Welcome To Razormacx86 Blog !

Intel's New Sandy Bridge CPUs - Install Mac OS X Snow Leopard on Sandy Bridge CPUs

2011-04-09T11:36:00.000+05:30

Razormacx86

Today Intel lifted the Non-Disclosure Agreement on it's new Sandy Bridge LGA 1155 next generation performance chipset and CPUs. The good news is, we've already successfully installed Mac OS X Snow Leopard!

The bad news is, until Apple uses these CPUs, it's a bit of a science experiment, as you'll need to use a "patched" non-standard Darwin kernel in order to boot the system. For those of you buying new systems anyway, we're opening a special section of the forum dedicated to Sandy Bridge.

PLEASE NOTE: Sandy Bridge CPUs and chipsets are not currently supported natively by Mac OS X Snow Leopard. We can't recommend Sandy Bridge systems yet, as there is no official support. Hence, please don't view this as buying advice. We're providing this as a service for early Sandy Bridge adopters- and don't recommend using a patched kernel for the long-term. The vanilla kernel is a much more desirable solution for a stable system.

The patched kernel used for these experiments is based on the Mac OS X 10.0.0 kernel that has been altered to run on unsupported CPUs by Qoopz and the ProjectOSX team.

How to Install Mac OS X on Intel's Sandy Bridge

1. Download iBoot Legacy

2. Follow iBoot + MultiBeast

3. Install Combo Update - DON'T REBOOT

5. Download and install BridgeHelper

4. Run MultiBeast, checking EasyBeast

6. Reboot

-Legacy kernel by Nawcom, AnV, and Azimutz
Kernel used: Darwin Kernel Version 10.6.0: Sun Jan 9 16:40:36 EST 2011; legacy kernel v6 :xnu-1504.9.26/BUILD/obj/RELEASE_X86_640nawcom10.6.0

It's gonna be an exciting year! Stay tuned for updates. Good luck, and have fun!

-Razormacx86

Quickly Locate an app in your dock in Mac OS X

2011-04-09T11:27:00.001+05:30

Razormacx86

To Locate an app in the dock in Mac OS X apps folder

Command Button

Hold the command button.
Click on any application on your dock.
There you have it you have located the app in the applications folder.
Enjoy!

-Razormacx86

Copy The Application In The Dock Quickly Onto Your Desktop!

2011-04-09T11:16:00.001+05:30

Razormacx86

This post will help your discover 1 more new trick to quickly copy things. Mac OS X is the only OS which even experts are yet to discover the whole features of the OS X, Mac OS X is filled with millions of tips and tricks that everyday we discover a new trick to quickly access things.

This trick will help you to copy an application in your dock to your desktop in no time

Hold the command button.

Command Button
Click And Drag any app from your dock.
Drop the app onto your desktop.
Your are done the app will now be copied to your desktop.
Enjoy!

-Razormacx86

Razormacx86 Official Forums Web To Come Up This May!

2011-04-08T23:50:00.000+05:30

Razormacx86

The Razormacx86 Blog is now going to become a new website this may! The new website will have the latest softwares and kexts, bootloaders, enablers and firmwares for many Mac OS X Supported devices. The new website will also have its own DSDT database for all the motherboards P55, H55, X58 etc. provided by all the vendors Asus, Gigabyte, Intel etc. The new website is also coming up with a RazorApp Zone with all the latest Apple App Store apps cracked from the core to run on any Machintosh as well as other apps.

Stay Tuned For more Details!

Hackintosh Made Easy!

-Razormacx86

Intel Sandy Bridge CPUs Overclocked Mac OS X

2011-04-08T22:49:00.000+05:30

Razormacx86

Intel Sandy Bridge Core i7 2600k

NOTE: These results may be affected by unsupported CPU and chipset.

-Razormacx86

Mac OS X Now Supports USB 3.0 !

2011-04-08T22:35:00.001+05:30

USB Official Logo

USB 3.0 is now supported in Mac OS X! LaCie released drivers today for their new line of USB 3,0 PCI-E and ExpressCard controllers. Download the drivers here.

The device identifies as USB Super-Speed Bus in System Profiler and IORegistryExplorer. USB 2.0 devices are confirmed working on these USB 3.0 ports. We haven't had a chance to test USB 3.0 devices. Our initial testing was done on GA-H55N-USB3, GA-P55A-UD4P and the GA-X58A-UD3R.

We need more testers! Report your findings in the Razormacx86 Blog Comments below this post.

UPDATE:
LaCie's driver is working only on specific LaCie devices. Luckily, we've been tipped off to a patched version of the kext, which enables any USB 3.0 device. Available in the latest www.kexts.com . You can test speeds using Xbench, then target any drive plugged to the USB 3.0 ports. Please post any stats in the Blog Comments!

-Razormacx86

Fully Supported nVIDIA GeForce Graphic Cards For Mac OS X

2011-04-08T22:22:00.001+05:30

Razormacx86

One of the most important components in a custom build is the graphics card. If you're building a CustoMac, it's an especially tricky decision. Not only do you have to worry about what will be a good performer for the cost, but you also have to be informed what is fully supported, and what is not.

