This guide tells you how to install Mac OS X on the SB700 southbridge (or SB750).

Known Motherboard Compatibility List
(many others will work as long as they have a SB700/SB750 southbridge):

• Asus M3A78-EMH
• Asus M3A-H/HDMI
• Gigabyte GA-MA78G-DS3HP

For your comparison, this is my setup:

• AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ Black Edition (2.6 ghz, SSE2, SSE3)
• 4gb DDR2 800 RAM (4 x 1gb)
• Asus M3A-H/HDMI Motherboard
  • Northbridge: AMD 780G
  • Southbridge: ATI SB700
  • BIOS: 1501 (latest, 5/11/2009)
  • Audio: ALC888s
• nVidia GeForce 9800GTX 512mb
• One IDE Maxtor 40gb 7200rpm hard drive I am trying to install on to.
• One IDE DVD/CD Burner, my only internal DVD drive.
• One SATA 750gb hard drive partitioned into two NTFS partitions.

Note for people with Leopard already installed, but find it slow
You will need a USB flash drive with OSx86 tools on it and this. Those are SB700 kexts. Those also work with the SB750, if you already have Leopard installed you can just install those kexts and speed will drastically improve. See the "Installing kexts" section below.

What you will need:
You will need a USB flash drive with OSx86 tools on it and this (Those are SB700 kexts. EDIT: Those also work with the SB750.) You will also need a copy of iAtkos 4a burned to a DVD.

BIOS Options
In the BIOS disable ACPI 2.0 and set Storage Mode to AHCI.

Installation
Boot from the disk. Press F8 when given the option and enter -v -f

Follow click the arrow, then continue and accept the license. Then go to Utilities > Disk Utility and format the partition/hard drive that you want to HFS extended (journaled) or something to that effect. You can name the partition anything but I usually use Leopard.

Drive Support
I have both a PATA (IDE) Hard Drive and DVD drive. I can see my Windows SATA drive:
Screenshot

Options to choose during install
Here is a screenshot of all the options in iAtkos 4a. The ones chosen are the ones that worked for me to allow me to install:
Screenshot

Installation may hang
When installing your screen may hang at something like this for 40mins to 1hr. This is normal:
Screenshot Another Screenshot

After that the progress bar will move very slowly for another hour--but it will finish. It moves slow because it has SB700 kexts that work, but they are slow. This is also the reason that once you finish installing, Leopard runs slow. We don't want Leopard to run slow so let's fix that.

Installing kexts
Boot into Leopard and plug in your flash drive. Run OSx86 tools and extract the SB700.zip to a directory. Click install kext in OSx86 and go to the SB700 directory that you extracted and select both kexts. When prompted to reboot do so. Things should run pretty fast now. If things simply don't work, or still run slow set your storage mode to IDE in the BIOS. Good luck!

Updating
If you plan on updating to 10.5.7 from 10.5.4 that is installed USE THESE INSTRUCTIONS OR YOU WILL BRICK YOUR LEOPARD INSTALLATION AND HAVE TO START OVER.

if other 780g/sb700 users could post if this worked for them and the model number of your motherboard, that would be really helpful for other people.

I guess this could work with 750SB also?
It's almoust the same chip.

yeah, give it a shot. the worst thing that happens is that it doesn't work. Follow the exact same instructions, including downloading the SB700 kexts because apparently the strings used for devices are the same.

Good luck, please tell me how it goes.

The difference for me is using iAtkos 4a.

Yeah I tried with my 750SB and it worked great...The speed has drastically improved.

Thanks Amazing Lemur...

not a problem. i hoped my 40+ hours (over 3 months) of messing with this would be helpful for someone else. I updated the first post with your results.

I updated the first post for clarity and added a section for people who already have leopard installed.

You Sir, are a rockstar! This guide worked perfect on ASUS M3A78-EMH !

thanks

I added ASUS M3A78-EMH to the compatibility list.

