck at the "Install Snow".

 

i cant boot on my external HDD

 

i already using what you commented

 

 

##

result from booting installer with "-v" is

stand still at

 

AppleRTL8169Ethernet : Ethernet Adress my MAC address

 

?

 

can you help me fix this out ?

[Village Idiot]

Hi, many thank for the guide

 

 

 

i'm the one who using i7 720 and P6T

 

i'm try your guide step by step but i just struck at the "Install Snow".

 

i cant boot on my external HDD

 

i already using what you commented

 

 

##

result from booting installer with "-v" is

stand still at

 

AppleRTL8169Ethernet : Ethernet Adress my MAC address

 

?

 

can you help me fix this out ?

 

 

I've used this guide to better effect:

http://www.fleebailey33.org/

 

I have Snow Leopard installed and running with the "-x GraphicsEnabler=No" command when using the linked guide while trying to boot from the chameleon boot loader after Snow Leopard is installed, I have no problem. I've also been able to do the system updates to 10.6.3 and all current updates along with getting it to boot from the internal HDD

 

I also have an Nvidia GTX 295 that is apparently causing the problem.

[vincentjames501]

The one piece of advice I can say is that you must make sure your bios settings are exactly as described above and on first install/first boot just wait what feels like an eternity, go get lunch or something and come back before you can judge whether it is truly stuck.

[qubew]

i wait around 30 - 45 mins

 

i'll try now

[vsoderholm]

How about updates, do I dare to try Software Update on Snow? =)

[walkz187]

my system just restart everytime i try use this iAtkos v7 just it simply just restarts my PC, this happens even if i dont type the command below in this step.

 

any help just installing lepard or snow leopard would be great thanks

 

and i did reset my bios setting and follow the instructions

 

1) Insert the iAtkos v7 installation disk (verify that the DVD Drive is set to boot first)

2) At the menu press F8

3) At the prompt type "busratio=20 cpus=1 -v" (without the quotes) (the busratio is different for different cpus other than the 920)

4) Wait patiently and please report if there are any hangs getting to the install screen

 

p6t

i7 2.67

sata hdd pluged into sata port 0

sata DVD Rom pluged into sata port 2

tri chan ram corsair 3X2gig ddr3 C7

[walkz187]

8) Run the patcher again, you will get 3 errors about files not existing or already existing, that's fine, don't worry about it

 

I never got 3 errors did i do sumthing wrong?

i got 6 warnings

 

 

edit

(If you receive a kernel panic or it doesn't boot try booting with the "-v -x" flags and report where it hangs!)

 

it hangs on

MAC Framework Successfully initialized

using 16284 buffer header and 4096 cluster IO headers

 

i waited 10 mins any ideas

[maflynn]

Thanks for this guide, but I'm a tad confused (easily done). Do I need to load Leopard before SnowLeopard, or can I go straight to Snow Leopard. I mean it looks like its two different guides, one for SL and one Leopard.

[Janipka]

First of all... tahnk you very much for this wonderfull manual.

 

I have installed leopard.

 

But i get exactly same problem as walkz187

no errors, 6 warnings. Then booting with HT and all cores, and same message...

it hangs on

MAC Framework Successfully initialized

using 16384 buffer header and 4096 cluster IO headers

 

Any clue? i think it could be something with patching DSDT, because if i disable HT an all cores, everithing works fine (It takes like 5 minutes to boot)

Can you send us your dsdt.dsl and DSDT.aml already patched?

[arrrrg]

First of all... tahnk you very much for this wonderfull manual.

 

I have installed leopard.

 

But i get exactly same problem as walkz187

no errors, 6 warnings. Then booting with HT and all cores, and same message...

it hangs on

MAC Framework Successfully initialized

using 16384 buffer header and 4096 cluster IO headers

 

Any clue? i think it could be something with patching DSDT, because if i disable HT an all cores, everithing works fine (It takes like 5 minutes to boot)

Can you send us your dsdt.dsl and DSDT.aml already patched?

 

I am also having the same exact problem as walkz and Janipka. This is the step after you copy/paste that first bit of stuff to the DSDT file, save it, and restart with HT back on and all cores enabled.

 

Hopefully someone gets a light bulb on this issue ...

 

thanks

[Apeaux]

After installing it appears:

 

Still waiting for root device

[maflynn]

I've used this guide to better effect:

http://www.fleebailey33.org/

 

I have Snow Leopard installed and running with the "-x GraphicsEnabler=No" command when using the linked guide while trying to boot from the chameleon boot loader after Snow Leopard is installed, I have no problem. I've also been able to do the system updates to 10.6.3 and all current updates along with getting it to boot from the internal HDD

 

I also have an Nvidia GTX 295 that is apparently causing the problem.

 

I just tried this link, and couldn't believe how easy it was. I struggled to get SL on my i7 930/P6T and with the fleebailey33 guide, I was up in running in no time. I'm downloading the 10.6.4 update, and hopefully that doesn't break anything. Woo hoo

[flynflip]

I actually made a video on installing Snow Leopard and upgrading to 10.6.4 based on fleebailey's method and pack. Check it out at: http://flynflip.com/Hackintoshing/ASUS_P6T.html Fleebailey has been nice enough to post it on is site. My tuts are long and slow, but they are for helping noobs and newbs. I have several other tuts and vids on the site. I have three new one's coming soon on the ASUS P7P55D-E Pro (and variations of the P7P55D), installing Snow Leopard in Virtual Box in Windows and Linux, and getting the ATI Radeon HD5770. Should have them posted in the next week. The P6T is my personal computer in which I have Snow Leopard, Windows 7, and Ubuntu 10.04 triple booted using an Nvidea GT220 Graphics card. I absolutely love it and it works flawlessly. Leave comments on my site if you have any tut requests or recommendations. Thanks InsanelyMac for the great site!