I have an ASUS EN8400GS/DI/512MD2(LP) and I wanted to post my successful method for enabling full graphics on 10.6.6, as well as some important things I learned about Device IDs.
I'm totally new to "hackintosh" (and the OS X platform) and I spent probably close to 25 hours figuring how things work and trying many many many different things, including GraphicsEnabler, NVEnabler, NVInject, editing DSDT (couldn't figure that out), and creating an EFI string. Nothing worked until now.
I found out about device IDs and found a piece of software called DPCIManager that was extremely helpful. Basically it lists all the device IDs and manufacturers of the cards that are plugged in to your computer.
Edit: I've found a utility that seems to be slightly better than DPCIManager. It's called LSPCI, and not only does it list the same info that DPCIManager does, it also attempts to show more information about the device, like the model or revision.
DPCIManager said my card was 10de:10c3. The
first four characters represent the chipset designer of the card (NVidia) - so every NVidia card's full ID will start with 10de. The
last four represent the
device's ID, which differs depending on the manufacturer of the card (ASUS, MSI, etc) AND the specific card, even if the NVidia design model is the same. I checked, and ASUS sells four distinct models of the 8400GS, and they likely all have different device IDs!
For example, I have an "ASUS 512MB 8400GS" with a device ID of 10c3, and
someone else, also with an "ASUS 512MB 8400GS" has a device ID of 06e4.
Lesson?
Instructions/kexts/files intended for a particular card won't necessarily work for your card, even if the manufacturer, model number, and RAM size looks to be exactly the same! So if someone says, "this kext works for my ASUS 8400GS, drop it in this folder blah blah..." you shouldn't expect it to work just based on the fact that it matches your manufacturer and model.
Phew.
What ended up working for me was:
(1) finding the Device ID for my particular card, and appending it to /System/Library/Extensions/NVDANV50Hal.kext/Contents/Info.plist > the list of strings under IOPCIPrimaryMatch. There are a bunch of IDs already listed there, and mine wasn't one of them. Note: I couldn't see the IDs using Apple's Property List Editor, I had to use TextEdit because it was a multi-line string. Of course, you will have to repair permissions and update Extensions.mkext. Note: For some reason, MultiBeast wasn't updating my /S/L/Extensions.mkext (is it supposed to?), so I used Kext Utility to do so instead.
(2) Setting GraphicsEnabler to Yes. I had tried this many times before, but never in conjunction with the above additions to NVDANV50Hal.kext. Seems simple, but it took me a long time to find the right combination.
For all you noobs like me, don't give up. No one ever said this was going to be easy. This is a bit like walking around in a dark room, you bump randomly into furniture and it's a bit of a pain to get around, but gradually you learn where each piece of furniture is. Finally, you find the light switch, and look back and you can see exactly where you were.
Thanks to the TonyMacx86 team and the people that visit this forum.
Now, to get my wireless card working...
