[GMA 950] I've managed to update to 10.6.8 but my desktop is unusable

[naton]

Hi,

 

I've been trying to install and update Mac OS 10.6 to 10.6.8 on an Advent 4213 netbook for over a month now. I basically installed and re-installed Snow Leopard literally over 20 times.

 

I managed to find the right procedure and the right sequence of steps to get the update to 10.6.8 to work. I used a bootable USB stick with NBI 0.84 and an image of MAC OS 10.6 restored to a USB external HDD. After installing the OS I run Netbook Boot Maker 0.83 to make the netbook's hard drive bootable. Then I remove SleepEnabler and executed UpdateExtra. Last, I run the update and installed kernal_legacy for 10.6.8.

 

The first time the netbook was restarted after the update, I was able to see the desktop but there were a few glitches; the menu bare was transparent and I had to resize the icons in Finder to make them visible, when I scroll up or down Finder the display doesn't always update to show the remaining files or icons in a folder.

 

I thought that something didn't update properly so I restarted the netbook thinking that this will fix the glitches. The netbook restarted without any kernel panics but the issue is the desktop looks like the photo below. The background image is pixelized. Ther are no icons visible in the desktop. If I click on the menu bare I can see the menus' drop downs but there are no words on them. The drop down menus are completely white. If I hover the mouse cursor over the docking bare it appears on the screen but it is completely white without any visible icons.

 

The netbook specs are: Atom N270 CPU, Intel GMA 950 (27ae) GPU, 2GB RAM, WiFi Realtek RTL8187SE, Ethernet Realtek RTL8102E, Sound Realtek ALC662...

 

What should I do to fix it? I tried to re-install the OS and update it 5-6 times and I always end up with a distorted desktop.

 

[Gringo Vermelho]

I've seen this before, way back in 10.5.x after some graphics update that came out. There were several topics about it here at the time, try to find them. Forum search/google "huge pixels" or something, I remember someone referring to this as "duplo" or "lego" pixels..

 

Search specifically for solutions for the GMA 950, things might have changed in 10.6.8 as it is in many ways much more similar to Lion than it is to older versions of Snow Leopard. IIRC there is a DSDT patch for the GMA 950 as well, but I don't know if it's required or not. Try to find it.

 

Hopefully you can still boot with normal graphics with the -x (safe mode) flag.

 

If not you might have to remove the GMA 950 drivers entirely by accessing your system drive from Terminal from another OS X installation, or when booted from any OS X Install DVD. I never Hackintoshed anything with GMA 950 though so I couldn't tell you which files to remove.

 

I took the liberty of improving your topic title, hopefully it'll grab another GMA 950 owner's attention.

Actually your post should probably be here: http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showforum=175

[Cerastez]

I used DSDT Editor to fix up my GMA950. My tutorial is here and there is even a spiffy video to walk you through it.

[naton]

I tried to find a solution but didn't know what to look for. Gringo Vermelho, I'll google "duplo" or "lego" pixels and see if I can find a solution. I've already tried booting is safe mode and the result was like in the above photo. I also tried with "GraphicsEnabler=No". The only thing I haven' tried yet is booting with the "-f" flag. I'll try that later when I get home.

 

I'm not good with the DTST business yet. Cerastez thanks for the link. I'll try it and will post again to let you know if it works.

 

Thanks

[naton]

I've tried booting with the boot flag -f and that did not improve the look of the desktop. I ended up re-installing the OS using a 10.6.3 image this time. I haven't installed the driver, a boot loader, or the update yet.

 

I've found this tutorial about DSDT: Link

 

I've installed Windows 7 on a second partition so I could start experimenting with DSDT and patches.

 

1. Right now I need some help with the following: Is there any freeware that can open/ show Mac OS files in Windows? Something like MacDrive but free?

 

EDIT:

I run a search on the hard drive for files with the extension '.aml', and the only file that shows up is this one: '1201N.DSDT.aml'. I don't have a file called 'DSDT.aml'. According to google, '1201N.DSDT.aml' is for Asus and has been installed by NetbookInstaller. Also according to google this file is only used when the 'DSDT.aml' is not on the hard drive.

