Belkin F5D7001 (broadcom 4320) PCI card detected only with boot132

[giaour61]

I'm at my wit's end.

 

I have a retail MacOS X Leopard (10.5.6 updated to 10.5.8) running on my Gigabyte G31M-ES2L (rev.2.0) motherboard. My boot loader is Chameleon RC3. I have a wired PCI NIC (3C905-TX) as en0 and a wi-fi PCI card - F5D7001 by Belkin (based on Broadcom 4320) - as en1.

 

The problem is that the Broadcom 4320 PCI card gets detected (and can be configured and used) only if I boot the machine using boot132 booted from a CD. Once I get the prompt of boot132 and feed device 80 to it to boot from the hard drive, the interface en1 is active, recognized as AirPort, can be configured and used.

Yet if I boot the machine directly off the hard drive, the AirPort card is perceived as not installed.

 

I thought a different version of AppleAirPortBrcm43xx.kext was loaded when booting through boot132. (The initrd image of boot132 contains a file /Extra/Extensions.mkext - which after unpacking with the Mkext Tool shows AppleAirPortBrcm43xx.kext as a plug-in of IO80211Family.kext.) Nevertheless, the kextstat utility shows the same version of AppleAirPortBrcm43xx.kext loaded in both cases - booting through boot132 and booting directly:

 

com.apple.driver.AirPortBrcm43xx 366.91.21

 

(if my memory serves me well).

 

Both versions of AppleAirPortBrcm43xx.kext - the one on the initrd of boot132 and the one in /System/Library/Extensions/ IO80211Family.kext/... - list my Device IDs in the related plist.

 

Any words of wisdom would be greatly appreciated.

[Mac Gyver]

hello,

 

it's funny because we have a very similar config.

but i must say i 've not went as far as you.

i 've owned the same "Airport card" F5D7001 and the same GA-G31M-ES2L

with couple of problems under 10.6.2.

 

no way to find a good kext to use the F5D7001 here too.

10.6.2 doesn't see the card. however it worked OOB under 10.5.8 ...

 

something is very strange with retail installations

it seems that not all the LAN kexts are installed.

for example, it has been impossible for me to use kismac 3 with a RT73 usb key on every Hack i've build

(Eeee 1000h, P5K, GA-G31M, P5E-VM hdmi, etc ...) and both under 10.5 and 10.6

it's working perfeclty on my macbook but not on Hacks.

and obviously, to kismac's userfriendly: without installing any driver regarding RT73 or elses wifi adapter before.

 

as the Belkin F5D7001 worked OOB under 10.5, i don't know what kext was used but if you know how to check that

we could try the kexts from 10.5 in 10.6 ...

 

 

 

 

i've forgot something,

 

i'm asking myself, couldn't be a PCI slot managing problem ?

Biios settings ? i've tried so many different settings like Plug & play os YES & NO

IRQs manual or auto, each times SL don't reconize any PCI device or Airport ....