NEW Intel P55 Mobos & Core i7 860 / i5 750 CPU LGA1156

[xkelly]

OK, a couple of new wrinkles with my install of iATKOS v7 on the GA-P55M-UD4 and i7-860...

 

 

1. Booting is inconsistent. The system will sometimes freeze during boot-up. I'll try again, and it works.

 

2. Freezes occur after boot-up. Everything looks good, then I'll walk away, come back and it's frozen.

 

As far as graphics with my GTX 260, I did manage to get Netkas' Universal Enabler installed, btw. But... the freezings? I'm going to try iDeneb, next and see what happens.

 

That's the update.

[tonymacx86]

* iATKOS v7

* Chameleon V2

* /Extra

* DSDT

* DSMOS

* 9.7.0 Kernel voodoo

* APIC driver

* Disabler

* OHR

* Remove TyMCE

* AHCI

* Intel SATA/IDE

* JMicron SATA/IDE

* Post Install Actions

 

I just wanted to report success on my new sub $500 Hackintosh Pro!

 

Intel Core i5 750

Gigabyte GA-P55-UD2

G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600

Sparkle Nvidia 9400GT 1GB

 

KERNEL: Qoopz 9.8 Voodoo variant

GRAPHICS: NVenabler (CI/QE/Rotation)

NETWORK: Realtek R1000 driver

SOUND: Voodoo HDA

 

My goal was to buy the cheapest and fastest. The method for UD6 is the same as UD2- go ahead and get the cheaper one if you don't need 2 graphics cards for Crossfire/SLI (although it does say it's compatible, the UD2 isn't optimized as the others).

 

If you're in the market for this system, I'd caution you to make sure that you get the right RAM. I had to RMA some cheaper Crucial ram that didn't work. Make sure (on Newegg or wherever) that you get the RAM that says Core i5/i7 P55 compatible. I learned the hard way...

 

This system is f'n unbelievable coming from a Pentium 4 SSE2-only Dell 4600... I can't believe the speed- it's absolutely insane. Will be on the unofficial i5 Insanelymac team- keep me posted on the Snow Leopard status- I guess we'll all have to wait for the hacked kernel, or Apple to get some i5 Macs out there.

[snokarver]

I just wanted to report success on my new sub $500 Hackintosh Pro!

 

Intel Core i5 750

Gigabyte GA-P55-UD2

G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600

Sparkle Nvidia 9400GT 1GB

 

KERNEL: Qoopz 9.8 Voodoo variant

GRAPHICS: NVenabler (CI/QE/Rotation)

NETWORK: Realtek R1000 driver

SOUND: Voodoo HDA

 

My goal was to buy the cheapest and fastest. The method for UD6 is the same as UD2- go ahead and get the cheaper one if you don't need 2 graphics cards for Crossfire/SLI (although it does say it's compatible, the UD2 isn't optimized as the others).

 

Used iAtkos 7 with the options user journey63 used with success- updated to 10.5.8 and the newest Voodoo kernel variant. The only snags I had were with my IDE DVD drive- sometimes gets stuck on reboot (just keep trying).

 

If you're in the market for this system, I'd caution you to make sure that you get the right RAM. I had to RMA some cheaper Crucial ram that didn't work. Make sure (on Newegg or wherever) that you get the RAM that says Core i5/i7 P55 compatible. I learned the hard way...

 

This system is f'n unbelievable coming from a Pentium 4 SSE2-only Dell 4600... I can't believe the speed- it's absolutely insane. Will be on the unofficial i5 Insanelymac team- keep me posted on the Snow Leopard status- I guess we'll all have to wait for the hacked kernel, or Apple to get some i5 Macs out there.

 

Everything works, including sound, network and video?

[tonymacx86]

Everything works, including sound, network and video?

 

Yes- video depends on the card you're using though. Mine works 100%!

 

One more thing I forgot to mention- you must use busratio=20 as the boot flag each and every time you boot. Even when installing. As mentioned here and on the other thread, you can modify the apple.boot.plist to include this flag.

