Hey everyone.
This weekend, I decided to attempt a hackintosh install on my desktop PC. Little did I know, it would be a massive undertaking that took me quite a while to figure out. Here is my guide on how to install it. Hopefully it can save you an hour (or eight!).
Please note, I take no responsibility for anything bad that may happen to your computer in this process. Read through the guide once and gather all necessary files to a flash drive before diving in, it’ll make your life easier. Note: you may not have to, but in order to read my flash drive in OS X after the initial reboot, I had to format it as HFS (OS X Extended). If you don’t have a mac to do this on ahead of time, you’ll have to download the files directly to your hackintosh after install. Also, every step is important (unless labeled otherwise)!
Note: I will update this guide from time to time, so if you post it on a forum It would be better to link to the guide, instead of copying/pasting it.
My setup: (this guide may work with other setups, but you will need the correct DSDT file or have to use EasyBeast)
- ASUS Sabertooth X58 motherboard
- Intel i7-950 CPU
- 10GB DDR3-1333 RAM
- NVidia GTX460
- A functioning Windows 7 installation on a separate drive from which I’m installing OS X (other guides will give you a better idea on how to do a dual boot off of one drive, but you can still use mine for the OS X installation instructions on your Sabertooth X58).
- If you don’t already have it enabled for some other purpose, you will need to modify your registry in Windows 7 for AHCI support as described here:
1. Startup “Regedit” (via “Run”)
2. Open HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM/CurrentControlset/ Services
3. Open msahci
4. In the right field left click on “start” and go to Modify
5. In the value Data field enter “0″ and click “ok”
6. exit “Regedit”
7. Reboot your computer.
8. On the first BIOS screen, arrow down to the entry labeled Storage Configuration, hit Enter, and change “Configure SATA as” to AHCI. Press Escape once.
9. Next, arrow over to the Advanced tab, then arrow down to the section labeled Onboard Devices Configuration. Hit Enter, find the SATA Controller entry, and set it to AHCI. Press Escape, then F10 to save and exit.
10. Boot into Windows, it will detect your hard drives. Reboot when all devices are installed, and you are now ready to continue with your Hackintosh install!
- If you don’t already have it enabled for some other purpose, you will need to modify your registry in Windows 7 for AHCI support as described here:
- First, download iBoot (you need to make an account and login to download). You also need a $29 Snow Leopard DVD from Apple.
- Burn iBoot to a disk.
- Make sure you only have one stick of memory in your motherboard (you can put the rest back later). I left a 2GB stick in.
- Unplug every SATA device from your motherboard, except for your DVD drive and the Hard Drive. Leave the DVD drive plugged into the first black (intel controlled) SATA port, and the HDD plugged into the first light colored sata port. These ports are furthest toward you and closest to the top of the motherboard (assuming you’re looking at it vertically mounted and from the side where the cpu is mounted) in each color bank. You can put back the other hard drives (including the one with Windows 7 on it) later.
- Leave only one Video Card plugged in. Also, unplug any USB devices except for your mouse and keyboard.
- Turn your computer on, and press delete to enter the BIOS.
- (BIOS instructions copied from Lifehacker)
- If you didn’t do this earlier (after modifying Windows 7 Registry Keys):
- On the first BIOS screen, arrow down to the entry labeled Storage Configuration, hit Enter, and change “Configure SATA as” to AHCI. Press Escape once.
- Next, arrow over to the Advanced tab, then arrow down to the section labeled Onboard Devices Configuration. Hit Enter, find the SATA Controller entry, and set it to AHCI. Press Escape.
- Arrow over to the Power section and set Suspend Mode to S3 only.
- Finally, arrow over to the Boot tab, hit Enter on Boot Device Priority, and set your first boot device to boot first from your DVD drive, then set your second boot device as your primary hard drive.
- For my install, I disabled USB 3 and ethernet. It shouldn’t be necessary for you, though it may be an option if you struggle installing.
- Hit F10 to exit the bios while saving settings.
- Make sure your iBoot CD is in the drive, and boot up.
- When iBoot is loaded, take out the iBoot CD and insert Snow Leopard. Press F5, it should eventually show you the Snow Leopard Install DVD.
- Type “-x PCIRootUID=1″ and press enter. Snow Leopard will start booting. It will show a black screen, then a spinning apple screen, then the language screen. Be patient, this step could take several minutes (I would say if it hasn’t done anything after 15 or 20 minutes, go back and try messing around with settings. Google is a great resource, everything in here is just a compilation of stuff I found.)
- Go to utilities>disk utility.
- (Copied from Lifehacker once again) Once Disk Utility loads, click on your hard drive in the sidebar and select the tab labeled Partition. Set the Volume Scheme drop-down to 1 Partition (unless you have a reason for wanting otherwise), name the volume whatever name you want, and set the Format to Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Now click the Options button and ensure that GUID Partition Table is selected as the partition scheme.
