Anyone tried OSX x86 on a VIA EPIA motherboard?

[niteman1969]

As in the header - I am really interested in knowing if

osx86 runs on via eden processors c3 with appropiate patches.

 

I am only wondering as i have the option to get one of these

motherboards with built on 1ghz processor from a friend for nothing

as he now needs more powerful hardware for his htpc, as he is going

with windows media centre.

 

Though if it would work it would be a cute little osx x86 machine

and I could build my own case around it.

 

here are the specs

 

Processor VIA C3/EDEN EBGA Processor, C3 1GHz with Fan

 

Chipset VIA CLE266 North Bridge

VT8235 South Bridge

 

System Memory 1 DDR266 DIMM socket

Up to 1GB memory size

 

VGA Integrated VIA Unichrome AGP graphics with MPEG-2 Accelerator

 

Expansion Slots 1 PCI

 

Onboard IDE 2 X UltraDMA 133/100/66 Connector

 

Onboard Floppy 1 x FDD Connector

 

Onboard LAN VIA VT6103 10/100 Base-T Ethernet PHY

 

Onboard Audio VIA VT1616 6 channel AC'97 Codec

 

Onboard TV Out VIA VT1622 TV out

 

Onboard 1394 VIA VT6307S IEEE 1394 Firewire

 

Back Panel I/O 1 PS2 mouse port

1 PS2 keyboard port

1 Parallel port

1 RJ-45 LAN port

1 Serial port

2 USB 2.0 ports

1 VGA port

1 RCA port (SPDIF or TV out)

1 S-Video port

3 Audio jacks: line-out, line-in and mic-in; can be switched to 6 channel output

 

Onboard I/O Connectors 1 USB connector for 2 additional USB 2.0 ports

2 1394 connectors for 2 1394 ports

1 Front-panel audio connector (Mic and Line Out)

1 CD Audio-in connector

1 Buzzer

1 FIR connector

1 CIR connector (Switchable for KB/MS)

1 Wake-on-LAN connector

CPU/Sys FAN/Fan 3

1 SMBUS connector

1 Connector for LVDS module1 Serial port connector for a second com port

ATX Power Connector

 

BIOS Award BIOS

2/4Mbit flash memory

 

System Monitoring & Management CPU voltage monitoring

Wake-on-LAN, Keyboard Power-on, Timer Power-on

System power management

AC power failure recovery

 

Operating Temperature 0~50°C

 

Operating Humidity 0% ~ 93% (relative humidity; non-condensing)

 

Form Factor Mini-ITX (4 layer)

17 cm x 17 cm

 

 

 

Regards

 

Niteman1969

[Futte]

Tryed with 10.4.6 but it wouldent boot but it could bee so cute so if any buddy succeede i would be glad to know

 

Regards Eddi

[- Doogie]

I am making a small attempt right now to see what I can get..

 

I insert the 10.6.4 install dvd and it just reboots right away, it seems like when it goes to load the bootloader it just resets.. I am trying a 10.4.1 on a usb drive as a disk image to see if that helps at all... I will post results. Does anyone have any idea why it just "resets"? I tried a small search, didnt find anything..

[- Doogie]

Sorry to report bad news, but the install dvd nor the HD image for 10.4.1 would just reset, you dont even see any bootloader text, you see the hard drive light flash once or twice then reset. I cannot get any kind of rise out of it, no matter the patches, I did get a B0 error once but I intentionally threw that error to see if I could get a response, I dont think its in the kernel, its in the bootloader... If there was a linux that read Mac partitions ok (or even just a different bootloader) you might be able to pull something off.

[phi]

The C3 doesn't have SSE2, which you need at least to run OSX.

 

So, i would say no go for this stuff.

[- Doogie]

Are you sure? According to via and this site:

 

Via C3 Specs

 

It does have SSE2 and even SSE3... I wonder if it differs depending on the application / generation of the CPU..

 

 

Just did a little more research and the generation of C3 used in via boards does have SSE but DOES NOT have SSE2, or SSE3...

 

Here is a link:VIA EPIA M10000 Review

 

 

From what I have gathered from this the CPUs are actually quite junky! However I guess that its because they are designed to not genrate heat and work in almost every enviorment..

 

Well I guess at least now whoever searches from now on will find this with all the answers..

Thanks guys

[phi]

Hmm, i downloaded the pdf datasheet from Via for the Nemiah,

 

they say in the features list:

 

SSE Instructions Enhanced 3D and Multimedia

 

So i decided to say, that SSE (1) only is supported.

 

Nevermind, you won't be able to get any experience with this machine on OSX.

There are no patches for the integrated graphics, so no DVD, no movies, no screensaver, no multimedia. The GUI would be slow as hell. The System would be slow as hell.

 

From this Review they seem not too bad. They can : Play Movies, Be Quite and Compact. Thats it. A Centrino still miles away, and an Athlon XP M is not too bad too, but the formfactor is a size bigger.

 

From my experience OSX needs lot's of CPU, VGA, RAM and bandwidth of all this stuff.