 

And when updating the kernel, iAtkos uses the kernel flag 'custom'. In order to boot from an updated kernel, you must change this kernel flag to 'mach_kernel' in the apple.boot.plist.

 

(com.apple.boot.plist is in /Library/Preferences/System Configuration/ )

 

My plea to everyone in this thread and everyone experimenting with the P55- post your results!! We can all learn from your experiences!! Give as well as receive

[snokarver]

Yes- video depends on the card you're using though. Mine works 100%!

 

One more thing I forgot to mention- you must use busratio=20 as the boot flag each and every time you boot. Even when installing. As mentioned here and on the other thread, you can modify the apple.boot.plist to include this flag.

 

And when updating the kernel, iAtkos uses the kernel flag 'custom'. In order to boot from an updated kernel, you must change this kernel flag to 'mach_kernel' in the apple.boot.plist.

 

(com.apple.boot.plist is in /Library/Preferences/System Configuration/ )

 

My plea to everyone in this thread and everyone experimenting with the P55- post your results!! We can all learn from your experiences!! Give as well as receive

 

That's great to hear. I'm planning on going with a 2xx nvidia card, and a slightly different gigabyte mobo, but am encouraged by your results. I just wish it could be done with a vanilla install.

[f_ender]

Hi There,

 

I've managed to get stable system on my GA-P55M-4UD from "iPC x86 10.5.6" with few extra tweaks and 10.5.8 combo upgrade.

 

As I didn't have a working Mac at the moment I used only DVD to carry this installation.

 

Specification

 

Mobo: GA-P55M-4UD

CPU: Intel Core i7 860

RAM: Corsair 2x2GB DDR3 XMS 1600MHz

VGA: BFG nVidia 9600 GT 512MB

 

Booted the DVD by adding "busratio=20"

Then in Customise options:

• Kernel: 9.5.0
   
  
• Video: nVidia - MacBook Pro Latest nVidia kexts
   
  
• Chipset: JMicronATA, Intel ICHx
   
  
• Audio: ALC889A (but needs patching anyway)
   
  
• Lan: Realtek R1000
   
  
• powerManagement:GenericCPUPowerManagement
   
  
• Fixes&Patches: DSDT with HPET, Verbose Mode, Shutdown&Restart
   
  
• Applications: Kext Helper and OSX86Tools
  

 

Unfortunately, this DVD has only Chameleon 1.x.x so it didn't boot form HDD.

I had to patch boot loader to Chameleon 2.0 RC by booting once more from DVD and using terminal.

All required patches (Voodoo kernel 9.8.0 v.2, Chameleon 2.0 RC , ALC889A 10.5.6.fix - available on InsanelyMac) I've placed on USB stick formated to HFS basic file system with Mac's "Disk Utility" and all files were uploaded to USB under Ubuntu 9.04. So, after boot from installation DVD the USB was found automatically as well as HDD.

 

After changing boot loader the system is finally booting from HDD to the mach_kernel.voodoo (9.8.0 v.2)

 

I also faced one issue while I was trying to upgrade to 10.5.8. The combo updater finished the upgrade with fault. (dunno where to find the installer log). However the system runs ok and stable.

 

The QE/QL is working thanks to the OSX86Tool and it's feature - 'add custom EFI strings to the /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.Boot.plist file'.

 

(...)

 <dict>
<key>Kernel</key>
<string>mach_kernel.voodoo</string>
<key>Kernel Flags</key>
<string>-v busratio=20</string>
<key>Timeout</key>
<string>5</string>
<key>device-properties</key>
<string>6c0200000100000001000000600200000d00000002010c00d041030a010000000101060000030
101060000007fff04000e0000004e00560050004d0000002000000001000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000000000220000005600520041004d002c0074006f00740061006c00730
069007a006500000008000000000000201c0000006400650076006900630065005f00740079007000
650000000f0000004e5644412c506172656e740e0000006e0061006d00650000000b0000006469737
06c617922000000400030002c006400650076006900630065005f00740079007000650000000b0000
00646973706c617922000000400031002c006400650076006900630065005f0074007900700065000
0000b000000646973706c6179100000006d006f00640065006c0000001a0000006e56696469612047
65466f726365203936303020475420000000400031002c0063006f006d00700061007400690062006
c00650000000e0000004e5644412c4e564d616314000000400030002c006e0061006d006500000012
0000004e5644412c446973706c61792d4114000000400031002c006e0061006d00650000001200000
04e5644412c446973706c61792d4220000000400030002c0063006f006d0070006100740069006200
6c00650000000e0000004e5644412c4e564d6163100000004e0056004300410050000000180000000
4000000000003000c00000000000007000000001e00000072006f006d002d00720065007600690073
0069006f006e0000002e0000006e5669646961204765466f7263652039363030204754204f70656e4
74c20456e67696e65205b4546495d</string>
</dict>

