Custom PC, can I run OSX?

[rebman]

Here are my specs:

 

CPU: AMD Phenom II 955BE

Motherboard: ASUS M4A89GTD PRO

Bios: American Megatrends V. 1104

Graphics Card: MSI Hawk Radeon HD 5770

Memory: DDR3 4096Mb

Hard Drive: SATA 500Gb

Optical Drive: 21x DVDRW +/-

Power Supply: ULTRA 750W PRO

Display: DELL 22"

Case: ROSEWILL SMART ONE

Sound Card: Realtek ALC892

Mouse: USB

Mouse pad: Sand Paper

Keyboard: USB

Operating System: Windows 7 Ultimate x64

 

 

 

Is it possible to run OSX on my PC with those components?

[Shubhanyu]

I am afraid most of your hardware is incompatible to begin with. Try the hazard distro... your main board may be supported but your graphic card is presently not supported... Apple does not support the 5xxx series at present...

[rebman]

I will look into the Hazard version. I would be alright with the onboard graphics as long as my LAN works and stuff.

[Hangten]

I will look into the Hazard version. I would be alright with the onboard graphics as long as my LAN works and stuff.

Storage Devices

PATA 1 x ATA133 2 Dev. Max

SATA 6Gb/s 6 x SATA 6Gb/s

SATA RAID 0/1/5/10

Onboard Video

Onboard Video Chipset ATI Radeon HD 4290

Onboard Audio

Audio Chipset Realtek ALC892

Audio Channels 8 Channels

Onboard LAN

LAN Chipset Realtek 8111E

Max LAN Speed 10/100/1000Mbps

 

Seems the only thing that might even work (but crippled) onboard HD4290

Snow does not support USB3 or SATA3

 

Your better off not wasting your time using what you have but getting Hackintosh friendly hardware sure will make life easy and everything will work. Bet your friends couldn't tell the difference between a Mac and the Hackintosh.

 

This should help and yes you will have no issues. Read through the material to give you a sense of whats required.

[rebman]

Looks like I will stay with windows 7!

 

Thanks anyways

[Shubhanyu]

Looks like I will stay with windows 7!

 

Sad, for had you once been smitten by the OSx86 bug, you'd never look back!

[sirbow2]

i got a similar system, totally works, except sleep which is no biggy.

 

you'll never regret osx86 once u got it

[oldtopman]

The main reason his system is incompatible with osx86 is because his mouse pad is sandpaper.

[elsellel]

I was just successful today, after much trying with different distros (ended up being iAtkos 10.5.7 which worked) on an ASUS M4A89GTD PRO w/ 965 phenom ii. am working on the built in sound issue right now but have been able to get native resolution (which for me is 2048x1152x32) on an MSI Radeon HD 5770.

 

This took a hell of a lot of hair pulling and bios tinkering... I just about gave up (the main problem was getting ANY of the distro DVD's to actually boot all the way to their gui's, to be able to begin the os x install process). Eventually, I had to use the following switches: -v cpus=1 busratio=20 (for phenom ii), and several BIOS adjustments (over the standard Windows 7 BIOS setup I had going - thank god for bios profile loading on this board). The install process went very smoothly once finally into the gui... the only drivers I selected were AHCI (just standard) and the Voodoo 9.5.0 kernel.

 

Working on the ALC 892 audio now and will make a complete post when I've ironed out the issues. Oh, the Realtek Mac drivers, for the built in Ethernet 8111E worked from Realtek's site

 

Update: the audio... had to settle for the AzaliaAudio package from kexts.com, which is limited and crackly. None of the other ALC drivers tried would work (no support for ALC892 yet) and the VoodooHDA 0.2.2 beta made really crackly noise and would crash upon attempting to access the system Sounds preference. I've got some other things to tweak to get rid of some boot flags (if possible) but for a Windows 7 dual boot setup, iAtkos 10.5.7 is working amazingly well on this M4A89GTD Pro. Actually never thought I'd get here until there's some real support for snow leopard running on AMD (some new distros that is).

 

Update 2: i pulled an idiot move right from the start by not removing the overclocking from the cpu (@3800), the hyper transport and the hyperlink. could be the reason there's problems enabling any more than 1 cpu for OS X (although the 3800/2600HT/2000HL is rock solid in Windows 7 x64 - which is overly fussy about components being oc'd). in any case, going to redo the OS X install from scratch and narrow down what settings need to be enabled/disabled in the Bios, just what drivers/kexts are needed, etc. will post a guide/procedure for this mobo. right now, happy as a clam and rather shocked i'm in a functional 10.5.7... after so much hair pulling over being able to get any distro dvd to boot fully into its gui.

