Khepra
02-20-2009, 10:56 PM
I have wracked my brain on this one, and only have theories... but no solutions yet. Here is the situation:
About 3 weeks ago, I installed said version of the iPC image (10.5.6 PPF5 Final) onto my brother's computer. It took me a few install attempts to tune it to his machine, but finally got all the drivers installed correctly and all components working. The list of things I installed goes something like...
Voodoo 9.5.0 Kernel for AMD X2 Processor
NVInject 0.2.1 256MB for a GeForce 7900GS card (then had to use EFI Studio to get QE and CI working)
AppleNforce kext for the chipset (motherboard is an ASUS M2N32 SLi Deluxe)
Azalia audio kext for onboard sound
RealTek 8187/L for onboard Wireless
That's the basic hardware kexts I used, then I also installed a couple extras...
SMBIOS 800MHz fix
Seatbelt from 10.5.5
And a few apps like Pacifist, KextHelper, EFI Studio.... In any case, after I got things right on the install, the machine ran beautifully. He had no problems whatsoever with hardware or software he was running. Then last weekend, something happened. He says all that happened was he accidently hit the power strip which the computer is plugged into, with his foot, and happened to push the off switch on it... shutting the computer off instantly while it had been on. After turning the switch back on, he rebooted the computer to find that when the login window was about to come up, all he got was a black screen with the cursor up in the top left corner, which when you try to move, just kind of dances around the edges of the screen. So he came to me and asked me to fix it. I've been a computer tech for years, mostly with Windows machines, but I'm learning more about OS X, as I have switched to using a Mac myself about a year ago now.
Anyway, my first impression was that it was simply a software problem, so I used the install disk to try to repair the disk and disk permissions... but to no avail. I then did a fresh install *exactly* the way I did before, when the machine worked flawlessly, but now after the install completes, and OS X shows the Welcome screen in order to fill out your information for the first time (it totally skips the Welcome intro video now, ya know, the one which says "welcome" in multiple languages) the cursor remains in the upper left corner of the screen and will not move... well sometimes it moves but very strangely, like its massively laggy and not usable at all... I've tried numerous install variations, different kexts, I've deleted the partition and repartitioned the drive.... I've even zeroed out the drive (low level format) and still, it makes no difference in the result.
The first time it seemed I might be reaching something normal with the OS, was after an install I did today where I didn't use NVInject, or specify any graphics kexts... It did show the Welcome intro video and I could move the mouse as normal, but as soon as I tried to correct the graphics drivers as to be QE & CI accelerated, using EFI Studio -- upon reboot it came right back to the black screen with the cursor stuck in the upper left, as I described it doing right after the power strip incident occurred! I am at a total loss...
I can only imagine that it is hardware related, like the video card or motherboard perhaps. I have a few theories, but I am not sure if the hardware actually functions in a fashion that supports my hypotheses. I am asking for anyone's help I can get within the community! But, here's the catch... if indeed it is hardware related, like an issue with the video card... just out of curiosity, I installed Windows XP on the machine to see if there were similar issues as well. I expected that after I installed all the drivers, that I would receive a BSOD... but I didn't!
So my assumption is (and trying not to sound an ignorant fool) *If the video card has separate ROMs or some kind of memory blocks that hold the different extensions it performs i.e. one for DirectX extensions, and one for OpenGL... perhaps the OpenGL section was damaged by the sudden power loss? Because the driver in Windows seemed to install fine and I ran DXDiag and all went well... but I didn't try running any OpenGL apps in Windows. Like I said, I'm just not sure what the issue is... I've also considered the RAM and motherboard as potentially being the problem, and have not yet run any tests, but since Windows had no apparent problems, I'm not so sure.
Does anyone here have any theories? Any ideas as to what the problem might be? Also, I've cleared the system BIOS in case something became corrupted there, but still the same result...
I'd appreciate any suggestions.
Thanks
---UPDATE---
I've run memory tests and everything checked out fine. I've done an install on a different hard drive (in the same machine) and still the same result. I've also installed GLView in Windows and run diagnostics of the OpenGL extensions, and all proceeded flawlessly. That pretty much leaves me with a problem in one of the following components:
the Motherboard --> All drivers install fine in Windows, and seems to be functional in OS X as well
the Power Supply --> I haven't pulled out the multimeter to test this yet, but there are no indications that it is malfunctioning
the Video Card --> Although everything works fine in Windows, I still cannot be sure that it isn't the graphics card. If for some reason the way OS X makes calls on the OpenGL extensions differently than Windows, then maybe that's the problem, but I don't know anything about how this is achieved, so at this point it's all conjecture or perhaps wishful thinking.
In any case, I'm still at a loss to figure this one out, so any help or ideas are greatly appreciated.
---UPDATE---
I've looked at the BIOS on the video card and the checksum and file size are the same as the original firmware for that card. Still don't know what it could be, so any help is much appreciated.
