14 replies to this topic

[KenLavallee]

I replaced my ECS G31T-M with the same board. The old system I patched a few years back to run OS X. I've been running Mountain Lion flawlessly on this board, problem is the board died and so I bought another off ebay. Now I can't find the bios I flashed it with. I found one for the G31T-M but it is dated 2007 and doesn't support my E8400. The one I had was dated 2009. All links on the HCL lists seem to be dead. Could someone help please!

[3.14r2]

If the board has a removable BIOS chip (or you have good soldering skills if it's not), you could use the chip from the old board.

UPDT:
The board does have the replaceable BIOS chip, so you can replace it (unless the old board is trashed). The BIOS chips is this thing next to RTC battery.  board_fullsize_1.jpg   290.03KB   5 downloadsMake sure you insert it correctly as it has a key pin and so the placement does matter.

[KenLavallee]

If the board has a removable BIOS chip (or you have good soldering skills if it's not), you could use the chip from the old board.

UPDT:
The board does have the replaceable BIOS chip, so you can replace it (unless the old board is trashed). The BIOS chips is this thing next to RTC battery.  board_fullsize_1.jpg   290.03KB   5 downloadsMake sure you insert it correctly as it has a key pin and so the placement does matter.

Ahhhhh!!! I literally took a mallet to the old one when it wouldn't post anymore, and threw it out over a week ago! FML.

Well, I know better now, thanks..

Do you know of any databases for os x modified bioses? I found a couple of links but they were dead. Anyone have an updated bios from atleast 2009? I just need it to support my Core 2 Duo E8400. I'll do it myself, is there a guide?!?!

[3.14r2]

Sad story... Then you should patch it yourself. Original BIOS. In most cases patching involves modifying the original DSDT, then adding it back to the BIOS and flashing the MB (there could also be some other mods I guess). Though it is much easier and safer to load patched DSDT using Chameleon.

Search the MDL (My Digital Life) forums for more info on BIOS patching/flashing and this forum for how-tos on DSDT patching.

[Gringo Vermelho]

Pi: that's not the latest BIOS for that board tho...

Ken: You don't need a patched BIOS to run OS X.

First hit on Google for "ECS G31T-M BIOS" is ECS's product page for the board. There's a BIOS from March 2010 in the download section.

[KenLavallee]

Pi: that's not the latest BIOS for that board tho...

Ken: You don't need a patched BIOS to run OS X.

First hit on Google for "ECS G31T-M BIOS" is ECS's product page for the board. There's a BIOS from March 2010 in the download section.

Thanks, I will give it a try. I was under the impression that my board needed to be patched (OS X Leopard required CPUS=1 flag at boot), is this issue addressed in the later BIOS revisions/OS X Mountain Lion?

Sad story... Then you should patch it yourself. Original BIOS. In most cases patching involves modifying the original DSDT, then adding it back to the BIOS and flashing the MB (there could also be some other mods I guess). Though it is much easier and safer to load patched DSDT using Chameleon.

Search the MDL (My Digital Life) forums for more info on BIOS patching/flashing and this forum for how-tos on DSDT patching.

Yes, I have already created a DSDT a while back with all the suggested fixes for my G31T-M so I think I am all set with that, so then I'd just flash to the newest Bios from ECS and since I already have my DSDT it should boot fine and no modified bios is needed?

BTW, I really appreciate your help guys. I wasn't sure if anyone posted here anymore since other forums came out, but I see that this forum is just as alive. I love this community. Thanks so much!

[Gringo Vermelho]

A "patched BIOS" is not some kind of black magic, it just means that someone integrated a patched DSDT into the BIOS, this was a popular approach a couple of years back and even a source of revenue for some people. The truth is there's really no need to do that when you can use your boot loader to override any ACPI table you want anyway.

CPUS=1 flag was probably needed at one time..a long time ago..but you can patch for this in DSDT which IMHO is much better that using a patched BIOS, it's more flexible and you don't have to rely on someone else.

Or you can try using a modern boot loader like the recently released Chameleon 2.2, it might help. Chameleon does so much more than just boot OS X.

[KenLavallee]

So I just flashed to the latest bios of ECS, I can now use my Core 2 Duo again so I swapped it back into my rig, but I still can't boot OS X without the CPUS=1 flag. Right now I'm in Mountain Lion with one core lol, runs okay, faster than my iBook. What change do I have to make in my DSDT? Is it even loaded? I thought I patched it!

EDIT

I ran Darwin Dumper and checked my DSDT, and I see that the alias is removed so therefore I shouldn't need CPUS=1, but I can't boot without it.