 

Update 3: have decided to shift focus away from iAtkos 10.5.7 (not for any serious setbacks) and go with iAtkos 10.6.3 (which installed successfully once so far, then i knickered it) due to the ongoing support 10.6.x is receiving in the hackintosh community; whereas the 10.5.x flavors are becoming outdated - understandably so... so, last update for this post but will make a guide of sorts for the iAtkos 10.6.3 on Asus M4A89GTD PRO when it's up and working comfortably.

 

Update 4: for anyone that may or may not be following this, it'll be a bit before getting back to my ASUS M4A89GTD PRO OS X 10.6.x project. i'm building a dual boot 10.6.x/Win7 system for my bro with a Core i5 and ASUS P7P55D so will be on that for several days. i do intend to get back to my system and continue asap.

[Nygie]

Glad I found this page, thanks for the network info!

I managed on my second attempt to get this board working on 10.6.2

Distro's name is "Snow_Leopard_Client_Server_10.6.2_SSE2_SSE3_Intel_AMD_by_Hazard.iso"

I followed this guide.... http://osx86.net/f57/install-snow-leopard-...2-on-amd-t6131/

except to get it to boot I had to use the boot option "-x -v -F cpus=1 fsb=200000000 maxmem=4096"

This got me installed with the options below.

"

Hello, people!

 

This is my first attempt at a guide on installing Snow Leopard on AMD Phenom II processors. This is how it worked for me on my PC and I am not sure if it will work on your PC or not. I am not responsible for any damages (highly unlikely) which you may have.

 

Here are my PC specifications:

AMD Phenom II x4 920

ATI HD 3300

Seagate 500 GB Hard drive

Biostar TA790GX 128M

Kingston 4 GB (2*2) RAM

Windows 7 x64 already installed

 

IMPORTANT NOTE: Please enable "AHCI" support in your BIOS, otherwise Snow Leopard will not boot (If you have installed Windows 7, without AHCI support, then you may have to reinstall it).

 

Step 1: Download "Snow Leopard Client-Server 10.6.2 SSE2/SSE3 Intel AMD". Just search for it on Google and you will find it.

Step 2: Burn it to a DVD at the lowest speed possible like I did it using Nero at 4x.

Step 3: Pop in the drive in your PC and do a reboot. An alien like background will come up, just press any key and it will soon load up.

Step 4: Select your language and do the other things like accepting the agreements.

Step 5: Click on "Utilities" on the top menu and select "Disk Utility". Select the partition on which you want to install Snow Leopard and then format it using "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)". Give it a easy name such as "Snow".

Step 6: After doing this select the drive, and now you come to the "Customize". Here select the following which I have written below:

Legacy Kernel 10.2.0

AMD Patch

Choose your graphics card (I didn't choose any as mine wasn't there)

AppleAzaliaAudio (I chose this, you should try Voodoo HDA v2.5.3)

ATIATA

ElliottForceLegacyRTC

Legacy AHCI SATA Fix

LegacyAppleIntelPIIXATA

IOATA Family SATA Fix

About This Mac Fix

Evoreboot

IOATAFamily Fix

Orange Icon Fix

SMBIOS Resolver

Rosetta

Step 7: Click on "Install" and skip the disk verification. It should install successfully. Reboot.

"

I found that the boot option needed could be whittled down to fsb=200000000 which I have put in my com.apple.boot.plist but it still needs to be entered manually.

Not too much of a problem as it's still a a works in progress!

Hope it helps!

[elsellel]

IMPORTANT NOTE: Please enable "AHCI" support in your BIOS, otherwise Snow Leopard will not boot (If you have installed Windows 7, without AHCI support, then you may have to reinstall it).

Thanks for the info, and congrats on the 10.6.2 install. I'm currently working on iAtkos 10.6.3, after a successful iAtkos 10.5.7 (not fully supported but damn well up and running with native resolution and internet access) and am having to enter the following switches to get the 10.6.3 DVD to make it through to its GUI:

-v (Verbose to see onscreen messages/progress during startup)

cpus=1 (takes multi-cores down to just one core)

busratio=19 (need to change this to the FSB switch at my end)

maxmem=4096 (takes care of hard drive mounting problems on machines with 4GB+ memory)

 

I've already kiboshed the first 10.6.3 install somehow. Wasn't careful enough with drivers and kexts and now she wont boot. Way it goes and I have a feeling I'll be spending days on trying to get it right, and as fully supported (or thinking it's a Mac) as possible. Will continue to update progress and make a working guide for ASUS M4A890GTD PRO + iAtkos 10.6.3 distro when I get to that point.

