AMD Phenom - Asus M2N68-LA (Narra3-GL8E)

[ritalin]

I will use this thread to document installing OSX Leopard on a HP Pavilion a6557 base unit.

Motherboard: Asus M2N68-LA (HP/Compaq name: Narra3-GL8E)
Chipset: NVIDIA GeForce 6150SE nForce 430 (onboard GFX not used, dedicated PCI-E card used)
Audio CODEC: ALC888S
Onboard LAN: Realtek RTL8201N 10/100 Mbps LAN PHY (will not function in OSX, disabled in BIOS)
Onboard Firewire: Agere LFW3226-100

Anything posted here should be equally applicable to HP/Compaq PCs based on the Asus M2N68-LA (HP/Compaq name: Narra) or the equivalent ECS MCP61PM-HM (HP/Compaq name: Nettle).
There are currently 3 revisions of each board with the latest supporting the Phenom CPUs. (A bios update may be all that is required to enable Phenom support on revision 1 and 2. This is just a guess, I don't know for sure.)
(ESC and Asus may or may not retail similar boards to these, but if they do I would expect the part numbers will be different.)

[aquamac]

Look forward to hearing about this.

[ritalin]

To quickly get the system running I cloned a working 10.5.4 from my C2D system onto a USB drive. I new it wouldn't work on the AMD as it was made using my intel only patcher and was still full of intel CPUID checks. So I ran the Marvin utility on the cloned drive, that sorted the CPUIDs and decrypts. Next replaced the unmodified kernel with the 10.5.4 ToH kernel. I then removed the dsmos.kext (it isn't needed with ToH kernel). I also removed the nVidia inject kext that supported my 7600GT in the C2D system. Next I edited the boot.plist to boot in legacy mode. Finally I reinstalled the chameleon boot loader on the cloned drive. I then crossed my fingers and plugged the USB drive in the AMD system and switched it on. To my surprise it booted up fine in vesa mode. I then fitted a OSX supported PCI network card to get the internet connection working.

Next step: get the ATI HD 3650 working properly.

[aquamac]

Sounds fun, it is right to say that most of the fun is getting the things to work! Do you know if ATI cards can be got going with Strings? I really don't know if they can work on ATI.

[ritalin]

Aug 26, 2008 21:13:21 GMT aquamac said:

Sounds fun, it is right to say that most of the fun is getting the things to work! Do you know if ATI cards can be got going with Strings? I really don't know if they can work on ATI.

I have read report of strings working. At the moment I am using Natit.
Here is a comparison of my nVidia 7600GT vs ATI HD 3650
;D

[aquamac]

The words, truly, trounced and well, spring to mind!

[HackJoe]

Aug 26, 2008 21:26:39 GMT ritalin said:

Aug 26, 2008 21:13:21 GMT aquamac said:

Here is a comparison of my nVidia 7600GT vs ATI HD 3650
;D

Nearly doubled... :-) I liked your method for getting it working. I really need to start learning the more technical of OSX.. i know enough to get by and then blag the rest... but you guys seem to have a true understanding.. how did you learn it?

J.

[ritalin]

Aug 26, 2008 21:13:21 GMT aquamac said:

Sounds fun, it is right to say that most of the fun is getting the things to work! Do you know if ATI cards can be got going with Strings? I really don't know if they can work on ATI.

Well good things come to those who wait. After nearly 4 months of trial and error, I finally have a working graphic string for my ATI HD3650 512MB card. ;D ;D ;D