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HOWTO: Turn your X300 in to a Hackintosh with Snow Leopard

gnychis

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gnychis
gnychis
Posted
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Hi all,

 

I have recently built a Hackintosh running Snow Leopard (10.6) on my Thinkpad X300. It's taken a bit of hacking to get all of the components working, but it seems to be running smooth. This is meant to be a guide to getting the X300 functioning properly AFTER you install Snow Leopard on it. Installing Snow Leopard on it is the same as installing it on any other PC. It's a detailed process and requires some knowledge of it.

 

After all is said and done:

3950556273_06a0edf264_b.jpg

 

STATUS

  • Display (Intel X3100): Working w/Hardware Support
    Wireless: Working with an Atheros card from my x60s + Zender BIOS Hack
    Keyboard: Working with no additional kexts
    Trackpoint: Working with no additional kexts
    Sleep: Sleep is fully working with several kexts/patches
    LCD Brightness Control: Working with DSDT patch
    SpeedStepping: Working with VoodooPower
    Improper TSC Synchronization: Fixed with VoodooTSCSync
    Trackpad: Works with no additional kexts
    Audio: Working audio, but no digital support (only analog)
    Microphone: The microphone does not work (I think we need digital audio support for this)
    Fingerprint Reader: Haven't tried (I don't use it)

 

INSTALLING SNOW LEOPARD - USE THIS EXTRA.ZIP

 

I am not really going to give a guide on installing Snow Leopard on to a PC. There are plenty of great guides for this. The details of this post are about getting the X300 to function properly after the basic install. To install Snow Leopard, follow LifeHacker tutorial for the most basic guide, or this guide written by Prasys which includes a bit more detail.

 

If you follow the LifeHacker tutorial, follow it word for word EXCEPT use this Extra.zip, instead of their Extra.zip (you'll understand when you get to that point in the guide).

 

GRAPHICS (Intel X3100) - DRIVERS

 

After you boot Snow Leopard for the first time, you'll notice you have no graphics support. To get the graphics support working, use the Intel X3100 Combo Drivers.

 

The GRAPHICS ONLY WORK FOR 32-BIT MODE. To boot Snow Leopard in to 32-bit mode, place the following boot.plist file in your /Extra folder on your flash drive (if you still boot from it), or in /Extra on your hard disk (if you boot from your hard disk). OR when the chameleon bootloader shows, hit tab (which will bring up a command line) and type: arch=i386 <ENTER>

 

Wireless - Zender's BIOS hack + ATHEROS CARD

 

There is NO support for the default Intel card that I have found in OSX. Therefore, you HAVE to get an Atheros card and use it in the X300. I removed one from my x60s and put it in my X300. It is a bit of a process, but it works great! You will also need to use Zender's BIOS hack to get the card working.

 

You do not need any special kexts to get an AR5212 chipset card working (which I got out of my x60s) ... it will simply just work with full AirPort support.

 

Analog Audio Support - KEXT

 

For analog audio support (working speakers, headphones, etc) ... you can use the VoodooHDA.kext. To install it, use KextUtility which I included a link to in this guide (bottom). After you reboot, you will have audio.

 

Brightness Control - PATCHED DSDT.AML

 

The brightness control takes a bit of hacking at the DSDT. Basically, you need to add this to the DSDT:

	   Device (PNLF)	///Fixed
	{
		Name (_HID, EisaId ("APP0002"))
		Name (_CID, "backlight")
		Name (_UID, 0x0A)
		Name (_STA, 0x0B)
	}

 

I've already patched the DSDT with this code in a DSDT that I've built for you. Just copy this file to / on your Mac OS hard disk, or /Extra on your Mac OS hard disk. Chameleon will load it, and you will have brightness control.

 

I've also provided DSDT.dsl in case you want to compile it yourself (using fassl's tools) or add extra patches to it.

 

SPEEDSTEPPING - KEXT

 

SpeedStepping appears to work using VoodooPower thanks to Superhai. Simply install the kext with KextUtility. When you reboot, you can test whether this works or not using CPU-X.

