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I have four GX-270s. One of them is a 2.8ghz and the other three are 3ghz. They all have identical ram (2gig), harddrives, BIOS versions, video cards, and wireless cards. Identical down to which slot each PCI card is lcoated in.

 

I installed OS-X 10.5.1 Kalyway on the 2.8ghz machine without any problems - it is a perfect installation. So I decided to install OS-X on the other machines. (there is no point, but this is the kind of thing you do when you have four of the same machine).

 

However, on the other three machines the installation fails and the machine restarts. if I remove the harddrive from the 2.8ghz and place it in any of the other machines - even with the same bios settings selected - bootup fails. In both case, the installation and boot fail with the last line being displayed as:

 

Using SMBIOS table found at 0x0 (hex value here)
Using ACPI RSDP revision 0 found
Starting Darwin/x86

 

I had replaced all four mother boards in the 270s with replacemnt board provided by Dell. Of the four boards, one was an actual brand new board. The other three were refurbished. I don't remember which machine I put the new board in, but I have a hunch it was the 2.8ghz machine.

 

This morning I started looking around across the boards and noticed that the chip in the upper right corner of the mother board is different on different boards (i've attached a picture of the chip in question).

 

On the 2.8ghz machine, that chip has a different revision than any of the other boards.

On Machines A & B, that chip has a different revision than any of the other boards.

On Machine C, that chip has a different revision than any of the other boards.

I actually have one spare refurb board and that chip has a different revision than any of the other boards.

 

I'll post the chip numbers when I can, but I suspect that if this chip is different, other aspects of the boards might be different too. This explains why many people are having different results with the 270s. And in my case, it probably explains why only 1 of my 4 machines will run OS-X properly.

 

If you have a GX-270, post the revision number of the chip, and let me know whether your OS-X installation works properly or not. Also, note your BIOS version and any BIOS settings you changed.

 

Note: none of the options, such as -v -x -s etc make any difference.

post-185285-1208190307_thumb.jpg

hmm, the 2.8GHz and 3.0GHz is a clue I think. is 2.8 Northwood and 3.0 Prescott? Cos the 3GHz if Prescott has HyperThreading enabled which is a strict no-no for any OS other than XP. You should have an option in BIOS to disable Hyperthreading. Disable it and give it a try

So far my machines are:

 

LPC47m534

B0406-C935

8G116745B

 

LPC47m534

B0406-C935

8G113791A

 

There is an option for Hyperthreading on 3.0ghz machines, but even when disabled the result is the same.

 

Also, the 10.5.2 install does not work either. It encounters the same errors as the 10.5.1.

 

I wonder how many people with GX 270s installed it on a 2.8ghz chip versus a 3.0ghz chip.

I tried the newest JaS DVD as well as the newest Leo4Allv2.

 

These both caused the same reset, but Leo4Allv2 caused the machine to get stuck in a cycle of reseting. By this I mean the machine reset and before fully posting reset again. This continues until I pulled the power cable.

  • 7 months later...

I just found this out, and thought of this post when I did:

 

Disk Utility's 'erase' option DOESN'T REALLY WORK!

 

Meaning, that the errors, faults, and incorrect install options from previous installs MAY carry over to fresh installs. This may explain why your GX270s APPEAR to have inconsistent installs!

 

Basically you have to find another way to format them before you re-install!

 

 

TOOK ME 5 DAYS OF INSTALLATIONS TO WORK THIS OUT!

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