Asus Z33A/M5a sucess and failures

[sonicbuddha]

I have a custom built Asus Z33A/M5a laptop (specs below) with Fedora Core Linux and OSX86 installed. Most everything works in Tiger, except the wireless, the sound, and some of the functionality of going to sleep. First, the hardware specs:

 

Asus mb with a Intel 915GM & ICH6 chipset

2Ghz Dothan 755 pentium m processor with a 533Mhz FSB

768Mb DDR2 ram

GMA 900 Intel graphics controler

12.1" XGA 1024x768 LCD panel

82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) High Definition Audio Controller

" USB2 controler

10/100Mbps RealTek Fast Ethernet controller

Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 2200BG

Azalia compliant MDC Fax/ Modem

Ricoh Co Ltd R5C552 IEEE 1394 Controller

Ricoh Co Ltd R5C592 Memory Stick Bus Host Adapter

 

The vendor ids and devices attached to the pci bus are below (output of lspci, for the unix savy)

 

Installed:

 

I've installed the JaS patched 10.4.6 available on Demonoid and had to do very little additional hacking to get most things to work. Before this I played with the 10.4.5 Myzar install, with about the same sucess. I've also installed the most recent security update, 2006-003, using Pacifist and the guide posted in this forum, as well as Quicktime 7.1.

 

I dual boot using grub, the boot loader that comes with Linux, the same way I'd boot windoze, if was desperate enough to do that. If anyone interested wants a look at my grub.conf, I'm happy to share.

 

Working:

 

The GMA 900 gave me full quartz support out of the box, but I was frustrated by the external monitor problem that many other people with this chipset experienced until I stumbled upon an easy working hack. If I attempt to start the laptop wihout an external monitor attached, I get a blue screen of, well, nothing. But if I press the function keys reserved for turning on and off the external VGA while still booting the eternal port is disabled and the sucker comes up fine without an external monitor.

 

On the subject of function keys, the only ones working are the external monitor on/off and the LCD panel on/off, which was more than I actually expected.

 

The external vga supports my Del 2405WFP nicely.

 

Ethernet works perfectly.

 

USB2 and Firewire support functional, although I'll admit I haven't actually tested the firewire port.

 

Trackpad works fine, including the new support for tapping, dragging, and disabling when typing, all major plusses.

 

I have also not tried any PCMCIA cards, primarially since I don't have any.

 

 

Not working:

 

The modem does not show up in the System Profiler, which is not really a problem, but I'll guess is somehow connected to the lack of support for sound as well.

 

Wireless does not work at all. I have not seen any working hacks or drivers for the 2200BG, but if someone knows better, feel free to correct me.

 

My ICH6 High Definition Sound does not work. I've tried a couple hacks that I found in this forum without much luck. This is my greatest frustration, since the real beauty of OSX is the rendering engine. Video is far cleaner and so I'd prefer to watch media on the OSX86 partition (mostly using the still beta divx codecs, which are available and easily found using google). I've a work around using an external iMic, but, considering the entire point of this tiny laptop is portability, its frustrating to carry it along. If anyone could help me get this working I'd be extremely appreciative.

 

No speedstep, so the processor is running at top speed all the time, sucking up power and pumping out heat. This is a bummer, although livable until someone figures out how to fix this. If there is any information I can give to help, ask.

 

Of course, the card reader does not work.

 

 

Bugs:

 

When the laptop goes to sleep, all devices hooked up to the USB bus are disabled and cannot be reinabled, even if removed and reconnected. They show as still being online in the System Profiler.

 

 

Hacks:

 

The power hack posted in this forum has allowed me access to my battery status and set power profiles. If you can't find it, I'll try to post a link.

 

 

Software to look for (universal):

 

Adium (chat)

iPulse (system monitoring)

Chicken of the VNC

Pacifist

iTerm

Firefox (Deer Park version is universal, otherwise try Camino)

VLC (there is a universal beta)

NFS Manager (great for sharing in a multiplatform environment)

 

 

Help, either given or received, feel free to post.

laptop.txt

[sonicbuddha]

Hi all: I'd like to post some more sucesses and failues and possibly point some who are just begining to look for things in the right direction, esp since the search on this forum, is, well, weak. Personally, I use google and search using this in the search field: site:http://forum.osx86project.org

 

 

CPU STEPPING

I have CPU stepping working. This is a fantastic thing since I have a laptop and I have to worry about both fan noise and battery usage. Check out these threads to set it up for yourself:

 

DynamicSpeedStep Information Gathering for Future Hacking:

http://forum.osx86project.org/index.php?showtopic=14915

 

Niall Douglas', the developer, page and download:

http://www.nedprod.com/programs/MacOS%20X/ACPICPUThrottle/

 

CPUThrottler2, a gui for stepping, still in beta (SaberSHO):

http://forum.osx86project.org/index.php?showforum=75

 

 

POWER MANAGEMENT

The previously mentioned powermanagement fix:

http://forum.osx86project.org/index.php?showtopic=14912

 

 

FRONT ROW

Getting Front Row to work, which I've tried and it, well, works!

http://forum.osx86project.org/index.php?showtopic=10470

 

But I like the Logitech Control Center, which is now universal, so I've opted to go with Media Central, which is also universal but doesn't require any hacks (and is free):

http://www.equinux.com/us/products/mediacentral/index.html

 

 

INTEL IPW2200 WIRELESS

Believe it or not, there is still work being done on this driver. Needless to say, this would be fantastic!

