The Official Asus F3 Series Notebook Thread!

[AlexIT]

Is this the case with both the 8400 and 8600 GS (what I have on the F3SV)? Do you know if there's any work being done on it? I just spent the last two hours digging around everywhere and I couldn't find anything that tells me what to do.. everything seems to be under development or not working at all

It's the same for any G84 G86 card ... the only working card is Gf8800 , and they really didn't understand why it's working ... only luck

 

For the mobile versions the are problems with IOFrameBuffer addressing (and NVCAP values ...)

The IONDRV kexts just freezes (with no errors) as soon as it enable the memory page.

 

And I had no time to study it more ...

 

Just to tell you ... these are the differences I noticed between Apple and Asus vga card ...

	01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation Unknown device 0407 (rev a1) (prog-if 00 [VGA])
Subsystem: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. Unknown device 1513
Control: SERR+
Latency: 0
Region 0: Memory at fc000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16M]
Region 1: Memory at c0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
Region 3: Memory at fa000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=32M]
Region 5: I/O ports at bc00 [size=128]
Expansion ROM at fdfe0000 [disabled] [size=128K]
Link: ASPM Disabled RCB 128 bytes CommClk- 


01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation Unknown device 0407 (rev a1) (prog-if 00 [VGA])
Subsystem: Apple Computer Inc. Unknown device 00a0
Control: SERR-
Latency: 0, Cache Line Size: 256 bytes
Region 0: Memory at 92000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16M]
Region 1: Memory at 80000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
Region 3: Memory at 90000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=32M]
Region 5: I/O ports at 5000 [size=128]
Expansion ROM at 93000000 [disabled] [size=128K]
Link: ASPM L0s L1 Enabled RCB 128 bytes CommClk+

[maxoid]

First of all I want to say a big THANKS to AlexIT and everybody who participated in making OS X run on this ASUS machine.

 

I just want to let you know that it also perfectly worked for me on Asus W7S notebook.

It's quite similar to F3 series with a couple of differences.

 

I got almost everything running well to the same extend as anyone else, I assume.

I'm a bit more lucky, than F3 owners, as I have full networking (W7S comes with Realtek Gigabit LAN and I've also replaced the stock intel 3945a/b/g card with one based on Atheros chipset).

 

BTW, my UVC camera only works with original 10.4.11 AppleSMBIOS.kext (which fails to show the System info in Profiler) and one of the old Netkas AppleSMBIOS.kext (which shows incorrect number of CPUS and incorrect memory info).

It doesn't work with the kext that can be found in this thread - I don't know why.

 

MaX

[antaholics]

First of all I want to say a big THANKS to AlexIT and everybody who participated in making OS X run on this ASUS machine.

 

I just want to let you know that it also perfectly worked for me on Asus W7S notebook.

It's quite similar to F3 series with a couple of differences.

 

I got almost everything running well to the same extend as anyone else, I assume.

I'm a bit more lucky, than F3 owners, as I have full networking (W7S comes with Realtek Gigabit LAN and I've also replaced the stock intel 3945a/b/g card with one based on Atheros chipset).

 

BTW, my UVC camera only works with original 10.4.11 AppleSMBIOS.kext (which fails to show the System info in Profiler) and one of the old Netkas AppleSMBIOS.kext (which shows incorrect number of CPUS and incorrect memory info).

It doesn't work with the kext that can be found in this thread - I don't know why.

 

MaX

 

Congratulations! I am glad it worked out for you!

I'm jealous about the networking though ... I'm still looking on ebay for solutions... right now I'm looking into getting a D-Link USB to Ethernet adapter. I'm really hoping that wireless with the 4965 will be figured out soon *cross fingers*

 

 

Any more success stories? We'd like to hear them!!! I'm sure that AlexIT and myself would be quite happy to find out if people benefited from all of our work (well, AlexIT's work, I just compiled the tutorial )

 

btw, I added the Asus W7S to the working notebooks section in the beginning of the thread. thanks for contributing!!

[maxoid]

Hi,

 

I've played around with AppleHDA.kext a bit according to Taruga's guide.

As a result I've got ALC660 in my W7S works a bit better than with AppleAzalia.

It should also work with F3 series discussed in this topic, as the codecs seem to be the same.

It's still at the very early stage, but you can try it.

 

What works:

- Internal Speakers

- Headphones (including muting speakers when you plug-in jack)

- Line-in (detected as Internal Mic though)

 

What doesn't work:

- Build-in Mic (it can work but needs some more testing)

- Mute control (but as long as volume adjustment works it's not a big issue)

- Sound (both Speakers & Headphones) only works when Internal speakers are selected as output. So, don't select Headphones.

