My step-by-step install of 10.5.2 on a Dell 530 E2180

[HolyCrap]

TOP EDIT: Note, I now am running a Q6600 quad core. But the installation was the same

 

Okay, here goes nothing!

 

I just got a Dell 530 delivered today. I have read where other people have gotten this computer running OSX and I'm going to give it a shot. I've browsed these forums on and off for months and months and as a novice and newbie, I have to admit that I find even some of the step-by-step tutorials confusing. My plan here is to be verbose. I'm going to try and list all the details of my attempts to install 10.5.2 This will probably mean I'm being redundant with some of the other threads and guides, but If I'm successful, then hopefully a single thread could lead somebody as inexperienced as I, through this process.

 

If I fail, well hopefully somebody will gently point me in the right direction.

 

 

Here is a step-by-step walk-through of my installation

 

- I ordered a computer from Dell. It has the following specs:

Intel®Pentium® dual-core processor E2180 (1MB, 2.00GHz, 800FSB)

2GBDual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 800MHz- 2DIMMs

250GBSerial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM) w/DataBurst Cache™

16XDVD+/-RW Drive

IntegratedIntel Graphics Media Accelerator 3100

Integrated7.1 Channel Audio

- I got a copy of Kalyway_10.5.2_DVD_Intel_AMD

 

- I took the .iso and burned it to a blank DVD-R using Nero

prior to burning it, I didn't do anything else. Was this a mistake? I guess I'll find out.

 

Along with the iso is an "add kext to dvd" folder. Inside that folder is a document as well as a .command file. Inside the document it says "if you want adding drivers support to dvd boot then put kexts you want add to dvd extensions in this folder (you can find natit for at hd in this folder) and run Add_kext_to_dvd_boot.command !!!" I've been told that this is only necessary for older nVidia graphics cards. I skipped it.

 

I also read the "Kalyway DVD ReadMe.rtf" that also comes with the .iso. From what I've read previously, I might have to follow some of the instructions like the ones that tell you how "to move video drivers by class" but there are no real instructions in this document for burning or running the DVD, so I'm just going for it and hoping that when I put the DVD in, it'll boot from it. If not, I'll go back and try again.

 

- BIG decision: what hard drive to install this onto and how to go about it

I won't include all the details about everything that DIDN'T work, but suffice it to say that this was a long trip to come to a simple conclusion. For my setup, the use of the USB to IDE connector was a big mistake. Lots of problems, lockups and inability to move forward. In the end I got an IDE to SATA adapter and was able to forge ahead. Is this because of an issue related to the Dell530? Is this because of an issue related to the WD hard drive I'm using? Is it related to the particular IDE->USB connector I was using? I don't know, but in the end I had lots of problems, including the keyboard (USB) and mouse (USB) becoming unresponsive and as soon as I connected to the SATA connectors, those problems ceased.

 

So, I had an extra 30gig WesternDigital IDE drive lying around. It had WinXP on it and I decided I didn't want to even mess with dual booting right now and decided to move forward and used the whole drive.

 

- Starting the installation

I unplugged the SATA drive that came with the dell (primarily because it's not my computer and I need to return it to normal as easily as possible). I then took an old 30gig that was XP/NTFS formatted and hooked it up (see above, I originally hooked it up via an IDE->USB adapter. This caused me a lot of headaches, so I ended up getting an IDE->SATA adapter and hooked that up.

 

I put the Kalyway DVD into the drive, restarted the Dell and pressed F2 to go into the BIOS/SETUP so I could check the settings. They were all at the default incl. the boot sequence which has the HD listed before the CD-Rom. This could be important if you're not aware of it, but all you have to do is to hit the F2 button as you boot the computer and you'll have the option to boot to the Kalyway DVD.

 

0min - I had the DVD in and booted from it "Darwin/x86" and then a bunch of small text showed up as things starting cranking up.

3mn - I notice that the small text mentions my 30gig drive and the fact that it's NTFS formatted. Then the screen turns into a starfiled and a mac cursor, so things are looking good

4min - I get the first menu choice and I select "Use English as the main language". It continues to:

Max OSX, preparing installation… with a blue and white candycane stripe turning

5min - Welcome screen from Kalyway Things are looking good!