Hmm i'm trying to get iAtkos v4a, it will take about 1hour to get it, i have an ECS A780GM-M motherboard, after i try i will tell something here ;D

So, how'd it go?

Hey guys, first time poster... I am in the process of installing 10.5.4 of LawlessPPCs phenom release. I have finally gotten it to boot to the GUI screen and it is installing right now. If all goes well and it boots, i will try these kexts and get back to you. My setup is as follows...



Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-MA78G-DS3HP 780G/SB700

GPU: Nvidia Geforce 9800 GT

Ram: 4 GB

Hard Disk: (only 1 of 3 currently plugged in)300 GB Maxtor, with a 15 GB partition for OSX, SATA

DVD: Sata DVD-RW

Processor: Phenom 9500



So, installation is at about 30 min to go right now. I'll get back to you and let you know how it turns out.

i really hope it works for you because i broke my leopard install and am hoping that someone finds a distro that installs faster than 3 hours

okay, update... after a few install attempts(of Leo4all, instead of the lawless that i said i was installing) i have finally gotten past the boot loop problem i was having. Now i get a grey apple screen after install but it hangs there. Using the -v flag i can see that it has stopped on this error: Extensions "com.apple.driver .AppleACPIPlatform" has immediate dependencies on both com.apple.kernel and com.apple.kpi" My next step is going to be to try the Chameleon bootloader, probably using lawlessPPC since it comes with the bootloader already. I'll post back when i have more info.

hmm. thats odd. usually it doesn't hang on something like that. maybe you should let it sit for 15 mins and see if it moves past that point, I know when I was using iAtkos it hung at Jettisoning Kernel Linker for up to 7 minutes (it varied).

Are you saying Leo4All worked for you (at least for install)?

Leo4All worked period. I got past the error. I DLed and burned the Lawless copy and was going to format the partition and install that, but when i went to boot from the new DVD i had burned, it used the dvds bootloader(chamelon) and booted into OSX(the Leo4All install) Everything works out of the box. Audio, Ethernet, USB devices and Sata and Pata HDDs and DVDs, recognized and 4 gigs and all 4 cores. But upon messing with some kexts i broke it lol. No biggie though, because now i am trying to install the Lawless one and see how that works out. If it does, great, if not i can always reinstall Leo4All, which only takes about 20 min to install. We'll see how long Lawless takes, if it installs at all. If not, i'm gonna have to find a way to inject Leo4All with the chamelon bootloader so i don't have to have a DVD in the drive every time i want to boot. As I've been typing Lawless has gotten into the GUI, so i'll do this and write more later.

Pff.. it didnt worked, it just hangs at the middle of the installation... i will try to burn another DVD but i dont know if it will work :S



What version of Leo4all did you used?

Tks btw

4.1

Tks for the anwser! You used any special option to install?

-> Downloading now... 1 hour remaining to complete the download

Okay, so lawless is installed. all went very smoothly. Ethernet worked out of the box, but audio did not. Fixed it easily with some alc889a kexts i found. audio works now, but only on two channels at a time. i have 5.1 channel audio and i can select the rear speakers OR the front speakers, but not both. Gefore 9800GT working well, all 4 gigs of ram are there, but unfortunately not all 4 cores. Leo4all saw all 4 but lawless sees one. still looking for a solution to that, but it's going plenty fast regardless. Watchin simpsons on it right now, working very well. So, in conclusion, i think lawless is the better way to go, other than the only 1 core thing, which i still hope i can fix. But i don't really plan to do any gaming on it or anything so it's not a huge deal anyways. Leo4all worked well too and saw all cores, but you'd ahve to edit the ISO before burning to allow using the chameleon boot loader, and it doesn't detect my 9800 GT out of the box, so it seems like lawless is easier. Chameleon already on there and working great, and the audio thing is a quick and easy fix. So you can add the GA-MA78G-DS3HP to the compatibility list. If you have any questions, lemme know.



