Leopard Retail Install on Gigabyte GA-EG41MF-US2H Intel G41 with q8400

[ajclarkson]

UPDATE: 3/09/2009

 

I can confirm that retail will install on this board using the boot 123 method, and LAN works OOB. Audio was not detected and I did not look into this as I have a firewire interface, so use that instead. I am halting my experience with retail leopard for now because after hours of trying today I could not get it to play right with my 8600 GTS (was detecting as a GT and not enabling QE/CI which I suspect was causing my problems with front row and time machine interfaces not working). I no longer have time to address this as this is my business machine and I really need to get on with some work, so iPC will be going back on for the meantime, however running vanilla this will be remarkably close to a retail install, but with the luxury of all the hacked video drivers which allowed my system to work before.

 

 

 

 

========================================================================

 

UPDATE: 02/09/2009 - All of the parts turned up so I have the system built but because the retail leopard is demanding I repartition the hard drive (for GUID) I had to stick iPC on there and wait for the copying to be done. Could be tomorrow before I know for certain. Good news about iPC though, installed vanilla and only selected driver for video card and it worked flawlessly (inc. software update to 10.5.8)

 

more on the retail process tomorrow!

 

Hey guys,

 

So I hammered this forum when I installed my first AM2 hackintosh and it was a great help to read all of the experience before me. I am delving into the realms of 3d Graphic Modelling for a research MSc course starting next month, and my recording studio computer could do with a boost so I have gone for an upgrade. I searched around and found little information about the compatibility with the Gigabyte GA-EG41MF-US2H board although I have read things about the g41 chipset been well supported.

 

I decided to give something back to the community (if it fails I guess I'll go back to ubuntu studio) and give this board a go. Now all of the components should be arriving in ~12 hours so I will update this thread as I go, but as a forerunner here are the specifications of my machine:

 

Intel Core 2 Quad q8400

Gigabyte GA-EG41MF-US2H

3GB Corsair Twin XMS2 667mhz (plan to upgrade to 6gb soon)

MSI 8600GTS Passively Cooled (I think it was a GTS it's about 2 1/2 years old now)

640gb WD Caviar SATA drive

DVD-RW IDE or SATA which ever one works!

Terratec Phase 24 FW (firewire computer audio interface)

 

That's everything worth mentioning, watercooled but that makes little difference apart from margin for error when building!

 

So there we have it, I'll be logging everything I do as I install tomorrow so watch this space for information on this mainboard!

[serge sky]

Hiya!

 

I just bought this mobo and tried to install Snow Leo native. After update to 10.6.2 i got a "CPU 1 has no HPET assigned to it" kernel panic. I read it may be fixed by dsdt edit, but it don't want to compile - compiler said "unexpected end". No more ideas :censored2:

 

 

 

 

p.s. with rebel efi startup cd boots ok. 

[ajclarkson]

Hiya!

 

I just bought this mobo and tried to install Snow Leo native. After update to 10.6.2 i got a "CPU 1 has no HPET assigned to it" kernel panic. I read it may be fixed by dsdt edit, but it don't want to compile - compiler said "unexpected end". No more ideas

 

 

 

 

p.s. with rebel efi startup cd boots ok. 

 

Hi,

 

I didn't get round to trying retail SL just Leopard. I know very little about dsdt editing I'm afraid as the only SL install I have is on a Dell Mini 10 netbook and that had an installer which sorted everything out for it, I think your best bet might be to start a new thread, as this one might not get checked by the gurus due to it having a "leopard" title in the leopard section?

 

Sorry couldn't be of more help

 

Adam

[serge sky]

Hi bro,

 

there are some good news! I got a working native SL in this MoBo!

 

 

To install Snow Leo:

 

1) Enable HPET in BIOS, i choosed 64-bit mode. Also i disabled IDE and switched SATA to Enhanced mode (may be not mandatory, but as is))

 

2) Boot from any SL-supporting CD bootloader (i used psystar)

 

3) Bootloader gives us a possibilities to run original SL DVD and install OS from it. At the end of install process it says "Usucsesful" as always, its ok.

 

4) I installed 10.6.2 update before installing an HDD bootloader, think its better choice

 

5) Install a bootloader (Chameleon 2rc4) and added some kexts to Extra folder (attached).

