Full solution for Zotac IONITX Atom 330 for 10.6.x SL

[bigDvette]

Still can't get this working. I do not have a Mac, but I do have a Virtual Machine running 10.5.7.

 

The steps I used were,

 

Partioned Disk, GUID, Journaled

 

Installed SL from DMG by navigating to System/Installation/Packages and running OSInstall.mpkg

 

(errors out unless I remove printer drivers from install)

 

Tried to install 10.6.2 combo update but it won't install because I guess I'm not running it from a SL machine.

 

Installed Chameleon,

 

Replace /boot and added /Extras and replace mach_kernel.

 

PUt in Zotac and I get a panic divide by zero error.

 

Started over and this time installed HAzards MAC SL OSX that has an option to install 10.6.1 and 10.6.2 in the installer (also installs Chameleon and has the Atom patch built in), isntall goes fine. Then I went ahead for good measure and appled the ion fixes from thread and the mach_kernel.

 

Exactly same problem.

 

 

 

Disks are set at AHCI and USB is Auto, I can't figure out what other BIOS changes may be needed to teh zotac board and wonder if that may be he problem.

 

Thanks for any help.

[Sporti]

Hi,

thanks for making OSX work on the Zotac Board!

Had to set Sata Mode to AHCI and then everything worked really fine except for a few things.

 

Rebooting works with no problems, but when I try to shut down my machine it actually seems like it would (monitor turns off, usb hdd turns power led off) but the power led will stay on and I can also hear the fan spinning. The only way to get it out of this state is to push the power button for several seconds.

Nearly the same happens when I try to set it to sleep except that my usb hdd doesn't turn off its power led. Same thing I have to push the power button for several seconds to turn it off. But when turning it back on again I get the fan spinning at max for eternity and the only way to stop this is to detach the ac adapter. After re-attaching it will boot normally.

 

Same here. But still no solution.

Not going to sleep is no problem, cause that machine has to run, not to sleep.

If someone could get shut down to work, that would be really nice.

 

Looks like there is no chance to get HD Videos to work fine? With that Videos working it would be the perfect System.

 

Best Regards from Germany!

[jonpb]

Thanks very much for the boot file. But I have a problem, not only with this boot file but with various other ones:

 

kernel panic @

 

PowerManagment/AppleIntelCPUPowerManagment-90/pmProcessor.c:210
	Debugger called: <panic>

 

I tried changing the S-ATA setting to ACHI but that didn't change things.

Using Zotac IONITX-A-U, the "U" is, apparently, just a region code.

 

Thanks for any advice.

 

Ok, I solved this, I didn't realize that I had to overwrite mach_kernel with the patch on the install image usb drive. Now I don't get the kernel panic, but it just hangs at the apple logo, the installer doesn't start. Could this be because I have the upgrade DVD, not the one with iLife and iWork? or is it something else?

 

Thanks

[bigDvette]

After finally figuring out how to install using instruction from a VM I had to install first, I am now up and running and typing this on the Hackintosh.

 

I few items of note that I think finally made this work.

 

I originally downloaded the mach_kernel patch from the step by step instruction on page 1 in like post 20 something. Interestingly, that is not the same download location as the link in the very first post. Until I replaced it with the mach_kernel from the very first post link, I was getting a kernel panic within 2 seconds of booting.

 

After that, I was still getting a panic as soon as the Darwin OSX started to load. In a last ditch effort, I decided to go in to the BIOS and load SAFE MODE defaults. Not the other defaults. Then I only changed USB Legacy to Auto and USB 2.0 to high speed, changed the video ram to 512KB in the southbridge chipset settings, made sure disks were AHCI and that was it. Then I did a reboot and up it came.

 

A few mistakes I made (some related to installing from VM). If you install 10.6 to your VM, you have to apply the 10.6.2 update to the VM before it will let you install to the secondary physical disk you are prepping for the IONITX board. This caused a problem as I didn't know I had to install a sleepenabler.kext patch. This left my VM dead.

 

I had luckily (on about the 4th time through) installed 10.6 on the new disk before I installed the 10.6.2 update to the VM disk. So I removed the VM disk and booted directly from the physical disk, setting up the language, keyboard ...

 

Once in to the VM, I installed 10.6.2 combo update and without letting it reboot, I installed Chameleon and the ionitx_boot_v2 files and the patched mach_kernel (obviously from above I didn't to the right one the first time). Then like a bone head I installed the sleepenabler.kext not wanting to have the same problem I had with the VM disk install.

 

When I pulled the drive, and put it in the zotac, it was getting a panic right away. Removed sleepenabler.kext and it went a bit further. replace mach_kernel again and it went further, reset bios as above and I was finally in.

 

Hope this helps someone.

[jonpb]

After that, I was still getting a panic as soon as the Darwin OSX started to load. In a last ditch effort, I decided to go in to the BIOS and load SAFE MODE defaults. Not the other defaults. Then I only changed USB Legacy to Auto and USB 2.0 to high speed, changed the video ram to 512KB in the southbridge chipset settings, made sure disks were AHCI and that was it. Then I did a reboot and up it came.

