[Guide & Software] Complete Intel Bad Axe 2 Walkthrough with Software

[H36]

I'm having a bit of trouble with Leopard...been following this guide and while it's been the best so far, it's still not 100%

 

Audio is fine as is (mute and input aren't a big deal to me), wouldn't mind the Marvell controller working but not critical, and LAN works great.

 

I used Tiger for a few months but switched back to XP for networking reasons....until ~10 days ago, that's what I was using.

 

Hardware:

XBX2 (non-KR)

QX6700

Lots of RAM (2GB kits, 4GB kits--all stable stuff, not super fast though)

X1600Pro 256 ATInject method found here: http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showtopic=69345

Few hard drives.

 

What I'm having problems with is stability. The hardware had over 47days of continuous uptime in XP at 3.55GHz over November, December, and first few days of January until I restarted to try this....but I can barely get 3 hours of uptime on Leopard--at stock (2.66GHz). In fact, 3.55GHz lasts the same amount of time (and it really seems random), so I don't think it's a CPU/board/RAM issue. I've tested 3 sets of known-good RAM at super-slow speeds, so I know that's not it either.

 

What happens is the GUI crashes (I think). The mouse still moves (though the beach ball spins for the first few minutes, and clicking doesn't work at all), music in iTunes keeps playing, streaming iTunes Radio music keeps playing, downloads continue (so far as I can tell), audio from video keeps playing, HandBrake encodes continue (without error), etc. When it does crash, it seems just about everything keeps working except for what I see--but Share Screen also refuses to connect (have a MBP I use to control it) so it has to be turned off via reset button. It has happened at the desktop, in every screensaver I've tried, and during movies. Again, seems random.

 

One thing of interest is I tried updating to 10.5.1 and it broke my X1600 driver install, disabling QE/CI and res control and it did not crash, but it was only like this for ~4-5 hours before I decided to reinstall, so maybe I reinstalled before it could error/crash.

[jdsmith2816]

Greetings:

 

I appear to be having issues. First, my system specs:

 

BadAxe 2 (not the -kr or whatever)

q6600

4gig corsair xms-2

XFX GeForce 8800 GTX

150gb Raptor as primary drive

2x500gb WD drives for storage (currently unplugged)

 

Here is the story so far... I do not have an actual retail leopard disc so I first started by converting an upgrade to a retail (search on google, numerous links to teh blog post) and using brazilmac on that... That disc had major issues though, I guess the blog guy was wrong and there are more differences after all.

 

Next I download the Kalyway 10.5.1 disc and a pre-patched brazilmac image.

 

The kalyway finishes first so I try using vanilla mode on that disc.. It get to around 4mins remaining on the install and then a spinning circle comes up and it reboots.

 

Brazilmac is still downloading so I go ahead and install using the non-vanilla kernel and I do get it to boot with most things working out of the box.

 

Brazilmac finishes downloading so I start over using your guide.. kalyway make hd disc then brazilmac, it gets to 4mins remaining pops up a spinning circle and proceeds to just reboot. It's not the normal "rebooting in 30 seconds" thing, it just suddenly goes off after a spinning circle for a few secs.

 

Does anyone have any idea what I may be doing wrong?

 

Best regards,

 

JD Smith

[jdsmith2816]

Also is it just me or does that link to the ionetworking kext give you a kext folder that's completely empty?

[hakeem9]

I'm having a bit of trouble with Leopard...been following this guide and while it's been the best so far, it's still not 100%

 

Audio is fine as is (mute and input aren't a big deal to me), wouldn't mind the Marvell controller working but not critical, and LAN works great.

 

I used Tiger for a few months but switched back to XP for networking reasons....until ~10 days ago, that's what I was using.

 

Hardware:

XBX2 (non-KR)

QX6700

Lots of RAM (2GB kits, 4GB kits--all stable stuff, not super fast though)

X1600Pro 256 ATInject method found here: http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showtopic=69345

Few hard drives.

 

What I'm having problems with is stability. The hardware had over 47days of continuous uptime in XP at 3.55GHz over November, December, and first few days of January until I restarted to try this....but I can barely get 3 hours of uptime on Leopard--at stock (2.66GHz). In fact, 3.55GHz lasts the same amount of time (and it really seems random), so I don't think it's a CPU/board/RAM issue. I've tested 3 sets of known-good RAM at super-slow speeds, so I know that's not it either.

 

What happens is the GUI crashes (I think). The mouse still moves (though the beach ball spins for the first few minutes, and clicking doesn't work at all), music in iTunes keeps playing, streaming iTunes Radio music keeps playing, downloads continue (so far as I can tell), audio from video keeps playing, HandBrake encodes continue (without error), etc. When it does crash, it seems just about everything keeps working except for what I see--but Share Screen also refuses to connect (have a MBP I use to control it) so it has to be turned off via reset button. It has happened at the desktop, in every screensaver I've tried, and during movies. Again, seems random.

