Fixing NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT on My Hackintosh

I realized that on my previous post my display adapter was not fully working. It's giving correct resolution, but as seen on screen capture, Core Image (CI) was Software and Quartz Express (QE) stated as Not Supported. It was bad, because some applications such as iMovie, iWeb and Need For Speed Carbon are not working.

Although the system profiler said the NVIDIA had 512MB RAM already, apparently Darwin only detect 256MB of it. I took some suggestions to flash my display adapter's ROM. It was rather scary because if I failed this, I might kill my adapter. 

The whole procedures are discribed here. I used a '512MB ROM Patcher' to automatically fixed backup ROM, and It did a real good job. I just to need verify the patched ROM and calculate the result manually to make sure that it's ok. Below is an original ROM

and below is patched ROM

But flashing ROM only does not make CI & QE work. Once again Google saved my day. Just download and install NVkushInstaller.pkg from http://diabolik1605.com/DHF/, remove NVInject.kext and voila; I got CI & QE are fully working.

Instead of 'I Can has Model ?' line, everything seems good now.  

Akhirnya Datang Juga

Alhamdulillah, akhirnya datang juga. Setelah seminggu overdue dari estimasi jadual kelahirannya, putri kedua kami lahir pada hari Jum'at 26 September 2008 jam 22:45 di RSIA Tedja Bandung.

Terima kasih kepada seluruh rekan dan kerabat yang telah memberikan doa dan dukungan kepada kami sekeluarga.

http://picasaweb.google.com/ernasm/NewBornBaby

My First Hackintosh working!

Finally I got my hackintosh working!

I was planning to have a PC at home. Usually I would install Linux on it, but I really love MacOS after using it for a year on my white macbook. I'd love to buy a real Mac but it way too expensive for me now. 

After did a short research, I decided to go with following PC configuration:

• ASUS P5LD2-X/GBL
• NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT
• Elixir 2 GB DDR2 PC2-6400
• Seagate 80 GB SATA
• LG DVD Writer
• BenQ T52WA LCD Display

My plan was I'm going to install using original Leopard Retail DVD, but I misplaced the disc somewhere. Fortunately, I found Leo4All v2 DVD on local store.

The Leo4All installation process was pretty straight forward. After installation, I found that the audio volume icon was missing, display set incorrectly and network card detected but not working.

Audio fix was easy, just download AzaliaAudio.pkg and installing the package will fix audio problem. But only rear panel working, front panel out channel is mute. 

ASUS specification said that the network card was PCIe Gigabyte LAN but actually the chipset is Realtek RTL8111C. The great thing is the Mac driver provided by Realtek themselves! You can find here.

The display was a little bit tricky. As suggested by many thread on insanelymac.com, I tried to use Nvidia Universal Installer that you can find on internet. Here is the catch, after I installed the package, my PS2 mouse and keyboard freezing!

After many trials and errors, I think I can summarize the step to make those works below:

• Boot to single mode by giving -s argument to Darwin prompt. Sometime this does not work, but since my ethernet card is working, I can log in remotely  through ssh from my macbook.
  
• Do these command
  

mount -uw /

mkdir /GeForce-backup

mv /System/Library/Extensions/GeForce* /GeForce-backup

mv /GeForce-backup/GeForce.kext /System/Library/Extensions/

mv /GeForce-backup/GeForce7xxxGLDriver.bundle \

   /System/Library/Extensions/

reboot

• Add display device to Boot.plist using EFIStudio. You may add other parameter as well. My configuration look like below:
  
  The device-properties is an encoded format of this configuration. Don't worry, EFIStudio will do this for you :)
  

  Now you can see all available display mode for your monitor.

  
  

  Here is my system profile screenshots:

  
  

  
  
  
  
  On the other hand, Leo4All already includes Azalia and NVIDIA drivers. You might try to select customize installation when installing Leo4All and select Azalia and Nvidia package from list of installed packages. I did not really notice that.

Update: 

• Installing AppleACPIPS2Nub.kext ( http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showtopic=114578) seems fixing PS2 keyboard/mice problem