Gigabyte GA-P35-DS4 (ICH9R) based Hackintosh

[ddrdark]

So is it that you use another update that can make your disks so much faster?

Or is it actully the drive your using, Western Digital 500gb model AAKS SATA II, that makes the difference?

 

One more question.

Do you have another drive installed in the computer?

If you use that drive in zbench, what do you get?

 

//Olof

 

1. I don't think so, it's available for download on the pirate bay.

2. Nop, the WD and Seagate have the same performance.

3. Nop, I don't have other disk to test it, sorry

 

hope this helps

 

PD: By the way, new F6 BIOS is available for download. Try it!. Grettings!

[LS8]

BTW does speedstep work for you? Using CoreDuoTemp I found that my CPU runs only at 1.5GHz instead of 3GHz.

What .kext and userspace app works stable in OS X 10.4.10 for you?

[olofd]

Problem with diskpeed solved!

I bought a Western Digital 320gb AAKS today.

And I can gladly report that I Outruns all my other drives.

In xbench i got this results with my old spinpoint drive:

 

Disk Test 51.67

Sequential 121.51

Uncached Write 167.36 102.76 MB/sec [4K blocks]

Uncached Write 155.10 87.76 MB/sec [256K blocks]

Uncached Read 72.55 21.23 MB/sec [4K blocks]

Uncached Read 148.99 74.88 MB/sec [256K blocks]

Random 32.81

Uncached Write 10.30 1.09 MB/sec [4K blocks]

Uncached Write 135.05 43.24 MB/sec [256K blocks]

Uncached Read 93.03 0.66 MB/sec [4K blocks]

Uncached Read 149.97 27.83 MB/sec [256K blocks]

 

With the Western Digital AAKS i got this:

 

Disk Test 89.62

Sequential 123.30

Uncached Write 118.23 72.59 MB/sec [4K blocks]

Uncached Write 128.26 72.57 MB/sec [256K blocks]

Uncached Read 108.09 31.63 MB/sec [4K blocks]

Uncached Read 144.19 72.47 MB/sec [256K blocks]

Random 58.79

Uncached Write 26.40 2.37 MB/sec [4K blocks]

Uncached Write 171.81 55.00 MB/sec [256K blocks]

Uncached Read 94.49 0.67 MB/sec [4K blocks]

Uncached Read 143.06 26.55 MB/sec [256K blocks]

 

This means that for the P35 boards a Western Digital aaks is a great choice.

(I will buy two more of those)

 

 

Nice conclusion!

 

//Olof

[ddrdark]

BTW does speedstep work for you? Using CoreDuoTemp I found that my CPU runs only at 1.5GHz instead of 3GHz.

What .kext and userspace app works stable in OS X 10.4.10 for you?

mmm... I don't know is speedstep is workin' or not. Speedstep isn't a problem to me coz doesn't increase the performance and my PC is a desktop so...

mmm CoreDuoTemp if a soft or what? where I can get it?

 

What do u mean with stable kexts?, the apps... well All apps I use are stable (adium, quicktime, vlc, cs3 suite, cocktail, etc)

 

[LS8]

Speedstep is not only needed to slow your CPU down to save energy, but also for opposite reason - make the CPU work on its maximum possible frequency.

 

CoreDuoTemp is an application for displaying current CPU temperature, load, frequency and uptime.

 

My CPU only runs on its lowest possible frequency (1.5GHz), and I cannot force it to run on max (3GHz). If you want speedstep to work, you need a kernel extension (kext) to be loaded and a userspace application to control the values. For 10.4.8/10.4.9 kernels there exists ACPI CPU Throttler package plus DCPUManager 0.5 update. AFAIK this package doesn't work in 10.4.10 ( http://www.micropctalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2476 ). This is pretty important because my machine only uses 50% of its potential.

[olofd]

Are you sure that it's not core2temp that reads the cpu wrong?

I got a q6600 overclocked to 3.24ghz and I too get 1.5ghz from speedstep.

