Jump to content
17 posts in this topic

Recommended Posts

Great Board. I had it running perfectly (except Audio in but Use Edirol USB anyway) with 10.4.10. It really rocked and easily overclocks on stock cooler to 3.0Ghz. Temps all good and Geekbenches at 6000, xBench around 190.

 

I'm using a Q6600 SLACR, an IDE DVD and 74Gb Raptor for o.s, 3x 500Gb Samsung HD501J's, 4GbCorsair Twinx RAM (Very cheap) and a GeForce 7600Gt

 

Just got (Finally) Leopard installed and running using Kalyways's Make Boot CD and TOH Leopard with pc_efi_v51 and have updated to 10.5.1.

 

The board has never let me down with Tiger, it has done hours and hours of Video rendering and encoding.

 

Can't get Sleep to work now with Leopard but I don't understand enough of the 'Clever Stuff' to be able to do it. Think I might try to install the Vanilla kexts next but will have to learn how to do it first. (It took me about 12hours solid reading and experimenting to get Leopard up & Running)

 

Badaxe2 gets ***** from me. I know others have had success with other boards that are probably more future proof but the stability is the biggest issue for me and the Badaxe2 has never ever let me down. Just wish I could get the Sleep/Wake bit sorted.

I am running a q6600 on it as well w/ 10.5.1 flawlessly, everything is working for me.

 

Hardware Overview:

 

Model Name: Mac

Model Identifier: Mac Pro

Processor Speed: 2.4 GHz

Number Of Processors: 1

Total Number Of Cores: 4

L2 Cache: 8 MB

Memory: 4 GB

Bus Speed: 1.07 GHz

 

Though I am not overclocking it, geekbench is 4572, and the top few lines from Xbench:

Results 190.13

System Info

Xbench Version 1.3

System Version 10.5.1 (9B18)

Physical RAM 4096 MB

Model Mac Pro

Drive Type Dumpster

 

Having messed around with a few other boards, this one works great for me.

Ethernet works out of the box. Firewire/USB too.

 

I only use the `intel `Sata ports as I only have 4 drives but I'm sure that BJMoose uses all 8 of his. I seem to remember you must enable ACHI in Bios then Format the drives on the Intel Sata Ports before you put them onto the Marvel ports.

 

Natit Dual2 works for video out, both DVI Ports with dual 23' Cinema displays.

 

For some strange reason I can install 2Gb Ram no problem but if I install 4 the machine won't POST without setting the Ram to run at 533 ????? I think it's because I have a very early Board.

Bad Axe 2 + Q6600 here.

Great board, very stable, upgradeable to Quad Extreme and 8GB RAM. Very easy to overclock too.

Tiger has been running without problems, only sound needed (easy) patching.

I haven't tried Leopard yet.

i have bought one after looking at this post.i should get that in few days.i will post the result with apple install and hardware info.thanks his help me for making my decision.

Great Board. I had it running perfectly (except Audio in but Use Edirol USB anyway) with 10.4.10. It really rocked and easily overclocks on stock cooler to 3.0Ghz. Temps all good and Geekbenches at 6000, xBench around 190.I'm using a Q6600 SLACR, an IDE DVD and 74Gb Raptor for o.s, 3x 500Gb Samsung HD501J's, 4GbCorsair Twinx RAM (Very cheap) and a GeForce 7600GtJust got (Finally) Leopard installed and running using Kalyways's Make Boot CD and TOH Leopard with pc_efi_v51 and have updated to 10.5.1.The board has never let me down with Tiger, it has done hours and hours of Video rendering and encoding.Can't get Sleep to work now with Leopard but I don't understand enough of the 'Clever Stuff' to be able to do it. Think I might try to install the Vanilla kexts next but will have to learn how to do it first. (It took me about 12hours solid reading and experimenting to get Leopard up & Running)Badaxe2 gets ***** from me. I know others have had success with other boards that are probably more future proof but the stability is the biggest issue for me and the Badaxe2 has never ever let me down. Just wish I could get the Sleep/Wake bit sorted.
i am going by your post because i am going to be using this for video editing.you think you can help me if i run in to any problem installing the leopard?thank for your support.

