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Acer Aspire 6930 & Retail Snow Leopard


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It's taken a while for me to get this working 100%, I had to re-install about 20 times before I got it just right. Note this guide is for 100% Snow Leopard use, no dual booting.

 

The Aspire 6930 uses a new platform and as such, some items will not work.

 

Works:

 

Webcam - Can't handle too many frames per second or it drops them.

USB

VGA/LCD Graphics - FrameBuffer only, no accelerated graphics.

Keyboard & Trackpad With Tapping

Media Control Board - Volume Works, other keys vary.

HDD/ODD - Both drives work fine

Sound

Apple USB Ethernet - Fully Supported

Card Reader - Fully Supported (USB)

 

Doesn't Work:

Ethernet - Detected but can't map io's or init

Wireless - Intel not supported, other cards fail to enumerate properly

 

How to install:

 

First, there is one requirement: A USB Mouse & Keyboard. You will just need it untill you get the PS2 drivers installed.

 

Go to the first link here and download the ISO and burn, labeling it as "Installer Boot CD"

 

http://rapidshare.com/files/327129602/Sl_boot_cd.rar.html

 

Next, visit the following URL and download this Boot CD and label it "Post Install CD" after burning.

 

http://uploadpla.net/files/5106_fnuhx/Empi..._all-in-one.zip

 

The reason we use two different CD's is that the first disc works really well for installation but will refuse to boot the system once installed, and the Empire EFI doesn't work that well for installation but does the post install great.

 

Next, have a USB Flash drive handy with the zip file from this post (below) with drivers and utilities you will need.

 

Set your Acer's BIOS to boot from CD first and boot from the first CD. Once it has loaded and shows a graphic of the disc, eject it and insert your Retail (Not Preloaded) Snow Leopard Disc.

 

Press F5 to refresh discs and your Mac OS X disc will be displayed and should be selected. Type the following (it will appear at the bottom of the screen)

 

-v cpus=1

 

Then hit Enter.

 

After a few minutes you should be at the Installer where you can Partition your hard disk as GUID/GPT (Required) and install Mac OS as you desire.

 

Once the install is finished reboot. Sometimes, due to the nature of Acer's BIOS, your BIOS settings will revert back to factory defaults. Hit F2 to get into the BIOS and re-arrange the boot order to CD first just in case.

 

Make sure your USB Mouse & Keyboard are hooked up for sure at this point.

 

Now eject your Snow Leopard Disc and place our "Post Install CD" in the drive and boot from that. Once it loads, use your arrows to select your hard disk you installed Snow Leopard to. Again, type the following:

 

-v cpus=1

 

Then hit return. The system will boot and you will be walked through identifying your keyboard (USB Keyboard) and setting up your Mac.

 

Once you are at the desktop, open the Post Install CD and run the "MyHack Installer" located in the Post Install folder. Customize the install when asked and de-select OpenHalt Restart as it will not work. Make sure you don't select anything else. Once the install finishes, you can eject the CD and reboot your Mac. ;-) If reboot fails simply hold the power button for 4 seconds and force the power off, we will fix reboot after the next boot.

 

When the boot screen pops up at reboot and the progress bar starts going in reverse, hit enter and again type the following:

 

-v cpus=1

 

Hit Enter

 

Now Mac OS will start. From here you should insert your USB Flash drive with the contents of the zip file posted here.

 

The next step is important. Navigate to your /System/Library/Extensions and Trash the AppleHDA.kext file, it will cause a kernel panic if not removed.

 

Using your USB Keyboard and Mouse, select all the kexts and drag them over the Kext Utility application and release them once the Application's icon is highlighted. It will ask for your password. After this, it will install your extensions. Reboot.

 

At this point, you should no longer need to use -v cpus=1 at the boot prompt, however I did have the ocassional time when the boot would not complete. If using cpus=1 fixes any such issue, you can research on this forum how to edit Chameleon's boot.plist file to include cpus=1 automatically at boot.

 

Your keyboard and trackpad should now work. If you go to System Preferences, you should see a Trackpad setting and here you can turn on tapping to click.

 

Be sure to disable sleep and set sleep timer on battery to 1 hour, otherwise once the system tries to sleep, it will crash and you will have to force it to power off.

 

You can also change your desktop background and color settings. The default background in Snow Leopard does look a bit whacky once the video drivers are installed, you can change it.

 

For network connectivity, buy an Apple USB Ethernet adapter. Once hooked up, it should be auto-detected and work out of the box.

Aspire_6930_SL.zip

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It is a Synaptics Touchpad for which I am thankful.

 

ALPS make the worst trackpads in the history of computers, worse than a ball-mouse. I've seen my share of ALPS on Aspire GEM Series, the ones you would buy at FutureSHOP/BestBuy for $399.99.

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Either I am not using a trackpad to its full potential or I don't know anything about "good" pads.. :rolleyes: I use the trackpad for tapping and scrolling and dragging.. I don't "think" I need the two finger scroll and such... how exactly do you say ALPS makes the worst trackpads? I mean...except a trackpad is a trackpad, right... I for one do not uphold the company mind you, I am just curious...in fact, when I realized my laptop had an ALPS, I was disappointed.. :)

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Synaptics Trackpads will have better track/glide accuracy, and don't require the user to "mash" thier finger into the pad just to make it recognize input. I've seen quite a few Notebooks that have ALPS and the trackpad is quite sluggish even when you turn the sensitivity up to max. Now, not all ALPS trackpads are this way, but the majority are.

 

With a Synaptics Trackpad you can do figure eights with your trackpad with ease, with ALPS you may struggle. Again, I have seen the odd ALPS that was decent, so I don't know whether they just write crappy software or if the hardware is just not tuned properly or is cheaply made.

 

At work I service laptops so I've seen a fair share of trackpads. Most of the high end notebooks such as HP EliteBooks even many of the Pavilion DV 6000 and 9000 series had Synaptics.

 

Dell, Acer and Lenovo all use ALPS for sure, with perhaps a few decent lines getting Synaptics. Sony uses a mixture of both, while TOSHIBA is mostly Synaptics.

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Well, for me, the default settings work.. I never tuned it to higher settings... it may be "my" trackpad or it may be that I am not "that" sensitive.... It is also true that I have not really experienced Synaptics trackpad to be in a real position to compare.. Personally I think that Synaptics is to trackpads what Apple is to computers.. ^_^

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