Below we've listed a few fully compatible NVIDIA graphics cards for Mac OS X. Each gives a range of port options, full install compatibility, and are known to work with minimal configuration. They may not be the most powerful or newest cards available, however they are undoubtedly smart and safe options. All of the following models have been personally tested by our team.

ASUS GeForce 8400GS

DVI/VGA

This oldie is a perfect fit for someone on a budget who doesn't need much power, but wants a silent card with two working outputs. Full acceleration enabled with GraphicsEnabler=Yes.

PNY GeForce 9800 GT

DVI/DVI

A standby choice for many enthusiasts, this card gives great performance. Full acceleration enabled with GraphicsEnabler=Yes.

EVGA GeForce GT 240

DVI/VGA/HDMI

A great choice for a HTPC setup, with working audio + video via HDMI. Full acceleration enabled with GraphicsEnabler=Yes.

PNY GeForce GTS 450*

DVI/DVI/Mini-HDMI

PNY GeForce GTX 460*

DVI/DVI/Mini-HDMI

EVGA GeForce GTX 470*

DVI/DVI/Mini-HDMI

The newest cards to gain compatibility status, these three 'Fermi' cards are a good choice for their new architecture, CUDA support, and awesome next-generation performance. Full acceleration enabled with GraphicsEnabler=Yes.
*NVIDIA 4xx cards are fully supported, but some users are reporting random freezes and open gl issues. Take caution when choosing these cards for now. Update: these cards are not recommended yet.

-Razormacx86

Lnx2Mac's Realtek Ethernet Driver - Public Beta Now Available

2011-04-08T22:09:00.000+05:30

Razormacx86

For the past few weeks, Lnx2Mac has been developing a new Realtek ethernet driver for Mac OS X. His goal was to create a driver that provides support for the latest motherboards that use the Realtek RTL8111E controller. This new driver is called RealtekRTL81xx.kext and supports the following ethernet controllers:

RTL8168, RTL8168B, RTL8168C
RTL8111, RTL8111B, RTL8111C, RTL8111CP, RTL8111D(L), RTL8111DP, RTL8111E

It's based on the RealtekR1000SL.kext created by Chuck Fry in late 2009 with additions and fixes from the latest official Realtek Linux source. In addition the driver includes the following changes:

32/64 bit support
Improved stability
Improved performance
Numerous bug fixes

Today the beta went public! Check out Lnx2Mac's Blog for further details and the download link. Please leave all feedback and comments there and in the RTL81xx Beta Testing forum.

-Razormacx86

Change The Rusty Old Icon With Your Own Favourite Icon

2011-04-08T22:06:00.001+05:30

Sick of those stock icons in Mac OS X? Here's a quick tip to re-badge and customize any drive or folder in OS X. I have a few familiar custom icons that I use, and have gotten very used to. My OS X experience just isn't complete without em!

Highlight the icon or folder you want to use for your custom icon.
Type command-C or right-click and choose Copy.
Right-click on any hard drive or folder, and choose Get Info.
Navigate to the upper left corner, and highlight the icon.
Type command-V or choose Paste from the file menu.

That's it! There are a ton of great free open-source icons available at InterfaceLIFT. Check them out! Here's a snapshot of my finder's sidebar- easier on the eyes in my opinion than a lot of blue folders.

If You want to have your own custom icon of your favourite picture

Then e-mail me at : techspecx86@gmail.com

-Razormacx86

JMicron SATA Support For SATA Hard Disk

2011-04-08T21:57:00.000+05:30

Are you tired of seeing this in System Profiler?

I was, so that’s why JMicron36xeSATA.kext and JMicron36xSATA.kext are created.

Now in System Profiler you will see this if you use JMicron36xeSATA.kext:

Or this if you use JMicron36xSATA.kext:

So what’s the difference other than the name display? When using JMicron36xSATA.kext all drives connected to the JMicron controllers will be displayed on the desktop as internal disks, just like the Intel connected drives. But if you use the JMicron36xeSATA.kext, then they show up on the desktop as external (orange) disks and can be hot swapped.

These kexts are now available at www.kexts.com

They install like any other Hackintosh kext. Just drag to /Extra/Extensions and rebuild the kext cache.

Good Luck !

Please Comment if this worked out for You!

-Razormacx86

JMicron ATA Support

2011-04-06T22:21:00.000+05:30

Are you trying to build a Hackintosh on the cheap? Do you have an old IDE CD/DVD drive or hard drive from your Pentium II rig collecting dust in the closet? Does your motherboard use the JMicron or GSATA IDE controller? I have got the answer for you.

Introducing JMicron36xATA.kext, a 32/64-bit driver for the JMicron 361, 363, 365, 366, 368 and Gigabyte GSATA IDE controllers so you can support that old drive in your shiny new Hackintosh.

