Well, I installed this kext for the heck of it: http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/ind...owtopic=132491

Then I rebooted, and it showed up on my whole screen, but all I could get was that light blue screen.
So I think I am going to reinstall it, once again... unless I can get rid of that kext somehow

Yeah, I did get through it and it was due to the VoodooHDA or the SpeedStep. If you installed the exact same drivers that is listed within this forum, then I don't know what the problem is. I was lucky enough to get through it.

My Quad Works
 

I just took a quick look and I did not see what install method or version you are using, but I used iPCOSx86 10.5.6 Uni Final and my quad core works great. Threads was one of my best stats on xbench. I have been up and running for a while and have not done any type of install in a while, but, as I recall, the only time I saw any issue with cpus= was with a patched kernel, ie, not updateable. My updateable install works fine. Check out some of my older posts, see if that helps.

I'm pretty sure most of us are using iAtkos v7

but I can try iPC again. I still have the DVD

So I had to reinstall and kept the voodooHDA kext any my audio is working fine, and I haven't had any kernel panics, either.

Yeah, VoodooHDA sometimes causes kernel panics on boot, but a restart fixes those. They're random for me.

As for everyone trying to figure out the DSDT, rock on. Enabling all 4 cores would be killer. I've seen some modded BIOSes - the point was to remap cores 3 and 4 to another processor, so OS X saw 2 physical processors each with 2 cores.

Hey HappyQuadCore, I've got an iPC 10.5.6 DVD too, what did you check to install? I can't find any combination that works. I'll try it though...

The Guide so far...
 

Having installed OS X too many times now, I've fine-tuned the guide I posted earlier a bit, so here it is:

System is obviously a Dell Studio 540, Intel C2Q 2.33GHz, 8GB RAM.

Here's what I did:

Disable SpeedStep and make sure SATA operation is "ATA" in BIOS -- IMPORTANT.
Booted iAtkos v7 DVD with arguments: cpus=1 -f -v
Partitioned 1 huge GUID partition, named Leopard.

Check the following packages (in order):
--iAtkos V7 Main System
--Chameleon v2
--/Extra directory
--DSDT
--AppleDecrypt
--AppleSMBIOS netkas
--APIC driver
--Disabler
--Intel SATA/IDE
--Voodoo HDA driver (see below***)
--Realtek R1000
--Post-Install Actions

ATI Radeon 3450 HD isn't included on the DVD, and since I don't have an NVidia, I can't help ya there. I ended up buying an old GeForce 8600GT and using EFIStudio. The kext for the Radeon 3450 you'll find on the insane site won't work, you'll get a blue screen, same with using EFIStudio or OS X86 Tools to add the string to your Boot.plist.

Install, and in Chameleon on boot of your installed system, use the same parameters, cpus=1 -f -v

You can also try to use cpus=2 -f -v as it sometimes works for me.

Voodoo HDA***: This might sometimes cause a kernel panic on boot. Just reboot. It'll eventually work haha.

-----Todo: ATI Radeon HD 3450
Get all 4 cores working

I'm where you're at. I don't know about the whole speedstep deal, so I'm assuming I didn't do it, and I haven't used -f as a boot flag and have been doing fine.

And for the resolution, I used PCWiz's OSx86 Tools to edit com.apple.Boot.plist, and put in my screen resolution (1920x1080) and when I rebooted, the resolution was 1400x1050. It looks a little better, but it still isn't full screen

So I got a patched DSDT.aml and put it in, and it seems like it would work, but it randomly freezes while loading VooDooHDA Driver. Has anyone ran into this or have any solutions?

SportsGuy, how do you generate a DSDT.aml file? All 4 cores work? Voodoo HDA is known to hang on boot, no workarounds that I know of. As for the Radeon 3450, I chickened out and got an NVidia 8600GT for $40 on Newegg. Works flawlessly.

Pere from uphuck made me one. but i can't get it past voodoohda... and i still haven't found anything for the Radeon 3450, but i also have been looking for a new card

crimsonredmk
crimsonredmk, before you contact Pere let me send you a guide to do it. I just figured out how to do it yesterday with Pere's help. It is one thing to have Pere do it but if you ever change your hardware you will need to learn how to do it yourself.

I will post back in a bit, I am loading Windows 7 on my other hard drive right now so once this is complete I will post back.

uofamis, did you get all four cores working, and is your VoodooHDA working?

