NVIDIA's ION Platform and OS X

[vorchan]

It's been a while since I posted here, just thought I would give a quick update. I have continued playing with the Revo unit. I have had iDeneb 10.5.7 running but only in safe mode. Thre was no audio, wireless, ethernet and the graphics chipset was not detected.

 

I have manged to borrow from work a Nvidia Ion reference unit and I thought it would be worth looking at to see if the results were any different. The Nvidia unit has a different BIOS than the Revo and many more options. There are comments shows the video and system BIOS are for development only and not production. I tried installing 10.5.6 retail on the unit and it installed quite smoothly with the hyperthreading turned off. It booted fine but with the same limitations as the Revo. I updated to 10.5.7 using the combo updater and after a few reboots the system booted up and Ethernet was working. Still no graphics though 

 

 

I tried a system update and that installed fine but after a reboot the unit hangs. I have since tried to reinstall 10.5.6 then 10.5.7 update and have since not been able to get it working. Not sure why cause it worked fine last night. I will keep you posted if I get any further.

[derko]

Here is the lastest Biosfile for the Acer Aspire Revo. Sorry for being late with that !

 

Maybe someone can patch this one ? I don´t really know what to take care of....

BIOS_ACER_R01.A1_WIN_AR3600.zip

[derko]

Did you get any step forward with the Bios Patch ?

[stellarola]

Holy {censored}, you guys have no idea what you're doing. It pains me. You guys seem to be poking and prodding the ION chipset by using these distro discs.

 

Do this...

 

-Mod your dsdt NOT your bios file. Do you really want to brick your mobo if you do a bad flash? Be sure to remove cpu aliases, add fixed HPET and heck, even add graphics injection and tm fix.

 

-Use at least a 10.5.6 Retail dvd

[Nick14]

@stellarola

 

+1

[EnDumEn]

Anyone tried OSX on the ASRock ION 330? Cause if most things work OTB , I'm ordering one today!

[derko]

@stellarola

 

+1

 

 

Trust me, i would never (!) mod a Biosfile if i do not have any clue about the consequences Thanks for the advice

 

By the way, did anybody get it done by now ?(Full graphics support)

[lzthqx]

Just unboxed my ASRock ION 330. Searching for the appropriate kexts for the /Extra folder, and will report any progress...

[lzthqx]

Boo and Hiss so far...

 

Bios disabled multi-thread

 

Hanging on Buffer Headers error.

 

Method: Install via second mac system. 10.5.6 retail w/10.5.7 combo update, chameleon 2.0RC1, /Extra has NVKush, Disabler.kext, AHCIPortInjector.kext, OpenHaltRestart.kext.

 

Any suggestions are welcome.

[Methanoid]

I'm puzzled why this fails. There are plenty of successes with 9300/9400 chipset boards (Gigabyte/Asus etc) which is basically same chipset and the Atom is also OSX compatible.

 

Someone has to get this working... it'd be great to use OSX on the Ion 330 systems out there.

[tomcoleman]

any updates to this?

 

 

 

I have a zotact n330

[lzthqx]

I have given up till further notice. I needed a functioning system pronto.

I will however take another whack at it in the near future.

I found that even after disabling multithread in the BIOS, I needed the cpus=1 boot flag. Very odd indeed.

The machine never got to graphical portion of the boot.

[mattpeufpeuf]

Anyone had tried instal Mac os x on POV ion 330?

thx

[iztech]

I have manged to borrow from work a Nvidia Ion reference unit and I thought it would be worth looking at to see if the results were any different.

 

I tried a system update and that installed fine but after a reboot the unit hangs. I have since tried to reinstall 10.5.6 then 10.5.7 update and have since not been able to get it working. Not sure why cause it worked fine last night. I will keep you posted if I get any further.

 

 

Can you please tell us your BIOS settings for the ION 330. please go thru all changes. I do have hyperthreading off but I am not getting any boot process working.

[iztech]

Can you please tell us your BIOS settings for the ION 330. please go thru all changes. I do have hyperthreading off but I am not getting any boot process working.

 

 

Turned off hyperthreading - only up to the Apple logo then hangs and reboots.

Zotac 330

[k0tr@kt0r]

Hi!

I turned off hyperthreading,but it didn`t help."Still waiting for root device" error.

 

 

 

I installed ideneb 1.5 via second system.System didn`t boot. "using 9175 buffer headers and 4096 cluster buffer IO headers" error 

 

I've also tried to install system using instruction for zotac 9300 wifi (with mod kext) same result.

 

 

AsRock ION 330

[k0tr@kt0r]

A-W-E-S-O-M-E

AsRock has released new 1.50 BIOS for ION 330.It has "Sata operation mode" option.I 've change to "ACHI" mode and iDeneb v 1.5 setup booted up!

http://www.asrock.com/nettop/download.asp?Model=ION%20330

[kultex]

perhaps it is a bit off topic, but is there any difference in idle power consumtion for the Asrock Ion 330 running OSx compared to Windows - because on the mac mini, it is a big difference - 12W for OSx - 25W for Windows. Perhaps somebody has a amperemeter to check this ....

[p0rnstar]

A-W-E-S-O-M-E

AsRock has released new 1.50 BIOS for ION 330.It has "Sata operation mode" option. I've change to "ACHI" mode and iDeneb v 1.5 setup booted up!

http://www.asrock.com/nettop/download.asp?Model=ION%20330

 

This is excellent! I've updated and tested, OSX will boot and see the sata drive. =) Thanks for you post!

