Dell E520 Leopard Install Guide -- ICH8R Working!

[BOBD000]

Hey,

 

OK does anybody know of a decent graphics card to replace the nVidia one in the e520 that is hackintosh compatible or easy to install into os x.

 

My price range is about up to £60 ($85).

 

I want to have a fast card so i can view the itunes visuliser ect. smoothly in full screen - also would love to be able to plug my monitor and tv into it as the nVidia one does work with dual scree (does it?).

 

Has anyone replaced there graphics card here and could advise me on one? Thanks so much!

 

Ben.

[dr.vox]

OK does anybody know of a decent graphics card to replace the nVidia one in the e520 that is hackintosh compatible or easy to install into os x.

I want to have a fast card so i can view the itunes visuliser ect. smoothly in full screen - also would love to be able to plug my monitor and tv into it as the nVidia one does work with dual scree (does it?).

 

What's wrong with your 7300LE?

The 7300LE does work dual screen (I'm running two 22" Acers@1680x1050x60) and has full QE/CI support. Admittedly my machine does tend to get a bit slow when I have a lot going on but it never lags seriously because of graphics. Unless you're gaming on your E520, I'd say replacing the graphics card is pretty unnecessary and you should only do it if you have cash burning a hole in your pocket.

 

If you really insist, your best bet is to go looking in the HCL at OSx86 Wiki or in the Graphics forum here — seems like nobody reads this thread any more anyway.

[BOBD000]

What's wrong with your 7300LE?

The 7300LE does work dual screen (I'm running two 22" Acers@1680x1050x60) and has full QE/CI support. Admittedly my machine does tend to get a bit slow when I have a lot going on but it never lags seriously because of graphics. Unless you're gaming on your E520, I'd say replacing the graphics card is pretty unnecessary and you should only do it if you have cash burning a hole in your pocket.

 

If you really insist, your best bet is to go looking in the HCL at OSx86 Wiki or in the Graphics forum here — seems like nobody reads this thread any more anyway.

 

Hey, thanks again - your help is very valuable to me!

 

My reason for wanting a better graphics card is for video encoding and also i find i can't use the itunes visuliser smoothly in full screen, however I won't bother getting a new graphics card if i can get dual screen. what drivers do i need - im currently using the nVidia Titan drivers from the iAtkos 4i install disc. This doesn't allow both screens - if i plug in another display i have to press detect displays then the display only shows up on the other display.

Thanks again!

Ben.

[dr.vox]

Hey, thanks again - your help is very valuable to me!

 

My reason for wanting a better graphics card is for video encoding and also i find i can't use the itunes visuliser smoothly in full screen, however I won't bother getting a new graphics card if i can get dual screen. what drivers do i need - im currently using the nVidia Titan drivers from the iAtkos 4i install disc. This doesn't allow both screens - if i plug in another display i have to press detect displays then the display only shows up on the other display.

Thanks again!

Ben.

 

Ah, well TVs can be troublesome (or so I've found with my Goodmans 26" HDTV — in Windows I'm almost sure I got 2560x1600 or 2560x1440, but OS X doesn't want to give me any more than 1366x768) but I'll give you my kexts to test anyway. I think these are the right ones.

nVidia 7300LE kexts.

[BOBD000]

Hey, Thanks a lot! It worked!

 

Ben.

[dr.vox]

Oh good-oh. Enjoy. : ]

[Karo]

My e520 has never given me any problems since my first Leopard install.

The upgrade to 10.5.6 was the first to give me any problems.

But in the end it was quite simple to solve the problems.

Hoping that more people might benefit from my experience I'm posting my upgrade process.

 

First I installed the PC EFI V9

Then the DSDT patcher followed

After that I hoped I was save for a normal upgrade.

I upgraded but I got the ominous "Still waiting for root device" message .

First I tried the kext from 10.5.5 (which actually is the modified 10.5.2 kext) but I still got the same results, rummaging around for a bit I just reverted back to the original 10.5.6 kext and added the ICH8R entry described in the second post of this topic.

