[Guide] Vanilla Retail 10.6.x with Chameleon v2 for Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3L

[jabaman]

I have successfully been running 10.6.4 after a retail 10.6.3 install and am looking to upgrade the 9800GT to a faster CUDA card for BOINC GPU crunching. I installed with a 7900GS, swapped out for a 9800GT (and even tried a HD4870)- all worked with a simple card swap and no modifications required.

I am looking at a GTX260 or GTX460 - anyone running with either? I have seen problems with the GTX260 in the forums...

[Professor]

I have successfully been running 10.6.4 after a retail 10.6.3 install and am looking to upgrade the 9800GT to a faster CUDA card for BOINC GPU crunching. I installed with a 7900GS, swapped out for a 9800GT (and even tried a HD4870)- all worked with a simple card swap and no modifications required.

I am looking at a GTX260 or GTX460 - anyone running with either? I have seen problems with the GTX260 in the forums...

 

I just bought a Gainward GTX260 1792MB DDR3 Graphics Card, has DVI/HDMI/VGA. It is recognized perfectly by Chameleon RC5 with Graphic Enabler=Yes. Dual Monitor perfectly supported.

 

Hope this helps.

[jabaman]

I just bought a Gainward GTX260 1792MB DDR3 Graphics Card, has DVI/HDMI/VGA. It is recognized perfectly by Chameleon RC5 with Graphic Enabler=Yes. Dual Monitor perfectly supported.

 

Hope this helps.

 

 

Great, I'll give it a try...

[msb]

My EP45-UD3R Snow Leopard simple Guide using Cartri 0.8 bios running 10.6.4 with only 2 kext fakesmc , IOAHCIBlockStorageInjector.kext and no more LegacyHDA kext or No need for DSDT.aml. don't forget to donate to Cartri if you use this method. Also no more com.apple.Boot.plist and SMBIOS.plist because I am using a pre-release Chameleon RC5 build r168 bootloader from Cartri website modified specific for Cartri bios.

 

1- Install Cartri Gigabyte Mac Edition BIOS 0.8 follow his guide to the T. Here cartri.net

2- Boot into USB flash to install Mac OSX 10.6 retail. Use guide from Blackosx or this d00m42 to create this.

3- After successful installation of 10.6 now install 10.6.4 update combo. Use migration assistance to copy all your

setups but do not select option copy files and folders do this latter when you are already into 10.6.4 system.

4- If you are installing 10.6.4 from scratch then you don't need to use migration assistance. But you need to know

how to install bootloader then go blackosx or this d00m42 guide for more information.

 

 

I would like to thanks blaclosx d00m42 for their guides and Cartri for his bios projects. I would not have done this without their contribution.

 

msb

[ZenGiga]

Broken : can't find mach_kernel

 

So, a week after upgrading to snow leopard I decided to ditch my leopard partition. Both that and my leopard chameleon partition were on a separate drive, so I just erased them.

 

But on the next boot I encountered a problem - it may be unrelated - after selecting the right drive in chameleon I get an error "can't find mach_kernel" and boot fails.

 

I can find lots of other people encountering this error, but no obvious solutions.

 

So far I've tried reinstalling chameleon using the RC5-r518 build of the iFabio installer, erasing the chameleon partition and using that installer, and rearranging my hard drives connections to the motherboard. (The SL containing disk was at sata1, and is now at sata0.)

 

I can still boot using the USB key built for the SL install, according to BlackOSX's guide. Both into the installer and into my SL install - I'm writing this from there But obviously lose some niceties, like speedstep ><

I just can't boot using Chameleon on the disk, like I have been doing for the past week!

 

I'm basically at a loss what to do next. Check the bios settings? I think I'll do a second install of SL on the now empty second drive, just to provide a comparison, and to see if my chameleon install will boot that.

 

Anyone got any idea what is causing the "can't find mach_kernel" boot error? And how to go about correcting it?

 

This one has me stuck :/

[ZenGiga]

This one has me stuck :/

 

Fixed!

 

I have *no* idea how.

 

I noticed that after the reinstall of chameleon RC5-r518 my com.apple.boot.plist listed the wrong default partition. I corrected that.