- Click Apply and partition.
- When it is done formatting, close disk utility. Continue with the installation. It says it will take about 30 minutes, it usually takes less.
- The computer will now reboot. (it may say install failed, I’m not sure – I walked out of the room)
- When it turns back on, insert the iBoot CD.
- iBoot opens, move over to the OSX hard drive. Type in “-x PCIRootUID=1″ once again, and hit enter.
- You will see a loading bar with the Apple logo this time. Enter your account info, and you will see your desktop.
- Download the OSX 10.6.7 combo update. (Note: You should be able to use 10.6.8, if you would like, but I have not tested it.)
- Download MultiBeast.
- Download the DSDT.aml file from here (you must be logged in to download) or my mirror.
- Extract & Place the DSDT file on your desktop.
- Open MultiBeast (do nothing); Install the combo update. DO NOT REBOOT.
- When the combo update is done installing, minimize it (or put it to the side).
Thanks for the image, cyrozap! CC 3.0 BY-NC-SA
- Install MultiBeast using the above settings, using Chimera instead of Chameleon – ATI Experimental (even if you’re installing with an ATI card).
- I also installed AppleNullCPUPowerManagement, it stopped some squealing sounds I was hearing from my CPU, and USB 3 – NEC/Renesas.
- When that is done, download the tonymacx86 NVidia installer; use it. Reboot.
- Make sure AHCI 2.0 is enabled in your bios (buried in one of the tabs, I don’t remember as I write this. It’s for the Marvell controller, if I remember correctly).
- Boot up! Note: at this time, I was getting errors about a problem with IOAPIC (when i booted with the -v tag, otherwise it would just show the apple logo, but never anything else). However, when I added in my additional 8GB of RAM, everything worked nicely! Who knows why…
- Note: while booting up, you have to press a key 2 times. Don’t walk away until you start to see text that says “DMI Header found.”
- I used software update at this time. If all that is in it are programs (safari, itunes, java) and security updates (2011-002 is safe to install) you should be able to do them without a hitch. If it has other things like a new system update (10.6.8 for instance), do not install those updates without checking around first. Most major updates will require you to re-run Multibeast, as you did above after installing 10.6.7. If you have any questions about what is safe, google it.
- I had to install VoodooHDA to get my USB (Behringer UCA202) audio card to play audio smoothly. If you have problems getting the onboard audio to work (I didn’t mess around with it) check this thread.
- (The following steps are optional, however I strongly suggest doing them. If you don’t experience audio/video stuttering, you may be good to go without them.)
- Download the file from here. First, open terminal and show hidden files.
- defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE
- killall Finder
- At this time, you need to rename your old boot file (located on the root of your drive) to something like “bootbackup”. You may have to mess around with permissions in “Get Info” to do this.
- NOTE: The boot file above is only tested on an i7-950. There are no guarantees that it will work with other first-generation i series processors, but you can try it at your own risk.
- Place the downloaded boot file on the root of your drive. (WARNING: if your computer fails to boot after this, you won’t be able to get into OS X. I strongly suggest having something like a Ubuntu live CD burned before rebooting to restore your backup “boot” file, if necessary.)
- Reboot. You shouldn’t have to press any keys to continue anymore, and audio and video stuttering problems should be mostly gone. The correct clock speed of your CPU should be shown in “About this Mac” now.
- Hide hidden files, using the same terminal command from above, but replacing TRUE with FALSE.
- If you ever want to change a setting in MultiBeast, google about it, then put your DSDT.aml file back on your desktop, and select “UserDSDT” along with “System Utilities” and whatever you want to change. I changed my system identifier from MacPro3,1 to MacPro5,1 and experienced a speed boost, you may want to too. I also installed the NEC USB3 Drivers, I don’t know if they work, however they may enable use of your USB3 ports.
At this time, you should have a nice fully functional hackintosh. However, if you want to dual boot with Windows 7, read on.
For the purpose of this guide, I had a functioning Windows 7 SSD that was unplugged during all of my install process. Plug back in your Windows 7 Drive, and make sure that the OS X hard drive is still set as the first one in your boot priority BIOS list. When you see the chameleon screen and a countdown to boot into OS X, press a key. You can now arrow over to Windows 7 and boot into it. (Note: for me, I have to arrow over to “System Reserved,” not “Windows NTFS.” Windows NTFS gives me the error “BOOTMGR is missing.”)
Viola!! You now have a Dual Boot Hackintosh! Congratulations!
Now, go and update it to Lion!
UPDATE: It looks like the VoodooHDA will let you use front and back panel onboard audio. Also, look here for a fix for random freezing (related to the GTX460). EDIT: Looks like that fix has been implemented into the latest Nvidia installer from TonyMac.
