BadAxe2 & Snow: State of the Build

[Shaveblog]

Okay, there's a sizable group of us here who've been running OSX on the venerable Intel D975XBX2 motherboard (aka BadAxe2) through all the permutations of the hacked distros like Kalyway to the latest "retail install" methods. Now that many of us have tackled Snow Leopard 10.6 on this board, it's time to assess whether or not this discussion has or has not hit a dead end.

 

Fact: with a Chameleon bootloader and/or Netkas's PC EFI, you can install the retail Snow Leopard DVD and make it run 95% perfectly, at least in 32-bit mode (some have posted success booting into the 64-bit kernel -- I've never gotten this to work with the same 64-bit kexts everyone's got in /Extra/Extensions).

 

Fact: PATA not only doesn't work with Snow, but if you don't delete the IOATA kext in S/L/E, forget about booting without instant kernel panic. So, buh-bye PATA DVD drives.

 

Fact: Onboard Intel HDA audio and the secondary Marvell SATA ports don't work with Snow on this board. I know I've posted a solution to the latter, but the responders in that thread were right, it was not a solid long-term solution and I have reverted that hack back to stock.

 

Fact: If you're willing to live without IDE and the Marvell SATA ports, and add an external USB/Firewire audio interface, the BadAxe2 is a great board for Snow. Sleep/restart works, onboard LAN works, FireWire works, USB works and reports properly in System Profiler. The BadAxe2 is also immune to the BIOS reset issues that plague Gigabyte boards due to the RTC kext, and doesn't need the DSDT hack that fixes this issue for Gigabytes.

 

Fact: The lingering audio and Marvell SATA issues are driving me nuts. I am a completist. Either a board works 100% on a given OS or it doesn't, and you replace it with a board that does. So I've got a Griffin iMic to handle the audio -- so what? I want the 24/96 Intel audio, not 16/44 Griffin. And I want those Marvell SATA ports, damn it. I've got 4 hard drives plus a DVD burner, and I want them all connected via internal SATA like they were with Leopard 10.5.8.

 

So where does that leave the BadAxe2? I'm hoping to hear from you others who are running Snow on this board. I see scattered attempts across the OSX86 community to patch the remaining holes in this board, but from the die-off in chatter, it looks to me like BadAxe2 owners are accepting that the board is finally looking a bit long in the tooth, and that their efforts are better spent choosing a newer board that's more compatible OOB with Snow like for example the better Gigabytes, which I'm eyeing myself. Because quite frankly, Snow runs equally well on my cheap little $50 G31-ES2L as it does on the BadAxe2, except everything works. The only reason I haven't swapped my main rig board for my test rig board is that the little Gigabyte maxes out at 4GB RAM and I need (need? sure, why not) the 8GB I'm running on the BadAxe2. If the Gigabyte could run 8GB, we wouldn't be having this conversation.

 

So where does that leave you, my fellow BadAxim? Have you figured out how to patch the issues I laid out above? Have you had better luck than me booting 64-bit? Are you moving to a newer board? Let's hear your story and bring this thread up to date. I'd like nothing more than to get this Intel board to 100% Snow compatibility and get another few years' duty out of it. I love this board, it was my first real Hackintosh success and I'd love to see it soldier on in the Snow era, as I'm sure you would.

 

Can we solve this board once and for all, or is it time to move on?

[Shaveblog]

No replies? Really? You hacker kids who somehow feel the need to tweet every inconsequential event in your daily lives e.g. "Just farted in line at Frys" don't have ANYTHING to say about the world's most important topic i.e. whether or not the Intel D975XBX2 is still a good choice in the post-10.5 era??

 

Okay fine. Be that way.

 

You can't see me but I'm wiping my eyes and it's not because I'm crying, I just got something in my eye is all.

 

 

Okay, there's a sizable group of us here who've been running OSX on the venerable Intel D975XBX2 motherboard (aka BadAxe2) through all the permutations of the hacked distros like Kalyway to the latest "retail install" methods. Now that many of us have tackled Snow Leopard 10.6 on this board, it's time to assess whether or not this discussion has or has not hit a dead end.

 

Fact: with a Chameleon bootloader and/or Netkas's PC EFI, you can install the retail Snow Leopard DVD and make it run 95% perfectly, at least in 32-bit mode (some have posted success booting into the 64-bit kernel -- I've never gotten this to work with the same 64-bit kexts everyone's got in /Extra/Extensions).

 

Fact: PATA not only doesn't work with Snow, but if you don't delete the IOATA kext in S/L/E, forget about booting without instant kernel panic. So, buh-bye PATA DVD drives.

 

Fact: Onboard Intel HDA audio and the secondary Marvell SATA ports don't work with Snow on this board. I know I've posted a solution to the latter, but the responders in that thread were right, it was not a solid long-term solution and I have reverted that hack back to stock.

 

Fact: If you're willing to live without IDE and the Marvell SATA ports, and add an external USB/Firewire audio interface, the BadAxe2 is a great board for Snow. Sleep/restart works, onboard LAN works, FireWire works, USB works and reports properly in System Profiler. The BadAxe2 is also immune to the BIOS reset issues that plague Gigabyte boards due to the RTC kext, and doesn't need the DSDT hack that fixes this issue for Gigabytes.

 

Fact: The lingering audio and Marvell SATA issues are driving me nuts. I am a completist. Either a board works 100% on a given OS or it doesn't, and you replace it with a board that does. So I've got a Griffin iMic to handle the audio -- so what? I want the 24/96 Intel audio, not 16/44 Griffin. And I want those Marvell SATA ports, damn it. I've got 4 hard drives plus a DVD burner, and I want them all connected via internal SATA like they were with Leopard 10.5.8.

