Hackintosh OS X Mavericks on the ASUS N76VM

So after i got a gaming orientated desktop, i decided to try out putting OS X on my ASUS N76VM Laptop, since the internals are Intel it makes it easier than on a AMD based system.

After reading a bit, but not enough, i decided to just go for it since i found a way that seemed to good to be true. Usually with these things i prefer, maybe not the hardest way, but atleast a method that teaches me something along the way. This way did not provide me with that. Well, in a way it did, but not on a system level, not yet anyway. Basically the method used is to use a restore a OS X image to a partition on your HDD. I did. Got 3 read errors but it continued without a problem, i rebooted, and i booted straight to the setup for OS X. 

My first problem was internet connectivity. The WIFI card in the ASUS N76VM is not supported in OS X, meaning it will not work. Some people have worked around this by removing the internal wifi card and installing a supported Atheros card. i thought this step was a bit much for my usage at this point where i want to dual boot windows 8.1 and OS X Mavericks, so instead i used a EOUP 802.11n tiny wifi dongle i had, and after installing the drivers, it worked, but i did encounter some drops in speed to a point that made it useless. 

So at this point most thing works really well. Stable system, USB works, function key works with volume brightness and shortcuts. 

My main problems are at this point:

No dual boot. OS X works, but my windows partition is not working. When booting it shows HD1 to HD4 with HD4 being my OS X /D: partition. And HD1 + HD2 should be Windows 8.1. When i try to boot it, one will try to boot into what looks like Windows 7 with 800x600 resolution, but it then fails at boot and restarts. HD2 just gives me a critical windows error. 

That is what i am working on now. 

Also. Touchpad is bonked. Really bonked. useless. i have found a workaround but my main focus is getting to dual boot at the moment.

In an attempt to easier install kext files to fix my minor issues, i installed the Tony Mac x86 MultiBeast and KextBeast. in MultiBeast i noticed a function that would inform me of recommended tweaks to install. And i made the mistake apply the recommendations. The OS X partition now boots into a black screen. i do have sound so most likely it is a monitor problem. However, as i choose to have it installed manually with a bunch of other tweaks, i have no idea of how to revert the error. So now. No Windows and no OS X.

No extra Kext messing around is needed as the image being "installed"/restored is already set up. i always keep a USB drive with Xubuntu installed on it to solve boot issues, partition management etc, and running boot-repair with the recommended repair option, usually solves boot issues.

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Update: i had to reinstall everything, since i was unable to work out any solution in either windows, Ubuntu or os x to fix the boot loader. Now i am not saying it couldn't be done. I just grew impatient and reinstalled windows. Bought a dirt cheap 80 GB 2.5" HDD to fill the second slot in the N76VM.

I gave me a chance to work on my digital forensics skills as well, as i bought the HDD used. If you are ever to sell a hard drive that you have used. Make sure you

$ shred -z -u -n200 /dev/sda1 that puppy.

Especially if you have kept nude pictures of you and wife on it. Now i am a good guy, so everything i found was deleted.

I then dedicated the drive to os x, and used R-Drive in windows to write the OS X 50 GB Mavericks image to the drive. And have a fully working install. Well. No wifi since the card is not supported, but it works just fine with a wifi dongle.

Touchpad was actually working just fine all along. Turns out that it just gets confused when a external mouse is attached at the same time. Same problem exists in windows.

So all in all. If i had started out just using a second drive. A fully working OS X install could have been made in less than a half hour.

The bootloader is the text based chameleon bootloader, and i have yet to find the time to solve that issue, as my few attempts to change the bootloader has resulted in a OS X drive returning a black screen on boot.

I will add a link to the Mavericks image file soon, as the yandex link is painfully slow.

#Update. Here is a link to the .arc image file

To bad i didn't write a decent guide. I exchanged OS X for Linux Mint, but after shifting Mint to my main drive in the laptop, and having problems finding a useful way to make music in Mint that is not rendered useless by latency problems, i once again wished to write the Maverick image to my 80 GB. But so far. Every attempt has resolved in stuttering, flickering and freezing on every boot after the first one. So i am now trying to reverse the oh-so simple process of getting it to work.

Bittorrent Sync helped me out.

So i changed my direction a bit as a i wanted a working setup while making a direct transfer configuration.

i therefore ended up using Bittorrent Sync to sync from a seedbox to my NAS server, and then used rsync to further copy the btsync to a different folder. This level of automation leaves me to just clear out files from serverside and on the NAS once in a while. So it is not a total automation. But i can live with that. Furthermore the setup i am using has torrent interception so for most sites i don't need to first download torrent to add to my seedbox torrent client, rather it intercepts it from the .torrent extension and adds it directly.

While this is working wonders at the moment. My next step will probably be to dive into usenet or to set up the encryption for downloading directly to the NAS. i have grown a bit tired of my NAS build though. i can't blame Nas4Free as it is more than awesome software and it works wonders. However my NAS needs are at this point way below what i feel N4F would be most useful for. Meaning constant spinning CPU and PSU fans for no usage is bothering me. i am now trying to sell my mobo, ram and cpu and acquire some D-Link 2 bay NAS with support for fun_plug instead.