P.S. both installed in about 20 min, i had modified the Leo4all ISO for sb700 but the lawless i just DLed and burned. No editing was necessary.

Hmm what version of lawless?... stoped downloading leo4all xD

I used alc888 kext, but that didn't work, i had to install kexts after install, but that was easy. I didn't select ANY ethernet kexts, but ethernet still worked perfectly out of the box. I also installed the NVInject 512 kext, as i have a 512MB Geforce 9800 GT. and i left the chipset drivers at their default except that i de-selected the intel one, obviously having an AMD processor.




the 10.5.4 version. The torrents are horrificaly slow though, it's much faster to use these...

http://hotfilms.org/non-windows/osx86-leop...-amd-98940.html

They are rar and split into 18 different files, you have to download them 1 by 1, but it's still faster. Use the mega upload ones, the rapid share are very slow, except that the mega upload is missing file 4, so you have to get that from rapidshare.

Tks again for the aswner... i have a rapidshare premium account ;D

NP, you should be good to go then. No editing necessary like i said... Just make sure you are using AHCI mode and all should go well. it's a pretty quick install

P.S. Lemme know how it goes for ya...

Tks... but i dont have an PCI graphic card, atm i'm using the HD3200 onboard... so no drivers to it. Although an user of another forum reported that using the kext of HD2600 PCI he managed to change correctly the resolution, but no 3D graphic acceleration, anyway i won't play in Mac OS X so im not worried, waiting for Windows 7 RTM too ;D

I'm going to sleep and tomorrow at the morning i will try to install.

Thanks for all the help Rick

Wow guys. I am DL'ing Lawless right now. Hope it works. After that I will probably update my guide.

ya, let us know how it goes. I'm pretty curious :-) Good luck.

GAH! part01 and part13-18 are corrupted.

oops. it seems i just forgot to copy part12 from my desktop to my folder where i was extracting.

the hash is correct now!

shutting down to reboot and install!

Good deal, you are on the path to glory my friend... If you are needing the audio kext after installation(if, god willing, you make it that far) then here are the ones i used http://rapidshare.com/files/132868635/alc889a.zip.

Instructions are included

Pff... i tried LawlessPPC-Leo-10.5.4-Phen&AMD and when i try to boot it says something about AppleACPIPlataform dependency or something like that... i tried with AHCI and IDE and none of them worked.

Its getting really boring to install correctly Mac

yeah i tried it too. i got still waiting for boot device with both AHCI and IDE.

I use a IDE DVD drive and SATA hard drive. What do you use RickRand and CrazyKiller.

Leo4All time I guess. You just used TransMac to insert the kexts like this: http://www.infinitemac.com/f19/780g-chipse...-support-t1411/ right?

Yap, my pc is very similar to yours , the only difference is the graphic card, i have an IDE DVD drive and SATA hard drive too but i'm trying to install Mac into another IDE Hard Drive that i have.

Edit: Say something if Leo4all worked with you ;D

I do believe your problem is with the combination of SATA and IDE... Pretty sure it's gotta be one or the other. I have installed on IDE, from IDE. And I've installed on SATA, from SATA. Both without a prob... But as i recall had problems installing from one to the other. Do you have anything else plugged in? When i did it, more for the saftey of my Vista installation than anything else, I Disconnected all but one sata drive and my sata DVD. Now, you say you have IDE DVD and sata HD? You can pick up a SATA DVD for just a little over 20 bucks, maybe 30... mine was about 22 on newegg with free shipping. Either that or if you have a spare IDE HD laying around, try throwin that into the mix, see what happens. OSX is a picky beast, but if you have a couple extra dollars or a spare IDE HD, you can get this to work.

Hmm, maybe if I try to unplug the SATA HD and have only connected the IDE HD and DVD?

Dunno if this will work but i will give it a shot.