About 3 weeks ago, I installed said version of the iPC image (10.5.6 PPF5 Final) onto my brother's computer. It took me a few install attempts to tune it to his machine, but finally got all the drivers installed correctly and all components working. The list of things I installed goes something like...
Voodoo 9.5.0 Kernel for AMD X2 Processor
NVInject 0.2.1 256MB for a GeForce 7900GS card (then had to use EFI Studio to get QE and CI working)
AppleNforce kext for the chipset (motherboard is an ASUS M2N32 SLi Deluxe)
Azalia audio kext for onboard sound
RealTek 8187/L for onboard Wireless
That's the basic hardware kexts I used, then I also installed a couple extras...
SMBIOS 800MHz fix
Seatbelt from 10.5.5
And a few apps like Pacifist, KextHelper, EFI Studio.... In any case, after I got things right on the install, the machine ran beautifully. He had no problems whatsoever with hardware or software he was running. Then last weekend, something happened. He says all that happened was he accidently hit the power strip which the computer is plugged into, with his foot, and happened to push the off switch on it... shutting the computer off instantly while it had been on. After turning the switch back on, he rebooted the computer to find that when the login window was about to come up, all he got was a black screen with the cursor up in the top left corner, which when you try to move, just kind of dances around the edges of the screen. So he came to me and asked me to fix it. I've been a computer tech for years, mostly with Windows machines, but I'm learning more about OS X, as I have switched to using a Mac myself about a year ago now.
Anyway, my first impression was that it was simply a software problem, so I used the install disk to try to repair the disk and disk permissions... but to no avail. I then did a fresh install *exactly* the way I did before, when the machine worked flawlessly, but now after the install completes, and OS X shows the Welcome screen in order to fill out your information for the first time (it totally skips the Welcome intro video now, ya know, the one which says "welcome" in multiple languages) the cursor remains in the upper left corner of the screen and will not move... well sometimes it moves but very strangely, like its massively laggy and not usable at all... I've tried numerous install variations, different kexts, I've deleted the partition and repartitioned the drive.... I've even zeroed out the drive (low level format) and still, it makes no difference in the result.
The first time it seemed I might be reaching something normal with the OS, was after an install I did today where I didn't use NVInject, or specify any graphics kexts... It did show the Welcome intro video and I could move the mouse as normal, but as soon as I tried to correct the graphics drivers as to be QE & CI accelerated, using EFI Studio -- upon reboot it came right back to the black screen with the cursor stuck in the upper left, as I described it doing right after the power strip incident occurred! I am at a total loss...
I can only imagine that it is hardware related, like the video card or motherboard perhaps. I have a few theories, but I am not sure if the hardware actually functions in a fashion that supports my hypotheses. I am asking for anyone's help I can get within the community! But, here's the catch... if indeed it is hardware related, like an issue with the video card... just out of curiosity, I installed Windows XP on the machine to see if there were similar issues as well. I expected that after I installed all the drivers, that I would receive a BSOD... but I didn't!
So my assumption is (and trying not to sound an ignorant fool) *If the video card has separate ROMs or some kind of memory blocks that hold the different extensions it performs i.e. one for DirectX extensions, and one for OpenGL... perhaps the OpenGL section was damaged by the sudden power loss? Because the driver in Windows seemed to install fine and I ran DXDiag and all went well... but I didn't try running any OpenGL apps in Windows. Like I said, I'm just not sure what the issue is... I've also considered the RAM and motherboard as potentially being the problem, and have not yet run any tests, but since Windows had no apparent problems, I'm not so sure.
Does anyone here have any theories? Any ideas as to what the problem might be? Also, I've cleared the system BIOS in case something became corrupted there, but still the same result...
I'd appreciate any suggestions.
Thanks
---UPDATE---
I've run memory tests and everything checked out fine. I've done an install on a different hard drive (in the same machine) and still the same result. I've also installed GLView in Windows and run diagnostics of the OpenGL extensions, and all proceeded flawlessly. That pretty much leaves me with a problem in one of the following components:
the Motherboard --> All drivers install fine in Windows, and seems to be functional in OS X as well
the Power Supply --> I haven't pulled out the multimeter to test this yet, but there are no indications that it is malfunctioning
the Video Card --> Although everything works fine in Windows, I still cannot be sure that it isn't the graphics card. If for some reason the way OS X makes calls on the OpenGL extensions differently than Windows, then maybe that's the problem, but I don't know anything about how this is achieved, so at this point it's all conjecture or perhaps wishful thinking.
In any case, I'm still at a loss to figure this one out, so any help or ideas are greatly appreciated.
---UPDATE---
I've looked at the BIOS on the video card and the checksum and file size are the same as the original firmware for that card. Still don't know what it could be, so any help is much appreciated.