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

[EnzoFX]

How do I check if speedstep is working? =P

[blackosx]

I am working on hot-plugging too, I think. Here is my situation I want to solve:

.../snip/..

Is what I am up to possible at all? Making all drives hotpluggable like in a real MacPro? Or does it depend on my Bridge which is ICH9 and not ICH10?

Hi Professor - Wow, you have a lot of HDD's !

 

As for changing you DSDT to make everydrive hot-pluggable with your ICH9, I don't know what to suggest or even if its possible. All I know of that might help, but you've probably already tried it, is Zhell's thread about patching the device-id's.

 

The original DSDT from my Gigabyte BIOS had the SATA controller (0x001F0002) named as IDE1 but was changed to SATA. This is fine for ICH10 but I don't think it will work for your ICH9. All I can suggest is to look for others with your mobo / chipset to see if they have accomplished anything similar to what you're after.

 

Please help. I have issue with dual screen mirroring

 

On rig 10.6.4 (w/ last snow graphic update), p45-ds3l, 8500gt

As you can see my main work screen (SyncMaster - which is 22" 226bw) is connected in DVI and my 37" wide-screen TV is connected through VGA cable.

When I put V in Mirror Display the content is shown only on the TV and on SyncMaster all I see is just a blue screen and the pointer that behaves exactly like on TV display.

HI itorra

 

I've never tried a dual monitor setup on my hack so I have no experience to give you any guidance. Maybe somebody else can share their knowledge to help you?

 

Something interesting about the Snow Leopard Graphics Update released recently.

Before installing the update, I did an Xbench test.

 

Note that nothing extra but Xbench itself was running during all of these tests.

Quartz Graphics Test, OpenGL Test and User Interface Test.

Overall, I scored a 163.49.

After installing the update, I did the same test.

My overall was 225.69 and another test at 225.43.

Thanks for your report Farshnowshkin.

I haven't used Xbench for a while as IIRC it's quite old software now. I prefer to use OpenGL Extensions Viewer for video benchmarking, and for me the Snow Leopard Graphics Update 1.0 doesn't give me any improvement with my 8800GT. I think it's more for high-end cards.

 

Hi blackosx, I was wondering if you are using the v0.8 of Cartri's BIOS? If so, do you still need to have the DSDT file and also what kexts are/aren't needed anymore? According to the manual that comes with the BIOS, it states that DSDT file is not needed.

Hi CyCLoBoT

 

I am currently not running with Cartri's modified BIOS. But when I was running with it I didn't need a separate DSDT file in /Extra as cartri has made all the changes necessary to the DSDT in the BIOS.

 

As for kexts, with or without Cartri's modified BIOS, with the EP45-DS3L running 10.6.4 you will only need fakesmc.kext in /Extra/Extensions to run your system. You can then add a modified AppleHDA in to /System/Library/Extensions to enable the ALC888 audio and if you want, add the OrangeIconFix.kext to change the icons from external orange to internal ones.

 

i havetried all kind of bootcd to install Snow Leopard.

As you know i have the GA-ep45ds3l and ATI hd4850, but nothing to do; KP every time.

 

With Nvidia gtx275 all ok.

How can i boot with bootcd or usb ?

are there other solution to install from RETAIL dvd ?

Hi giuseppe001

 

Some ATI cards need special attention for running your system and there are many threads here on InsanelyMac about it. I have only used an nVidia card on my hack and have written this guide based around it. There is a note on the front page about ATI cards and that you need to do some research if using one. If you have a search of this thread, you will find a few posts from users who have successfully installed using ATI cards. All I can suggest is you read and research.

 

Hey dude,

i get the same error as the first poster in this thread. but only when iam installating snow leo. "getPhysicalSegment() out of 32 b range ... IOGeneralMemoryDescriptor"

I am not sure of what error you are posting about. Which first post had the issue? Where abouts in the install process are you seeing this error? What hardware are you running?

