Can't Boot 10.6.8 without -F (Paging TonyMac or MacMan)

[jbarish]

I've had my i7 875k and Gigabyte GA-P55A-UD4P running well on 10.6.7 for a few years now.
I somehow got the bright idea that it was time to update to 10.6.8 which after I installed it , my Hackintosh
froze at the grey apple screen. Undaunted, I figured I'd start all over and this time install straight to 10.6.8
with the combo updater after first installing 10.6.3 retail. I followed the iBoot + Multibeast instructions and
installed 10.6.8 and upon reboot my hackintosh froze at the grey apple screen again. DAMN!! After much trial
and error I discovered that it would boot if I entered -F when booting. After some googling I found out this about -F:

"If you've entered some extra boot flags into org.Chameleon.boot.plist, but they're messing up your Hackintosh's
bootloader, enter the -F boot flag to ignore them."

So at least I know that there's some issue in my plist that I need to correct. The problem is I have no idea where
the problem lies. Below is my org.Chameleon.boot.plist from my Extras folder. I would greatly appreciate it if
anyone can let me know what it is I need to correct so I don't have to keep entering -F at boot. Also pertinent is
that I'm running the Chimera 1.92 bootloader and a EVGA GTS 250 (512mb) video card. Many Thanks, JB

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//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>npci=0x2000</string>
<key>GraphicsEnabler</key>
<string>Yes</string>
<key>Timeout</key>
<string>2</string>
<key>Legacy Logo</key>
<string>Yes</string>
<key>EthernetBuiltIn</key>
<string>Yes</string>
</dict>
</plist>

 

[Going Bald]

On your hardware, install 10.6.3, update to 10.6.7 with the update combo.
Download UpdateHelper from http://www.tonymacx86.com/downloads.php?do=cat&id=9 and run it first, then install 10.6.8.
Otherwise, restore from TM or from a clone back which I hope you have and do the same.

 

[jbarish]

Many thanks for the suggestion GB, but it was my understanding that Update Helper was for Sandy Bridge processors.
My i7 875k is socket 1156 which was a pre-Sandy Bridge. Would it still work in my case??

 

[Going Bald]

Don't recall if the update helper was pre-Sandy or post-Sandy. Check the readme that comes with the download.

For the boot.plist, I would try removing the npci=0x200 and adding -v pcirootuid=0

-v for verbose so you can see where the boot is hanging and pcirootuid=0 for the nVidia gfx card

-f really has nothing to do with the boot list - what it does if force the system to load all kexts from scratch, ignoring the boot caches

to repair permissions and rebuild caches manually from terminal type in:

sudo chown -R root:wheel /System/Library/Extensions/
sudo chmod -R 755 /System/Library/Extensions/
sudo touch /System/Library/Extensions/

you might not need sudo if you are logged in as root.