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Acer Aspire 5610Z Installation Tutorial

SDRacer48

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SDRacer48
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Introduction

 

The following tutorial is a complete recap of my personal Macintosh OS X installation onto my Acer Aspire 5610Z.

 

The object of this tutorial is to cover the entire process from the initial preparation to the actual installation of the operating system. The tutorial will also include the post installation tweaking that continues to this day.

 

The post installation tweaking covered in this tutorial includes fixes for numerous minor incompatibilities. These proposed fixes are hardware specific and may or may not work for you and your situation. I do not accept any liability for any harm these fixes may or may not cause.

 

This tutorial is not exclusively intended for the use of only Acer Aspire 5610Z owners, but some, most, or all parts of this tutorial may or may not be applicable to your hardware. I ask all owners to proceed with caution when installing an operating system on "unsupported" hardware. The consequences for negligence are numerous and could even result in hardware failure.

 

As a final last note, this tutorial is for me. I do not intend for anyone else to use it for their own personal gains. It is simply a written documentation of the steps I took to install Mac OS X Leopard onto my Acer Aspire 5610Z. I do not use my Acer Aspire 5610Z for any production or commercial purposes and would not recommend anyone else doing so.

 

This is strictly for fun and experimentation. If you are using this tutorial to build a Mac OS X system for the sole reason of avoiding the action of paying Apple for the appropriate hardware and software combination, you are using this tutorial for the wrong reasons.

 

Leo.12.23.08.png

 

 

Getting Started

 

The first part of the following section documents the specifications of my Acer Aspire 5610Z. These specifications may or may not be the same as a different Acer Aspire 5610Z. Acer is notorious for using different components in different laptops of the same model number.

 

The second part of the following section documents the materials needed for the entire tutorial. Some of these materials may or may not be optional depending on what parts of the tutorial is used.

 

 

ACER ASPIRE 5610Z SPECIFICATIONS

· Genuine 1.6 GHz Intel T2060 Pentium Dual-Core Processor

 

· 1GB (2 x 512MB) Hynix DDR2 SDRAM at 533 MHz Bus Speed

 

· Genuine Intel 945 Express Chipset (GMA 950) Graphics Adapter

 

· Built-In Realtek ALC883 High Definition Audio

 

· Intel 82801G (ICH7 Family) Chipset

 

· Hitachi 80GB SATA Hard Drive

 

· Broadcom 440x 10/100 Integrated Ethernet

 

· Broadcom 4311 BCM94311MCAG Mini PCI-E Wireless Card

 

· ENE CB-712/714/810 CardBus Controller

 

· Built-In 5-in-1 Card Reader

 

· Synaptics TouchPad

MATERIALS NEEDED

· Acer Aspire 5610Z Laptop
Model Number: BL50

 

· iATKOS 5i 10.5.5 DVD for Intel Only

 

·

 

· Broadcom 4311 BCM94311MCAG Mini PCI-E Wireless Card

 

· Scotch or Packaging Tape

 

· Sharp Pair of Scissors or Exact-O Knife

 

· External USB Mouse

 

· USB Flash Drive and/or Networked Storage Medium

 

· Small Personal Fan

 

·

 

·

 

· A few weeks of tweaking time

 

· Patience

Preparation

 

This section documents the required steps that need to be taken before Mac OS X can be installed. These steps are required, but can be tweaked if necessary for any given situation.

 

 

PARTITIONING THE DRIVE

1. Insert the
Ubuntu Live CD
in the disc drive.

 

2. During initial boot, hold F12 to access the BootMenu.

 

3. Select the disc drive (should be option 2).

 

4. Select "English" as the language.

 

5. Select the first option "Try Ubuntu without any change to your computer."

 

6. Once Ubuntu is loaded, go to System > Administration > Partition Editor.

 

7. Create a FAT or FAT32 partition large enough (40GB+) for Mac OS X installation.

 

8. Exit Partition Editor.

 

9. Shutdown Ubuntu.

CONVERTING THE FILE SYSTEM

1. Insert the
iATKOS 5i 10.5.5 DVD
in the disc drive.

 

2. During initial boot, hold F12 to access the BootMenu.

 

3. Select the disc drive (should be option 2).

 

4. Once the
iATKOS 5i 10.5.5 DVD
is loaded, click the button at the bottom to continue.

 

5. Once the system is done preparing, go to Utilities > Disk Utility.

 

6. Target the previously formatted partition, erase and format as
Mac OS Extended (Journaled) [H
FS+].

 

7. Close Disk Utility.

 

8. Click the "Continue" button at the bottom of the Welcome window.

 

9. Agree to the software agreement terms.

 

10. Stop at the "Select the Destination" screen.

 

11. Proceed to installation instructions.

Installation

 

This section documents the installation and updating process. The installation process includes the selecting of the targeted partition and the appropriate patches and drivers to be applied to the installation. The updating process brief explains how to proceed when updating the system for the first time.