Search it in www.kexts.com or Google It!

We have implemented it in RazorBoot so you can now install from an IDE DVD Drive or to an IDE Hard Drive. The RazorBoot and RazorBeast are currently under developmentand will be released upon the latest release of OS X From the apple developers Mac OS X .

These kexts will be available in RazorBeast which is to be released on the first week of May or Before It . Enjoy your old hardware!

-Razormacx86

Tweaking Your System: Get Rid of Restart Kexts & New Chameleon RC4 Release

2011-04-06T22:03:00.000+05:30

Kexts

Chameleon

DSDT

Chameleon 2.0 RC4 open source development has been fast and furious over the past couple of weeks. I've hardly been able to keep track of all of the fixes being developed, but I thought I'd report another leap forward.

With new tweaks to the codebase of the Chameleon 2.0 RC4 bootloader, you can now remove any restart kexts such as OpenHaltRestart.kext or EvOReboot.kext from your /Extra/Extensions folder. The fix was originally developed a few weeks ago by Duvell300 on the Insanelymac forums. You can read more about this development here.

More interestingly, user AsereBLN has wrapped a host of tweaks and code improvements together. He has been working with the Chameleon code as well, incorporating automatic memory recognition in System Profiler, the Platforum UUID fix, Duvell300's RestartFix by default, and more. Other than rolling everything together, one of the coolest new features is that your system will report memory information correctly including manufacturer (Corsair, G.Skill, etc…) to the System Profiler. You must remove all of the Memory information from your smbios.plist for this to work. Check out AsereBLN's original post for the full documentation.

To test out these changes for yourself, download the latest version of AsereBLN's Chameleon 2.0 RC4, and simply replace the boot file at the root of your OS X partition or EFI partition. NOTE: The download includes a few versions of the boot file- the default boot has no Chameleon GUI. Make sure to rename the file boot. Then remove any restart kexts from your /Extra/Extensions folder (don't forget to rebuild caches). If you are unsure of what to remove in your smbios.plist, you can replace yours with my edited iMac 11,1 smbios.plist. You shouldn't have to add anything to your com.apple.boot.plist other than the device-id change referenced in Tweaking Your System: Get Rid of Platform UUID. Also, please note that you will need to move your DSDT.aml to the /Extra folder instead of the root. Or you can specify DSDT='path to your DSDT.aml' in com.apple.boot.plist.

Once again, I'm happy to report anything that will improve your Hackintosh. Special thanks to tonyd for referencing AsereBLN's thread! I'll try to keep this post updated with the latest changes. Have fun!

-Razormacx86

Native Graphics Acceleration for Radeon HD 5xxx and 6xxx in 10.6.7

2011-04-06T19:08:00.000+05:30

We have confirmed that Apple has included native graphics acceleration for some Radeon HD 5xxx and 6xxx cards in the Mac OS X 10.6.7 Update for early 2011 MacBook Pro (Sandy Bridge). This means full QE/CI without Chameleon's GraphicsEnabler or any enabler kexts such as ATY_init.

The following graphics cards appear to be natively supported:

ATI Radeon HD 5630 Device ID 0x68D8
ATI Radeon HD 5630 Device ID 0x68D9
ATI Radeon HD 5670 Device ID 0x68D8
ATI Radeon HD 5730 Device ID 0x68D8
ATI Radeon HD 5770 Device ID 0x68B8
ATI Radeon HD 5850 Device ID 0x6899
ATI Radeon HD 5870 Device ID 0x6898

AMD Radeon HD 6850 Device ID 0x6739
AMD Radeon HD 6870 Device ID 0x6738
AMD Radeon HD 6970 Device ID 0x6718 (not working yet)

This development raises some interesting questions. Could this mean the end of the Mac-only graphics card? Could Apple be opening up the platform more? What happens to NVIDIA? Why support for cards that aren't in Macs yet? Will the 2011 Sandy Bridge iMacs contain one or more of these new 6xxx cards?

Stay Tuned For nVIDIA Support for the new Sandy Bridge 2011 early MacBook Pro update!

-Razormacx86

Enable & Improve Font Smoothing For LCD Flat Panel Monitors in Mac OS X Snow Leopard

2011-04-06T18:57:00.000+05:30

Razormacx86 Quick-Tip

This may be old news for some, but those new to Mac OS X will find it extremely useful. In Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, Apple removed the ability for the user to adjust font smoothing via System Preferences. For a flat panel monitor, some may prefer to view with the anti-aliasing turned up or down. This simple tweak can reduce eye strain, and improve the rendering of fonts on larger non-Apple branded monitors.