 

I didn't managed to get firewire to work for some strange reason and don't have memory information and CPU information in "System Profiler" (I had to use OSX86Tool to change above info).

 

Regards,

MF

[xkelly]

Success! (at least so far). After following the lead of our other early adopters, I think I have a stable system. Below is a compilation of the steps I've pulled together from everyone's posts. If I missed anything, or borked something up, let me know and I'll change it. Thanks to everyone here and in the hackintosh community for all the great work.

 

MY SYSTEM

GA-P55M-UD4

i7-860

G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (4 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600

EVGA NVIDIA GTX 260 896 MB

3 SATA Hard Drives & 1 SATA Optical Drive

 

WHAT WORKS

-LAN

-Sound (line out)

-Restart

-Shutdown

-Video QE & CI (one monitor)

-Firewire - See FLAKEY

-USB Highspeed - See FLAKEY and later post.

-Rear eSATA port (p55 chipset) - See FLAKEY

-Front eSATA port (Gigabyte SATA2 chipset) - See FLAKEY.

 

WHAT DOESN'T WORK (so far)

-Can't wake from sleep. Have to power down.

-Firewire

WHAT'S FLAKEY

-Bus Devices... some connected external bus (USB, eSATA, Firewire) devices (hard drives, KVM, mouse, MBox 2 Pro) can bork rebooting into OS X,. Sometimes disconnecting the device helps. Booting into Vista or the installer disk ALMOST always fixes the problem. This is a bid deal for me. Can't rely on the system until this is fixed.

 

NO CLUE IF IT WORKS

-7.1 sound

-Dual monitors

 

DISTRO

-iATKOS v7

 

KERNEL

-Qoopz 9.8 Voodoo variant

 

INSTALL

-Use 'busratio=20" kernel flag for start-up option.

-Select the following iATKOS v7 custom options.

---iATKOS v7

---Chameleon V2

---/Extra

---DSDT

---DSMOS

---9.7.0 Kernel voodoo

---APIC driver

---Disabler

---OHR

---Remove TyMCE

---AHCI

---Intel SATA/IDE

---JMicron SATA/IDE

---Voodoo HDA

---Realtek R1000

---Post Install Actions

 

-Restart

-For now, make sure to continue using the 'busratio=20' kernel flag at start-up.

-Create your user to get to the desktop.

 

KERNEL & COM.BOOT.APPLE.PLIST

-Use OSX86 Tools to replace kernel with Qoopz 9.8 Voodoo variant.

-Edit com.boot.apple.plist with the following

---change kernel from 'custom' to 'mach_kernel'

---add kernel flag 'busratio=20'

 

GRAPHICS CARD

-Install Netkas Universal Enabler.

-Install the tweaked Nvidia Retail Mac Driver installer for GTX 2XX

 

THINGS I WILL TRY SOON

-Updater for Qoopz 10.5.8

-MacFUSE & NTFS-3G (any experience on this messing with shutdown/restart as with other chipset/kernel combinations?)

 

-Do Snoopy Dance.

 

WEIRD QUIRKS

This P55 chipset seem less forgiving than others I've had. If there is a system crash, either in Windows or OS X, doing a soft reset does not always reinitialize the hardware layer (ACHI, USB & Firewire). I have to do a hard boot, instead.