 

 

CUSTOM INSTALL

1. Select the newly formatted HFS+ partition and continue.

 

2. On the next screen, select "Customize."

 

3. Select the only following options:

a. iATKOS v5i Main System

 

b. PC EFI V9
(under Bootloader)

 

c. AppleDecrypt
(under X86 Patches > Decrypters)

 

d. SMBIOS-EFI
(under X86 Patches > SMBIOS drivers > SMBIOS Enablers)

 

e. Remove PowerManagement.kext
(under x86 Patches)

 

f. PS/2
(under x86 Patches)

 

g. OHR
(under x86 Patches)

 

h. Remove Thermal Kexts
(under x86 Patches)

 

i. GMA950 b
(under Drivers > VGA > Intel > GMA950)

 

j. Intel Speedstep b
(under Drivers > System > Speedstep)

 

k. Broadcom 440x
(under Drivers > Network)

4. Click the "Done" when finished.

 

5. At the Install Summary window, click the "Install" button.

 

6. Let the system install and reboot.

After the system has rebooted, the normal setup process will begin. Follow the instructions and enter in the appropriate information until the Mac OS X Desktop is reached for the first time.

 

 

FIRST SYSTEM UPDATE

 

This process is very simple due to the fact that the system is pretty much running "vanilla" right after installation. Therefore, we can just use the "Software Update…" built in to the operating system.

1. Click the "Apple Menu" (Apple Icon) on the Menu Bar

 

2. Click "Software Update…" on the drop down menu that appears.

 

3. Check ALL of the updates and let the system update.

 

4. When asked, restart the system.

The system may restart itself one or two times. This is no problem and should be considered normal. There are no additional steps to this process.

 

 

Tweaking

 

This section documents the minor tweaking that is required to get the system as fully operable as possible. These tweaks on the system may have to be reapplied after major system updates (especially the Audio).

 

 

AUDIO

 

The audio should be working after the initial installation, but the jacks on the front of the laptop shouldn't. In order to get this working, Targua's AppleHDAPatcher.1.20.app and a customized text document for the Realtek HAD ALC883 Audio system will be used. More information can be found here: http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showtopic=32859

 

The process is as follows:

1. Extract "
" to the Desktop.

 

2. Open the extracted "AppleHDAPatcher" folder.

 

3. Drag and drop the "alc883.txt" file onto the "AppleHDAPatcher" application.

 

4. Wait…

 

5. Once it is finished you should have working Headphone, Line In, and Mic In jacks.

TOUCHPAD

 

The touchpad should be working after the initial installation, but the scrolling function shouldn't. In order to get this working, Deamobile and Ranova's method will be used. More information can be found here: http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?sho...t=0&start=0

 

The process is as follows:

1. Extract "
" to the Desktop.

 

2. Open the extracted "Touchpad Scroll" folder.

 

3. Run the "ALPS Glidepad Driver.pkg."

 

4. Reboot, when asked.

 

5. After reboot, it will produce and error saying "FFScroll is not working."

 

6. Click Fix and Reboot again.

 

7. Copy "com.apple.driver.ApplePS2Trackpad.plist" from the "Touchpad Scroll" folder to

a. /Users/[Your Username]/Library/Preferences

i. And

b. /Library/Preferences

8. Open Terminal and type:

sudo killall -9 FFScrollDaemon

 

sudo /usr/local/bin/FFScrollDaemon

9. Those commands kill the FFScroll Process and Restart It. Must be done everytime the plist file is edited.

 

10. Copy the "FFScrollDaemon" folder from the "Touchpad Scroll" folder to / Library / StartupItems.

 

11. Enter password to authenticate.

 

WIRELESS NETWORK

 

In order to get the wireless network to function, the original Intel Pro 3945ABG Mini PCI-E card has to be switched out with a Broadcom 4311 BCM94311MCAG Mini PCI-E Wireless Card.

 

Unfortunately, the wireless would still not work because of the Wireless Hardware Switch on the laptop was cutting off the power to the Mini PCI-E connection. Therefore, the tape method had to be employed to circumvent the switch. More information can be found here: http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?sho...mp;#entry400400

 

The process is as follows:

1. Remove the casing from the bottom of the laptop exposing the internals.

 

2. Remove the Mini PCI-E wireless networking card.

 

3. Cut a small sliver of tape to cover Pin 20 on the underside of the card.

 

4. Reinsert card.

 

5. Add the casing back to the bottom of the laptop.

If done correctly, the Wireless Networking should work via Airport. The card is identified as "Third Party Wireless Card."