 

At this point I went up to "Utilities" and "Disk utility" so I can see what it says about my HD and if I need to partition or format it or whatever. From one of the pages here on this forum (http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showtopic=89659) I know that I have some options here on how to prepare my drive. Even though there's a working XP setup on this drive, I'm not going to screw with it. I'm going to wipe the drive and start from scratch. So I select the drive in the left column, then click the "erase" tab/button at the top. I change the format to "Mac OSX (Journaled)", I change the name to "hackintosh" and click the "erase" button. It gave me a chance to back out, which I declined, and I went on my way.

 

When that's done, I go back to the main Kalyway menu, I decide I'll open the "system profiler" before I start the installation, just so I can see what OSX thinks it sees in my computer. This is the information revealed:

• Model Name: Mac Pro
  
• Model Indentifier: MacPro3,1
  
• Processor Name: Intel Core2Duo
  
• Processor Speed: 1.99GHz
  
• Number of Processors: 0
  
• Number of Cores: 1
  
• L2 Cache: 1MB
  
• Memory: 2GB
  
• Bus Speed: 800MHz
  

Okay, obviously there are some issues here, like the number of processors and the number of cores, but maybe this will all get sorted after the install (it did) It's interesting that it sees my processor as a Core2Duo because it's really a "Intel Pentium dual-core processor"

 

After poking around, I went back to the Kalyway menu and hit the "Continue button"

I agreed to the terms, I selected my "hackintosh" drive for installation and came to an "Install Summary" screen.

 

Okay, there's a "customize" button here. I initially clicked it just to see what my options were but there are definitely some things you want to do here. The first thing I did was:

 

- select my video card drivers. I went to "Graphics_Drivers" then to "Intel_GMA" and then to "GMAX3100" and checked it. There was a notice saying something about it being "not tested!!!" but I continued on and forged ahead.

 

- Under "kernels" there was one already checked which was "kernel_9.2_sleep". The first time I went through all this, I left it there, but after having a lot of problems (which I think ended up being all USB based) I changed some things and this was one of the things I changed. The setup that finally booted into OSX was actually using the "vanilla_9.2" kernel

 

NOTE: I don't know if this is a good or bad thing. Should I go back and try it again using the "kernel_9.2_sleep"? Should I be using some other kernel? I'm open to suggestions here.

 

There is a category for "thirds_applications" which I believe must be "third party applications" which can also be automatically installed. Based on suggestions in a thread by randy11 in a thread here, I checked the checkbox for "kext helper". He says it's very helpful and I choose to believe him

 

Based on a suggestion in this thread, I also looked at the "Mobo_Chipsets" section. Everything was checked by default. I'm not sure what, if anything, I should do here. For now, I'm leaving it alone. Good idea? Bad idea? We'll see….

 

I clicked "done" and then "install". It went through a "checking installation DVD", which I had the option of skipping, but I didn't the first time. In subsequent installs, I hit the "skip" button

 

It took about 12 minutes to complete and then the installation started. It says it's calculating the time remaining, had no info for a while, eventually told me it'd take 30minutes but overall I think it took about 20min before the "Installing" page is done and I'm told that the "Installation Succeeded!"

 

- Install completed, rebooting and moving on

 

I click restart to restart the system

It rebooted and the grey apple screen showed up (I had left the DVD in the machine so there was a moment where I was afraid it might boot from the DVD and not the hard drive. It didn't, but if you've changed the boot sequence in the BIOS, you might want to remove the DVD or make a boot-drive decision.)

 

I then got a page saying: “Before you begin” “Your keyboard cannot be identified”, so I clicked “OK” to identify it. I clicked a couple of buttons and was good to go.

 

“Do you already own a Mac?” I do, actually, but I don’t want to transfer any information, so I selected that option. “Do not transfer my information now”

I clicked the “continue” button….. and waited…. It seemed to not be doing anything, but then it did… and it took me back to the “Before you begin” “Your keyboard cannot be identified”….

 

PROBLEM AND the SOLUTION thanks to randy11's thread and others: I’m now stuck in an endless loop of keyboard identification, leading to ‘do you already own a mac’ and back again… I re-read a hnadful of Dell 530 hackintosh threads and in found the solution (laid out below).

