iPC osx86 10.5.6 System Stall HDD

[JonnyF]

Hello all,

Hopefully you can point me in the right direction?

I have an almost perfect install of iPC OSX86 10.5.6 using the default Vanilla settings.

i.e. EPI_V9, Vanilla kexts, no drivers required.

However I have one major issue!

Everything works fine, but when I copy a file - usually a large file, but that's not the problem - the system stalls, the file pauses in the copy process and applications hang.

After 30 seconds or so the system resumes, until it hangs again between 30 seconds and a minute later and the process is repeated.

If I cancel the copy operation the system resumes normal operation, it hangs in the same way now and again, but no where near as often as when there is a HDD WRITE in progress.

I have tested various things including

Installing to another drive.
Swapping SATA cable / moving to an alternate port with all other drives disconnected.
Partioning with GUID or MBR.
Installing or not installing Intel ACHI kexts (both variants on the disk)
Turning off Speedstep etc. in the bios.
Upgrading to 10.5.7 (which works flawlessly - the upgrade I mean!)
All sorts of other things I can't even remember!!

My System is as follows

Abit IP35 Mobo (Intel P35 chipset / ICH9R / on board ALC888)
4Gb RAM
NVidia 8800GTX
80Gb SATA HDD
Optiarc SATA DVD-ROM

Everything works 100% when running windows etc. (although this is installed on a 750Gb 3 way RAID array - not connected when running OSX)

Hope someone can help with this rather odd issue!!

Cheers,

Jon.

[JonnyF]

Just an update, and it may possibly throw some light on the subject?

Normally I boot in AHCI mode.

My Motherboard supports AHCI / IDE / RAID (I would ideally like to boot in RAID, but I can't seem to get this to work)

However, booting in IDE produced an interesting result.

Firstly the problems!

3-4 minutes boot time as oppose to 30 seconds! (lot's of pauses)
No DVD ROM found when booted.

The good news!!?

The system stalls stop and everything else seems to run fine!

Oddness... obviously not a fix... but something to go on maybe?

In the meantime I have also re flashed my bios to 17 (latest release 18) but to no avail.

I also tried using the voodoo kernels, again no difference - in fact the system seemed worse.

If anyone can help I'd really appreciate it!!

I may try installing my original ToH version (10.5.0 i think) that always worked on the same hardware, but isn't EPI and uses old 9.2.0 ToH kernels.. but maybe it will prove something... I don't know!?

One things for sure - I'm ace at installing OSX now!!

:S not sure that's something I want to be good at though!

Thanks again,

Jon.

[JonnyF]

Well, I've tried installing ToH 10.5 RC2... as far as I remember (it was quite a while ago) this never used to have any problems like I am experiencing now - but currently it is suffering from the same issue.

I'm starting to think it must be a hardware problem using AHCI on my motherboard - I only ever use this option when booting OSX - normally I boot with RAID.

The strange thing is that OSX installs just fine, there are no stalls during the installation - only when finally booted into OSX and making "heavy" write operations - like copying a largish file etc.

From the lack of reply's it looks like I'm on my own with this one!! Maybe I will look into replacing the Motherboard

Anyone recommend a good one (Socket 775) that is compatible with OSX - I was looking at DFI IP45 mobos. I want a good overclocking mobo for use with windows - it may even be nice to be able to run two gfx cards (not SLI) I have a 8800GTX, but my main card is a GTX 275 - however this is not supported within OSX yet.

Any ideas?

Cheers,

Jon.

[JonnyF]

Update :- In fact you can use a GTX275 now! Probably old news to you all, but netkas.org has an installer package and link to 2xx drivers (use the one from the comments - macpro check disabled).

At least something good has come out of my tireless searching!

So now I have a mac with a fully functioning GTX275 - *Still* no solution to this stall problem... it's bugging me now!

;)

Cheers,

Jon.

[JonnyF]

If I was to boot in to IDE mode - what drivers would I need so that there would be not delays on boot and the DVDROM would work?

Thanks,

Jon.

[thorazine74]

You would need a modded version of IntelPIIXATA.kext, check the Legacy one that comes with Chameleon 2 or the one (with a binary) made by Dune at insanelymac.
Check the CPU usage while the copy takes part, it sounds like a DMA problem, but I got no clue why it happens, are you copying to the same disk or from CD to disk or other? it should work without troubles in AHCI mode, I got a P35 (Gigabyte) board before and it was working in AHCI without any troubles

[JonnyF]

Thanks for your reply... I will try the kext you mentioned, I have a few distros - it's bound to be on one of them! (is there also a kext for ICH9R RAID?)