I also moved all drives back to the black intel ports. This speeds up the boot process a bit, as you don’t have to wait for the Marvell controller’s bios to load.
UPDATE2: I switched to an ATI 6870 card, and am now “Fermi Freeze” free. Read about it here.
UPDATE3 (6-20-11):
I personally haven’t enabled sleep on my Hackintosh, I use it to serve stuff and therefore need it on all of the time. However, I believe that you would need SleepEnabler (http://www.kexts.com/view/1057-sleepenabler_for_os_x_10.6.7_darwin_10.7.0-10.7.1.html) to enable sleep. I haven’t tested it at all (it may mess something up), but I assume it would work (post a comment with your results, if you could).
UPDATE4 (6-21-11):
Changed some language above and added instructions for enabling AHCI in Windows 7.
UPDATE5:
Added info about lion.
Hey there, im running the sabertooth with a 8800. I keep getting boot0 error when i try to boot from disc.. I’m using a 2tb hard drive with only mac os x on it. any tips? thanks
I believe you need to use a 1tb partition (or smaller) on big drives. I’d try a 500gb (system) and a 1.5tb (data) partition. This is just off the top of my head, Ill look around some more later or you can google it.
Dear Jeff
your steps are perfect and clear
how ever , im not able to get the install to star.
i have sabertooth mobo
i7 960
ATI 6870
2×3 4 gig ddr3
250 gig sata drive
my ram sticks are 4 gig each and i have to have 2 sticks for mobo to boot
i have edited the bios
and tweeaked the regedit
as i start the install,
it starts by reading the disk and after few seconds the screen goes black and all fans starts going loud and the cd drive start spining loud and fast
i have tested diferent disks and they all do the same
i do not have a legit copy of osx and i had to download
many diferent ones and they all do the same
anything you can help me with?
it is amazing no one has ever posted this issue anywhere on the web that i could find
please help
thanks
you need to use a retail cd snow leopard. will not work with pirated osx. buy one at the apple store for 30$ takes 2 1/2 weeks to get it in the mail though which is a bummer!
Hey Jeff, yeah that’s what the problem was.. I did it all over again with my 500gb drive and it fired right up. It appears to be running solidly, I’m also using my pro tools HD pci-e cards in it and it’s all functioning like my retired mac pro 1,1. This is my dream right now! lol
I havent changed that boot file yet, do you recomend it still? I have i7 960
If everything is working fine, I wouldn’t worry about it. Enjoy!
I’m glad I chose ASUS.. I’m so happy I got the dream computer I though I’d have to take out a loan to buy. Thank you and TonyMac
Jeff btw, what were the characteristics of the audio issues you were having before you swapped that boot file. or did it not work at all? I ask because sometimes through itunes while I’m listening to something every once in a while Ill get a lil blurb/digital distortion sound, but I’m not sure if it’s even related to anything.
Thanks
If you went to About This Mac, my 3.08Ghz i7-950 was reported as something like 3.2Ghz. I had consistant audio stuttering issues as well; you couldn’t understand the song at all. Replacing the boot file fixed it for me.
also in multibeat run the NulCPUPowermanagement.. you will gain huge speed increase
Hi Jeff,
I did everything up to loading the disk Utility and clicking on Partition. Then I am getting the rolling ball of doom. Any help will be much appreciated. I have the same CPU and motherboard as yours. Thanks
I managed to get over this step by deleting and formatting my HD using win7 installation CD. Which helped me get to the partitioning page. Bu it stopped again there and couldn’t finish partitioning. Then I realized that my HD was connected to a different port on my MB. (3Gb/s instead of the one you pointed out on the picture(6Gb/s) and successfully partitioned the drive after that.
Ps. Installation just failed now. So will try again, cross fingers
Did you make sure to remove all but 2 or 4gb of ram? Also, did you try booting after the install failed? I have read that it may have still installed correctly.
Ok all has worked just as you said. But now I can only start osx in safe mode. I am afraid that my video card is not supported by Mac. It’s the GTX465. Help!!!
Try booting with “PCIRootUID=1″, and if that doesn’t work “-v” (it will show you what’s happening when it hangs). I’m not absolutely sure that the 465 works, or you may need different drivers than what I have above.
Hey Jeff, you have any luck setting up a bootable RAID? I’m having so much trouble with that
That is something I have absolutely no clue about. You may want to ask about it on one of the Hackintosh forums that are around.
Im having problems with running the disc. i have iboot. i loads. i press F5 it finds the Disc. then i type the pciroot thing. then it loads to an apple logo. then after a few mins it gives me a stop sign on the logo then nothing happens. i have successfully installed OSX before on other PCs this is the first time i got this on a custom PC. i am running on same specs or close to what you have. sabertooth x58. EVGA GTX 460 2TB HD partitioned 80gb for install.
