NEW INSTALL: DELL OPTIPLEX 755 SUCCESS for the most part

[artdept]

OK, heres the deal.

I had a spare dell optiplex 755 base model lying around and i figured it would be fun to try and "hackintosh"

( Ive got 3 GENUINE MACS that i use every day) noetheless after a lot of reading of the boards I was excited to hear about being able to install from a apple retail dvd As 1. it would save me time from downloading a torrrent, & 2 ..More importantly, It might give the machine to be able to update via apple software update without any problems...

More reading i did..... and took the plunge. I read and followed the instructions all the boot loader stuff, and disk utility, and Guid, etc etc etc... after about 4 hours i got it to install osx. AWESOME i thought , but wait my screen resolution sucks 1024x768 , oh darn my onboard ether net doesn't work.... Bad screen resolution and no ethernet = no fun. More reading , um kext files sound very promising .. after attempting those with osx86 tools , i still could not get ethernet , nor video ( other then 1024x768) to work,however i did get the audio drivers to work ( the front audi output jack does not work nor does the internal speaker, but the back audio jack does work and sounds great when plugged in to a good set of speakers) I ended up pulling a old pci sonnet wireless card that i had in a old apple g5 and it installed fine and auto recognized as a airport card .. Nice!!! im feeling good , Finally internet access wireless even.

Now the real test. Try software update and update from 10.5 retail disc to 10.5.6 about a hour download from apple the moment of truth came... restart cross fingers and yes, Re boots no problem. everything is still up and running. this is real awesome. installed adobe illustrator and photoshop and the machine is still working fine.

 

heres the part where you come in.

 

How can i get better video resoltion , everything that i read on the boards gets me thinking im 1. stuck with this resolution. or 2. I should try installing a "real" video card and not bother with the on board video..

idealy i would like to avoid buying a new video card, as they seem to be about $100+ Is there a kext soloution that im not seeing? or am i installing it wrong?

 

the 2nd issue that i have with this "hackitosh" is that i have to boot up having a "grub" bootcd in the drive upon startup. from what i read i think its possible to turn on the machine and have it automatically boot right into osx, but im not to familiar with using the terminal app. Tried using osx86 tools kext helper, efi studio and nothing seems to work, I Think it must be something im doing wrong. any help that you can provide on these to minor issues would be greatly appreciated.

 

On a side note, Im very impressed on all the great work some of the members have done on this and the hackint0sh board. It is truely amazing how smart some of these guys are. the post have been very helpful and have gotten me this far which i feel is a huge accomplishment. thank you thank you thank you.

 

 

some specs about the set up

 

dell optiplex 755

base model

DVD / CDR Combo drive that works and burns cds no problem

80GB3 SATA 3.0Gb/s and 8MB DataBurst Cache

intel core 2 duo 2.0 ghz

1.0GB DDR2 Non-ECC SDRAM, 800MHz, (1DIMM)m

Intergrated video and lan

original keyboard and windows optiocal mouse.

durring instal, osx did not recogonise the keyboard so it it assigned it as genieric.

I replaced with a older genuine apple white full size keyboard and optical wheel mouse and it auto recognized it with full functions including adjusting volume on keyboard and the standard ( not f12) cd eject key on the mac keyboard

 

 

the dell specs says that it should have a Video Card

Integrated Video, Intel® GMA3100, however when i check the stats using OSx86 tools it tells me that i have a

 

 

 

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation 82Q35 Express Integrated Graphics Controller [8086:29b2] (rev 02)

00:02.1 Display controller [0380]: Intel Corporation 82Q35 Express Integrated Graphics Controller [8086:29b3] (rev 02)

00:03.0 Communication controller [0780]: Intel Corporation 82Q35 Express MEI Controller [8086:29b4] (rev 02)

00:03.2 IDE interface [0101]: Intel Corporation 82Q35 Express PT IDER Controller [8086:29b6] (rev 02)

00:03.3 Serial controller [0700]: Intel Corporation 82Q35 Express Serial KT Controller [8086:29b7] (rev 02)

00:19.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Intel Corporation 82566DM-2 Gigabit Network Connection [8086:10bd] (rev 02)

 

00:1b.0 Audio device [0403]: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) HD Audio Controller [8086:293e] (rev 02)

00:1c.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 1 [8086:2940] (rev 02)

00:1d.0 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 [8086:2934] (rev 02)

 

00:1e.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 82801 PCI Bridge [8086:244e] (rev 92)