 

 

wireless1.jpg

wireless2.jpg

 

TIME MACHINE

 

Time machine technically works after the initial install, but needs a little tweaking to work the way desired. First, the Time Machine Preferences Panel will not display a sparsebundle not on a Time Capsule or another Mac OS X machine. Second, the sparsebundle cannot be initially be created on the non Time Capsule or Mac OS X machine. More information can be found here: http://www.readynas.com/?p=253

 

Ok I've just converted a second machine to use the NAS for networked Time Machine backups, and this time things went straight through without any mistakes. Here's the run-down:

 

This example was done using a Mac Mini with a hostname of "magpie", running OS X 10.5.2 and connected via 802.11g to a ReadyNAS NV+ (RAIDiator 4.01c1-p1 [1.00a041] with AFP patch loaded). I've created separate AFP shares for each machine ("TMmagpie" in this case) and set them to be accessible just to the "owner" of the machine. I could have set up one share to contain Time Machine backups for all clients, but then it could be possible for a user to access someone else's private data within the backups.

 

Do make sure to keep the hostname simple — i.e. don't have quotes in it like "Maggie's Mac", or the process will fail.

 

With the share set up on the NAS already, everything else we do is local to the client (magpie in this case). Some of the commands I list here are run within Terminal.app, although there are alternate (GUI) ways of accessing some of the functions.

 

This machine had previously been doing Time Machine backups to a local Firewire disk, and part of the process outlined here is to copy the contents of that disk to the NAS so that further backups build on top of the existing ones. No need to throw away the old backups!

1. In System Preferences, turn Time Machine off.

 

2. Find the MAC address of the machine's internal Ethernet port:

ifconfig en0 | grep ether

3. This should produce a single line of output, such as:

ether 00:16:cb:af:91:d7

4. Even if the network backups will be done using a different port (e.g. AirPort: usually "en1″) the system will use the address of en0 as part of the system identifier.

 

5. In this case the identifier that Time Machine will use is "magpie_0016cbaf91d7″.

 

6. Make a new "sparsebundle" on a local disk (NOT the Time Machine disk!). This sparsebundle is a virtual filesystem image which we'll copy to the NAS, and Time Machine will then access it remotely (that way Time Machine's not limited by the filesystem features of whatever NAS it's using: all the funky stuff happens within the sparsebundle). By default sparsebundles can keep growing until they fill up the NAS, but in this scenario we keep other things on the NAS as well as backups, and we're going to limit the sparsebundle size to 140 GB. We called this one "Backup of magpie" as that's the default name created by Time Machine, but in fact you can call the volume anything you like.

hdiutil create -size 140g -fs HFS+J -volname "Backup of magpie" magpie_0016cbaf91d7.sparsebundle

7. This Mac Mini hasn't had things like developer tools loaded: hdiutil comes with the OS. We make the sparsebundle manually so we can impose the size limit, and we do it on a local disk because of a bug that prevents creation of a sparsebundle remotely on the NAS (although they can be used when in place). The sparsebundle doesn't start at 140 GB: it grows as more data is put in the filesystem inside it, up to a maximum of 140 GB.

 

8. Enter the command

 

9. Mount the NAS share the sparsebundle will be mounted on ("TMmagpie" in this case). I mount all our shares via AFP, but you can presumably use CIFS also. Once it's mounted, it will be accessible within Terminal.app as /Volumes/TMmagpie.

 

10. Copy the sparsebundle to the share:

rsync -avE /Users/david/magpie_0016cbaf91d7.sparsebundle /Volumes/TMmagpie/

11. Depending on your network (802.11g, 802.11n, 100bT, 1000bT, etc) this can take a long time!

rsync is smart enough to only copy the new bits of a file, so you can stop and re-run that command if necessary without re-copying everything.

 

12. In the meantime you can go ahead and use the machine. Just don't turn Time Machine backups back on yet.

 

13. If the local copy of the sparsebundle is in an area that will be backed up by Time Machine, remove it before proceeding. We don't want to double the size of the Time Machine backup for no good reason!

 

14. In the Time Machine System Preferences panel, select "Change Disk…". It will display a list of volumes you can backup to. If the share containing the sparsebundle isn't listed (you did mount it, right?) it's probably because it's not mounted from a Time Capsule or another OS X machine. To show the share in this display you'll need to have executed the following command in Terminal:

defaults write com.apple.systempreferences TMShowUnsupportedNetworkVolumes 1

15. You'll need to log out and in again for this to have effect (select "Log Out" from the Apple menu: you can Restart, but logging out will do). Now mount TMmagie again, then try Time Machine's "Change Disk…" again.