- SPDIF (not tested, might work, might not)

 

The ZIP with KEXTS is attached.

 

- Put AppleHDA.kext and ALCinject.kext to /System/Library/Extensions

- Delete AppleAzalia.kext

- run /sbin/makemkext

- reboot

 

If it works, please post the result.

 

Regards,

MaX

AppleHDA_for_ALC660_beta.zip

[antaholics]

Thanks MaX!

I got the AppleHDA.kext to work!!

 

I think something might be wrong with my makemkext though... it didn't work initially, and "diskutil repairPermissions /" didn't help... I had to

 

chown -R root:wheel /System/Library/Extensions/ALCinject.kext
chmod -R 755 /System/Library/Extensions/ALCinject.kext

before it worked.... diskutil repairPermissions / only helped AppleHDA.kext load

 

I would post screenshots but it's going to be unecessary waste of space

 

However, as you said, when I selected "Headphones" and "Digital Out" no sound came out at all (not even headphones) and volume adjuster was disabled. It said "The selected device has no output controls". Microphone works perfectly (didn't test out actual sound, but sound was being detected)

 

One thing that still peeves me is that the mute doesn't work, and even when I turn the volume all the way down there's still audible sounds coming out

 

It seems louder than AppleAzalia too!!

 

Please do let us know if there's any updates to this or any other components!

 

If you don't mind, I will also add this (with credits to you) to the first post of the topic when I put together the 10.4.11 upgrade guide to help people just starting to read and wanting to join up without reading 7 pages of chit-chat . This will be some time later this week at earliest because I have exams coming up

 

Thanks again,

Ant

[maxoid]

Hi all.

 

Here is a ZIP with updated AppleHDA.kext.

It finally makes Internal speakers and Headphones work correctly together.

When you plug-in headphones, the internal Speakers output device will automatically turn into Headphones output device. And vice-versa.

 

Just replace AppleHDA.kext, run /sbin/makemkext and reboot.

 

The muting still doesn't work unfortunately. I'm working on it, but don't have much time now.

 

I'll keep you updated.

 

Regards,

MaX

AppleHDA.kext.zip

[AlexIT]

@maxoid

I made some changes to get my mic working ...

 

Here's my Info.plist (mainly add a mic_on_node35 cloned from mic_on_node34)

Info.zip

[antaholics]

Thanks for the update maxoid!

 

@AlexIT

is that for the built-in mic?

 

Ant

[AlexIT]

@AlexIT

is that for the built-in mic?

Yes, but the boost is not as i'd like ... you have to take the mic volume loud to record from it.

[AlexIT]

@maxoid

Have you ever tried with a newer version off AppleHDA ? ( for example 1.3.7a23 )

[maxoid]

AlexIT,

 

I've tried a couple of times 1.3.27a, but failed.

AppleHDA.kext for some reason doesn't get loaded automaticaly (and if loaded manually doesn't give any sound).

That's strange as the AppleHDAController.kext actually gets loaded automaticaly.

I don't know what the issue is, mayber I'm missing something.

 

TO ALL:

I think I found what is preventing the mute controll to work properly.

The muting seems do be done through the node 12 (0x0c) while the volumes controlls are being done through node 2.

I don't know yet how to fix it, and unfortunately don't have much time to experiment, as I'm on a trip.

If you guys have any ideas, please feel free to experiment or drop me a PM.

 

Regards,

MaX

[AlexIT]

The muting seems do be done through the node 12 (0x0c) while the volumes controlls are being done through node 2.

I don't know yet how to fix it, and unfortunately don't have much time to experiment, as I'm on a trip.

 

It's very strange ...

I tried some combinations , but I can have

1) mute-flag with no volume-control

2) volume-control with no mute-flag

 

I also tried some newer version of AppleHDA. Till 1.3.3a1 it (most) works.

After that there is something strange with the DspPlugin that preventi to activate the nodes.

 

Btw. I'm attaching two working versions.

 

1.2.9a4

SPK-OUT ok

LINE-OUT maybe, i have no way to try it at the moment

LINE-IN ok

MIC-IN ok

still no mute-flag

 

1.3.3a1 ... SPK-OUT LINE-OUT(maybe) LINE-IN MIC-IN (still no mute-flag)

SPK-OUT ok

LINE-OUT maybe, i have no way to try it at the moment

LINE-IN not tried

MIC-IN ko! the contro is present in the widget, but no sound are captured !?

still no mute-flag

 

I have no more time to dedicate to it (at the moment), so feel free to download and modify anything you want, and post here the results.

