Jump to content

[HowTo] Building my first OSx86 box...

bofors

By bofors,
in OSx86 10.4 (Tiger)

 Share
549 posts in this topic

Recommended Posts

Bearcat
Bearcat
Posted
Posted

I have a very similar box running, thanks to Bofors for helping me out of my stupor of not being able to find the 2x2 processor power connection.

 

It was running 10.4.3.

 

I upgraded it to 10.4.4/5 last night. I used the ISO of that name.

 

To get sound working I only needed to replace the AppleHDA kext, and to get the network working I only needed to add my device ID to the Intel 8255x kext (I think that's the right name), fixed permissions, removed the kext cache files, and rebooted.

 

I am only using the onboard GMA950 and a 17" monitor at 1280x1024.

 

Now to save up for a nice 1680x1050 20" monitor.

 

My board is a D945GNTL with a Pentium D 920, 1gb 667 DDR2, 160 sata drive, Pioneer 110D, and I really like the Sonata II case.

 

cheers,

Link to comment
Share on other sites
xerxes1358
xerxes1358
Posted
Posted

Bofors,

 

Hi. Thank you very much for all your posts. I am also going to buy a Intel board with almost the same config as you. INTEL D945GNTLR (This mobo has a slightly different soundcard though. It is called: STAC9223 and NOT STAC9220, Is this a problem?) + INTEL Pentium D 920 2.80GHz FSB800 4MB. Some ram: I dont know which one yet.

 

I have a question: can I use my Bluetooth wireless keyboard ? What bluetooth dongle do you guys recommend? Can I use this right from the start during the install or shall I use a PS2 one at first ?

 

 

I have request for you Bofors: can you make a step by step manual for this configuration. A lot of people are buying this configuration so that it can save them time. Having read through all the pages I had a good time but if you could make 1 integrated document which sums all the steps would be REALLY nice.

 

 

Thanks a lot again and kind regards from Amsterdam the Netherlands.

 

xerxes1358

Link to comment
Share on other sites
bofors
bofors
Posted
  • Author
Posted
are the integrated 950 graphics capable of driving an Apple 30 inch display?

No, at least not at full resolution.

anyone know of a compatible graphics card that can drive the 30 inch?

Some ATI x1600 or better might work provided there are no special driver problems for the higher resolutions as they support dual-link DVI: http://www.ati.com/products/RadeonX1600/specs.html

To get sound working I only needed to replace the AppleHDA kext, and to get the network working I only needed to add my device ID to the Intel 8255x kext (I think that's the right name), fixed permissions, removed the kext cache files, and rebooted.

Thanks for the report Bearcat.

INTEL D945GNTLR (This mobo has a slightly different soundcard though. It is called: STAC9223 and NOT STAC9220, Is this a problem?)

Yes, that might be a problem. The SigmaTel 9223 did not work before, and people were well advised to get a board with the 9220 instead. However, this situation may have changed with 10.4.4/5 as the x86 Macs support digital audio output but I do not know if they are using the 9223.

 

 

EDIT: SigmaTel 9223 comments.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Hitesh
Hitesh
Posted
Posted
Yeah, that's great. All I can say is it is about time. I see no need to for Linux here, this appears to be just a FreeDOS bootable CD that flashes BIOS upgrade.

 

Seeing my BIOS is 3309 and I have no floppy, I will probably be trying this ISO myself later. However, Hitesh's report of frying his board with 3592 update is making me hesistant (I assume he used the ISO). So, perhaps you should just upgrade to 3528 instead.

Yes, it is stupid but a least Intel now is providing use with the ISO option. Otherwise, Windows can be used in lieu of a floppy drive.

Hmm... so are we to assume you tried to use Intel new ISO/CD-R BIOS upgrade technique?

"Advanced" -> "Drive Configuration" -> "Confingure SATA as"

 

Note that "Confingure SATA as" is below "ATA/IDE Mode" and above "S.M.A.R.T" on running BIOS 3309.

 

 

i first booted to windows and did updated it through windows ....next when it booted up it showed me a blue screen with PCI.SYS error ....then i tried the iso update didnt do a thing.....last resort floppy ,,,,got the board completely fried ....has anyone tried to do update the bios to 3592 ?

