i7-930 / GA-EX58-UD5 / NVIDIA -- Kakewalk, BIOS, & DSDT Fixes

[Mackilroy]

The 920 and 930 are very similar processors. You shouldn't regret a thing.

[Valashtar]

The only difference between the 920 and the 930 is the CPU multiplier - 20 vs 21. When I bought mine, there was only a ten dollar difference in price, so I went ahead with the 930.

 

I have Mac OS X installed and running sweet - got the d00d DSDT.aml in the /Extra folder, but there are two things that still aren't working: Audio, and iStat Menus. I cannot get my speakers working, and I know they work, since I have another computer here to test them on. Tried Audio MIDI Setup, SysPrefs/Sound, the works. Nada.

 

iStat Menus will also not report any temperatures except that of the Hard Drives.

 

Any suggestions?

[Mackilroy]

Valashtar: did you have to update the BIOS in order to use d00d's DSDT? I still have the original BIOS with my motherboard.

 

As far as speakers go, are you sure you've got sound on the mobo itself hooked up correctly? When I assembled my hackintosh I'd never put a computer together before, so it took a bit of work, but my sound is fine.

[Valashtar]

I'm using the rear audio out ports - no hookup required. As to getting sound hooked up correct, yes, I am sure that I did it right - using the Intel HDAC connecter to the front panel, rather than the AC97 hookup. I did not absolutely verify the pin compatibility, but I was getting sound out through Windoze when I had it installed.

 

I did not have to update to the latest BIOS, no, but I did so because it improves CPU temps with the Core i7-930 regardless of the OS.

 

Still searching for answers...

[Mackilroy]

Ah, okay. Afraid I can't help much, then. Audio worked OOTB for me.

[Valashtar]

Very odd indeed. Are you booting K64 or K32? Kakewalk defaulted to K64 for me.

 

I might try reinstalling and using dd's UD5 script, seeing if that does me any better.

 

Unless anyone has any insight into the arcane world of post-install EFI injection, or wants to point out something incredibly simple that I missed...

[Mackilroy]

No idea, actually. Probably K64.

[nebraskaboy]

Updated to 10.6.3

Changes:

• nothing bad happened
  
• used regular update, not combo update
  
• slight geekbench score boost (150?, can't remember), might not be statistically significant
  

 

Updated to d00d's DSDT

Changes

• immediate temp drop, 10°-15°
  
• significant geekbench boost
  
• sleep mgmt works. no more kernel panics!
  
• orange icons
  
• sound output is now broken, both front and rear ports (I have a USB output converter for now...)
  

 

Still to do

• flash to new bios
  

 

Problems I know how to fix

• Orange Icons. I can fix this with a Kext. Can I fix it with the DSDT instead?
  

 

Problems I *don't* know how to fix

• Broken Sound. Presumably can be fixed by editing the DSDT file audio section back to what it was before. I don't know how to do this. I of course backed up the DSDT that Kakewalk had created for me, and that had been working with my sound.
  
• Still running hot. 60° is too hot for me. Suggestions? Cooling setups you recommend? I have a very roomy nice case already (see first post).
  

 

Questions / Potential Causes of Problems

• Processor Speed is Wrong. Ever since updating my smbios.plist file to be a MacPro 4,1 -- my processor is showing up wrong, as a 1.6 ghz
  
• Bus Speed is Wrong. While processor speed being "wrong" is new, bus speed has probably been wrong since day one. I assume this could be related to the heat / temp issues. Anyway, my bus speed is still showing up really slow/small. Big thanks to T13 for noticing this. 536Mhz is just plain wrong for bus speed.
  
• Kexts might be wrongI'm not sure if any of the kexts I stil have are duplicate functionality to the DSDT. I'm going to include a photo and please y'all tell me if I've got ones in there I don't need, or if there's something I'm missing
  

 

No idea, actually. Probably K64.

 

You can check a million ways. Open up Activity Monitor and see if the kernel is running as a 64 bit process or just as generic "Intel"

 

I'm using the rear audio out ports - no hookup required. As to getting sound hooked up correct, yes, I am sure that I did it right

 

Still searching for answers...

 

My sound was broken by d00d's DSDT file, and worked previously. So it's probably not a hardware problem, but a problem with his audio "fix." Unfortunately, I don't know enough about patching a DSDT file to go in and fix it myself. But I do have my archived version of the DSDT where audio worked saved, and I can send it to you if it would help.

 

For right now, I have audio through USB -- so I'm not going to give up my sleep and temp fixes just to get regular audio back-- but I would like to get it back eventually.

[Mackilroy]

Ah. In that case, 64-bit. I also updated with d00d's DSDT and have noticed ~25° drop (Fahrenheit) in my CPU temperature. So my 930 is at about 50º C right now.

 

Haven't updated my smbios.plist yet, but I do know my bus frequency is reported to be the same as yours. I have two more kexts than you do: HDAEnabler.kext and LegacyHDA.kext – both of those were installed when I used Kakewalk. I also haven't updated to 10.6.3 – I should do that soon.