 

So, I'm stuck in this endless loop, so I do a hard reboot by holding down the power key of my Dell. I take the opportunity to remove the Kalyway DVD from the system. The computer re-starts and get a screen that says "Press any key to start from CDRom or press F8 to enter startup options". I hit F8 and get a "boot:" prompt (NOTE: I'm 99% sure this is how it worked, if you go through this and typed something different or saw a different prompt, let me know)

 

I typed -s at the "boot:" prompt and hit enter. The screen filled with that familiar tiny text.

You then have to run the following:

 

/sbin/fsck -fy

-> hit return

 

/sbin/mount -uw

-> hit return

 

Then type:

passwd root

 

It will now prompt you to enter a new password. I typed in a password, it should be noted that you do not see anything on the screen as you type. No letters, no dots nothing.

It asks you to confirm the password, and I did.

 

Now to deactivate the loop in which I was stuck, I typed the following and hit 'return'

 

touch /var/db/.AppleSetupDone

 

A moment later, I typed "exit" at the prompt and the system rebooted... and OSX started up. I got a login and password screen where I entered "root" as my login and the password I had just created as my password... And OSX 10.5.2 is working!

 

- OSX runnning, now to get sound, lan, etc working

 

- Getting networking/ethernet working

This was a no brainer. As everybody says, the onboard doesn't work. I grabbed a PCI ethernet card from an 8 year old eMachine, slapped it in and I was online instantly. Sweet!

 

- Getting Firewire working

This is an old Firewire/USB combo card, NOT the firewire that can be purchased along with the Dell530. This is an old CompUSA brand PCI card. I plugged it in and, as far as I can tell, it's working just fine. I'd like to test it out with FCP but so far I can't because I don't have a video card that will allow me to install FCP.

 

- Getting Sound working

When I go to System Profiler > Hardware > Audio (built in) it says “No built in audio” However, not only IS there built-in audio, but it also works right out of the box.

 

Does it do 7.1? 5.1? Man, I have no idea and I have no idea how I’d even find that out, but it pumps mp3 tunez out of my speakers just fine.

 

NOTE: The sound does NOT come out of the front panel. This appears to be a common issue. There are numerous people who have gotten the front panel working on the Inspiron530, but others who have not. So far, I have not. See the post below for more detailed info about what I've tried.

 

A number of users have various methods just trying to get ANY audio to work, but I had no need to do that. In fact, I thought that ALC888 audio was one of the things that the Kalyway DVD installer had already installed. If/when I do this install from scratch again, I’ll double check, but as it stands there doesn’t seem to be any need for me to do any additional installation for the audio except to get it working from the front.

 

 

- Upgrading the video card to get full workability

This ended up being really easy. I asked around on these forums and got some recommendations for low-cost cards with a track record of working for installations like this one. I got some recommendations and, because I was in a hurry, I immediately started scouring the internet for local stores like BestBuy and CircuitCity where I could buy one of these cards. I located an ATI HD2600 Pro at a local store, but at the last minute decided to order online instead. I got a very similar HD2600 Pro card from NewEgg.com and it was about half the cost.

 

The card is no longer available on the newegg site, but it was this one:

SAPPHIRE 1014L Radeon HD 2600PRO 512MB(256MB on board) 64-bit GDDR2 PCI Express x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card - Retail

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16814102765

It was $34.99 with $6.99 for Shipping and Handling

 

It arrive, I plugged it into the computer, I plugged my monitor into it. I made sure the Dell BIOS was set up to look for other video cards before looking for the onboard video by going into the BIOS and I set the "init display first" to "PCI" instead of "onboard".

 

I started the computer, OSX started up, I ran the full installer for the "ATI Radeon HD 2600pro PciE Device ID: 9589" that's available from the GREAT ATI installer thread (http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showtopic=107526). The computer rebooted and I was IN BUSINESS!!!!!

 

This is awesome and, I think, maybe even brings me to the end of this thread. An odd side effect of installing the new video card is that my computer now "sleep"s as it should. So shutdown, restart AND sleep ALL work!

 

 

I hope this thread, and this compilation post in particular, might help people with their future installs. I came into this knowing next to nothing. I had read a bunch, but all the new terms were just bouncing aimlessly in my head. Darwin? Kexts? And there were so many question. Would it work? Would video work? Would my sound work? Would ethernet work? But all in all this has been a great success and I tried to make this post as step-by-step as possible and include as many links as I could so anybody searching up how to install Leopard onto a Dell 530 would have a one-stop-shop.

