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

[Nathan Deamer]

@NathanDreamer: This is how AHCI works, well except maybe for the new UEFI boards. Though, 10 secs sounds a little on the long side. Normally, it posts, then there's a separate screen for the AHCI driver? To detect the drives.

 

Thanks for the reply.

 

Yep, thats correct. Posts, then goes to AHCI screen and detects drives.

 

I have 4 drives connected

1 x 74Gb SATA I (OLD) WD Raptor

2 x 2TB SATA III

1 x Pioneer DVDRW

 

Wonder if my old WD raptor is slowing things down.

Will try disabling the sata ports in bios (is this possible) or try drive be drive, and if it doesn't speed up, just live with it

 

Thanks

[blackosx]

@Nathan Deamer - The delay you refer to is common with this board and is how Gigabyte made it to work. Bios version F11b introduced AHCI v1.20E which increased the speed slightly (by a couple of seconds). But unfortunately a delay is there and I have it too.

[Nathan Deamer]

@Nathan Deamer - The delay you refer to is common with this board and is how Gigabyte made it to work. Bios version F11b introduced AHCI v1.20E which increased the speed slightly (by a couple of seconds). But unfortunately a delay is there and I have it too.

 

Thanks for the reply. Will update to F11b later.

Working perfectly except I cant get WOL working - but might just have to live without this.

[itorra]

As it seems, the upgrade to OSX Lion for us is gonna be very very easy.

fix me if I wrong

[ZenGiga]

As it seems, the upgrade to OSX Lion for us is gonna be very very easy.

fix me if I wrong

It seems promising. Assuming our Core 2 Quad Q6600's are ok itorra

 

Came across this post about burning a lion boot disk, which should be useful:

http://eggfreckles.net/tech/burning-a-lion-boot-disc/

[blackosx]

ALC888 audio for 10.7 on our EP45-DS3L

Boogi PM'd me about what he needed to do to enable the onboard sound so I thought I'd post here for reference.

 

I use the solution which was posted by cparm here but unfortunately he removed the files from mediafire. So I will post here what he showed and therefore what's needed to be done. I've successfully used this method for each developer preview of 10.7 currently up to DP4 (11A480b).

 

1) Edit Device (HDEF) in your DSDT to match cparm's post. Here's a copy of his posted patch:

            Device (HDEF)
           {
               Name (_ADR, 0x001B0000)
               Method (_PRW, 0, NotSerialized)
               {
                   Return (Package (0x02)
                   {
                       0x0D, 
                       0x05
                   })
               }

               Method (_DSM, 4, NotSerialized)
               {
                   Store (Package (0x0E)
                       {
                           "subsystem-id", 
                           Buffer (0x04)
                           {
                               0xA0, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00
                           }, 

                           "subsystem-vendor-id", 
                           Buffer (0x04)
                           {
                               0x6B, 0x10, 0x00, 0x00
                           }, 

                           "codec-id", 
                           Buffer (0x04)
                           {
                               0x88, 0x08, 0xEC, 0x10
                           }, 

                           "layout-id", 
                           Buffer (0x04)
                           {
                               0x78, 0x03, 0x00, 0x00
                           }, 

                           "device-type", 
                           Buffer (0x07)
                           {
                               "ALC888"
                           }, 

                           "PinConfigurations", 
                           Buffer (0x28)
                           {
                               /* 0000 */    0x40, 0x90, 0xA1, 0x90, 0x50, 0x90, 0xA1, 0x02, 
                               /* 0008 */    0x60, 0x30, 0x81, 0x01, 0x70, 0x40, 0x21, 0x02, 
                               /* 0010 */    0x10, 0x40, 0x11, 0x01, 0x20, 0x10, 0x01, 0x01, 
                               /* 0018 */    0x30, 0x60, 0x01, 0x01, 0x80, 0x20, 0x01, 0x01, 
                               /* 0020 */    0x90, 0x61, 0x4B, 0x01, 0xA0, 0x01, 0xCB, 0x01
                           }, 

                           "platformFamily", 
                           Buffer (One)
                           {
                               0x00
                           }
                       }, Local0)
                   DTGP (Arg0, Arg1, Arg2, Arg3, RefOf (Local0))
                   Return (Local0)
               }
           }

 

I've attached my current DSDT.dsl to the bottom of this post for reference. I've removed my specific CPU information from it so it should be compatible with whatever CPU any of you have. Please note that I haven't booted with this actual file since removing my CPU info but it should work.

