The Tech Loft

COMPLETE YOUR HACKINTOSH No Hackintosh would be complete without pairing an Apple wireless keyboard, wireless Magic Mouse and or a Magic Trackpad. I currently have my hackintosh setup with an official Apple wireless keyboard and wireless mouse. Works great, out of the box with no issue. I have also included a video as ‘proof’ along with a shopping list of Bluetooth dongles. I found out that with the use of a bluetooth dongle, you too can enjoy the use of Apple’s wireless peripherals hardware like I do! If you watch the 5 min video I’ve posted, you’ll see my personal hackintosh setup with all 3 Apple peripherals working..at the same time none the less! THE SHOPPING LIST If you’re running a hackintosh and are interested or even curious about purchasing Apple wireless peripherals, please check out the links below to help you get started! IOGEAR USB 2.1 Bluetooth Micro Adapter (GBU421) Dongle:  http://goo.gl/GTWNE Jabra A320s Bluetooth Adaptor:  http://go...

COMPLETE YOUR HACKINTOSH No Hackintosh would be complete without pairing an Apple wireless keyboard, wireless Magic Mouse and or a Magic Trackpad. I currently have my hackintosh setup with an official Apple wireless keyboard and wireless mouse. Works great, out of the box with no issue. I have also included a video as ‘proof’ along with a shopping list of Bluetooth dongles. I found out that with the use of a bluetooth dongle, you too can enjoy the use of Apple’s wireless peripherals hardware like I do! If you watch the 5 min video I’ve posted, you’ll see my personal hackintosh setup with all 3 Apple peripherals working..at the same time none the less! httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0LcOb-93cg THE SHOPPING LIST If you’re running a hackintosh and are interested or even curious about purchasing Apple wireless peripherals, please check out the links below to help you get started! IOGEAR USB 2.1 Bluetooth Micro Adapter (GBU421) Dongle:  http://goo.gl/GTW...

I ran into this problem I personally haven’t seen before. I downloaded an installation file from LogMeIn. The file downloaded as a .ZIP which I was able to open and out came a .pkg file. When I clicked on the .pkg file, my Terminal window would open. I had no idea what to do. Perhaps a file association was broken? I’ve seen this in Windows plenty of times and familiar with repairing the association. So how to you do this in Mac OS X? So to fix this problem, you need to assicate the .pkg with the Installer application. Where did you look for it? It’s located in /System/Library/CoreServices/. Select a .pkg file. Press COMMAND-I to open the Get Info window. In the Open With panel select the Installer if it’s listed or find it in the /System/Library/CoreServices/ folder. Select it then click on the Change All button. This fixed my issue, hopefully it get you out of this bind!

I ran into this problem I personally haven’t seen before. I downloaded an installation file from LogMeIn. The file downloaded as a .ZIP which I was able to open and out came a .pkg file. When I clicked on the .pkg file, my Terminal window would open. I had no idea what to do. Perhaps a file association was broken? I’ve seen this in Windows plenty of times and familiar with repairing the association. So how to you do this in Mac OS X? So to fix this problem, you need to assicate the .pkg with the Installer application. Where did you look for it? It’s located in /System/Library/CoreServices/. Select a .pkg file. Press COMMAND-I to open the Get Info window. In the Open With panel select the Installer if it’s listed or find it in the /System/Library/CoreServices/ folder. Select it then click on the Change All button. This fixed my issue, hopefully it get you out of this bind!

Folks, I’ve updated my hackintosh. I’m happy to announce that I’m finally moving into the Quad processor world with an i5 processor, 2500K to be exact. Below you’ll find a component list for the easiest hackintosh build I’ve seen! Most of the items on the list below is exactly what I have. Hover your mouse over each component for a description and price! CPU:  Intel Core i5-2500K Processor MOTHERBOARD:  Gigabyte Intel Z68 Micro ATX LGA 1155 Motherboard (GA-Z68MA-D2H-B3) RAM:  Corsair Vengeance Blue 16 GB DDR3 SDRAM Dual Channel Memory Kit CMZ16GX3M4A1600C9B HARD DRIVE:  Western Digital Caviar Black 1 TB SATA III 7200 RPM 64 MB Cache Internal Desktop Hard Drive Bulk/OEM – WD1002FAEX CASE:  Thermaltake Lanbox Lite VF6000BWS MicroATX/ITX Gaming Cube PC Case (Black)  or  MI-008 Tower Black P4 Chassis with 250W Itx Psu+sata Power Supply CD/DVD-R DRIVE:  Sony AD-7280S-0B 24x SATA Internal DVD+/-RW Drive (Black)  or  LG Electronics 22X SATA Super Multi DVD+/...

