Jump to content

Guide: Retail Snow Leopard on AMD GA-K8NF-9


crazyJAT
 Share

2 posts in this topic

Recommended Posts

This guide will walk you through the steps needed to install Snow Leopard from a retail install disc. We will be starting with a 10.6.0 install disc and applying the combo updated to 10.6.6.

 

This guide was written for the Gigabyte GA-K8NF-9 version 1.x motherboard, however it should also work with version 2.x.

 

Requirements

 

Download the 10.6.6 Combo Update

Download the Nawcom Mod CD

Download the Legacy 10.6.6 kernel

Download DSDTSE

Download the support files

GA_K8NF_9.zip

Step 1 : Please Read First!

 

The GA-K8NF-9 motherboard is compatible with a CPU that has support for SSE3, but also works with CPUs that only support SSE2. This is a very important distinction and you need to verify that your CPU does support SSE3 before continuing. To do this, I would recommend that you download the Gentoo Linux install cd found at http://www.gentoo.org/main/en/where.xml. Once you have burned the image to CD, boot from the disc. When the system boots and your are at the bash prompt, you can type in cat /proc/cpuinfo. This should output something similar to:

 

# cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor		 : 0
vendor_id         : AuthenticAMD
cpu family        : 15
model             : 47
model name        : AMD Athlon(™) 64 Processor 3500+
stepping          : 2
cpu MHz           : 2211.679
cache size        : 512 KB
fdiv_bug          : no
hlt_bug           : no
f00f_bug          : no
coma_bug          : no
fpu               : yes
fpu_exception     : yes
cpuid level       : 1
wp                : yes
flags             : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 syscall nx mmxext fxsr_opt lm 3dnowext 3dnow pni lahf_1m
bogomips          : 4423.35
clflush size      : 64
cache_alignment   : 64
address sizes     : 40 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management  : ts fid vid ttp tm stc

Some AMD CPUs will say SSE3 under flags. This particular CPU is SSE3 capable, but does not say so in the flags. A better method to verify is to compare the cpu family, model and stepping to this wikipedia page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_AMD_A...microprocessors.

 

 

Step 2 : Boot the Retail Snow Leopard Install Disc using the Nawcom Mod CD

 

Latest version 0.3.1: http://blog.nawcom.com/?p=446

 

Once you boot the cd and you get to the Chameleon boot prompt you will see some instructions on what to do. First, remove the boot cd and insert your retail Snow Leopard install disc. Wait for the CD-Rom drive light to go out and then press F5 on your keyboard. When the screen shows the Mac OS X Install DVD icon selected, type in everything after boot:

 

boot: rd(0,0)/Extra/modbin_kernel -v

If you have an ATI video card, you may need to boot into safe mode ( -x ) if you have trouble getting into the Mac OS desktop.

 

boot: rd(0,0)/Extra/modbin_kernel -v -x

 

Step 3 : Partition Hard Drive

 

When you have successfully booted into the retail installer, select Disk Utility from the Tools file menu and partition your drive. Your partition format is very important. If you select GUID then you will not be able to dual boot Windows XP on the same drive. Dual booting Windows XP, Vista or 7 with Snow Leopard is outside the scope of this guide. If you select MBR then you will be able to dual boot Windows XP and Snow Leopard on the same drive.

 

Note: If installing Windows on the same drive, I highly recommend that you install Snow Leopard First and then Windows. I would also recommend making Windows the first partition and leaving that partition formatted as Free Space.

 

 

Step 4 : Install Snow Leopard

 

Once you have partitioned your drive the way you want it, quit Disk Utility and return to the Snow Leopard installer. The Nawcom Mod CD will patch the retail installer and add more options to the customize menu. Make sure that you select the following ( - unchecked + checked )

 

- Printer Support
- Additional Fonts
- Language Translations
+ X11
- Rosetta
- QuickTime 7
- Custom Options
  +Legacy Kernel
  - ElliotLegacyRTC Fix
  - VoodooPS2
  - Chipsets
  + AppleNForceATA
  - Audio
  + AppleAC97Audio
  - VoodooHDA
  - Networking
  + Autodetected Wired LAN Support
  + GraphicsEnabler

Once the install completes, you will be asked to reboot the system. Make sure to remove the boot cd from the drive.

 

 

Step 5 : Install Chameleon

 

Download the latest version of the unofficial Chameleon 2.0 RC5 from http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=231075

 

You can install the package version or do the manual installation. Instructions to do a manual install are included with the chameleon distribution.

 

 

Step 6 : Install Supplied Support Files

 

Extract the contents of the SupportFiles.zip. It will create an Extra folder. Chameleon will look for a custom dsdt, com.apple.Boot.plist, an smbios.plist and kernel extensions in an Extra folder at the root of your file system. Using terminal, type the following commands:

 

# ls -ahl /

If you don't see Extra listed, then you will need to make the basic folder structure for Chameleon.

 

# sudo mkdir -p /Extra/Extensions

This will make both the Extra and Extensions directories at the same time. I will also commonly create an /Extra/Disabled directory as well.

 

Now we will copy over the needed support files.

