iDeneb 1.4 on an ASUS M3A78

[hardcoded]

Greetings.

I'm fairly knowledgeable with PCs but I'm new to the OSx86 scene so please, bear with me. ;) I'm desperately trying to get iDeneb to work on my computer. So far, I tried 2 distros, iDeneb and iPC, both being 10.5.6. releases. I've read various posts on multiple forums and there are numerous success stories about iDeneb and my chipset model so this is what I choose to stick to. These are my hardware specs.:

- Athlon 64 X2 5400+
- 4GB 800MHz DDR2 RAM
- ASUS M3A78 motherboard (AMD770/SB700 chipset)
- PNY Geforce 9800 GT 1024MB
- USB mouse & keyboard
- SATA HD and DVD

ACPI mode is set to S1. SATA mode is set to AHCI. The HD (320GB capacity) is partitioned 50/50 between NTFS (Vista 64) and HFS+ Journaled. Dual boot was sorted out via the bcdedit/chain0 method and is working fine. Based on my research, I came up with the following driver list:

- Voodoo 9.5.0 kernel
- AppleATIATA
- AppleSMBIOS 800
- Seatbelt Fix
- ALC1200 audio
- Realtek R1000 ethernet interface
- NVInject 0.2.1 1024MB

The media is verified to be consistent and the installation happens quickly. It then hangs in the first boot, right after the blue screen then halts at a grey screen with only the mouse cursor (moveable) showing. This happens regardless of boot flag used (-v, -x, -f and "Graphics Mode").

I know I'm almost there and it's just a matter of choosing the right packages. For this, I turn to you, OSx86 community. Please, help a newbie.

Many thanks.

Edison

[thorazine74]

Try removing nvinject and see if you boot in low res, I think 10.5.4 could be too old for your 9800, I'm not sure but its worth a try. You may need a more recent OS X release or an updated set of Nvidia kexts to get graphics acceleration.
About the kexts, I would suggest using SMBIOSEnabler or SMBIOSEFI instead of a modded AppleSMBIOS. Also AppleATIATA should not be needed in AHCI mode and you dont have IDE drives (I'm not sure but I think some version cause kernel panics when using 4Gb+ RAM).

[hardcoded]

Thanks for your quick reply, thorazine74. :)

I did as you said and went without NVInject, AppleATIATA and AppleSMBIOS. SMBIOSEnabler and SMBIOSEFI are not in this release. I suppose I have to mod my own install DVD to include those kexts, right?

Anyway, all went almost the same way, this time the monitor went off right after the initial grey Apple screen, no blue/grey screen or mouse cursor this time. Also, what should I look for in the -v report so as to identify the offending driver/kext?

I'm willing to try the 10.5.4 option as a last resort. I have the Ducky release ready to be burned unless further tweaking with the iDeneb release solves the problem.

Edison

[thorazine74]

Always boot in -v mode when testing to see whats going on.
Try looking for any error messages or just the point where it stops.
If in -v mode it stops after changing graphics modes (when the console text disappears) the problem could be the graphics card. Only idea is try safe mode without nvinject or more recent release (10.5.6?).
You can use a modded AppleSMBIO is there nothing else available.

[hardcoded]

Hey, thorazine74

Here's what happened, I used the Ducky 10.5.4 release and it installed and booted perfectly.

But now I'm with a fairly featureless system. The Azalia driver option left me with no sound at all and video is working with the bare essential software support. What can I do to resolve these? I want to be able to use hardware acceleration, opengl, etc. I'd be content with 2 channel audio, no need for further support in this department. There's also the issue of the wrong core count. Other than that, everything seems to be working fine and smoothly. Thanks for your help so far.

Edison