 

6) Patch dsdt by a simple DSDTPatcher GUI app (or use my attached ready dsdt)

 

7) restart and enjoy

 

 

Anyway, there is still a lot of work - enable fan speed managing, sleep etc. But at least we have a fully working and operable system. Fans management and sleep are desireable, but not necessary.

 

p.s. i do not use onboard video, sound, and ps/2 devices.

DSDT.zip

Extra.rar

[toshinoris]

Mainboard : GA-EG41MF-US2H SNOW LEOPARD 10.6.3 RETAIL

 

 

 

Hard Disk Ata: Works perfect (enhanced mode in sata configuration in Bios)

 

DVD rom Ata: Works perfect

 

Hard Disk Sata in Raid:

chameleon installed on disk0s3 and disk1s3 on both helper partitions and rdisks using binaries from chameleon 2RC3.

 

Sound:

 

APPLEHDA + DSDT

HDA_ENABLER.zip

 

Install AppleHDA.kext to /S/L/Extensions HDAEnabler.kext /Extra/Extensions

 

 

 

Onboard Ethernet: Works perfect.

 

 

Graphic: Radeon 8600GT -- Efi Strings.

 

Onboard X4500 not working in Snow. No binary patched Kext and others . There are some projects and peoples working on it but nothing works so far. dvi and vga ports works but no QE acceleration and no wide resolution.

 

SLEEP: WORKING !!! perfectly !!! - SleepEnabler

 

FIREWIRE: WORKING !!! perfectly !!!

 

 

Files for this Motherboard

 

 

BootLoader Chameleon 2RC3

Chameleon_2_RC3.zip

 

Raid install method from this file chameleon_2_RC3_binaries.zip

 

 

My extra Folder with DSDT.aml and kext's used.

 

/Extra Extra.zip

 

/Extra/Extensions Extensions.zip

 

 

 

!!!!!!! Edit files before use. There are uid of my hard drive and efi strings for Graphic. !!!!!!!!

voodoo.zip

[jason_kerner]

Mainboard : GA-EG41MF-US2H SNOW LEOPARD 10.6.3 RETAIL

 

 

 

Hard Disk Ata: Works perfect (enhanced mode in sata configuration in Bios)

 

DVD rom Ata: Works perfect

 

Hard Disk Sata in Raid:

chameleon installed on disk0s3 and disk1s3 on both helper partitions and rdisks using binaries from chameleon 2RC3.

 

Sound:

 

APPLEHDA + DSDT

HDA_ENABLER.zip

 

Install AppleHDA.kext to /S/L/Extensions HDAEnabler.kext /Extra/Extensions

 

 

 

Onboard Ethernet: Works perfect.

 

 

Graphic: Radeon 8600GT -- Efi Strings.

 

Onboard X4500 not working in Snow. No binary patched Kext and others . There are some projects and peoples working on it but nothing works so far. dvi and vga ports works but no QE acceleration and no wide resolution.

 

SLEEP: WORKING !!! perfectly !!! - SleepEnabler

 

FIREWIRE: WORKING !!! perfectly !!!

 

 

Files for this Motherboard

 

 

BootLoader Chameleon 2RC3

Chameleon_2_RC3.zip

 

Raid install method from this file chameleon_2_RC3_binaries.zip

 

 

My extra Folder with DSDT.aml and kext's used.

 

/Extra Extra.zip

 

/Extra/Extensions Extensions.zip

 

 

 

!!!!!!! Edit files before use. There are uid of my hard drive and efi strings for Graphic. !!!!!!!!

 

 

How did you get Chameleon installed with the Extras you've used exactly? I can't manage to make it work - same motherboard, got 10.6.3 installed on hard drive, but can't get it to boot without a USB or CD bootloader

 

Jason

[coopersed]

I have got this MB working with a Nvidia 8400GS card.

 

I followed all the steps in post #4 by Serge Sky except I used a 10.6.0 retail DVD and updated straight to 10.6.4.

 

I found it easiest to use the Pystar CD boot loader which I got from a famous torrent site.

 

I used EFI strings to enable the graphics card which works perfectly.

 

Chameleon 2RC4 worked best as my boot loader.