 

EDIT:

FIREWIRE stopped working. Odd little thing happened with my firewire while testing Sleep. I had my MBox 2 Pro plugged-in with an external hard drive. I put the system to Sleep, and since I couldn't wake the system up, I had to restart. Now nothing works with the firewire port. It shows up in system profiler as working. And FW works in Vista. This kind of sucks as I need my MBox for Pro Tools. Any advice would be appreciated.

 

EDIT 2:

OK, WTF? After using Vista to confirm that the FW was, indeed, working, I rebooted back into Leopard and... FW works. I think this should go under the WEIRD QUIRKS category. It's got to be the p55 chipset, again. Once FW was reinitialized by Vista, then FW worked in Leopard? I did several hard and soft reboots with Leopard and no FW. Go into Vista once and FW works again. Weird. Just glad it works.

 

EDIT 3: FW still working. FW not working. Just having other issues. See my latest post.

[BrEacK]

Hi everyone,

 

This is my first post.

I have a GA-P55-UD3R motherboard. I can't seem to be able to install a hackintosh. On most of the kernels I tried it gives me the "SMBIOS Table" error and it restarts after that.

 

How did you pass this thing ?

 

10x in advance

[xkelly]

Hi everyone,

 

This is my first post.

I have a GA-P55-UD3R motherboard. I can't seem to be able to install a hackintosh. On most of the kernels I tried it gives me the "SMBIOS Table" error and it restarts after that.

 

How did you pass this thing ?

 

10x in advance

 

Which distro are you using?

[xkelly]

Well, things are not that stable. When it comes to mounting FW, USB or eSATA drives, sometimes they mount, mostly they don't. And if things don't mount, I can't always reboot successfully. It's not consistent. I'm giving up for tonight.

[McScum]

Well, things are not that stable. When it comes to mounting FW, USB or eSATA drives, sometimes they mount, mostly they don't. And if things don't mount, I can't always reboot successfully. It's not consistent. I'm giving up for tonight.

 

 

weird ... I don't have a firewire cable to try, but I can tell u that USB external HD is working ok here ... and system is 100% stable. Dunno why .. maybe because I disabled extra gigabyte SATA/IDE chip? You could maybe try that?

[Core i7]

I just wanted to report success on my new sub $500 Hackintosh Pro!

 

Intel Core i5 750

Gigabyte GA-P55-UD2

G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600

Sparkle Nvidia 9400GT 1GB

 

KERNEL: Qoopz 9.8 Voodoo variant

GRAPHICS: NVenabler (CI/QE/Rotation)

NETWORK: Realtek R1000 driver

SOUND: Voodoo HDA

 

My goal was to buy the cheapest and fastest. The method for UD6 is the same as UD2- go ahead and get the cheaper one if you don't need 2 graphics cards for Crossfire/SLI (although it does say it's compatible, the UD2 isn't optimized as the others).

 

Used iAtkos 7 with the options user journey63 used with success- updated to 10.5.8 and the newest Voodoo kernel variant. The only snags I had were with my IDE DVD drive- sometimes gets stuck on reboot (just keep trying).

 

If you're in the market for this system, I'd caution you to make sure that you get the right RAM. I had to RMA some cheaper Crucial ram that didn't work. Make sure (on Newegg or wherever) that you get the RAM that says Core i5/i7 P55 compatible. I learned the hard way...

 

This system is f'n unbelievable coming from a Pentium 4 SSE2-only Dell 4600... I can't believe the speed- it's absolutely insane. Will be on the unofficial i5 Insanelymac team- keep me posted on the Snow Leopard status- I guess we'll all have to wait for the hacked kernel, or Apple to get some i5 Macs out there.

 

Hi, can I ask something? I bought the cheaper Crucial DDR3 1333 RAM (this is no heat-sink version on NewEgg) because GA-P55M-UD2 confirmed that the Crucial RAM is fully working with this MoBo (according to the Gigabyte Inc's Official Website), even if the RAM was released before i5/i7.

Could you say more about the Crucial RAM on GA-P55M-UD2?

[tonymacx86]

Hi, can I ask something? I bought the cheaper Crucial DDR3 1333 RAM (this is no heat-sink version on NewEgg) because GA-P55M-UD2 confirmed that the Crucial RAM is fully working with this MoBo (according to the Gigabyte Inc's Official Website), even if the RAM was released before i5/i7.