So Lion 10.7.3 has been released for a while now and I thought I wouldn’t care to update until June (when I move into my new place). I even locked up my hackintosh hard drives into storage thinking I wouldn’t need them. Well, tonight I got the itch, I went for the 10.7.3 update. It SORT of went well. I got my graphics and App Store working, however, I didn’t get my audio working. I MAY have missed a step, or the audio just stopped working with 10.7.3. If you’re using the same mother broad as I am; Giga GA-G41M-ES2L, the instructions below helped me get my audio restored on my hackintosh. Good luck! Method to get sound  (not mine ) Remove any alc8xx or voodoo from extraextension and system library extension Run given alc887HDA.kext using kext utility Run multi beast check system utilities apple hda rollback Non dsdt HDA enabler alc887888b run reboot REQUIRED DOWNLOADS: KEXT UTILITY ALC87HDA.KEXT

After updating to Lion 10.7.2, I immediatly noticed that the icons in my Launchpad had increased in sized…OVER sized actually. To me, the new icon size is just too big and ugly. And what pisses me off is that the icon size cannot be changed! If you don’t like the new icon size, there’s hope for you yet. A small hack, easy and simply can be applied to get your Launchpad icons back to 10.7 size. You’ll need to download the Dock app from 10.7 . After downloading the Dock app to your desktop, run this command in Terminal: cd to the directory where file is located chmod 755 Dock Navigate to /System/Library/CoreServices/Dock.app/Contents/MacOS/, rename Dock to ‘Original Dock’, and place Dock in the folder. Open Terminal, run ‘Killall Dock’ which will restart the Dock application….and that’s it! Open Launchpad and check out the smaller icons!

Wow, what a week. Over a week ago I decided to upgrade my hackintosh to Lion 10.7. I downloaded the installer, setup my USB drive and well, got frustrated. I installed Lion 10.7 and wasn’t able to get my Asus nVidia 8400GS 512MB video card back to it’s full resolution. So I decided to start from scratch..pretty much. It’s very important to have a full cloned back up of your hard drive. You can find out here on how to back up your hackintosh hard drive to a bootable disc . So my back up contained Snow Leopard 10.6.3, what meant I had to bring it up to 10.6.8 before going to Lion. Actually, you need to be at 10.6.6 to update, but the 10.6.8 Combo pack is all that’s available to update. So here’s how I did it: Updated my 10.6.3 machine using MacOSXupdCombo10.6.8.dmg DO NOT REBOOT WHEN COMPLETED Run MultiBeast (Snow Leopard Edition); selected EasyBeast and System Utilities Reboot Since I use an Asus nVidia 8400GS 512MB graphics card, I had to add my device ID ...

THE UPDATE FROM 10.6.3 TO 10.7.2 I have spent a week of intense hackintosh ‘training’. I have managed to successfully install Snow Leopard 10.6.3, update it to 10.6.8, upgrade to Lion 10.7 and finally update to Lion 10.7.2. GRA-FIXED BUT…. The re-occurring issues i had after an update is getting full 3D acceleration out of my Asus nVidia 8400GS 512MB graphics card and getting back my audio. With the latest 10.7.2 update, one of my newest issues was not being able to access the App Store. And there I was, all excited thinking I was ‘the man’ for getting my hackintosh back up to 100%. THE CAUSE The problem is caused by a tag in the NetworkInterfaces.plist. Under the tag “IOBuiltIn”, you should find “true/”, but in my case I found “false/”. And this is the reason why you can’t login to the App Store. I have read suggestions like deleting the NetworkInterface.plist or re-install your network drivers. Nothing worked. So ...

Let me explain how I got here…back to Snow Leopard 10.6.3 on my hackintosh. I made the upgrade to 10.6.8, and for me it wasn’t easy because I lost sound on my hackintosh. A few weeks later, I figured it out and was cocky enough to try and make the update to Lion 10.7. Well…from reading some of the ‘How to’ guides, it seemed easy enough….for the most part, yes, it was easy. Networking, audio, I had the graphics going but it without full acceleration (QE). So night after night after night i was searching the hackintosh forums, posting for help…nothing. One or two readers tried to help, but I could get my hackintosh to recognize my video card and give me full video acceleration! It was really bothering, I pissed off at my computer, I was pissed off at the hackintosh forums….everything I tried to do, it either just didn’t work, or got my hackintosh to fail at boot. And so today I decided to install it all over, from the beginning. Gettin...

I upgraded to Snow Leopard 10.6.8 and all went well except for my audio. I lost sound on my hackintosh. I was quite pissed because being a total noob in the HACKINTOSH arena, I didn’t know where to begin my search to resolve my issue. A tip for those still on anything below 10.6.8 and thinking about upgrading, use the Mac OS X 10.6.8 Combo Pack . Don’t bother with the “Software Update” selection built into OS X. You can also reference my short guide to updating Snow Leopard 10.6.6 to 10.6.8 . I turned to Google but didn’t exactly find what I was looking for. That is until I looked at the specs of my motherboard’s audio chipset. I found out the chipset is Realtek ALC888B. So I began my search with “hackintosh Realtek ALC888B” then “hackintosh Realtek ALC888B no audio”. So I came across the following solutions: This finally got my audio back up and running…which got my audio working right away without reboot. Let’s ho...

This is the PROPER way to clone a hackintosh hard drive. I had my hackintosh built with an 80 GB hard drive. The reason for using such a small drive was because it was of no cost (pretty much). I recently acquired a brand new Western Digital 1TB Cavier BLUE hard drive from $69.99. It was a decent price, so I jumped on the deal so I can clone my 80 GB drive to the 1TB drive. At first I thought it was a matter of using a cloning application and that was it, but it wasn’t THAT simple. Cloning software copies everything but BOOT files. So what does this mean? It meant I had to write BOOT file to the drive so it can BOOT UP! Chameleon has a GUI installer which did not work and others have reported that Chameleon has failed for them too…so Chameleon is SHIT. Sorry to say, but it’s true. Here’s what I did: Download, installed and ran Carbon Copy. Copied the entire HDD to the new Western Digital drive Download MULTIBEAST. Opened and drilled down to the Bootloader section...