But both bios, osx info sayes 3,24

 

 

PLEASE LET ME KNOW WHEN YOU FIND OUT!

 

//Olof

[LS8]

I don't know. I need to do more research.

[3phemeral]

kext for ALC889A working w/ input and digital out. Not all ports have been tested but i assume they work. Credits to kossi of course.

It's fully functional now

 

About those XBenches: The results with your WD drive are higher, but when actually comparing the values they're very similar. Maybe another disk-benchmarking program would be better for this purpose... Don't ask me which one tho

[ddrdark]

Are you sure that it's not core2temp that reads the cpu wrong?

I got a q6600 overclocked to 3.24ghz and I too get 1.5ghz from speedstep.

But both bios, osx info sayes 3,24

PLEASE LET ME KNOW WHEN YOU FIND OUT!

 

//Olof

Yes... I think that coreduotemp reads wrong the temp and speed, and I know that coz in my BIOS settings all that features are disabled (CPU Enhanced halt, CPU Thermal monitor, CPU EIST function, Virtualization technology), so it's imposible to scale down my CPU by software (I guess...)

 

In my case osx says that I've 4ghz CPU

 

Modelo de ordenador: ACPI

Tipo de CPU: Intel® Core2 CPU 6600 @

Velocidad de la CPU: 4.05 GHz

Número de núcleos: 2

Caché de nivel 2 (por CPU): 4 MB

Características de la CPU: FPU VME DE PSE TSC MSR PAE MCE CX8 APIC SEP MTRR PGE MCA CMOV PAT PSE36 CLFSH DS ACPI MMX FXSR SSE SSE2 SS HTT TM SSE3 MON DSCPL VMX EST TM2 MNI CX16 TPR

Velocidad del bus: 450 MHz

[LS8]

First post updated with my latest configuration.

[rhalls]

M&K: Logitech wireless Keyboard & Mouse - Working with Offical Driver

Hey Bluejackey, which Mouse/KB do you use? The S530? Cause mine doesnt work correct with my intel Bad Axe but works well with my Asriock Board.

[empire29]

Has anyone gotten a the GA-P35-DS4 to wake from sleep?

 

I've Upgraded from JAS 10.4.8 SSE2/3 w PPF1/2 > JAS 10.4.9 Combo > KoolKal 10.4.10 Combo and I still cannot awake from sleep (I have a BFG 7950GT PCI-E video card in the first (closest to the CPU PCE-I slot)

 

I've also had a bit of trouble by SATA AHCI Device Detection at boot -- it will "randomly" fail verifying/finding my SATA DVD Drive (Lite-on 20x DVD+-RW) -- has anyone had any problems with this?

 

Thanks

[stigma]

I've been using a very similar setup to the OP for over a month now. I did have sleep working fine, now it's not working anymore, still have problems with the CD rom drive disappearing after a while. I think the machine is fairly stable. Although I do have a some unusal filesystem issues occasionaly, ie files seem to get corrupted when coppied to other locations. Despite that it does cut video with final cut pro 5 fine and it works like a normal make 96% of the time.NB: I also found turning on SMART in the bios improved performance significantly (10 xbench points atleast). I don't think its turned on by default.I've also lowered the voltage on the CPU to 1.1V to improve cooling (1.3 is default).

[LS8]

Has anyone gotten a the GA-P35-DS4 to wake from sleep?

 

No. My machine also doesn't wake from sleep, so I have disabled sleep in Energy Saver.

 

XxX 10.4.10 (kernel 8.10.1) works excellent for me, I have only two minor problems:

 

1/ Sometimes after computer start the PS2 keyboard doesn't work, I have to reboot again and then it works.

2/ Sometimes USB devices connected before computer started aren't detected. Need to either reboot or unplug and replug the USB device again (USB mouse, USB Elgato Eyetv Diversity, USB disk)

[royco]

For those having problems with Sleep ( not successfully waking up) see my thread.