 

I also came across this issue about making a disk partition 'active' with fdisk. I got as far as "fdisk -e /dev/rdisk0" followed by "p", but I didn't actually make the sl partition active. It as already starred with diskutil --list anyway.

 

Tried one more reboot and ta-da! Seem to be sorted. Hope it stays this way.

[geithals]

So that's what all that typing of fdisk -e /dev/rdisk0 in the terminal was about?

 

 

Out of curiousity ZenGiga, did you use the installer to do the boot.plist?

Which boot option, boot0 or boot0hfs?

 

I selected the boot0 and nothing else from the installer.

I just dropped the extras folder in there afterwards, and all that went ok.

I have Windows7 on a 2nd drive

Blackosx wrote this earlier in reference to this Cham installer.

'install the boot0 (or boot0hfs if dual booting)'

 

I have Windows7 on a 2nd drive, should I be using the boot0hfs option?

[lensboard]

Hi Black OSX, just wanted to drop you a note thanking you for your continued efforts to keep this board alive. I have been on scene for almost three years, and I have to say, I get lazy and get tired of the hassle of updating, but I know I can pop in here to check the latest. I assume that at some point you will get a new board, so just let us know when that happens.

 

Myself, I have several real macs, and two hacks, and I am considering buying another mac, and turning my hacks into web servers. Just to avoid the hack issues, so thanks again for being here to answer questions, and carry the torch as you have done so well

[ZenGiga]

Out of curiousity ZenGiga, did you use the installer to do the boot.plist?

Which boot option, boot0 or boot0hfs?

Yes, I think I did, then edited the plist.

boot0

 

I have Windows7 on a 2nd drive

Blackosx wrote this earlier in reference to this Cham installer.

'install the boot0 (or boot0hfs if dual booting)'

 

I have Windows7 on a 2nd drive, should I be using the boot0hfs option?

AFAIK boot0HFS overcomes issues with Windows on the same drive as OSX, so boot0 should be fine if you have windows on a seperate disk.

 

Planning on doing something like this myself. With OSX on one disk and Ubuntu plus maybe windows on the other. Just need to figure where to backup my existing linux partition. Though I'm tempted to just blow it away and start fresh.

[blackosx]

Alrite got my solution using these two posts. Thought I'd post it incase anyone else has the same problem. A real odd-ball problem. I'd say avoid acronis backup software of GPT disks.

 

http://forum.voodooprojects.org/index.php/topic,1593.0.html

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=231025

@rimmi2002 - I see you cross posted this to the voodooproject's forum... and you have solved your issue.

I know I couldn't help with the gdisk solution, but I see CD'ing to the correct directory and acronis being the culprit was just as I answered to you in my reply here. So you could have had some of your solution from here too if you'd come back.

 

 

@Zengiga & geithals - Yes, boot0hfs is only necessary when dual booting OSX with Windows Vista/7 from the same HDD. If you have Windows on a separate HDD then you can use boot0 on your HDD with OSX. Though note: when using chameleon to boot Windows on a different HDD, you'll need to double check it sleeps/hibernates correctly as when I did it that way it didn't, that's why I now have Windows on the same drive as my OSX. However, I think there are some dedicated topics on Insanely about the sleep/hibernation issue and I think there are now a few workarounds to solve it.

 

Having said that, if you do try using chameleon to boot Windows on a separate HDD then please post back your results with Windows sleep/hibernate as I haven't done it that way for a while and will be interested to know if it works.

 

EDIT: I am typing from Windows 7 now, booted from Chameleon on a different HDD. I haven't made any changes to Windows in any way and sleep and hibernation don't work. Chameleon is the active partition on one HDD and Windows7 is the active partition on the second HDD. Only if I use Chameleon on the same HDD as Windows 7 will Sleep and hibernation for me. This is what I found in the past when I was doing my testing.

 

 

@Lensboard - Thanks for your kind words and I try to keep this thread up-to-date when possible but after a year of running this thread I find I have less time and less enthusiasm to answer every question posted especially the ones that have been answered before in here. But I will keep posting here anything new I find that could be relevant for our mobo, for instance I have been meaning to update the guide with the revised FakeSMC.kext from Slice and crew over at ProjectOSX. It's been around for a while now and allows iStatMenus to report your CPU, GPU, HDD, Northbridge temps and fan speeds etc.. I have been using it for a while now and I have it as a default for my installs, though it requires installation to /S/L/E and not /E/E.