 

16. Select the share on the NAS ("TMmagpie") as the new destination for Time Machine backups.

Time Machine will automatically turn itself back on and schedule a backup to begin in two minutes. If you didn't populate the sparsebundle with the contents of a local disk, this first backup will be a full backup and can take a very long time (depending on things like your network infrastructure). If you did pre-populate the sparsebundle, this backup will be an incremental backup and shouldn't take long at all (depending on how much has changed on the machine since you turned Time Machine off in Step 1 of course).

 

Credits and Recognitions

 

All information in this tutorial should be considered second hand research. This tutorial was made possible by the dedicated people who make the OSX86 Project possible. The following links are directed towards the original locations of the information used in this tutorial.

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This tutorial can also be downloaded in PDF Format:

CLICK HERE

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hack_a_mac
hack_a_mac
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Wow! that seems like a lot of work. I'm looking forward to trying it, hopefully the DVD gets downloaded tonight and I'll start working on it probably Christmas Eve. Hopefully have some version of OSX working by New Years. What all does not work for you? I know your still working on it to this day but I was just wondering what you have left to work on. And you're dual booting OSX and Vista correct? Thanks for the tut. :D

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xtreme_xtc
xtreme_xtc
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Good Post. I'll just add a few things. I don't think you require TAPE METHOD, I have the 4311 as well, however I suggest trying http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showtopic=81036%20%20" target="_blank"> http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showtopic=81036 Specifically you require the IOPCIFAMILY.kext included with chunnan's PCMCIA cardbus drivers.

 

I'm including the AppleHDA.kext that is patched using targua patcher for the sound card with working outputs. EFI string, use either chameleon or the netkas pc_efi v9.

 

I also included the patched dsdt, fixes most problems, includes modifications for applebacklight references. For sleep issues it will sleep with SuperHai's corrected USB sleep kext (EHCI), however it will not wake properly, most likely a problem with wireless pci-e not sleeping correctly, remains on in sleep mode, normally it should be off, any modifications would be appreciated to get that part working.

 

DSDT is compatible with 3690 series, 5610, 5630, and possibly other 56XX series based on the same bios. Acer uses the same bios for different variants of the same motherboard thus it's compatible with the Nvidia GPU'ed versions specifically 5630.

 

EFI String contains the ethernet fix for time machine, gma950 detection, and sound card detection in conjunction with included applehda (does not require azaliapatch kext)

 

 cf01000001000000030000003f0000000100000002010c00d041030a0000000001010600001e0101
60000017fff0400160000006200750069006c0074002d0069006e000000050000000161000000020
000002010c00d041030a000000000101060000027fff0400100000006d006f00640065006c000000
b000000474d4120393530200000004100410050004c002c00480061007300500061006e0065006c0
00000800000001000000230100000700000002010c00d041030a0000000001010600001b7fff0400
c0000007200650076006900730069006f006e002d006900640000000800000002000000280000005
0069006e0043006f006e00660069006700750072006100740069006f006e00730000000400000018
00000760065006e0064006f0072002d0069006400000008000000868000002c00000073007500620
730079007300740065006d002d00760065006e0064006f0072002d00690064000000080000002510
0001e000000730075006200730079007300740065006d002d0069006400000008000000900000001
0000006c00610079006f00750074002d00690064000000080000000c000000160000006200750069
06c0074002d0069006e0000000500000000

 

Hope this will be beneficial to other users. If you ask me how to install "x" use the search function.

AppleHDA.zip

dsdt.zip

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SDRacer48
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What all does not work for you?

As of 12.24.08, the following things do not work (or cannot be confirmed working):

Middle Scroll Button for TrackPad

Sleep / Wake Issue

SD Card Slot

Multimedia Buttons

External Wireless Kill Switch

VGA Out

S-Video Out
(cannot be confirmed)

PCI Card Slot
(cannot be confirmed)

Bluetooth
(cannot be confirmed because I don't have one installed)

Acer Orbicam
(cannot be confirmed because I don't have one installed)

All of this stuff is minor for what I use the laptop for. The only thing I would like to have is the Sleep / Wake issue fixed, but it is not pressing and not worth risking the integrety of the system in terms of it being able to update straight from Apple.

 

 

 

 

And you're dual booting OSX and Vista correct? Thanks for the tut. :censored2:

No, I am not dual booting. I just have OS X installed. It is a major pain to get Vista and OS X to dual boot the way I want...