[sumobritches]

ok...please don't slit my throat on this, but i'm a 25 year old graphic artist and with being married with a pegnant wife and my career i haven't had enough time to figure this EX58-ud5 i7 920 hackintosh out quite yet and need your guys' help.

 

BADLY! =D i know everyone says "kakewalk" but what do i do in dumbed down English? speak to me like i'm retarded because other than downloading the kakewalk ISO and putting SL on a seperate disk, i'm kinda lost from there as to where to go....

[Valashtar]

I did not have audio working out of the box even without d00d's DSDT file. I wonder if it has to do with my updated BIOS? But he said it should be working even up to F12... I will say that while Geekbench did report the correct proc speed and bus speeds for the normal processor, it did not report the upgraded speeds from my overclock, even when I changed the values.

 

As I said, I am still unable to get temperature sensors working for iStat Menus. the WD VelociRaptor is the only thing that will show up in that menu. Reinstalling the sensors does not fix it.

 

I am running 10.6.3 - I installed, used the combo updater, ran software update, -then- swapped to d00d's DSDT file, and had no sound throughout. I have been booting K64, however - Kakewalk did that automatically for me.

 

Chill out about 60C - I started getting worried when my cores were hitting 80 at 3.8. TJmax is 100-105 on those cores, so you're fine - less than halfway. You won't start seeing long term degradation unless you run them well above 70 continuously. I decided to ship the Noctua back, and am switching to watercooling in a week or two when I can scrape together the cash. Then we'll see if I can hit 4.2, so I can have my RAM run at 1600Mhz, and keep the whole thing under 70C (plus then I can keep my GPU below the 94C at max load it was displaying with a sweet waterblock). I think that my problems are aggravated by the fact that the P183 is a quiet case, not a high airflow case.

 

Still unable to get sound working, but I have laid it aside for now since I have other things I need to focus on. Plus, when the new HD's and watercooling gets here, I can set it up all at once and then only worry about software issues - ideally. I think I'm going to give digitaldreamer's script a try - kakewalk seems a little too much of a shotgun blast to me.

 

There is a tool to de- and re-compile DSDT files floating around, but I don't know how much help it will be to you if you don't know how to use it. Perhaps search around, do research, etc. I'm sorry; there don't appear to be easy answers.

 

sumobritches: read the guide that came with the Kakewalk download. essentially, burn the ISO, boot kakewalk, swap to snow leopard disk, refresh, boot from that, run installer like normal, put kakewalk in upon restart, boot with that, install bootloader once you're in SL, done. Go to town. It's easy, I promise. Read the guide!

[nebraskaboy]

I am still unable to get temperature sensors working for iStat Menus.

 

You can use the demo of Hardware Monitor:

http://www.bresink.com/osx/HardwareMonitor.html

 

iStatMenus just went Pro (no longer free). So perhaps you downloaded the new non-unlocked version?

[Valashtar]

You can use the demo of Hardware Monitor:

http://www.bresink.com/osx/HardwareMonitor.html

 

I suppose so. I hate it with such a fiery passion, though. Dunno how long I can take it.

 

iStatMenus just went Pro (no longer free). So perhaps you downloaded the new non-unlocked version?

 

Yarrr.

 

In any case, it's a free fifteen day trial, so that shouldn't affect it.

[scruplevirgin2]

I am a noob to hackintosh as well as building computers and plan on following this guide to build a machine. I have done some research and have a list of parts together. I was wondering how parallels works on one of these machines.

 

my list:

mobo: x85-ud5

CPU: core i7 930

GPU: EVGA 9800gt 1GB

PSU: Corsair 550W

Case: Antec Sonata Elite*

 

I am worried about the size/cooling ability of this case, maybe one of you knows?

[Mackilroy]

I'm using an Antec Sonata III as my case, so yours will be fine. Cooling isn't wonderful, but it's not too bad, either – I'm getting as good or better temps as nebraskaboy, and he's got a full-tower case.

[nebraskaboy]

UPDATE

turns out I'm still having sleep-related k-panics, very similar to the ones I was having before.

 

They're not the "black screen of death" KPs. They're more like, "one core is seized up and the rest are hobbling along."

 

When they happen, I can see the kernel has revved up to 95%+ in the Activity Monitor even when idling, and won't move from there. Also finder locks up, and if I don't reboot eventually the dock & menubar freeze too. Worst of all, I can't just reboot. If I try to reboot, it will hang on the blue screen. So I have to hard-reboot, which I've now done a hundred times or more (or at least once or twice a day since I built this thing)... and that' can't be good for the overall stability of my system.

 

When finder locks up, it gives me an error messgage

"The application Finder can't be opened."

error number 10810

 

here's what both look like:

 

I think I've traced *part* of the problem to my ATA drive. The finder freeze could be related to that, or to permissions problems.

 

UGH!