 

Thanks to all of those other members here who went before me as well as those who stepped in to help me out. You never know when a little bit of info may be the answer somebody's looking for.

 

THANKS!

 

 

 

 

HERE ARE OTHER HELPFUL THREADS RELATED TO INSTALLING OSX ON DELL INSPIRON 530

Installing on Dell Inspiron 530 - http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showtopic=92131

Dell Inspiron 530 Help - http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showtopic=114230

 

HERE ARE OTHER USERS WHO HAVE INSTALLED OSX ON DELL INSPIRON 530

Toonces Katt - http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showuser=215680 - Q6600 quad core Leo4Allv3 - ATI HD 2600XT

TheShef - http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showuser=196246

leafspan - http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showuser=201702

oxyigen - http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showuser=192722

Pardus - http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showuser=202430 - Core 2 Quad 2.4 GHz - Kalyway 10.5.1

mikeyd - http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showuser=175777 - 4500 c2d, installed Kalyway 10.5.1 w/ 10.5.2 update

keys88 - http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showuser=1714

bartont - http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showuser=158079 - 2.4Gh Quad, Leo install - sapphire ati 2600xt dual dvi

david tsu - http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showuser=165316 - Leo4all v3 - 8600GT 512mb

sz2k8 - http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showuser=230544 -

[MGJulius]

Hey,

 

You won't need to add the kext to the dvd, its for older nVidia graphics cards which you don't have.

 

But your computer will probably be able to run os x. Just make sure to select the correct chipset drivers and the GMA drivers.

[HolyCrap]

Thanks MG! Good to know, cuz I really wasn't sure.

 

I'm going to update the first post as I go.

 

Thanks!

You won't need to add the kext to the dvd, its for older nVidia graphics cards which you don't have.

[HolyCrap]

- Next decision: what hard drive to install this onto and how to go about it

I'm not sure how I want to do this. I have a couple 30 and 40 gig HDs lying around, but they're all PATA and this computer only has SATA connections. I have some of those IDE to USB cables that let you plug a bare drive into a USB port, but I guess I'm not sure if that's the best way to go because of potential USB problems like the install not supporting booting from USB or something. My other option is to load it up on the SATA drive that's in the computer. I could either completely wipe the drive first, or I could try to leave the stuff on there.... if I go this direction, I'll probably just wipe the drive. It sounds easier that way. But maybe I'll try to use one of these older PATA drives via USB cable first and see what happens.

 

Any suggestions? If not, I'll forge ahead.

 

Thanks

[HolyCrap]

Okay, I'm currently installing OSX (many more details to come) but I have a quick question or three. Below is what I did, is there anything else I should have checked or not checked? I'll probably find out something as soon as the install completes, but I figured I'd post this info now just in case there's a glaring error. Thanks

 

On the"Install Summary" screen:

 

There's a "customize" button here. I clicked it, just to see what my options were. Good thing I did! There's a place to select my video card drivers. I went to "Graphics_Drivers" then to "Intel_GMA" and then to "GMAX3100" and checked it. There was a notice saying something about it being "not tested!!!" but I continued on and forged ahead.

 

Under "kernels" there was one already checked which was "kernel_9.2_sleep". I guess I'm going to leave it there for now, although if I have problems, I should probably search around for other Inspiron 530 installs which might be using different kernels?

Based on the suggestion, I also looked at the "Mobo_Chipsets" section. Everything was checked by default. I'm not sure what, if anything, I should do here. For now, I'm leaving it alone. Good idea? Bad idea?

We'll see….

 

 

Thanks

 

Okay, I'm officially stuck.

 

OSX seemed to install just fine, but now I'm in an endless loop between "Your keyboard cannot be identified" and "Do you already own a mac?" It seems to ID the keyboard without any issues, but when I select "Do not transfer my information now" on the "Do you already own a mac?" page, it seems to not do anything for about a minute, and then cycle back to the keyboard ID page.

 

I found another thread that describes this problem as well as how he got around it. The problem now? Now I can't get anything to work. In fact, my 530 doesn't even want to boot from the CD-rom anymore. I kept getting errors with the HD, so eventually I removed it from the system all together, but then when trying to boot the DVD, I now get this screen where it wants to boot from "hd (128,0) Ethernet PXE Client" What does that mean? Why would it say that?