 

Now the hard part... the customization screen. Have you got it working? I have an asrock nvidia ION 330 and I'm attempting 10.5.6.

 

I have xbmc live and windows 7 also running on this box too.

 

EDIT: I did have to use the CPUS=1 argument.

[zivtong]

This is excellent! I've updated and tested, OSX will boot and see the sata drive. =) Thanks for you post!

 

Now the hard part... the customization screen. Have you got it working? I have an asrock nvidia ION 330 and I'm attempting 10.5.6.

 

I have xbmc live and windows 7 also running on this box too.

 

EDIT: I did have to use the CPUS=1 argument.

 

I can boot up but sill cannot detect harddisk

I try IDE mode and sata mode also not working

why?

[k0tr@kt0r]

zivtong

Same problem with iDeneb 1.5. I installed iAktos v7 .

In customization options I chose:

-Video:nvenable

-Sound:voodooHDA

-Chipset: i tried nforce and via. I didn`t notice difference.

-Network:nforce network.

Kernel default

Video and sound work. Intro video appeared. There are problems with usb.Usb wireless network adapter and usb flash are not recognized. But usb mouse and keyboard work.

 

P.S. I solved usb problem.Ethernet connection work.I have used OSx86Tools.In "System and Computer" section I used "View PCI Device/Vendor ID" and "Download and Install Hardware Drivers".

 

Now Usb devices work properly)

[Dreamwatcher]

did anyone know ION M/B, PEGATRON "IPX7A-ION/330/ODM" ? it's only ODM model, is selled in japan.

 

ION IPX7A-ION/330/ODM

 

i got it, run OSX 10.5.6.

 

M/B IPX7A-ION/330/ODM

MEM 8GB (DDR2-800 4GBx2)

HDD 120GB

ODD Blu-ray

 

os is consist of retail osx 10.5.6, acpi(using 16384 buffer headers and 4096 cluster IO buffer headers) fixed patch , and kernel flags cpus=1 or 2. biossetting is default.

 

screen shot is below.

i make dsdt file , shutdown and sleep is ok. but 1 core is unknown or may be busy. so 1 core / 2 thead is running now.

 

i want to correct dsdt table. please give advice to me.

IPX7A_ION.zip

[k0tr@kt0r]

Dreamwatcher

Could you tell us more details.How did you install mac os x?(Via second computer or using boot-132 method).What kexts did you use?

[Dreamwatcher]

hi, i customized retail OS by LDMx86(Leopard Dvd Maker x86) script. this method is famous in japan.

it's deffrent boot-132.

 

LDMx86 is shell script. original retail OS added user's kext and EFI patch by it.

 

base os is retail osx 10.5.6.

installer patched by acpifix pkg(replace AppleACPIPlatform.kext, AppleAPIC.kext, IOACPIFamily.kext file).

retail os' contents added below kext by LDMx86 script.

 

<System>

-Disabler

IntelCPUPMDisabler.kext

-Enabler

SMBIOSEnabler.kext (SMBIOSResolver.kext is not use. it's kernel panic)

-Decrypter

AppleDecrypt.kext

-Other

OpenHaltRestart.kext

 

<Device>

-Video (ION)

NVdarwin.kext is modifyed (info.plist add deviceid 0x087d) add videoname string "NVIDIA ION" to NVdarwin binary.

-Audio (ALC662)

HDAEnabler.kext, LegacyHDAController.kext, LegacyHDAPlatformDriver.kext

 

and kernel flasg add cpuflags cpus=1 or cpus=2. no cpus flags or cpus=4 is kernel panics!

ACPIfix_1056.zip

[shoarthing]

hi, i customized retail OS by LDMx86(Leopard Dvd Maker x86) script. this method is famous in japan.

it's deffrent boot-132.

 

LDMx86 is shell script. original retail OS added user's kext and EFI patch by it.

 

base os is retail osx 10.5.6.

installer patched by acpifix pkg(replace AppleACPIPlatform.kext, AppleAPIC.kext, IOACPIFamily.kext file).

retail os' contents added below kext by LDMx86 script.

 

<System>

-Disabler

IntelCPUPMDisabler.kext

-Enabler

SMBIOSEnabler.kext (SMBIOSResolver.kext is not use. it's kernel panic)

-Decrypter

AppleDecrypt.kext

-Other

OpenHaltRestart.kext

 

<Device>

-Video (ION)

NVdarwin.kext is modifyed (info.plist add deviceid 0x087d) add videoname string "NVIDIA ION" to NVdarwin binary.

-Audio (ALC662)

HDAEnabler.kext, LegacyHDAController.kext, LegacyHDAPlatformDriver.kext

 

and kernel flasg add cpuflags cpus=1 or cpus=2. no cpus flags or cpus=4 is kernel panics!

. . . very interesting: thank you for sharing this.

 

Please could you share your plist/binary hacked NVdarwin.kext & your smbiosenabler.kext [this last comes in many, many versions].

 

Can you disable hyperthreading in the BIOS of your IPX7A? . . or have you done this?

 

I see you have CPU alias' in the txt for your dsdt patching - shouldn't these be removed?