forcing mba to boot SL 64bit kernel

[twinturbov6]

Hi, holding down 6 and 4 at boot has made my mac pro 2008 boot snow leopard in 64 bit. BUT this 6 & 4 doesn't work for my mba, maybe theres a reason why or a little trick to enable 64bit?...

 

[Hellhammer]

Check is you MBA capable of running 64-bit kernel with this app!

 

[cjmillsnun]

My recommendation for the MBA is stick to the 32 bit kernel.

It only has 2gb memory, it cannot be upgraded, there are limited 64 bit kexts and no real advantage.

 

[r6girl]

All MBAs have an Intel Core 2 Duo processor and are technically capable of running Snow Leopard in 64-bit mode. Check this post to confirm you have a 64-bit EFI version and how to enable 64-bit by default.

 

[ayeying]

You can't. I tried. Hardware's fine, just the firmware wont allow it or the OS wont allow it.

 

[twinturbov6]

found out something

for my mac pro instead of holding 6 and 4 everytime you can type this in terminal: sudo nvram boot-args="arch=x86_64"
then you'll forever boot to 64bit

BUT sadly doing this to the air still boots to 32bit

anyways no big deal, software update will update to 64bit when the time is right i'm sure...

 

[r6girl]

I went through the process linked in my previous post and it worked for me on my Rev. B MBA:

 

[ntrigue]

2009 Mini with 4GB 1066 is there a way?

 

[ayeying]

I went through the process linked in my previous post and it worked for me on my Rev. B MBA:

Look at "Software"

 

[Scottsdale]

Apple blocked it from consumer Macs. Really ticked me off. I know third party apps exist to force it by altering efi.

It's unfortunate, but Apple honestly isn't even ready for 64-bit kernel on OS X. I feel like it's all a big lie and SL isn't ready. Those who do force 64-bit see slowdowns and problems from apps and third party plugins for browsers. It's really unfortunate that Apple brags 64-bit but force us into 32-bit.

Would be really nice for a rev 3,1 MBA with 8 GB RAM capable, 256 GB SSD, ATI graphics and real 64-bit OS X. I hope the 64-bit OS X is last as I hope MBA 3,1 is released soon... BIG HOPE!

 

[dad2rem]

Sorry, but I'm uninformed (at best) or stupid (at worst), but why would 64 bit be better right now? I don't see it.

 

[ayeying]

Sorry, but I'm uninformed (at best) or stupid (at worst), but why would 64 bit be better right now? I don't see it.

Honestly, it wouldn't make a huge difference on the Air because of the ram limitation. However, for me, I'd like to test it, but Apple hasn't given me that opportunity.

 

[McGilli]

I went through the process linked in my previous post and it worked for me on my Rev. B MBA:

Your picture just shows what all MBA's in 32bit mode show....

 

[NC MacGuy]

Your picture just shows what all MBA's in 32bit mode show....

Right. If that panel is scrolled further down, you'd see some no's in there.

64 bit boot vs. 32 bit boot:

 

[Catfish_Man]

Honestly, it wouldn't make a huge difference on the Air because of the ram limitation. However, for me, I'd like to test it, but Apple hasn't given me that opportunity.

You'd need another 8 or so ram slots before you started running into K32 ram limitations...