 

One thing of interest is I tried updating to 10.5.1 and it broke my X1600 driver install, disabling QE/CI and res control and it did not crash, but it was only like this for ~4-5 hours before I decided to reinstall, so maybe I reinstalled before it could error/crash.

 

This has got to be an ATI issue; I've now built 5 systems based on the BX2KR/Q6600 combo and we are leaving them running 24/7 under heavy rendering loads using After Effects and Final Cut. Not even close to a hitch or a crash the entire time.

 

My home system (also a BX2KR/Q6600) was up for 18 days before I took it down to overclock (now running stable at 3.33ghz). Ditch the ATi card and get an 8800GTS/GTX!

[jdsmith2816]

Sweet, no clue what I did differently but I'm up and going now with everything recognized except for one snag. I could not replace the IONetworking.kext because the one in the patch gave an amazing amount of permission errors due to a ton of ._* directorys and ._* inside of the kext... Basically the entire conents duplicated with a ._ prefix.

 

I manually deleted all of them and then installed it but that did not work, it booted up and says the extensions were not installed properly and could not load. Could someone point me to a working IONetworking.kext that I can download? The attached one that the link on page 1 points to is empty for me. I have tried extracting the ORIGINAL IONetworking.kext from the Thumb Stick package and it always has the ._ files in it so I assume it's not just my end. The updated .kext is also always empty so not sure that' son my end either.

 

Best regards,

 

JD Smith

[H36]

This has got to be an ATI issue; I've now built 5 systems based on the BX2KR/Q6600 combo and we are leaving them running 24/7 under heavy rendering loads using After Effects and Final Cut. Not even close to a hitch or a crash the entire time.

 

My home system (also a BX2KR/Q6600) was up for 18 days before I took it down to overclock (now running stable at 3.33ghz). Ditch the ATi card and get an 8800GTS/GTX!

I actually have an 8800GTS sitting around doing nothing...haha. Have my X1600 cooled passively by an Arctic Cooling S2, kinda wanted to use it for silence but I'll throw in my 8800GTS tomorrow and see how that does.

 

Thanks

[hakeem9]

I actually have an 8800GTS sitting around doing nothing...haha. Have my X1600 cooled passively by an Arctic Cooling S2, kinda wanted to use it for silence but I'll throw in my 8800GTS tomorrow and see how that does.

 

Thanks

 

No worries, the latest NVinject (0.2.1) is pretty solid. I also *don't* recommend using the 10.5.2 Geforce kext's and OpenGL.framework as these seems to have all sorts of Coreimage problems. Stick with the original 10.5.0 stuff and use the latest NVinject and everything seems to be great.

[funstuie]

Sweet, no clue what I did differently but I'm up and going now with everything recognized except for one snag. I could not replace the IONetworking.kext because the one in the patch gave an amazing amount of permission errors due to a ton of ._* directorys and ._* inside of the kext... Basically the entire conents duplicated with a ._ prefix.

 

I manually deleted all of them and then installed it but that did not work, it booted up and says the extensions were not installed properly and could not load. Could someone point me to a working IONetworking.kext that I can download? The attached one that the link on page 1 points to is empty for me. I have tried extracting the ORIGINAL IONetworking.kext from the Thumb Stick package and it always has the ._ files in it so I assume it's not just my end. The updated .kext is also always empty so not sure that' son my end either.

 

Best regards,

 

JD Smith

 

If you have another mac format the usb key as journalled (if you don't have another mac boot off the brazilmac dvd and use the disk utility to format the key then use MacDrive to copy the data onto the key). Then copy all the files over and it will work fine. I was having exactly the same issue as you and this worked perfectly.

 

This is the networking kext you need

 

Stu

[The Baron]

Sweet, no clue what I did differently but I'm up and going now with everything recognized except for one snag. I could not replace the IONetworking.kext because the one in the patch gave an amazing amount of permission errors due to a ton of ._* directorys and ._* inside of the kext... Basically the entire conents duplicated with a ._ prefix.

 

I manually deleted all of them and then installed it but that did not work, it booted up and says the extensions were not installed properly and could not load. Could someone point me to a working IONetworking.kext that I can download? The attached one that the link on page 1 points to is empty for me. I have tried extracting the ORIGINAL IONetworking.kext from the Thumb Stick package and it always has the ._ files in it so I assume it's not just my end. The updated .kext is also always empty so not sure that' son my end either.

 

Best regards,

 

JD Smith

 

Not just you, it always downloads empty here too, I use the kext from the BA Pack, seems to work well here.

