Problems completing iAtkos 4.0 installation on AsRock Conroe 1333/D667

[Erik the Viking]

I'm hoping someone here can help me out. I've spent a long time searching and reading on here and googling for answers but can't seem to find a solution.

 

I'm trying to install Leopard on the following setup, which I bought specifically based on recommendations for ease of installation:

 

AsRock Conroe 1333/D667 R3.0 (running modded bios 1.80)

Intel E2180 running at standard 2.0 GHz

2GB Crucial Ballistix PC2-6400 RAM

ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT 256 MB Graphics Card

Maxtor SATA 160GB HDD

External USB DVD Drive

 

I've used iAtkos 2.0 and 4.0 with the same results both times: I get through the first part of the installation quickly and easily, selecting, partitioning the hard drive and starting the installation but after a few minutes with the blue installation progress bar only at five to ten percent, I get the "you need to restart..." message. Then it won't boot. I imagine it hasn't managed to install enough of the OS and I have to start all over again.

 

Does anyone know what's happening? I'd appreciate it if anyone can shed some light on the subject.

 

Many thanks in advance for reading this.

 

I'd really like to see this complete the installation and get it up and running.

[JeanLuc7]

Hi,

 

I don't know what "modded BIOS 1.80" you are using, but since I installed a Leo4All V3 on the same board a week ago, I suppose that this is what creates the problem.

 

I used the 1.30 variant (and make sure you load BIOS defaults after installing cause you may lose the MAC address of the onboard NIC - I did) and after that installation worked like a charme.

 

If the error consists you may try to install OS X without the additional graphics card and use the onboard GMA950 instead. You can re-install it after the setup is successfully done.

 

Best

 

JL

[Erik the Viking]

Hi,

 

Thanks for the reply.

 

The bios is one that was modified by Kabyl for this board. It's the most current version with a few changes to allow Leopard to install and run without patching. I'll probably try it without the graphics card first and then with the 1.3 bios as you suggest.

 

Thanks again for the help. I'll let you know how it goes when I get a chance to try it later today.

[Erik the Viking]

Well, I've reflashed the bios with version 1.30 and am using the onboard graphics and the same thing happens. I've tried Kalyway again; the last time it wouldn't run. This time it's gone a lot further than iAtkos ever did but it seems to freeze or crash and restart. I've spent a long time on this and am getting nowhere it seems.

 

Any other suggestions?

[JeanLuc7]

Hm.

I tried Leo4All V3 because Iwas not familiar with the iAtkos driver selection.

 

Let's see what drivers you have selected: For me it was 9.2.2 vanilla kernel, Intel ICH7 chipset driver, GMA950 graphics driver (old), Intel Azalia HD Audio and Realtek 8something NIC driver (which has to be replaced after the first successful start of OS X).

 

Did you select other drivers? I remember Kalyway uses the same selection of drivers as Leo4All

 

JL

 

Hm.

I tried Leo4All V3 because Iwas not familiar with the iAtkos driver selection.

 

Let's see what drivers you have selected: For me it was 9.2.2 vanilla kernel, Intel ICH7 chipset driver, GMA950 graphics driver (old), Intel Azalia HD Audio and Realtek 8something NIC driver (which has to be replaced after the first successful start of OS X).

 

Did you select other drivers? I remember Kalyway uses the same selection of drivers as Leo4All

 

JL

[Erik the Viking]

I've tried installing with pretty much the drivers you mention. And a few others just to see if they make any difference.

 

They didn't.

 

I've made a few bios settings in the hope that I'd stumble on something but I've gone back to the recommended settings in various threads. All with no luck. I've tried with iAtkos and Kalyway again and again with the same results. It either tells me to restart long before installation completes, freezes, or just turns off.

 

I'm beginning to wonder if the audio is the only change in R 3.0 of this motherboard or if there's something else. From a comparison on the AsRock website, it seems not.