Try “-v -x PCIRootUID=1″. You should see a black screen with text, and when it freezes/kernel panics, take a picture/type out what happened and post back here. Also, did you make sure to have everything plugged in where the picture shows it should be, and all other devices removed?
I have all the parts removed except 1 stick of 4gb ddr3 1600. 1 gtx 460. 1 dvd drive and 1 sata drive. on the first 2 ports. rest are empty.
Just to clarify, the first 2 ports as shown in the picture, right?
Also, did you try “-v -x PICRootUID=1″ as I posted above? Post back what it says when it stops/hangs/kernel panics.
Also, did you make sure to make the necessary adjustments in your bios, as stated in the post?
yea. i Followed the picture. it didnt work. I tried the 2nd sata 3 port and it worked. the bottom one to be exact. i did everything you said on the guide and almost all worked great. i tried to use the freeze fix for nvidia and all i got after reboot from install is the bsod. haha. i got this before on my leopard hackintosh HP desktop. i had to re-install everything again as that seems to be easier than figuring out how to remove the kext.
i have another problem. it is the mouse. it keeps getting stuck on the upper left corner of the screen. this was also true for my HP hackintosh. so i kinda knew a work around. i had to boot to windows then restart then boot to osx. then it works. you know whats causing this?? my mouse is wired. tried 3 types all does the same thing
I’m not sure about the freeze fix, I believe what I suggested may be included in the latest NVIDIA update from TonyMac, but I’m not sure since I switched to ATI. About the freezing in the corner, I’ve never heard of that before. Can you still use the keyboard? Try command (windows on a pc keybard) + Space, and see if it opens quicklook. Other than that, you may be better off doing some googling on the problem.
i just found the mouse problem weird. a fresh boot always gives me that issue with the stuck on the corner thing. i found another issue with the stability of my system. like you i have a dual boot win 7. actually i also have xp. Win7 on SSD. and my i7 960 is Overclocked to 4.4ghz. working well on Windows. on OSX it works well but only with 4gb ram. when i put 12gb. sometime it boots then it crashes after a while. right now i am running on stock speed. with 24gb ram and its working well. did you overclock your system? also can i now put my other gtx 460. i dont mind if its not SLI on osx. as long as i dont have to remove it to use osx. thanks for all the help. you have the best and easiest guide to follow for this board
I didn’t overclock my system, I’m not sure about anything that has to do with that. Sorry. About the SLI, I’d give it a shot. OSX won’t recognize the SLI obviously, but you may be able to still use the system with the SLI bridge in. If it doesn’t boot after you install the bridge, I’d imagine all you have to do is turn it off and remove the bridge to boot right back into OSX. Thanks!
yeah. i was wondering if i can just use the 1st x16 port for the video card. i got the system working 100% on stock speeds and just one card. it wont let me use two. so i was hoping you know how to turn off the other slots. my other motherboards were able to do that. this sabertooth is different and i cant find it on the bios
Hi Jeff I follow your step to install NVIDIA driver done I reboot and system show 1.iBoot 2.OSX Hard drive I choose OSX Hard drive and type -x PCIRootUID=1 press Enter the screen only show white tab on the top left of screen and nothing happen
Now iBoot still on DVD drive first device boot is DVD drive second device boot is OSX hard drive, first hard drive is OSX hard drive and AHCI 2.0 enabled
What wrong of my step
need you help , thank so much
Ok this problem had been fix already but now audio not working I’ll to do again
Thx
ok Jeff everything is good only fermi freeze
do you have any idea for fix it ? I use EVGA NVIDIA GTS 450
If have anyway for fix these, it would be great cause now I’m so poor not budget to buy new ATI VGA on this time hahaha
Thank your blog so much that give me OSX for work and funny
I personally haven’t tried it, but people are claiming to have a fix here: http://www.tonymacx86.com/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=20367
It’s worth a shot! I never found a fix while I had my card, personally.
After Installed dont need to change back bios power from S3 to Auto again right ? It’s ok if stay on S3 ?
I didn’t change mine back from S3. But its up to you, you may see small energy savings.
I re-did my whole system with easy beast instead of the DSDT.. seems to be running better
Hmm, I didn’t try it, but if it works for you, great!
thank you for everything. i have successfully installed everything using your setup. I now have my system running fine and overclocked. I was also able to run both my GTX 460 cards. i can use 4 displays right now.
only one question. how do i edit the system info to tell the correct display? its only saying display then ram is 64mb. do you have an idea how i can rename it to GTX 460 and 1gb ram? thanks
I personally don’t know, but if there isn’t any performance degradation, I wouldn’t worry about it. I’ll do some googling and see if I find anything, though.
forget what I said.. use the DSDT!
