Hello,

I create this post, in part to share with everyone, my experience in installing Snow OS X Universal v3.5 on the Zepto A17 Hydra. I also post in hopes of receiving some assistance in tweaking the installation.


Introduction
The Zepto A17 Hydra was brought to market in late 2008 by Zepto Computers. It features a rebranded Clevo M570 laptop platform with, what can only be considered, quite a potent hardware backend.

My configuration consists of (i will update this list as I acquire more detailed information):
- Intel MoBo
- Intel Core2 Extreme QX9100 3,06GHz 12MB cache
- nVidia 9800 MGTX with 1GB VRAM
- 17" screen WUXGA 1920 x 1200 with both HDMI and DVI output
- 4 GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC8500 1066MHZ
- OCZ CORE 128GB SSD 2,5" SATA HDD
- Blu-ray/DVD-RW SATA
- Intel Wifi 533 ABGN 450 Mbit
- Bluetooth + 4xUSB2.0 + FireWire 800 + 4in1 Card Reader
- IR-Port
- 1xPC-CARD Slot
- Webcamera and Fingerprint reader
- An 8-Cell battery

The SSD is a OCZ CORE series one (generation one) HDD which i firmware patched manually to recive the same performance as the CORE series two (gen. two) type of drives.


Initial findings and install result
Ok... so I installed the iso-release of SnowOS X universal 3.5 without ANY trouble what so ever. Everything just worked like a charm.

I went through the pre-loader and arrived at the partitioning software wich just worked. My SSD drive was detected perfectly and I was able to partition it without any problems. I created one partition and then told the installer to go ahead and install to that very area.

The installer then ran without any interaction from me and when I came back to the PC about three hours later I was greeted by OS X asking me to connect a keyboard.

For some reason the laptop keyboard was no longer being detected (as it had been during the install process), the built in mouse pad had also ceased to function. I plugged in a USB-keyboard and mouse and had to reboot in order for them to be recognized by the OS. Finally I was passed the "Welcome to Mac OS X phase".

Ok, so after having gone through the setup phase I knew that:

1. Sound card was not working.
2. WLAN was not working.
3. Graphics driver was in "failsafe" (1024x768) mode.

Aside from these things, EVERYTHING works! It's kind of choppy since a proper gfx driver is not loaded... but it actually works.

I started up the system setttings dialog in OS X and went to town on the system information. To my surprise I found that the FireWire interface was detected, but only as a FW400 and not FW800. I also noted that my RAM was registering as DDR2 800MHz and not as DDR3 1066MHz, as they are supposed to. I did however get the full 4GB.

Further I also noted that the built-in BluRay reader and CDVD R/W had been detected and was working correctly.

It seemd as if the system had detected the on-board sound card but it was lacking some driver (or w/e) to utilize it (there was some data in the "sound card" field in the system information).


Questions

1. I found this thread regarding "drivers" for my 9800M GTX. How do I come to understand kernel extensions under OS X?
2. Any suggestions on how to get the sound card working?
3. What could be done to make OS X detect memory as DDR3 and FW800?
4. How come the built in keyboard and mouse pad stop working?
5. What tutorials would you recommend I read/watch in order to solve my performance/driver issues?

Any other, more general, suggestions are VERY welcome. I am VERY new to the whole OS X-on-a-PC thing so I welcome any help or input you can share.

Sorry about the long post, just wanted to make sure I had all the details in there.

Thank you in advance,
Gash

Additional information
I was silly enough to actually let OS X do an automatic update from 10.6.1 to 10.6.2 even though I knew perfectly well that it just would not work.

I remember reading some topic, somewhere, regarding how to perform that update in a safe manner. So now... my installation is completely broken. As soon as I boot the computer I get the old "press and hold down the power button to restart the computer, then press the power button again to start... (etc)" (the OS crashes due to some null pointer exception 0x000000000)

If anyone has any ideas/suggestions on how to get out of this predicament I will gladly try them. Otherwise I will have to perform a reinstall.

Thank you.

/Gash