InfiniteMac OSx86 - View Single Post

pcwiz · 09-12-2009, 10:46 PM

Some of you may have noticed that after a fresh Snow Leopard install, when you try to boot your computer (with a GTX 260 card) you just get a black screen when everything has finished loading. Here's the easiest way to fix this issue and get your GTX 260 100% working with full QE/CI in Snow Leopard.

What you need:
- This zip file of EFI strings
- If your internet on the hackintosh isn't working, then you'll need a USB thumb drive to transfer over the necessary files

First of all, boot your computer in single user mode. That means when you get to the boot prompt (or the drive selection screen in Chameleon 2) type in "-s" (without quotes) and press Enter to boot. Eventually it should get to a #root prompt

Run the following commands in order:

Code:

mount -uw /
mkdir /kext_backup
mv /System/Library/Extensions/NV* /kext_backup
rm -rf /System/Library/Caches/com.apple.kext.caches
reboot

That will move some of the problem kexts into a separate folder and rebuild the kext cache. Now the computer will restart, and start it up using verbose mode (-v at the prompt) to see how things are going
If there are no other problems (other than the GTX 260) present in your installation Snow Leopard should eventually boot (although graphics will be ugly in low res, we'll fix that soon). Complete the Setup Assistant if needed, and get to the Desktop.
Transfer over the GFXstrings zip over to your hackintosh using a USB thumb drive or some other method
Place the zip on your desktop and unzip it, a folder called GFXstrings will be created
Open Terminal and type in the following command
Code:
```
~/Desktop/GFXstrings/gfxutil -f display
```
The command will result in something like this (yours may be different so don't copy this one):
Code:
```
DevicePath = PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0xc,0x0)/Pci(0x0,0x0)
```
We don't need the DevicePath part, just copy the "PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0xc,0x0)/Pci(0x0,0x0)" (once again, yours is probably different).
Now in the GFXstrings folder, there is a GTX260 folder. Inside this GTX260 folder there is a gtx260 plist file. Double click on it to open it with Property List Editor
In the editor, you will see under the Root key there is the PciRoot key. Double click on it to edit it, and paste your own PciRoot path in. Save the plist

Open Terminal and run the following commands:

Code:

cd ~/Desktop/GFXstrings/GTX260
~/Desktop/GFXstrings/gfxutil -i xml -o hex ./gtx260.plist ./output.hex

In the Desktop / GFXstrings / GTX260 folder you will find a new file called "output.hex". Open this file with any standard text editor, and you will find a very long hex string. Copy this string.

Open Terminal and run the following command:

Code:

cp /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.Boot.plist ~/Desktop/

The com.apple.Boot.plist will now be on your desktop. Open it with a standard text editor like TextEdit (NOT property list editor).

Right before the </dict> line, add two new lines:

Code:

<key>device-properties</key>
<string>paste that long string here</string>

Now as you see above, paste that long string you copied from output.hex between <string> and </string>

Save the plist and then run the following commands in Terminal:

Code:

sudo -s
[enter password]
rm -rf /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.Boot.plist
mv ~/Desktop/com.apple.Boot.plist /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration
chmod 644 /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.Boot.plist
chown root:admin /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.Boot.plist
mv /kext_backup/* /System/Library/Extensions/
chown -R 755 /System/Library/Extensions/NV*
chown -R root:wheel /System/Library/Extensions/NV*
rm -rf /System/Library/Caches/com.apple.kext.caches
rm -rf /kext_backup

Phew! You're done. Now just reboot and everything should be working as planned

EDIT: The best part of this is that it will not be affected by updates, so you only do this once.