Dell Inspiron 530s Question(s)

[xtwiztedfaitx]

Hows it going people! I've got a few questions in regards to installing Snow leopard on my Dell Inspiron 530s and as I am completely new to the hackintosh community I would very much appreciate any information in regards to the Proper procedure of installing snow leopard on my machine. I've attached a detailed dump of the complete hardware specifications of my machine for the viewing pleasure of those much more technically inclined then I! You may find aforementioned text document HERE. My question being A) is it indeed possible to install snow leopard on my machine, and B) If possible what are your (the communities) best approach to doing aforementioned installation. Thanks again for any and all support!

 

[totenkopf4]

Hows it going people! I've got a few questions in regards to installing Snow leopard on my Dell Inspiron 530s and as I am completely new to the hackintosh community I would very much appreciate any information in regards to the Proper procedure of installing snow leopard on my machine. I've attached a detailed dump of the complete hardware specifications of my machine for the viewing pleasure of those much more technically inclined then I! You may find aforementioned text document HERE. My question being A) is it indeed possible to install snow leopard on my machine, and B) If possible what are your (the communities) best approach to doing aforementioned installation. Thanks again for any and all support!

xtwiztedfaitx

If you are looking for a guide see this - http://tonymacx86.blogspot.com/2010/04/iboot-multibeast-install-mac-os-x-on.html

Important that you find AHCI S3 and HPET in the BIOS and set accordingly. You may also need to see if you have the latest BIOS installed to your system - check the support site for a BIOS update.

As you hardware appears to not be sandy or Ivy Bridge hardware you should be able to use that guide. Do not that due to the age of the build that you may need to see if either the Legacy Iboot Cd or the iBoot 3.3.x CD will work w this hardware.

We would advise you that your appear to have only VGA and SL will need to be using a GFX card w a DVI-D port. So You may want to look at getting an older GFX card like a nVidia 8400GS or the GT9500 series cards. See if you can find one from friends etc as these are not in production anymore.
Most of the new GFX cards don't work w SL now.

If you are unfamiliar w the internal workings of the Mackintosh world, I found the following websites and videos very be helpful.

But before you do this please look for some YOUtube vids under the name deanwrayUK
of these shortcuts.

His vid on Best Practice - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZl1Gv3J7bg
His vid on Basic Overview http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIOJB3EVHaw
His vid on Bootloader flags http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDw3RhLWAjE

For Noobs
http://www.howtogeek.com/72417/the-how-to-geek-guide-to-hackintoshing-part-1-the-basics/
http://www.howtogeek.com/72821/the-how-to-geek-guide-to-hackintoshing-part-2-the-installation/

If your planning to do a dual boot - suggest you get a two drive solution - one for OSX one for windows.

 

[xtwiztedfaitx]

Thanks a bunch for the rapid response to my call for assistance! glad to see this community is a helpful one. Ill be sure to go over the guide, and as luck would have it I managed to find an old 8400gs 'laying around' so to speak haha. After doing some other research I am fairly confident I can make this happen. I'll post back with the results, and all the necessary procedures to getting things to work properly asap, thanks again!

 

[totenkopf4]

Thanks a bunch for the rapid response to my call for assistance! glad to see this community is a helpful one. Ill be sure to go over the guide, and as luck would have it I managed to find an old 8400gs 'laying around' so to speak haha. After doing some other research I am fairly confident I can make this happen. I'll post back with the results, and all the necessary procedures to getting things to work properly asap, thanks again!

xtwiztedfaitx

As to using the 8400GS -

If the Motherboard has onboard Video support - make sure you disable that in the BIOS - don't want any conflicts w video.
Also if the BIOS has this - it may offer you an option for internal or external (your 8400GS) GFX choice as your disabling the onboard video this should either not be a choice or should be disabled - not all BIOS's do this FYI.

Since we now have external GFX we need to use the "PCIRootUID=1" in the boot up as one of the command switches.

You will need a monitor that has either DVI-D or HDMI and a cable to support it - no VGA is used by Apple - they went all digital for video. So use the GS8400 DVI-D port and connect to the monitors DVI-D port.

So most likely you should try this boot up command string at first install :

" -x -v acpi=off PCIRootUID=1 GraphicsEnabler=Yes"

We do suggest that after your first install you should use the -v switch until you last reboot then you should not need any boot switches.

Of course you using one of the most unfriendly companies motherboards - "DELL is Swell" so they say ( never know who they are) but not the easiest to get a hack built from.

You may want to use the Unit ID and look on the support website to see what componets are used on this motherboard - network and sound are what we need to know - is it intel and is the codec an 889 or other user friendly codex or do we have to be creative to get sound to work.

Suggest searching the web for some hits on this model and the work hackintosh.

 

[turk101]

This setup works great.....used an geforce 210 video card....haven't looked back.....good guides on here on how to do it....this is my second dell that I have switched over to mountian lion.....My primary machine is a dell optiplex 7010....FAST machine....only thing I did with it was to use a realtek gigabit network card....good luck with this project...alot of good people and help here...

 

[totenkopf4]

This setup works great.....used an geforce 210 video card....haven't looked back.....good guides on here on how to do it....this is my second dell that I have switched over to mountain lion.....My primary machine is a dell optiplex 7010....FAST machine....only thing I did with it was to use a realtek gigabit network card....good luck with this project...alot of good people and help here...

turk101

Thanks for posting the information -
But you should make any post relative to the original post and subsequent post that follow. FYI.