update:

i tried using AnV's AppleSMBIOS.kext, but to no avail.

my motherboard's firewire chip is a TI 8023.
today, i bought a Lucent 5091 PCIe board to see if that would work.
same result.

i also tried AnV's new 9.8 kernel.
and i've installed Chameleon 2.0 RC2.

i can't seem to change my macmodel info.
i've set it to MacPro3,1 in com.boot.Apple.plist
it still boots saying my system is MacBookPro5,1
using AnV's -nomacmodeloverride switch,
it comes up as MacBook2,1. dunno, if that makes a difference anyways.

thanx for reading!
becoming despondent...
sir demon brown