 

I'm shutting everything down and trying from scratch again. This time I'm going to try the vanilla 922 kernel because I think I may be having USB problems that are described in another thread as well because everything (keyboard etc) was locking up on me as well.

[HolyCrap]

Totally stuck. Cant get to a boot prompt, can't boot from CD, can't get anything. So I started from scratch.

 

I Reformatted the hard drive to NTFS on my PC because that's what worked before. Voila, it works again, now I can boot from the Kalyway DVD and do the installation.

 

Installed Kalyway in the same manner as above but this time tried the vanilla_92 kernel

 

Got stuck in the same keyboard/transfer information loop

 

Hard rebooted the computer to get out of it

 

Back to square one. Can't get the DVD to boot, can't get the HD to boot. Stuck

 

I do think that the USB/IDE connector has something to do with my problems because I was having a tough time getting the drive recognized on other computers as well and I'd have to plug it in, remove it, plug it back in to get it to show up. I'm going to get an IDE->SATA adapter to try and remove that potential problem from the equation, but if anybody has any other suggestions, I'm all ears.

 

Thanks

[HolyCrap]

I do think that the USB/IDE connector has something to do with my problems because I was having a tough time getting the drive recognized on other computers as well and I'd have to plug it in, remove it, plug it back in to get it to show up. I'm going to get an IDE->SATA adapter to try and remove that potential problem from the equation, but if anybody has any other suggestions, I'm all ears.

 

That was it! I just got back from the store, plugged my hard drive directly into the mobo and SATA connection and OSX is up and running.

 

I'll update the first post with the specifics, then it's on to figure out things like networking, video resolutions, soundcard, sleep and all the other things that people struggle with. I'm absolutely sure that randy11's very informative thread here will be a big help to me. Thanks randy!

[HolyCrap]

GETTING AUDIO TO WORK

 

 

Okay, getting the audio to work

 

When I go to System Profiler > Hardware > Audio (built in) it says “No built in audio” However, not only IS there built-in audio, but it also works right out of the box.

 

Randy11 has a system for installing ALC888Audio.mpkg.zip using “kext helper” and getting the audio to work, but I had no need to do that. In fact, I thought that ALC888 audio was one of the things that the Kalyway DVD installer had already installed. If/when I do this install from scratch again, I’ll double check, but as it stands there doesn’t seem to be any need for me to do any additional installation for the audio. It works from the FRONT fine.

 

Does it do 7.1? 5.1? Man, I have no idea and I have no idea how I’d even find that out, but it pumps mp3 tunez out of my speakers just fine.

 

NOTE: The sound does NOT come out of the front panel. Other people have reported the same thing (including randy11) but there are others who have gotten it to work. Some people also don't have any audio at ALL without extra installation of stuff, while I did. Let's see if I can get the front panel working.

 

POSSIBILITIES:

 

ThaShef got front audio ports running using a .txt file attached in his post here:

http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?s=&...st&p=849425

 

Toonces Katt posts here that he not only got the front audio working, but also has the audio showing up in system profile using "ALCInject or the newer HDAEnabler". Toonces links HDAEnabler package in his post

http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?s=&...st&p=843984

 

Neither of these worked for me. My audio still works, but neither of these solutions got the front panel to work. I also tried installing the ALC888 package that randy11 suggested in his thread here: http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showtopic=114230 to see if it would get my front panel working. It did not.

 

I tried installing the HDAEnabler kext from this thread and it all went wrong. This is clearly a different version than the one that Toonces linked. This version DID cause something to appear in my system profile under audio, but no audio would play anywhere. In fact, iTunes would show that something was playing, but the playhead wouldn't move and the running time wouldn't change.

It was suggested in this post that a bunch of stuff from that thread would work for the Insprion 530. But clearly the HDAEnabler does not. HolyCrap

 

Okay, so I tried re-installing some of these others, but to no avail. I went into the library > extensions and deleted the "HDAEnabler" file. I then did a 'repair permissions', because I read a thread that said I should. I then re-installed the HDAEnabler version that Toonces recommended (the one I had tried earlier) while it didn't add front-panel-sound earlier, at least it didn't screw up the existing sound. Luckily doing all that was successful. I got the 'bad' HDAEnabler out of there and sound, and video for that matter, are working again.