Could you say more about the Crucial RAM on GA-P55M-UD2?

 

That is the same Crucial RAM that I had to RMA back to Newegg- maybe you'll have better luck, but mine didn't post. I thought I'd save a few bucks- here's what happened- I put all of the pieces together and turned the power on. The board started, but wouldn't get to BIOS- just restarted after a few seconds, and kept resetting itself. Figured out that it was the RAM after taking it out and attempting boot. Who knows- maybe I got bunk RAM but just to be on the safe side, I'd get the G-skill for a few dollars more...

 

Hey- on another note, did anyone get the RAM recognized as DDR3 in System Profiler? I used stock Applesmbios and it says it's 4gb of DDR2 at 667- my RAM should be DDR3 at 1600. I'm pretty sure this is cosmetic, and it can be changed in plist. Let me know. Thanks.

[xkelly]

Hey- on another note, did anyone get the RAM recognized as DDR3 in System Profiler? I used stock Applesmbios and it says it's 4gb of DDR2 at 667- my RAM should be DDR3 at 1600. I'm pretty sure this is cosmetic, and it can be changed in plist. Let me know. Thanks.

 

System Profiler just gives me an error on Hardware and Memory. However, if I run System Profiler on the install disk, everything looks correct (of course, I'm booted with the install disk). Why would that be?

 

About This Mac shows '8 GB 1333MHz RAM'.

[xkelly]

SOLVED WITH A WORKAROUND NOT SOLVED

 

Just did a fresh install to see if my bus problems persist. They do. There is something odd with AHCI. It doesn't happen every time, but almost every time.

 

When I reboot after making a system change or tweak (install application or pretty much anything), the system does not boot. It stops at this line...

 

'BSD root: disk2s2, major 14, minor 8' (I've attached a pic of the full screen.) And just sits there, mocking me.

 

or this...

 

'The IOUSBFamily was not able to enumerate a device' (this line comes right after the BSD root line), sits there and eventually reboots.

 

Rarely I can get back in without doing anything. But mostly I have to repair disk permissions by booting from the installer disk. After that, it usually goes straight into OS X and it works fine until I make some other change. I can't work like this. I spend most of my time using the installer disk and repairing permissions. See UPDATE 1.

 

I'm still checking around the forums for similar problems, but if anyone has a handle on this, let me know. I think this is the only problem I have left as far as stability is concerned. Other than Sleep, that is.

 

These are the options I selected on the iATKOS v7 install regarding AHCI & SATA:

---AHCI

---Intel SATA/IDE

---JMicron SATA/IDE

 

I'm using the Qoopz 9.8 Voodoo variant.

 

Thanks.

 

UPDATE 1: repairing disk permissions wasn't fixing the problem. It was simply booting to the installer disk or Vista, then I can boot straight into OS X. The installer disk or Vista must reset something, but I don't know what. So here is is in a nutshell...

 

-Get into OS X.

-Restart or Shutdown

-Can't get into OS X

-Boot Vista or Installer Disl

-Get into OS X, again.

 

It must be hardware and some kext. I have three partitions of my initial install of iATKOS v7. Getting into one, borks access to the others until I boot into Vista or installer disk.

Again: WTF

 

UPDATE 2: My continuing saga with a work around.

 

More info: I use an IOGEAR DVI 4 Port KVM, a powered 7 port USB hub and a Razer gaming mouse plugged into three USB ports on the back of the system. Following-up on the IOUSBFamily message and some ideas from other posts, I disconnected the KVM and hub, then moved the keyboard and mouse to the front ports.

 

The reboot problem becomes less persistent, but was still there. Then I found an interesting post where some USB KVM problems were solved by plugging the KVM into a powered hub (fyi - my KVM is also powered).

 

So I plugged everything into my powered hub (KVM and mouse)... and now everything works. I've rebooted, shutdown and have been able to get back into OS X without having to go into Vista first.

 

So that means what? There are instabilities with my install and USB? I wonder if there is a kext or kernel fix for this? I'll dig around a bit more, this week.