 

If I ever get around to building myself a new system then of course I'll post what I do

[geithals]

@Zengiga & geithals - Yes, boot0hfs is only necessary when dual booting OSX with Windows Vista/7 from the same HDD. If you have Windows on a separate HDD then you can use boot0 on your HDD with OSX. Though note: when using chameleon to boot Windows on a different HDD, you'll need to double check it sleeps/hibernates correctly as when I did it that way it didn't, that's why I now have Windows on the same drive as my OSX. However, I think there are some dedicated topics on Insanely about the sleep/hibernation issue and I think there are now a few workarounds to solve it.

 

Having said that, if you do try using chameleon to boot Windows on a separate HDD then please post back your results with Windows sleep/hibernate as I haven't done it that way for a while and will be interested to know if it works.

 

EDIT: I am typing from Windows 7 now, booted from Chameleon on a different HDD. I haven't made any changes to Windows in any way and sleep and hibernation don't work. Chameleon is the active partition on one HDD and Windows7 is the active partition on the second HDD. Only if I use Chameleon on the same HDD as Windows 7 will Sleep and hibernation for me. This is what I found in the past when I was doing my testing.

Hi Blackosx, glad to see you couldn't wait to get back into the thick of the action after your break.

Yes, from the Cham screen - selecting Windows7 - on another drive, does not go to sleep when so ordered. It does go into sleep function according to the auto sleep power setting, however it wakes up after 5 seconds.

 

After selecting Win7 drive from the f12 boot screen, the sleep function is normal.

[blackosx]

Hi Blackosx, glad to see you couldn't wait to get back into the thick of the action after your break.

Lol.. Yeah, it's like magnet drawing me in.

 

After selecting Win7 drive from the f12 boot screen, the sleep function is normal.

Yes, of course. I'm so used to booting through Chameleon these days that forgot about booting it directly from BIOS.. Doh!

Thanks for reminding us

[bigpoppa206]

If I ever get around to building myself a new system then of course I'll post what I do

 

Sort of excited to see what the newer i5 or i7 systems can do myself. Waiting until I hear of one that's as stable as these are though.

[blackosx]

Realtek have released a new network driver which enables bonjour by default and works with the kernel booted in both 32 and 64-bit mode. Thanks to Dreamwatcher for posting the news. Link. I am currently using it on one of my OS X 10.6 installations and so far, everything seems great.

 

It comes as an installer package and contains a new AppleRTL8169Ethernet.kext which lives inside IONetworking.kext. in /S/L/E.

 

EDIT: You can use it from /Extra/Extensions without changing /System/Library/Extensions See below.

 

If you want to use it but currently have either the RealtekR1000SL or ipconfig method active for bonjour then you'll need to disable it first.

 

Sort of excited to see what the newer i5 or i7 systems can do myself. Waiting until I hear of one that's as stable as these are though.

Yeah an i7 system would be nice and from looking at a few threads here at InsanelyMac, there has been a great deal of work by many users who seem to have fairly solid i7 hackintosh builds. But however much I would like one, I don't really need a more powerful machine for the type of stuff I use my hack for. So maybe when the prices come down? he he

[helob]

Realtek have released a new network driver which enables bonjour by default and works with the kernel booted in both 32 and 64-bit mode. Thanks to Dreamwatcher for posting the news. Link. I am currently using it on one of my OS X 10.6 installations and so far, everything seems great.

 

It comes as an installer package and contains a new AppleRTL8169Ethernet.kext which lives inside IONetworking.kext. in /S/L/E.

 

If you want to use it but currently have either the RealtekR1000SL or ipconfig method active for bonjour then you'll need to disable it first.

 

blackosx,

Tks for the good news on new network driver for Realtek to enable bonjour.

How to check and disable either RealtekR1000SL or ipconfig?

TQ

[blackosx]

Realtek Network Driver Alternate Install

In the spirit of this thread for trying to keep everything we need in /Extra/Extensions I have had a play with the new AppleRTL8169Ethernet.kext from Realtek and we can run it from /E/E without problems.