One of the unwelcome changes in Snow Leopard, at least for myself and others who use certain third-party LCD displays, was the gross simplification of the font smoothing options in the Appearance System Preferences panel.
In OS X 10.5, a pop-up menu provided a number of options for font smoothing—automatic, standard, light, medium (“best for LCD”), and strong.
In 10.6, though, that’s been simplified down to simply a yes or no option: “Use LCD font smoothing when available.” I guess the thinking here is that CRTs are a thing of the past, and all LCDs feature intelligent font smoothing.
In practice, however, that’s not the case. For me, the problematic machine is my OS X-running Dell Mini 10v netbook.
For me, the problem was that the text on the Dell was really “light” and hard to read after upgrading to 10.6. This made it tougher to read, and led to eyestrain if I used the machine for an extended period of time.
Lest you think this issue is restricted to those running homebrew netbook Macs, however, that’s not true—apparently standalone LCD displays by Dell, Samsung, LG, HP, EIZO, Lenovo, and possibly others are affected as well.

Before I get to the solution, though, here’s an example from a document in TextEdit on my Dell. The top portion of the image is how the document appeared prior to applying the fix; the bottom was taken after I applied the fix.
The image below is small and somewhat fuzzy; just click on it for a larger (and much clearer!) version of the image. (The larger image really makes the differences apparent.)

Top (Before) | Bottom (After)

Notice how the top image is quite light—dots on “i” characters are hard to see, and the text has an overall gray tinge to it. In the bottom image, the gray is gone, and everything is a bit bolder while still being clear and crisp.

Before (top) and after (bottom) the fix

By zooming in a bit, it’s easy to see the difference between the before and after images.
The top portion of the image at right is before the fix; notice that the font smoothing is done completely with levels of gray.
In the bottom portion of the image, taken after the fix, you can see not only more levels of gray, but the subtle use of some colored pixels to smooth the font—there’s a yellow pixel on the left edge of the dot on the “i,” for example.
If you’ve got an LCD panel that you think looks worse than it did before upgrading to 10.6, you can try this fix to see if it makes things better. How? Just open Terminal (in Applications -> Utilities) and paste this command, then press Return:
defaults -currentHost write -globalDomain AppleFontSmoothing -int 2

The 2 at the end is equivalent to the old “Medium - Best for flat panel” setting in 10.5. You can also use 1 for light smoothing, and 3 for strong smoothing. This change will only affect newly-opened applications—anything already running will have to be restarted to see the affect of the changes. As such, you may want to experiment with a document in Text Edit, trying the three alternatives, and then after you find the one you like best, rebooting your Mac (so that it will take effect system wide).
Note that if you go back into the Appearance panel and toggle the font smoothing setting, you will override your manually-set value—so don’t do that if you value your newly-smoothed fonts.

After the terminal work that you have done, Then reboot to see the changes.

-Razormacx86

Enable Spinning Logo While Booting Mac OS X

2011-04-06T13:54:00.001+05:30

Mac OS X Boot Spin And Logo

In the eariler post i showed you all how to enable the retail apple logo while booting instead of the default chameleon apple logo. In this post i will show you how to add the spinning logo below the apple retail logo

In the com.apple.Boot.plist add the following command :

<key>Boot Graphics</key>

Save the com.apple.Boot.plist file and reboot and what your pc turn into real Mac OS X ! Please comment if this worked out for you!

-Razormacx86

Chameleon RC5 Prerelease Installer Package

2011-04-06T00:25:00.000+05:30

Chameleon RC5

As Chameleon 2.0 development continues, new updates are being pushed out almost every day. Among other code corrections and bug fixes, the latest versions have eliminated the need for Restart and PlatformUUID kexts. Realistically, if you're unfamiliar with the Terminal, compiling the latest source or installing Chameleon manually may not be an option.

To that end, I've created an unofficial Chameleon 2.0 RC5 Prerelease 6 Installer based on Rekursor's latest Chameleon development branch.

Also created an unofficial Chameleon 2.0 RC4 Installer based on AsereBLN's 1.1.9 RC4 mods. This particular installer doesn't have an embedded theme. In order to get a graphical user interface, you'll have to drop this Themes folder to your Extra folder.

Both of these are regular OS X installer packages that will replace your Chameleon version. They also will install the full Chameleon bootloader on a fresh OS X install, replacing any older Chameleon installer (such as the PC EFI 10.1 app). Note that you'll have to move your DSDT to the /Extra folder, as this is the new default location for RC4.

Download the Chameleon RC5 Installer Package (based on rekursor's RC5pre6)
Dr. Hurt's Chameleon RC5 Installer Package (based on rekursor's RC5pre8)
or
Download the Chameleon RC4 Installer Package (based on AsereBLN 1.1.9)
Download the Chameleon RC4 Installer Package (based on AsereBLN 1.1.8)

Please note that these are unofficial releases, and any issues related should not be submitted to the Chameleon team. I'll keep this post and package updated with the latest versions as they come out. Let me know if you have any questions or concerns. Good luck, and see you on the forum!

-Razormacx86

PC-EFI 10.6 Released: P55 Supported By Default

2011-04-06T00:08:00.000+05:30

Today, netkas released PC-EFI 10.6. It is based on Chameleon RC3. According to his post:

New in this release:
* Support for desktop Radeons 4300/4500/4600 in GraphicsEnabler
* Added system-id fix, system doesn’t forget your keyboard settings anymore
* Added fix for lynnfield cpus

I put together an unofficial installer package using netkas' source. Just run it and reboot! You can also use this on a fresh system to install Chameleon.