 

As to the quote above, in Vista/Win7 you won't need to reinstall if switching from IDE to AHCI in the BIOS, if you enable AHCI in the Vista/Win7 Registry first (my machine required this and it worked flawlessly - I do not want to switch BIOS profiles every time a boot between OS X and 7 is required):

 

1. Open Regedit, locate and then click the following registry subkey:

 

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Msahci

2. In the right pane, right-click the Start DWORD in the Name column, and then click Modify.

3. In the Hexadecimal Value data box, change the 3 to a 0 then click OK.

4. On the File menu, click Exit to close Registry Editor.

5. Restart your computer, enter the BIOS and enable AHCI Mode for your SATA Hard Drives

(and SATA Optical Drive(s)... if applicable).

 

When you boot to Windows after this, you’ll notice the installation of drivers for AHCI. Another restart will be required to finish the driver installation and you can choose to either leave Windows Vista/7 default AHCI drivers, or install the AHCI drivers from your motherboard's manufacturer (personally I found the AMD AHCI driver to be a little glitchy while benchmarking with HD Tune Pro 4 - and no performance difference, so I rolled back to the Windows 7 AHCI driver).

 

The dual-booting throws a few things into the mix, and some additional steps, but it sure is nice to be able to do. I was able to get EasyBCD 2.0.1 to make an entry for the OS X boot partition, but it took some messing around for it to actually work (adding the entry in EasyBCD isn't enough by itself apparently). The instructions that worked for me, taken verbatim here (kudos to the original author whomever he/she may be) are as follows (the chain0 file mentioned, and needed for this, can be found through a friendly google search):

 

EasyBCD 2.0.1 - Dual-Booting MacOS / XPVistaWindows7

The EasyBCD MacOS entry doesn't work because it tries to load the wrong file. You have to edit the entry in command prompt (not possible within EasyBCD) to load chain0. Assume that the entry description is "Snow Leopard", then press Windows+R to see the Run dialog and type cmd. Execute it to start a command prompt window. Of course you should have Administrator priviledges to proceed, so the best is to turn off User Account Control and restart before doing this.

 

Inside the command prompt window type these commands and press enter to execute:

 

bcdedit /enum active

 

bcdedit /set {Snow Leopard partition ID} path \chain0

 

exit

 

The first command shows all boot entries and some data. Find the MacOS entry and see the ID enclosed in {}. You can copy-paste it, so you don't have to type it. Right click on the command prompt window border and select Edit->Mark. Now use your mouse to mark the ID and press Enter to Copy it in the clipboard.

 

The second command changes the path for the MacOS entry, so it loads chain0 file. Start typing the command up to the left bracket { , then right click the border again and select Edit->Paste to paste the ID. Close the bracket and complete the command.

 

The next command closes the command prompt window. On next restart you should be able to select the MacOS entry and then see Chameleon or whatever you have installed. Don't forget to copy the chain0 file from Chameleon (or whatever) to the root of your Windows partition, or this won't work since the file will be missing!

 

It worked for me, so it should work for you. It doesn't matter if the two OSes are in the same disk or in separate disks. Exactly the same works in Windows Vista.

 

In Windows XP you have to add the relevant entry manually in the file BOOT.INI (open it with Notepad). At the end of the file, add this new entry at the [operating systems] list:

 

C:\chain0="Snow Leopard"

 

Where "Snow Leopard" is the description of the MacOS entry. You can put whatever you like, as you can also modify the Windows XP description. I would change these to "Microsoft Windows XP Professional" and "Apple MacOS X 10.6 Snow Leopard". You can also put "PC" and "Mac".

[diawollo]

I'm dual booting snow leopard 10.6.4 and win 7 on AMD Phenom II x6 1055t, Gigabyte 890GPA-UD3H, 4gb DD3, ATI radeon hd 5770, our specs are very similar, same amd 890gx chipset, you shouldn't have any problems running OSX.

 

Installed using retail 10.6.3 SL DVD and Empire EFI CD.

 

Here are my specs:

 

CPU: AMD Phenom II 955BE

Motherboard: ASUS M4A89GTD PRO

Bios: American Megatrends V. 1104

Graphics Card: MSI Hawk Radeon HD 5770

Memory: DDR3 4096Mb

Hard Drive: SATA 500Gb

Optical Drive: 21x DVDRW +/-

Power Supply: ULTRA 750W PRO

Display: DELL 22"

Case: ROSEWILL SMART ONE

Sound Card: Realtek ALC892

Mouse: USB

Mouse pad: Sand Paper

Keyboard: USB

Operating System: Windows 7 Ultimate x64

 

 

 

Is it possible to run OSX on my PC with those components?