 

2) Bin-Patch 10.7's AppleHDA.kext/Contents/MacOS/AppleHDA by opening it in a hex editor and replacing the four occurrences of 85 08 EC 10 with 88 08 EC 10 as we did before back when 10.6.3 was released.

 

You can do it by hand (as above) or alternatively you can do it in Terminal with the following command which is from Mald0n's DSDT topic.

sudo perl -pi -e 's|\x85\x08\xec\x10|\x88\x08\xec\x10|g' /System/Library/Extensions/AppleHDA.kext/Contents/MacOS/AppleHDA

 

3) Add layout888.xml and the Platforms.xml from the attached archive here, in to 10.7's AppleHDA.kext/Contents/Resources. Note: you'll replace the Platforms.xml already there.

 

4) Add the LegacyHDA.kext from the attached archive here, in to 10.7's /System/Library/Extensions

 

5) Trash /System/Library/Caches/com.apple.kext.caches/*

 

6) Reboot and enjoy

 

Attachments:

For_ALC888.zip

 

EDIT:

The previous DSDT posted contained the details for my 8800GT Video card. Here's and updated version:

dsdt.dsl.zip

[blackosx]

CMOS reset issue with 10.7 on our EP45-DS3L

When rebooting the system after using a sleep/wake cycle your CMOS checksum will no longer match and BIOS will be reset to it's default settings. This previously happened with Snow Leopard until stellarola posted a fix by changing a value in Device (RTC) in DSDT. Unfortunately, a proper fix has yet to be found for Lion so for now there are two workarounds.

 

1) Jun Ho discovered that reverting back to using the AppleRTC.kext from 10.6 got round the issue.

2) Bin-Patching Lion's AppleRTC binary to block some calls and jumps in the code. Thanks to DHP, rayap and tseug for identifying the exact culprits. See here for more info.

 

EDIT: Here's a more recent patch which works just fine with the Lion GM release.

[Johnny V]

Thanks blackosx for keeping us on top of Lion! Can't wait to install it!

[blackosx]

Just a quick note for our ALC888 audio on Snow Leopard (Some of you might already know this but I didn't)..

Yesterday I lost one of my OS X installs due to a damaged system disk. A slight inconvenience, but I didn't lose any valuable data as I do regular backups.

 

Anyway, after doing a re-install of Snow Leopard and updating it to 10.6.7 I new I had to sort my AppleHDA.kext to help get audio working. Rather than do what I had done in the past I thought I'd look at tmongkol's audio topic and found a Legacy_ALCxxx.zip package. This made enabling audio so much simpler as all I needed to do now was:

• add ALC888.kext in to /S/L/E

• run the terminal command to bin-patch the Apple binary.

• trash /System/Library/Caches/com.apple.kext.caches/*

 

Simple

 

Thanks blackosx for keeping us on top of Lion! Can't wait to install it!

Hi Johnny V - Good to hear your still around

[blackosx]

Onboard ethernet with 10.7 on our EP45-DS3L

The later developer previews don't support our Realtek 8111C chip so to enable networking we need to add Lnx2Mac's RealtekRTL81xx.kext to /S/L/E.

[D-an-W]

Cheers for the updates B, I hope our similar hardware continues to be closely comparable!

 

The SSD is up and running, damn it's fast!!!

[blackosx]

Hi Dan

 

Yep. I'm sure you'll be able to run 10.7 without any problems .

Thanks for mentioning your SSD upgrade.. I was looking at them on Ebuyer the other day and thought of you adding one to your hack. Good to hear it's fast.. How much of a difference has it made to your boot time?

[D-an-W]

Once Chameleon / Chimera had done it's stuff the OS just appears really.

 

I use Parallels desktop and my VMs now feel like actual installs, thinks like WinRAR are so quick it's crazy!

 

It's also silent and doesn't get hot!

[blackosx]

Brilliant. I want one! .. Thanks for the report

[boogi]

I was running 10.7 DP4 and last night I updated to the latest 10.7 build that Apple just released via Software Update and all is well. My 10.7 setup is slightly different than blackosx's setup. My setup is very similar to our 10.6 installs using his guide in that I still use a Chameleon partition that has my DSDT and modified kexts. The only modified kexts that I have running on my Lion system partition are AppleHDA.kext and LegacyHDA.kext (for some reason, putting these on my Chameleon partition didn't enable my sound, so I had to put them in the actual /S/L/E folder).