 

All you need to do is copy your original 10.6.4 IONetworkingFamily.kext from /S/L/E in to /E/E, then right-click it, select 'Show Package Contents' from the menu and replace the AppleRTL8169Ethernet.kext in IONetworkingFamily.kext/Contents/Plugins/ with the one extracted from the Realtek_v2.0.5 package.

 

That's it! You can leave the original 10.6.4 IONetworkingFamily.kext in /S/L/E untouched as the new one in /E/E will get loaded instead.

 

I have attached the one I did here, so just drop it in to /E/E and reboot

Patched_10.6.4_IONetworkingFamily_kext.zip

 

EDIT: For me, this is now superceded by Lnx2mac's RealtekRTL81xx.kext (See Below)

[MaLd0n]

Hi blackosx

Great Work

 

Thanks a Lot

 

[blackosx]

@MaLd0n - Thanks.. I hope it works for your board as it does mine.

 

@Helob - To undo your previous bonjour implementation, just reverse which ever option you used when you installed originally. Only you'll know which method you used, but to refresh your memory have a look at section 5 of PDF 'Part 4 - Configure for GA-EP45-DS3L ' which shows both methods I had recommended previously.

[ZenGiga]

I have attached the one I did here, so just drop it in to /E/E and reboot

Thanks. Sadly I have to report wake from sleep issues with this too.

 

I'm using a netgear pci gigabit card for my networking. Bonjour etc everything works fine. I ignore the onboard ethernet.

 

I installed your patched extension, and rebooted happily, but didn't get around to configuring networking for it, or plugging in an ethernet cable.

 

Put it to sleep, but on attempting to wake the case lights came on but monitors didn't. Fired up one of my other machines and was unable to ssh in, plus router didn't show the hack as attached. So basically networking was gone on wake.

I can't find anything in the logs either, so I don't think anything much at all came back up after sleep.

 

Have removed the realtek driver - think I'll stick with the netgear card. But it would be nice to see the onboard ethernet working

[blackosx]

Thanks for the feedback ZenGiga. I can't remember what mobo you're running and you don't have a sig, so I'm guessing it's the same as me - EP45-DS3L?

 

There have been reports of what you mention on other mobo's and Realtek chips but as it works great on my setup I guessed it would also work on other EP45-DS3L users with onboard Realtek 8111C chips. Out of interest though, have you tried it without your PCI NIC plugged in? as maybe the chip on that isn't supported by the new driver..

 

The new driver supposedly supports:

RTL8111B/RTL8168B/RTL8111/RTL8168

RTL8111C/RTL8111CP/RTL8111D(L)

RTL8168C/RTL8111DP/RTL8111E

 

But I guess it doesn't really matter which method any of us use as long as we have a reliable functioning network and as you have a separate NIC then I guess you don't need this anyway?..

[lnx2mac]

Thanks. Sadly I have to report wake from sleep issues with this too.

...

Have removed the realtek driver - think I'll stick with the netgear card. But it would be nice to see the onboard ethernet working

ZenGiga,

How about trying my RTL81xx driver ? http://bit.ly/RTL81xx

[blackosx]

Hi lnx2mac - Wow.. that looks interesting.. Well done to you.

I'll check it out too

 

EDIT: Excellent job. From my simple tests it works great on my machine, so much so, I now can't choose between yours or Realtek's. I can load them both from E/E and they both give me working bonjour. I might just stick with yours lnx2mac as I guess it'll be open source?

 

Any tips on how to improve my network performance? I get a measly average 2MB /sec copying a 4GB file over SMB from my Windows PC with either yours or Realtek's driver. Very poor against your screenshot of 104MB/sec!

 

Great Job and regards

 

 

EDIT: If anybody else wants to use this from E/E then all you need to do is copy the IONetworkingFamily.kext from /S/L/E in to /E/E, right-click it selecting 'Show Package Contents' and in the '/Contents/Plugins' folder, remove all existing kexts and add in Lnx2Mac's RealtekRTL81xx.kext from here.

 

I've attached the one I am currently using (Note, the IONetworkingFamily.kext is from 10.6.4).

Just drop it in to /E/E and reboot

REMOVED

[lnx2mac]

Hi lnx2mac - Wow.. that looks interesting.. Well done to you.

I'll check it out too

 

EDIT: Excellent job. From my simple tests it works great on my machine, so much so, I now can't choose between yours or Realtek's. I can load them both from E/E and they both give me working bonjour.