 

 

 

 

I don't think you require TAPE METHOD, I have the 4311 as well, however I suggest trying http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showtopic=81036 Specifically you require the IOPCIFAMILY.kext included with chunnan's PCMCIA cardbus drivers.

I understand what you are saying, but I don't think it relates to me (I may be wrong though). My External Hardware Killswitch on the front of my laptop is supposedly causing the problem. Which is why I covered Pin 20 on my Wireless Card. If it isn't, well the Tape Trick still worked and I am happy with it because it keeps my system MORE stock. That is my goal ultimately.

 

 

 

 

I also included the patched dsdt, fixes most problems, includes modifications for applebacklight references. For sleep issues it will sleep with SuperHai's corrected USB sleep kext (EHCI), however it will not wake properly, most likely a problem with wireless pci-e not sleeping correctly, remains on in sleep mode, normally it should be off, any modifications would be appreciated to get that part working.

If I understand your previous statement correctly, sleep is still not working, but progress is being made? Again, my ultimate goal is to keep my system as vanilla as possible, even at the cost of no Sleep functioning.

 

 

 

 

Hope this will be beneficial to other users. If you ask me how to install "x" use the search function.

Thank You so much for adding to the thread! Even though this may have not directly helped me, it will more than likely help someone else! :censored2:

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SDRacer48
SDRacer48
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Well sleep actually works its waking that is the problem. I suspect if you remove the the wifi card it would probably resume correctly.

 

So I can put it to sleep, but it won't wake up, therefore, forcing a hard reboot, right?

 

If that is what you mean, my laptop already does that. :unsure: Also, it is not worth giving up wifi for sleep. I never use sleep on my laptop, even when I had Windows on it...

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hack_a_mac
hack_a_mac
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For some reason. It will not install past the "S" in install. The error I get is "The installer could not validate the contents of the '10.5.5.Intel' package. Contact the software manufacturer for assistance. Click restart to restart your computer and try installing again. :angel:

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SDRacer48
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For some reason. It will not install past the "S" in install. The error I get is "The installer could not validate the contents of the '10.5.5.Intel' package. Contact the software manufacturer for assistance. Click restart to restart your computer and try installing again. :huh:

 

I really think that their may be something wrong with your install disc. But before we go there, you may want to try this...

 

When you are "Customizing" your installation, you may want to make sure one of the following two additional options are checked (try one first, then the other second if the first install also fails):

Intel Sata
(under Drivers > System > SATA / IDE)

Intel ACHI Sata
(under Drivers > System > SATA / IDE)

I recommend this because your hard drive and more importantly your DVD drive may be a different model than mine (which i think it is). Checking the above may allow the system to communicate better (or at all) with the drive.

 

Hope this helps, if not, you know how to get a hold of me....

 

Cody

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SDRacer48
SDRacer48
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tried re downloading, re burning with power iso at 4x (lowest speed) same error

10.5.5.Intel failed to validate thanks for your help but i really dont know what else to try

 

Maybe you can try a different install disc. Other than that, I really have no other suggestions...

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  • 2 weeks later...
vxkid
vxkid
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Thanks for the great tutorial. Everything worked great for me on the first install, but after updating to the latest osx version via software updates, my keyboard and touchpad ceased to work. Any thoughts. Thanks.

 

Thanks for those tips. The HDA fix was very welcomed. Could you clarify on how to get the pcmcia slot working? I'm a little unclear on procedure though i do have the chunnan extensions. Thanks

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Scuds
Scuds
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Thanks for the great tutorial. Everything worked great for me on the first install, but after updating to the latest osx version via software updates, my keyboard and touchpad ceased to work. Any thoughts. Thanks.

 

Thanks for those tips. The HDA fix was very welcomed. Could you clarify on how to get the pcmcia slot working? I'm a little unclear on procedure though i do have the chunnan extensions. Thanks

 

I have the same problems, when I update, no more keyboard or touchpad. Has anyone found a fix for this? Thanks!

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Kakashi777
Kakashi777
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I have the same problems, when I update, no more keyboard or touchpad. Has anyone found a fix for this? Thanks!

 

I experienced the same. Here is my guess: When the victims (I means us) update to the latest version. All hacked working drivers will be overridden by the new ones but the existing keyboard or touch pad mismatch driver and result in what you are thinking. That why we should avoid update. Yet, there is one way to overcome this (I haven't tried it myself yet). That is after updating to latest version. You use the install DVD to re-install back the hacked working drivers (e.g. Keyboard, touch pad, audio...). That way you probably get a new kernel and keep the old working drivers.

 

Please Note: I won't be responsible for the consequences if you screw up your system. Better "Time machine" before you adventure what I said.

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