 

also which is the safest way to update to 3309 ..im scared to do it though ....i hope it wont have a problem if i dont update it ?? also i just finished the 10.4.4/5 download and would be installing it in a while ....ill put up the results .

 

just a quicky ....the hard disk should be LEGACY OR ENHANCED ?

Link to comment
Share on other sites
bofors
bofors
Posted
  • Author
Posted
...last resort floppy ,,,,got the board completely fried .

Are you saying that a 3592 floppy driven BIOS update attempt fried your board (I had thought you used the ISO CD-R technique instead)?

also which is the safest way to update to 3309 ..im scared to do it though ....i hope it wont have a problem if i dont update it ??

I think you should do it. Both the floppy and Windows techniques should be safe, perhaps using Windows is actually safer due to the potential for floppy disks to be fail. I had no problem with using Windows to flash the BIOS to 3309 (it is just a hassle to temporarily install Windows for only this and luckily I had a copy handy).

just a quicky ....the hard disk should be LEGACY OR ENHANCED ?

Try ENHANCED, that is what I have been running in 3309 the whole time.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
pluggulp
pluggulp
Posted
Posted

OK, i fixed the sound issues.

A clean install of 10.4.5 and replacing AppleHDA.kext with the 10.4.3 version solved the problem.

I left AppleAzaliaAudio completely untouched this time (i.e. 10.4.5.).

Note: Apart from the widely mentioned observation that line in and line out are swapped around I also noticed that plugging/unplugging an audio cable into the line-out port during playback of a CD can cause the audio driver to stop/crash.

 

Thanks again for all your help, especially to swag.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Bearcat
Bearcat
Posted
Posted

I updated to the 3592 BIOS with the FreeDos boot floppy. (my bad, i put an old floppy in the machine)

 

I had no issues.

 

My hardware overview in System Profiler shows:

 

Boot ROM Version: NT94510J.86A.3592.2006.0222.1655 (Intel Corp)

Link to comment
Share on other sites
bofors
bofors
Posted
  • Author
Posted

I just flashed my BIOS to 3630 with ISO CD-R technique and no problems, 10.4.3 appears to work just fine.

 

I am downloading the 10.4.5 disk will be performing a clean install of it in the next day or so.

 

Then, as suggest by Pluggulp, I plan to copy the 10.4.3 AppleHDA.kext to get the audio output working.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
bofors
bofors
Posted
  • Author
Posted

I just installed 10.4.5 and it seems to be working OK, but the start-up is not as clean as 10.4.3. It asks for <any key> to be hit in a verbose startup mode during which I notice, in yellow, that it claims to have failed to loaded AppleHPET. I am wondering if that is normal.

 

Audio work in 10.4.5 here after installing the 10.4.3 AppleHDA.kext as per Pluggulp's report. I was hoping 10.4.5 might fix the problem I have had in trying to set up my internal SATA drives as a RAID set, no such luck.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
shaughn
shaughn
Posted
Posted

I had the same problem with 10.4.5, appleHPET failed to load, and the system profiler displayed my cpu wrong, 4ghz and SSE3 was missing. Some people say it's just a cosmetic thing and some say it's not.

 

http://forum.osx86project.org/index.php?sh...ic=10614&st=280

 

I'm currently trying 10.4.4, the system profiler is displaying the correct speed of my CPU, 3Ghz, but still missing SSE3. :blink:

 

Also, if you look at Maxxuss's February 22nd weblog he talks a little bit about (HPET) some new feature specific to Intel’s Core-Duo.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
pluggulp
pluggulp
Posted
Posted

Shaugn,

 

thanks for your link to the other thread. I will check whether I'm actually using SSE3 or whether I'm emulating it with my current installation. In any case, I'll probably replace the kernel with a maxxuss kernel that has only the base patches applied just to be sure.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
pluggulp
pluggulp
Posted
Posted

after some more reading I'm now sure that SSE3 is working fine even with the myzar kernel on the 10.4.5 disk.

However, I will still change the kernel to one that has only the maxxuss base patch.

Will keep you posted.

 

 

 

bofor:

 

since you actually have a dual-core CPU you should probably also exchange the kernel for one that does not have the CPUID patch. Some posters report that the CPUID patch can prevent the detection of the second core.

