GUIDE: ASUS EAH4650 (ATI 4650 GPU) with QE/CI

[ameris_cyning]

FIRST OFF: I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY DAMAGE THAT THIS MAY CAUSE TO YOUR COMPUTER/OPERATING SYSTEM INSTALL. IF YOU BRICK YOUR INSTALL THEN TOUGH LUCK!

 

 

 

Instead of sleeping last night, I present to you a working collection of kexts for the ASUS EAH4650 1GB DDR2.

 

 

Prerequisits: Snow Leopard upgraded to 10.6.2

 

 

Step .5: Get yourself a copy of PC-EFI 10.5 (For those too lazy to do a google search, click here.)

 

Step .7: Append com.boot.plist GraphicsEnabler=Y

 

 

 

Step .9: Navigate to /System/Library/Extensions and trash ATI4600Controller.kext and ATIRadeonX2000.kext

 

 

 

Step 1: Download attachment

 

 

 

Step 2: Fire up kext helper and install the kexts

 

Step 3: Boot with -f at the Darwin screen

 

 

Updated today to include direction #0.9

 

 

 

 

Wait? The screen is black?!? You screwed me!

 

 

 

Negative, try switching ports. VGA works best, period. If you wanted to use HDMI or DVI, BOTH HDMI AND DVI will have to be plugged in at the same time to two monitors.

 

 

 

All credit goes completely to Netkas. I may have put two and two together, but he is the man behind the magic.

ASUS.zip

Edited December 9, 2009 by q64ceo

[Monkey D. Luffy]

Nice .. Thanks!

[eway33]

Thanks！Great works!

 

I have installed to finish，I see graphicard was ATI HD4819 in Mac, Why? In fact , My notebook's graphicard is ATI HD4650.

 

Can you help me?

[Monkey D. Luffy]

This is meant for Desktop 4650 only - specifically the Asus model. I dont think it will work for mobility. There are no mobility solutions as far as I know.

 

Cheers

 

EDIT: But there is also a chance for other 4650 DESKTOP versions to work

[Vipersfate]

How do you append the flag to the boot file?

[ameris_cyning]

edit com.apple.boot.plist located in /Extra and add:

 

<key>GraphicsEnabler</key>

<string>y</string>

[ffbadkill]

For me,

I am using Colamax HD4650 512MB GDDR3 Low Profile

Use HDMI port only to connect monitor and everything works flawlessly

 

[MacMan2007]

Using boot file from netkas and drivers, I was getting a blank screen with my ASUS EAH4670.

 

I tried all different combinations to try to get out of the blank screen, but nothing helped.

 

Then I gave the kext's posted here and used the boot file from PC_EFI 5.0. Changed the vendor id to my card 9490 1002... and to my surprise, it worked!!! QE/CI and all resolutions (DVI2VGA)!

 

BIG THANKS! I was going to return the video card, but this thread came just in time! Major PROPS!

 

Side note: To the OP, did you do anything differently to the kext's? It not, then I guess it was the PC_EFI boot file that made it work on my system.

[ameris_cyning]

What I did was use netkases beta ATI4600controller.kext with the 10.6.2 vanilla ATIRadeonX2000.kext

 

For me,

I am using Colamax HD4650 512MB GDDR3 Low Profile

Use HDMI port only to connect monitor and everything works flawlessly

 

How the hell is it recognizing your card as a 4650 series? It only recognizes a 4600 series for me

[ffbadkill]

What I did was use netkases beta ATI4600controller.kext with the 10.6.2 vanilla ATIRadeonX2000.kext

 

 

 

How the hell is it recognizing your card as a 4650 series? It only recognizes a 4600 series for me

I use netkas beta booter in here and vanilla ATI4600controller.kext, ATIRadeonX2000.kext

[R3N3G4D3]

I followed the instructions exactly, and after rebooting VGA only loads the wallpaper on blank screen (without even loading the mouse pointer), DVI makes the monitor report "Out of Range", and HDMI claims no signal. I tried booting with -x and "GraphicsMode"="800x600x32@60" and both produce exactly the same result. I even tried reinstalling fresh OSX 10.6 (followed by update to 10.6.2 and then this guide) to make sure it's not other conflicting kexts I was messing with earlier, but I still see the same exact issue.

 

My graphics card is ASUS EAH4650 1GB DVI/VGA/HDMI low profile, so I think it's the same as the author uses.

[Usher]

i got "pci root uid not found" on Chameleon bootscreen and it's hanging there....please tell me what to do!