A "safe mode" boot revealed that several things were intact, rebooting normally resulted in a normal Leopard environment without sound (using 3 SATA devices).

Fixing the AppleHDA kext resolved the sound issue.

Using the IONetworkingFamily kext fixed my Time machine issues.

Afterwards I also tried Dr. Vox his kext for the onboard NIC: It works!

 

Currently my computer is running 10.5.6 for over 12 hours and it's very stable and have no error messages.

[dr.vox]

Currently my computer is running 10.5.6 for over 12 hours and it's very stable and have no error messages.

Good to hear.

Have you had any issues with booting from second SATA hard drives though?

Assuming you don't have a second HD though.

If you do, give it a go if possible.

[Karo]

Good to hear.

Have you had any issues with booting from second SATA hard drives though?

Assuming you don't have a second HD though.

If you do, give it a go if possible.

 

I do have two SATA HDD's.

One HDD I use for my TM backups and one for Leopard.

Will it suffice to swap the connectors (Leopard HDD to SATA 2 connector instead of SATA 1) and try to boot using that configuration?

[dr.vox]

I do have two SATA HDD's.

One HDD I use for my TM backups and one for Leopard.

Will it suffice to swap the connectors (Leopard HDD to SATA 2 connector instead of SATA 1) and try to boot using that configuration?

 

I have no idea, I haven't tried that and now feel ridiculously silly for not having done so..

I think it should. Shame I deleted my Snow Leo install. : [

[Karo]

I have no idea, I haven't tried that and now feel ridiculously silly for not having done so..

I think it should. Shame I deleted my Snow Leo install. : [

 

That's a pity indeed, but hey it might not be this simple.

 

It took a while to test the 2nd HDD because my computer had to finish some calculations.

The 10.5.6 version is still working like a charm and I haven't had any problems.

Swapping the connectors didn't give any problems either, Leopard booted and functioned without problems from the 2nd connector.

[wmarsh]

blkhockeypro19 reports he has been able to upgrade to 10.5.6 using voodoo kernel.

 

I have not yet had time to test this.

However here is his link to files.

http%3A//www.sendspace.com/file/zb1ng6

[dr.vox]

blkhockeypro19 reports he has been able to upgrade to 10.5.6 using voodoo kernel.

 

I have not yet had time to test this.

However here is his link to files.

http%3A//www.sendspace.com/file/zb1ng6

 

Where did he get the files from/what's the method?

Not gonna use it considering my 10.5.6 is working flawlessly (bar that booting issue), but just wondering.

[Karo]

A small update on the 10.5.6 booting issue; somehow the waiting error appeared again (without new updates).

Currently it's working again after the following procedure:

- I went back to the 10.5.2 appleAHCI kext with edited plist (second post of this topic)

- boot into single user mode (-s option in bootloader)

- fsck -fy /

- exit or reboot

Only downside now is that I have to repeat this procedure every time I restart my computer (the single user mode and fsck that is).

 

Is there anyone who has an idea on how to address this issue?

[dr.vox]

Wow, that sounds sucky, Karo.

Totally out of the blue? No recently installed items which might affect the system?

 

Can't suggest anything, really; mine's been fine, bar a few random slow deaths, which I couldn't pin down to anything except PubSubAgent giving up. Seems to have stopped now though.

 

And I have a dark secret: I'm running Windows 7 at the minute. It's actually great and I encourage anyone to give it a go. Everything was supported ootb for me, so it looks promising for other E520 users. Even had some updates for drivers such as Nvidia's 7300LE.

[Karo]

Totally out of the blue? No recently installed items which might affect the system?

It really was ootb, mainly I use my system for programming and all the tools I use were already installed (I rarely install new software). The system had an uptime of 1,5 week and I just shut it down and restarted it the next day

 

And I have a dark secret: I'm running Windows 7 at the minute. It's actually great and I encourage anyone to give it a go. Everything was supported ootb for me, so it looks promising for other E520 users. Even had some updates for drivers such as Nvidia's 7300LE.