To be honest, a good while ago when I installed the ToH RC2 build I'm sure I didn't get these problems either (using the same hardware)

I've actually ordered a replacement mobo - cheap! (I also have a funny reboot problem when a USB hub is connected that i can't find reported by anyone else either - not os specific btw) I'm not confident of my hardware.

FYI, it happens whenever I copy to the main system drive, from any source i.e. same drive cd or memory stick etc.

It happens mainly when copying a large file - odd that the IDE mode seemed to fix it, and I don't have any problems when using RAID in Vista.

As I said, I can only see it being hardware now - it seems that it's definitely not a common issue, and you have confirmed there is no problems on another P35 mobo.

Thanks again,

Jon.

[thorazine74]

Try the legacy kexts posted in this thread at insanelymac (http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=147102), it may work with the ICH9 in RAID mode, of course you wont be able to access any arrays...
I never have similar problems with AHCI, it works with Apple drivers and unless something is wrong with your motherboard it should not have DMA problems specially on Intel chipsets.
I would check the motherboard settings and make sure you are using plain Apple AHCI drivers.

[JonnyF]

Thanks again for your reply.

I received a new motherboard yesterday - Abit IP35 PRO XE - very nice it is too...

Unfortunately it does not resolve my issues (although it does fix my annoying USB boot issue!)

I still have problems with AHCI.

If I install the IDE drivers from the new iATKoS v7 disk I can run perfectly in IDE mode.

Just would like to know what's wrong with the AHCI mode.

Now the only thing I can think of is that it's the HDD's themselves.

I know there not faulty per say, because there working fine in IDE mode - *perhaps* they can't handle the "AHCI" throughput or something daft like that.

Both drives are identical you see - Two of my old 80Gb drives from an old RAID array. (same firmware model and everything)

I suppose I could create a partition on another drive I have and try that (new 1Gb WD)

As a side note - the RAID option on the iATKoS v7 disk - this says you can install to a RAID array - does this mean I can install to my main ICH9R RAID array, or does it mean the Apple soft array you can create from the install disk.

I want to be sure - because I don't want to lose the data on my RAID array (3x250Gb Hitachi's)

Thanks again,

Jon.

[thorazine74]

I dont know about iAtkos 7 but from what I know any chipset-based soft-RAID arrays are not supported, only Apple soft-RAID.
Only other idea would be limiting memory with maxmem=3072, but AppleAHCI driver does not suffer from those problems, maybe you have other kexts loaded with the memory bug causing the crashes when copying?

[JonnyF]

I have already tried reducing my system memory to 2048 by physically pulling two of my memory modules (4x1Gb).

I'll give maxmem a go again, just to see what happens.

Cheers,

Jon.

[JonnyF]

OK, so some more info...

I thought I would install OSX via the eSATA AHCI JMicron controller instead.

Therefore eliminating the onboard ICH9R AHCI.

I could not get the thing to install... the installer saw the disk - and would let me partition it etc... but the install process was just taking forever.. every now and again a small blip of data would be written to the hdd.

Booting in to OSX with the ICH9R set to IDE (boot disk) and the JMicron eSATA set to AHCI (spare disk) I can confirm that this is definately hdd related and not a system hang.

i.e. Copying to the IDE is fine, copying to the AHCI stalls.

However, because the AHCI is not my system disk, I can continue to use the operating system - in this instance only the copy process hangs.

So so so odd...

I'm gonna partition one of my other drives now...

Also, maxmem=2048 made no difference.

Cheers,

Jon.

[JonnyF]

Partitioned my 1TB WDC Storage HDD....

Guess what....

....

It works!!


So, for some reason 2 of my 80GB Hitachi Deskstar SATA2 HDD's don't work with AHCI.

They work perfectly in Windows (RAID - but as non-raid devices), and work fine in IDE mode for OSX86.

I've not tested them in ACHI mode for Windows... Maybe I will install Windows 7 on one of them - but I suspect they will work just fine, then again I don't know till I try - so sick of installing OS's :S !!

Can some one offer an explanation for this!!?

Cheers,

Jon.