Thinking about trying this today with my Sabertooth X58. I have a GTX 560 Ti so I am hoping all goes well. Thanks for the instructions.
I was able to get everything running except for full resolution on my 560 Ti video card. I have read a bunch of forums about it but just can’t seem to get it to work.
I’m not sure that a 560 is fully compatible at this time. Last I checked, it wasn’t able to output full resolution. Check at tonymacx86 for the latest updates, though.
Hey Jeff awesome tutorial. I followed them and got my system up and running. Everything was going well till I installed XCode from the Snow Leopard CD. The screen greyed and gave me the message that I must manually reboot. Upon doing so the computer no longer successfully boots into OSX. It ends at a black screen withe a sort of beige bar going halfway across the screen. Any ideas on how to recover?
As a follow up I managed to recover but I don’t really know how. I tried going back to the disk utility and checking for errors when I restarted it worked. Although I’m sure this isn’t the last glitch I’ll encounter. I feel like i just swept it under the rug. Sorry to bother you.
I personally haven’t enabled sleep on my Hackintosh, I use it to serve stuff and therefore need it on all of the time. However, I believe that you would need SleepEnabler (http://www.kexts.com/view/1057-sleepenabler_for_os_x_10.6.7_darwin_10.7.0-10.7.1.html) to enable sleep. I haven’t tested it at all (it may mess something up), but I assume it would work (post a comment with your results, if you could).
I have the same set up and tried the sleep enabler and it worked. Strange thing was it didnt want to shut down the first time i tried it. Mike
Hey Jeff,
I just want to say that I have successfully built a hackintosh system using your tutorial. My current system system is as follows:
Asus Sabertooth X58
Intel Core i7 960 3.2 Ghz
6 GB of DDR3 1066 RAM
1 TB SATA Seagate Drive (Windows 7 installed)
120 GB SATA Seagate Drive (Mac OS x 10.6.7 installed)
Nvidia GT 440 1 GB RAM Graphics Card
I’m dual booting between OS X and Windows 7
One comment I would make is that you may want to edit the tutorial to let folk know if they are going to dual boot with Windows 7 and they didn’t install Windows 7 with AHCI support already, they will not be able to boot into Windows 7 when they make the BIOS changes for the SATA config from IDE to AHCI. They will need to make a registry change in order for Windows 7 to boot up under AHCI. I figured that out with the help of my buddy google.
The other thing is that my graphics card is only reporting 512 MB of RAM under OS X. Not that big of a deal but just something of note.
Also, I installed the drivers from multibeast to enable USB 3 support. Under OSX the ports are recognized as Super-Speed Bus so I assuming it works. I don’t have a USB 3 device to test.
Also running onboard audio with the stock drivers. System sleeps, full graphics acceleration.
The only other quirky thing is that under Safari, I cant seem to play any of the videos from the apple site. If I use Firefox, it works fine for the most part. Not sure whats up with that but i can leave with it.
Thanks for your comments! I had completely forgot about changing that registry setting; I enabled AHCI for my SSD before doing this guide. It should be updated now!
Enjoy your hackintosh!
My RAM G-Skill 2 GB X 6 Bus Speed 1600 MHz but OS X just tell me Bus speed 1069 Mhz How I can fix it ?
thank in advance
nungzaxen,
You need to set the speed in your BIOS to the speed of your memory. I had the same issue where I have 1333 memory but it was reporting as 1066 on POST up and in Windows and OSX. The setting is most likely set to AUTO right now.
My BIOS speed of memory It’s AUTO but still running Bus at 1069 Mhz
I tried to change manualy at 1600 MHz then kernel panic
Jeff,
I want provide an update to my system setup and a possible addition to your tutorial for people that want to upgrade to 10.6.8 in prep for OSX Lion.
First off, I switched out my graphics card to the XFX ATI 5770. The Nividia GT 440 I had had a know issue of only reporting 512 MB in OSX even though it has 1 GB onboard (this is documented on tonymac’s wiki under the supported video cards)
So, I took the plunge to upgrade 10.6.8 and it took my a few trials to get the process down to where it was successful.
For folks that have ATI cards you will most likely run into an issue where your card may not come up under 10.6.8 and or you will have issues with “PCI Configuration Begin…” when you try to boot up after installing the 10.6.8 update. After much research on tonymac’s forum on the 10.6.8 update, I was able to pull from the various posts the following steps that enabled me to successfully update to 10.6.8:
1. PLEASE backup your working 10.6.7 install using either time machine or clone copy.
2. You will need to make a copy of a few kexts from your working 10.6.7 and put them on your desktop. Below is the list of the ones you will need (for this example, I’m listing kexts for my specific graphics card family which is the ATI5000 because I now have the ATI 5770. You may need to copy a different set of kexts if you are having trouble with video after install):
a. AppleACPIPlatform.kext
b. IOPCIFamily.kext
c. ATI5000Controller.kext
d. ATIFramebuffer.kext
e. ATISupport.kext
3. Make sure you have a copy of kextbeast or some other kext installer. kextbeast is really easy to use and it will work with the kext that you have copied to your desktop.