That is indeed a dark secret, but I also have heard some good stories about 7. But till Windows is build upon a fully certified UNIX environment and is better than OS X (yeah right...) I am a 100% Apple fan.

[statman24]

A small update on the 10.5.6 booting issue; somehow the waiting error appeared again (without new updates).

Is there anyone who has an idea on how to address this issue?

I've got a Dimension 9200 (similar chipset/bios as yours...ICH8R) and I get intermittent "waiting for boot" errors as well. Everything else is working just fine. Sometimes I have to reboot 2 or 3 times to get back in.

 

I installed using IPC 10.5.6 distro, Used EFI for the 7300LE, and installed kexts for the 9227 Sigmatel audio and 82566 kext for lan. I also installed Voodoo Kernal with seatbelt, although I'll try vanilla later.

 

Just a thing of note. The device ids for the hard drives (Sata) change depending on whether you're running "Raid ON" or "Raid Autodetect/ATA". I use the latter.

 

If I remember correctly, the id for Raid ON (for ICH8R) is 0x28228086. For Raid Autodetect, there are 2... 0x28208086 and 0x28258086. One of those ids controls the first 4 sata ports, the other controls the last 2. So, these were the 2 codes that I added to the AppleAHCIPort.kext file.

 

I really would love to resolve this intermittent boot issue.

[statman24]

I should also add...

 

When you have "Raid ON", Mac sees these the drives as "ICHR8-Raid" in System Profiler. When "Raid Autodetect/ATA" is on, then they show up as "Serial ATA".

 

So... if machine is set to "Autodetect", then ACHI is not active... so the drives are running in ATA mode. This leads me to believe the AppleAHCIPort.kext file is the wrong one to be messing with when trying to resolve this issue.

 

I'm starting to think we need to dig into AppleIntelPIIXATA.kext file. Mine is located in the plugins directory of IOATAFamily.kext.

 

Still trying to figure out what the difference is between having a kext in the /Extensions directory or within another kext that resides in the /Extensions directory.

[statman24]

Found this thread:

 

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php...;hl=IOATAFamily

 

It has a link to a new IOATAFamily.kext file which I installed. I have not gotten a "waiting for" message since I've installed it... but again, it's been intermittent.

 

To make it easier, here's the direct link to the file:

 

http://www.mediafire.com/?ejxaynenyvh

 

Let me know if this works out for you. Again, this is the kext that is used if you are running in ATA mode (Not "Raid On")

[hotmonkeayc]

I still haven't been brave enough to upgrade to 10.5.6 due to Karo's unfortunate issue. I see now that 10.5.7 is out. Is there a way to update to 10.5.7 safely? Has anyone tried? If so, please post results.

[Elkay]

Just curious, because I haven't gathered whether or not from the posts so far, does this actually install on drives set up as RAID 0? Or is this whole procedure simply to get Leopard installed onto single drives sitting on the ICH8R? The reason I'm asking - I have a Dell M1730 set up as RAID 0 and I don't want to sacrifice the RAID performance just to get Leopard installed internally (I have it booting just fine from an external USB drive with everything working). Would just be nice to be able to boot it without plugging that external drive in. Thanks!

[thedude9]

Hey,

 

I have 10.5.6 working on my E520. You will have to do a reinstall, I haven't figured how to do it via software update. Simply install iPC 10.5.6 Universal with the latest PPF patches. Use the 9.5.0 Voodoo Kernel, the chipset patch "Intel ICHx SATA Driver", Sigmatel 9227 for audio, Intel 82566MM/DC for ethernet, and install the Seatbelt.kext 10.5.5 fix to avoid various minor issues that may occur. Everything will now work perfectly. Even sleep. You may get a "still waiting for root device" on first boot. If this happens, boot with "-f -v" flags and everything should go smoothly afterward and in subsequent reboots.

 

Hopefully you guys can get working on 10.5.7 now!

