Derek56514 Posted September 8, 2009 Share Posted September 8, 2009 Hello Guys, I recently decided to use OS X on my desktop pc and to my surprise it all works great! It runs just as nice as my actual MB . My only issue is that I can not use all 8GB of ram, I have to boot with maxmem=4096 (5102 works as well, anything higher the system does not boot). I am using the iPC 10.5.6 distro and the Voodoo 9.5 kernel. Following various guides I have successfully installed all the updates up to 10.5.8. Is there anyway to use all of my ram? Perhaps there is a different / better Kernel I should be using? I also had a question about graphics. I have a Geforce 8600GT 256mb and I'm using NVDarwin 1.2.5 with good results but was wondering if 3D performance would be better another way. I run a few 3D apps with no troubles now but the performance is less then it was under Windows for sure, I figured that could just be a OpenGL vs DirectX thing to. Any opinions or answers are greatly appreciated. Thanks guys! I'll post my specs in case anyone needs to know them... AMD Athlon X2 5000 O/C to 3.0GHZ (I did try putting the CPU clock back down to 2.6ghz, didn't make a difference) 8GB DDR2 800 GA-MA770-DS3 AMD 770 / SB700 Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/185079-amd-8gb-ram/ Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek56514 Posted September 9, 2009 Author Share Posted September 9, 2009 I hate to bump a topic but is there no hope for using 8GB Ram with Leopard on an AMD system? Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/185079-amd-8gb-ram/#findComment-1259253 Share on other sites More sharing options...
ubuntu.user Posted September 10, 2009 Share Posted September 10, 2009 How far does your PC (allowing all ram) get into the boot process before it freezes? Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/185079-amd-8gb-ram/#findComment-1259427 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek56514 Posted September 10, 2009 Author Share Posted September 10, 2009 Thanks for the reply . It loads all the way up to the blue screen right before the login screen should normally appear. No mouse pointer even. Just a blank blue screen. I do not get any kernel panics or anything like that. It's worth mentioning I have also tried the -force64 option but it didn't seem to make a difference. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/185079-amd-8gb-ram/#findComment-1259545 Share on other sites More sharing options...
ubuntu.user Posted September 10, 2009 Share Posted September 10, 2009 I dunno if this will help you but on my system I have 6 gigs ram and what I do (when mine does this too) was boot with no kernel flags first and let it go all the way to the blue screen where the hd light stops blinking. Then, I simply hit the reset button on my PC and it boots all the way through the second time. I dunno why, but it does and pretty much every time I have to reboot my system, I have to take these steps. BTW, I too have an AMD system and it is also overclocked from 2.7 to 3.0. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/185079-amd-8gb-ram/#findComment-1259594 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek56514 Posted September 10, 2009 Author Share Posted September 10, 2009 Well I just ran a few different tests and the only stable setting seems to be maxmem=5120 (5GB). I tried your method for 8GB and it never did boot, I decided to try maxmem=6144 and I got the blue screen, I restarted with the same 6GB limit and it booted just like you said it would. I proceeded to do a bit of stress testing and started firing up all kinds of apps including a vm with 3GB allocated to it, I noticed a few things off the bat, first it took two tries to get activity monitor open with unexpected quits and i proceeded to load up the ram by launching iworks apps and when I opened numbers I got a kernel panic. It seems that 6GB is unstable in my testing. I know that 4GB is rock solid and 5GB seems to be but only time will tell, I did manage to load up all 5GB with apps and although it slowed down significantly with so much going, especially the 3.5GB allocated to the VM (I launched apps like crazy in XP to), it didn't crash so I assume it will be stable. 5GB seems to be the limit so I feel like its not a 64bit issue because if that was the case 3.5GB would be the limit... hopefully a fix is discovered or maybe even hiding out there somewhere. EDIT: 5GB still has the same boot problem you described and while stable the system was more sluggish then with the 4GB limit. I have gone back to using just 4 to ensure maximum stability for now. Maybe Voodoo2 and Snow Leopard will resolve this issue. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/185079-amd-8gb-ram/#findComment-1259682 Share on other sites More sharing options...
delson Posted October 13, 2009 Share Posted October 13, 2009 Hey, i've got exact same problem - Leopard with 8GB on AMD boots up to the blue screen with no mouse pointer and I've also tried different boot flags but still no success. My system also boots normally with maxmem=5100 (it was during last 7 month), but starting from a week ago I had to reduce it to 4900, because suddenly blue screen started to appear. I have no solution yet... hope this problem has a solution at all! Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/185079-amd-8gb-ram/#findComment-1296795 Share on other sites More sharing options...
smith3d Posted October 24, 2009 Share Posted October 24, 2009 Hi all, i've got exact same problem, Leopard and SNOW with 8GB on AMD..... HELP, help, help!!!!! Smith3d Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/185079-amd-8gb-ram/#findComment-1309175 Share on other sites More sharing options...
tsunami_liao Posted October 27, 2009 Share Posted October 27, 2009 Seems I' m a lucky guy, it works fine on my desktop, and I did not add any kernel flag for my system. My system is : AMD 4200+ running on native speed Unika UR78G-HDMI 8GB Memory Winfast 7600GT I think you should check the Video driver because the blank blue screen, because I found most of blank blue screen occurred when you got wrong Video driver. I intalled Kalyway 10.5.2 and NVinject 0.2.1 my system, everything works fine except sleep. you can try it. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/185079-amd-8gb-ram/#findComment-1311502 Share on other sites More sharing options...
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