Has anyone else tried this system board?

[londo10]

I posted this in a different part of the forum several weeks ago, but no one seems to have seen it, and I'm hoping to be able to find someone who has encountered this board before. I've modified the text to make it appropriate to this forum (after doing a search and finding no other posts at all about this board except my prior one).

 

I'm very new here, and I have no Unix programming background (though given good directions I'm not afraid to edit code if I have to, so long as I'm editing a copy and still have the original saved on different media). I am interested in building my own machine, and have been gifted with an Intel (I think) Super X5DPA-TGM system board, dual Xeon processors and 2Gb of RAM installed. Based on what I've seen from reading much of this topic no one has attempted this board before. The board says it is Rev 1.01, and it has an AMIBIOS 786Q copyrighted in 2000. It has 5 PCI slots, PS-2 and USB, appears to have ethernet on the board as well as ATI video and DB9 serial, 2 IDE controllers and a floppy controller. There is what appears to be a VRAM slot (assuming I've identified it correctly), but it is empty and I don't know what sort of RAM would go in it.

 

Since I'm a total newby at this, I am looking for the files I would need to install OS X Tiger 10.4 or Leopard 10.5. I will not be ready to do this for a time, since I don't yet have a case, power supply, or DVD drive for it; I'm just gathering what I will need when I'm finally ready to go. I will likely want to get a PCI video card since I don't know if the on-board video will work with either of these versions of OS X (it's ATI RageXL according to the graphics chip), and I may have to invest in a SATA card since I keep seeing posts that indicate IDE or EIDE (UltraATA) drives don't appear to work (though I have a 120Gb IDE Seagate drive that came with the board, if there's a way to get it working). Since I know there are Mac Pro machines out there that Apple built with dual Xeons, I think it would be interesting to have a similar machine for far less than the cost of a Mac Pro.

 

Any suggestions or instructions would be greatly appreciated, even if all you can offer are links to software and/or websites, and I will try to repay what I learn here in some fashion going forward. Thanks in advance for any assistance.

[Gringo Vermelho]

Is it this board?

http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherb...1/X5DPA-TGM.cfm

 

Interesting hardware.

 

Looks like it could probably run Leopard? I would try with the "JaS OSx86 Client/Server 10.5.4" distro.

 

The BIOS can't possible be from the year 2000, according to Wikipedia the earliest ICH5R revision is from 2003. The IC itself could of course be from the year 2000.

[3.14r2]

Well... Maybe I can offer some help, if you will...

 

I have a dual Xeon (Nocona) system. It is based on a similar chipset - SE7525GP2 http://reviews.cnet.com/motherboards/intel...7-30967319.html . The chipset has many similar components (although it is not identical). Just to name some of them:

• same 604 socket (probably similar CPUs)
  
• same amount of max memory
  
• ICH5R controller
  
• AMI BIOS
  
• Dual Serial ATA ports
  
• same on-board graphics ATI Rage XL SVGA (I have it disabled, cos' there is a PCI-E card)
  

In general all main features are the same, so will be supported as well. The MB you have doesn't has a PCI-E socket - it's the main difference I guess.

 

Now the good news - I have Snow Leopard running smoothly. So there is a chance that you could get it running too. Leopard is also working good on the system (I haven't yet decided which is faster or better ). Both are installed in a retail-like fashion (retail (vanilla) system + all additional stuff on EFI partition). Snow Leopard is currently installed on IDE drive (I'm planing to migrate it to the main SATA drive soon).

 

Some side notes. The Xeons on Mac, that you mentioned, are totally different from thous on your MB. Yours are single core (core solo), then in Macs quad/dual-core Xeons. So have it in mind...

 

Feel free to ask (PM if you prefer) for any info/help. I'd be pleased to help.

[Gringo Vermelho]

Rad.

 

I guess you have to use a patched kernel since the Xeons are Nocona models? Or is it different with Xeons?

 

What about the on-board sound and network?

[3.14r2]

I guess you have to use a patched kernel since the Xeons are Nocona models? Or is it different with Xeons?

 

What about the on-board sound and network?

Yes, I have to use a patched kernel, namely AnV v1.7 (or legacy kernel 4 in case of SL). Nocona is a pre-core architecture model so only SSE3 (same as P4 of the same generation).

 

There is no on-board audio on the MB. I use a PCI sound card (unfortunately only line-out and SPDFI work, no mic/line-in).

 

As for the LAN, it works OOB with every OS X version I have used (10.4.6-10.6.4).

[freqabeat]

Can you offer any suggestions for me? This is my build that I am working on:

• Dell PowerEdge 1600SC mobo with ServerWorks GC-SL chipset

• Intel Xeon Nocona 3.2 GHz

• 4 gb 266mhz ECC DDR

I was planning on using this method for install.

http://lifehacker.com/5360150/install-snow...acking-required

Any advise would be helpful, I am new to this as well!!!

[londo10]

Is it this board?

http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherb...1/X5DPA-TGM.cfm

 

Interesting hardware.

 

Looks like it could probably run Leopard? I would try with the "JaS OSx86 Client/Server 10.5.4" distro.

 

The BIOS can't possible be from the year 2000, according to Wikipedia the earliest ICH5R revision is from 2003. The IC itself could of course be from the year 2000.

 

Yes, that is the exact board. Mine has all the RAM slots filled, I'm presuming with 512Mb sticks, and the person I got it from added fans to the heat sinks on top of the Xeon processors, but the rest is the same. Thank you for the suggestion, I'll be looking into that idea you posted.