 

I tried using DSDT's attached to previous posts but had no luck so I just patched my own. Until I did so i had to use the Pystar CD boot loader

 

To patch the DSDT which is a must I followed the guide on tonyMacX86 Blog, DSDT fixes. Not everything is relevant to this motherboard (speed step for example) but it explains how to cover the essentials and gives you the patches. Took me about 30 mins to work out what to do. I pretty much patched for everything I could except the graphics card but just did the essentials and USB patches initially.

 

The extensions I am using in my Extra folder are just:

 

fakesmc.kext

NullCPUPowerManagement.kext

SleepEnabler.kext

 

You need to have the latest versions of all of these and for the first boot just use fakesmc.kext. Make sure you have the latest SleepEnabler.kext or it will cause kernel panics at startup. Then add the others checking for stability.

 

I haven't got my audio working yet but I'm not too fussed as I use an external USB audio card anyway.

 

I also have Vista installed on a separate drive which I can choose at start up if needed.

 

The computer works flawlessly and has been in constant use as a Mac for three weeks now without a single crash.

[ajclarkson]

I've now managed to get this drive running flawlessly on snow leopard with a Nvidia 8600GT and a wireless PCI card that several others have had issues with. I'm going to write up the process as a new thread, as this is in the leopard sub forum. I'm just posting this as a notice to future searchers and people subscribed to this thread. I'll update it with a link when I have one.

[lolo6tm]

Hi,

 

With your help i managed to install a 64 bits 10.6.5 OS X Server retail, but i'm still unable to get Sleep working even with a recent SleepEnabler (from kext.com).

 

I used DSDTSE to create and edit dsdt.aml (see attached). I did not insert GFX in it as i prefer to use EFI string or GraphicsEnabler (easier to change graphic card).

 

Any help plz ?

 

GA_EG41MF_US2H_dsdt.aml.zip

[ajclarkson]

Hi,

 

With your help i managed to install a 64 bits 10.6.5 OS X Server retail, but i'm still unable to get Sleep working even with a recent SleepEnabler (from kext.com).

 

I used DSDTSE to create and edit dsdt.aml (see attached). I did not insert GFX in it as i prefer to use EFI string or GraphicsEnabler (easier to change graphic card).

 

Any help plz ?

 

 

Hi There,

 

Glad you managed to get things mostly working. I am using the latest version of sleepenabler which can be found on this board (I didn't try the kexts.com one)

 

It's this link here:

 

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=196466

 

Give it a shot and see if it helps. At the minute I've got a DSDT free install (I chose to just put a few necessary kexts in instead) If the new sleep enabler doesn't work, let me know and I'll post what I have in the way of extra kexts.

 

Cheers

 

Adam

[lolo6tm]

Thanks ajclarkson for your help,

unfortunately that SleepEnabler gives me a Kernel Panic. I haven't tried without dsdt.aml but i would prefer with it.

At the moment i only have the followings kext in my Extra/Extensions folder :

• fakesmc.kext
  
• NullCPUPowerManagement.kext
  

As you said before, giving me what kext you're using would be really appreciated and really kind from you.

 

Thanks again

[ajclarkson]

Thanks ajclarkson for your help,

unfortunately that SleepEnabler gives me a Kernel Panic. I haven't tried without dsdt.aml but i would prefer with it.

At the moment i only have the followings kext in my Extra/Extensions folder :

• fakesmc.kext
  
• NullCPUPowerManagement.kext
  

As you said before, giving me what kext you're using would be really appreciated and really kind from you.

 

Thanks again

 

 

Im on my office PC at the minute but I will post again when I get home, I seem to remember some Chipset Kext that I have or other. Will post again soon!

 

Happy to help

[lolo6tm]

Great great great, can't wait wor it ... Thx a lot

 

NB: @toshinoris the integrated network doesn't work perfect at all. It seems to but it doesn't. Indeed, if you have a look in System Profiler > Ethernet, you'll see it is using the R8129 driver. Even if it works, after some time AFP shares dissappear on network and services (if you enabled some) cannot be reached. I noticed this because i installed a Server release.

 

Solution > Use the driver installer from this place : http://www.kexts.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=538

 

Then it should be recognized and using the good driver.