 

http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?sho...mp;#entry471698

 

I may be using a different model but im may be very similar in terms of Bios settings. Please report back.

[slowpork]

hi.

Do you know if audio digital in work (SPDIF-IN)? Does it show up?

 

Thanks!

Slowpork

[empire29]

Interesting bit of information.

 

I have a SATA DVD Drive and SATA HDD Drive, thus i my SATA Controllers to run in AHCI mode.

Doing this, "randomly" my SATA drives would not be detected at boot up -- the AHCI SATA Detection process could not find/verify my SATA devices, and causing overall system instability.

 

I contacted Gigabyte support about this issue and they replied with:

 

If you wish to setup ahci mode you wil not be able to use the optical sata drive on the same controller. If the hdd is under the Intel controller as ahci mode you will need to use the sata optical drive under the Gsata controller setup as IDE.

Make sure no sata optical drives are place on the controller which has sata hdd set to AHCI mode.

 

SATA optical drive cannot operate in AHCI mode which is an mode for hdd usage.

There will be stability issue when it is set to that mode.

 

SATA Raid/AHCI Mode is the Intel controller under BIOS

Onboard SATA/IDE Ctrl Mode is the Gsata controller

 

 

To run a stable system with you SATA HDDs running in AHCI mode, you must:

 

Hook your SATA HDDs up to the Orange Intel ICH9 SATA Controllers and in the BIOS set:

Intergrated peripherals > SATA RAID/AHCI Mode: AHCI

 

Hook your SATA Optical Drives up to the Purple JMicron/GSata Controllers and in the BIOS set:

Intergrated peripherals > Onboard SATA/IDE Ctrl Mode: IDE

 

 

I believe this is the case on all motherboards, but Gigabyte confirmed this to be the case on the GA-P35-DS4 rev2.0.

[hackcat]

I just got the GA-P35-DS4 rev2.0 myself and installed the F7 BIOS and do not have that problem with my SATA optical. I'm using a Samsung Lightscribe model CDDVDW SH-S203N in the first Sata port. During the AHCI device scanning, I always see my optical. Maybe this is a function of the F7 BIOS? I have yet to burn DVDs in either XP or OS X, but I've definitely installed both OSes via my Sata optical and installed apps via optical with 0 stability issues.

[empire29]

Hackcat,

 

Interesting - i will have to upgrade to F7 - i am running BIOS F5. Like is said, this problem seemed to occur "randomly" - maybe 5-10% of the time when i booted up. It normally seemed to be preceeded by me doing something disk related (disk utility, burning a DVD, etc) in OSX. (I was able to install OSX and XP using my SATA optical drives on the AHCI enabled SATA controllers as well without incident.)

 

Anyhow - I thought i would post this incase anyone was having the same problem i was, and to let people know that Gigabyte does not officially support running SATA Optical drives in AHCI mode on this MB (regardless if it works or not)

 

 

 

Also on different note altogether - i spent several hours searching the web to figure out if this motherboard could successful sleep/wake from S3 sleep (suspend to RAM, CPU and System fans are turned off). Unforunately I couldnt find anything that would cause my computer to wake from sleep.

 

I did find out that if you set your sleep type in the BIOS to S1, the computer will sleep/wake. S1 Sleep only spinsdown the HDDs and turns off the display - not nearly as good as S3 sleep but atleast if you accidently set your computer to sleep you dont have to power-cycle it to get it back.

[kamikaze2112]

So i would assume that all the orange ports are available for use once the OS is loaded?

[empire29]

So i would assume that all the orange ports are available for use once the OS is loaded?

 

I am fairly certain they all work. I will try to confirm and update this post tonight with my findings.

 

Something else to note - I do not know if the Purple Jmicron SATA Controllers work during install -- I installed OSX with both my SATA HDD and SATA DVD drive connected to the Orange Intel SATA Controllers running in AHCI mode. If you cannot install with your SATA DVD drive connected to the Purple JMicron SATA Controller - plug the SATA DVD drive into the Orange Intel SATA Controller - install OSX and then switch your SATA DVD Drive over to the Purple Jmicron controller (running in IDE mode).