Heres what it looks like

Scope (_PR) { Processor (P001, 0x01, 0x00000810, 0x06) {} Processor (P002, 0x02, 0x00000000, 0x00) {} Processor (P003, 0x03, 0x00000000, 0x00) {} Processor (P004, 0x04, 0x00000000, 0x00) {} }

EDIT 2

I saw someone else's post where they suggested using Busratio=23, and so I did and I got to the grey apple screen, then a kernel panic. So I turned my machine off, flipped the PSU switch to off, then on, then off again and pushed the power button to run all the power out of the motherboard, then back to on position, started up with Busratio=23 and this time it worked, Im booted in with both cores. Is there a more permanent solution to this?

[Gringo Vermelho]

First make sure you're using a recent version of Chameleon. When upgrading, never replace only /boot, always do a full installation so that all three files are from the same version of Chameleon.

Seems you're relying on old information from the dark days again.

Don't remove the CPU aliases. Removing the CPU aliases will break native CPU power management in cases where the aliases are referenced in other ACPI tables.

Putting them back might even fix your CPU issue.

Do you have native CPU power management working?

Run Terminal.app and enter
kextstat -k > ~/Desktop/kextstat.txt
Open kextstat.txt on your desktop (this is a list of loaded kernel extensions) and let me know if AppleHPET.kext and AppleLPC.kext are loaded.

[KenLavallee]

I'm not sure, my DSDT was patched for sleep but it freezes on wake still, but I ran the command in the terminal and I saw both

com.apple.driver.AppleHPET

and

com.apple.driver.AppleLPC

listed in the text file.

Do you mean intel EIST/Speedstep? I believe I have shut that off in the BIOS.

[Gringo Vermelho]

Definitely turn it back on, and enable ACPI APIC and ACPI 2.0 as well if you haven't already.

Enable everything under "advanced CPU features" or whatever that section called in your BIOS, except CPUID Limit (it's a compatibility setting for old OS).

Ideally you should then re-extract your DSDT (not from within OS X as you will then extract your already patched DSDT) and patch it again.

Check here to make sure that 23 is the correct bus ratio for your CPU: http://www.insanelym...-your-busratio/

[KenLavallee]

Okay I enabled those settings in the bios, and I booted into Windows and was going to extract my DSDT, but I don't know what patches to use? I know I can use the ALC662 patch, and there was a patch someone made for the G31T-M board but it removes the alias from the CPU and you say that I shouldn't need it with modern OS X and Chimera. I also see that I previously patched my board for DTGP and HDEF. What else should I patch it for? Ohh, and I found out that my busratio is 9, so I rebooted with 9 and it still worked. I shouldn't need to boot with busratio though, its really only for Core i cpus, so I wonder what is causing me to have to boot with it. My board is G31 and ICH7 with GMA 3100 and ALC662 and RTL8101E. I found the following patches, LPC ICH7 and ALC662 included with the DSDTEditor I downloaded. I have an external GPU and my I don't think I need the a patch for the internet, since it works OOB. What patch will make it sleep however?

[Gringo Vermelho]

I can't say, I'm not familiar with your hardware.

Read up on ICH7 and the G31 chipset, see what other people are doing. I know there have been some complications with some versions of the ICH7 but I don't remember any details.

It's okay to use that pre-made patch for your board, you can put the CPU aliases back in afterwards (compare with a copy of your unpatched DSDT) or you can simply take the code that removes them out of the patch before applying it.

The DTGP method is a piece of code from Apple DSDTs that allows device patches to function. If you pay attention you'll see it's called at the end of each device patch.

Specifying a bus ratio at boot does no harm, but this is part of the reason why I recommend updating to the most recent version of Chameleon - it's the boot loader that detects and passes this type of thing on to the OS.

Because AppleLPC.kext loads on your hack, you don't need the LPC ICH7 patch. If you look closer at the code you'll see that it all it does is change the device ID of your motherboards LPC device. This is done so that AppleLPC.kext will load - it doesn't know all of the ICH7 variants, and there are several, all with different device IDs.

[KenLavallee]

Okay, thanks. I have found the code that removes the CPU alias and have removed it from the patch. I just need to apply it to the extracted DSDT next time I'm in Windows.

Also, I found I don't need bus ratio to boot at all, neither do I need CPUS=1. I am currently not using any kernal flags other than graphics enabler and it can boot. Though I am still on the old DSDT so once I get a chance I'll swap it out.

Like you said, the modified bios was just an applied DSDT patch, so everything is working as it did. At least I am on OS X ML, beats Windows 8 any day.

Thanks again, I'll keep you updated.

[Gringo Vermelho]

Nice, well done.

You can keep several DSDTs in /Extra. If you don't do anything, Chameleon always loads DSDT.aml, but you can keep an experimental DSDT and name it test.aml or something. Then type DSDT=test.aml at the boot prompt to load it instead of the default DSDT. Then if it doesn't work, just reboot.