Yeah, as long as Speedstep is disabled, I can install the VoodooHDA kext and my sound is great. I am going to post a very lengthly Dell Studio 540 Install Tutorial shortly that should help people get this up and going from the begining to the end. Let me know if you have any feedback.

Dell Studio 540 Installation Guide Using iAtkos v7

• In order for this installation guide to work appropriately, you will need to have near similar hardware configurations than what I posted below:

System: Dell Studio 540
Memory: 8GB DDR2_800 DDR SDRAM
CPU Info: Intel® Core™2 Quad CPU Q8200 @ 2.33GHz (7 x 333)
Sound card: Realtek ALC888/1200
Display Adapters: NVIDIA GeForce 9500 GT 1GB PCI-e
Network Adapters: Realtek RTL8168C(P)/8111C(P) Family PCI-E GBE NIC
CD / DVD Drives: D: PLDS DVD+-RW DH-16A6S
USB Controllers: 10 host controllers.
Motherboard: Dell Inc. 0M017G

• Go into the bios and change the Integrated Peripherals from RAID to ATA. Additionally, disable SpeedStep. This is critical, it will not work without doing this.

• Load iAtkos v7 Install Disc.

• When Darwin boot loader screen appears, press F8 rather quickly.

• You will receive a boot prompt, type in the following: -v cpus=1.

• Once the screen below shows up, please read carefully.

• If a hard drive does not appear under the Select a Destination, click on the following: Utilities > Disk Utility. Select a hard drive > click on erase tab > select Volume Format “Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and click erase.

• Now the “Select a Destination” is back and a hard drive should appear. IMPORTANT. You must select Customize. The install disc (iAtkos v7) will have pre-selected drivers. Only install what is listed below for a Studio 540 with the same specs as those noted above:

iAtkos V7 Main System
Chameleon v2
/Extra directory
DSDT
AppleDecrypt
AppleSMBIOS netkas
APIC driver
Disabler
DVI/DVI (nVidia)
Intel SATA/IDE
Voodoo HDA driver
Realtek R1000
Post-Install Actions

Install the Video driver that corresponds to your video card. I had a 1GB Nvidia 9500GT (dual DVI) card and installed the DVI/DVI driver under Nvidia.

9. Once installed you will need to boot off of the hard drive with the OSX. Hit any key once Cameleon starts to load. Until you patch the OS, you will have to boot into the OS each time by using the following commands: cpus=1 –v or you can probably boot using cpus=2 –v as well.

10. Now you should be in the OS. You will need to patch the DSDT.aml file which is hidden under your root drive. To unhide folders/files, go into your root drive and within the search, type in hide. You should be provided with an Application called Show-Hide Files. Click on this to show hidden files.