 

2. Do you think that my unusable desktop is caused by the fact that my netbook is using the Asus DSDT table instead of a generic one?

[Gringo Vermelho]

Install the HFS+ drivers from Apple's Boot Camp software in Windows. Don't install all of bootcamp if you can help it. There's a package floating around with only the HFS+ filesystem drivers from boot camp, try to find it.

 

Don't use DSDT that was extracted on different hardware, it will not work. Extract your own and patch that.

 

It doesn't matter what the filename is, what's important to know is that DSDT.aml placed in /Extra gets loaded by default, but if the file is named "yourmom.aml" you'll see a corresponding line in /Extra/org.chameleon.Boot.plist that loads this file instead.

[naton]

1- How do I extract the DSDT.aml from?

 

2- Should the patch be applied before or after the upgrade?

 

3- What would happen if I delete the 1201N.DSDT.aml? I will would Mac OS work without an aml file?

 

Thanks

[Gringo Vermelho]

1. Linux live CD, Everest corporate edition on Windows, there are many ways. If you have no OS installed download and burn the Linux Mint (for example) live CD and use that. Use Google to find out how to dump your DSDT on Linux, then save it to a flash drive or email it to yourself via webmail.

 

2. That's a funny question. If the patch is necessary for the GMA 950 to work properly then it should be applied as soon as possible!

 

3. I don't know, I'm not familiar with your hardware. But it's easy to find out - if you want to try booting without loading the patched DSDT just type DSDT=none at the boot prompt. Find the site where you got the patched DSDT from and look for information there.

[naton]

Gringo Vermelho, thanks for the reply. I spent most of last night reading about DSDT and patches. I found out that DSDTSE works also under Windows. I used it to extract the DSDT table and to compile it. There were 9 warnings but no errors. I haven't applied any patches yet, and the patch included in DSDTSE for the GMA950 is for the desktop model and not the laptop one.

 

Edit:

I've located 'Device (IGD)' and added the following code to the DSDT file after 'Name (_ADR, 0x00020000)' and 'Scope (^^PCI0)':

 

Method (_DSM, 4, NotSerialized)
{
Store (Package (0x04)
{
"AAPL,HasPanel",
Buffer (0x04)
{
0x01, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00
},
"model",
Buffer (0x07)
{
"GMA950"
}
}, Local0)
DTGP (Arg0, Arg1, Arg2, Arg3, RefOf (Local0))
Return (Local0)
}

 

While before I didn't have any errors, after adding the code above I have 65 errors while compiling the file, mostly about undefined variables such as LNKA, LNKB.

 

2. That's a funny question. If the patch is necessary for the GMA 950 to work properly then it should be applied as soon as possible!

is it possible to use the patched DSDT for the initial installation? I mean while Mac OS is been installed?

[Gringo Vermelho]

If you get bombarded with error messages after replying a small patch it's usually a syntax error, you're probably missing an opening or closing bracket or something like that. Examine other device code, compare to yours and try to understand where to properly place { and }.

 

Note that when you use a patch that calls DTGP (as your code example does) you'll also need to insert the Method DTGP code somewhere. I believe DSDTSE already includes it.

 

Yes it's possible to use a patched DSDT during installation, you'll need a way to add it to the /Extra folder on your installation media or boot CD/flash drive.

If you store it locally on a different hard drive you could probably load it during boot by typing DSDT=[full-path-to-dsdt]/dsdt.aml, I know Chameleon supports this but I don't know the proper syntax for the path, I've never had to do anything like that. I can boot into more or less working OS X with only fakesmc.kext.

[naton]

I ended up using DSDT edit. I've applied all of the following patches:

 

GMA950_laptop

DTGP

RTC Fix

HPET Fix

New HPET

HDEF

PIC & TIMR devices (manual patch)

 

How do I know if this is enough or if I have to apply more patches?

 

I'm about to re-install OS 10.6, as I've managed to break the last install.

[Gringo Vermelho]

What you did is known as the carpet-bombing method.