 

------------

 

In case anyone was wondering why I don't plug my mouse into the KVM... it's because most KVM's won't support gaming mice. When I switch back and forth between systems, the gaming mouse would freeze. So since I game on my Vista/Hack system, I keep the Razer plugged into there and use another mouse for my Macbook Pro.

[snokarver]

Which IOGEAR KVM do you use? I have one too. GCS124U.

[xkelly]

Which IOGEAR KVM do you use? I have one too. GCS124U.

 

GCS1764

[f_ender]

SOLVED WITH A WORKAROUND NOT SOLVED

 

Just did a fresh install to see if my bus problems persist. They do. There is something odd with AHCI. It doesn't happen every time, but almost every time.

 

When I reboot after making a system change or tweak (install application or pretty much anything), the system does not boot. It stops at this line...

 

'BSD root: disk2s2, major 14, minor 8' (I've attached a pic of the full screen.) And just sits there, mocking me.

 

or this...

 

'The IOUSBFamily was not able to enumerate a device' (this line comes right after the BSD root line), sits there and eventually reboots.

 

Rarely I can get back in without doing anything. But mostly I have to repair disk permissions by booting from the installer disk. After that, it usually goes straight into OS X and it works fine until I make some other change. I can't work like this. I spend most of my time using the installer disk and repairing permissions. See UPDATE 1.

 

I'm still checking around the forums for similar problems, but if anyone has a handle on this, let me know. I think this is the only problem I have left as far as stability is concerned. Other than Sleep, that is.

 

These are the options I selected on the iATKOS v7 install regarding AHCI & SATA:

---AHCI

---Intel SATA/IDE

---JMicron SATA/IDE

 

I'm using the Qoopz 9.8 Voodoo variant.

 

Thanks.

 

UPDATE 1: repairing disk permissions wasn't fixing the problem. It was simply booting to the installer disk or Vista, then I can boot straight into OS X. The installer disk or Vista must reset something, but I don't know what. So here is is in a nutshell...

 

-Get into OS X.

-Restart or Shutdown

-Can't get into OS X

-Boot Vista or Installer Disl

-Get into OS X, again.

 

It must be hardware and some kext. I have three partitions of my initial install of iATKOS v7. Getting into one, borks access to the others until I boot into Vista or installer disk.

Again: WTF

 

UPDATE 2: My continuing saga with a work around.

 

More info: I use an IOGEAR DVI 4 Port KVM, a powered 7 port USB hub and a Razer gaming mouse plugged into three USB ports on the back of the system. Following-up on the IOUSBFamily message and some ideas from other posts, I disconnected the KVM and hub, then moved the keyboard and mouse to the front ports.

 

The reboot problem becomes less persistent, but was still there. Then I found an interesting post where some USB KVM problems were solved by plugging the KVM into a powered hub (fyi - my KVM is also powered).

 

So I plugged everything into my powered hub (KVM and mouse)... and now everything works. I've rebooted, shutdown and have been able to get back into OS X without having to go into Vista first.

 

So that means what? There are instabilities with my install and USB? I wonder if there is a kext or kernel fix for this? I'll dig around a bit more, this week.

 

Hi xkelly,

 

You probably want to check this topic: http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=117029

 

I had issues with my USB Audio recording interface so I had to upgrade the IOUSBFamily.kext driver to the new version.

 

Regard,

f_ender

 

Hi there,

 

Just an update,

 

The Sound works great with both INs and OUTs

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=140941

 

USB Patch

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=117029

 

I have also few errors in the log reported in the thread below but this could be just effect of trying different kexts to get HD audio working properly.

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=129058

 

FIREWIRE does not work. ....yet.

It's just matter of time with great support of developers out there. Thanks for making MAC OSX more affordable for testing.

 

Regards,

f_ender

[xkelly]

Hi xkelly,

 

You probably want to check this topic: http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=117029

 

I had issues with my USB Audio recording interface so I had to upgrade the IOUSBFamily.kext driver to the new version.

