[OSX News] INSTALLING LEOPARD IN YOUR TREE..ERR MAC

I’ll start off by saying that while we’re still in the process of testing odd configurations, none of this is really set in stone…

We know many folks out there have already installed the newest OS, but for those of you who are still waiting, and unsure if you can, we’ve got some information for you. After checking out many of our different systems, we did find something that was a bit odd. For those folks who’ve got their systems set up a specific way, yet meet the system requirements, Leopard will refuse to install.

So, we’ve found two of these configurations…at two processor speeds that are common out there. If you’re running 1.8 GHz with a bus speed of 100MHz or 1.4 GHz with a bus speed of 133MHz…your Apple profiler can show you what the problem is. If you haven’t, open it up. You’ll see that these two configurations cause an issue with the profiler, because it will list your clock speed at ZERO. Leopard will see this and think to itself, “Wow…not only is this computer not new, it’s apparently missing a pulse!” and then refuse to install on it.

Now this issue has only appeared on the Giga Designs CPUs that we have here, but can easily be corrected by manipulating the dipswitches on the card to change your bus speed. We’re not going to list instructions on how to do that here, but will ask you to reference your owner’s manual for the CPU upgrade and see how the configurations can be inputted. Once Leopard is installed, you can easily change the setup back to what it was prior to the install with no visible effect on Leopard (that we’ve seen).

Also, for those of you using the Giga Meter application that helps to fix this issue for you on your system…there’s an issue you need to be aware of as well. Giga Meter is an extension…so when you boot up the Leopard disc, it’s not going to be active on your system…and therefore won’t be correcting the issue that causes the Apple profiler to misread what your clock speed is.

So, based on this, it seems that Leopard is reading the clock speed as it’s judge of if it can install on a system, not the hardware specifically…and it only checks during the installation. After installing it on these systems we were able to pull the processors from them, and reinstall their older ones (a 450MHz and a 533MHz machine). Yes, Leopard is VERY slow on them, but it can be installed on them with a bit of work.

Lastly, we heard from a Japanese customer of ours the other day who told us that he managed to install Leopard on a machine under 867MHz by utilizing Target Disc Mode. To do this, you’d need a machine that meets the requirements and can then recognize the under 876MHz machine as an optical HD. I also found this note over on Cubeowner.com about it.

And I’ll say again…while we’re still in the process of testing odd configurations, none of this is really set in stone…but it is interesting, yes?


-Mike Leader
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