11. Now you will need to download the DSDT_Patcher. You should be able to find the patcher at the following site: http://uphuck.ggrn.de/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=2987
Within, there is another link to directly download the patcher: http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php? ... t&id=38192
At the time of this tutorial I used DSDT Patcher 1.0.1e version of the patcher. If you are having trouble finding this file you could probably run a Google search. When you open the DSDT Patcher folder, you should have the following files/folders:
- DSDT Patcher (you will also here this called the Parcher)
- Readme
- Tools
Open up the DSDT Patcher file, a terminal will launch. Next it will say, Press any key to continue. Go ahead and press Enter on your keyboard. Now the last line will state the following: Which OS to Emulate [0=Darwin, 1=WinXP, 2=WinVista]. Go ahead and hit 0 for Darwin and press Enter again.
Now if you go back to the DSDT Folder where the three files were originally located (the DSDT Patcher, Readme and Tools), you will notice two additional files/folders were created:
- Debug
- dsdt.aml
Go ahead and open up the Debug folder, locate a file called dsdt.dsl. Right click on this file and open it with TextEdit (this is an application located within the Applications folder). Once this file is open, locate the Alias CPU section (just run a search and type in the word CPU). For my computer, there were only two results which looked like this:
{
Processor (P001, 0x01, 0x00000810, 0x06) {}
Processor (P002, 0x02, 0x00000000, 0x00) {}
Alias (P002, CPU2)
Processor (P003, 0x03, 0x00000000, 0x00) {}
Processor (P004, 0x04, 0x00000000, 0x00) {}
Alias (P004, CPU4)
}
Go ahead and delete/clean the Alias lines so the end result should look something like this:
{
Processor (P001, 0x01, 0x00000810, 0x06) {}
Processor (P002, 0x02, 0x00000000, 0x00) {}
Processor (P003, 0x03, 0x00000000, 0x00) {}
Processor (P004, 0x04, 0x00000000, 0x00) {}
}
Go ahead and save the file and close it. Now drag and drop the dsdt.dsl file to your desktop, or anywhere else for that matter. Go back to your DSDT Patcher folder, delete the Debug folder and the dsdt.aml file (NOT the dsdt.dsl file you just saved to your desktop).
Double click on your hard drive and go to Applications and find the Terminal (just type in Terminal in the finder if you have having trouble). Before opening the Terminal application, make sure the DSDT Patcher terminal has been closed. Now open the Terminal application. Now drag and drop the DSDT Patcher file which is located within your DSDT Patcher folder in the Terminal. Hit the spacebar and drag and drop the dsdt.dsl file (the one you saved to your desktop) into the Terminal. Now hit Enter, it will not look like much happened and you will be back to a similar terminal window that you saw when you first opened up the DSDT Patcher terminal. It will ask you to Press any key to continue. Go ahead and hit enter and then select 0 for the Darwin OS to emulate and hit enter again. Now if you don’t have any errors you should be good to go. Lets go ahead and open up the new dsdt.aml file which has been created within the DSDT Patcher folder once again in TextEdit. Run a search on the word CPU, you should not find anything. My current version, the unpatched version of the DSDT.aml file which is located (hidden) within the root drive looks like this on the fourth line:
ñ L _PR_[É P001 [É P002 P002CPU2[É P003 [É P004 P004CPU4 DP80

Our new patched file looks like this:
ñ 9_PR_[É P001 [É P002 [É P003 [É P004 DP80
Notice CPU has been removed. Okay, now take the patched version of the dsdt.aml file located within the DSDT Patcher folder and rename it to DSDT.aml. Go to your root drive and delete the DSDT.aml file and drag and drop the new, patched DSDT.aml file.
Now restart your computer, you should not have to enter any commands and it will boot automatically using 4 cores.

Thanks a million to all that contribute their time and knowlege
 

uofamis you are the man! I want to make sure your contribution do not go unappreciated. i am new to everything mac and have been discovering a whole new world of frustrations, but am quit proud of how far iv'e gotten in the last 3 weeks with the help of folks like you. my new audio workstation is now complete (as soon as my delta 1010 PCIx replacement card comes). I couldn't be more stoked ive been racking my brain an wallet trying to get my quad core running/stable for over three weeks and with a fresh install combining what has been working for me previously and your guide all my cores are rockin. sports guy if you haven't gotten your machine polished up yet i'd recommend starting with a clean slate and following this guide to the t. Thanks again to all who contribute for no other gain than to benefit the community.

CPU intel Q9550
mobo Gigabyte EP35-DS3L w/ onboard Lan and Audio AL888
RAM 8Gb DDR2 667
Nvidia Gforce 7300GT 256Mb video card
dual boot winXP64/OSX86 all completely working...so far

uofamis22, I love you. :P

All 4 cores working! I remember a while ago BIOSes used to be patched like this and rereleased, this is the same exact thing and it works 100% to the letter. Thanks a million dude.

So I guess that ends my experience with installing Leopard on my Studio 540. Everything works perfectly and 100%. It's been a pleasure working with you guys. :)

Edit: My Xbench score is 151.14. The hard drive really brought it down (WD Green Power...), but the CPU Test score was 157.91 and thread test was 478.73. Hell yeah. Not bad. :)

No problem guys, with the help I received at the uphuck forum I was able to take what advice Pere provided and hopefully put it in a format that most people can follow.

I am now trying to dual boot Windows 7 and OSX. Once Windows 7 is installed, I can no longer gain access to OSX. Apparently Windows 7 creates about a 200mb hidden drive that really screws things up and requires tweaking to get this working. I believe there are other forums on this but I haven't taken the time to resolve the problem.

I haven't tested my speeds yet, what program did you use to do this?