 

How do I check if speedstep is working? =P

Hi Enzo

 

I spoke about checking stepping near the bottom of this post and attached the app you need. Here's the relevant part:

• You can monitor your P-states with Mojodojo's VoodooMonitor. To do this, add the VoodooMonitor.kext in to Chameleon's /Extra/Extensions folder and reboot. Then you can run VoodooMonitor to view the changes in your CPU's power (click the status tab). Note: VoodooMonitor.kext will report slightly different FID/VID values as it uses a less accurate algorithm to calculate them than bcc9's VoodooPState.kext. But (I think this is right) VoodooMonitor is less of a resource hog that PStateChanger so that's why we use it. These are the tools we have for now, and until another tool is developed to just monitor P-States then we have to make do.

 

• You can see if P-States and C-States are working using IORegistryExplorer and looking at the data for ACPI_SMC_PlatformPlugin. CSTInfo shows C-States are loaded and PerformanceStateArray shows your P-States. Here's what mine looks like.

[EnzoFX]

Thank you Blackosx,

While speedstepping is indeed working for me, using the latest method, I believe I have now lost sleep on idle. =/

 

Edit: Maybe not! =P Well it slept this last time I was afk for a good while, but I swear it failed 2 times today. Oh well, no big deal. I'll just leave it as is. Thanks again.

[blackosx]

I believe I have now lost sleep on idle. =/

 

Edit: Maybe not! =P Well it slept this last time I was afk for a good while, but I swear it failed 2 times today. Oh well, no big deal. I'll just leave it as is. Thanks again.

Strange how auto-sleep doesn't work everytime for you because as far as I can tell, mine auto sleeps as it should. Though I have never done any recorded tests to verify it has worked everytime. But you don't have any cats do you ? as in the past there have been a couple of times when I have also questioned my machine as I have come back to it and it's been on.. but in those instances, I have always thought the cats must have knocked the mouse or keyboard? or maybe it wasn't and there is a genuine issue?... I will monitor my setup more closely over the next couple of weeks and let you know if I spot any instances when my machine doesn't auto sleep correctly.

[rbonon]

Hello guys,

 

I am in need of firewire ports, which my GA-EP45-UD3L does not have. I was thinking in buying a Firewire PCI. Do you know if those things should work out-of-the-box on Snow Leopard, or should I be worried with drivers, etc.

 

I am thinking in buying something like this (sorry, site in portuguese):

 

PCI Firewire card

[blackosx]

Hi rbonon

 

For reference, the search function for InsanelyMac is working just fine these days

Here's a search of this thread for the term 'firewire'.

Which allowed me to quicky find a couple of my posts about firewire: Here and here.

 

I am sure you'll be able to find the information you need from the search function.

[rbonon]

Hi rbonon

 

For reference, the search function for InsanelyMac is working just fine these days

Here's a search of this thread for the term 'firewire'.

Which allowed me to quicky find a couple of my posts about firewire: Here and here.

 

I am sure you'll be able to find the information you need from the search function.

 

Blacosx,

 

ops! my fault mate. I didn't want to sound lazy. In fact I did some searching before asking, did even notice the chosen board (VIA VT 6306/07) sometimes work, and sometimes don't, depending even on the PCI slot. I just did no see search results relatad to this post. My bad.

 

Anyways, I ordered a VT 6307 and will report back on the outcome once I install it.

 

Keep up the good work!

 

Regards

[blackosx]

No problems

Anyways, I ordered a VT 6307 and will report back on the outcome once I install it.

I hope it works for you. Please report back with details.

[bigpoppa206]

Something interesting about the Snow Leopard Graphics Update released recently.

Before installing the update, I did an Xbench test.

I ran geekbench and noticed my scores went back up too. Was bummed after the 10.6.4 upgrade that they went down.

 

Anyways, I ordered a VT 6307 and will report back on the outcome once I install it.

 

I also answered the firewire issue here with a Startech card.

 

(So nice to have the search functions working properly on this board finally!)

[blackosx]

Thanks for the reminder of the Startech card bigpoppa206.

I have added a couple of links to the front page for future reference

And yeah, I think the staff here fixed the search function at the end of June. It's great to have it back.

[blackosx]

I will monitor my setup more closely over the next couple of weeks and let you know if I spot any instances when my machine doesn't auto sleep correctly.