[dr.vox]

I have no idea how you got iPC to work, thedude (EDIT: More like 'I have no idea why iPC won't work for me...'). I've listed my recent personal experiences in this thread (http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=170186&st=0&gopid=1176010entry1176010), do give it a quick read if you don't mind.

To sum it up, though: Kalyway installs and boots fine as before, iDeneb 10.5.6, iPC 10.5.6 and iAtkos 10.5.5 all result in Still waiting for root device, no matter which chipset kext I choose.

The weird thing is though, that iDeneb worked for one or two boots, but now refuses to boot at all after several reformats, reinstalls, etc.

 

Would you mind running through your BIOS settings, thedude? And also which BIOS revision you have. I updated to 2.4.0 from 2.3.2 today - I found an update half-hidden on Dell's site.

 

EDIT: Also, you might want to try the new iDeneb 10.5.7 update package, thedude, it's floating around certain sites.

And yes, I've tried all manner of various boot options, and I always boot new installs with '-v -F'. -x, platform=ACPI, platform=X86PC, cpus=1, idlehalt=0, rd=disk1s1, etc.

EDIT2: Just installed iPC in a GUID partition table this time, still getting Still waiting for root device.

Out of curiosity, what's your SATA physical setup? I have the TSSTCorp optical drive in SATA0, and three different HDs in SATA1, 4 and 5.

EDIT3: Installed to a different hard drive this time; installed faster, but still getting root error.

 

EDIT4: Saturday, 13:44, managed to install iDeneb successfully on a different hard drive (the one mentioned above, much faster install again) and it's actually working. Typing from it now. Can only hope it'll work after a reboot though — have to hope it doesn't bring up root like it did last time.

EDIT5: Still there after a reboot. Fingers crossed this is it. Having a bit of trouble with NTFS at the minute, but I think that might be NTFS-3G and MacFuses' fault.

EDIT6: All still working good after a few reboots. Quite pleased, nice to see a possible end to the problem. I'd like to say it's probably just a problem with the HD, but that's impossible, as Kalyway can run fine off that drive. However, all works and I can sacrifice 80GB of this 500GB drive for OS X, no problem.

Also, the problems with the NTFS (really really slow navigation) persisted with Paragon NTFS so, again, may be a problem with the HD (different to both mentioned above) or partition, so I've again copied that partition's contents (music, pictures, movies, documents) over to the 500GB on a new partition and everything is working as it should. Other drives are still slow though. :\

Ah well, this is good enough for now, I guess. Glad to be back on OS X.

[dr.vox]

 

iAtkos 7i.

Fully working it seems, and working beautifully.

 

Had to use the audio kexts I posted up previously, as the STAC9227 kexts provided with this (as well as iPC, iDeneb and iAtkos 5i, it seems) don't work for us.

NvDarwin 512MB (from iDeneb disc for 9600GT, QE/CI, dual displays).

Intel82566MM kext (from iDeneb disc too).

 

iAtkos disc's Intel ICHx SATA drivers WITH AHCI DRIVER LISTED ABOVE INTEL CHIPSET DRIVER. If you don't select the AHCI driver you'll get the bloody Still waiting for root device error.

 

No sight of the laggy and slow disk access iDeneb gave (Hard drive I booted from worked fast and fine, but the two other HDs were really slow).

Slightly annoyed I have to reconfigure pretty much everything but glad to now have a stable OS X build which allows me to use all of my drives, so I'm happy.

[Karo]

@dr.vox great that everything is working! Windows 7 was a temporary glitch?

 

@statman24 sorry for the late reply, thanks for the tips but I'm using RAID ON (provides a few extra mb/s according to my benchmarks)

 

My hackintosh has been stabilized again, no more freaky messages. I updated to 10.5.7 a week ago and it's working like a charm, just the network (timemachine), sound and ich8r kexts had to be updated and everything is fine.

Xbench results for 10.5.7 are the highest scores since 10.5.2 (my installation came from a Kalyway 10.5.2 install)!