[Nano07]

Dear Weaksauce:

 

Thanks a lot AGAIN for your great guide!!! :-)

 

Finally!!!! I got all my hardware!

 

Case: Antec TITAN650 - 650W

INTEL: Q6600

Mother: D975XBX2KR

RAM: 4Gb - 2x Corsair PC-5300 (667MHz) DDR2 RAM

Graphics: Inno3D GF 8800GTS PCI-E 512MB 256-bit DDR3

HD: 1Tb - 2x Samsung 500GB

DVD: LITE-ON DVD+-20X8X8/8X4,DVDRAM12X,CD48X32X48,SATA

 

 

I followed the guide and everything installs smoothly.

 

After reboot, I start installing the patches, and after installing the graphics patch, the system freezes (at the gray screen) with a message saying "you must restart the computer"

 

The driver I choose from the USB stick guide is the 512 version.

 

Should I be choosing another one? Also, how can I revert to the original standard driver after installing one that doesn't work (so not to re-install everything again)

 

THANKS :-)

[jdsmith2816]

---------------------------------------

Sorry for the long post, I just really wanted to make sure I properly explained the situation this time. If you are not willing to read the full thing my questions are on the last few lines.

---------------------------------------

 

funstuie: Thank you for the link however if you open that up and then go inside the IONetworking.kext contained in that zip you will find that it is empty. I did however go ahead and reformat it to journaled and installed all of the ba_pack files onto the thumb drive. I am currently at work but hopefully things will go smoother once I get home.

 

Here is how things actually worked out last night; sorry for the jumbled explanation at like 2am this morning. As I said before I was getting permission errors when copying the IONetworking so I culled out all ._* files and it copied fine but upon booting up leopard I got errors relating to the IONetworking.kext I reapplied the permissions, repaired disk permissions, kextload /System/Library/Extensions kextcache -k /System/Library/Extensions and kextcache -L -N -e and everything began working after a reboot with -f.

 

At this point I go sweet! I'm golden! I then proceed to apply the apple updates and, upon restart, it loads up fine and all but my bluetooth, firewire, and networking are dead again.

 

Doh! I go check out the IONetworking.kext and all of those ._* files are back so I cull them out again, accidentally chmod -R 775 the entire extensions dir instead of just IONetworking, chown -R root:wheel IONetworking, rm /System/Library/Extensions.mkext, repair disk permissions, kextload /System/Library/Extensions/IONetworking.ext (says it's already loaded thi stime), kextcache -k /System/Library/Extensions, and kextcache -L -N -e then do a reboot with -f

 

This is the point where my system becomes unbootable When using -v it just hangs right after the messages about ntp and -x won't allow it to boot into safe mode. At this point it was 2:30am or so and I was just too tired to even see if it would boot in single user.

 

Soooo my question now is... Should I do another complete install or, assuming I can boot using -s, would it be safe to just delete the IONetworking.kext and replace it with the one from the ba_pack I extracted onto the hfs+ journaled flash drive?

 

Also, my network card works just fine under Tiger with no modifications, why do we need a different one under Leopard? *ponders*

 

Best regards,

 

JD Smith

[weaksauce12]

I'm releasing Revision 2 of the Guide this weekend, mostly just small fixes. But it should work fine for everyone now (BA2 + BA2-KR).

 

Straying a little-off topic, I just finished the sub-$500 Gigabyte-based Hackintosh. I think my version of Kalyway is bad, so I made an installer disc using a script instead. Here are the benchmarks:

 

Xbench = 145.45

Geekbench = 2635

 

Looks good so far, installing software and playing with it. Doesn't feel as powerful as my Bad Axe though

[H36]

Forgot I had this problem....maybe this could be affecting my problems...

 

During the install, when I do this:

cd /Volumes/PATCHER/

 

cp -R dsmos.kext AppleSMBIOS.kext IONetworkingFamily.kext /Volumes/Leopard/System/Library/Extensions/

 

I get pages upon pages of error messages saying it's not allowed. Have others had this?

[jdsmith2816]

Yep, it's actually the IONetworking.kext that is giving you the errors. According to earlier posts the solution is to format the thumb drive as hfs+ journaled instead of fat32 and THEN put the files on it. I currently have this problem but will update the thread when I get home in a couple hours and try with the hfs+ formatted copy.

 

Best regards,

 

JD Smith

[Nano07]

Forgot I had this problem....maybe this could be affecting my problems...

 

During the install, when I do this:

cd /Volumes/PATCHER/

 

cp -R dsmos.kext AppleSMBIOS.kext IONetworkingFamily.kext /Volumes/Leopard/System/Library/Extensions/

 

I get pages upon pages of error messages saying it's not allowed. Have others had this?