Hey Enzo.. I noticed my machine didn't enter auto-sleep one time last night. I left it alone to go and chat to somebody and when I came back it was still whuuring away.. I had a few apps loaded at the time but didn't really have time to investigate it further. Having said that, it still auto-sleeps most times, but I agree that something, somewhere, on occasion stops it.

 

If it fails to auto-sleep again and I remember about this, i'll have a check for things like, have I got a disc in the DVD drive? or have I plugged in any additional USB devices?

[geithals]

Thanks Blackosx for your reply in this post last week. I got sidetracked with using my back-up disk to install 10.6.1 onto our 2nd Hack build

(same except for the Zotac 9600gt card) and lo and behold it fires up in all its (previously unexperienced) glory. Everything works and there the disk has stayed put and is now hooked up to the tv for the first time and is being well hogged by the rest of the family. I haven't had available time to do the necessary to transfer files, release the old start up disk and use that for more tests.

 

A few things I have learned, - with multi hard disks installed in my set up,

a. it's very easy to skip the diskutil list part and end up working on the wrong Cham partition

b. Even when you work on the right Cham partition it´s very easy to be taking out the wrong hard drive.

c. And when you finally work on the right Cham partition, withdraw the right hard drive and install it into the 2nd Hack build, never discount the possibility that you disabled AHCI a month previous

[walker333]

Hello,

my motherboard is Gigabyte GA-EP31-DS3L with Core Quad processor. I'm trying to create the appropriate dsdt.aml with no success so far. I know that it is not the right topic but I cannot find a dedicated topic, so I'll appreciate any help. Can I use the Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3L's dsdt file included here? Can you tell me the modification I have to make to my original dsdt (I have obtained it through ubuntu live cd)?

Thank you.

[blackosx]

@geithals - Thanks for reporting back and well done with your successful install on your 2nd machine with the 9600GT. Now you've just got to get your 1st machine with 8800GT going

 

@walker333 - You're right, this is not the right topic for your mobo and you must not use the DSDT from here on your board. You can either read through the Gigabyte DSDT Fix thread and try to piece together what you need, or maybe try this one which I found in the first link from here.

[bigpoppa206]

tried this, and getting it to boot on my system (DS3P, has same specs overall), thou i keep getting kernal panics when system tries to get into desktop

 

panics from mdworker, some systemdirecorysd etc. any idea?

 

i didnt use a homemade SMbios kext maybe that might give problems? (says its a 8.1 imac)

This sounds familiar, what installation method did you use?

[geithals]

@geithals - Thanks for reporting back and well done with your successful install on your 2nd machine with the 9600GT. Now you've just got to get your 1st machine with 8800GT going

 

Well, the unexpected has happened (almost a bigger surprise than the Spanish Inquisition), as reported, OS10.6.1 is already installed in the Hack with Zotac 9600gt and now it is updated to 10.6.4.

Used a back up disk, with a trim Cham partition built from support files 1.4 - boot files, dsdt,, and only fakes smc in Ext - I forgot to put in the smbios

 

Now of course I'd like to get on a roll and get my Hack with 8800gt updated from 10.6.1 to 10.6.4.

2 same motherboards, same bios, but most everything else is different.

Switching graphic cards would appear to be the easiest short cut to try first?

[geithals]

Suckin' diesel now

 

10 seconds after I added the last reply, I just knew the issue had to be the 2nd dvi out (from the 8800gt card) connection to the tv. It is just as much a feature of my computer as the mouse and keyboard that it did not dawn on me before to disconnect it (dvi/hdmi adapter) before trying to boot into OS10.6.4.

Sure enough after disconnecting that, I am now booting into 10.6.4.

33% feeling foolish

33% feeling relieved

33% what? no dual dvi connections?? aargh

 

Has anybody else had that issue? I don't remember reading about here.

I am just using the supplied boot.plist from the support files from July22nd with the <string>1024x768x32</string> I have dual dvi outputs in OS10.6.1 but have to disconnect one to boot up into 10.6.4.

I note that 'about my mac' states correctly that I have the 8800gt card but with 1024mb memory.

 

In the meantime I'll move up the scale from present - support files 1.4.0.

Nice to be back on track.