4. Download the combo update for 10.6.8. DO NOT USE SOFTWARE UPDATE.
5. Install the 10.6.8 combo update. DO NOT REBOOT.
6. Run kextbeast to reinstall your working kexts that you copied to the desktop.
7. Run multibeast. You will need to reenable UserDSDT (make sure your DSDT file is on your desktop) and System Utilities. You will need to install your sound drivers again (ALC8xxHDA and AppleHDA Rollback). Select any other options you want (I just reinstalled everything from the standard template from this tutorial to be on the safe side)
8. Reboot
9. Once you come back up, you will be at 10.6.8 with everything working as before.
Thanks for the guide! That is helpful, as I don’t have a 5xxx series card to test with.
I’ll be posting my how-to guide for the 6xxx series shortly, and I’ll be sure to link to your comment!
Hey Jeff,
How do you like the 6870? I was thinking of taking the 5770 back and spending a little more to get the 6870. I can pick one up from MicroCenter for about $80 more than I paid for the 5770. I’ve head the 5770 for about 24 hours and it performs better than the Nvidia GT 440 I had but I know this 5770 is about 2 years old. Just trying to get an idea of performance/feature wise the differences between the two. Thanks.
Eddie,
I like it. I play Minecraft sometimes on my Hackintosh, and it plays it smoothly. It’ll also play most games in Windows on high or max settings. If you would like a newer card, or want more performance, I’d upgrade. However, if the 5770 is working well for you, I wouldn’t worry about it. I don’t know all the differences between the two, you may see slightly less power usage/heat, and higher benchmark scores.
If you have any more questions about the card that I could answer for you, feel free to ask!
Jeff
Hey Jeff,
Just wanted to let you know that I ended up getting the 6870. I first a had a few issues getting it to work under 10.6.8. I was already at 10.6.8 under the 5770 and some of the kexts were missed matched between 10.6.7 and 10.6.8. I ended up just applying the 10.6.8 combo update in safe mode, multbeasted and rebooted and all was fine. Thanks for all your help.
Pingback: Update your Hackintosh to 10.6.8 | JeffSprotberry.com
Hi,
you can apply a registry fix to allow windows 7 ton run in AHCI Link http://www.ithinkdiff.com/how-to-enable-ahci-in-windows-7-rc-after-installation/
Also Nvidia have released new drivers that eliminate the fermi freeze and other problems when running 10.6.8. not long now untill lion is released. Mike
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I have lots of Hackintoshing information. Just thought you might be interested if you need other resources. This has many other links to it.
http://chimac.net/2011/02/28/the-apple-of-my-eye-building-my-core-i7-hackintosh-pro-rig-%C2%AB-cloud-number-nine/
Hey Jeff,
I followed your guide, and everything worked perfectly, im running 10.6.8 at the moment.
It runs pretty fast, expect for the fact that is freezes very often and locks ups.
Would you know why?
My Hardware is:
Intel i7 960
6 Gigs of ddr3 ram
ATI Radeon HD 6870 Video card
Sabertooth x58
I was having some freeze issues after my first boot, but they seemed to work themselves out after a few reboots. Also, did you try changing your boot file? You may need a different one than I’ve posted for your 960, that may be worth checking into.
I managed to install OS X 10.6.3 and updated to 10.6.7. Then I installed MultiBeast with de DSDT, and the nVidia-thing(It said some files couldn’t be installed). I rebooted, entered my BIOS, and searched for the AHCI 2.0-point, but I can’t find it. I can’t boot the OS X anymore…
Sabertooth X58
i7-950
6GB Corsair XMS 3 1600MHz
Gigabyte GTX470 SOC
Lol, just booted.
Dunno y, but it worked. 
(Still with iBoot)
Worked like a charm! Thanx!!
will it be a problem if i made any other changes in the bios? just curious….
what if i revert back the ahci mode to sata?
My mobo is an Asus P6T Deluxe V2. Will the Windows Registry fix work with mine? I’ve got OS 10.6.7 functioning just fine, but cannot get the machine to boot into my Win7 Pro 64bit system, which resides on another drive. Do I need to unplug the OSX drive first, or should I be able to boot into BIOS, change back to IDE, boot into Windows, do registry fix, restart, change back to AHCI, and be fully dual boot-able? phew. Thats a lot. Interesting post/discussion here. Thanks for all the information, very helpful.