If anyone can get the ATi Radeon HD 3450 video card working at full capacity please post detailed steps. As noted above, I have the Nvidia 9500 but I would also like to figure out how to get the 3450 card running. I have no idea how to add or remove a kext so it would need to be detailed steps.

The closest I could get was a light blue screen, but it was in the whole monitor! haha, but I might just buy a new card, too, and put the 3450 in an old computer, maybe.

and thanks a TON for the guide!

Xbench score jumped to 166.16 after installing NVInstaller (vanilla) and removing the Device ID from Boot.plist - of course, this is for the Nvidia 8600GT.

I had the same problem with the Radeon 3450 (blue screen) and no one seems to have it working properly.

what do you mean by this?:

Is that a large jump? Where do you see the majority of the performance gains? I wonder at what level it compares to an actual MAC?

SportsGuy has a good question, what exactly did you do (in detail) to get this going?

Majority were in graphics since the NVInstaller drivers enabled Quartz Extreme on my 8600GT, not my Radeon HD 3450. In case you do have an Nvidia card and can't get Quartz Extreme through EFIStudio or OSXTools, download NVInstaller and remove "device-id" lines from com.apple.Boot.plist - only for Nvidia cards!

Hi Crimsonredmk,

Okay, I currently cannot check if I have quartz extreme but my guess is that I do. I can find out by looking at the Mac Info. If I do have this, do I need to do anything?

Also, at what point did you install the NVInstaller, at the initial install with the disk?

No, after logging in and everything. I didn't install any video drivers at Mac OS X Install - you can check for Quartz Extreme in the System Profiler under Graphics.

Crimsonredmk, lend me a hand. Within System Info under Graphics, it says Quartz Extreme Not Supported. I downloaded OSXTools and enabled Quartz Extreme, however, upon restart it did not enable it. I then downloaded EFIStudio and my video card was not even listed so I didn't do anything with this. I have a 9500 and I believe the highest it went to was a 8600 or 8800. I then downloaded NVInstaller v.52.pkg and installed "Vanilla," like you. However, I have no idea what to do from here. To find the com.apple.Boot.plist file, I have to find the following directory:
Root/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration

I then proceed to open the com.apple.boot.plist file in textedit. However, I do not see anything that resembles "device-id" lines. Here is what I get:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>Kernel</key>
<string>mach_kernel</string>
<key>Kernel Flags</key>
<string></string>
<key>Boot Graphics</key>
<string>Yes</string>
<key>Quiet Boot</key>
<string>No</string>
<key>Timeout</key>
<string>5</string>
<key>device-properties</key>
<string>420200000100000001000000360200000d00000002 010c00d041030a000000000101060000010101060000007fff 04000e0000004e00560050004d000000200000000100000000 00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000002200 00005600520041004d002c0074006f00740061006c00730069 007a006500000008000000000000401c000000640065007600 6900630065005f00740079007000650000000f0000004e5644 412c506172656e740e0000006e0061006d00650000000b0000 00646973706c617922000000400030002c0064006500760069 00630065005f00740079007000650000000b00000064697370 6c617922000000400031002c00640065007600690063006500 5f00740079007000650000000b000000646973706c61791000 00006d006f00640065006c0000001a0000006e566964696120 4765466f726365203935303020475420000000400031002c00 63006f006d00700061007400690062006c00650000000e0000 004e5644412c4e564d616314000000400030002c006e006100 6d0065000000120000004e5644412c446973706c61792d4114 000000400031002c006e0061006d0065000000120000004e56 44412c446973706c61792d4220000000400030002c0063006f 006d00700061007400690062006c00650000000e0000004e56 44412c4e564d6163100000004e005600430041005000000018 00000004000000000003000400000000000007000000001e00 000072006f006d002d007200650076006900730069006f006e 00000004000000</string>
</dict>
</plist>




Can you guide me through this? Thanks

I figured out there was a new version of the NVinstaller, 9f23Installer.pkg. However, I am still in the same position. Let me know

If you are using the Kexts, you need to remove the device property string out of your boot.plist

I have no idea what that means.

