CHUD, Kernel Panics, WiFi, Living with the HP Mini 1001TU hackintosh

Yep, my Mini 311 is still with *******, the local store I bought it from and is still, I hope, getting fixed.

I'm using the HP Mini 1001TU as my main machine for portable computing. I had tried to run 10.6.3 on it but the lack of sleep functionality with my own personal brewed DSDT.aml and lack of time and drive to figure it out has made me decide to revert to 10.6.2. - wipe-out, reinstall route.

HP Mini 1000 10.6.2 Auto EFI

But the hackintoshing lessons don't stop pouring in even when I'm making do with an aging netbook and déphasé 10.6.2. For one, I noticed that CHUD kexts don't go well with VoodooHDA.

I'd get Kernel Panics at boot up. It's because those additional kexts gets included in the mkext. I haven't dared to venture with Mkext Tool created kextcache for Extra folder but I think that should work as well. What I do is make sure I've got everything exactly the way I want - 10.6.2 update - create my Extensions.mkext from /Extra/Extensions and /System/Library/ and then just install XCode/Mac OS X Developer afterwards and not rebuild my mkext anymore.

This one I learned actually from the HP Mini 311 but I'm incorporating it in my Mini 1001TU policy, The Broadcom wireless module that comes with the HP Mini 1001TU by default supports True Power Off feature. I can never speak for real Macs but I think this is related to the "softswitch" strategy that HP implements on its machines to manage PCI cards does not exist in real Macs. I've experienced my WiFi cards suddenly turned off on my Mini 311 and it can only be turned back on when booted in Windows or Linux. Taping PIN20 has been one suggestion - I've gotten mixed results with that. But one thing I do is make sure that TruePowerOff is enabled:

So far, so good.

HP WiFi Whitelist Nitty Gritty

HP imposes a whitelist of hardware that's sanctioned to work on their computers, the Mini's included. Should you happen to be like me who's into the OSx86 hobby and are a Mini owner (other than the 1001TU/1000 models), you've come across wireless network glitch - or nightmare, rather - in Mac OS X Leopard. More so in Snow Leopard. The WiFi module is not supported by Mac OS X. I'm fond of referring to this as Mac OS X's "whitelist" not including your module or, in more creative words, Steve Jobs OS prefers to ignore your non-Apple hardware. Smug. (I often picture I have a duped Snow Leopard inside my MacBook Mini :D).

Now I've come across this whole deal with rebranding Broadcom wifi cards and wondered upto what extent HP's whitelist of wifi cards go for the 100TU. There are mainly two (2) essential information about your wifi card or any hardware for that matter I believe, that Mac OS X uses to decide how to treat that specific hardware. Apple's OS is very judgmental and unforgiving at times, racist to be exact:

(1) Subsystem Product ID
(2) Subsystem Vendor ID

I had a question in my head: given that these two are what OS X cares about, I wonder how specific HP is - would it accept the card as long as the Subsystem Product ID remains intact or does it need both to be matching the information on its whitelist?

The answer is IT NEEDS BOTH PIECES OF INFORMATION TO MATCH. If one of that changes, you'll get this:

"104-Unsupported wireless network device detected. System Halted. Remove device and restart."

I changed the Subsystem Vendor ID from the stock 0x103c into 0x106b to make it Apple like in a way. Result is I've practically bricked my HP Mini 1001TU. I would've used what happened as an excuse to get me a new netbook - one of those 11.6 inchers with NVidia Ion - earlier than planned (which is in January next year after the holiday season's shopping madness here in the Philippines but when promos are still likely to be on). 


However, the MSI Wind is here to save the day and saved the day it did:
(1) I popped open the HP Mini 1001TU to extract the now alienated wifi card. 
(2) Then I put it in the MSI Wind - I took out its Realtek WiFi card of course.
(3) Booted it up with Ubuntu 9.1 and did prasys' procedure to revert the Broadcom sprom to the original ID's:
- Subsystem Product ID : 0x1508
- Subsystem Vendor ID : 0x103c 
*I only had to change the Subsystem Vendor ID as the Product ID wasn't changed before.
(4) I put back the Broadcom card inside the Mini and voilà! My MacBook Mini is its old self again.