[Johnny V]

....10 seconds after I added the last reply, I just knew the issue had to be the 2nd dvi out (from the 8800gt card) connection to the tv. It is just as much a feature of my computer as the mouse and keyboard that it did not dawn on me before to disconnect it (dvi/hdmi adapter) before trying to boot into OS10.6.4.

....

 

I vaguely remember that issue popping up a couple of times on this forum. I forgot the resolution. Have you tried moving the video card to a different slot?

[EnzoFX]

Guys I'm having a strange issue here...

 

So fresh install using a usb installer, which has Cham 2 RC5 build 342. Installed, and booting the OS fine with the usb stick. I install Cham b342 onto the HDD (cham on it's own partition), just as I've done many times before on so many drives. However, it simply won't boot alone. I restart and the BIOS is still telling me there are no bootable drives detected. Could diskutil be telling me the wrong disk info or something?

 

I tried re-installing Cham 3 times, no luck. I don't think the hardware is relevant as the usb stick boots the SL partition fine. Bah, will have another go tomorrow...

[geithals]

I vaguely remember that issue popping up a couple of times on this forum. I forgot the resolution. Have you tried moving the video card to a different slot?

 

No chance as there is only one pci express x16 slot.

 

You are right about the issue popping up before.

I found the first reference (in this thread) to this auto-detect feature not working by Farshnowshkin

I read it at the time but I forgot that I had a tv connected to my 2nd dvi slot.

 

In 10.6.1 if the tv is plugged in - but turned off - it is still detected by auto display.

But with 10.6.2 and later it is not detected and screen,mouse and keyboard are all disabled at start up.

A bit of an over-reaction you would think .

I will dig a bit more.

 

Edit:

This is an issue - not at all directly related to this thread.

OSX 10.6.4 will not boot with the 2nd dvi port connected to a device whether the ext monitor/tv it is turned off or on, but

will boot with only the dvi/hdmi adapter left in - but after booting successfully, will just freeze when hdmi cable is hot plugged into the dvi/hdmi adapter.

 

Searched Apple Discussions and "real" macs have the problem. Apple are admitting nothing. Users are hassling support and Apple support is clueless. Questions about this issue on the discussion board are left unanswered.

Ah well, a problem shared is a problem halved

 

I will wait for the next os update, maybe, - I'm between 2 minds.

[k0ns0le]

BlackOSX, firstly thanks for your walkthrough.

 

I managed to get SL 10.6.4 up and running using your method supplied on a P35-DS3R and E8500 Dual core. I did have a little trouble getting my ATI 5870 recognised but thanks to netkas i have have full resolution now albeit no OpenGL etc. Unfortunately I had to install the kexts into S/L/E to get them to work so i guess i'm not officially "Vanilla" anymore if I understand the meaning of that is a totally untouched retail install. I also had to modify the DSDT file to get my audio going, and I think I need to mod it more to allow sleep to work as at the moment I can't wake it up after it sleeps. I did try some other supposedly "specific" DSDT file for my mother board but over all I think yours is more up to date as I ran into alot of trouble with them. So sticking with your DSDT.

 

I am trying to update itunes but results in a KP i don't know how to recover from, safe mode didn't work either. Is there a procedure I need to follow or it simply can't be done? Reason is I can't sync my iphone unless I upgrade it.

[blackosx]

OSX 10.6.4 will not boot with the 2nd dvi port connected to a device whether the ext monitor/tv it is turned off or on, but

will boot with only the dvi/hdmi adapter left in - but after booting successfully, will just freeze when hdmi cable is hot plugged into the dvi/hdmi adapter.

Well done with your research geithals and thanks for your post. I'll add a link to it on the front page for future reference. Sorry I didn't remember that previous info which you found but, not using a dual monitor setup I never had to look in to it.

 

So fresh install using a usb installer, which has Cham 2 RC5 build 342. Installed, and booting the OS fine with the usb stick. I install Cham b342 onto the HDD (cham on it's own partition), just as I've done many times before on so many drives. However, it simply won't boot alone. I restart and the BIOS is still telling me there are no bootable drives detected. Could diskutil be telling me the wrong disk info or something?

Hi mate

 

I know you know this but let's check the basics

Is BIOS drive order correct?