Remove all of this:

<key>device-properties</key>
<string>420200000100000001000000360200000d000000 02 010c00d041030a000000000101060000010101060000007fff 04000e0000004e00560050004d000000200000000100000000 00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000002200 00005600520041004d002c0074006f00740061006c00730069 007a006500000008000000000000401c000000640065007600 6900630065005f00740079007000650000000f0000004e5644 412c506172656e740e0000006e0061006d00650000000b0000 00646973706c617922000000400030002c0064006500760069 00630065005f00740079007000650000000b00000064697370 6c617922000000400031002c00640065007600690063006500 5f00740079007000650000000b000000646973706c61791000 00006d006f00640065006c0000001a0000006e566964696120 4765466f726365203935303020475420000000400031002c00 63006f006d00700061007400690062006c00650000000e0000 004e5644412c4e564d616314000000400030002c006e006100 6d0065000000120000004e5644412c446973706c61792d4114 000000400031002c006e0061006d0065000000120000004e56 44412c446973706c61792d4220000000400030002c0063006f 006d00700061007400690062006c00650000000e0000004e56 44412c4e564d6163100000004e005600430041005000000018 00000004000000000003000400000000000007000000001e00 000072006f006d002d007200650076006900730069006f006e 00000004000000</string>

Sorry, got device-id and devide-properties mixed up.

Perfect, it worked. I really didn't expect it to be that easy.

FYI, I was able to upgrade to 10.5.8 without any problems, that I can tell so far.

10.5.8 upgraded here as well, no problems at all, nothing broke, no kexts to back up, nothing.

Show Processor Name
 

I have a GA-EP45T-DS3R running a q9550 Core 2 Quad. System Profiler does not show an entry for Processor Name. This is used by many programs to determine PPC vs Intel. Since mine does not exist, many programs assume PPC and it causes issues. How can I fix this annoying issue and just get my processor name to show up properly?

I am sure this is a very common problem, the time between my Windows install and my OSX install does not match. It isn't a huge deal, just more annoying than anything. I can manually set one and then it changes the other. They are never in sync. Any fixes for this?

Has anyone with the 540 been able to get the memory card reader slots (or whatever its called) working?

or the Radeon 3450, but I also doubt that...

Anyone try Snow Leopard yet? I'll give it a go tonight...

any results?

Yep, Snow Leopard 100% working using retail DVD, installed onto 2nd partition as a clean install using OSInstall.mpkg from Leopard. Grab a couple of Kexts from that Windows Skydrive site and such, drop in your DSDT.aml and boot.plist and it'll work great :D Even better than Leopard - no kernel panics all week!

10.6.1 installed from Software Update, no problems whatsoever. Still using 32-bit kernel because I need MacFUSE for my work. Hurry up Logitech, release updated mouse drivers for 10.6!

Can you PLEASE post DETAILED, step-by-step instructions on Snow Leopard installation?
 

I too have a Dell Studio 540 and would like to install Snow Leopard on it. While not a beginner, I would really appreciate it if you could post detailed instructions on how you got Snow working on your Studio 540. PLEASE HELP! I know you mentioned airdrive or something, but I have no idea what that is. Can you please attach all relevant kexts, etc. to your reply?

Thank you SO MUCH!
-Ken

Hey crimsonredmk,

I haven't been back for about a month now. I see you got SL working on your Studi 540. Like bsiv, would you mind posting detailed steps?

im looking into buying a Dell Inspiron 545 with almost the exact same specs as SportsGuys comp.. my only concern it the ATi graphics card... any ideas yet?

also thanks for the guide on how to get all 4 cores working! i cant wait to try it out.

we have already gotten all four cores working. also nothing works with the radeon 3450. others probably would work. and i also haven't gotten snow leopard due to already having too many partitions and no external drives...

wait... u have the 3450, how do you have video??? and at what res and what else haha

I said I don't have it working, and other video cards would probably work. I can still watch videos, it's just that it looks bad. My whole monitor isn't filled up, but the resolution isn't at the lowest. ha you know what i mean?

Sort of... You mean you can see OS X and you can boot and use it, without having to buy a new video card? and If all else fails.. im just gonna get an nVidea card... but hopefully thanks to the new iMacs they will give us ATi support :D(there going to use ATi cards in them... WOO Straight outta the box!)

Q9450 on P5Q-E works on all cores!
 

Thank you so much uofamis22!! I used your guide and now have all four cores working! :D I have Q9450 Quad Core CPU and ASUS P5Q-E mobo... Leopard is now fully working :) One last step is to run Snow :) Thank you very much and all others on this forum whom post helped me :)