 

There's also a suggestion here: http://wiki.osx86project.org/wiki/index.ph...ps#Inspiron_530

for getting the audio to work using HDA_ICH9_ALC888.zip This seems to be a suggestion to get ANY of the audio to work as opposed to getting just the front to work, but I'll try it to see if I can get the front panel working.

[HolyCrap]

VIDEO VIDEO VIDEO...

 

I need to get FCP running on this machine. In order to do that, I have to have a video card that's supported and shows up in OSX as having "Quartz Extreme". I need something that will fit into a pci-e slot of this computer. I COULD get a card that fits into the PCI slot, but then I'd have to come up with a different solution for either my ethernet/networking access or a different solution for my firewire connection.

 

So, what's the best, cheapest, easiest card that will allow me to run FCP? That's the question of the hour....

 

 

HERE is a link to the Hardware Compatibility List for Inspiron 530 desktops running 10.5.2 wiki:

http://wiki.osx86project.org/wiki/index.ph...ps#Inspiron_530

 

According to that list, the people whose info that's listed there are using the following video cards, but neither one specifically states that QE is working:

-> nVidia 8600GT "Select NVInject 0.2.1 512mb during custom install" although I don't know what install this person used

-> 6600GT

 

HERE is a link to the wiki for "component level hardware compatibility list" specifically the video cards

http://wiki.osx86project.org/wiki/index.ph...#Graphics_Cards

 

HERE are links to other people's Inspiron 530 installs and a list of the cards they're using

Installing on Dell Inspiron 530 - http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showtopic=92131

Dell Inspiron 530 Help - http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showtopic=114230

 

Other video card links of relevance

ATI Radeon HD pkg installers 10.5.3, Easy to install !! - http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?sho...07526&st=20

 

Here's my thread looking for a video card to try:

http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showtopic=124393

[HolyCrap]

I've ordered a Radeon HD2600 Pro card made by Sapphire, so we'll find out next week where I can go from there.

 

 

In the meantime, I'm reinstalling 10.5.2 There are a couple things different this time because I didn't do anything in the 'customize' button. This means I:

- did NOT click the "Intel GMA" video drivers ("Graphics_Drivers" then to "Intel_GMA" and then to "GMAX3100")

- I've left the kernel at the default of "kernel_9.2_sleep" instead of using the vanilla version

- I also didn't install the kext_helper, but I'll definitely do that shortly. I should have installed that.

 

The other difference is that my cheapo PCI networking card AND the firewire/USB card are both already in the computer as I do the install. Last time I put these in AFTER OSX was up and running. The firewire card caused the initial darwin text mumbo-jumbo to keep telling me that it had an invalid something or other, but the install eventually continued to the Kalyway GUI. We'll see if there's any difference once things are fully running.

WELLL, here's something interesting. NO keyboard loop this time!

Also, sound is alreadt working as a little tune played once the computer rebooted

WoW, a bunch of new screens I didn't get to see last time

"Enter your allple ID" I just hit continue

"Registration Information" No thanks. all filled in with bogus stuff since it wouldnt let me move ahead

"A few more questions" - UNcheck "keep in touch!"

"Create your account" - I didn't enter a password here and changed my short name to 'test'

..."connecting to apple" "creating registration request"... hmmmm

"Try MobileMe Free" BLECH!

 

And the desktop showed up.

 

Sleep doesnt' work, but restart does! (and last time it did NOT)

 

Shutdown works fine.

 

NOTE: The only other difference between this time and the last time (in the first post) is that the first time I started with an NTFS drive and this time I erased and installed on another version of OSX

 

Okay, since I hadn't installed kext helper via the Kalyway DVD, I downloaded it from here:

http://www.cheetha.net/Kext_Helper/Software.html

 

The only problem is that you have to log in as root and I don't have a password for root this time because I didn't go through all of the stuff to get out of the keyboard loop (which is where I set the password for 'root' last time). Looks like I'll reboot and try and do that. Nope. just go into the users and change my password there since it wouldn't accept the fact that I had NO password

[HolyCrap]

This is a reminder post to myself to try this out:

http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?sho...mp;#entry799487

 

That link is to instructions for hiding all the text/code that shows up when the system is booting.

