34 replies to this topic

[PanterA]

Gday all, this guide is written by my mate, I have OSX86 running perfectly on both my home PC's, but here is his guide for getting it running and the methods he used for his Laptop.

Disclaimer perform this at your own risk.

Hi everyone,

This has taken me 24 hours to produce a method that I believe is stable.

This method is very simple and does not need to take a lot of time, you must follow the steps exactly for it to work.

Make a VGA dongle, I couldn’t find any 75ohm resistors so I wired pin 1 to 6 and 2 to 12, this works fine. My first dongle had wires coming out the back , I decided to make the dongle as sleek as possible, it started by making the dongle look like this



Here's the link to a website with instructions for a dongle with resistors:

http://tvtool.info/g...ish/dummy_e.htm

the next step was to get those ends as flat and stealth like as possible, I soldered the pins then sanded them right back:




and then I put some basic electrical tape (not final) over the back so make it look a little less obvious:



Do not connect the dongle yet.

Now to the fun part.

Wipe your hard disk completely, backup what you must but this work best if its clean.
Install XP fist and foremost.
At the screen I chose to create a 28 gig partition for XP. I installed this using NTFS, I left my other 25 gig partition in unused space.
Install XP all the way through until you are actually running XP. Drive C will be your primary.
Go into Administrator tools>Comp Management>Disk Management and create a partition on the other 25 gig partition that was previously unused space. Make sure you create this new partition as a PRIMARY PARTITION. DO NOT assign a drive letter to this and then I formatted it to FAT32.
Reboot with OSX 86 Bootable DVD in drive (8F1111).

OSX Time
Do not connect the dongle yet.
Connect a 2nd monitor to the output of your laptop.
Install OSX, your monitor will be your primary display (this cannot be helped)
Use Disk Utility to wipe the FAT32 partiton and make it a Mac Journaled one.
Install OSX all the way through.
The primary display will still be the extrenal monitor.
Install the new 915 Kext files as explained here: (download link for the already modified .kext files is at the bottom, proceed from step 10 as the instructions state)
http://forum.osx86pr...p?showtopic=889
Set your display to Mirror, then reboot with your dongle IN.
You will now be booting to OSX automatically and not plugged in to an external monitor.

To make the Dual Boot Menu usable for your laptop – All I did was this

In OSX:
Load Terminal and do the following:

sudo -s
nano /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.Boot.plist

Add these lines of type to the bottom below the other key/strings:

<key>Quiet Boot</key>
<string>No</string>
<key>Timeout</key>
<string>10</string>

this allows you to press any key at startup to select your OS


then ….YOU ARE DONE!


Here are two videos that I made, one when OSX was booting by itself with the dongle, the other a Dual Boot Demo

http://members.dodo....jjer/laptop.wmv
(laptop booting by itself with dongle)

http://members.dodo....er/dualboot.wmv
(laptop dual boot demo)

Peace Guys and good luck!

Chickenbum.

[sigxcpu]

maybe I'm out of sync, but why do you need the dongle?

[PanterA]

sigxcpu, on Jan 15 2006, 02:32 AM, said:

maybe I'm out of sync, but why do you need the dongle?

I beleive it is because some laptops will not boot OSX unless there is a monitor plugged into the VGA connection on the back.  Without it in, it will not boot up.

PanterA

[trixxie]

Thx in advance for your little turorial

I have a little problem, and maybe you can help me.
I´m living outside my country and have no external monitor here, maybe display configurations are in preferences.plist and can skip steps for ext.monitor.

Could you post yout preferences.plist or post your Display values in preferences.plist here?

thx in advance and best regards

[Jimb0]

Hi mate, unfortunately you need the external monitor to get you going

[Makkie]

When booting up the laptop, it stops when the blue screen appears.  
Same laptop.
It happends when starting up from the install dvd.
is this why i need the dongle 2 ?

The 10.4.1 will install without problems... Only 10.4.4 stops when the gray screen goes away and the bluescreen appears...

Any ideas ?  I can install this version on another laptop without problems.. HP NC8000

[groucho]

How do you know if you need a dongle or not?

[Jimb0]

Makkie, on Jan 17 2006, 11:06 AM, said:

When booting up the laptop, it stops when the blue screen appears.  
Same laptop.
It happends when starting up from the install dvd.
is this why i need the dongle 2 ?

