SUBMarcos Posted January 23, 2006 Share Posted January 23, 2006 This is awesome, very neat explanations, thank you for sharing it. I wish you success with the EFI and final Mac OS vesion. Why do you have so many PCs (inclding macs)? Why two new monitors? Is there a good thing about having three HDs than only one with many GBs? Thank you Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bofors Posted January 23, 2006 Author Share Posted January 23, 2006 (edited) EDIT: AHCI is now working. I am trying to enable AHCI on my box to natively support my SATA drives, but seem to be having a problem, as per this thread: http://forum.osx86project.org/index.php?showtopic=6995&st=0 Here is what I did: (1) Copy AppleAHCIPort.kext and IOAHCIFamily.kext (10.4.4) to /System/Library/Extensions (2) sudo chown -R root:wheel /System/Library/Extensions sudo chmod -R 755 /System/Library/Extensions EDIT: AHCI started working when I skipped this kext cache rebuilding step which apparently is not necessary anyways. sudo kextcache -k /System/Library/Extensions (3) reboot and set AHCI (instead of IDE) in my BIOS EDIT: AHCI is now working. Results: (A ) I get to the "grey Apple with spinning progress indicator" screen and apparently nothing more. It let it go for about two minutes with no indicated hard disk activity. (B ) Reseting the BIOS to IDE does not change the results. Am I missing something Why do you have so many PCs (inclding macs)?Why two new monitors? Well, I am a programer so I "need" them for my work. Is there a good thing about having three HDs than only one with many GBs? Yes, having multiple drives is faster especially when it comes to virtual memory, ideally that would be a distinct system for speed. Also you can add mulitple drives together to from RAID arrays easily in OS X, so two drives can mean almost double performance (at least when reading data). I have the Antec NeoPower 480. It's a modular PSU, meaning you plug wires into it vs. having all the wires coming out of it. Makes for a nice clean case. So far I have manage my wires without doing anything special, but there is a mess of the extra power supply connectors jammed into the 5.25" drive bay area right now. That should be cleaned up, but will only take some plastic bands. Edited January 23, 2006 by bofors Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Careless Posted January 23, 2006 Share Posted January 23, 2006 my case pwns your case Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Groffy77 Posted January 23, 2006 Share Posted January 23, 2006 (edited) bofors, your like rich! It takes me like 3 years just to make $1000. It would be nice to have a special machine just for OSx86 instead of turning the computer off every 10 minutes. Very nice specs. Edited January 23, 2006 by Groffy77 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zultdush Posted January 23, 2006 Share Posted January 23, 2006 bofors are you a photoshop user? Im just currious, but how will this handle on photoshop(rosetta)? since your on an intel built mobo, you cant OC via the FSB correct? everything is locked yes? is there another mobo that is similar but made by say msi? asus? gigabyte? something that will give us some OCing? if you could push that presler to 4ghz it would do alot better. what about your ram timings? any ability to change those on this board? thanks for your time -Jamie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bofors Posted January 23, 2006 Author Share Posted January 23, 2006 bofors are you a photoshop user? Im just currious, but how will this handle on photoshop(rosetta)? Not really, but I have a copy of Adobe CS 2 and probably have tiime to do some limited testing. since your on an intel built mobo, you cant OC via the FSB correct? everything is locked yes? is there another mobo that is similar but made by say msi? asus? gigabyte? something that will give us some OCing? if you could push that presler to 4ghz it would do alot better. I know little about overclocking (and frankly, not particularly interested in it either), but I know this board has no explict overclocking features while others do. what about your ram timings? The RAM is supposed to good, Corsair "ValueSelect" with a CAS latency of 3 ns. I am not sure what the other timings are but this is the part number for the 2 X 1GB kits I bought: VS2GBKIT667D2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bofors Posted January 23, 2006 Author Share Posted January 23, 2006 Now here is a note on the only real "bug" that I am seeing and this appears only to be in the OSx86 10.4.3 installer not the installation itself (there are some other minor issues too, but nothing worth reporting yet). When you boot the installer, you have the option to run Disk Utility.app before hand to do things like erasing, formating and partitioning. The Disk Utiltiy GUI is bugging when executed from the installer, I have had little problem doing what I want to do, which has just been partioning, until now. I just tried setting up a RAID set and can not in the installer executed Disk Utiitity because the GUI drop and drag does not work and is required. So, I am going to have to it another way, like perhaps by Disk Utility execute from a complete installation. The reason I would not just do this anyways, is that you can not set up a RAID set on a disk that you have booted from in OS X. Otherwise, I have now taken off of the front case door, because I was sick of opening it to hit the reset and power switch, and also to see the DVD activity light, as I have reinstalled OSx86 a couple time now because the process I am going through to try to enable native SATA (via ACHI) which I detailed above and fails, renders my installation unbootable, apparently. Actually, this bring me to my next "issue" with this box. I would like to be able to simply switch boot partitions (or drives). Since this box does not have OpenFirmware but rather BIOS, I can not just boot with the option key pressed to select my start-up drive. While I can manipulated the drive boot order in BIOS, it does not seem to work (or at least it did not seem to switch from SATA 1 to SATA 2, as I have put my second Raptor in the box now). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Careless Posted January 23, 2006 Share Posted January 23, 2006 The Disk Utiltiy GUI is bugging when executed from the installer, I have had little problem doing what I want to do, which has just been partioning, until now. I just tried setting up a RAID set and can not in the installer executed Disk Utiitity because the GUI drop and drag does not work and is required. I have problems with the disk utility too. everytime i try to run it... i click on the drive i want to repair, and the box sorta freezes. so what i do, is i close the disk utility and reopen it. and then it works as it should. perfectly. i have NO idea why it does this. it doesnt register the different tabs and screens the first time around, but upon reopening, it seems to allow me to interact with the drives, as well as the repair/permissions buttons. if i dont do that, it will sit there, or the screen will be garbled, which sorta renders it useless. try clicking on the partition , then pressing space, or enter or something, see if that moves it in. there has to be a way of doing that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bofors Posted January 23, 2006 Author Share Posted January 23, 2006 (edited) Yeah, that's the same problem I have. Right clicking on drives and partions to bring up the contextual menu is one easy work around. The other thing is just moving the window slightly to redraw the view. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Here are a couple of notes regarding BIOS settings. I have decided to disable both the serial and parrallel ports in the BIOS. A variety of BIOS options are titled "enchanced" or "automatic", I am leaving those untouched. Really, the only BIOS setting that I really messing with is the hard drive interface, it has three options: "IDE" (default), "AHCI" and "RAID". "IDE" is the only thing that works and the "RAID" setting I assume refers to the RAID controller on this paritcular motherboard. EDIT: AHCI is now working. I might actually use that to work around the problems OS X has with setting RAID on the boot drive, but right now OS X does not recognize those drives, probably because the requires AHCI to be enable (which I have been unable to do yet). If anybody has any clue to what I am doing wrong with AHCI here, please let me know: http://forum.osx86project.org/index.php?showtopic=6995 Next, I am to try running one of my Dell 20" panels in 1680 x1050 mode off the VGA port. Edited January 23, 2006 by bofors Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bofors Posted January 23, 2006 Author Share Posted January 23, 2006 (edited) AHCI is now working on my system now! I do not know why but the only thing I intentionaly did differently was not include the kext cache rebuilding step (which apparently is not necessary anyways): sudo kextcache -k /System/Library/Extensions So, now I am going to get back to work on trying to set up my twin 36 GB Raptors in striped RAID (but because of the Disk Utility problem on the install disk, I may need to go buy another SATA cable to install a third drive in the box temporally. Edited January 23, 2006 by bofors Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bofors Posted January 23, 2006 Author Share Posted January 23, 2006 (edited) what about your ram timings? any ability to change those on this board? Next topic: DDR2 RAM timings. I just found in the BIOS setup that not only can I change them, but that they have been set to something like 5-5-5-5 which I guess is really slow and perhaps explain part of why the Xbench score is little low (we will see). I selected the "agressive" setting which had the CAS latency at 3 (which should have matched my RAM), but now the machine will not boot but gives me a three beep "no memory" error. Now, I have two problems: (1) How to do I reset my BIOS back to the 5-5-5-5 timings because I can bring it up? (I am going to try pulling the RAM out to see if that resets something, otherwise I need to find a way to reset the BIOS itself?). EDIT2: This was fixable by just setting the BIOS jumper to the "config" setting. EDIT: OK, it looks like I have to reflash the BIOS using the recovery procedure: http://www.intel.com/design/motherbd/recoverybios.htm But I have no floppy drive, so I might have to go buy one. Why the hell are these losers STILL using floppy drives? Why can't I just burn their BIOS {censored} to CD or even better, use a USB drive? When is this going to end? How about parallel and serial ports? This is bull {censored}! (2) What timings should I set for this CAS 3 DDR2 RAM? Edited January 24, 2006 by bofors Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Callysto Posted January 23, 2006 Share Posted January 23, 2006 There should simply be a jumper you change that lets you boot to a safe operating mode to go back and undo what you've done. It worked on my Intel board after I changed the timings for the memory. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bofors Posted January 23, 2006 Author Share Posted January 23, 2006 (edited) Well that would be great, let me try again. I know the jumper and I have already tried just pulling it once or twice to no effect. Maybe if I set it to "configure" it will be reset to the default setting... Ok, that it did, instead of pulling the jumper, I set to the other "config" position and got into some BIOS maintance menu. Man, you just saved me a couple hours time and money too! Thanks, I owe you!!! Regarding, DDR2-667 timings: I am thinking that either 4-4-4-12 or 3-3-2 might be worth trying after reading this: http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/mainbo...l-ddr2-667.html But I am not sure if my memory is that good. Edited January 23, 2006 by bofors Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hagar Posted January 23, 2006 Share Posted January 23, 2006 Just a heads up.. I just lost my 915 board through attempting to flash from a bootable CD.. there is a reset position on the bios jumper.. try that before attempting any kind of flash.. see http://forum.osx86project.org/index.php?showtopic=7441 for the wailing & gnashing of teeth.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Callysto Posted January 23, 2006 Share Posted January 23, 2006 Good to see that worked and thanks for sharing this exciting endeavour with us all Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bofors Posted January 23, 2006 Author Share Posted January 23, 2006 Ok, here is where I am at. The "automatic" BIOS sets the timings to 5.0-5-5-15 (667 MHz) The "aggressive" BIOS set the timings to 3-2-2-4 (667 MHz) which do not work. I can manual set down to at least 4-4-4-11 (667 MHz). Now, here is the deal, this page suggests that because I only have a 800 MHz front side bus, that there is no point in running 667, that I should drop down to 533 MHz instead and use more agressive timings: http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/mainbo...g-ddr2-667.html So I guess, I am going to try it 533 at see what happens. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bofors Posted January 23, 2006 Author Share Posted January 23, 2006 I am getting the idea that this is definitely not CL 3 RAM. I had a hard time finding what the CAS Latency was on this Corsair ValueSelect DDR2-667 and that was only figure I found (it was on a UK resellers site). I tried dropping down to 533 MHz and running at 3-4-4, this system does try to boot up, but there are apparently memory errors as the OS X boot would never complete but repeatedly froze during the horizontal progress indicator stage (blue line goes left to right across the middle of screen with Apple logo above and text messages appearing below). So, for now I am sticking with 4-4-4-11 at 667 MHz. I ran some Xbench memory tests at the setting and 5-5-5-15, but their seemed to be a lot variation in the results. While I feel this little DDR2 timing lesson has been a good introduction I have a few questions. Specifically, should I try 4-4-4-10 and downward? Or 4-3-X-X? Or just stick with what I am at. I also really have to question the advice about dual channel 667 being useless on a 800 FSB. That would mean that none of the system memory bandwidth would be going toward devices other than the CPU, can not the Northbridge use this extra bandwith? Can't files be read directly into system memory? As always answers, advice, questions and feedback are appreciated here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Careless Posted January 23, 2006 Share Posted January 23, 2006 hmmm... 4-4-4-12 is supposed to be the factory setting for that ram. i think you could comfortably go to 3.5-4-4-10 at 533 MHz, but in order to test to see if it's good, i would go into windows and run Prime95 on Large FFT and one on Small FFT at the same time for one whole day, and assign the proper processor affinity in the program (not task manager) the large fft's would ensure that your ram is not being overworked at the proper voltage. that brings us to another problem. make sure the voltage is within spec... and if it says stock voltage is 2.7 to 2.8, make sure you're at 2.8. you could try 2.9, but that might make your ram a little toasty =) i got Kingston Value Ram, and i read that it was the best of the value packed rams because it takes to minor overclocking well, just as well as the OCZ, and for a lower price aswell. but the Corsair VS doesnt really like out of spec speeds and timings. also, if your ram isnt posting with 1T command rate, try and change the DRAM setting to 2T command rate. sometimes that helps. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shoman24v Posted January 23, 2006 Share Posted January 23, 2006 You can't really run aggressive memory timings with DDR2 memory. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Careless Posted January 23, 2006 Share Posted January 23, 2006 You can't really run aggressive memory timings with DDR2 memory. so why is nvidia deciding to make the M2 socket based on DDR2? whats the point. is bus speed all they're relying on? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bofors Posted January 23, 2006 Author Share Posted January 23, 2006 (edited) hmmm... 4-4-4-12 is supposed to be the factory setting for that ram. OK, but the automatic BIOS, which I believe is SPD (factory setting), is 5.0-5-5-15. i think you could comfortably go to 3.5-4-4-10 at 533 MHz, but in order to test to see if it's good, i would go into windows... OK, but I am not sure if Intel's will let me set a 3.5, it might be just 3 or 4. I will check. Otherwise, I do not what to mess with Windows stuff now, my priority now is running a Dell 20" panel at 1680 x 1050 and dual displays so I can actually start working (programming) on this box. EDIT: 3.5 is not an option in BIOS, can I reset the RAM's SPD (3.5-4-4-10) using some utility in Windows? I am going to try 4-4-4-10 (667) now. EDIT 2: Ok, I running 4-4-4-10 (667) now. that brings us to another problem. make sure the voltage is within spec... and if it says stock voltage is 2.7 to 2.8, make sure you're at 2.8. you could try 2.9, but that might make your ram a little toasty =) OK, I think Intel BIOS reports voltages. EDIT: I do not think BIOS is reporting the memory voltage, nothing close to 2.8. also, if your ram isnt posting with 1T command rate, try and change the DRAM setting to 2T command rate. sometimes that helps. I am not exactly what sure what a "T command rate" is or how to change them, but I will look in BIOS. EDIT: I see nothing in BIOS about this, are this part of the SPD data? Can it be set in Windows ? Is "T command rate" == "Internal write to read command delay (t_WTR)" or "Internal read to precharge command delay (t_RTP)" or something else? Thanks for all your help! Edited January 23, 2006 by bofors Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bofors Posted January 23, 2006 Author Share Posted January 23, 2006 Here are some notes about where I am at with RAID. (1) Applicable kernal extensions appear to include: AppleRAID.kext MegaRAID.kext (PPC only) SoftRAID.kext Are other's need? Is MegaRAID needed? (2) SoftRAID.kext appears to been made universal during the 10.4.3->10.4.4 update. (3) Apply all these kexts to 10.4.3 causes no problems here but still does not permit RAID construction of internal SATA drives with Disk Utility.app (4) However, both external FireWire and USB devices appear to be supported for software RAID (it is not known if the updated kexts are required for this). (5) It appears that Intel's hardware RAID, "Matrix Storage Technology", requires drivers. There are Linux and FreeBSD patches to enable it: Linux: http://iswraid.sourceforge.net/ FreeBSD: http://www.ambrisko.com/doug/ata/ At point, I just plannnig to use the second drive to quickly access large data files while the first drive is for executable and virtual memory. Alternatively, I could set up a special swap partition for virtual memory on the second drive (made even faster by creating a 10 GB parition at the "front" of the disk). For details on how to do this on Tiger see here: http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?sto...uery=tiger+swap Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bofors Posted January 23, 2006 Author Share Posted January 23, 2006 (edited) Here are some more hardware notes: (1) Overall the machine is working very well, but there have some minor issues: (A ) When resetting or restarting the machine, which I have been doing a lot of lately, it appears to fail often (but only when I doing it a lot). The primary symptom is no VGA signal at all and another symptom is that the USB keyboard is not recognized (so pressing F2 to try to get into the BIOS setup fails. However, this does not appear to happen at all during normal use or the machine. I am shuting if off when I sleep to provide the thermal cycles Artic Silver recomends and it always boots up fine again. Likewise, restarting the machine in OS X works does not cause that problem but... (B ) I have gotten a few kernal panics here and there. Two occured when shutting down (or restarting) from OS X. One occured during an installation of OSx86 attempt. (C ) I did briefly test the Audio jacks (I running Apple USB speakers) and I do not think they working correctly, but this may be because I failed to connect a "speaker" cable to the motherboard (I could not figure out where it was supposed to go and otherwise there was another Audio connector that looked like it replaced it). But I did detect a good output signal one of the back ports (am I not sure if it was the correct port though). (D ) At some point, I want to post all of my BIOS settings as I am making some minor tweaks here and there (the lasted had to do with GMA 950 use of system memory, I set to it "Max"). Edited January 23, 2006 by bofors Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Careless Posted January 23, 2006 Share Posted January 23, 2006 im not sure if there is a tool for intel boards. but i know there is an A64 tweaker. But that's because the memory controller is on-die with the 939 boards, so it's controllable through the windows environment. i guess the bios doesnt allow memory adjustment either, in terms of voltage, so i guess leaving that alone is ok, if youve managed 4-4-4-10. that should be the best you're gonna get. i believe 1T/2T command rate is the first one, r_WTR. some computers fail to boot with the ram on 1T because it requires some really good timings, and all the review websites said that it has to do with the Mobo aswell. and when they said that my mobo wouldnt even post at 1T, i was shocked, because i overclocked my ram, shortened the timings, AND ran it at 1T DRAM Command rate, and it works like a charm. shortened my SuperPI times by half a second too! but i think your ram settings are fine, dont worry about them. 4-4-4-10 is good for that ram, considering 4-4-4-12 is standard. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bofors Posted January 23, 2006 Author Share Posted January 23, 2006 (edited) Ok, thanks again for your advice. I just ran Xbench again with the lastest BIOS tweaks and my score is now 80.5. Once I get the RAID working it probably will go to 90+ and a graphics card should put it well over 110. Edited January 23, 2006 by bofors Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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