 

SLEEP - KEXTS

 

Sleep is now fully working. It takes SleepEnabler, and an EHCI fix to prevent the wireless card from waking the laptop up. I have included this in the zip file. Just install all 3 kexts.

 

FIXING IMPROPER TSC SYNCHRONIZATION - KEXT

 

The Core2 suffers from TSC synchronization issues between the cores, that is sometimes fixed in BIOS. The X300 does not have this fix in BIOS. Without this, you will find that applications will constantly crash from floating point exceptions and crash logs will show threads crashing on __gettimeofday. You can download this kext, thanks to this poster.

 

GENERAL INFO: HOW TO INSTALL KEXTS

 

If you don't know what a kext is yet, you'll soon find later in the guide. But, you can use KextUtility. Just put it somewhere, and you can drag Kexts on to the KextUtility icon (thereby opening them in the application), and it will install them for you.

 

ADDITIONAL ISSUES

 

Apple Key - Apparently this is mapped to the Alt key, I can't figure out how to get around this yet.

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  • 3 weeks later...
bsavery
bsavery
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Posted

Cross posting on the thinkpad forums... hoping for some ideas.

 

I'm having problems with your 10.6 install method. Any thoughts would be appreciated. Couple of points:

 

Hardware wise I should be MOSTLY spec for the x300.

I have the Atheros ABGN card which I got to work without fancy bios hacks I think. (It was long ago). Just did the "tape over the pin" trick.

My HD is NOT the stock SSD hard drive. I replaced it with a Samsung Platter drive. I think this might be the issue.

 

So when I boot from the USB installer it kernel panics almost immediately unless I set the BIOS AHCI mode to "compatability", not SATA.

 

When I set the AHCI mode to compatibility I can boot and start the install, then there is a kernel panic ~20% into the install.

 

Any ideas? It sounds like maybe I need a different AHCI kext.

 

Brian

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bsavery
bsavery
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Posted
Cross posting on the thinkpad forums... hoping for some ideas.

 

I'm having problems with your 10.6 install method. Any thoughts would be appreciated. Couple of points:

 

Hardware wise I should be MOSTLY spec for the x300.

I have the Atheros ABGN card which I got to work without fancy bios hacks I think. (It was long ago). Just did the "tape over the pin" trick.

My HD is NOT the stock SSD hard drive. I replaced it with a Samsung Platter drive. I think this might be the issue.

 

So when I boot from the USB installer it kernel panics almost immediately unless I set the BIOS AHCI mode to "compatability", not SATA.

 

When I set the AHCI mode to compatibility I can boot and start the install, then there is a kernel panic ~20% into the install.

 

Any ideas? It sounds like maybe I need a different AHCI kext.

 

Brian

 

AHA! Found this one on Prasys's blog. He posted a screenshot that looks like a similar error when I do an install in -v mode. I'll try this tonight and see how it goes.

 

Kernel Panic (During Installation) - This occurs for many of the people . I’ve managed find out what was causing it. It was no other then frame buffer kexts. It seems that on some graphics card (regardless of Intel , NVIDIA , ATI) , it causes some random kernel panic lockups. I’m not sure why either (I am guessing its because , the installer is doing some checks against the graphics card to check if its EFI-capable or not). Anyhow the fix is easy (thanks whis). All you have to do is delete apple frame buffer kexts from your /Volumes/OSX86/System/Library/Extensions/ �" the kexts which you’ll have to delete are :-

 

NVDAResman.kext for NVIDIA Graphics card

 

ATIFramebuffer.kext for ATI Graphics Card

 

AppleIntelIntergratedFramebuffer.kext for Intel Graphics card

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bsavery
bsavery
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AHA! Found this one on Prasys's blog. He posted a screenshot that looks like a similar error when I do an install in -v mode. I'll try this tonight and see how it goes.

Nope. Did anyone have any ideas about kernel panic during install?

 

B

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jakacid
jakacid
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Hello,

 

Tried to get it work on my Lenovo X300 but always come to the same problem. The system boot and ask me to shut dwn and restart just after boot.

 

Anyone have an idea ?

 

Thanks

 

set the sata-raid option in bios to "compatible" instead of "ahci". then it should boot normally (i had the same problem).

