Asus P5N-D Sli, iPC 10.5.6, 8500GT 512mb, the story...

[Amaury.RR]

Hello, I'm writing on my success/progress on running iPC Final/Universal on my Asus P5N-D SLi (Nvidia 750i chipset). I'm new to Macs, but I've worked with Windoze as well as Linux (SuSE or Ubuntu) since I was a kid. I always wanted to build one for personal use, learning purposes. The most frustrating part with the install is getting both 8500GT's working, currently running one using a kext found on the board (NVinject GOD.kext, seriously onlything that worked on my card so far lol).

 

This is my hardware config durring install:

Mobo: Asus P5N-D SLi w/ 801 BIOS

CPU: E7400 @ 2.8Ghz (stock speed for now)

RAM: G.Skill 8GB DDR2-800Mhz

HDD: 3x WD SATA drives, 80GB, 250GB and 500GB in external USB enclosure.

Video: 2x GeForce 8500GT 512MB (Asus model, passive cooled originally)

PSU: Random 430w, works, has worked for the past 3yrs no prob (upgraded when I had my 820D at 3.4GHz)

DVD: Lite-on special from Compusa, SATA, Lightscribe, Multi-format, etc.

Audio: Onboard

Ethernet: Onboard Gig

Bluetooth: Random USB dongle, DO NOT HAVE IN DURRING INSTALL (You'll thank me later if you want to use Timemachine).

 

The system has been very rock solid so far, OS's used on this setup: XP (32 and 64), Vista (32 and 64), Ubuntu 8.04 64-bit, Server 2003. I've tried to use iAKTOS 5i, but was unable to get it running out of the box. I was thinking of EFI w/ Retail DVD and then came across iPC 10.5.6 Universal, sounded tempting. I've also installed it on a HP C714nr w/ 2GB ram and it flies, wifi, graphics acceleration, etc all functional. But anyway, back to the P5N-D SLi..

 

Installed options (iPC 10.5.6 Final)

-WD 250GB Sata drive, internal; Formatted GUID as follows (don't necessarily have to do it this way but just being thorough);

-OSx86xBoot - system partition, 50GB

-OSx86xHome - storage, profiles, etc... 100GB

-OSx86xBackup - time machine storage, 82GB (gotta like how it never fully partitions out to the full size haha)

 

-No kernel opts, used vanilla(?)

-No video drivers, used standard display for install

-No ethernet drivers, any of the nForce drivers will get a MAC addr, but no communication (static or dhcp)

-Make sure you do not have a Bluetooth dongle installed, OSX assigns that as "en0" which time machine uses for some wierd authentication(?). You want your NIC to be "en0" so time machine will work, theres workarounds to it but its better if you just dont have it plugged in while installing.

-No wifi, I did not use one, if you do check compatability first.

-Chipset; AppleNForceATA, works, its slow booting on mine (any configuration of a fresh install, first sata, 2nd sata, IDE enabled, IDE disabled, with and without injectors, efi strings, NIC, etc, etc etc)

-Audio; ALC883 worked fine out of the box, by default it selects headphones for output, switch to desired Line out and enjoy.

-Fixes/Patches: ACPI, Restart Fix, DSDT w/ HPET (no diff enabled/disabled in BIOS), SMBios Mac Pro, All apps except AMD util.

 

Post install

-Only that strange "NVInject GOD" kext I found worked, and only with ONE card installed (which leads me to believe previous EFI strings would've worked, however this is working BEAUTIFULLY so I will not fix what is not broken).

-Audio, as mentioned, check output settings, it worked for me (currently listening to my music on the external 500gb)

-NIC, I found a updated NForce nic driver on this board, it works fine, no lockups or anything experienced. I've already downloaded a few torrents, performed system software update, etc no problem so far.

-Updated About this Mac info, just for kicks, its purely cosmetic but its a nice touch nonetheless.

-After installing video (had to remove one of my 8500gt's for testing), enabled QuartzGL via OSx86 Tools, worked as expected.

-Thought my system was randomly locking up, only to find one of my RAM slots died (4th slot), so I pulled 2GB, now I'm down to 6GB of ram lol. Afterwards, system has been running all day fine, playnig music from my drive, time machine backups, bluetooth file transfers between my comp and phone for music, chatting on iChat, Safari browsing, playing with various system settings.

