The latest XPC EFI boot loader version 0.83.02 allows you to install Mac OS X 10.7 Lion dev preview 2 without having to change or copy a single file on the OS X install volume. Apart from configuring XPC it all works out of the box which simplifies installing OS X Lion a whole lot. XPC now fully supports the new disk-image based installation process that was first introduced in Lion dev preview 1 and is able to boot from mounted .dmg volume images. I just gave it a try and it worked flawlessly on my Hackintosh rig! Read more »

I finally managed to run Mac OS X Lion 10.7 developer preview on my ASUS P6T Hackintosh rig. Installation from a USB thumb drive is not as easy as it used to be in 10.6 and earlier because the new OS X installer boots from a BaseSystem.dmg in 10.7 Lion. But the really hard part was to find an EFI boot loader that doesn’t double panic/double fault when the Mach kernel is being loaded from an SATA-drive, once the installation is completed.

Chameleon and iBoot didn’t work on my Nehalem Core-i7 equipped P6T mobo, and I tried every version I could get hold of. Read more »

I just combo-updated my Hackintosh rig to Mac OS X 10.6.7 (dev release 10J860) and everything is still up and running after the mandatory reboot. As usual I had to reapply the custom AppleHDA.kext in order to get sound back. From an ASUS P6T standpoint, this update should be considered safe.

I just updated my ASUS P6T Hackintosh to the latest Mac OS X 10.6.5 developer build and it looks like there aren’t going to be any changes regarding the support for the SSD TRIM command for the official release of Mac OS X 10.6.5.

  Model:	INTEL SSDSA2M080G2GN
  Revision:	2CV102HD
  Serial Number:	CVPO942200DA080BGN
  Native Command Queuing:	Yes
  Queue Depth:	32
  Removable Media:	No
  Detachable Drive:	No
  BSD Name:	disk0
  Medium Type:	Solid State
  TRIM Support:	No <--

My 2nd generation Intel SSD supports the TRIM command in Windows 7 even though Mac OS System Profiler thinks it doesn’t. By the way, aside from the AppleHDA-kext replacement the update process from 10.6.4 to 10.6.5 went smoothly as usual on my ASUS P6T rig.

This morning, I successfully updated my Asus P6T Hackintosh from 10.6.3 to 10.6.4 using the OS X online updater. As usual I had to reinstall marionez’ AppleHDA kext to get sound with the Realtek ALC1200 but other than that updating went smoothly as usual. Detailed information about the 10.6.4 release is available here. Read more »

I always thought that my 12400 Geekbench score using an overclocked i7 920 CPU on my ASUS P6T Hackintosh was pretty fast. Today, fleebailey left a comment on an ASUS P6T related post on my site. I followed his link and found that he had created a fine tuned DSDT for the ASUS P6T mainboard. Read more »

I just updated my ASUS P6T rig to OS X 10.6.3 with the built-in online Software Update application without any problems. It comes with a new Darwin kernel which has the number 10.3.0.

I also installed a brand new Intel X-25 M G2 solid state disk (SSD) and boy, this setup is starting to fly. Boot time from the grey apple logo to the login window is just 11 seconds! Applications like Mail or Safari start instantly, it’s like clicking an application icon and BOOM the software is on the screen. Even Photoshop CS4 with the default plugins enabled starts in less than 4 seconds. The performance increase is awesome. Forget about buying that slightly faster CPU… pour your hard earned money into a fast SSD. The only downside is that OS X still lacks support for the TRIM command for SSDs. It’s already available in Windows 7 and even in Linux… but unfortunately not OS X. Considering that Apple already ships its own notebooks with (overpriced) optional SSDs for quite some time that’s certainly a bit lame. Read more »

I just bought an external Iomega eGO Portable Mac Edition USB 2.0/FireWire hard drive with the intention to use it on my ASUS P6T Hackintosh (dubbed Hac Pro) for wickedly fast file transfers. The eGO draws its power from the FireWire port so there’s no external power supply needed.

When I tried to plug that FireWire 800 cable into my P6T I found out that the P6T only has a 6-Pin FireWire 400 connector. Doh! Guess I should have read the manual. Fortunately, the Iomega eGO also sports a FireWire 400 connector. Well, according to this Wikipedia article FireWire 400 is still a lot faster than USB 2.0 (almost twice).

Unfortunately, after hot plugging the Iomega eGO using the FireWire 400 cable, no new drive showed up on my OS X desktop. An inspection of the /var/log/system.log revealed a strange error message saying “ICANotifications framework timed out waiting for a FireWire device with GUID ’40718943393659308′”. Read more »

Here are the kernel extensions I’m using on my ASUS P6T (non SE, non Deluxe) mainboard to run Mac OS X 10.6. I’m not planning to write a guide for a vanilla installation but I already summed up some important points when installing OS X on the P6T in this post from a retail Mac OS DVD. Read more »

Because Apple didn’t release the Darwin 10.2.0 XNU sources (the kernel in Mac OS X 10.6.2)  yet (as of 11-14-09), there’s no way to re-enable Atom CPU support on the MSI Wind (and other Atom based netbooks) once you update to 10.6.2. I’ve seen some russian bin-hacks (Tea’s kernel) but they don’t work on the Wind, the kernel panics while booting. Once the XNU sources are out it will be pretty easy to compile a modified kernel with Atom CPU support but for the time being, you might as well re-use the kernel that came with your 10.6.0 Snow Leopard installation. So far, I haven’t seen any limitations using the older kernel in 10.6.2.

All you need is the USB stick you initially installed Snow Leopard from and some basic Terminal skills.
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This is not a how-to guide, tutorial or walk-through, I just list the kexts and settings needed to get Snow Leopard 10.6.0 or 10.6.1 up and running on an MSI Wind U100 netbook. Even though I haven’t personally tested it, the kexts should also work in the Wind U100 plus model. Up to OS X 10.6.1 the Atom 270/280 CPUs are natively supported by the Darwin kernel a.k.a. the vanilla kernel. There are rumors that this may change in a later release of OS X. In fact, Apple already seeded an OS X 10.6.2 developer version with Atom support disabled.

Added 11/10/09: Do NOT update to 10.6.2 as Apple deliberately disabled Atom CPU support and your MSI Wind netbook will go into a reboot loop or simply crash! You’ll need a modified kernel to run 10.6.2 or higher on an Atom CPU! If you’re fluent with Terminal, you might as well install the 10.6.2 update and reinstall the old kernel, see this post for more information. I tried it and it works fantastic!

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The ASUS P6T is one of the less expensive LGA 1366 motherboards at the moment. It features some cool overclocking BIOS settings, FireWire, external E-SATA onboard port, and is SLI/CrossFire-capable. SLI/CrossFire is the main difference between the P6T and the P6T SE but you could always cross flash the P6T SE into a P6T to get SLI support. I put a Core i7 920 CPU in it and populated three of the six RAM banks with 2 GB Patriot Viper DDR-3 DIMMs. This baby has OSX86 written all over it, it screams to be run on Snow Leopard :-) Read more »