Now what's the point of this whole effort? I learned new stuff (or confirmed old stuff) about the HP Mini 1000:
(1) The upper chassis which houses the built-in trackpad has clips and is secured with adhesive on some parts. Careful in prying it off plus careful again when you put it back - make sure the clip near the left side palm rest is secured first.
(2) There's another PCI-e slot inside

(3) The WiFi card, while indeed is a Broadcom, is actually a 4312. To be exact, the label on the actual card reads: Broadcom4312 HMG or BRCM94312 - not sure why there's a "9" in the alternative appellation. All the while, Mac OS X, both Leopard and Snow Leopard, has always seen it as a 4315. I've no idea how that works. I've tried omitting 4315 from the AirPortBRCM4311.kext plugin so that 4312 remained, hoping it would be used. But that only caused the OS reporting that no airport card was installed.
(4) The entire motherboard is housed in the palm rest area. The heatsink and the ram slot's locations contribute a lot why the area feels remarkably toasty. It's an engineering feat alright; fitting an entire netbook system in that confined space but it's still undeniable that the Mini's one hot machine - and that's literally speaking.

Conclusion? I have serious doubts as to whether I'm gonna hackintosh an HP Mini 311 which in turn gives me more doubts as to whether I'm gonna stick with HP when I upgrade to a higher level netbook next year - I can't live without OS X, or rather, I don't reckon I can tolerate a non OSx86-ified netbook among my small collection. Cause come to think of it, there's already this compatibility issue with OS X alone and HP's adding to the equation another compatibility issue with its restrictive, not to mention imbecile, whitelists.

But then HP's netbooks remain on top niche for very good build quality.

P.S. My dear MSI Wind, though I'm extremely grateful to you for salvaging my alienated Broadcom wifi card, the undeniable truth still prevails: your chassis is chancy, your hinges feel flimsy, and your keyboard flexes with keys that are no thicker than an average party plastic cup.

Meanwhile, enjoy the HP Mini 1001TU's porn pics:

HP Mini VGA Adapter

So now I'm a whiny HP customer. What happened to the "laude ad astra" blab I've been showering all over HP's brand (without even being asked, let alone paid for the relentless plugging) like some anointing oil.
This:

Right. That's the HP VGA Adapter cable for the Mini 1000 and Vivian Tam series. Don't get me wrong; it's a beautiful piece of hardware or computer accessory. From the rubber finish, to the silver printed HP logo it shows the company accords ample attention to detail and customer satisfaction. In the spirit of Hackintoshing and aspiring to be Apple-like, I can even say the cable reminds me of my Apple iPod's cable - sans the fancy plastic pin cap and stark white coloring of course. In short, it seems to be a sturdy piece of accessory that'll last or perhaps even outlast, your HP Mini 1000's life cycle.

But what's the whining all about?

Multithread or Multicore?

In order to install iDeneb on the HP Mini 1000, you have to enable the "CPUs=1" fix option or else the install will fail to boot up, leaving you scratching your head and perhaps enunciating not so pleasant words directed to the how-to-guide authors; they said it would work in the first place.

So this option specifically tells OS X that your HP Mini has only one core. Now what I'm actually perplexed about are people hacking the com.apple.Boot.plist to take out that key and string that the "CPUs=1" fix has put in there so that the HP Mini's "2 cores" will be recognized again.

1) Go to /System/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration and open com.apple.Boot.plist with your preferred plist editor or even just TextEdit.

2) Take out these lines:

<>Kernel Flags< /key>

<>cpus=1 -f< /string>

Beatrix said...

hi instead of removing those two lines? replace it with =2 on cpus like this
<>cpus=2 -f< /string>
this will prevent it from having the startup problems. :D

so your Boot plist file should look something like this:

And the Never Ending Saga Continues. . .

Edit: Sleep/Resume has been resolved. Read it here.

First off, you can call me Hermione Granger-ish all you want, before taking the 10.5.8 plunge, I did some research, or to be more honest, some googling around ;) and found this interesting website.