 

Applying too many patches at once without understanding what they are for will make it harder to troubleshoot issues further down the road.

 

If you have to ask if those are enough - you might as well flip it and think about this:

How do you know that the patches you have applied are necessary at all and that they won't cause more problems than they are supposed to fix?

[naton]

I see your point. I'm new to the DSDT business so I guess I might have over done it. I used Silencers guide. I know that amongst the patches listed above I need: GMA950 + DTGP (for video) and HDEF (for sound) since the sound doesn't work without installing the voodooHDA.kext.

 

I might have to remove RTC Fix, HPET Fix, and New HPET. I'll explain why in a bit. I shouldn't have patched PIC & TIMR devices at least not before testing sleep.

 

Since my last post I re-installed 10.6 using NBI_084RC1 USB stick. I didn't need to re-install Win 7 since that was working okay since the last install. I then installed NetbookBootMaker 0.83RC5. For some (I think) the partition containing Mac OS didn't get activated. I activated it using Win 7 DVD and DiskPart but for whatever reason it didn't work. I think I should have repartitioned the hard drive and re-installed both Mac OS and Win 7 from scratch. That is not really a problem though since I can still boot from the USB stick.

 

Installing NetbookBootMaker deleted 1201N.DSDT.aml. So Mac OS was left without *.aml file. I checked com.apple.Boot.plist and there was no entry for DSDT/aml file. I also discovered a few interesting facts and I'm wondering if all the issues I have been having with the upgrade are not due to them. NetbookBootMaker forces Mac OS to use the drivers in the /Extra/GeneralExtensions (/E/EG) folder instead of the drivers in the /System/Library/Extensions (/S/L/E) folder.

 

I would like to try installing the 10.6.8 update without having to install NetbookBootMaker but I know I can't. I've already tried this at least 3 times, and what happens is the update doesn't install properly, I get an error message at the end of the install (something about failing installation and having to contact the software manufacturer) and the OS gets corrupted. Basically I can't boot into the OS after that even in safe mode or recovery mode.

 

Any good alternative to NetbookBootMaker?

I've tried ###### but it doesn't allow me to boot the Mac OS installer file from my USB Harddrive. Also, I tried to burn the installation file in a double layer DVD but failed.

 

I knew that the Mac OS partition is activated automatically when installing the bootloader from ######. So I installed Chemira and installed my DSDT.aml patched file using the appropriate option in #######. I have a bootloader now. I can boot into Windows but I get a kernel panic when I try to boot into Mac OS. The error is:

 

Panic (CPU0 caller 0x2e5d7459):"Unsupported CPU: family = 0x6, Model = 0x1c, stepping = 0x2" @/SourceCache/AppleIntelCPUPowerManagement/AppleIntelCPUPowerManagement-90/pmProcess. c:210

 

The next thing I did was to boot with the USB stick. Then, I moved the following files from /S/L/E to the desktop of Mac OS:

AppleIntelCPUPowerManagement.kext

AppleIntelCPUPowerManagementClient.kext

 

With these files removed from /S/L/E, I can boot all the way to the desktop but I can't use the touchPad or the keyboard. Also the desktop resolution is still 800x600 instead of 1024x600.

 

I didn't break Mac OS. Should I make another DSDT file with only the GMA950 + DTGP patched and use ###### to install the DSDT file?

 

 

P.S.

Why I cant write ###### '-'? Is it against the forum rules?

[Gringo Vermelho]

If you can't use the trackpad and keyboard that means they are probably PS2 devices, which OS X doesn't support - Macs don't have any. You need to install third party kernel extensions for PS2 support. Connect a USB keyboard + mouse while you work on that.

 

For support with TonyMac tools (such as ib00t+Mu1tib3ast), go to the TonyMac forums. We gave up trying to support those, nobody here knows how they work, all we get are questions that nobody seems to answer.

[naton]

All right, I managed to sort out the screen in the Advent 4213 with the right resolution (1024x600). I've restarted the netbook a few times and the installations didn't break.

 

So thanks for the help.

[Gringo Vermelho]

Well done, hopefully it'll stay that way.