[GUIDE] Snow Leopard on the Nforce 680i (And presumably the 650i) simplified

[Wrenbird]

Well let me start out with my greetings to you all. It's been a very long time since I've been active in the OSx86 project. I've been using my Macbook for more than a year now with no problems, and just haven't had the time I used to to devote to this project. I was extremely bored this weekend, so I decided to attempt to get Snow Leopard running on my Nforce 680i rig. Now for the goodies.

 

To start, I began with Lifehacker's method, minus the portions in which he gives instructions for semi-specific hardware.

 

Then, I replaced the Chameleon package he mentions with Dr. Hurt's release, found here.

 

Next, I used the extensions from "Snow_Support_Files_V2" in Verdant's guide, following his simple instruction.

 

After that was all said and done, I booted my Snow Leopard installer from my flash drive with the boot flag "arch=i386" (Without quotes) NOTE: This will need to be done every time you boot, whether it be the installer or the installed OS. . I then proceeded with installation.

 

SECOND NOTE: Even after installation, continue booting with Chameleon from your installer. Once Snow Leo is installed, you can install Chameleon to your boot drive if desired, using the same method, including the kexts.

 

At this point, specific hardware support comes in to play. I'm just going to continue with what I did for my hardware, hoping this helps someone. All my hardware is listed in my sig.

 

My wireless card, much to my surprise, was immediately recognized.

 

To get my graphics card working, I added my device ID to info.plist in geforce.kext. Here's a mini guide to it that I wrote a while ago. This applies to most (or all, I'm not sure) geforce graphics cards.

 

Grab geforce.kext from your extensions folder and make a copy on your desktop. secondary click, and click show package contents. Open info.plist.

 

Look for this:

0x000010de & 0x0000ffff

 

The first set will be the first thing changed. Specifically, these: 0x000010de. add your four letter/number device ID, replacing the four bold-faced 0's. this can be found at system profiler --> graphics/displays

It should now look like this (this one is mine): 0x029210de

The second part is easy. 0x0000ffff

change the bold-faced 0's to f's.

Save the info.plist.

Open up kexthelper (it's included in "Snow_Support_Files_V2"), and drag your modified geforce.kext into it. enter your password, and hit the magic button

 

Since my graphics card is old, I needed to install Titan. I don't know where to get this, but there certainly are sources. I found it in an old uphuck tiger release.

 

I also got the azalia audio installer from an uphuck release.

 

After I got everything working, I noticed I was getting intermittent system hangs which forced me to restart my computer. I thought it must be something to do with one of those kexts from "Snow_Support_Files_V2". So I removed all the kexts from the "Extras" folder (putting them in a backup folder) and installed ONLY AppleNforceATA.slash.kext and dsmos.kext using kexthelper.

 

After all of those steps, my Snow Leopard install is working (seemingly) flawlessly. I've read issues about sleep mode, but I haven't even attempted using sleep.

 

With this guide, I'm going to bid my farewell to Insanelymac and the OSx86 community. It's been a pleasure working with you all, and I wouldn't trade my experiences on this site for anything. It truly has been great.

 

I apologize, but any questions anyone has on this guide will not be answered by me, as this is my last active login.

 

Goodbye Insanelymac! I'll miss you all.

[Napka]

I got SL working on same chipset. I build it from parts I had, so don't wonder about strange HW combination. I tried to make this mobo work with OSX some years ago, it was close to impossible. Nowadays it's very easy.

 

MB: EVGA N680i SLI (122-CK-NF68-AR)

CPU: E4500

GPU: GeForce 6600 LE 128Mb

HDD: Hitachi HDS725050KLA360 (SATA 500Gb)

 

System boots with default BIOS settings, I've just disabled serial port because I don't need it.

 

Kexts used to install snow leopard from retail CD and run it:

 

AppleNForceATA.kext (.TEST version from site)

EvOreboot.kext

FakeSMC.kext

nForceLAN.kext

VoodooHDA.kext

 

Until you have your dsdt.aml, you'll need NullCPUPowerManagement.kext or you'll get an error about unsupported processor.

 

Also, I boot with -x32 kernel option in my com.apple.Boot.plist. Didn't even try to boot in 64bit mode

 

When I got system installed and booted, I used EvO DSDTSE application to make my own dsdt.aml. This fixed CMOS clear on boot, allowed to use legacy AppleCPUPowerManagement, fixed Power button recognition. You should look at .aml compile warnings and fix them, if there are any.

 

To get GeForce working, I added EFI string generated by EFI Studio to Chameleon's com.apple.Boot.plist.

 

System works stable now with latest updates including OSX 10.6.6. Now I'm looking forward to make sleep work. If I get it, I'll put more powerful CPU and try to make SLI work.

 

I'll put my DSDT file as an example (you can decompile it), but I can't gurantee that it will work for you. Use on your own risk.

dsdt.zip