[HenryH]

I've been trying for days to get 10.6 working on my M4A89GTD PRO/USB3 motherboard.

 

I finally got it installed with iATKOS S3 and the flags mentioned (-v cpus=1 busratio=20 maxmem=4096), thanks to the posts above.

 

However I can't get the installed system to start up no matter what I try. The same thing happens each time - the boot loader starts loading the OS ok, then after a few seconds the screen goes black with no hard drive activity etc. and stays that way. It goes black so quick I can't see what text is written, but its only about 10 lines before the black screen happens.

 

I've currently got it installed on a single partition GUID disk with the bios set to AHCI disk mode. I've tried using the on-board graphics only as well as my 8800GT card with the same results. I also tried installing the various graphics options (inlcuding none) in various installs with no luck.

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[serge sky]

Hi guys!

Does anyone tried to install Snow retail on similar hw?

The same mobo as in topic start/AMD Phenom II x4 965 Socket AM3/HD5670 video?

 

Or just patched kernels compatible?

 

Many thanks for any info related!

[Stofchi]

I am afraid most of your hardware is incompatible to begin with. Try the hazard distro... your main board may be supported but your graphic card is presently not supported... Apple does not support the 5xxx series at present...

 

What are you talking about? I'm using a 5870 right now. On the Apple's main site, you can buy a Mac Pro only outfitted with either a 5770 or 5780.

 

http://store.apple.com/us/configure/MC560L...mco=MTg2OTUwMjQ

[maya77]

I finally got it installed with iATKOS S3 and the flags mentioned (-v cpus=1 busratio=20 maxmem=4096), thanks to the posts above.

 

However I can't get the installed system to start up no matter what I try. The same thing happens each time - the boot loader starts loading the OS ok, then after a few seconds the screen goes black with no hard drive activity etc. and stays that way. It goes black so quick I can't see what text is written, but its only about 10 lines before the black screen happens.

I've the same problem with the iAtkos S3.

 

M4A89GTD PRO USB3 / AMD 1090T / GTX460

 

Now downloading Hazard's 10.6.2 to try. Hope it will work.

[dzordz]

1st sorry for bad english and spelling, but this experience might help someone.

my configuration is:

AMD 1090t

asus m4a890gtd pro usb3

sata 3 HD caviar black

8 GB kingston hyper X

i use integrated radeon 4290

After successful installation of iatkos s3 v2, I had problems like apple logo hangs or black screen or still waiting on root device, so here is a short description :

to install set HD from IDE to achi nad boot from dvd,to start installation type "-f -x -v mach_970 busratio=20 cpus=1"

IMPORTANT use only usb keyboard and mouse and disconnect any ATA hard drive or dvd rom, any of these will result "still waiting on root device".

now instalation has to be done on first partition so you wont have aditional problems, in customize menu i have chosen chameleon bootloader, i went with 64 bit version, i didn't choose graphics enabler nor any ati vga driver, and i've installed 10.0.3 kernel and voodoo ps2 keyboard so i could use ps2 keyboard later.for sata i installed ahci sata and jmicron or something. don't install anything u dont need since u might not be able to boot into osx later. After successful instalation i boot into os x typing these " -v voodoo maxmem=4096 busratio=20 cpus=1 noacpi"

thats all folks, once again sorry for my english but i have spent days and days installing iatkos and every time i couldnt boot or having some kind of problem, so this procedure was successful for me

[rebman]

I have iAtkos V7 10.5.7 going to try an install now..

 

Wish me luck..

[shinglestrugglebottle]

Been watching this thread for the last 6 months. I have just about the same exact specs only with an XFX 5770. I've got full QE/CI running on 10.6.7. It's totally doable. Use this tutorial: http://www.kexts.com/desktops/9746-guide-os-x-10-6-amd.html

 

with Mohamed's boot files - http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=231756 and you should be good to go!

[Stewbacca]

Not sure if you ever got this working or still watch this post..

 

But I have the M4a89gtd Pro /USB3 with a Phenom II x4 965 Black Edition and the HD Radeon 5670 Graphics Card.

 

I managed to get my system running perfectly only using nawcoms mod cd, and the only thing I did myself on install was that I changed the sound driver from the default in customisation..

 

Then update to 10.6.7 (i think) and install 10.6.7 legacy kernel.. then the same again for 10.6.8 with the 10.6.8 legacy kernel (before rebooting after update).

 

Between updates boot into OSX throught Nawcoms cd and if you get a kernel panic ignore and shut down. then boot without. (I dont know if or why this would necissary but this is just what I did)

 

My system is fully functional other than sleep, which I dont need!