NOTE: This is assuming you've already a working iDeneb install updated upto 10.5.7 - dsdt patched, OSx86_Essentials kexts applied, and Chameleon RC02. (I haven't checked how things would go on PCI_EFI Chameleon 1.0.12).

And like any bookworm out there who easily believes what she reads, (1) I obediently backed up my Extensions via Terminal:

$ sudo -rf /System/Library/Extensions /System/Library/Extensions_1057

Afterward, (2) I installed Disabler and dsmos kexts referenced by the aforementioned website via good ol' Kext Helper b7 but color-coded them first cause I was too lazy to check whether I had these kexts already or not in my current setup, there's no way I'd miss those red kexts now if ever I'd need to check later :D

(3) That done, I didn't reboot yet but ran the Mac OS X Delta 10.5.8 Updater (Delta because I was running 10.5.7 already, 10.5.6 and lower should get the Combo Updater) I'd downloaded just minutes before from the Apple website which, quite surprisingly, took fairly little time to install at around just 5 minutes or less.

I originally intended to reinstall VoodooPS2Controller just in case but decided at the last minute not to and (4) just hit Restart as Installer completed the update. As expected the first reboot didn't complete and the Mini restarted and once again I was face to face with Chameleon RC02 (I've updated my bootloader to the latest Chameleon, by the way, and am enjoying my OS X Boot Theme which I got from here). Then Darwin said "hi" again. The screen flickered, giving me goosebumps as I thought I'd never get into my beloved Leopard desktop. And the spinning wheel finally sprung into action and after what seemed to be a substantially longer boot time than usual, I first saw nothing but a blue screen. . .and my cursor - whew! Another 5 seconds or so, I was back into my desktop!



But everything was humongous; resolution got bricked as expected.
Perhaps this screenshot could better illustrate what happened after the update:

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="461" caption="No Bluetooth, WiFi, Resolution 640x480, Color not 32-bit | Has audio, default battery monitor working (right click and open in new tab/window for screenshot's actual size)"][/caption]

It was a comfort to know that screen brightness controls weren't bricked. As it was nearing midnight already I dimmed the screen to the lowest possible before (5.1) I trudged on, reinstalling my usual kexts via OSx86 Tools and not Kext Helper since unlike the latter (Kext Helper b7 it turns out, also backs up your kexts), OSx86 Tools would create a backup folder of the 10.5.8 kexts it replaced which I wanted to look at after. I started with the system kexts which seems to have restored WiFi and Bluetooth. I had no problems with sound as VoodooHDA still worked after the update.

(5.2) Now for the video kexts. You can opt to reinstall all of the kexts in one go; I just decided to separately install them because (a) they're already sorted into two different folders in my drive and OSx86 only allows installing 1 folder of kexts at a time and (b) I'm just weird that way. Restarted and bingo!

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="480" caption="Bluetooth, WiFi (Airport), Audio, Battery, 1024 x 600 32-bit (right click and open in new tab/window screenshot in actual size)"][/caption]

There was that nasty "You are running on reserve power" battery warning again and in wanting to screenshot it, I tried to make it pop again by putting MacBook Mini to sleep so I closed the lid and it was late when it dawned upon me that the usual flickering of the white power led and switching off of the fan didn't happen. I reopened the lid and there were the tell-tale signs of a broken Sleep/Resume that were all too familiar to me by then. I knew I had no choice but to force shutdown the Mini and turn it back on so I plugged in my broadband cable to check if ethernet worked. It did. It does.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="482" caption="No need for Yukon2.kext, just be sure to plug in cable before booting up"][/caption]

Now for a summary. At first I thought I was gonna end up listing down the few stuff that still worked but, as it turned out, I'm now writing what doesn't work which means the general outcome of this experiment isn't so bad after all:

1) Sleep/Resume - once you put the Mini to sleep either by closing the lid or pressing fn+f1 combo keys, the screen does switch off but so do the trackpad and, I assume, the keyboard as well, never to be woken up again but by forcing the machine to shutdown and just turn it back on again.

2) Fan - it's gotten hyperactive I guess as it now whirls away with fervent gusto at maximum right from the start and it's noisy.