 

Regard,

f_ender

 

Hi there,

 

Just an update,

 

The Sound works great with both INs and OUTs

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=140941

 

USB Patch

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=117029

 

I have also few errors in the log reported in the thread below but this could be just effect of trying different kexts to get HD audio working properly.

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=129058

 

FIREWIRE does not work. ....yet.

It's just matter of time with great support of developers out there. Thanks for making MAC OSX more affordable for testing.

 

Regards,

f_ender

 

Hey f_ender,

 

Thanks for the heads-up. I switched to the iDeneb 1.6 build and everything is way more stable--the IOSUBFamily Fix option is probably what you're referring to.

 

With iDeneb, Firewire and my MBox 2 Pro seem to be working, and my boot-up problems seem to be gone. Notice I'm using the word 'seem'. :-) It 'seems' like every time I post something that works, I get proven wrong. We'll see.

 

I will post a complete list of install options, what works, doesn't work and quirks later this week.

 

Later, Ya'll.

[tonymacx86]

About This Mac shows '8 GB 1333MHz RAM'.

 

Update- it now shows 4GB 1333Mhz RAM- played with different smbios files.

 

When I reboot after making a system change or tweak (install application or pretty much anything), the system does not boot. It stops at this line...

 

'BSD root: disk2s2, major 14, minor 8' (I've attached a pic of the full screen.) And just sits there, mocking me.

 

I am getting this same boot freeze about 1 in every 10 boots. Seems like it is something to do with my IDE HD and DVDRW drives or 2nd partitions on SATA drives. For now, I'm just resetting, and more often than not, it is fine. I think I can live with it, as I don't reboot very often.

[BrEacK]

Hi,

 

I tried many different configurations of iDeneb v1.6 and I noticed the only working chipset kext is JMicron. I also noticed that if I disable my IDE drive this kext gives me a kernel panic.

The main problem with this motherboard is with the chipset.

I didn't have any problems with anything else if I booted with "busratio=20 -v" except that almost every time it froze from the chipset kext, I couldn't get the sound working and I couldn't start the "About this mac" window(it just reinitialized the Mac, like i just logged in).

 

So I think we should focus on finding a good kext for P55 chipset.

 

Thanks

 

i7 860 @ 2.8 Ghz - GA-P55-UD3R

2x2GB @ 1600 Mhz

[xkelly]

Hi,

 

I tried many different configurations of iDeneb v1.6 and I noticed the only working chipset kext is JMicron. I also noticed that if I disable my IDE drive this kext gives me a kernel panic.

The main problem with this motherboard is with the chipset.

I didn't have any problems with anything else if I booted with "busratio=20 -v" except that almost every time it froze from the chipset kext, I couldn't get the sound working and I couldn't start the "About this mac" window(it just reinitialized the Mac, like i just logged in).

 

So I think we should focus on finding a good kext for P55 chipset.

 

Thanks

 

i7 860 @ 2.8 Ghz - GA-P55-UD3R

2x2GB @ 1600 Mhz

 

I haven't tried any IDE devices. I stayed strictly SATA/AHCI in the bios. I did not select the JMicron patch. I selected the AHCI SATA/IDE chipset patch, only. Haven't had a kernel panic, yet. Will post settings soon.

[OrangeGoblin]

I installed iATKOS v7 on a Gigabyte P55 UD3R with an i5 750.

 

I don't remember what settings I used precisely, but Ethernet and sound work. The full amount of memory is recognized and so are all 4 CPU cores. It seems slow and unresponsive compared to my C2D MacBook. I remember the Generic IDE driver being pretty important in getting it to boot. I'm going to edit the post later with my settings.

 

I initially had the message "Still waiting for root device." I had to select integrated peripherals in the bios and enable legacy ide (disable native ide) for serial ATA ports 0-3. That was the only way it would boot and I believe the driver being used is AppleGenericPCATA. Even though I did get it to install, both of my hard drives are recognized only as 128.0 GB opposed to ~600.

[xkelly]

As promised, here's my iDeneb setup. It is MUCH more stable than with iATKOS v7. Other than the occasional reboot glitch, it seems solid.

 

Thanks once more for everyone's help.