The 10.4.1 will install without problems... Only 10.4.4 stops when the gray screen goes away and the bluescreen appears...

Any ideas ?  I can install this version on another laptop without problems.. HP NC8000

Hi there

The dongle comes into play once you have installed OSX, it allows OSX to work in twin (mirrored mode) without it all you get is a blue screen


if you are getting a blue screen you will need to plug a second monitor in to and set it to mirror.

[Makkie]

Tried at home. Results are good.
Indeed the monitor solve the problem.
Only when i put the laptop in mirror mode it works till i logoff.
When i restart, i get NO login screen, on both monitors (laptop & monitor) i get a bleu screen, and its empty.
Guess i can solve this tonight at home.


Did you get your intel wireless card running on the LT ?
if yes, what is your solution ?


Many thanks!

(sorry for my bad english).

[metronet]

tried this method, works well on my Acer Aspire 3609. cheers.

[Makkie]

The problem here is, almost everyhting is working.

Except the network card's.
Tried some 3com pcmcia cards. Nothing..

guess i better wait till someone has network card drivers.. and meanwhile back to windows xp. this is very frustrating.

[acerfun]

read this solution

[lotus49]

Makkie, on Jan 21 2006, 11:46 AM, said:

The problem here is, almost everyhting is working.

Except the network card's.
Tried some 3com pcmcia cards. Nothing..

guess i better wait till someone has network card drivers.. and meanwhile back to windows xp. this is very frustrating.

I have the same laptop and using an S-Video dongle I also have most things working except the two network adapters.  I was using a RT2500 based usb wireless adapter which worked perfectly with 10.4.1, but since I upated to 10.4.3 nothing happens when I plug in the adapter.

Unfortunately on my nc6220, no pcmcia cards work so I can forget trying to use a pcmcia network card.

[Sitting Duck]

This dongle type worked prefectly for me whereas the 75 Ohm resistor one didn't (perhaps cos I could only find 3 x 100 ohm resistors!).

Anyway, for a really really slimline dongle use some really thin solder, poke one end into the pin socket (ie pin 1) and the other to pin 6, repeat for pin 2 - 12 and voila - no soldering, no hacking apart vga plug's.

If you want to tidy it up, try using a vga blanking cover (small plastic cap, size of vga port) - I had one that came with a vga-dvi adapter on my Geforce Fx - it sits on quite  nicely and nobody would be any the wiser as to whats underneath.

Just thought I'd share what I did.

Nick

[R. Bear Helms]

I'll link you to the Wiki installation guide section. This seems to be a good thread for laptop owners to read.

[williedigital]

what is the little part you have to put on the vga called?  and while you're at it, where could you get one

[Sitting Duck]

williedigital, on Feb 13 2006, 04:54 PM, said:

what is the little part you have to put on the vga called?  and while you're at it, where could you get one

It's either VGA dummy or VGA loopback, and I think your best source of info is either google or eBay.

That said, all you need to do is put some thin wire between pins 1-6 and 2-12 and you are done (Try poking some solder in or perhaps telephone wire).

On a seperate note, following this guide on my nc6220 on 10.4.3 I can get the laptop to work perfectly with a dongle - but - there is no quartz extreme or core image.

If I leave the default drivers on I get Quartz and core with the external monitor in, but the dongle doesn't exactly work, I don't get a hang at the blue screen but no matter how many times I select mirror with the external monitor plugged in - after a reboot all I get is the OSX wallpaper and a mouse cursor.

So it is an advancement but hey ho not much use if with the VGA dongle I can get past the hang stage but can't really do anything, in Arrangement under displays, dragging the top bar over to my LCD makes no difference whatsoever either, after a a reboot with the dongle in - same thing - wallpaper and a cursor.

So for the time being I am sticking with these patched drivers which although they don't provide Quartz etc, at least I don't need to carry a spare display around.

Nick

[Ouch]

This looks like a good guide - i'm gonna shift it into the genius bar.

[mark7714]

FYI, as of 10.4.5, this still seems to be an issue...  For me anyway.

[Impulse29]

Much easier, faster and nicer:
Take two staples, and a pair of needlenose pliers. The first piece (1-6) will be the width of the narrow end of the pliers (normal kind anyway). The other piece (2-12) will be width of the fat side of the pliers. Just bend it, and then cut off the excess stuff. Mine starts up, works, is secure and can't be seen.

I can provide pics if it's confusing.