Intel PRO/Wireless 2200 driver

http://forum.osx86project.org/index.php?sh...c=17899&hl=2200

 

And the developers blog:

http://osx-ipw2200.blogspot.com/

 

 

SLEEP

Not happening. If my hard drive spins down, all devices attached to the USB bus die and won't come back. This is a bummer, since I'm on a laptop. I have found this thread on setting my laptop never to sleep, even when cover is shut, although not utilizing it as of yet. If there are any other threads I've missed, please feel free to share.

Insomnia.kext, Prevent sleep on lid close

http://forum.osx86project.org/index.php?sh...mnia\.kext

 

 

SOUND

NOT WORKING! This is my greatest frustration and about the only thing I'd be willing to pay for to fix. I have a work around using an iMic, but not really useful on the road. I've tried the fixes to the AppleAzaliaAudio.kext and/or the AppleHDA.kext for my alc880 using 26688086 as my product/vendor id, to no avail. In fact, AppleHDA.kext prevented a boot. I'll say that this thread looked the most promising, but, no work recently.

ALC880 + 5.1/7.1 Sound

http://forum.osx86project.org/index.php?showtopic=6275

 

If you're going to be working on these kexts, you should really read this:

OSX86 Tips/Hints/Performance Tweaks

http://forum.osx86project.org/index.php?sh...8&hl=kextcache#

 

 

FAVORITE APPS

As long as I'm here, these are some of my favorite free universal apps:

 

iTerm: terminal

http://iterm.sourceforge.net/

 

VLC: media player

http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

 

Adium: chat

http://www.adiumx.com/

 

Pacifist: Open up those pkgs

http://www.charlessoft.com/

 

Gimpshop: Why wait for photoshop to go universal? And pay for it?

http://www.gimpshop.net/

 

XNJB: If you use something other than (or, in my case, in addition to) an ipod, a Creative Labs player:

http://www.wentnet.com/projects/xnjb/

 

MenuMeters: For the geeks who like to know what your machine is doing, but without the clutter

http://www.ragingmenace.com/software/menumeters/index.html

 

WindowFinder: NOT FREE but soooo needed when you need to keep track of what is open and how to find it.

http://keakaj.com/windowfinder.htm

[aberracus]

This is a very good post

[sonicbuddha]

Hey, thanks.

 

While I'm here, I'll post something I found and something I'm frustrated with:

 

DVD PLAYBACK

For all my playing with Frontrow and MediaCentral I've never actually tried to play a DVD. I guess I've just been *ahem* aquiring movies elsewhere. I have the same DVD Player.app problem where it just crashes when I try to play back. This applies to Frontrow and MediaCentral, too. VLC works, but can't auto play DVDs... until this very simple hack:

 

[HowTo] VLC as Default DVD Application, Including Auto Play of movie

http://forum.osx86project.org/index.php?showtopic=13630

 

If there are better fixes, hey, share.

[ThePhased]

hey sonicbuddha,

 

I am a fellow Z33a user..ive been inactive on these boards for some time because until now ive stuck with 10.4.3 F81111.

 

Now I've got 10.4.6 JaS patched dvd installed and I only have two issues that I did not have in 10.4.3.

 

 

The brightness function keys (Fn+F5 and F6) dont work (as you also mentioned above). Maybe there is a keyboard kext difference or something...that enabled this before?

 

I also use the Fn+F8 key on boot to get it to go to the internal LCD, but now it thinks that I also have a secondary display connected. Only when I use 'detect displays' after booting does it fix itself and only use the primary (internal) lcd. This is a small problem, but it is kind of anoying.

 

edit:

 

I've compared the ApplePS2Controller.kext and specifically ApplePS2Keyboard.kext from 10.4.6 and 10.4.3 and they seem identical. I've looked at the plist files as well. Something else must have broke the brightness function buttons.

 

Are the Function buttons OS independent? If so why would brightness function buttons work in 10.4.3 and not in 10.4.6?

[noxxle]

Any updates on functionality with the z33?? I am thinking about installing Mac OS on my z33ae. I currently have a dual boot with linux and WinXP. If I want to triple boot, must I incall MacOS before linux to get it to work with grub?