Brandon
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Hey, for some reason MultiBeast crashes after installing the 10.6.7 combo update. I noticed that tonymac’s official guide now uses 10.6.8. I cannot boot without iBoot and when I try to connect my external HDD (USB), the entire machine crashes and requires a restart. I assume it has something to do with initially running MultiBeast and the update, because I put those files on the pc WITH that HDD.
Any ideas? I’m about to put a bullet in this thing.
I tried again. This time it didn’t crash, but I got the “System extension cannot be used” for the Nvidia driver. The USB HDD still makes the thing crash though. What is going on?
I would try an upgrade/fresh install to 10.6.8, then follow the instructions from there. I would imagine the problems you’re getting from the NVidia card and USB HDD are from not running multibeast. Hopefully that helps!
Hi there Jeff,
I would like to say thousands of thanks for this awesome guide that you had provided. Your setup is almost the same as I except I had a 5870 instead of GTX. Everything installed flawlessly and I had no problem at all.
There’s one question that I would like to ask though. How would you enable the HDMi output support?
Also, FCPX and Motion 5 doesn’t work. Whenever I tried to open a message “.. cannot be opened because of a problem” occured. I’m using 10.6.7.
Update: Finally got both FCPX and motion 5 to work. It appears that Software Update did the trick.
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I am able to safe boot using -x PCIRootUID=1… but unable to boot up normally? Any suggestions?
install mulitbeast. or go back into bios and make sure ahci is enabled in 2 locations and also enable s3 only. when you press the button on the motherboard near the ram, its for ram check. you end up resetting the bios. so that could be a problem cuz it happened to me and it took me a while to figure it out!
Hey there everyone,
I almost have everything working on my hackintosh thanks to jeffsprotberry, but what i can’t seem to figure on how to make work is my eSATA that’s on the motherboard. I installed both SATA and eSATA kexts from Multibeast, but when I connect my External HD via eSATA cable, it does not read it. Can some please help me with this, thanks
first of all i just want to say thanks for this guide, it helped me alot especially getting
the DSDT file for my sabertooth, i would of never been able to make one myself. The worst part of this whole ordeal was waiting for my snow leopard cd to ship from apple. took 2 weeks to ship out. Which is a real bummer.
AFTER HOURS OF TRYING TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO INSTALL SNOW LEOPARS AND WINDOWS 7 ON THE SAME HARDDRIVE, (my SSD 126gb) I FINALLY WAS ABLE TO DO IT SECESSFULLY.
First i had to go into the bios to enable achi in 2 different locations and also “s3 only”
then i popped in the iboot press f8 choose Cd-Drive. let it run. swap out cd, put Snow Leopard in. press f5 to refresh go over to snow leopard type “-x PCIRootUID=1″ then hit enter, let it run. go to disk utilities, click on the harddrive, and then to the partitions tab, Create 2 partitions, first one mac os extended format. second partition MS DOS. also dont forget to select GUID in options, click apply and when everything is done formatting, close the installer and rastart the computer.(dont install osx)
now were ready to install windows 7, i used a Bootable windows 7 flashdrive, because it installs faster. when the computer boots up press F8 and choose Flashdrive or Cd Drive whichever method your using to install windows 7 from. then when it boots up and your at the harddrive partitions menu click on the second partiton, you might see 4 partitions, two partitions each with a small “reserved” partition before it. Delete the second reserved partition, might be like 300mb on the third line, and delete the 2nd partition. ok now you should see three partitions mac osx reserved and mac system partition, and a third one thats empty click on the empty one (2ND partition) and create a new one so this way it can be NTFS instead of MS DOS. (if you had formatted the second partition anything other then MS DOS then the windows 7 installer wouldnt
reconize the Drive, so make sure when your in disk utilities in snow leopard you format the second partiton MS DOS) ok now windows 7 will partition the free space and add a 100mb system reserved partition also.
Install windows 7 and go to regedit and make sure the value is modified to 0 AS SHOWN in the steps on the top of this page. restart the computer and make sure the bios is set properly. pop in iboot and swap out to snow leopard when asked, make sure you type “-x PCIRootUID=1″ before you select snow leopard when you get to select harddrive, you should see the partition created earlier (partition 1). install snow leopard. update, install multibeast and were ready to go!
you now have a dual boot hackintosh on 1 harddrive with NTFS and Mac os extended Formats. 
