Installing OS X 10.5.8 on MSI P45 NEO-F

[tadbattery]

After much time and research, I have a fully working (except Time Machine, but working on that) Mac OS X 10.5.8 system with the following specs:

 

MSI P45 NEO-F

Intel Core 2 Duo E4300

Nvidia GeForce 8600 GTS 256Mb

4Gb Corsair XMS2 DDR2 800MHz

Realtek ALC888 HD audio

Realtek 8111C 10/100/1000 Ethernet

500Gb SATA HDD - Windows 7

160Gb SATA HDD - Mac OS X

SATA DVD RW 22x

 

Here is what I did:

- Download JaS 10.5.4 and burn the ISO to a DVD, also download iDeneb Combo Update 10.5.8, OSx86 Tools, and VoodooHDA.kext and put them on a USB flash drive for later. Leave the USB drive in the computer as there is a USB issue where it takes 5+ minutes for the drive to mount if not plugged in at system start (this will be fixed later on in this guide).

- Go to the BIOS and set raid from IDE to AHCI

- Boot JaS 10.5.4, hit F8 at the prompt and type "cpus=1" without quotations and then enter

- After a little bit, everything should boot to the install screen. Go to Utilities > Disk Utilities to partition your HDD

- Close the Disk Utility and select your newly partitioned HDD

- Select Customize and use these options

- Intel SSE2 SSE3 9.2.0 Sleep Kernel package

- Intel ICHx chipset driver

- JMicron Controller

- NVKush

- RTL8187 network (this works)

- DO NOT SELECT AN AUDIO DRIVER. WE WILL FIX THIS LATER.

- After the install is successful (I've done this many times, and have only had an issue on a couple occasions), reboot and hit any key for the prompt. Type "cpus=1" "-f" without quotations and hit enter

- Watch the pretty Welcome video and follow the prompts to get to the desktop. Once at the desktop, pull OSx86 to the desktop. Backup kexts to file of your choice. Use OSx86 to install VoodooHDA.kext and then restart with "cpus=1" and "-f" at the prompt

- Run OSx86 and repair permissions

- Open USB drive and pull to desktop Deneb.Combo.Upgrade.v1058 folder to desktop. Open and run iDeneb.MacOSx86ComboUpd10.5.8.pkg. This will update your system from 10.5.4 to 10.5.8. These updates also fixed the USB issue noted before.

- Restart with "cpus=1" and "-f", repair permissions with OSx86

- Now chose Deneb.Tool.v10.5.8.mpkg from the iDeneb.Combo.Upgrade.v1058 folder. Select these options

- Chameleon v2 RC2

- DSDT Patcher

- Install and reboot to the new boot loader. Type "-f" and hit enter. DO NOT USE "cpus=1" now because both CPU cores now work!

- Open OSx86 tools and repair permissions

 

Everything should now work except Time Machine (currently fixing)! I hope this helps!

 

I am not sure if this works for all MSI NEO boards, but it should be a place to start.

 

::EDIT::

Software update will work for all non system Apple programs (iTunes, Quicktime, etc.). Security updates SHOULD be okay, but NEVER DO SYSTEM UPDATES FROM SOFTWARE UPDATE!

 

::EDIT EDIT::

After much tinkering, I have been able to go vanilla with this system. iDeneb 10.5.8 was the distro I used. The trick to getting it to work is using the old AHCI I got off of iPC 10.5.7.

[anusornsan]

Hey tad,

 

"After much tinkering, I have been able to go vanilla with this system. iDeneb 10.5.8 was the distro I used. The trick to getting it to work is using the old AHCI I got off of iPC 10.5.7."

 

Could you elaborate on how you did this?

[gloveofpower]

 Good to see that it's possible!  I have a system somewhat similar to yours but I have been having problems.  Just registered here and I hope to start up a thread to see if I can get it resolved.  Thanks for sharing your success story

[anusornsan]

I have the MSI P45 Neo3-F and I'm starting to give up hope on it.

 

I've tried iAtkos v7 and iDeneb and get the "still waiting for root device" problem.

 

Which is why I want to know how tad "used the old AHCI I got off of iPC 10.5.7 on iDeneb 10.5.8"

 

Currently downloading Jas 10.5.4 and will see what happens. :sigh:

 

Any help or tutorial would be greatly appreciated, I've spent a ton of hours looking through forums already.

[tadbattery]

The fix from iPC is basically just a .kext file. To get it, just put the iPC dvd in and deselect everything. You do not need any kernals, system software, OS X files. Select the old AHCI and install. Thats what I did and everything worked.

 

**Go to the BIOS and set raid from IDE to AHCI** This is very important!

[anusornsan]

Thanks tad. but for some odd reason I couldn't get the iDeneb 10.5.8 to install... it would always freeze after 20 seconds saying calculating time

 

In the end, this was how I got OSX installed. (for others who will try to install OSX on this board)

 

I used iAtkos 10.5.7. Which I could install but then after reboot would give me the "using 10485 buffer headers and 4096 cluster IO buffer headers" error and hang.

I used #1 method under this guide (http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=78235) to fix that. (hooked up the hard drive with iAtkos installed to my PC running windows installed then proceeded to put the patched kexts on the hard drive via MacDrive 7)

 

After that it boots and works fine.

I skipped right through and installed Snow Leopard via MyHack Installer --> http://osx86.sojugarden.com/category/myhack-utilities/

(using an external hard drive that I had). Really easy and everything works right out of box except for sound which you can fix by using the voodoohda kext provided in this thread --> http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=188090

 

I could install 10.6.1 but couldn't install 10.6.2 (only because I have a 4890 and it's not supported very well by the update)

 

My specs are:

 

Intel Core2Quad Q9400 (running at 3.2ghz)

MSI P45 Neo3-FR

ATI Radeon HD4890

4gb 800mhz Ram

640gb Hard Drive

 

Overall the key to success was a LOT of patience...