I only have a single core CeleronD so I can't verify this.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Hitesh
Hitesh
Posted
Posted
Are you saying that a 3592 floppy driven BIOS update attempt fried your board (I had thought you used the ISO CD-R technique instead)?

 

I think you should do it. Both the floppy and Windows techniques should be safe, perhaps using Windows is actually safer due to the potential for floppy disks to be fail. I had no problem with using Windows to flash the BIOS to 3309 (it is just a hassle to temporarily install Windows for only this and luckily I had a copy handy).

 

Try ENHANCED, that is what I have been running in 3309 the whole time.

 

 

ALRIGHT NOW my bios version is something like 2482 ....so should i directly update it to 3592 ?....or should i updateto 1788 first and then to 3592 ? im going to try the windows update first . And i hope it does not make a difference with MY D945GNTL and your D945GNTLKR .

Link to comment
Share on other sites
bofors
bofors
Posted
  • Author
Posted
ALRIGHT NOW my bios version is something like 2482 ....so should i directly update it to 3592 ?....or should i updateto 1788 first and then to 3592 ?

 

You should be OK to go from 2482 to 3630, which is the lastest BIOS.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
bofors
bofors
Posted
  • Author
Posted
since you actually have a dual-core CPU you should probably also exchange the kernel for one that does not have the CPUID patch. Some posters report that the CPUID patch can prevent the detection of the second core.

I have verified that both cores of my Pentium D are seen and used by the "defualt" 10.4.5 kernal via System Profiler, Activity Monitor and XBench.

 

 

I had the same problem with 10.4.5, appleHPET failed to load, and the system profiler displayed my cpu wrong, 4ghz and SSE3 was missing. Some people say it's just a cosmetic thing and some say it's not.

 

http://forum.osx86project.org/index.php?sh...ic=10614&st=280

 

I'm currently trying 10.4.4, the system profiler is displaying the correct speed of my CPU, 3Ghz, but still missing SSE3. :(

 

Thanks for the report Shaughn, others are saying the same thing about HPET here: http://forum.osx86project.org/index.php?showtopic=11945

 

System Profiler says the same thing here: 4GHz and no SSE3. Hmm...

 

 

Also, if you look at Maxxuss's February 22nd weblog he talks a little bit about (HPET) some new feature specific to Intel’s Core-Duo.

Here is what Maxxuss has to say about HPET:

 

"The Mac OS X 10.4.5 Update contains a new Darwin kernel (8.5.1). The issue with this new kernel is that it has dropped support for general Intel power management and for the LAPIC timer which is available in every modern x86 CPU. Instead, the new kernel only supports new Intel Core Duo specific features, like its enhanced power management and its HPET (High Performance Events Timers) facility."

http://nl1.provenance.nu/webuser1/home/pat....html#secupdate

 

I'll probably replace the kernel with a maxxuss kernel that has only the base patches applied just to be sure.

So, I guess that I need to do the same thing. I see that Maxxuss supplies "mach_kernel.orig" in his 10.4.4 Patch Solution v1.0a, to which we would need only apply "base" patch.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
shaughn
shaughn
Posted
Posted

ok, i tried patching the kernel on my machine, i reloaded 10.4.5 last night. i used ppf o-matic 3 on my pc to do it. the program didn't work on my hackintosh or my 12"powerbook.

 

i did the following. made a folder called kernel-backup on the root of my drive. copied my patched mach_kernel.orig into that folder. then, in terminal:

 

sudo cp /mach_kernel /kernel-backup/mach_kernel.backup

 

**it asked for my password and i entered it**

 

sudo rm /mach_kernel

 

sudo cp /kernel-backup/mach_kernel.orig /mach_kernel

 

then i restarted. i get a blue screen for about 5 seconds, then it turns black and nothing happens. :censored2:

 

did i do something wrong in the terminal? i got the base ppf and mach_kernel off of the 10.4.4 / 5 dvd.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Bearcat
Bearcat
Posted
Posted

Hi All,

 

Wonderful thread. Just a quick update.

 

I bought a new Viewsonic VX2025wm LCD monitor, which works great at 1680x1050 with the builtin GMA950, very happy.

