[SOLVED] Proper 5.1 Sound On GA-X48T-DQ6 - Mission Complete

[MacFanatic76]

Edit 18.09.2009 : I solved it, and i will make a detailed tutorial for any interested, if i find time in the weekend.

To our mods : you decide if the topic stays or gets removed.

Thanx !

 

 

Hello All,

 

First, sorry if i double-post an already existing theme about getting audio on X48(T),

but i couldn't find any satisfying info till now, having searched for days.

I leave it up to our moderators to decide, if my request should stay in this section or just get purged.

 

I am so close to get a 100 % working Leo, that i finally decided to turn

to the community with a request - i just can't finish what i've started...

I aint's so skilled in Mac that i wish and obviously, cannot manage the issue on my own.

 

Although pretty impatient to try out Snow Leopard, i decided to stay with

Leopard 10.5.X for a while, having used it for an year or so.

The reason for staying with it is to first find-out, how would Leo work, after a recent hardware change that i did,

replacing my 5-year old (100% working) Pentium 4 rig with following components :

 

Mobo: Gigabyte GA-X48T-DQ6, Intel X48 + ICH9R

Processor: Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550, 2.83 GHz

RAM: Corsair Dominator DDR3 1600 MHz, 4x2 GB

Graphics Card : Gigabyte GeForce GTX285 1GB GDD3/512 bit

 

So, straight to the problem...Retail 10.5.6 install, using vanilla kernel.

Installation made on a GUID 1 TB drive (BIOS necessities foreseen and applied),

though not on the first partition (Windoze 7 went there, disk0s2), but after it on disk0s3.

Applied Chameleon RC2 boot loader, /Extra/Extensions is "stock", no adds/kexts/ or DSDT.

 

Onliest add to the /S*/L*/E* directory is Netkas's (THANX !) ATY_Init.kext, and official nVidia drivers

for the graphics card. Updated to 10.5.8 straight from ASU - went like a charm.

 

Now only audio is problematic. I think my mobo has just the same onboard ALC889A

as most P35/P45 Gigabyte boards, but 5.1 setup is not working, can't find what's wrong

or if i am missing something. No matter of which kexts and combinations i choose,

i can not reach more than just 4 channels working.

 

Audio system is also an old Creative Inspire T-something 5.1 Analog (i'm at work now, so

can't check what exactly it was) with the usual three "green, black, orange" lines (cables).

My case doesn't have a front panel, so only chance is figuring out, which of the

6 analog mobo channels on the back is causing troubles.

 

When configuring an aggregate device in Audio MIDI pane, it does show a 5.1 setup,

selecting 1 and 2 go for front L/R with sound, 3 and 4 for rear surround L/R,

and 5 and 6 (for center and subwoofer) - nothing. No damn sound coming out of them.

 

Ok, so far so not very good. Trying an HDRip movie with VLC - i hear exactly that 4

channels (front and rear) - ambient/surround noises/music, but no main speech.

Apparently, in this setup the line out (green) and rear (black) are working,

but not the orange (center/subwoofer).

Interestingly, when i unplug all cables and plug only the center/sub - orange cable into the

green line-out, center speaker and subwoofer come out immediately.

 

 

This is so noobish and i feel so stupid with this now

So close to the full 5.1, just this messy 4 channel thing.

 

Any hints on what i might have shot down and killed, or might have missed installing/configuring

will be highly appreciated.

 

Thanx in advance to anyone that might give a hand solving this silly issue,

and/or point out a proper kext package/install method for this mobo !

[holyfield]

Hi!

 

Can you confirm that GA-X48T-DQ6 works fine?

 

I would like to reccomend an USB 5.2 audio card if you coulnt get onboard audio to work: Griffin FireWave, which costs only $27

 

have you considered to try Snow Leopard retail install from USB with EFI and DST patches and etc?

[MacFanatic76]

Hi, Holyfield, and thanx for replying.

 

I confirm that this mobo's onboard ALC 889A works on both Leopard and Snow Leopard !

Using This thread's instructions from tmongkol was of great help, thanx a lot, tmongkol !

 

Audio problems were completely wiped-out using DSDT-patching + a corresponding LegacyAudio.kext in /E/E/.

So, one should only create a DSDT.aml through one of the known methods,

decompile it - edit the audio-section - recompile it -put it in /Extra together with a xAudio.kext in /E/E - done !

[holyfield]

I confirm that this mobo's onboard ...

 

Thank you for response. I plan to buy this mobo and test it. It seems to work with EFI-X too.

 

Does IEEE1394 FireWire interface works also fine on this mobo with Mac OS X?