HDA_129a4.tar.gz

HDA_133a1.tar.gz

[antaholics]

I have good news!

 

well, good news for me anyway...

 

I got myself a (refurbished) D-Link DUB-E100 and using the drivers found here

I got my internet to work!!! :D

 

Now the only thing is.. something is weird with my installation... something is taking up all the CPU and I can't figure out what it is... image attached:

 

 

Any idea what's going on? it's heating up my CPU :S

[AlexIT]

Now the only thing is.. something is weird with my installation... something is taking up all the CPU and I can't figure out what it is... image attached:

 

Any idea what's going on? it's heating up my CPU :S

 

WOW 100% !

In my system MDS and CORESERVICED are about on 3% of CPU.

Consider that ITUNES and ADIUM ...

 

Look also i SystemProfiler->Application to see if something is using Rosetta-engine.

If you use non_univeral-binary application it have to use Rosetta to emulate G4 cpu, and it get all the CPU.

 

Strange ... if a sum the cpu-values I see in your picture a get to 50% ... where is the rest ?

[antaholics]

Ok it's sort of weird... I've rebooted my computer a couple of times so far, and twice this happened. Right now it's fine...

 

If it happens again I'll check system profiler... but its REALLY weird that nothing appears to be taking any CPU.

 

Just a quick question... VLT player crashes when I try to play any video... and MPlayer lags with 100% CPU usage (no video card to help?) ... could it be because QE/CI are not working? Quicktime works fine

 

Edit: it just happened again... 100% CPU

 

I checked the Applications in system profiler and didn't see any Rosetta ones... but I see 3 PowerPC apps:

 

1. Turn on X11 Focus Follows Mouse (from Gimp)

2. Java 1.3.1 Plugin Settings (Java)

3. Bits on Wheels (app)

 

I moved bits on wheels to desktop and re-logged in... same thing happens, and bits on wheels is now off the apps list in system profiler. Gimp isn't on...

 

it's so weird!!

 

Edit 2:

 

I think I found the problem... I happened to open up Console and guess what I see?

 

 

apparently blued was crashing repeatedly and recording a huge log (I had to delete it, it's like 200MB)

so I tried to run blued on terminal (don't ask me why) and look wat I got lol...

It didn't help much (I have NO IDEA wat it means) but at least now I know it's bluetooth crashing... and I noticed that bluetooth wasn't working and doesn't show up on system profiler...

 

disabling bluetooth didn't do anything, but unplugging my ethernet adapter and then plugging it back in seemed to fix the problem. Any idea what is the root cause? :S

 

I'm using a D-Link DUB-E100 btw

 

 

Edit 4:

 

I had the same problem again... and this time unplugging the usb adapter or running blued in terminal didn't help at all. I turned off bluetooth with Fn+ F2, and still nothing. I rebooted and it was fine.

 

So the problem is with blued crashing constantly (approx. once per second) and creating a log. I wonder what is wrong?

[AlexIT]

Just a quick question... VLT player crashes when I try to play any video... and MPlayer lags with 100% CPU usage (no video card to help?) ... could it be because QE/CI are not working? Quicktime works fine

VLT ? what is it?

MPlayer ? do you mean the old Mplayer , for G3 ?

If you don't use universal-binary executables, you'll have a problem of 100% cpu busy ... it's the Rosetta issue on HackIntel.

I use VLCplayer0.8.6d for any multimedia thing (Streaming in/out unicast/multicast IPv4/IPv6, FLV, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, DVDs, VCDs, CDs, mp3, ogg, etc.) and it go smoothly with no crashes.

QE is only for 3D, CI could be usefull for VLC and normal GUI thing

 

 

I checked the Applications in system profiler and didn't see any Rosetta ones... but I see 3 PowerPC apps:

 

1. Turn on X11 Focus Follows Mouse (from Gimp)

2. Java 1.3.1 Plugin Settings (Java)

3. Bits on Wheels (app)

 

I moved bits on wheels to desktop and re-logged in... same thing happens, and bits on wheels is now off the apps list in system profiler. Gimp isn't on...

 

Rosetta is the name of the engine, you cannot see it in systemprofile.

If you move applications OsX find them the same !!! (also in the Trash)

You have to delete them and empty the trash if you wanna try.

 

I think I found the problem... I happened to open up Console and guess what I see?