That's a good plan if you have a IDE HD... Make sure though, that both HD and DVD are on the same IDE channel. As master and slave. From the buz around the net, i don't think it works right if you put them on different channels.

Didn't worked anyway with HD as master and DVD as slave.

I will try Leo4all.

sorry to hear that. you are using a sb700/780g chipset right? And the drives were both on the master IDE? And what processor do you have? do you also have a phenom? If so you are gonna have to modify the Leo4All install DVD to use the chameleon bootloader or you won't be able to boot after install...b

Well i'm using an AMD X2 7750 Black Edition , is basicly a phenom but with 2 cores disabled, the rest is the same.

hhmmm... i'm not sure about that. But if i was a betting man I'd say you'll probably still need the chameleon boot loader.

I use a 5000+ Black Edition (dual core) and I have the SB700/780G. I have tried IDE to IDE (with iAtkos) and that worked. I guess I should try that again with Lawless.

The Lawless info page said that Dual and Quad are supported. I only have one IDE host so something has to be slave. (does root device mean master)?

I just got a new SATA HD and I have 5 partitions on it so I was hoping I could install Leopard on one of those.

If you are installing Leopard on a different physical drive, you don't need Chameleon (two different SATA or IDE drives) if I understand it correctly.

I really should buy a SATA DVD. IDE sucks.

I think you still need the chameleon. It's a boot loader, no matter where you install OSX it still needs it's bootloader to tell the comp how to boot. A partition may be an extension of a physical disk, but it is still a disk, and the computer reads it as such. Just as it would a non partitioned disk. however since you have a dual core and not a phenom then you may be able to use the regular boot loader from leo4all if that is what you are planning on instalingIf you can use a different HD(IDE to match your DVD drive) then make the sure the HD is master, and DVD is slave.

Edit: Btw, just for shits and giggles you can try to disconnect everything but the DVD and try to boot that way just to see if it gets past the waiting for root device error. Might at least give you a better idea of what is goin on. Not sure if that will work, but i would try it.

Yap, i think that iatkos works on my pc, but 2 hours for trying to install, makes my headaches ;D

have you tried leo4all? it installs quickly(if you can get that far) what board exactly do you have?

No i havent, i'm having some troubles to download, but in about 1 hour i should have it to try ;D

But again, thanks for all your help

I was able to get Leo4All in 2hrs using this tip: http://filesharefreak.com/tutorials/how-to...th-low-seeders/

I guess. In my tests, all distros that I am I able to at least get to the install screen on my computer are the ones that at least get to the grey screen before the install screen in my VM. I use VMware Workstation and for some reason Leo4All and XxX_x86_10.5.6_Install_Disc_Universal_Final worked. I am also able to install with Kalaway 10.5.2 patched with SB700 kexts, but it is slow--just like iAtkos. I am hoping XxX or Leo will work, am burning both now while I fetch my old IDE hd.

my pleasure. I've got the day off today, lol. So I'll be around. Besides, after all the headaches i went through with different distros before finding any that worked and installing 30 times before getting it right, I feel it only right to use what i have learned for the greater good lol. Keep us updated. This can all help other people out.

You used TransMac to install and burn with SB700 kexts provided in the other tutorial?

Edit: Lol i know release that you are talking about the download time.


-> In my pc the Kalyway DVD with the SB700 kexts only loads all the kexts and suddenly reboot..

No I downloaded it in 2 hours.

I haven't tried installing, but the version without the kexts added worked in my VM where the one with the kexts added gave me a waiting for root device error.

Granted, I haven't actually tried it but every other time my VM has given me a good indication of what will happen. (with iAtkos, and Kalaway which both work)

I've found that just using a dvd-rw works very well. They take longer to burn that a standard dvd-r(about 20 min for osx to burn) but then you can try as many as you want without wasting DVDs. And it installs fine from the RW.

Hmm i'm waiting for Amazing to see if the installation with Leo4all worked ;D