 

Thanks for the post, I tried your settings and it sill hangs for me at the apple logo using a usb boot drive. One I thing I can't find is where to set the VRAM to 512KB. I see an iGPU frame buffer setting that can be set to 512MB (256MB default) but no VRAM I can set to 512KB.

[bigDvette]

I believe the iGPU frame buffer is the right setting and it is the one I set. Have you tried hitting space bar and booting in Verbose to see where it hangs. Is your whole OSX on the USB drive or are you booting off it? If you are booting only you shouldn't have to do that since the boot files are on the hard drive. If you are running off the USB drive I have no suggestions other than to try taking the USB case apart and using the Sata on the MB. I took a Buffalo 250gb usb drive apart and it was sata and that is what I used internally.

[jonpb]

I'm attempting to boot from the USB stick to perform the install. Following LifeHacker's guide I restored the install DVD to the usb drive and made it bootable using Chameleon-2.0-RC4-r684. That gave me a kernel panic on boot. Then I found this thread and replaced the boot file and Extra foler with this one and replaced the mach_kernel with the patch, following eugene k2's instructions. Chameleon loads and I press enter on my usb drive in Chameleon, there is no kernel panic but it just hangs at the apple logo.

 

I have an esata drive I can try.

 

Thanks

[bigDvette]

Do you have a windows machine handy? IF so you can do what I did and install SL on a VM and then do your install from the VM. Might be easier. I think you can't boot the installer from the hacked kernel. I tried that route several time to no avail.

[gonel]

Good Job ，I have a HTPC with the MCP7A-ION board too.I'll try it.

[zizux]

Is there no way to get it to boot via usb?

 

I only have a laptop with leopard on it, I guess I could go buy a drive enclosure and do it that way.

[noobidoo42]

Om it might be a partition problem or some thing but i cant get the boot loader thing to work.

it says boot0: ok 4 times the it says boot0:error. :/ might it have some thing to do whit that it's not the only partition in the usb drive and it's not the first?

[zizux]

1. Pull out your boot disk. Mount it on a mac.

2. Partition the drive w/ GUID Partition Table / Mac Os Extended Journaled.

3. Install OS X on it by using /System/Installation/OSInstall.mpkg from the SL disk.

4. Install the 10.6.2 Combo Update onto the drive.

5. Install Chameleon RC3 (http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=184766) *make sure not to install onto your mac's boot disk which is the default*

6. Copy over the files from this archive, putting the boot file in your / dir (/Volumes/volName) and the Extra files in your /Extra (/Volumes/volName/Extra) directory.

7. Download the patched 10.6.2 kernel http://www.mediafire.com/?jfyynujykyy, backup the kernel in / and replace it with the one from the archive.

8. Put the drive back into your Zotac system. Set the bios as specified above.

9. ...

10. Profit!

 

Last night I did this and everything worked fine. Well at first I was trying to install via usb, but I followed this guide to a T and it boots up great, I setup the user and everything and installed programs. The software update popped up so wanting to update the aircard and a few other things so I let it update then it went to reboot and it gets to:

 

"Loaded HFS+ file: [system/Library/CoreServices/SystemVersion.plist] 479 bytes from 4253360"

 

And that is as far as it gets.

 

I figured maybe the updates caused this so I started over, reformated, reinstalled and booted back up. I again configured some things and then put it to sleep. When I came back it would not wake up, so I powered it off and now it is stuck at the same error.

 

I would really like to get using this system but if I can't ever reboot it then what good is it?

 

 

 

***** EDIT******

 

Seems my issue was with Chameleon, I reinstalled, recopied over the ionitx v2 files and all seems well

[noobidoo42]

Could some one pleas help me whit this (Im new to this), i have the same zotac mini-itx A-E, but i only hve 2Gb of ram do i have to recreate the DSTS if so how do i proceed to doing the? now when i boot it from a Usb drive i gett "pci root uid not found" on the "nVidia NVIDIA ION 9400mM 256MB NVav [10de:007d]" it it halts.

[gary88]

hello to all !

I have installed 10.6.2 on my zotac Ion A board with this helpfull

manual with succes, only one issue still remains. After wake up from sleep via usb keyboard I,ve lost allother usb devices on the desktop, eyetv isn´t working anymore. Has somebody else this issue too ? Can be there a solution ? thanks !

 

gary

 

 

 

 

 

 

Could some one pleas help me whit this (Im new to this), i have the same zotac mini-itx A-E, but i only hve 2Gb of ram do i have to recreate the DSTS if so how do i proceed to doing the? now when i boot it from a Usb drive i gett "pci root uid not found" on the "nVidia NVIDIA ION 9400mM 256MB NVav [10de:007d]" it it halts.

 

 

Hello, I would try to boot from esata disk first, it is much easier and should work from the beginning.

I startet with usb too, without succes, tha I switched to an esata installation and it works.

If you install 10.6 first , you need nullcpu...kext to avoide a kernel panic ,bye and much luck...

gary

[pitouthestar]

Does any one success on Zotac MiniPC MAGHD-ND01 ?