[HolyCrap]

NEW VIDEO CARD

 

Okay, I just got a Sapphire HD2600 card from NewEgg. In this post I will detail the installation including successes and failures.

 

This is the card I bought:

SAPPHIRE 1014L Radeon HD 2600PRO 512MB(256MB on board) 64-bit GDDR2 PCI Express x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card - Retail

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16814102765

It was $34.99 with $6.99 for Shipping and Handling

Unfortunately, I literally must have gotten the last one in the bin because this item is now "deactivated", meaning that NewEgg doesn't sell it anymore

 

 

The card I have has one VGA and one DVI connector. I'm not sure which one I should try first, or maybe even try both! Who knows. Since I've read about people having problems with DVI, I'm going to hook up a VGA monitor to the VGA connector, install the card, turn on the computer and see what happens.

 

Actually, I think there's a setting in the Dell 530's BIOS to determine whether or not it uses the onboard video or another video card, so maybe I should change that first.....

 

Geeze, problems already and I haven't even done anything... I started the computer and the mouse wouldn't work. I had to pull it from the USB port and plug it back in. What's up with that?

 

I downloaded the installer from this thread: http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showtopic=107526

 

ATI Radeon HD 2600pro PciE

Device ID: 9589

Download

 

The file is called: ATI_Radeon_HD_2600Pro_Pcie_10.5.x.zip

 

Okay, I went into the BIOS. The BIOS option is "init display first" and you can choose between "PCI" and "onboard". Mine was already set to "PCI", although that's probably my doing from some earlier messing around. There are a few other options to set, none of which I fully understand, so right now I'm leaving it all as it is.

 

I'm going to first try installing the card without using the kext installer, just to see what happens. What do you think? Will I see any of the Dell startup screens? Will OSX boot? Will I see anything? Will I have to use the VGA or the DVI connector? I guess we'll see....

 

Because I'm making this a full-on, newbie installation step-by-step, I might as well include a link to the Inspiron530 manual which shows you how to install hardware into your computer:

http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/syst...s.htm#wp1079933

 

Okay, I installed the card into the machine. Plugged my monitor into the VGA port and started it up. Dell screen comes up... and OSX boots like there's no problem. Now, let's see what the system profiler says about my video and whether or not I can change resolutions...

 

No dice on changing resolutions, and this is what System Profiler says

 

Display:

 

Type: Display

Bus: PCIe

PCIe Lane Width: x16

VRAM (Total): 256 MB

Vendor: ATI (0x1002)

Device ID: 0x9589

Revision ID: 0x0000

Kernel Extension Info: No Kext Loaded

Displays:

Display:

Resolution: 1024 x 768

Depth: 32-bit Color

Core Image: Software

Main Display: Yes

Mirror: Off

Online: Yes

Quartz Extreme: Not Supported

 

Okay, I'm going to use the installer now. It does its thing and tells me it's going to reboot. Cool with me.

 

It reboots and... SUCCESSS!!!!! Awesome. I can now change resolutions and this is what System Profiler says now:

 

ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT:

 Chipset Model:	ATI Radeon HD 2600
 Type:	Display
 Bus:	PCIe
 PCIe Lane Width:	x16
 VRAM (Total):	256 MB
 Vendor:	ATI (0x1002)
 Device ID:	0x9589
 Revision ID:	0x0000
 ROM Revision:	113-B1480A-236
 EFI Driver Version:	01.00.236
 Displays:
CMC 17" AD:
 Resolution:	1024 x 768 @ 75 Hz
 Depth:	32-bit Color
 Core Image:	Hardware Accelerated
 Main Display:	Yes
 Mirror:	Off
 Online:	Yes
 Quartz Extreme:	Supported
 Rotation:	Supported
Display Connector:
 Status:	No display connected

 

And here's the info with both monitors hooked up

 

ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT:

 Chipset Model:	ATI Radeon HD 2600
 Type:	Display
 Bus:	PCIe
 PCIe Lane Width:	x16
 VRAM (Total):	256 MB
 Vendor:	ATI (0x1002)
 Device ID:	0x9589
 Revision ID:	0x0000
 ROM Revision:	113-B1480A-236
 EFI Driver Version:	01.00.236
 Displays:
CMC 17" AD:
 Resolution:	1024 x 768 @ 75 Hz
 Depth:	32-bit Color
 Core Image:	Hardware Accelerated
 Main Display:	Yes
 Mirror:	Off
 Online:	Yes
 Quartz Extreme:	Supported
 Rotation:	Supported
CMC 22 W:
 Resolution:	1680 x 1050 @ 60 Hz
 Depth:	32-bit Color
 Core Image:	Hardware Accelerated
 Mirror:	Off
 Online:	Yes
 Quartz Extreme:	Supported
 Rotation:	Supported

 

Sweet goodness!

