GA-G31M-ES2L alternatives?

[drossxyu]

I finally got SL installed and right now I'm just booting through Chameleon via a usb thumb drive. I have a GA-G31M-ES2L rev.2. Right now my on-board ethernet is not being recognized at all, let alone functioning. It seems like you rev. 2 owners have been able to fix this? How would I go about enabling this.. thanks

[PigBoT]

Good news / Bad news.

 

Good - The voodoo PS/2 kext is working great. I am happy I didn't buy a new USB keyboard.

 

Bad - STILL CANNOT GET THE SOUND WORKING. I've gone through every Kext/patch I can find... even tried some Kext editing (not sure if I did it correctly). I really would prefer to get the onboard audio working here. Can anyone shed some light on this...??

 

Again it's the following:

GA-G41M-ES2L (Intel G41 / ICH7 / Rev. 1.0)

HD Audio (Onboard Realtek ALC888B or ALC 888B)

 

 

 

@Drossy

 

I went with the G41M-ES2L because of the REV2 boards that are shipping on the 31 version. I've already done some checking and it does not look like there are any Kexts available for the onboard ethernet chip of G31M.

[hawaii50]

Good news / Bad news.

 

Good - The voodoo PS/2 kext is working great. I am happy I didn't buy a new USB keyboard.

 

Bad - STILL CANNOT GET THE SOUND WORKING. I've gone through every Kext/patch I can find... even tried some Kext editing (not sure if I did it correctly). I really would prefer to get the onboard audio working here. Can anyone shed some light on this...??

 

Again it's the following:

GA-G41M-ES2L (Intel G41 / ICH7 / Rev. 1.0)

HD Audio (Onboard Realtek ALC888B or ALC 888B)

 

 

 

@Drossy

 

I went with the G41M-ES2L because of the REV2 boards that are shipping on the 31 version. I've already done some checking and it does not look like there are any Kexts available for the onboard ethernet chip of G31M.

 

 

tmongkol very graciously provided me with this kext to get the audio working on my G41M-ES2L

LegacyHDA_ALC888B.kext.zip

GA_ALC888B_10.txt

[PigBoT]

Hawaii -

 

Thank you so much. I still can't get that kext to work.... I may do a clean install and try again. Are you using this kext with SL? I'm learning a lot, but I'm still sooo noob... It's frustrating. Am I supposed to do something with the text document?

 

I used Kext Helper to install the Kext you provided. I then went to disk utility and repaired disk permissions. I then rebooted. I'm not getting any options for sound devices.

[hawaii50]

Hawaii -

 

Thank you so much. I still can't get that kext to work.... I may do a clean install and try again. Are you using this kext with SL? I'm learning a lot, but I'm still sooo noob... It's frustrating. Am I supposed to do something with the text document?

 

I used Kext Helper to install the Kext you provided. I then went to disk utility and repaired disk permissions. I then rebooted. I'm not getting any options for sound devices.

 

I haven't upgraded to SL. I'm still at 10.5.7. I just put the kext in the EFI/Extra/Extensions folder and after a reboot I had sound. I didn't change anything in S/L/E. I'm not sure what the text doc is for. I didn't need it, but I included it anyway in case you did.

 

h50

[copyright1997_clone]

As for Plex- hmm.. Strange.

 

I have to ask the obvious question- I'm sure you have, but it's the only thing I can think of: you have a supported graphic card, enabled with EFI strings, and QE/CI enabled and working, right? Lots of apps, but especially media related apps, bug out and act flaky when run without graphic hardware accelleration. I can see Plex just plain crapping out without both QE/CI which it must rely on heavily.

Update: Plex now seems to be working. How, I don't know because I've made multiple changes and I haven't tried isolating. 1) I rebooted, 2) I added a 2nd monitor, my htdv, so now I have a dual display setup (using my Galaxy nvidia 8400gs card with EFI strings). Question, how do I tell if QE/CI is enabled/working? (Under my windows 7 boot, this card is showing hw acceleration enabled.)

 

Hopefully this week I will have time to investigate and also spend some time learning to drive this thing (right now I feel like a monkey hitting random keys on the keyboard). (And thanks for your help.)

[Zaap]

Question, how do I tell if QE/CI is enabled/working? (Under my windows 7 boot, this card is showing hw acceleration enabled.)

It's an OSX specific issue: without QE you'd be unable to switch resolutions. System Prefs/Displays- you should see a resolution list right up to the monitor' native resolution.

 

Also, open Apple Menu/About This Mac/More Info/ under contents go to Graphics/Displays. Core Image should say Hardware Accelerated, and Quartz Extreme should say Supported.