 

apparently blued was crashing repeatedly and recording a huge log (I had to delete it, it's like 200MB)

so I tried to run blued on terminal (don't ask me why) and look wat I got lol...

You cannot run blued in terminal ... it's already running since boot ...

 

... unplugging my ethernet adapter and then plugging it back in seemed to fix the problem. Any idea what is the root cause?

Yes, a bug in the net-dongle .kext !

D-Link DUB-E100 should have the AX88172 chip ... so try using the lates driver for it (ftp://sustworks.com/USBAx8817x_103b8.dmg).

 

 

ps: Did you try my latest AppleHDA ?

[antaholics]

lol, I spelled VLC player wrong (too late in the night to do any spelling )

 

I'm not really sure why it crashes though, I'm using the same version as yours and every time I try to run a .avi or .mkv file, no video comes up and it crashes. QuickTime lags when its playing .avi files (so much that I had to go back to Vista to watch a movie last night), or simply crashes

 

I did download the latest driver for DUB-E100.. so I'm not sure wat to do with that. However, I was trying again earlier and unplugging it didn't help anymroe!! I had to reboot and turn the bluetooth off with Fn+F2.. then it works. Apparently blued keeps crashing and the crash+restart takes up 100% of the CPU.

 

I will try the audio kext now and report back!

 

 

Edit:

 

I tried both HDA-129a4 and HDA-133a1.... and the results were the same as yours.

 

129a4:

Speaker Out is OK, and plays into headphones when headphones were plugged in

Line Out doesn't do anything

 

internal mic works when no mic is plugged in (but the voice is a bit soft... not sure if it was the same in vista)

when mic is plugged in it works too!

 

133a1:

Speakers and headphones same as 129a4

 

internal mic and external mic don't work!!

 

 

both have no mute

 

 

Right now I'm going back to maxoid's 2nd version... cuz the speaker out and mic out are combined and detected properly... and I don't use my internal mic anyways (too much echo)

 

Thanks for the development!

 

Ant

[antaholics]

Is anyone still reading this thread? what happened to the other people trying to install OSX on their F3 series?

 

Anyways now that I've been using OSX for a couple of days with LAN, I am wondering a few things...

 

When I watch videos (.avi, .mkv), quicktime or vlc player lags or crashes. Quicktime takes up 100% of the CPU but it doesn't render the video fast enough so the video is slowed down while the sound is playing at normal rate. Is this purely because I don't have QE/CI working or something else?

 

I'm also wondering what other effects of not having QE/CI has on my system, because some things don't work so nicely. Chess, for example, is unplayable because the screen doesn't get redrawn when I make a move. Web videos lag sometimes or take up a LOT of CPU. (Flash runs okay but takes up 100% CPU). I was trying to do video screen capture and it lags massively with Snapz Pro X2 (okay, maybe that is normal.. but I thought that this computer, being as powerful as it is, can do a bit better). I tried another video screen capture program called iShowU, and the screen doesn't show up (only see cursor). I tried emailing their tech support asking if it's because QE/CI isn't supported on my video card, and the guy asked me what machine I'm using I didn't really want to answer that lol

 

 

iMovie doesn't work and iPhoto's edit screen comes up blank. Google Earth doesn't draw the 3D earth. Bummer.

 

Anyways other things work perfectly fine.. and internet browsing seems quite fast! () Typing in Chinese is a b*tch on a Mac though.

 

I was thinking... AlexIT said that the old AppleACPIPlatform.kext and AppleAPIC.kext were the only ones that worked on the buggy Asus BIOS... I'm not counting on Asus fixing their buggy BIOS any time soon... but is it possible to edit the old kexts to recognize the new CPU's or edit the new kexts to run on the buggy BIOS?

I don't have any programming skills... so I can only throw ideas out for people to try

 

Thanks AlexIT for helping me make things work on my hackintosh!!

[AlexIT]

Is this purely because I don't have QE/CI working or something else?

... but is it possible to edit the old kexts to recognize the new CPU's or edit the new kexts to run on the buggy BIOS?

Try moving away also all Gef* and NV* kext, so using vesa standard driver. Some problem with redrawing should be fixed.

For the ACPI problem ... no solution, the kext we are using does not provide more then one locigal cpu ... there are some missing

call. It was made for apple test machine, their were P4 ss3 cpus with 1core ... the support for dual core was introduced in 10.4.8,

someone should try to find the incompatible code in new kext to allow us using it.

Asus BIOSes (but not only Asus) are optimized for windows, in fact they have some problems also with free-bsd and linux, but in these

OS we have the sources so some tricks had been implemented to workaround the bugs derived from "optimization".