I'm interested too. Anyone?

[noobidoo42]

Hello, I would try to boot from esata disk first, it is much easier and should work from the beginning.

I startet with usb too, without succes, tha I switched to an esata installation and it works.

If you install 10.6 first , you need nullcpu...kext to avoide a kernel panic ,bye and much luck...

gary

Well thats not good sins i don't have one :/. I'll have to borrow my brothers exteral-hdd and find my self a cable.

[neepec]

I'm interested too. Anyone?

 

I know some specifications of the MAGHD-ND01 motherboard, but I don't know if it has the same details that ION ITX A-E boards.

 

Computer: ACPI x64 based PC.

Graphics: NVIDIA ION.

Integrated network: NVIDIA nForce.

Integrated wireless: Atheros AR9285.

Hard Drive: Samsung HM160HI ATA.

 

I compare the ION ITX A boads back ports with the MAGHD-ND01 back ports and I can say that the motherboards aren't the same.

 

This information in: http://www.nexthardware.com/recensioni/sis...zotac-mag_4.htm

[pitouthestar]

I know some specifications of the MAGHD-ND01 motherboard, but I don't know if it has the same details that ION ITX A-E boards.

 

Computer: ACPI x64 based PC.

Graphics: NVIDIA ION.

Integrated network: NVIDIA nForce.

Integrated wireless: Atheros AR9285.

Hard Drive: Samsung HM160HI ATA.

 

I compare the ION ITX A boads back ports with the MAGHD-ND01 back ports and I can say that the motherboards aren't the same.

 

This information in: http://www.nexthardware.com/recensioni/sis...zotac-mag_4.htm

The back ports are different, but maybe it is because the shape of the case made Zotac reorganize everything. The best would be if someone had the Mag and could try.

I'm hesitating myself to get one...

 

Do you a mini-ITX motherboard with LGA 775 sockets that's fully compatible with OSX?

[noobidoo42]

Hello, I would try to boot from esata disk first, it is much easier and should work from the beginning.

I startet with usb too, without succes, tha I switched to an esata installation and it works.

If you install 10.6 first , you need nullcpu...kext to avoide a kernel panic ,bye and much luck...

gary

Ok i installed a NullCPUPowerManagement.kext, now it says that expected 2 cores, but found 1" if i have hyperthreadign -enabled-. Is it the kext thats there is some thing wrong whit?

 

oh and um need a ps2 driver to i think i found one tough, just think it should be mentioned

[gary88]

Ok i installed a NullCPUPowerManagement.kext, now it says that expected 2 cores, but found 1" if i have hyperthreadign -enabled-. Is it the kext thats there is some thing wrong whit?

 

oh and um need a ps2 driver to i think i found one tough, just think it should be mentioned

 

Hi noobidoo,

 

That´s right, you should have hyperthreadind disabled at thist time.

When you have finished your installation, and you´re running 10.6.2 with the atom-patched kernel,

you can enable hyperthreading again and it will work....

 

About the ps2 keyboard I cannot help you, cause I use a usb keyboard,

 

Greeetings !

 

gary

[noobidoo42]

Hi noobidoo,

 

That´s right, you should have hyperthreadind disabled at thist time.

When you have finished your installation, and you´re running 10.6.2 with the atom-patched kernel,

you can enable hyperthreading again and it will work....

 

About the ps2 keyboard I cannot help you, cause I use a usb keyboard,

 

Greeetings !

 

gary

 

I gott the ps2 keyboard to work during the installation, but the stopped working in the OS. Later i put them in /System/Library/Extensions and they are still not working.

 

The drivers i gott from http://cid-8b65993ef55cf014.skydrive.live....x/.Public/OSx86

[lucaiuli]

I can't boot from an USB Hdd attached.

I have an IDE hdd attached with an IDE->USB adapter and it won't works

I can see my hdd in Chameleon, I boot in verbose mode, but it hangs (see attached)

If I set in BIOS USB 2.0 to FullSpeed, instead of Hi-Speed I get kernel panic

btw - could someone put the BIOS settings pics, it could be very helpful for someone like me

 

 

Thank you very much

 

Iulian

[noobidoo42]

mmm.

Im a bit disappointed whit the performance, it has some hiccups now and then.

And i'm not sure the graphics card is working as it should...

Wathcing a 1080p clip is not possible, as it is now.

Does some one have any tips to performance increase.

[noobidoo42]

Could some one pleas tell me why this is not working as it should, what info do you need to know and il post it.

I have tried to fiddle whit the bios and also tryed to install some ktex but nothing seems to help.

[DamienValentine]

Hi. I am currently using D945GCLF2D Atom330-based motherboard and I have some performance issues. My iTunes library lags and Flash plug-in produces slideshows even on 480p videos on YouTube. I can't even run 720p Apple trailers. Can you tell me how is your progress? What's working and what's not? I mean 720p, 1080i, Safari/iTunes/Finder performance. I am planning to buy Zotac IONITX and trying to gather more information. Also, reviews I read on Google say everything works fine under XP. Did you try that?