Download the PC-EFI 10.6 Installer Package

Please note that this is an unofficial release, and any issues related should not be submitted to netkas or the Chameleon team. Let me know if you have any questions or concerns.

-Razormacx86

Advanced DSDT Fixes: Enable Native Intel SpeedStep On P55 Motherboards

2011-04-05T23:53:00.002+05:30

Core i5

Core i7

Core i3

NOTE: This guide is somewhat outdated- in order to enable SpeedStep for Core i5 750 and Core i7 860, all you need to do is use iMac11,1 smbios.plist. It's available in RazorBeast which will be coming soon after the release of Mac OS X Lion with all the latest softwares, utilities, Bootloaders, Kexts, Enablers and Drivers.

By adding correct SSDT.aml code to your DSDT, you can enable the native Intel SpeedStep technology of your CPU in Mac OS X. According to Wikipedia, "SpeedStep is a trademark for a series of dynamic frequency scaling technologies (including SpeedStep, SpeedStep II, and SpeedStep III) built into some Intel microprocessors that allow the clock speed of the processor to be dynamically changed by software. This allows the processor to meet the instantaneous performance needs of the operation being performed, while minimizing power draw and heat dissipation."

This is not a necessary fix, but you can gain noticeable power savings and/or performance gains. This fix may also extend the life of your hardware by enabling OS X to use advanced features that your Intel CPU was made for.

I added a new set of edits to the Razormacx86-DSDT-FIXES.dsl with speedstep information for the Core i5 750 and Core i7 860. Simply download the updated Razormacx86-DSDT-FIXES.zip, search for SpeedStep, and you'll find code additions for your CPU. You can copy and paste the CPU information from there. The example P55M-UD2 DSDT included has SpeedStep fixes, as well as every other edit that is referenced.

If you're feeling adventurous, you can check the values of your own CPU and make the edits yourself. The easiest way to view this information is to-open DSDTSE, go into the sidebar, and choose SSDT.aml, For example, the edits are made as in the pictures below. The left hand code is from the UD2 SSDT.aml, and the fixed code is on the right. You can then see the values to use when editing. Use the DSDT-FIXES guide for the rest of the code block.

You can check to see if your DSDT is working correctly by using the free application MSR Tools. In order for it to run, you must start up Snow Leopard in 32-Bit mode. Restart your computer, pause the Chameleon countdown and type arch=i386. Download it here.

WARNING: Improper use of SpeedStep code in your DSDT can cause major problems with your system including hardware damage and failure. Again, you do not need to do this fix for a stable system. If you're having any issues, take the SpeedStep code out immediately and reboot. Also, do NOT overclock with SpeedStep- it's known to cause performance decreases. Use with care!

Special thanks to the Insanelymac P55 Thread for the Core i7 edits!

SPEEDSTEP EXAMPLES: Due to popular demand, here is a zip of 2 versions of the GA-P55M-UD2 DSDT- 1 with Core i5 750 SpeedStep and the other with i7 860 SpeedStep. Use these as an example to modify your own DSDT, or if you have a GA-P55M-UD2, you can use this, but be sure to use the correct version! Have fun!

-Razormacx86

Advanced DSDT Fixes: Enable Sleep On P55 Motherboards

2011-04-05T23:32:00.000+05:30

DSDT

If you have managed to extract and edit your own DSDT already, and have applied DGTP and CMOS Reset fixes, then you're ready for this guide. If you properly edit your DSDT to make these changes, you can:

Enable Sleep without the use of SleepEnabler.kext
Remove IOAHCIBlockStorageInjector.kext & NullCPUPowerManagement.kext from /Extra/Extensions.
Enable your Hackintosh to recognize your USB devices as Built-In.
Enable your Hackintosh to recognize your Intel SATA devices as Built-In.

If you own a GA-P55M-UD2, you're in luck! I've already made all of the edits. You can use my DSDT! The attached DSDT.aml has fixes applied for CMOS Reset, HDEF (for use with LegacyHDA_ALC888B, UHCI/EHCI, SATA, HPET, and SMBUS. I wouldn't recommend using my DSDT on your non-Gigabyte Motherboard, but the corrections that you make should be very similar in all P55 boards.

FORMAT FOR TEXT BASED FIXES
Because DSDT editing is text/code based, I created a Razormacx86-DSDT-FIXES.dsl file that you can open and copy/paste from in DSDTSE. You can also open it in any standard text editor, but you won't be able to copy/paste multiple lines. Copying from standard text files or web pages inserts hidden characters, making the DSDT.aml unable to compile.