My Badaxe 2 ran Vista flawlessly, and now runs Leopard flawlessly; the only tweak I have to make is the HDA patcher - everything else works great! I ran my CPU at 3.2GHz when I had Vista, but dropped back to 2.4GHz after installing Leopard because the heat production was getting unbearable, and Leopard doesn't need 3.2GHz. :(

I've been a proponent of the BA2 for quite awhile now. Even though it's been out for over a year now, it has run everything I could throw at it from Tiger 10.4.4 through the latest 10.4.11. When Leopard came out and Netkas introduced his pc-efi, I hesitated to upgrade for a couple of weeks, but when I finally applied efi to my Brazilmac patched Leopard disk, I was amazed at how this 975X based board booted and everything worked with no tweaks (I use USB sound).

 

I became a bit of a doubter when GUID + EFI became available and I could not get my system to boot. I thought it might be the end of upgradability for the BA2. But now, having found that it only involved a very minor tweak, I now have a GUID + EFI system that was installed with the full retail Leopard disk (printer drives, languages, x11 etc), all vanilla, with the exception of adding dsmos and nvinject. My Geekbench score is 5547 (I only have a 7600GS gfx card) and 194.2 on Xbench. It runs all FCS2 and CS3 software flawlessly (haven't really done too much experimenting with the non-video editing stuff though).

 

I haven't installed Leopard on my MacPro yet, but I was pleasantly surprised to find out (when I visited my local Apple store) that the extended length of time it takes to do disk permissions on Leopard on my hack is occurring on real macs too. It appears to be an OS thing...not a hack thing.

 

So, in answer to your opening question...is the BS2 the best? There are some on this forum who would say theirs is better because it's newer and will take the newer chips coming down the road. All I can say is that everything we've been mentioning in this thread just works and works well. There are no conflicts with jmicron controllers or ahci vs. ide or anything else I'm aware of. I'm running 2 ide pioneer dvd writers and have access to all 8 of my hd controller ports. All usb ports work as does firewire and ethernet. Onboard sound needs a patch to get sound out (mic in doesn't work on a lot of boards). My usb sound gives me both. The BA2 is easy to overclock, although it is not an overclocker/gamer's dream board. That's never been a concern of mine. My QX6700 does everything I need to do just fine. Hope this helps.

@ BJMoose

 

Cheers for your guide. I got a BA2 earlier in the week and read your trials about getting efi to work - I did think I'd have to send the board back until your breakthrough!

 

One thing I'd like to know is if the BIOS fan speed controller works ok, I can't see why it wouldn't but I saw a post on here about not being able to control fans on a Bad Axe 2?

I'm really tempted to upgrade my hack with this board but I'm worried about 45nm compatability. I know Intel demoed a modified Badaxe2 running a penryn but I have yet to see anyone else do it. Does anyone know of a mod yet?

 

As an owner of 3 BadAxe2 boards I was searching the net a little today to see if I could find anyone who as done this yet and I also came up empty. I found lots of articles mentioning the "Pre Production" board or modified board that intel used but nothing that anyone had done to there own board. I would love to be able to get the BIOS off that "Demo" board and some specs as to what they changed (VRM) etc.....

I'm really tempted to upgrade my hack with this board but I'm worried about 45nm compatability. I know Intel demoed a modified Badaxe2 running a penryn but I have yet to see anyone else do it. Does anyone know of a mod yet?

 

I wouldn't care too much about Penryn if I were you. Penryn is only an incremental upgrade, not a big deal. The next big step is going to be Nehalem:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nehalem_(CPU_architecture)

Bad Axe 2 owners, what sound file patch did you use to get audio output working? I've used HDApatcher 1.16 and 1.17 plus a couple different files, no luck. If someone could zip up a working copy for me and attach it here, that would be wonderful!

 

http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?sho...c=60295&hl=

×
×
  • Create New...