 

Holy {censored} this is one of the coolest things ever. Dual monitors work. Mirroring or extended desktop. DVI works, my 22" monitor looks great! Final Cut Pro installed without a hitch. And SLEEP even works now!!!!!!

 

I'm as happy as a guy can be. I actually can't believe how easy it was to get this thing up and running. I hope I'm not counting my chickens too quickly here, but as far as I can tell, everything's working great. A full on dual-core 10.5.2 system that cost me about $300 for the computer and $40 for the video card. Awesome!!!!!

[HolyCrap]

Just a quick update. I wanted to open up one of my two available PCI slots so I could add another card of some sort if I wanted to. Unfortunately my two PCI slots were taken up with my firewire card and my ethernet card. Well I read here that the Datel Lan Adapter for Wii, which is a USB to Ethernet adapter, would work in both OSX and Windows, so I bought one used off of ebay for about $15 and plugged it in. I restarted the computer and I was good to go.

 

I haven't tested it in XP yet, but the OSX support was my only real concern.

[HolyCrap]

Some updates to this thread. In order to use certain software, I had to update my OSX to 10.5.3 I wrote down the steps at the time and will upload that information at some point in the future. I discovered some interesting things related to the network card and how my installation LOCKS itself to whatever ethernet card is installed at the time of software installation. very odd.

 

Somewhere during all of this process, I discovered that I was having USB problems. If USB devices were connected when booting up, there was no problem. However, when plugging USB devices into a running system, they wouldn't work properly. They WOULD show up in SystemProfiler, but would not be useable.

 

I suffered through this for a long while and eventually (as in, today) am fully discovering the solution. This appears to be related to a mismatch of system.kext and kernal. This is much more common than I thought and there's a huge thread dedicated to the topic, including an installer program which will (hopefully) solve my problem by changing my systems.kext from 9.2.2 to 9.2.0 to match my kernal.

 

Unfortunately, this problem seems to be directly connected to the Kalyway installation DVD which installs these mismatched items. Addtionally, according to the very long thread about this, the Kalyway installatino DVD ALSO by default installs something called pcgenusb2. This is in the "patches section of the installer" and it appears that this should be UN-checked if I were to ever do an install again (god, I hope not)

 

Here is a link to the massive thread which includes the installation program to fix the kext/kernal mismatch. I haven't tried it yet and will be backing up months of work before I do, just in case I get screwed

http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showtopic=95789

[HolyCrap]

I got my USB working and a new firewire card and that's working as well. Unfortunately, sleep now locks up everything so even though it will wake up, nothing works and I have to power the computer off. Also, I'd really like to get the onboard NIC working, which is reportedly possible but isn't working with my current install. There are a couple things I might try, but one of those is a brand new install using something different than Kalyway. People have reported much success with iATKOS, including use of the onboard NIC and it even allows apple updates, I hear.

 

One difference in the installation is that you apparently HAVE to make choices while installing iATKOS while Kalyway was a really easy installation that required almost no decisions on my part. Here is the iATKOS wiki that has some info:

http://iatkos.wikidot.com/

 

And here's a thread showing options that should work with my Insprion 530:

http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?s=&...t&p=1012060

[HolyCrap]

I've installed iATKOS v5i and am probably going to completely dissolve my relationship with the Kalyway 10.5.3 installation that I started with.

 

Because I'm cautious, and I have important work on the 10.5.3 drive, I've installed iATKOS onto a completely separate drive and kept my Kalyway installation safe. this is just in case something horrible happens with my iATKOS, or I find out that something isn't working as it should.

[HolyCrap]

All my iATKOS v5i installation info is in this new thread here:

http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?sho...=146330&hl=