Need Help/Guidance w/some issues (phenom)

[spydeyrch]

Hey y'all. How ya doing? I am new to this forum. And pretty much new to the whole OSX86 scene. I have a little experience now but not much. I have been visiting insanelymac.com and hackint0sh.org quite a bit to try and find some answers to what I am having errors with. I was hoping that I could get some help with a few things. So I have kind of a list of a few things. I have read hours and hours worth of threads and have gotten some answers to my questions but not all of them were answered or were just partly answered. Then I found this site (infinitemac.com) which looks to help more the AMD community than the other sites seem to.

Man, I honestly don't know where to start. First let me tell you my system specs:

AMD Phenom 9950 (o'cld 3.2)
ASUS M3A79-T Deluxe
AMD 790FX / SB750 Chipset
ATI 3870 (can crossfire due to having two but only have one in right now)
4 Gigs of DDR2 1066 RAM
1 Seagate 500 Gig SATA HDD in AHCI mode
1 SATA DVD drive

Here are the different distros I have and tried: iDeneb 10.5.5, Leo4All v4.1, LawlessPPC for AMD. Currently I am using iDeneb 10.5.5 (writing this thread from it) I have had the most success with iDeneb so far so let me start there with my issues.

Ok, so I have no other OS on my HDD, just to simplify things. I start up the computer with the iDeneb disc in my DVD drive. Darwin pops up and I type in -v at the prompt just to see if there are any errors, I dont see any but then again it does go by SUPER fast, so it is kind of hard to detect/read if there were any errors. After about 3-5 mins, the OS X installer GUI pops up. I select disk utility and select my HDD, I format it as one partition and as HSF+ Journaled. Then I select the drive to install to. At which point I hit customize and select the corresponding patches and apps to install. I select the AMD patch, the skge/marvell network kext, the ATI 3870, several apps (dont remember all of them), the SMBIOS - 1066 patch, and the XNU 9.4.0 kernel. I also select the apple.azila (sp?) patch for audio. On the osx86 wiki on the HCL, my mobo is mentioned and the guy that tested it says that the apple.azila audio patch works for him. But he has a 790GX and SB 700 (maybe SB600, dont remember exactly). So that is problem number one, I dont have any audio. My lan and video work fine. I enabled Quartz GL via osx86tools. I keep reading in posts about some QE/CI or QI/CE option/ability but to be honest I really don't know what it is and if I need it, have it, and do or don't have it enabled. Is it worth it too? Anyway, so I hit the install button and check the disk then install.

After it installs, at the Darwin prompt, I hit -v to see if anything goes wrong. As far as I can see, nothing, no errors. Some of the, take a few moments to load but no errors, then it goes to this blueish colored screen. At which point if I wait for a few minutes, like 5, my mouse pointer will show up in the upper left hand corner of the screen. Then the cursor will change to the multi colored (rainbow colored) "busy" cursor icon then back to the normal pointer icon. If I move my mouse, the cursor will follow, but .... there is an extra cursor icon in the upper left corner still and it doesn't respond to anything. I can move my cursor down to the middle of the screen and I will have two cursors: one in the middle and one in the upper left corner. Hopefully that makes sense. Oh, the other thing is the my HDD light will continually go off as if something is accessing it but nothing is on the screen. So I have to restart the machine.

Once it is restarted, at the darwin prompt I will input -v -x -f and I can get to the login screen after a few minutes. Yet I am in safe mode (as I am right now). I then proceed to update my kernel to the voodoo 9.5 kernel and restart. At the restart I still have to use the -x -v -f string or no boot to the login will happen. I then have to repair permissions, using osx86tools. I then reboot and I have to use the -x -v -f every time (I know that I can put the -x string in my xxx.xxx.plist for when it boots but I really don't want to boot into safe mode every time.) I have tried just using -x and both -x -f but for some reason it will not boot unless I have the full -x -f -v string. So that is problem number 2, how do I get it to NOT have boot into safemode everytime I want to use my system?

Ok, so I think that about does it for my current install w/iDeneb.

#1. no Audio
#2. have to boot into safe mode every time.

Ok, so I am going to post this thread right now and start working on an addition to it in the hopes that while I work on the additions, I can get some help with these issues. If I can get these issues fixed ... AWESOME!!! I would be set!!!

Also, if you don't have the time to answer my questions but you do have or know of a post/thread that would answer them or help me with clear answers and understandable explanations, the thread's url would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

P.S. I realize that I wrote ALOT but I have searched for literally hours/days on end and have only scratched the surface of what I believe I need to fix these issues. I have two young children and work full time and have church callings that take a lot of my time. So I normally only have the wee hours of the night to research this stuff and to be honest, I am getting pretty worn down with only getting 3-4 hours of sleep each night. So I figured, in place of putting my health on the line, , I would just lay it all out on the table and ask for help, as I haven't been able to find what I need. So thanks in advance and sorry for the loooooong post. I hope that someone at least has the heart to help me.