[hackcat]

empire29,

 

Interesting info, thanks for the heads up. If you used XxX 10.4.10, then the jMicron drivers included in the DVD should cover the purple ports. Right now I have my purple ports disabled and am running all my Sata devices of the ICH9R chipset. I'm about to try out JaS 10.4.8 (ppf1 +ppf2) updated with the KoolKal 10.4.10 update. According to some this is the sequence of updates necessary for S3 sleep. I'll report back when I get around to it. Right now using XxX and wake from sleep doesn't work. Not sure if this is a video card issue, I have a 7900GT so chances are this isn't the problem.

[empire29]

empire29,

 

Interesting info, thanks for the heads up. If you used XxX 10.4.10, then the jMicron drivers included in the DVD should cover the purple ports. Right now I have my purple ports disabled and am running all my Sata devices of the ICH9R chipset. I'm about to try out JaS 10.4.8 (ppf1 +ppf2) updated with the KoolKal 10.4.10 update. According to some this is the sequence of updates necessary for S3 sleep. I'll report back when I get around to it. Right now using XxX and wake from sleep doesn't work. Not sure if this is a video card issue, I have a 7900GT so chances are this isn't the problem.

 

Please keep us posted on the S3 Sleep -- I tried upgrading from jas 10.4.8 SSE2/SEE3 w PPF1 & PPF2 > JAS 10.4.9 Combo Update > KoolKal 10.4.10 Update and did NOT get sleep/wake to work on my GA-P35-DS4. I did have S3 sleep running on my GA-965P-DS3 using the aforementioned JAS 10.4.8 installed before I upgraded my MB to the GA-P35-DS4. Fyi - I have a PCI-E BFG 7950GT Video Card.

 

*** NOTE: My original post had a typo. I said "I tried upgrading from jas 10.4.8 SSE2/SEE3 w PPF1 & PPF2 > JAS 10.4.9 Combo Update > KoolKal 10.4.10 Update and did get sleep/wake to work on my GA-P35-DS4." it should have read: "

I tried upgrading from jas 10.4.8 SSE2/SEE3 w PPF1 & PPF2 > JAS 10.4.9 Combo Update > KoolKal 10.4.10 Update and did NOT get sleep/wake to work on my GA-P35-DS4." Sorry about that.

[build]

Please keep us posted on the S3 Sleep -- I tried upgrading from jas 10.4.8 SSE2/SEE3 w PPF1 & PPF2 > JAS 10.4.9 Combo Update > KoolKal 10.4.10 Update and did get sleep/wake work on my GA-P35-DS4. I did have S3 sleep running on my GA-965P-DS3 using the aforementioned JAS 10.4.8 installed before I upgraded my MB to the GA-P35-DS4. Fyi - I have a PCI-E BFG 7950GT Video Card.

 

I also have sleep working on my P35-DS4, I used the same install and upgrade as above. Specs in my sig.

[hackcat]

empire29, I went straight from JaS 10.4.8 (ppf1 & ppf2) to the Koolkal 10.4.10 combo updater and sleep now works. No 10.4.9 combo update step for me. I still have to get around to Photoshop and patch my system some more, so I'll report back then. One thing that was left from my XxX 10.4.10 install was the MBR partition scheme, something the JaS 10.4.8 DVD disk utility does not seem to provide. Don't know if it makes a difference. I also have EIST enabled and HPET disabled in BIOS, and will be looking some more into these settings. I'm using NVinject for my 7900GT.

 

Curiously while running under the 10.4.8 kernel, sleep did not work, and even worse after such attempts my BIOS would lockup at reboot. I had to completely power down the computer (switch off my psu) and then the computer would boot back up. Never had such problems when I attempted to sleep with the XxX 10.4.10 install. But all seems good now that the Koolkal update is in place.

 

Next step is to overclock my E6750.