Forgive me if I'm being an idiot, but I'm pretty much new to OS X, with OSx86 being my only option to experience it at all.

I've installed Tiger 10.4.8 on my Dell Dimension 8250, as per this guide I found on the OSx86 wiki: [click here for link]

However, since the 8250 was able to be customized, my hardware config is slightly different. The issue being that there's no onboard audio like that guide mentions. Instead I had a Sound Blaster Live. This was Dell's special OEM version, which is totally different from any other card. I tried out that kx Audio driver for Live, but then realized that the author stated he would NOT support the Dell OEM card.

So, I started looking around the house for another sound card I could spare. The only thing I found was an Ensoniq AudioPCI from a half disassembled AMD K6-2 rig a friend dropped off a while ago for parts use. Obviously, it didn't work right away (and still doesn't)

However! I did find out that way back Maxxuss made a driver for ES137x sound cards, intended for VMWare but reported to work on real ES137x cards too. After a hell of a lot of searching I actually found that driver (no idea if I got the latest version. It's marked as 0.1 so I assume the first release, dunno if there were more), but to my dismay it does not want to install. The included scripts to load the kext for testing or install do not function, with the terminal telling me that the files don't even exist.
I grabbed Kext Helper and tried using it to install the kext directly, which it does, but OS X does not load the kext on startup. I tried manually loading it in the terminal, but I get the following error:

And running with -t gives me the same thing, right down to asking me to run it with -t. Nice.
I checked the device ID for my card and it is included in the Maxxuss driver's kext's Info.plist, so I at least know I'm trying to use a supported card.

I'm trying my best here to save a couple bucks and not have to buy another sound card. So, as there seems to be some AudioPCI support out there, I'm hoping I can maybe find a solution so I can have glorious audio on my otherwise flawless OS X install.

Any ideas? Is there a better AudioPCI solution that I missed? Am I out of luck?
Alternatively, if there is no real solution here, what is a decent PCI sound card to grab for OSx86 use? Preferably something I can find really cheap on Ebay.

Can you post the kext you used.

Check this attachment. This would be what I've been trying to install.

Click to view attachment

Did you install the addon, AppleAC97Audio.kext?

Sure did. It doesn't seem to have made a difference, though.

Okay, just out of curiosity I tried installing the AC97 kext again.

No difference, but this time I went into the System Profiler and noticed that neither kext is loading.

I tried using kextload on AppleAC97Audio.kext and got a basically identical error to the Maxxuss one:


Dunno if this'll help shed light on the problem. It probably won't.