Scratch that! the Multibeast i downloaded from Tonymacx86 only offered Chimera not Chameleon. so it did not pick up the NTFS partition (Windows 7) on my SSD, from which i was trying to dual boot from one harddrive. but it boots and picks up both operating systems if you were installing Snow Lepard(osx extended) and Windows 7 (ntfs) on two different harddrives. but then again the tuturial i was following:
http://tonymacx86.blogspot.com/2009/11/dual-boot-windows-7-and-os-x-snow.html
said to use chameleon not chimera. and i cant find it so i just gave up.
heres some dual boot tutural links. so if anyone feels like trying it be my guest!
http://www.windows7hacker.com/index.php/2011/04/beginner-guide-for-building-a-fully-working-snow-leopard-hackintosh-along-with-windows-7-part-ii-installation/
http://tonymacx86.blogspot.com/2009/11/dual-boot-windows-7-and-os-x-snow.html
Magnificent web site. Plenty of helpful information here. I am sending it to several friends ans additionally sharing in delicious. And naturally, thank you in your sweat!
hi, really amazing tutorial, works really fine to me, almost give up until I find this xD,
all the install process was perfect, my sound and network work fine but now I having troubles with my Asus gtx 570 T.T just appears in the screen option 1024 x 768, I’m really new in this, do u know for some tutorial where I can see how to fix this?
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I will right away take hold of your rss feed as I can not to find your e-mail subscription hyperlink or newsletter service. Do you’ve any? Please allow me know in order that I may subscribe. Thanks.
Hey guys,
My brother gave me his old pc desktop and I really want to be able to use Snow Leopard on it and I was told to come to this website.
I followed all the instructions and I got up to the point where I’m supposed to get to something called the language screen (before disk/utility), but the screen just looks gray with the little spinning thing near the bottom and a few minutes later the whole computer just shuts down.
Has anyone else run into an issue like this before? I’ve removed and plugged in all the parts as instructed and did all that stuff in the BIOS and I bought a legitimate copy of snow leopard on the website. I haven’t tried disabling the ethernet and USB3 which was an optional step…could that be the reason why it’s not working?
Any advice would be really helpful,
thank you thank you thank you
Hey, thanks for your pointer….i am trying to avoid using 1 drive for dual boot but install 2 ssd’s at 120GB SATA 3 where by I would want to install windoz 7 on one drive and lion on the other? then add a 2TB HDD internal drive for files. Ideas anyone?
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just went past my 66 – so sat out to do a Hack PC using your setup Sabertooth x58, i7 950, HD6770 / GTX550Ti Had learned a lot in the pat 2weeks than I did in last 20some years through your guide + iBoot + Multibeast 3.10.1. Very new to this but managed to get up to 10.6.8! Most difficulty was moving from 10.6.7 to 10.6.8 MultiBeast installation failed without fail everytime. Then I did out of frustration more than any tech savvy, repaired permissions and then it did the install with the 10.6.7 IOPCIFamily & ApplePCPIPlatform kexts using KextBeat.
Now downloaded the Lion and for the life of me cannot run the install even after successfully porting using xMove. As soon as I boot using the “Installer” partition the unit shuts down and Reboots. Tried removing the CPUPowerManagementClient & CPUPowerManagement but to no avail
**** PLEASE HELP ****
10.6.8 runs fine -even updated Safari, iTunes with no problems – Realtek sound works great without any stutter – all Apple video commercial runs smoothly. Even purchased and installed Aperture without issues – BUT only if I could get Lion to install – my video cards GTX550Ti or HD6770 could be used with full resolution – I am now stuck at 1024×768 Really want to use dual set up or eyefinity using ATI card
also found that my app store account will no longer recognize my system anymore – it did fine with 10.6.7
tried many suggestions on tonymacx86 forum nothing works
also no com.apple.Boot.plist but only org.chameleon.Boot.plist
Ethernet is still en0 and Safari is running ok
But App store will not accept my account anymore…….
Hey, I am now running Lion without any hitch except of course for the App Store Account. I reinstalled Snow Leopard 10.6.7 and viola the App Store is back. So I have dual boot (Lion and Snow 10.6.7) – I can get most Apps except for those modified for Lion and specifically require 10.6.8 (like Aperture).
I also had HD6770 and I flashed it to ATI5770 and now have full resolution. I simply used RBE for this with not a hint of trouble. Oh, mine is made by HIS.
All this ON MY OWN reading up on all the blogs that appeared on Tonymacx86.
Used Carbon Copy Cloner to get the Lion cloned on to another disk and I will try to use kexts from 10.6.7 (as some one had suggested) in an Apple Support group to see if I can get App Store my Lion install. And then I will be home free.
Although NO ONE answered my request for help, burning some midnight oil on my part reading through so many suggestions I am now here. I wish the forum was more responsive to noobies like me. Or may be I am in the WRONG forum!!!
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One problem that bumped me is that I was only able to get through the boot screen if using HDMI but not dvi (dual-dvi to my Dell U3011). When output using the dual-dvi link the screen just enter power save mode after the initial apple boot screen. I wonder what causes this.
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