For apic/acpi stuff we don't have the sources

IMHO the real problem should be the AppleApic.kext, and the acpi one is only derived. It's not easy to fix, at all.

 

But the real problem is the NVidia G84 G86 support ... the fùckìng thing is that it's the (almost) same GPU of MacBookPro3,1 !!!

[pentiumiv]

thanks so much to AlexIT & everybody

 

HDA_129a4.tar.gz work for my F3JP

i just change the right id for ICH7 ,and it's working!

 

line-out & mic perfect now.

[PtitKiLL]

Hello, my laptop is an F3sR by asus, and even if i boot with cpus=1 rd=..... options i can't access to any term, eacht time the system hang on "using 10485 buffer...." line @ boot, and no newer bios is avaiable. . . i'm french ^^ sry 4 my english.

 

do you have a solution to execute firsts page commands ! ? or to boot on mac ^^

 

 

 

Bye

[jjduro]

Hi, there is another Asus F3 that manages OSx rather well. The F3Jc.

Everything works, except ABG3945 and the Syntek integrated Camera (you can use it via VmWare Fusion and installing its drivers).

 

Leopard installed and lovin'it!

 

Thanks

[antaholics]

Hello, my laptop is an F3sR by asus, and even if i boot with cpus=1 rd=..... options i can't access to any term, eacht time the system hang on "using 10485 buffer...." line @ boot, and no newer bios is avaiable. . . i'm french ^^ sry 4 my english.

 

do you have a solution to execute firsts page commands ! ? or to boot on mac ^^

 

 

 

Bye

u

 

I'm not really sure what you mean... can you tell us what version of the startup disk yyou're using and what you have done so far?

 

Assuming that you already have OSX installed and cannot boot onto your hard drive, boot off the DVD and type "cpus=1 -v -x rd=disk0s3" on the DVD, not the HD.

 

hope this helps

[antaholics]

Try moving away also all Gef* and NV* kext, so using vesa standard driver. Some problem with redrawing should be fixed.

For the ACPI problem ... no solution, the kext we are using does not provide more then one locigal cpu ... there are some missing

call. It was made for apple test machine, their were P4 ss3 cpus with 1core ... the support for dual core was introduced in 10.4.8,

someone should try to find the incompatible code in new kext to allow us using it.

Asus BIOSes (but not only Asus) are optimized for windows, in fact they have some problems also with free-bsd and linux, but in these

OS we have the sources so some tricks had been implemented to workaround the bugs derived from "optimization".

For apic/acpi stuff we don't have the sources

IMHO the real problem should be the AppleApic.kext, and the acpi one is only derived. It's not easy to fix, at all.

 

But the real problem is the NVidia G84 G86 support ... the fùckìng thing is that it's the (almost) same GPU of MacBookPro3,1 !!!

 

Thanks for the tip about the NV* and Gef* kexts... it did help a bit. Quicktime now can play .avi files without too much lag (and I am REALLY happy about that )

 

However, VLC player still crashes when I try to run any video. I think it has to do with the video output... but I tried changing to each method (Quartz, OpenGL, etc)... and they either lag, crash, or show no video screen. I still can't play .mkv files properly

 

Chess is still broken

 

I really hope that the G84 and G86 drivers will work out soon! It sounds like a massive improvement fingers crossed!

 

Meanwhile, I tried running a video capture utility on Vista and I was suprised by how smoothly it ran (and disappointed at OS X's extreme inability to run it). On OSX I couldn't even record a PORTION of the screen SCALED DOWN without massively lagging. On Vista, I could do a full video screen recording at HIGH fps and full 1440x900 resolution with NO LAG!

 

It really made me feel how cripped OSX is at this point without dual core and G86 drivers... sigh

 

On the bright side, I heard the wireless 4965 drivers are coming soon!

 

Ant

 

P.S. Do you think anyone who has the ability to fix up the ACPI would be interested in such a project? I am absolutely clueless with these things =/

 

Edit: I just noticed that my USB external hard drive is VERY slow on OSX. I'm trying to back up one partition to another (on the same drive) and on Vista I get around 9MB/s... but on OSX I get less than 1MB/s. I tried different USB ports (thinking that diff speed usb devices might have limiting effects) but it's all the same. Same with copying files to the internal HD!

[PtitKiLL]

Mhh ok, form the dvd !!! thanks a lot, i can boot, now i will try first post modification, thanks antaholics !

 

And sorry 4 my english ! again, again.... and again ^^