 

Conclusion

-I like leopard, its fresh, simple, effective and (when you get the bugs out) runs as solid or more than Windoze (from side by side comparison on my system). Yes I know, the ammount of ram is ridiculous however it was cheap and my mobo supports it. I am also pleased to see my E7400 working fine without patching the bios and whatnot, my friend's m8430f we had to run cpus=1 untill we patched his BIOS, then it worked fine. I was also pleased that it saw all of the installed RAM, when it was running 8GB, and now that it has 6GB of RAM. (i swapped RAM to test and same slot 4 would lock system up and upon reboot would not post, removed 4th stick of ram, boot and ran fine, would also lock up Vista, and the other 2GB is working happily in a spare box in my room =). Tomorrow I might throw the other 8500GT in and see what happens, hopefully it'll pick it up.

 

PS. For some reason the 8500GT's show 256mb ram, maybe I missed something in the kext when I was plugging in the NVCAP and Device id (mines was 0x042110de), didn't look at memory. However the thing flies no studder or anything playing vids fullscreen. After I get the other video card sorted out, maybe I'll play with VMWare fusion and run Windoze simultaniously (which was the ultimate purpose of this build haha).

 

Anyways, take care and hope this helps someone stuck like I was!!!

 

-l8r

[Amaury.RR]

Update: 5/12/09

 

System is fully functional so far, issues resolved, overall usability:

 

-Sata DVD drive works IF I use a SATA->IDE adapter, odd I know. Before it would show all information (as it does now), but would load discs at random and it would always show up as a blank disk. no option to format/etc in disk util. However, installing a IDE DVD (or a SATA->IDE adapter on your SATA DVD drive would work as well).

I even updated the firmware (booted into vista), and updated it successfully (still sata) with no change in OSX. I suppose its an issue with the nForce SATA controller and DVD (or ATAPI drives in general), as I have no issue with my other SATA drives.

 

-Video, wound up staying with my single 8500GT, works perfectly for what I'm doing (besides I'm waiting on support for GTX 200+ series as well as their prices to go down).

 

-Lan, works perfectly, sometimes lol. I would randomly get the issue where my Ethernet would stop working, then a new Ethernet interface would pop up (en1). Assign it DHCP and all is well, except for Time Machine, it wants en0 (non existant en0, as my ethernet is en1 now). I edit the plist where the BSD name is stored and change it from en1 to en0, reboot, now my ethernet is still dead (although officially en0). A new Ethernet pops up (en1) in addition to the original (non functional?). Time Machine works, LAN is back up (going solid for a few days straight). Its confusion, I know, so I changed the original "en0" and renamed it to "Time Machine Interface", renamed "en1" from Ethernet 2 to Ethernet. Everything works fine. I think the above may happen when I mess around with DNS settings and WINS config (namely adding backup DNS servers and configuring a NetBIOS name and workgroup for my machine). I originally thought it to be a conflict with Vmware Fusion, but I know it happened once before the install when I was playing with those settings. Its ok, I use VMWare for my Windows Networking tasks.

 

-Audio: Works 110%, I had trouble configuring 5.1, Aggregate Device configured, functional, etc... but iTunes wouldnt do 5.1 (or much else, unless it had 5.1 tracks). Which was understandable, but I'd rather have all speakers playing to fill the room vs only hearing 2 out of 6. Wound up only using one line-out from the mobo to the Amp and it works (Amp does Pseudo if its only using one channel). Not pretty, but I'm satisfied with the outcome (and I do know if I needed to I could get true 5.1 by connecting 2 cables).

 

-Stability: I'd say the system is rock solid, only issue was the RAM issue, currently back to 6, random shutdown/post issues when using the 4th ram slot. Go figure, I still have 6GB. I'm also running VMWare Fusion with WinXP Pro 32bit no problem via Bridged mode (I use DameWare for remote tasks and it worked flawlessly). I have 2GB ram dedicated to XP and the other 4GB for system use. No problems running iTunes, YoutTube HD fullscreen, DameWare in VMWare remotely working on a desktop on LAN, iChat logged in, copying files over the LAN and from drive to drives copying files around dvd -> sata -> sata -> usb -> sata all with no signs of system slowdown or instability! DVD player did crash on me, however the DVD was horribly scratched to hell.

 

-Issues: VMWare won't install any 64-bit OS's, odd as I run another 64-bit OS as my alternate (no longer primary =D ). Wondering if it is a compatability issue or a VMWare issue, I'll look into that (my E7400 should support VT just fine, I've ran MS Virtual PC many times in the past experimenting).

 

-Aside from that, no problems, happy and loving the changeover. It'll help me educate myself on this new OS, most of the commands I learned using Ubuntu still apply so it was all not (harshly) learned in vein! Hopefully this info will be of use to someone, if I saw this when I was setting up mines I'd flip!

 

 

For the record; the other 2GB is currently running in another "Spare Parts" Hackintosh I built earlier (P5VDM Mobo, Other 8500gt, Everything functional - need to test LAN).