 

So where does that leave the BadAxe2? I'm hoping to hear from you others who are running Snow on this board. I see scattered attempts across the OSX86 community to patch the remaining holes in this board, but from the die-off in chatter, it looks to me like BadAxe2 owners are accepting that the board is finally looking a bit long in the tooth, and that their efforts are better spent choosing a newer board that's more compatible OOB with Snow like for example the better Gigabytes, which I'm eyeing myself. Because quite frankly, Snow runs equally well on my cheap little $50 G31-ES2L as it does on the BadAxe2, except everything works. The only reason I haven't swapped my main rig board for my test rig board is that the little Gigabyte maxes out at 4GB RAM and I need (need? sure, why not) the 8GB I'm running on the BadAxe2. If the Gigabyte could run 8GB, we wouldn't be having this conversation.

 

So where does that leave you, my fellow BadAxim? Have you figured out how to patch the issues I laid out above? Have you had better luck than me booting 64-bit? Are you moving to a newer board? Let's hear your story and bring this thread up to date. I'd like nothing more than to get this Intel board to 100% Snow compatibility and get another few years' duty out of it. I love this board, it was my first real Hackintosh success and I'd love to see it soldier on in the Snow era, as I'm sure you would.

 

Can we solve this board once and for all, or is it time to move on?

[timewise]

Somebody released a fix for AppleIntelPIIXATA.kext

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=186609

I am going to test ide ports later.

The sound is the only thing that bothers me. It sorta works on boot, but dies after sleep.

I really like this board.

[Shubhanyu]

Hi...

 

Got SL 10.6.2 booting into 64-bit....... clock does not show proper time, date is fine, audio is missing. How are you able to get audio working on boot?

[Shubhanyu]

Nobody?

[elRey]

hmm, i'm on 10.6.3

fully running in 32/64 bit

[Shubhanyu]

Audio working as well as CMOS? What are you doing to fix your CMOS? In the Hazard installation disc, there are 3 kexts... I have tried each of those kexts... none of those work. . .

[Shubhanyu]

elRay, could you please tell me if your computer clock is working fine in Snow? I have got audio working, and now just the CMOS issue needs to be sorted. Elliot kext gives a KP. PFA my DSDT... note that this is an S975XBX2.. If you could help me wit your DSDT, may be my computer clock would work, too?

[elRey]

sorry, i lost this topic.

clock is working fine, never had probs with it, just when i boot win7, clock is one hour back.

i can send you my dsdt, but you must wait till the end of the week, i'm not at home befor friday.

Sound is working with voodoohda. But i dont need it much, i have a firewire device.

Btw i'm on vanilla 10.6.3 with myhack final.

I've a D975XBX2, i dont know whats different to yours.

[Shubhanyu]

sorry, i lost this topic.

clock is working fine, never had probs with it, just when i boot win7, clock is one hour back.

i can send you my dsdt, but you must wait till the end of the week, i'm not at home befor friday.

Sound is working with voodoohda. But i dont need it much, i have a firewire device.

Btw i'm on vanilla 10.6.3 with myhack final.

I've a D975XBX2, i dont know whats different to yours.

 

elRay, will wait .... S means it is a server board ... everything was great with Tiger and Leopard... just this Snow is acting up..clock is haywire.. I set it in BIOS but it boots with the same bad time.. don't know how come!

[elRey]

try this dsdt

DSDT.aml.zip

[Shubhanyu]

elRey, thank you for your repeated assistance... all that this DSDT did was to disable QE/CI. Time "bomb" still kickin ....

[Shubhanyu]

Time bomb still ticking means that my bad clock issue still persists...

[egray]

Here's my state (10.6.4, 32-bit): Marvell not working. Onboard audio works with VoodooHDA 0.2.61 - don't know about input, just using the output, but input shows up in Sound pref pane so it probably works. I got this build from Project OS X. But you have to put VoodooHDA in Sys/Lib/Exts because it doesn't work in Extra.

 

Otherwise this OS is perfect.

 

Don't know about 64bit, haven't tried it (incompatible with my VMWare Fusion version).

 

There are some funny things, however: 1) Using Chameleon-2.0-RC4-r684 manual install; Chameleon-2.0-RC2-r640 package hangs. 2) Still using PC_EFI V10.1, later ones don't work (won't boot). 3) No startup options via keystroke - will hang. I have to choose disk via bios, and set startup flags in com.apple.Boot.plist. 4) I'm running Pro Tools M-Powered 8.0.3 with an M-Audio Transit interface. Works perfectly, but: if I rebuild my kext cache (for example to try a new kext), Digidal will cause a kernel panic on boot. I have to remove it, rebuild the cache again, and then re-install Pro Tools and it all works again. I don't get it. Digi must be doing something non-standard with this kext and it's not actually loading into the cache when its installed.

 

All in all, this is a great system. I sat on the fence a long time running perfect 10.5.8, decided to finally move up to Snow. I'm happy enough, the downside is minimal.

[egray]

Here's my state - update: now running 10.6.6 vanilla in 64bit mode. Boot issue disappeared, boots normally now with startup options. Still running same Chameleon version - it ain't broke so I don't want to mess around with it. I don't know when the boot issue cleared up - it might have been when I upgraded my graphics card to nVidia 9500 GT from a 7300, or somewhere else along the way. Anyway, it's a perfect system except for Marvell SATA, but I don't need more drives so that's OK.

[egray]

Update #2: Now running 10.6.7. Only hassle was I had to add pmVersion=21 to com.apple.boot.plist and revert AppleACPIPlatform.kext to v 1.3.2 from 10.6.5. Everything working now as before.