METHOD FOR DSDT EDITING

Download the latest version of DSDTSE
Download Razormacx86-DSDT-FIXES.zip
Open DSDTSE.
Open your DSDT.aml file.
Your DSDT.aml will decompile into an editable DSDT.dsl and open in the editor.
Open Razormacx86-DSDT-FIXES.dsl
Search for the first part of the code you're attempting to edit, i.e. _WAK or HPET.
Scan down your DSDT to make changes as referenced in the each example.
When you are finished making changes, click Tools and choose Compile.
If you don't get any errors, click Tools and choose DSDT files folder.
Your DSDT files folder (/Library/Application Support/EvOSoftware/DSDT) will open in Finder. Helpful Hint: you can pull this folder into the sidebar to bookmark it.
Copy your dsdt.aml.
Paste your dsdt.aml into the root / of your hard drive.
Capitalize DSDT.aml
Remove IOAHCIBlockStorageInjector.kext, NullCPUPowerManagement.kext from /Extra/Extensions.
Drag /Extra/Extensions to Kext Utility.
Make backups of your working/test DSDT and restart.

Razormacx86-DSDT-FIXES.zip includes Razormacx86-DSDT-FIXES.dsl and my latest GA-P55M-UD2 DSDT.aml utilizing all of the following fixes plus HDEF which I leave out for an upcoming guide on LegacyHDA.

00 - Add DTGP (Need for all Fixes)
01 - Fix CMOS reset
02 - Edit USB UHCI/EHCI - Part 1 (Enables Sleep & USB Ports Built In)
03 - Edit USB UHCI/EHCI - Part 2 (Enables Sleep & USB Ports Built In)
04 - Edit IDE (SATA) (Enables SATA ports Built-In and Internal)
05 - Edit PIC, TMR and HPET (Enables you to get rid of extra kexts)
06 - Add SBUS (Need for Sleep)

A few words about DSDTSE. I've had some issues opening this program up- I've had an error come up and the program shut down on launch. Something about Nil Exception. You need to launch it from another location. Just keep trying if you get an error- it's not the program, it's the location. The reason I use it is because it's hands down the best tool out there for editing DSDTs. Got to give it up to The Evosx86 Team for making such an awesome app.

Your /Extra/Extensions folder now should only contain:
EvOReboot.kext
fakesmc.kext
JMicronATA.kext
LegacyHDA_ALC888B.kext
PlatformUUID.kext

Good luck and have fun editing! Feel free to post links to fully updated and sleep compatible DSDTs for review- it would be great to have a collection of them all in one place. I'll keep researching and doing fixes for my specific board and adding them to this site.

Special thanks to The Evosx86 Team for DSDTSE, The Insanelymac P55 Thread and Rekursor and Bansaku's GA-P55-UD3R DSDT edits.

-Razormacx86

EDIT: To enable sleep, make sure to remove the necessary kexts and check all of the checkboxes in System Preferences/Energy Saver as shown in the picture below.

Tweaking The System : Enable Full Graphic Card Acceleration ATI & nVIDIA

2011-04-05T22:44:00.000+05:30

Razormacx86

Graphics Acceleration

When installing and tweaking your Hackintosh, one the first things to do is enablie the full power of your graphics card. Apple's OS X uses Quartz Extreme and Core Image (QE/CI) technologies as foundations in the operating system, which if aren't enabled, leave the user with graphics artifacts, mouse tearing, inability to change resolutions, and bad refresh rates. You may have graphics at boot, but here are 2 ways you can check to see if your card is fully accelerated.

Open Front Row. If it opens and is functional, QE/CI are enabled.
Open Dashboard and add a widget. If you see cool ripples, QE/CI are enabled.

There are 5 major ways, and probably more I don't know about, to enable full graphics acceleration on Hackintoshes. At boot time, each one will inject your card information and force OS X to identify it. Your chosen method will probably depend on what hardware you use, or what works 100% first! If you have an ultra-modern state-of-the-art graphics card, there may be additional tweaks that you have to do... the price you pay for owning the latest and greatest.

Chameleon's GraphicsEnabler=Yes
This is the simplest method to enable your graphics card. It was introduced in Chameleon 2.0, and is probably the most widely used method right now. Edit your com.apple.Boot.plist which is located in /Extra to add the below text. Sometimes it doesn't identify all of the ports on the card, but if you're looking for full acceleration for 1 monitor only, this could be the way to go.

<key>GraphicsEnabler</key>

DSDT
The cleanest and newest method favored by many OSx86 enthusiasts for it's 'vanilla' approach. You add some code to your DSDT, and it auto-identifies your graphics card. You need to view your system's information to edit NVCap values using IORegistry Editor. This tool comes with XCode and should be on your Snow Leopard Retail DVD. If you selected XCode at install, it will be in /Devloper/Applications/Utilities. For an example of the edited code, download this .dsl file, taken from an MSI GD65 motherboard.

EFI String
You can use OSx86 Tools or EFIStudio applications to extract your specific card information, or EFI String. Then place that information into your com.apple.Boot.plist. It is also a very clean method involving no edited or additional kexts.