 

I actually bought an R 1.0 model first but it arrived with damage to the socket. I bet it would have worked! It looks like I'm jinxed!

 

I'm dowloading Leo4All in the hope that it will work but it's going to take a while to complete.

 

In the meantime, thanks for all your help and advice. Maybe one day I'll get this thing working. Maybe I'll just get another motherboard and sell this one.

[Erik the Viking]

OK, I've had a chance to try Leo4All.

 

I'm running bios 1.30 with the recommended options. I've removed the graphics card and am using the onboard graphics. I've selected the options you suggested exactly.

 

I still get the same issues: after a few minutes of the installation screen it freezes.

 

I'm beginning to wonder if the hard drive has a problem. I've had it in a computer for a number of years without any difficulties but perhaps there's some kind of conflict. The next step is to swap the hard drive for another and try that.

[JeanLuc7]

Hi, that's no good news :-(

 

I remember - I had a similar problem one a Conreo945 board. I tested two SATA drives, one from Samsung, one from WD. The DVD booted well with both, also installation went fine. But the WD didn't boot itself while the Samsung did. So maybe changing the HDD will make it for you.

[Erik the Viking]

Just a quick update. I've tried a new 500GB Samsung SATA hard drive. I get the same problems. I'm not sure what's causing them but it's driving me insane and keeping me up at night when I'd like to be sleeping safe in the knowledge that my Hack is working.

 

I'll try a few different bioses and settings to see if I can get any further with it and post the results.

[JeanLuc7]

Hi - we feel with you.

 

To understand your problem better: you said the installation screen freezes after a few minutes. What kind of freeze is it? Is the mouse still responding?

 

I understand that you get into the normal installation screen (which means a stripped-down Darwin runs fine), you select the languages and you can also start the hard disk tool to partition the drive - right?

 

So you partition it by selecting "one partition" and "GUID partition scheme" (this is behind the options button in the partition screen), right? Selecting a second or third partition for installation may result in inatallation failures.

 

Then you select the appropriate drivers - which ones exactly? Although this should not have any effect on the installation, selecting a wrong driver will eventually lead to a freeze after the first start.

 

Then you start the installation - and it freezes after a few minutes? Does the installation say how long it wil take to finish? Or does ist freeze when it ist still calculating time? How long do you wait - because Leo4All takes its time there...

 

If you do not start the installation, just let the screen with the installation window untouched - does it freeze then? This may show that we have a network problem - try again with the network cable disconnected

 

Best Regards

 

JL

 

P.S: The BIOSes later than 1.30 (and maybe your modded version) even prevent you from booting Darwind - you will never see the installation screen, just the grey wheel spinnig (or a few lines of Darwin startup). If you see the installation screen, keep the BIOS. The bug is elsewhere.

[Erik the Viking]

Hey there,

 

Thanks for the reply! OK, what exactly am I doing?

 

I get into the installation screen with absolutely no problems at all with iAtkos 2 & 4, Kalyway, and Leo4All. Everything looks promising. There doesn't seem to be any problem with running bios 1.80 but I'm using 1.30 at the moment for safety.

 

I can run disk utility and partition the drive (I've been using MBR mostly but I've tried the alternatives) and generally I've just used a single partition. When I've had other partitions, I've used the primary.

 

I've selected the 9.2.2 vanilla kernel and I've also tried the 9.2.0.

 

I've generally limited myself to the GMA 950 graphics and the realtek and Azalia drivers (although I'm fairly sure they're only a close match and not the appropriate ones.) I've selected the Intel ICHx drivers in Leo4All.

 

Now, from the little I know, there shouldn't be any real conflicts. But when it starts to install it stops very quickly.

 

In the past I always got the "You need to restart..." message but that was while using iAtkos. With Kalyway it got to the point of calculating time and actually told me it would take 17 minutes or something. Then I got the "you need to restart..."

 

With Leo4All I don't get very far in the installation. The bar stops flickering, the mouse freezes and the DVD spins down. I haven't tried leaving it at that point because I have always presumed that it's not going any further. Should I just leave it and see what happens?