Hi blackosx,

Thanks !

 

The comparisons below might help you decide (Note: I tested only on my P55M-UD4, with 8111D)

Versions used:

Realtek: RTGMac_v2.0.5 from http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/downlo...p;GetDown=false

Lnx2Mac: RealtekRTL81xx v0.0.67 from http://lnx2mac.blogspot.com/p/realtekrtl81xx-osx-driver.html

 

I might just stick with yours lnx2mac as I guess it'll be open source?

Thanks !

Yes, I will release this as open-source, after the beta is finished...

 

Qualitative comparison:

Stability: Overall, I couldn't get any of these two to hang / panic.

AutoNeg: Seems to work equally well

Manual Config: Realtek has FullDuplex,Flow-Control which I removed in 0.0.36 - Soon will be back

Negotiated Media reporting: Both seem working equally well, Realtek seems to take about 1 second more to report media

WOL: Didn't test WOL, but it's been reportedly working on mine. Realtek adds the 'WOL' checkbox in the Energy PrefPane. Mine doesn't, but it's on my roadmap

Checksum Offloading: Don't know about Realtek. I didn't implement it yet. It's on my roadmap.

Jumbo packets: On Realtek, the control is there in PrefPane, but couldn't get it to work. I didn't implement yet. It's on my roadmap.

VLAN support: Not supported in Realtek. I didn't implement it yet. It's on my roadmap.

Sleep/Wake: Realtek loses NIC on wake. Mine just works both on Autoneg and manual config

 

Quantitative comparison:

I tested using netperf (See: http://www.tonymacx86.com/viewtopic.php?f=64&t=5700) between my hack, and my 2.5GHz C2D MBP. All numbers measured on hack.

When testing AFP, both drivers fluctuate between 20MB/sec and 40MB/sec for me.

 

netperf from hack to MBP:

					   | Realtek  | Lnx2Mac  |
- Throughput		   | ~780Mbps | ~939Mbps |
- kernel_task CPU %	|	 ~64% |	 ~55% |
- kernel_task Real Mem | ~116.8MB | ~113.8MB |

However, rich reported in http://www.tonymacx86.com/viewtopic.php?p=...&f=3#p40199 that Realtek is a tad faster on AFP for him than mine... I guess YMMV...

 

Two-way (netperf from hack to MBP, and from MBP to hack)

					   | Realtek  | Lnx2Mac  |
- Throughput		   | ~690Mbps | ~850Mbps |
- kernel_task CPU %	|	 ~69% |   ~45% * |
- kernel_task Real Mem | ~118.1MB | ~115.3MB |

*) This seems weird... Might be limited by MBPs CPU

 

 

Any tips on how to improve my network performance? I get a measly average 2MB /sec copying a 4GB file over SMB from my Windows PC with either yours or Realtek's driver. Very poor against your screenshot of 104MB/sec!

Well, I can proudly say I use only Linux and OSX...

However, AFP is slower too (As said, I get between 20MB/s and 40MB/s), but 2MB/s is way too slow...

Note that the 104MB/sec is on two-way, full-duplex testing with netperf TCP.

On one way, it tops at ~117MB/sec.

 

I'd start by testing with netperf (it's available for windows as well), and once you know the underlying link is "fast", move on to diagnose the SMB...

 

Great Job and regards

Thanks !

[blackosx]

Hi lnx2mac

 

Many thanks for your detailed response and thanks for the netperf tip

I'll have to find some time for testing and I'll report back my findings when I do.

 

Regards

 

EDIT: I couldn't resist having a quick go with your first test with netperf, and these are the results:

 

Testing TCP bulk transfer throughput

Home Network: Client = hack running OS X / Server = Windows 7 PC.

netperf -D -l 60 -H 192.168.0.4 -t TCP_STREAM

Recv   Send    Send                          
Socket Socket  Message  Elapsed              
Size   Size    Size     Time     Throughput  
bytes  bytes   bytes    secs.    10^6bits/sec  

 8192 131070 131070    60.05      12.38 

Work Network: Client = hack running OS X / Server = iMac i7.