00:1f.0 ISA bridge [0601]: Intel Corporation 82801IO (ICH9DO) LPC Interface Controller [8086:2914] (rev 02)

00:1f.2 SATA controller [0106]: Intel Corporation 82801IR/IO/IH (ICH9R/DO/DH) 6 port SATA AHCI Controller [8086:2922] (rev 02)

00:1f.3 SMBus [0c05]: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) SMBus Controller [8086:2930] (rev 02)

 

 

Tis is the wireless card i installed" 03:02.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Corporation BCM4306 802.11b/g Wireless LAN Controller [14e4:4320] (rev 03)

 

 

again any input would be great, thanks

 

Update : After reading some more i found a temp work around for the video issue posted by br123

 

 

"No QE/CI enabled. You can watch movies but it will probably stutter, and games are out of the question. Things like iTunes coverflow won't work either. There's probably a lot. It's not so bad that you could use it to do stuff like surf the web, type up documents, etc (you'd have to use openoffice or ms office for mac for that though - iwork doesn't work without QE/CI)

 

To boot up into a specific graphics mode, go to /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration, and add the following lines to com.apple.boot.plist:

 

<key>Graphics Mode</key>

<string>1280x1024x32</string> (or whatever resolution you want. DON'T add something like @60 - that makes leopard unbootable and you have to boot into an installation disc and fix it manually or reinstall. its a pain in the butt).

 

Don't add these two lines at the end though. I think you can figure out where it goes if you're into this Osx86 stuff. Just put it right after the last <key>...<string> entry. If you have any questions please ask.

 

Also, Leopard might not let you save the .plist file even if you're an admin. To get around this, first copy the .plist file onto your desktop, change it and save it, then drag it back into the SystemConfiguration folder, and type in your password when you're asked to authenticate.

 

this worked, thanks br123 ... resolution is much better but edges of icons and text are pixaly and not anti aliased?

i will such for other settings to find a optimal solution.

 

.UPDATE SUNDAY ... Chameloeon installed. No more boot up cd!

picked up a BFG nvidia geforce 7300gs installed and could not get it to work,

back to intergrated vide. they are worse things in life.

[rramdin]

THANK YOU!!! This was very helpful to me. Did you ever get the 7300gs working? I have the same machine and video card. I think the problem is that the EFI string generator I've been using doesn't work properly in Snow Leopard. Have you managed to generate an EFI string that work for this video card on this machine? It's the only thing between me and perfection.

 

Cheers,

Robby

 

OK, heres the deal.

I had a spare dell optiplex 755 base model lying around and i figured it would be fun to try and "hackintosh"

( Ive got 3 GENUINE MACS that i use every day) noetheless after a lot of reading of the boards I was excited to hear about being able to install from a apple retail dvd As 1. it would save me time from downloading a torrrent, & 2 ..More importantly, It might give the machine to be able to update via apple software update without any problems...

More reading i did..... and took the plunge. I read and followed the instructions all the boot loader stuff, and disk utility, and Guid, etc etc etc... after about 4 hours i got it to install osx. AWESOME i thought , but wait my screen resolution sucks 1024x768 , oh darn my onboard ether net doesn't work.... Bad screen resolution and no ethernet = no fun. More reading , um kext files sound very promising .. after attempting those with osx86 tools , i still could not get ethernet , nor video ( other then 1024x768) to work,however i did get the audio drivers to work ( the front audi output jack does not work nor does the internal speaker, but the back audio jack does work and sounds great when plugged in to a good set of speakers) I ended up pulling a old pci sonnet wireless card that i had in a old apple g5 and it installed fine and auto recognized as a airport card .. Nice!!! im feeling good , Finally internet access wireless even.

Now the real test. Try software update and update from 10.5 retail disc to 10.5.6 about a hour download from apple the moment of truth came... restart cross fingers and yes, Re boots no problem. everything is still up and running. this is real awesome. installed adobe illustrator and photoshop and the machine is still working fine.

 

heres the part where you come in.

 

How can i get better video resoltion , everything that i read on the boards gets me thinking im 1. stuck with this resolution. or 2. I should try installing a "real" video card and not bother with the on board video..

idealy i would like to avoid buying a new video card, as they seem to be about $100+ Is there a kext soloution that im not seeing? or am i installing it wrong?

 

the 2nd issue that i have with this "hackitosh" is that i have to boot up having a "grub" bootcd in the drive upon startup. from what i read i think its possible to turn on the machine and have it automatically boot right into osx, but im not to familiar with using the terminal app. Tried using osx86 tools kext helper, efi studio and nothing seems to work, I Think it must be something im doing wrong. any help that you can provide on these to minor issues would be greatly appreciated.