[R3N3G4D3]

Usher, not sure if this will help, but try booting with the following option: GraphicsEnabler=Yes -pci1

 

As far as my previous problem, I managed to solve it, well kinda (only VGA works). I tried using the betaloader, but it was even worse, giving me black screen with no signal on all 3 connectors. I went back to EFI10.5, which makes the connectors work as follows (reboot required after changing connectors):

 

VGA only: display works with QE/CI, hardware acceleration (perfect)

DVI only: no signal

HDMI only: no signal

DVI+HDMI: DVI reports "Out of Range", HDMI TV reports "Mode Not Supported"

VGA+HDMI: VGA loads wallpaper and nothing else, HDMI gets no signal

 

So it seems only VGA works well (and only when nothing else is connected), based on the signal though I think DVI+HDMI might be possible if I get monitor/TV that supports the transmitted mode (whatever it is). I will mess around with this more when I have time, posting it here since this info will be useful for others.

[Usher]

Usher, not sure if this will help, but try booting with the following option: GraphicsEnabler=Yes -pci1

 

As far as my previous problem, I managed to solve it, well kinda (only VGA works). I tried using the betaloader, but it was even worse, giving me black screen with no signal on all 3 connectors. I went back to EFI10.5, which makes the connectors work as follows (reboot required after changing connectors):

 

VGA only: display works with QE/CI, hardware acceleration (perfect)

DVI only: no signal

HDMI only: no signal

DVI+HDMI: DVI reports "Out of Range", HDMI TV reports "Mode Not Supported"

VGA+HDMI: VGA loads wallpaper and nothing else, HDMI gets no signal

 

So it seems only VGA works well (and only when nothing else is connected), based on the signal though I think DVI+HDMI might be possible if I get monitor/TV that supports the transmitted mode (whatever it is). I will mess around with this more when I have time, posting it here since this info will be useful for others.

 

Thanks man, it works but i still didnt get 1920x1080 resolution...im try to figure it out.

[R3N3G4D3]

It's not a "standard" (4:3) resolution so it's not included by default, you have to add it using SwitchResX

[Usher]

It's not a "standard" (4:3) resolution so it's not included by default, you have to add it using SwitchResX

 

 

Can you show me how to active custome resolution in SwitchResX?...Thanks

[Monkey D. Luffy]

VGA+HDMI: VGA loads wallpaper and nothing else, HDMI gets no signal

 

Hey R3N3G4D3,

 

I had the same thing too when I had I was trying it before (1 month ago). Right now, this is my setup = VGA + HDMI. The reason why you are having just the wallpaper (without the dock, apple menu) is because your monitor is detected to extended. Since VGA and HDMI are connected at the same time (unless you have two monitors), OSX thinks that you have two monitors. OSX detects HDMI as 1st monitor .. VGA is monitor 2. Since VGA is only working, you see the "extended" on your monitor. Just to be sure, you can try to drag your mouse all the way to the right (or maybe left), if you see your mouse cursor, it verifies that you are indeed in extended mode.

 

What I did was imagined (you need a lot of it) that there is a monitor sitting to the left of my main monitor (where i only see the desktop), then I pressed the shortcut of Spotlight - Ctrl + Spacebar (Of course, I can't see spotlight since it was supposed to be on monitor 1) - then I typed "system preferences" then pressed Enter. Now, assume and hope that the System preferences actually opened .. and here is the hard part - hold your mouse and keep on dragging the system preferences window to your extended monitor. So click and hold the right click button (release) and keep dragging to the right until you catch the System Preferences window. When I did this, I think it took me 5 mins until I got lucky and grabbed the System Preferences window. Let's say you got the System PReferences window, just go to > Displays > The click on Arrangement > Click Mirror Display. Now, you should see the Apple Menu and Dock on your screen. You can use SwitchResX to tweak some stuff, so you'll have better quality looking text and icons.

 

 

If you are still having difficulties, there are other ways. The easiest is to remote VNC so you can go to Displays and Enable "Mirror". Thats it!

 

Or (I'm not sure if this will work), boot into OSX with only VGA (since it works) - don't plug HDMI yet, then when you reach the desktop, plug in your HDMI port, then check if you can go to Display and Enable Mirror << I haven't tried that yet so I have no idea.

 

Anyway, maybe you'll ask why I'm using VGA + HDMI which is nonsense because only VGA works right? Well, I have Windows 7 and Fedora 12 on triple boot on my system. I might say that VGA is so ugly when used in Win7 - fonts are not smooth and it just looks plain ugly. Before, I had to remove the VGA port and plug in the HDMI port just to have quality looks in Win7. So, with this setup, VGA+HDMI, I don't have to unplug/replug the VGA port every time I go to windows.

 

BTW, I'm using Vanilla 10.6.2 ATI kexts + Asere 1.1.7 boot file (which is a cleaner rc4). Unfortunately, in order to make Asus EAH4650 to work in OSX is through VGA only. I hope 10.6.3 might fix this or maybe netkas will make updated X2000 hacked drivers. We just need to wait

 

Good luck!