 

# cd /path/to/GA-K8NF-9
# sudo cp smbios.plist /Extra/
# sudo cp com.apple.Boot.plist /Extra/
# sudo cp update.sh /Extra/
# sudo cp -R Themes /Extra/
# sudo cp -R Extensions/*.kext /Extra/Extensions/
# sudo cp -R System/Libraray/Extensions/*.kext /System/Library/Extensions/

First, we need to modify the UUID entry in the PlatformUUID.kext to match your system. Open Disk Utility and right click on your Snow Leopard partition and select Information. Find the section that says Universal Unique Identifier. It should look similar to 78EA9DDA-BAA5-3F83-BE29-F6572B60D14E. Copy this and then go back to terminal and type:

 

# sudo nano /Extra/Extensions/PlatformUUID.kext/Contents/Info.plist

Find where it says <key>PlatformUUID</key> and on the next line in between <string> and </string> replace whatever is there with the Universal Unique Identifier that you copied earlier.

 

You will need to create an Extensions.mkext cache file. I have included a little script to create this for you. From terminal run:

 

# cd /Extra
# sudo ./update.sh

 

Step 7 : Create a dsdt.aml

 

I have included a sample dsdt aml file in the dsdt directory. It is only for reference, DO NOT USE THIS.

 

Open DSDTSE and select Tools -> Extract DSDT.

 

One of the windows open in DSDTSE should have a section that says DSDT hacks and has a drop down menu. In that drop down, you will want to apply the following patches:

 

Method DTGP

RTC fix

_WAK hack

Snow Leopard Cmos Hack

 

Once done, press the Compile DSDT button. You will notice that you have some compile errors:

 

Error 4001 - String must be entirely alphanumeric (_NVRAIDBUS) - for this simply remove the "_" so it becomes: Name(_HID, "NVRAIDBUS")

Error 4051 - Method local variable is not initialized (Local0) - simply comment the line out so it becomes: /* Store(Local0, Local0) */

 

Once all the errors have been fixed, click the Compile DSDT button again. Once the compile has completed, it will open a folder in the Finder with a dsdt.dsl and a dsdt.aml. Drag the dsdt.aml file to the desktop and go to terminal and type:

 

# sudo cp ~/Desktop/dsdt.aml /Extra/dsdt/GA-K8NF-9.aml

 

Step 8 : Install the 10.6.6 Combo Update

 

Once the install completes, reboot the computer and you should be up and running with the latest system software. You can safely run Software Update to update other Apple software. However, if there is another system update, be sure to check if it is safe to update here first.

 

Sleep

 

Sleep is not working with any version of SleepEnabler.kext. Is there anyone who can offer a method to enable sleep with this system?

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 6 months later...

Thanks CrazyJAT for writing this guide!

It worked for me, after I read carefully :). Just a few comments you might want to consider for addition to your instructions:

 

a) For the sake of clarity, you may want to include the last line that appears in the customize installation (Step 4) adding at the very end

...
  - Networking
     + Autodetected Wired LAN Support
  + GraphicsEnabler
  - SleepEnabler/

i.e., SleepEnabler not selected.

 

:) I also had to add one extra command in Step 7

sudo mkdir /Extra/dsdt/

before copying the DSDT file from ~Desktop/dsdt.aml to /Extra/dsdt/GA-K8NF-9.aml.

 

c) According to your quide, the legacy_kernel was under root, but the com.Apple.Boot.plist you provided points to /Extra/legacy_kernel instead.

I first moved the legacy kernel to that directory, to avoid asking you to change the plist, but that _did not work_. So I moved back the legacy_kernel to the root directory, and just edited the com.Apple.Boot.plist file. Well, in fact I just used sed to achieve the same result:

sudo sed s#<key>#/Extra##  /Extra/com.Apple.Boot.plist

At this point I wondered why not collect _all_ the commands you proposed in Step 6 and run those from your script "update.sh"?

Also in the same script, do not forget to change ownership first, before you do the permissions and rebuild the kext cache:

sudo chown -R root:wheel /Extra/Extensions

--

 

Sleep functionality:

I also got Snow Leopard installed using just the Nawcom BootCD+Retail DVD alone without further customization than the recommended during install by the automatic hardware detection baked in in Nawcom's BootCD. I did include your DSDT.aml stuff though. Without doing anything else of your recipe, I did get some sleep functionality: (wireless) network and hard disk activity paused but not the video. The system also "came back to life" after moving around the (USB) mouse. Wake-up did not work when pressing the keys though. So I would say: Sleep sort of "half"-worked, and it did so every time I told the "Mac" to sleep from the menu.

 

By end of June 2011, Nawcom released a 10.6.8 version of the legacy_kernel and SleepEnabler.kext.

Both can be downloaded from his blog entry at: http://blog.nawcom.com/?p=791

where he writes:

Looks like the fix for AMD people with graphics issues was to use old PCI and ACPI kexts from 10.6.7 as Aaron Johns said. We have to find out how to get these AMDs to work with the new kexts. For now though, I updated the pkg so if you have an AMD machine, it installs 10.6.7 IOPCIFamily.kext and IOACPIPlatform.kext into /Extra/Extensions, set to override the regular ones in /S/L/E. If you have an Intel machine, the pkg simply skips installing these there. So far it works fine for me.

 

Five months have gone since you posted your guide, and I am now curious about a follow-up:

1. Have you lately tried any new version of SleepEnabler on your 10.6.6 install?

2. What about updating from your install+10.6.6? Have you managed to update to 10.6.8? And if so, how?

 

Thanks again for sharing! :D

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 Share

×
×
  • Create New...