 

On a side note, Im very impressed on all the great work some of the members have done on this and the hackint0sh board. It is truely amazing how smart some of these guys are. the post have been very helpful and have gotten me this far which i feel is a huge accomplishment. thank you thank you thank you.

 

 

some specs about the set up

 

dell optiplex 755

base model

DVD / CDR Combo drive that works and burns cds no problem

80GB3 SATA 3.0Gb/s and 8MB DataBurst Cache

intel core 2 duo 2.0 ghz

1.0GB DDR2 Non-ECC SDRAM, 800MHz, (1DIMM)m

Intergrated video and lan

original keyboard and windows optiocal mouse.

durring instal, osx did not recogonise the keyboard so it it assigned it as genieric.

I replaced with a older genuine apple white full size keyboard and optical wheel mouse and it auto recognized it with full functions including adjusting volume on keyboard and the standard ( not f12) cd eject key on the mac keyboard

 

 

the dell specs says that it should have a Video Card

Integrated Video, Intel� GMA3100, however when i check the stats using OSx86 tools it tells me that i have a

 

 

 

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation 82Q35 Express Integrated Graphics Controller [8086:29b2] (rev 02)

00:02.1 Display controller [0380]: Intel Corporation 82Q35 Express Integrated Graphics Controller [8086:29b3] (rev 02)

00:03.0 Communication controller [0780]: Intel Corporation 82Q35 Express MEI Controller [8086:29b4] (rev 02)

00:03.2 IDE interface [0101]: Intel Corporation 82Q35 Express PT IDER Controller [8086:29b6] (rev 02)

00:03.3 Serial controller [0700]: Intel Corporation 82Q35 Express Serial KT Controller [8086:29b7] (rev 02)

00:19.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Intel Corporation 82566DM-2 Gigabit Network Connection [8086:10bd] (rev 02)

 

00:1b.0 Audio device [0403]: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) HD Audio Controller [8086:293e] (rev 02)

00:1c.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 1 [8086:2940] (rev 02)

00:1d.0 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 [8086:2934] (rev 02)

 

00:1e.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 82801 PCI Bridge [8086:244e] (rev 92)

00:1f.0 ISA bridge [0601]: Intel Corporation 82801IO (ICH9DO) LPC Interface Controller [8086:2914] (rev 02)

00:1f.2 SATA controller [0106]: Intel Corporation 82801IR/IO/IH (ICH9R/DO/DH) 6 port SATA AHCI Controller [8086:2922] (rev 02)

00:1f.3 SMBus [0c05]: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) SMBus Controller [8086:2930] (rev 02)

 

 

Tis is the wireless card i installed" 03:02.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Corporation BCM4306 802.11b/g Wireless LAN Controller [14e4:4320] (rev 03)

 

 

again any input would be great, thanks

 

Update : After reading some more i found a temp work around for the video issue posted by br123

 

 

"No QE/CI enabled. You can watch movies but it will probably stutter, and games are out of the question. Things like iTunes coverflow won't work either. There's probably a lot. It's not so bad that you could use it to do stuff like surf the web, type up documents, etc (you'd have to use openoffice or ms office for mac for that though - iwork doesn't work without QE/CI)

 

To boot up into a specific graphics mode, go to /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration, and add the following lines to com.apple.boot.plist:

 

<key>Graphics Mode</key>

<string>1280x1024x32</string> (or whatever resolution you want. DON'T add something like @60 - that makes leopard unbootable and you have to boot into an installation disc and fix it manually or reinstall. its a pain in the butt).

 

Don't add these two lines at the end though. I think you can figure out where it goes if you're into this Osx86 stuff. Just put it right after the last <key>...<string> entry. If you have any questions please ask.

 

Also, Leopard might not let you save the .plist file even if you're an admin. To get around this, first copy the .plist file onto your desktop, change it and save it, then drag it back into the SystemConfiguration folder, and type in your password when you're asked to authenticate.

 

this worked, thanks br123 ... resolution is much better but edges of icons and text are pixaly and not anti aliased?

i will such for other settings to find a optimal solution.

 

.UPDATE SUNDAY ... Chameloeon installed. No more boot up cd!

picked up a BFG nvidia geforce 7300gs installed and could not get it to work,

back to intergrated vide. they are worse things in life.