I would've also listed the battery warning nuissance pop-up alert but that's easily ignored or resolved by turning off battery warning in System Preferences, taking out the default OS X battery meter from the Menubar (enjoy seeing it vanish in a poof of smoke) and using Slim Battery Monitor instead.

What happened to my 10.5.7's Extension folder's back up now? I'm keeping it safe for the meantime as I try to figure out how to resolve the issues mentioned above; the kexts can come quite handy, who knows.

For issue # 1, I'll have to try the old SleepEnabler kext and/or review VoodooUSBEHCI again for some hints. For issue #2, I'm gonna see how posta74's fan solution works out on this one.

All of this is actually reminiscent of struggles with previous updates 10.5.6 and 10.5.7, still fresh in my mind - 10.5.8 is déjà vu. Creepy, I know.

And now I've turned another fork in the road - Harry Potter's lightning scar no longer burns; the King has returned to rule the whole of Middle Earth and even Gollum has found his peace and so has Frodo (though I still doubt he's come out of the closet yet ;) ) and Luke Skywalker has swung his last light saber - sagas have come to their own grand close yet this hackintoshing journey of mine seems to never end. T_T

August 5, 2009

While the whole Philippine nation will remember yesterday as one of the most touching events in their history (me included in the "their" there) as they bade farewell to a great woman whose unfailing faith in freedom had fueled minds, fed souls of today who are now enjoying the democracy she helped bring forth, the rest of Apple-dom and Apple fanboys and girls alike will perhaps remember August 5, 2009 as the day that 10.5.8, what may be the last OS X Leopard update before Snow Leopard will be official, was released.

Delta Updater | Combo Updater

While I and my family remained glued to the TV set in the living to pay our respect to this great leader in the only way we could then, my fellow hackintoshers had already downloaded 10.5.8 from Apple's website and were trying it on their own iterations of MacBook Mini's each. Thus, when I visited myhpmini.com this morning fresh from grieving my country's loss of its valuable pillar of society, this was the conversation thread that welcomed me:

> Intel9295
Now, to any HP mini Hackintosh users: DO NOT UPGRADE! This update could break your install. Wait until someone more qualified does it (LeMaurien, we are looking at you) and see's what it does. YOU'VE BEEN WARNED.

Don't be stupid.

> MrFairladyz » Wed Aug 05, 2009 11:40 pm
My wifi wasnt working so i just updated to see what changes. So far, the display resolution issue is back (it only shows 640x480 instead of 1024x576... i think this is only a problem on the 110's, though.)

I'm re-installing all the kexts now.

edit: okay, i've re-installed the kexts. wifi is still not working (i don't know if it will mess up your wifi, but mine wasn't working to begin with.) Display and everything else is back to normal. No noticable changes, what was this update for?

> ravic » Thu Aug 06, 2009 12:56 am
I was having lot of trouble with Bluetooth PAN, I wonder if this would fix it?
I will wait for some time before attempting to upgrade.

> ConfuzedOne » Thu Aug 06, 2009 1:29 am

Don't be a chicken.. upgrade you fools! :P what's the worse thing that can happen? :P

> lukehale » Thu Aug 06, 2009 1:32 am

Only post-upgrade issue I have is my sleep fails to function, and I have to restart if I shut the lid :(. That also means bluetooth doesn't work because to get it working you have to close and reopen the lid. . . which causes it to sleep. . . which fails. Other than that it is working wonderfully. I will get back to you all if I find a solution to the sleep issue :)

Based from these results, it's basically the same conundrum of issues with hardware rendered non-functional by the update; not unlike what's happened with the other previous updates, 10.5.6 and 10.5.7. Among the issues, it's Sleep/Resume that's bothering me the most but I'm not losing hope - if people found solutions for this and a lot more others in 10.5.6 and 10.5.7, why not in 10.5.8? I haven't tried for myself the update yet so I find no reason to just dismiss this hurdle as unsurvivable ;)

I can't wait to get acquainted with 10.5.8. Now if only I hadn't a regular day job. . .

LABAN!