 

MY SYSTEM

GA-P55M-UD4

Core i7-860

G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (4 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600

EVGA NVIDIA GTX 260 896 MB

3 SATA Hard Drives & 1 SATA Optical Drive (no IDE)

Dual-Boot Vista on separate drive

 

WHAT WORKS

-LAN

-Sound (line out)

-Restart/Shutdown

-Video QE & CI (one monitor)

-USB Highspeed

-Rear eSATA port - see Flakey

-Front eSATA port (Gigabyte SATA2 chipset)

-Firewire

-About this Mac correctly reports processor and memory

 

WHAT DOESN'T WORK (so far)

-Can't wake from sleep. Have to power down.

-System Profiler

--Hardware gives error gathering info message.

--Serial ATA gives Unknown AHCI Standard Controller

 

WHAT'S FLAKEY

-When restarting from within OS X, boot-up will stop occasionally at the line 'BSD root: disk2s2, major 14, minor'. If I shut down or go into Vista, then I can get back into OS X. I still think this is chipset related. Something gets reset by a cold boot or Vista that doesn't in OS X on restart. That's my unscientific theory.

 

-Rear eSATA port might have a problem with sustained file transfers. See note below in WEIRD QUIRKS.

 

NO CLUE IF IT WORKS

-7.1 sound (I don't use it)

-Dual monitors (I have one monitor)

 

BIOS

-AHCI mode

 

DISTRO

-iDeneb v1.6 10.5.8 Lite

 

INSTALL

-Use 'busratio=20" kernel flag for start-up option

-Custom Options

---iDeneb Main System

---Chameleon V2

---9.8.0 Kernel Qoopz

---Apple Decrypt

---ACPI Fix

---Disabler

---Time Machine Fix

---About This Mac Fix

---System Profiler Fix

---IOUSBFamily Fix

---VoodooHDA

---AHCI SATA/IDE

---Realtek R1000

---Cleanup

-Restart

-Continue to use the 'busratio=20' kernel flag at start-up.

-Create your user to get to the desktop.

 

COM.BOOT.APPLE.PLIST

-Edit com.boot.apple.plist with the following

---add kernel flag 'busratio=20'

 

GRAPHICS CARD

-Install Netkas Universal Enabler.

-Install the tweaked Nvidia Retail Mac Driver installer for GTX 2XX

 

OTHER ITEMS

-NTFS-3G 2009 4.4

-MBox 2 Pro on Firewire works good. Did some Pro Tools recording without any problem.

 

WEIRD QUIRKS

-This P55 chipset seem less forgiving than others I've had. If there is a system crash, either in Windows or OS X, doing a soft reset does not always reinitialize the hardware layer (ACHI, USB & Firewire). I have to do a hard boot, instead.

 

-Also, this could be a motherboard bug or defect; I cannot sustain large file transfers with the rear eSATA port in Vista. The drive disappears within seconds of kicking-off the transfer. If I use the front eSATA port, it works fine in both Vista and Leopard. The rear eSATA port is Gigabyte's hybrid USB/eSATA contraption, which could be the problem. I might give Gigabyte a call on this. I have not tried using the rear eSATA port for large transfers in Leopard.

 

-Final Cut Pro 2 is giving me the Dropped Frame message instantly during real time preview. This usually means not enough horse power, or slow memory or disk--which is certainly not the case with this rig. I'll look into it later.

 

I think, that's it.

[xkelly]

Thought I'd report:

 

I have 3 SATA hard drives and 1 SATA optical drive plugged into the Intel P55 SATA ports. On this board, there are 5 Intel SATA ports and 2 Gigabyte SATA ports. I plugged a 4th SATA drive (5th connection) into the the Intel side. Went into Vista, initialized as MBR. When I tried to boot into OS X, I could not get past that same BSD root message. I tried booting to the install disk, Vista, powering down... nothing. I finally plugged the 4th drive into the Gigabyte SATA port, instead and I was back in business. Very interesting. I think we need to get some kind of kext that will recognize the P55 AHCI SATA chip as more than UNKNOWN. That might help. Just an FYI.