Enabler Kexts
Enabler kexts, like ethernet or audio kexts, are installed either in /Extra/Extensions or /System/Library/Extensions are the oldest used method of identifying graphics cards. Older methods for Leopard included NVInject, NVKush. Lately the most widely used kexts for Snow Leopard is NVEnabler and EVOenabler which both feature 32/64 bit support. NVEnabler injects 2nd display and TV-OUT information better than any method I've used.The downside of this method is that many times Apple's updates break functionality, necessitating users to find a new solution.

Modified Kexts
For troublesome and newer cards, some users must inject device IDs directly into stock system kexts in addition to providing enablers. Specifically the ATI 48xx series and nVidia GTX 2xx cards have proved more difficult to enable. For many solutions, check out netkas' blog.

There are various ways to enable full graphics card acceleration for your Hackintosh. You can probably do 2 or 3 different methods to get to the same place. Some users will tout DSDT modifications over kexts for the sake of keeping the installation more like a real Mac. Others will argue that whatever is functional will suffice. Part of the fun is testing them all out and coming up with your own favorite solution.

If you have any solutions for specific cards, feel free to post them in the comments section. Good luck with your graphics card!

-Razormacx86

Tweaking Your System: Get Rid of PlatformUUID.kext

2011-04-05T22:35:00.001+05:30

Chameleon

After establishing a working system with all components functioning, some advanced users begin to try to make their Hackintosh as 'Vanilla' as possible. This quest, an attempt to get the hard drive clean of all edited kexts is an ongoing one, especially for the new P55 boards. Besides the warm fuzzy feeling of having a cleaner more Mac-like experience, there are advantages to doing this. Theoretically you could swap out the hard drive with a real Mac, by installing Chameleon and your /Extra folder to the GUID partition format's 200mb EFI partition. This will be covered in an upcoming guide. Or you can make your system safeguarded against any potentially damaging Apple Update by removing any non-vanilla kexts. Suffice to say, a cleaner more streamlined OS X installation is attractive to most users.

So we've already begun the process of enabling all CPU functions and system components using DSDT edits. Recent tweaks of the new Chameleon 2.0 RC4 bootloader have unearthed a way to establish your system's UUID without the use of PlatformUUID.kext. Normally without this kext, you can't use Time Machine and Superduper! without getting Universal Unique Identifier disk errors. Also, every time you start iTunes it acts like you've never started it before- and gives you the EULA to agree to.

One of the latest forks of the Chameleon 2.0 RC4 bootloader by Insanelymac user rekursor establishes a hack that will let you get rid of PlatformUUID.kext once and for all.

Download the edited Chameleon 2.0 RC4 source by rekursor here.
Navigate to the sym folder and locate the boot file. It's 324kb.
Replace the boot file at the root / of your Snow Leopard installation with this new modified one.
Open Utilities/Disk Utility.
Right click on your Snow Leopard installation in the left column and choose Information.
Check to see what your hard drive's UUID is under Universal Unique Identifier. Mine is C0CE2600-93D7-3B41-843A-4D7C8E2C12E2. Write this number down or copy/paste it to a new text file.

Open your com.apple.Boot.plist in TextEdit or Property List Editor. It should be located in /Extra.

Add the SystemID key and string as shown in the above photos.
Save your com.apple.Boot.plist.
Remove PlatformUUID.kext from /Extra/Extensions.
Rebuild your Extensions.mkext cache by dragging /Extra/Extensions to Kext Utility
Reboot.

Enjoy your somewhat shorter list of extra kexts! This version of the Chameleon 2.0 RC4 incorporates some of the GraphicsEnabler features of netkas' PC-EFI 10.5 fork for more advanced cards. If you have tried RC4 without success for your graphics card, now is the time to give it another chance. For more information, check out this post. Special thanks to rekursor! Good luck!

-Razormacx86

Recommended Softwares For Mac OS X

2011-04-05T22:32:00.001+05:30

Kext Helper

Kext Utility

Disk Utilities

Razormacx86

There are a ton of great pieces of software that have been developed by the OSx86 community. Some are GUIs for simple Terminal commands, and others are 1 function scripts. The following list includes some my favorite free tools.

Kext Utility
Developer:cVaD

Installs kexts one at a time, and does 'full service' Extensions.mkext creation. The best feature of Kext Utility is its interface to create caches- you simply drag the Extensions folder directly on top of the icon in /Applications folder or Dock.

ShowAllFiles
Developer: Open source script

Handy 1 function script app. ShowAllFiles enables view in Finder of all hidden files. Very useful for locating hidden boot files, mach_kernel, etc... The latest version works in Snow Leopard.

DSDTSE
Developer:EvOSX86 Team

Code editor specifically for DSDT.dsl files. DSDTSE does full service extract/compile of DSDT.aml files. It also features a DSDT editing guide built-in, with copy/pasteable code snippets, color coding, and search functionality.

