[Guide] MSI X58 Pro-E, i7 920, PNY XLR8 GTX 260 - 10.6 Retail DVD/iBoot/MultiBeast

[robotirl]

I'm running 10.6.3 (updated 10.6 -> 10.6.1 -> 10.6.2 -> 10.6.3) on an MSI X58 Pro-E with an i7 920, PNY XLR8 GeForce GTX 260 896MB DDR3 448-bit, 6GB DDR3 G-series RAM by Patriot, 1TB Seagate 7200RPM SATA drive.

 

This setup has handled everything I've thrown at it with ease. The GTX 260 has full QE/CI support and no problems using two displays via the 2 DVI ports. One display is a 42" LG 1080p TV, which I'm usually running Boxee on, and the other is a 21" monitor - it doesn't matter what applications I'm running along with Boxee (photoshop, itunes, firefox gizmo5, mail, cal, adium, VNC, parallels, etc etc) the computer never gives a single hiccup.

 

I used the 10.6 Retail DVD/[url="http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/"]#####[/url]/[url="http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/"]#####[/url] installation guide (dont slack off on following the guide... Yeah...I didn't feel like removing RAM either, but DO IT!) found on the OSX86 wiki, followed the instructions to update to 10.6.3, but I haven't gotten around to 10.6.4 yet. I want to clone my drive before I update, since I actually have important data on it now. I used [url="http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/"]#####[/url] NVIDIA, but looking back, I may have been able to use [url="http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/"]#####[/url] supported instead, since it supports the i7 920. As far as [url="http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/"]#####[/url] 2.0, I selected the following options:

 

1. [url="http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/"]#####[/url] > [url="http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/"]#####[/url] for Unsupported CPU (or supported if you used [url="http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/"]#####[/url] supported)

 

 

2. System Utilities> Install both Rebuild Caches & Repair Permissions

 

 

3. Advanced Options> Kexts>Audio>VooDooHDA 0.2.61

 

 

3b. Misc.>USBFamilyMOD 2.0

 

 

4. Advanced Options>Optional Kernels>10.3.1 Supported Kernel ((NOTE: with the 10.3.1 supported kernel selected, [url="http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/"]#####[/url] for Unsupported CPU may not be required. (this is my first hackintosh so excuse my noobism) Based on reading the description in [url="http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/"]#####[/url] at the time, I just decided to select both 1 and 4. It works perfect so I never needed to troubleshoot and actually find out for sure.))

 

 

5. (Optional, so system profiler doesn't show quad-core Xeon)

 

Advanced Options>smbios.plist> then select the Core i7 option from

MacPro4,1 or iMac11,1

 

I also have a 1.5TB HDD with Windows 7, and using the BIOS user settings feature, I can quickly and easily switch between OS X and Win 7 BIOS settings. With NTFS for Mac & MacDrive 8 in Windows, file transfers between the two HDD couldn't be easier. Finally, an all-in-one solution that satisfies my needs... no more "this program sounds very useful.. oh wait its for mac only" or vise versa.

 

Hopefully this guide isn't too vague. This being my first hackintosh attempt, everything went much better than expected. I probably used google half a million times during the whole process, but the InsanelyMac forums, OSX86 wiki, and tonymacx86 blog contained all of the information I needed, so a BIG THANK YOU to everyone involved in making those communities possible.

 

Feel free to post any questions you have about the process (keep in mind though, I am 0% expert). If this guide helped you get your hackintosh up and running, finish having your nerdgasm, then tell us about your experience.

[fr0z]

Other guides for the i7 require you to boot with the "-v busratio=20 cpus=1" flag until you patch the DSDT. Did you have to do this?

 

Thanks for the guide, though. As soon as my harddrive comes in the mail, I'm going to be trying this out!

[robotirl]

Other guides for the i7 require you to boot with the "-v busratio=20 cpus=1" flag until you patch the DSDT. Did you have to do this?

 

Thanks for the guide, though. As soon as my harddrive comes in the mail, I'm going to be trying this out!

 

Yes, thanks for pointing that out. I did use the "-v busratio=20 cpus=1" tags until I patched with [url="http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/"]#####[/url].

[kurei]

Hi,

Thanks a lot for your guide. I did manage to boot into snow leopard using [url="http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/"]#####[/url]+[url="http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/"]#####[/url] guide but i had to update to 10.6.4 because im running an ATI Radeon 5850 card. My problem now is that I can boot with everything working fine using an i boot disc. but not from my snow leopard partition. Options i used were same as yours apart from optional kernel where i used 10.4.0 and usb where i didn't do anything as it was working out of the box. I go into a reboot loop if i try to boot without [url="http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/"]#####[/url]. Have tried almost all different flags.

 

This is my first hackintosh build too... would really appreciate some help