 

The good news is that it's looking like we'll still be able to update Lion via System Update without too much trouble!

[viperfx]

@viperfx: That board should work fine. You will most likely be able to follow this guide to the T and be good to go. I've used this guide with an P35-DS3L, EP45-DS3L, EP43-UD3L. I believe there is a link somewhere listing several boards that use very similar BIOS, and where even the dsdt in this guide worked fine for them as well.

 

Hi, I have been following your guide. I changed the BIOS options and they seem to be all ok without errors. So i went ahead and tried the BootCD, this was unsucessful because I get the following message.

reading ramdisk image: bt(0,0)/Extra/Preboot,dmg

no ramdisk config....

 

mounting: done

 

/

On the last /, there is a blinking cursor and it just hangs.

 

So onto the USB method, I copied the extra folder, did all the terminal commands without errors. Boot up the USB using the BIOS, I actually managed to get the usb to boot to chameleon loader once, but then when I pressed the OSX DVD then it gave that error box on the mac, the big grey one. Anyways so yea after that I was not able to boot using the USB all that happens is a blinking cursor.

 

Im not sure what is wrong, could you help me out please?

DId

[blackosx]

Hi viperfx

 

I see you are using the GA-EP43-DS3L. thiagomorales reported that board has an identical gigabyte DSDT as the EP45-DS3L so you should be good to go.

 

Are you using a SATA DVD drive? Are you using a genuine retail 10.6 DVD?

 

If you have managed to boot Chameleon from a bootable USB once then your there's no reason why you shouldn't be able to do it again. The big grey error box you say you saw is because of a kernel panic. Try it again but from the chameleon menu, select the OS X retail DVD and press down arrow choosing to boot verbose. That way you'll hopefully be able to get more information about why it errors.

[joe2108]

Just a quick note for our ALC888 audio on Snow Leopard (Some of you might already know this but I didn't)..

Yesterday I lost one of my OS X installs due to a damaged system disk. A slight inconvenience, but I didn't lose any valuable data as I do regular backups.

 

Anyway, after doing a re-install of Snow Leopard and updating it to 10.6.7 I new I had to sort my AppleHDA.kext to help get audio working. Rather than do what I had done in the past I thought I'd look at tmongkol's audio topic and found a Legacy_ALCxxx.zip package. This made enabling audio so much simpler as all I needed to do now was:

• add ALC888.kext in to /S/L/E

• run the terminal command to bin-patch the Apple binary.

• trash /System/Library/Caches/com.apple.kext.caches/*

 

Simple

 

 

Hi Johnny V - Good to hear your still around

 

Is this work for LION?

[blackosx]

Is this work for LION?

Good question.

I haven't tried it on Lion so I don't know, but I have a feeling it won't work as the audio setup has changed for 10.7.

 

If you do try it and it works then please post your results.

[soren121]

I'm trying to dual-boot Snow Leopard and Windows 7, and it's worked up to now. They're both installed and working 100%, but I can't bring Chameleon back. I followed the instructions in Part 9 twice, but Windows 7 keeps booting.

 

I have an EP35-DS3L, nVidia 8600GT, and working ALC888 audio. I should note that it is partitioned slightly different; in order, a 1GB Cham partition, 155GB NTFS Windows partition, and a 96GB HFS+Journaled SL partition. Is that what's messing it up?

[blackosx]

As far as I know it shouldn't matter which order the OS's are installed as long as you write boot0hfs to the disk's MBR. Boot0hfs searches for the first HFS partition and not the partition marked active which would be your Windows partition. Having said that, I've only done it with OS X first then Windows second so I can't verify it.

[Z4g0r]

Hi guys!

10.6.8 is out!

 

Update--> http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1400

Combo Update--> http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1399

[blackosx]

Hey Z4g0r. Yep. Downloading the combo update now.

Thanks for your timely posts again

 

2 minutes left before download complete....

 

I won't install it just yet though as I have recently rebuilt my system to get ready for Lion and only have one Snow Leopard system installed. So I will create a backup Snow Leopard partition to apply the 10.6.8 update to first.

 

Doh!.. I've only gone and downloaded the Server version!!.. I'll re-download the desktop version now.

 

From what I've heard, the audio setup will be the same as it is for 10.7.

[D-an-W]

My update went well, just need audio sorting out but that was to be expected it seems?

[blackosx]

Yep. I've just updated from a 10.6.3 restored image. 10.6.8 is up and running .

For audio I am going to do this.

 

EDIT:

Audio works fine now