 

My Processor is a PD 920, which works correctly and is identified as 2 processors.

 

It also shows as 4ghz, and no SSE3.

 

I ran some tests with maxxuss_sse using b2 and b3 and it showed no time differences, indicating that the SSE3 instructions were being used.

 

I also ran the same tests on my T40 P-M (SSE2 only) processor, and the SSE3 test took about 8 times longer to complete then the SSE2 tests.

 

It seems to me at least that even though no SSE3 is shown, the SSE3 instructions are not being trapped out, and are being executed by the processor.

 

A custom patched kernel, will however restore your SSE3 identifier in system profiler.

 

One question, now that I have an LCD, I assume I can turn off Beam Sync, without affecting any display niceties, am I correct?

Link to comment
Share on other sites
bofors
bofors
Posted
  • Author
Posted
ok, i tried patching the kernel on my machine, i reloaded 10.4.5 last night. i used ppf o-matic 3 on my pc to do it. the program didn't work on my hackintosh or my 12"powerbook.

Yes, I ran into this problem before. The command line version of ppf-o-matic will still work on PPC Macs though: http://forum.osx86project.org/index.php?sh...&hl=ppf-o-matic

 

did i do something wrong in the terminal? i got the base ppf and mach_kernel off of the 10.4.4 / 5 dvd.

 

OK, I just spent the last hour or so messing with this too.

 

To start with I downloaded Maxxuss' 10.4.4 Patch Solution v1.0a.

 

Then I used the command line version of ppf-o-matic to add the base patch.

 

I then simple used something like this to put the kernel in place:

sudo mv mach_kernel mach_kernel.bak
sudo mv mach_kernel.patched mach_kernel

For what I can tell from Maxxuss' instructions nothing else is needed to swap kernels. Is this right?

 

Booting this kernel clearly resulted in the "EIP 0x0019309f" panic that Maxxuss describes as what the CPUID patch is suppose to fix.

 

So, I then applied the "patch-cpuid_panic.ppf" and then got a different panic. I thought the new panic might be the "RTC" panic which Maxxuss' described because I saw something about "RTClock", but I am not sure. In any case, applying Maxxuss' "patch-rtc_panic.pff" did NOT solve that panic.

 

It also shows as 4ghz, and no SSE3.

 

I ran some tests with maxxuss_sse using b2 and b3 and it showed no time differences, indicating that the SSE3 instructions were being used.

 

I also ran the same tests on my T40 P-M (SSE2 only) processor, and the SSE3 test took about 8 times longer to complete then the SSE2 tests.

 

It seems to me at least that even though no SSE3 is shown, the SSE3 instructions are not being trapped out, and are being executed by the processor.

Thanks for the report, this would consistent with the Xbench results I saw on my 10.4.5 install.

 

A custom patched kernel, will however restore your SSE3 identifier in system profiler.

That is what we are working on now.

 

One question, now that I have an LCD, I assume I can turn off Beam Sync, without affecting any display niceties, am I correct?

Yes, and the easiest way to do it is by turning it off in Quartz Debug and then force quiting to make the change "stick". You should see a large improvement in your Xbench score.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
bofors
bofors
Posted
  • Author
Posted

On the "cosmetic" issue, I was able turn off verbose boot, the timer and all to restore a clean process by editing /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.Boot.plist to the following:

 

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>Boot Graphics</key>
<string>Yes</string>
<key>Kernel</key>
<string>mach_kernel</string>
<key>Kernel Flags</key>
<string></string>
</dict>
</plist>

 

In otherwords, the "Kernel Flags" and "Timeout" entries were simply removed.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
pluggulp
pluggulp
Posted
Posted

hmm ... I tried exchanging the kernel two days ago (but no time to report the results here) and ran into the problem that a whole lot of files are patched with the AMD enabler as reported elsewhere.

 

I might try to unpatch as described by jrrjrr described in this thread:

http://forum.osx86project.org/index.php?showtopic=10601

 

It might not be necessary performance-wise (according to myzar) but I think it is "cleaner" to only work with the patches that are actually required. I have to say that myzar comes across as mighty arrogant in the above-mentioned thread, though.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
 Share
Go to topic listing
×
×
  • Create New...