[drossxyu]

Excuse my ignorance but if a kext doesn't exist now for the GA-G31M-ES2L's onboard ethernet does that mean that it will never exist or does that just mean that some kind soul has yet to take the time to make one. I just finished building my machine and I'd rather not open it back up to put in a NIC ( in fact i'm not sure one will even fit.. it's real tight in there) if a fix is around the corner.

[PigBoT]

The rev2 of that board uses the Atheros AR8131. It's not impossible for a driver to be released/created/shared... but I don't believe there are similar drivers currently in use. I would just hate to see you keep spinning your wheels and also have to wait a long time. Good luck though... I'll certainly let you know if I bump into anything.

 

I'm probably stuck buying a sound device to get my sound going. ...at least as a temporary fix.

 

I must say... there are a lot of awesome people in these forums giving a lot of time (money).

[PigBoT]

tmongkol very graciously provided me with this kext to get the audio working on my G41M-ES2L

 

Hawaii,

Any chance of getting you to share your dsdt file too. Is your bios the F3 or F4?

Thanks.

[hawaii50]

Hawaii,

Any chance of getting you to share your dsdt file too. Is your bios the F3 or F4?

Thanks.

 

@PigBoT

 

Seems I am not permitted to upload either DSDT.dsl or DSDT.aml. But, I generated the DSDT file following instructions in this guide:

 

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=161303

 

If you PM me your email address, I'm sure I can email you my DSDT file.

 

h50

[PigBoT]

Thanks to H50!!...sound is now working. He did a proper edit to his DSDT file, along with the Legacy kext. The file was easily patched for SL CMOS reset. I'll try and organize things and put some beneficial information together for other owners of the GA-G41M-ES2L, particularly those interested in installing SL.

 

I am very pleased. Thank you all.

 

-PigBoT

[hawaii50]

Thanks to H50!!...sound is now working. He did a proper edit to his DSDT file, along with the Legacy kext. The file was easily patched for SL CMOS reset. I'll try and organize things and put some beneficial information together for other owners of the GA-G41M-ES2L, particularly those interested in installing SL.

 

I am very pleased. Thank you all.

 

-PigBoT

 

Congratulations PigBoT!

 

It's good to know that SL will work fine on this mobo when I want to upgrade the OS. This really is a great motherboard to build a powerful and inexpensive system.

 

Don't forget to thank tmongkol. He is the one who supplied the legacyHDA kext.

 

h50

[antartika]

Time Machine is flaky. Now that I recall, it's definitely tied to the onboard Ethernet (probably since that was the network interface available at install). I remember I had a similar issue when I installed a replacement ethernet card in a DS3L based board, and then disabled the onboard ethernet in the BIOS. TM stopped working immediately. When I reenabled the onboard, it worked. So even though I'm using the PCI ethernet and not the onboard, I leave the onboard enabled anyway and everything including TM works fine.

 

Ironically, I don't think people will have this problem with a revision 2 ES2L board, or a G41 based board, simply because the onboard ethernet DOESN'T work Out Of Box, so TM should never get bound to it at install in the first place.

 

As for Plex- hmm.. Strange.

 

I have to ask the obvious question- I'm sure you have, but it's the only thing I can think of: you have a supported graphic card, enabled with EFI strings, and QE/CI enabled and working, right? Lots of apps, but especially media related apps, bug out and act flaky when run without graphic hardware accelleration. I can see Plex just plain crapping out without both QE/CI which it must rely on heavily.

 

Just wanna share Time Machine issue.

I found a solution for mine at http://forum.voodooprojects.org/index.php/topic,250.0.html ?

Applied based on reply #4, #10, #23 .. and now TM works well ..

 

I also wrote them on http://antariksa.web.id/blog/?p=292

 

Regards,

 

+++sai sends

[Milanche78]

Hello, I'm planning on buying a cheap hackintosh configuration. I see that this GA-G31M-ES2L MB is higly recomended and afordable. I have a question, I see that it's already has some graphic on board, is it necesarry to buy a graphic card with this MB?

[LogicalUser]

yes, you will need a video card to have anything approaching full functionality.

 

People use these boards because they're cheap & the rest of the components that actually matter for OSX are well supported, the onboard video might as well not exist for our purposes.

 

the best you can hope for from unsupported onboard is default resolution, no resolution switching & no QI/CE/OpenCL/OpenGL support. Which... I guess works in a pinch to test other components, but honestly?

 

don't be such a cheapass and spend the $30+ for a video card

[macusers]

Hello, I'm planning on buying a cheap hackintosh configuration. I see that this GA-G31M-ES2L MB is higly recomended and afordable. I have a question, I see that it's already has some graphic on board, is it necesarry to buy a graphic card with this MB?

Yes, you will need a graphic card since on board video card won't work with stock kext at this point and time. Now your next question is what type of graphic card to buy, well, you may want to visit hardware and driver and do some reading then decide it yourself. Good Luck.