Kext Helper b7
Developer: delish

The drag n' drop kext installer Kext Helper b7 lets you install multiple kexts at once, and also repairs kext permissions and creates a script to tag cache rebuild.

OSx86Tools
Developer: PCWiz Computer

An all-in-one utility, OSx86Tools installs kexts, kernels, creates and deletes caches, automatically installs EFI boot strings, and much more. Some features such as About This Mac and CPU information editing are buggy in Snow Leopard. Not currently under development.

Pacifist
Developer: Charles Srstka

Not technically an OSx86 community project, but honorable mention goes to the shareware application Pacifist- which allows you to extract OS X Package files to show, download, change and install contents. You can also open Apple Install Discs and URLs.

If any of these pieces of software have helped you, or you have ideas for additions to this list, post in comments. Have fun!

-Razormacx86

Chameleon RC4 P55 Support By Default

2011-04-05T22:17:00.000+05:30

Chameleon

NOTE :
The Chameleon RC4 is the latest bootloader from the chameleon site the RC5 is a pre-release edition and is for testing purpose.

Today, the Chameleon team released Chameleon 2.0 RC4. This is the 4th major update of the Chameleon 2.0 bootloader. The major news for us is that the Nehalem patch has now been made standard, meaning that all P55 Core i5 and Core i7 users can use Chameleon 2.0 RC4's boot file without modifications. Until now, P55 users had to patch their boot file or the system would run about 1.5x too fast.

You can read more about the various changes at the Chameleon site. New functionality has been added to hide partitions from the bootloader, and specify PCI root for your devices. You must add flags to your com.apple.Boot.plist to enable these features.

To test the new bootloader for yourself, download this Chameleon 2.0 RC4 boot file. If you have already installed Chameleon or PC-EFI, simply drop the boot file in the root of your OS X partition. You will not need to change anything else. If you need to install from scratch, use the PC-EFI 10.1 installer located in Razormacx86-SnowLeopard.zip folder . Then replace the boot file with this new one.

Good luck and let me know how it goes for you!

-Razormacx86

P55 Hackintosh Blog

2011-04-05T16:31:00.000+05:30

Razormacx86

Hey all- Razormacx86 here-

I've decided to start a blog here to have a 'base of operations' for P55 boards, kexts, links, etc... I'm hoping to develop it further into a website full of useful stuff for all you P55 owning Hackintoshers.

Here's to a great start!

Create And Modify Your Own DSDT.aml File

2011-04-05T16:27:00.000+05:30

DSDT

NOTE: As of the latest bios revisions by Gigabyte, the CMOS reset is now fixed. (2010-05)

Using a DSDT (Differentiated System Description Table) is a necessity for running Snow Leopard on P55 boards. In the simplest of terms, it is a file that you place at the root of your system to tell OS X how to locate and enable features of your computer without checking your BIOS. For further details on what it is and how it works, check out http://wiki.osx86project.org/wiki/index.php/DSDT

You can tweak your system in all sorts of ways by changing lines of code in the DSDT.aml file. Unfortunately, you can't just open this file in TextEdit. From OS X, you must extract your DSDT.aml, convert it to DSDT.dsl, then edit it, then recompile it to DSDT.aml. To make it easy, the good folks from the EvOsx86 Team have made DSDTSE, a GUI application that allows you to do all of this in one convenient editor.

Using what I've learned from many OSx86 gurus, I will show you how to edit your DSDT.aml to allow your system to restart without clearing your CMOS. Other fixes are available for P55 boards as well- I have used the HDEF and USB fixes for my DSDT.

Open DSDTSE. You can download the application from here. This can be tricky- the application sometimes doesnt allow you to open it. Try opening it from a few different locations- I use my external drive.
Under Tools, choose Extract DSDT. The Editor will open with your DSDT.dsl all ready to edit.
Under ACPI search, type _WAK and click search. You should come to a line that looks like this:
First you must apply the code that allows hacks. Under DSDT hacks in the Main pane menu, select option 1: Method DTGP. Select all of the code at the top of the page. Copy/paste the entire block of code as shown into the editor directly before the _WAK line with a space in between at the beginning and end. Be sure to keep all spacing exactly as it was or the file will not compile and your hack may not work.
Next, we will apply the code that will prevent the CMOS reset. Under ACPI search, type (RTC) and click search. You should come to a line that looks like this:
All you have to do here, is change the length of the IO segment in the code below from 0x04 to 0x02. There may be 2 places to make this change- change both.
Under File, click Compile DSDT. The editor will prompt you to Save the file, save it to the default location.
Open /Library/Application Support/EvOSoftware/DSDT/DSDTFiles/dsdt.aml
Drag dsdt.aml to your install drive in Finder. Rename it DSDT.aml.

You're done! You now have a system-specific DSDT.aml file that will prevent your P55 system from resetting the CMOS at each boot. The process can be tricky, but this guide should help to make it a bit easier. Special thanks to Stellarola from the Insanelymac boards for discovering this fix! And to netkas for posting it to his blog.

-Razormacx86