 

So my temps are more manageable, but I would still not consider this a stable vanilla system. It's got awesome power, but it's just not reliable enough.

 

I'm going to have some time in about a week and a half to really get into the nitty gritty and try to fix things, but between now and then hopefully some folks will post links to any i7-930 / EX58-UD5 builds they've seen that are stable, or help us problem solve some of these issues.

[Mackilroy]

nebraskaboy: I wish I could help you, because my hackintosh has been perfectly stable. My hardware is similar to yours: Core i7-390, EX58-UD5, Patriot Viper memory – but I have an HD 4890. I doubt that makes much difference, but who could say? I've had only KP (and that was trying to use a 7300 GT – never happened with my 8800 GT or HD 4890) in the three+ weeks I've had my hack.

[scruplevirgin2]

thanks Mackilroy

[Mackilroy]

Today I reset my CPU cooler and temps have dropped another 10º C… guess I should've made sure that was properly set in the first place, haha.

 

nb, what's the status with your hack? Had any more time to work on it?

[myrorym]

Greetings,

 

I,ve been checking out the thread, and am very much interested in constructing a similar build for first (S)Mac Pro.

This machine will be used for AE, FCP and other vfx apps.

pretty much the same specs as nebraska's, I really like the case. Not sure about which cooling solution yet. Maybe Corsair PSU as well.

 

I like the GA-EX58-UD5 specs, am wondering if anyone is running the onboard audio vanilla or little augmentation.

 

The PS2 ports (old keyboard) are a nice bonus as I,m trying to build the tower and add-on perks slowly(bluetooth,wirelesssKeyboard,new HDmonitor, audio)

 

For GFX, I am leaning toward an XFX HD4890 available on newegg.. $200

 

I need to do more research on memory. I am not an experienced OC'r, but if I want to learn OC I would be particular about memory timings and voltage. Any good links?

 

Anyone running any RAID setup? Is RAID function built-in to the UD5? If so, might their be advantages to a hardware controller instead(more disks, complex arrays)? I have been reading about RAID arrays as a solution to speed bottlenecks in workflows. Can anyone confirm onboard RAID array working?

Thanks everyone and good day.

[mrmacdoo]

can i use the comporable asus mobo instead of the gigabyte one talked about above?

[Mackilroy]

Greetings,

 

I,ve been checking out the thread, and am very much interested in constructing a similar build for first (S)Mac Pro.

This machine will be used for AE, FCP and other vfx apps.

pretty much the same specs as nebraska's, I really like the case. Not sure about which cooling solution yet. Maybe Corsair PSU as well.

 

I like the GA-EX58-UD5 specs, am wondering if anyone is running the onboard audio vanilla or little augmentation.

 

For GFX, I am leaning toward an XFX HD4890 available on newegg.. $200

For my build I also used the Kakewalk installer and the EX58-UD5 – I've had no audio issues at all. Just installed Kakewalk, then plugged in my speakers and I was good to go. Some other people have had issues with their audio, but not me. Kakewalk installed all the audio kexts I needed.

 

I have an HIS HD4890, you should be fine.

 

can i use the comporable asus mobo instead of the gigabyte one talked about above?

Look here, dude. I know I've seen a few people with Asus motherboards, but by and far Gigabyte is the best supported among hackintosh users. Kakewalk can't be used with Asus, for example.

[Valashtar]

My new drives shipped from Newegg today; they should be here by the end of next week. I'm still speccing out parts for my watercooling loop, but the CPU and GPU are going underwater. That should certainly help temperatures.

 

When I have that all set up, burned in and working to my satisfaction with a Windows install, then I will work on getting a stable and working OS X install. I think I'll try Kakewalk again, and if that doesn't get me working audio, it might be time for dd's script.

[Valashtar]

Hard drives are here. Watercooling components are on the way.

 

But an ugly problem has reared its head - OS X will not save my settings. I told it to turn off transparency on the menu bar, it did so for a moment and then reverted. Same with changing highlight color to grey. Stayed for a minute, then switched back to blue.

 

Worst of all, however, is that I moved my home folder to a different drive, and OS X doesn't remember this, so I can't log into my user profile. I can certainly reinstall, and there's nothing on there that I care about - they were all mostly empty folders - but it is a baffling and frustrating experience.

[delicatepc]

Read through the 4 pages of posts.

 

For anyone having weird lockups please run a hard drive diagnostics (anywhere from 1-2 hours) and run a memtest+86 overnight (or two). Lets assume a hard drive was having issues it could through out random errors and cause the machine to behave sporadically. Same thing with failing RAM.

 

Once you rule out that your hard drive and RAM are good it is easier to locate a root(er) problem.

 

Interesting thread none the less for just some interesting issues. I am kinda starting to hate the 135 pages of posts for certain threads (waaaaaaaaay to much to dig through - maybe switch to wiki or something). Good info through them but many times the issues are resolved in a update or are one off cases.

 

~

dpc