[pcnerdman]

I have worked on a GA-G31-ES2L for many weeks now with 10.6.0 and it is working better for me. Here are some things I have learned...

 

1. First, how to get audio working.

a. Download voodooHDA.KEXT

b. Download Kexthelper 0.7 (google it)

c. Drag VoodooHDA to the helper and drop it, then follow instructions. Reboot and you have sound (remember to setup sound in "System Preferences".

 

2. To use an IDE hard drive and a Sata DVD Optical drive, set the bios option for SATA to "combined" and use mobo sata port 1 for the dvd drive. (Also, disable secondary IDE)

 

3. Network = I'm Still testing. On order, an CNET CNTPROG2000S from amazon for ($15) with free shipping. Amazon is great about taking back cards that don't work.

 

Anyway, I really wanted to thank all the members of this board. I have learned much here. So, thanks everyone.

Pat

[waldo_pepperjack]

Just finished building & installing 10.6.2 to my Snow Leo-based HTPC Hackintosh...

 

best alternative (IMHO) to the GA-G31M-ES2L is the GA-G41M-ES2L (I have the rev 1.1) - excellent

 

GA-G41M-E2SL board

Intel E6300 @1.87

2GB 800MHz SDRAM2

WDC Green SATA HDD

SATA DL DVD Burner

Antec Minuet 350 Case

nVidia 8400GS low profile GFX card

 

used a modification of the KakeWalk method ...http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=195248&view=findpost&p=1428750

[XLR]

And best alternative to GA-G41M-ES2L is Asus P5QPL-AM. For HTPC's and silent computers i'd take Asus because of it's Q-Fan feature.

[macusers]

I

 

3. Network = I'm Still testing. On order, an CNET CNTPROG2000S from amazon for ($15) with free shipping. Amazon is great about taking back cards that don't work.

I am not really sure why you have to add another Network Card since the onboard gigabyte network port work just fine with stock kernel.

[agrajag]

I am not really sure why you have to add another Network Card since the onboard gigabyte network port work just fine with stock kernel.

 

This is not the case with v 2.0 of these boards- they have a different onboard network chip than v1.x. I am not aware of anyone getting the newer board's LAN to function with OS X.

[macusers]

This is not the case with v 2.0 of these boards- they have a different onboard network chip than v1.x. I am not aware of anyone getting the newer board's LAN to function with OS X.

So sorry, forget about Rev 2.0. Thank you for pointing it out.

[asteedbrooks]

Firstly, I would like to thank all those involved in bringing the OSX to the humble PC.

I have the G31M-ES2L rev 2 bios ff mb combined with a 8400 512mb gs video card. Of course as with the rest of the posts I had to fit a pci network card. I also fitted a pci wifi card. I started off installing the IPC 10.5.6 and got a stable install with some minor problems, like the wifi card not being recognised despite checking the HCL and none of the pci card showing up in the profiler.

The real issues started when when you tube did something to their site, which required me updating safari. To cut a long story short I had to update to 10.5.8.

Since the update, when I start up I get a blue screen only. I have to restart and all seems to be well. Also now when I start from sleep mode the screen is very dark.

I have read about patching the dsdt, but after dumping out the dsdt.aml file, I am at a complete loss. I get 2 warnings one relates to the sleep problem, but I don’t know how to fix it. The other I don’t know.

Does anyone have a patched dsdt for this mb? I would be grateful if you could pass it on.

I have also read that patching the dsdt also can get the wifi card working and fix the PCI card recognition. Can anyone confirm this?

I have lost to many hours to switch back to windows, but at the moment I’m seriously thinking about it.

Many thanks In advanced.

[theB94]

Firstly, I would like to thank all those involved in bringing the OSX to the humble PC.

I have the G31M-ES2L rev 2 bios ff mb combined with a 8400 512mb gs video card. Of course as with the rest of the posts I had to fit a pci network card. I also fitted a pci wifi card. I started off installing the IPC 10.5.6 and got a stable install with some minor problems, like the wifi card not being recognised despite checking the HCL and none of the pci card showing up in the profiler.

The real issues started when when you tube did something to their site, which required me updating safari. To cut a long story short I had to update to 10.5.8.

Since the update, when I start up I get a blue screen only. I have to restart and all seems to be well. Also now when I start from sleep mode the screen is very dark.

I have read about patching the dsdt, but after dumping out the dsdt.aml file, I am at a complete loss. I get 2 warnings one relates to the sleep problem, but I don’t know how to fix it. The other I don’t know.

Does anyone have a patched dsdt for this mb? I would be grateful if you could pass it on.

I have also read that patching the dsdt also can get the wifi card working and fix the PCI card recognition. Can anyone confirm this?

I have lost to many hours to switch back to windows, but at the moment I’m seriously thinking about it.

Many thanks In advanced.

 

What wifi card are you using?