 

I don't have a network cable connected. At the moment this is in a PC case but the plan is to put it in an Apple Quicksilver case (another project that is going a lot better than this one) so this is just a skeleton build at present.

 

I'm contemplating getting an R 1.0 version of the motherboard if I can just to try. I may be able to find one for very little and if it gets this thing working, I'd be happy to spend a little more. I can always use this one for something else again anyway.

 

So again, thanks very much for all your help. I really and truly appreciate it. If you have any ideas or suggestions, I'd love to hear them.

 

Regards...

[JeanLuc7]

Hi,

 

One more idea: As I see, you did everything like I did on my Conroe1333 (2.0 revision here). But we did not check the BIOS options until now.

 

You have to check the following:

• In "Advanced/CPU Configuration" set "Enhance Halt State" to disabled, "Max CPUID value limit" to disabled. Leave the other entries enabled
  
• In "Advanced/Chipset Configuration" set "Initiate Graphics Adapter" to "onboard" and "DVMT Mode Select" to "DVMT Mode". Set "Onboard HD Audio" to "Enabled" (not Auto). Front Panel may remain "Auto".
  
• In "ACPI Settings" set "ACPI HPET Table" to Enabled
  
• Set all parallel, serial, floppy devices to disabled
  

I did not try other settings on this board - I was successful installing Leopard on a Conroe945 with these settings so I re-used them on the Conroe1333

 

Good luck!

 

JL

[Erik the Viking]

I checked all the bios settings and got exactly the same results. But I've made an interesting (and infuriating) discovery.

 

Since I can't get Leopard to load, I thought I'd try Ubuntu. You'll never guess what happened - it freezes at around 5% of the way through the installation, too!

 

Windows was next on the list. XP can't even get past the partitioning stage.

 

It seems I have a dud component. I swapped the PSU in the current case for the larger one that will eventually be in the Quicksilver with no improvement. I've had three different hard disks in it and tried both onboard graphics and a PCI-E card. I've also used an internal DVD drive and a USB external drive.

 

So that leaves the core components. The motherboard and RAM are brand new and the CPU is a few months old. I would imagine that the RAM is the most likely culprit but can't be sure.

 

After all this stressing about how the Leopard installation on this particular motherboard was the problem, I feel like a complete idiot.

 

Thanks again for all the help and suggestions. It looks like I'll have to do some memory testing and see if I can get this to install something else before I try Leopard. I imagine that once I get it working, Leopard will be a breeze to install.

 

What I find strange though is how easily it runs everything up to the installer. Not a hiccup until the install window and then everything stops. In Windows and Ubuntu, where the graphics and (I would have thought) processing power needed are nowhere near as high, the process barely gets started.

 

I'll post any results I have.

 

Thanks!

 

EtV

[Erik the Viking]

Hello,

 

Here's the result:

 

I removed one of the RAM modules and got the same results as before. So I replaced it with the module I originally had in slot 2. The installer worked first time with no problems at all. MacOS X is up and running! I reinserted the other RAM module to see what would happen and it appears to work now! So swapping the RAM around was all it took.

 

All along I thought the problem was with installing MacOS X using iAtkos or Kalyway or Leo4All, or it was the bios... In the end it was a basic hardware diffculty that I would have found quickly and easily if I'd been installing something familiar like Linux or Windows. It just goes to show.

 

So to confirm for anyone out there who wants to build something similar, the AsRock Conroe 1333/D667 R. 3.0 will run MacOS X when flashed with the Kabyl-modified 1.80 bios (using the settings described above by JeanLuc7).

 

Thanks JL for all your help. Although in the end it was a hardware problem, your talking me through all the other possibilities helped me eliminate everything else.

 

I'm off to play with my cheapo Mac!

 

All the best,

 

EtV

[JeanLuc7]

That's great news! Congratulations for your new Hackintosh :-)

 

JL