 

but i've also two problems:

after the installation with all kext as described i haven't still no trackpad / trackpoint support. anyone knows why?

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lionel Mangin
lionel Mangin
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set the sata-raid option in bios to "compatible" instead of "ahci". then it should boot normally (i had the same problem).

 

but i've also two problems:

after the installation with all kext as described i haven't still no trackpad / trackpoint support. anyone knows why?

 

Thank you.

 

Now it boot up but I have no keyboard or trackpad, so I'm locked in the language setup menu...

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jakacid
jakacid
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Thank you.

 

Now it boot up but I have no keyboard or trackpad, so I'm locked in the language setup menu...

 

hmm... i have now the same problem. but this appears to me after i have installed all kext and rebooted the x300... is there someone who can help?

 

btw you can attach a external usb-keyboard & mouse, then it works (helps perhaps to continue the installation in the meantime we are looking for a solutions for the trackpad & keyboard....

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jakacid
jakacid
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additional informations:

 

- Analog Audio doenst work (also after installation of hds-kext.) Can't choose anything under output.

- Webcam works without having to install something (dont know if anyone is interested it)

- is there a possibility to get the internal nic to work (not wifi)?! or is this the same as the embedded wifi-card?

- anyone has the wwan built in? on my x300 wwan doesnt work (havent found any drivers)

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listenfree
listenfree
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Posted
set the sata-raid option in bios to "compatible" instead of "ahci". then it should boot normally (i had the same problem).

 

but i've also two problems:

after the installation with all kext as described i haven't still no trackpad / trackpoint support. anyone knows why?

 

 

after install by external usb mouse,still can't use trackpad and trackpoint,at last put kext to /system/library/extensions,then all works!!!

But can't scroll page

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  • 3 weeks later...
mjt
mjt
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I'm banging my head against the wall now.... Got an X300 with 64GB SSD. I've setup the install USB (I'm using a USB HD) using LifeHacker's instructions with Snow Leopard Install disc, using the above specified extra.zip, Chameleon RC2 or RC3, and netkas.org's bootloader. Successfully used Zender's bios for Atheros card.

 

When the install starts, the display graphics are grainy and pushed to the side of the screen so i only see half of the installation box, but I can work my way through it using keyboard Tab to get around (USB keyboard and Mouse work). Then during the install it hangs at about 39 minutes left, and reboots to a flashing cursor.

 

Any suggestions for the video issue during the install and how to get it to install correctly all the way through.

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gnychis
gnychis
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Hi MJT,

 

Try running the installer in 64-bit mode instead of 32-bit mode, I think that this will fix the stretched screen graphics for you. This is because there is no display driver in 64-bit, so it will use basic graphics. To do this, when you get to the bootloader screen before the installer starts to run, hit the tab button. This will take you to a command line, type in "arch=x86_64" and then hit enter.

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  • 2 months later...
mjt
mjt
Posted
Posted

I decided to revisit this after a few months off. I recreated everything again, and now i'm getting the kernel panic screen when the machine says about 29 minutes remaining.

 

I am running an X300 with a Samsung 64GB SSD (I hope this isn't the issue)

The Bios is setup in Compatibility mode.

 

Anyone able to get past the Kernel Panic?

 

Update:

I just tried a -v and got some errors. Any of these look bad?

disk8;ioctl (_IOWR,'d',132,24) is not supported

disk8: I/O error

SAM Multimedia: READ or WRITE failed, SENSE_KEY = 0x00, ASC = 0x00, ASCQ = 0x00

 

Correction: I don't think it's a Kernel Panic. It is the screen that says you must reboot your machine. I was just looking up some kernel panic screens, and it's not what I'm getting.

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takerusarasa
takerusarasa
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Thank you mjt.

 

I'm sorry, I made a mistake.

 

I have successfully installed 10.6 on Thinkpad X300

But I can't use bluetooth.

Does anybody can give me exact instruction what I have to do.

(1 years ago I have successfully installed iPC 10.5.6 on Thinkpad X300

and I can use bluetooth. )

 

Thanks to all

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