netperf -D -l 60 -H 192.168.0.54 -t TCP_STREAM

Recv   Send    Send                          
Socket Socket  Message  Elapsed              
Size   Size    Size     Time     Throughput  
bytes  bytes   bytes    secs.    10^6bits/sec  

262140 131070 131070    60.23      86.88  

Work Network: Client = hack running OS X / Server = Windows XP PC.

netperf -D -l 60 -H 192.168.0.19 -t TCP_STREAM

Recv   Send    Send                          
Socket Socket  Message  Elapsed              
Size   Size    Size     Time     Throughput  
bytes  bytes   bytes    secs.    10^6bits/sec  

 8192 131070 131070    60.01      93.50 

Work Network: Client = iMac i7 running OS X / Server = Windows XP PC.

netperf -D -l 60 -H 192.168.0.19 -t TCP_STREAM

Recv   Send    Send                          
Socket Socket  Message  Elapsed              
Size   Size    Size     Time     Throughput  
bytes  bytes   bytes    secs.    10^6bits/sec  

 8192 131070 131070    60.01      93.91 

Work Network: Client = hack running Windows 7 / Server = Windows XP PC.

netclient.exe -H 192.68.0.19
TCP STREAM TEST to 192.168.0.19
Recv   Send    Send                          
Socket Socket  Message  Elapsed              
Size   Size    Size     Time     Throughput  
bytes  bytes   bytes    secs.    10^6bits/sec

8192   8192   8192   10.00   94.06  

 

Testing TCP Round-Trip (Request/Response) performance

Work Network: Client = hack running OS X / Server = Windows XP PC.

netperf -H 192.168.0.19 -t TCP_RR

Local /Remote
Socket Size   Request  Resp.   Elapsed  Trans.
Send   Recv   Size     Size    Time     Rate         
bytes  Bytes  bytes    bytes   secs.    per sec   

131070 262140 1        1       10.00    5207.65   
8192   8192 

Work Network: Client = iMac i7 running OS X / Server = Windows XP PC.

netperf -H 192.168.0.19 -t TCP_RR

Local /Remote
Socket Size   Request  Resp.   Elapsed  Trans.
Send   Recv   Size     Size    Time     Rate         
bytes  Bytes  bytes    bytes   secs.    per sec   

131070 262140 1        1       10.00    6496.48   
8192   8192  

Work Network: Client = hack running Windows 7 / Server = Windows XP PC.

netclient.exe -H 192.68.0.19

Recv   Send    Send                          
Socket Socket  Message  Elapsed              
Size   Size    Size     Time     Throughput  
bytes  bytes   bytes    secs.    10^6bits/sec

8192   8192      1        1       10.00    7013.30   
8192   8192   

[ZenGiga]

the same as me - EP45-DS3L?

Yep. One possible difference - bios - IIRC I'm still using F11B whereas you upgraded to c?

 

Out of interest though, have you tried it without your PCI NIC plugged in? as maybe the chip on that isn't supported by the new driver..

No, not that much time to fiddle

It does use the same kext as driver:

/System/Library/Extensions/IONetworkingFamily.kext/Contents/PlugIns/AppleRTL8169Ethernet.kext

 

The new driver supposedly supports:

RTL8111B/RTL8168B/RTL8111/RTL8168

RTL8111C/RTL8111CP/RTL8111D(L)

RTL8168C/RTL8111DP/RTL8111E

 

It's a GA311, which uses a RTL8169/8110 chipset. So it would seem it's not supported as such - though it was definitely working! Just the sleep/wake issue.

 

But I guess it doesn't really matter which method any of us use as long as we have a reliable functioning network and as you have a separate NIC then I guess you don't need this anyway?..

No need, but it would be nice to have it working, and fun to play with two eth connections =D

Probably not worth a lot of hassle though :/

 

 

 

ZenGiga,

How about trying my RTL81xx driver ? http://bit.ly/RTL81xx

 

Doesn't look like it supports the RTL8169/8110 chipset on the Netgear GA311?

 

I have a perfectly working network connection through that - so no real *need* to get the mobo eth working

Just playing.

 

ZenGiga,

How about trying my RTL81xx driver ? http://bit.ly/RTL81xx

Doesn't look it supports the RTL8169/8110 chipset on the netgear ga311?

 

I do have perfectly working networking though the ga311, using vanilla osx drivers, so I don't want to lose that