Is AHCI mode selected?

 

Diskutil can give a different drive order to how the BIOS sees it but as long as you're writing the Chameleon files using the numbers that diskutil reports during the same boot then you'll be writing to the correct drive. Have another go in the morning and I'm sure it will work

 

I managed to get SL 10.6.4 up and running using your method supplied on a P35-DS3R and E8500 Dual core. I did have a little trouble getting my ATI 5870 recognised but thanks to netkas i have have full resolution now albeit no OpenGL etc. Unfortunately I had to install the kexts into S/L/E to get them to work so i guess i'm not officially "Vanilla" anymore

 

I am trying to update itunes but results in a KP i don't know how to recover from, safe mode didn't work either.

@k0ns0le

 

Your motherboard is different to mine so you will want to use you own DSDT and not the one from this thread. At the very least, you should compare the original DSDT extracted from your board with the one from my board. To help, there's a link to the original DSDT for the EP45-DS3L in the Files section of this post.

 

Well done with getting your ATI 5870 working but I can't offer any help there.

 

A 'vanilla' install can be identified as one that doesn't change any of Apple's files. So adding extra files in to /S/L/E can still constitute a vanilla install. After 10.6.3, I no longer have a vanilla install as I've had to patch the AppleHDA.kext in S/L/E to achieve audio for ALC888. Maybe I need to change the title of this thread?

 

I've never come across any issues with updating iTunes or connecting to my iPhone.. Maybe it's something specific to your board/DSDT pairing?

[EnzoFX]

Hi mate

 

I know you know this but let's check the basics

Is BIOS drive order correct?

Is AHCI mode selected?

 

Diskutil can give a different drive order to how the BIOS sees it but as long as you're writing the Chameleon files using the numbers that diskutil reports during the same boot then you'll be writing to the correct drive. Have another go in the morning and I'm sure it will work

So I took out the drive, plugged it into my system via USB, and it boots into Chameleon just fine! Something about the drive's new setup that the board doesn't like maybe?

 

The board is an Intel Atom with ICH7, it does not have AHCI. This board has run 10.5 just fine. Aside from it now having 10.6 and a different version of Cham, the only other difference is the partition scheme. Could that throw the motherboard off? I went from 1 partition in 10.5 to 4 for 10.6. Again, the usb installer flash drive (same build of Cham2 rc5) boots the OS HDD partition fine. I will test this (as I can't think of anything else)...

[geithals]

Though some of us with external sound cards can still claim to be 'Pure Vanilla'..

 

 

 

The board is an Intel Atom with ICH7, it does not have AHCI.

 

Enzo, the fact that ahci is not enabled is the direct cause of your boot disk error.

[EnzoFX]

^^ I am familiar with the importance of AHCI, however the Atom board in question works without it. 10.5 Always worked without it, and so does 10.6 (when booted with the USB installer flash drive). Furthermore, this isn't a simple kernel panic, it is the motherboard/BIOS that doesn't recognize the drive as boot-able. So I have to believe the issue lies elsewhere. I just tried re-partitioning back to 1 partition, and the issue remains. I will now try different versions of Chameleon, again, all I can think of atm...

 

Edit: Just tried 3 different versions of Cham with no luck. Still does not make any sense to me. This thing was running Cham 2 RC3 I believe when running 10.5, so for now, will try going back to that. Though again, it doesn't make sense to me lol, the drive is definitely bootable, i.e. Cham is installed correctly (tested on my system via usb), but the atom board/bios will not recognize it as bootable. The issue lies outside of the Cham install... I tried plugging in a DVD drive to see if maybe the board wanted to see one before any HDD (weird I know). Still no luck...

 

Edit2: Tried clearing cmos, updating BIOS... this doesn't seem like a HDD failure, so still makes no sense to me...

 

Edit3: Managed to go back to Cham2 RC3 (what it was running before), and it worked! However, that version of Cham does not enable the PCI Nvidia 8400GS in the slot. To get back to RC3, I replicated what I originally did last time. Official Cham RC2 release package/installer then replaced the boot file with RC3. Why does this work, and the others don't?

Note I did try another package that didn't work. Cham 2 RC5 pre8.