 

 

yes, I had the exact same problem last night when trying to install Leopard for the first time.

 

After finishing with all the Terminal commands, when I try to reboot, I get the machine constantly restarting. Do you know what causes this issue?

[jdsmith2816]

Well if you ran the command as a whole instead of one .kext at a time then you only wound up with partial kext's or none at all transferred. I forget if the cp command is atomic or not... if dsmos or AppleSMBIOS didn't get copied due to the failure due to IONetworking then yer not gonna be able to boot and it's just gonna reboot itself. That's my thought anyways, I'm no mac expert

 

Best regards,

 

JD Smith

[apooo]

hi weaksauce!

 

i´ve noticed that in the iatkos installation all sata ports are correctly recognized! all 8 and not orange but normal as internal drives. i´ve tried to take the appleahciport.kext from iatkos and put it in may native leo installation (where the 4 marvell drives were not recogized). suddenly the 4 marvell sata drives appeared!!! on the next reboot, i couldn´t start because "couldn´t load AppleAHCIPort.kext" written in yellow. do you have any idea why?

 

 

in iatkos the sata-controller is named generic, in my second native installation it´s unknown.

 

 

apoo

[weaksauce12]

Yep, it's actually the IONetworking.kext that is giving you the errors. According to earlier posts the solution is to format the thumb drive as hfs+ journaled instead of fat32 and THEN put the files on it. I currently have this problem but will update the thread when I get home in a couple hours and try with the hfs+ formatted copy. :)Best regards,JD Smith

 

Yes, please let me know if this works for you. I've been using a FAT32-formatted thumb drive with good results, but if the HFS+ method zeroes it out then I will update the guide to reflect that. Thanks!

 

hi weaksauce!i´ve noticed that in the iatkos installation all sata ports are correctly recognized! all 8 and not orange but normal as internal drives. i´ve tried to take the appleahciport.kext from iatkos and put it in may native leo installation (where the 4 marvell drives were not recogized). suddenly the 4 marvell sata drives appeared!!! on the next reboot, i couldn´t start because "couldn´t load AppleAHCIPort.kext" written in yellow. do you have any idea why?apoo

 

Schweet! Put that sucker up on RapidShare and post a link here, I'll try it out right away!You need to change the permissions for the AppleAHCIPort.kext (chown & chmod).

[apooo]

well, i´ve already changed the permissions, chown an chmod ...i upload some files from iatkos which i think are relevant

Archiv.zip

[weaksauce12]

well, i´ve already changed the permissions, chown an chmod ...i upload some files from iatkos which i think are relevant

 

Hmm...weird. I never got very far with any of the Marvell fixes I tried, but maybe we'll have better luck with this!

[jdsmith2816]

This is odd... Yes, using the hfs+ drive did indeed let me copy the IONetworking.kext with no issues. First time I booted, no network; applied the sound patch. On restart I had network... applied the g80 patch; on restart no network again. So as of right now I haven't applied the 10.5.1 apple update because my network seems to go up and down?

[jdsmith2816]

So weird... I deleted the IONet, reinstalled from thumb, chown chmod kextcache reboot with -f i have network.. install apple update, reboot for it.. no network again. Not sure what these symptoms point towards.

[Nano07]

Well if you ran the command as a whole instead of one .kext at a time then you only wound up with partial kext's or none at all transferred. I forget if the cp command is atomic or not... if dsmos or AppleSMBIOS didn't get copied due to the failure due to IONetworking then yer not gonna be able to boot and it's just gonna reboot itself. That's my thought anyways, I'm no mac expert

 

Best regards,

 

JD Smith

 

 

1) ahh, I see. Ok, I'll try with the hfs+ formatted copy and running the commands one by one in a couple of hours... and will post the results :-) Thanks the tip jdsmith2816

 

2) Anyone had success with GF8800 GTS 512Mb ??

Installing the G80 patch using the 512Mb option causes the machine to freeze at next boot with the "manually restart pressing the power for a few seconds" sign.

 

Any clues?

 

3) I'm using all the files from the orginal Ba2 Pack. Has any file of that pack been updated?? Am i using the wrong version of any of those files?

 

 

thanks :-)

[H36]

8800GTS 512MB is G92, not G80....have to use 10.5.2 drivers (not working so great since they're still early).

 

I've completely reinstalled with HFS+ usb drive (no errors!) and used Natit instead of ATInject and things are working great so far

 

Hopefully this will settle everything for me.

[weaksauce12]

Try the 10.5.2 Graphics Installer here:

 

http://scottdangel.com/blog/?p=15

 

H36, good to hear HFS+ worked for...if it works for anyone else who was having problems, please chime in!