[dhmac]

Either something escapes me or there are different versions of the ASUS EAH4650 around. Or the dependencies on boot loader and ATI...kext are very specific: I never managed to get this card working on either port with all combinations of boot-loader and kext I could find ... but now just by chance I made a funny discovery:

 

I am currently on 10.6.2, using Chameleon-2.0-RC4-r684 (i.e. PCEFI 10.6) as my bootloader. I still have to investigate, why using the GraphicsEnabler option doesn't seem to work, at least I can't hear the fan on the card spinning down, i.e. I assume the driver never gets loaded. For the moment I am therefore using EVOenabler. Vanilla ATIRadeonX2000.kext & ATI4600.kext are patched with the PCI-id.

 

Connecting the card to DVI and booting, the moment the driver gets loaded, there is no video signal any more, i.e. I get a black screen (monitor goes on standby). Connecting to VGA I get a completely blue or white screen upon boot. HDMI is untested as my monitor doesn't have an HDMI input. The driver gets loaded in both cases, gpu-fan spins down. Checking via VNC I can see via "About this Mac -> More Info -> Graphics/Display" that the system detected a HD4890 (!) card, with 1GB of RAM).

 

So far so bad ... this morning however after leaving the system running with a "white screen", touching the mouse all of a sudden the desktop came up on the monitor. Wasn't hard to guess what happened: I reduced "Display sleep" in "System Prefs -> Energy Saver" to 1 min, and yes rebooting again after "just" 1 minute the picture on the screen came alive (don't touch your mouse ... for one minute though). Monitor detection doesn't work unless I connect the vga-port of the monitor through a DVI-VGA adapter to the dvi port.

 

I am still puzzled why this card is being detected as a HD4890 - what Info do you find under "About this Mac -> More Info -> Graphics/Display"? Should frequency/power-scaling work with the GraphicsEnabler too, i.e. those that don't use EVOenabler, do you notice that your GPU-Fan ist spinning down once the driver is being loaded?

 

 

I guess I will continue to try a few things with this card, it is one of the few low-profile cards with "enhanced" performance.

 

 

--

MacOS 10.6.2

Hardware:

Dell Optiplex 740 (MCP51 chipset, AMD X2 4850E)

Broadcom 5754 NetXtreme BCM5754

Asus EAH4650 1GB

[szdino]

Can't Download attachment,Please Check it..

[Monkey D. Luffy]

Anybody having skipping mouse problems after updating to 10.6.3? Updates fine with qi/ce .... but darn . the mouse is skipping like every 3-5 secs.

 

For example, I circle the mouse around .. or maybe drag a windows from left to right vice versa constantly and you'll see the skipping ... it is very annoying.

 

But it very weird that sometimes, the skipping is not showing. It is random, but the skipping has a higher chance (I would say 8/10 boot ups)

 

Oh btw, I have good news I made my EAH4650 (asus only) to have dual display. Both VGA. 1st monitor using DVI > VGA dongle and the 2nd uses direct VGA to VGA cable.. i will post how I did it with videos and pictures.

[tomsdefdewfdewf121231]

I am sorry but I come to this thread with very little technical expierence with Hackintosh systems although I have been trying to get a working one for 2 years now! I have the low profile 512mb Asus Radeon 4650 but I have no idea how to apply the kexts and if there is an order and so on. Can someone please post either a video - which would be very helpful =) - Or some pictures. Thank you to all replies, just trying to get my sytsem to work.

[Task514]

My setup was working great, then I forgot to have both VGA/DVI plugged in... booted and the screen is all garbled!

 

Reconnected the VGA, rebooted but now I can't seem to get my VGA/DVI setup to work again...?!

Both VGA and DVI screens are garbled...

 

Any clues?

[dhmac]

I dug out my old ASUS EAH4650 (1GB) card, which for a long time has refused to work properly under MacOS Snow Leopard - simply because I was short of another GPU and the build-in SandyBridge graphics were lacking somewhat.

 

Of course I ran into the same well known problems as before. Thus before eventually giving up on the card (= getting rid of it) I risked flashing my ASUS EAH4650 with the firmware of a XFX 4650 (1GB) card. Now just having GraphicsEnabler=Yes and a working DSDT.aml and patching the PCI-IDs is enough to get the card working with full QE/CI (haven't tested my new luck much yet, it's working single monitor on the DVI-output).

 

Having said that, I am not sure if all EAH4650 are build the same way. So I strongly suggest that before you venture on the same path, you have laid out a way to flash the original ASUS firmware back. In any case I will not accept any responsibility for any damages your hardware might suffer.

[Anemos2006]

i will try this.......