Gigabyte EP45-UD3L, Cartri BIOS and Chameleon - display resolution nuked

[nesnfsn]

Finally got a new motherboard, the EP45-UD3L Rev. 1.1. Moved my CPU, RAM, Video card and drives out of case, installed new Gigabyte, reseated all devices, flashed BIOS, install OS X 10.6.3, migrate all of my data from backup to reformatted HD, including Apple Mail and Address Book. Now, only things remaining are: (1) Fixing audio - no sound; (2) installation of old applications from 10.5 old box; and (3) upgrading Chameleon from RC4 whatever version is in the chameleon package installer 03 or 05 from Cartri's download tab.

SL working great so far over nVidia 240 GTS card through HDMI port at 1920x1080x32@60Mhz.

1.  Create the /Volumes/EFI and /Extra and /Themes folders.
2.  Run mkdir and newfs_hfs commands and others as per Gringo Vermelho (sp?)'s guide. move com.
3.  Copy vanilla copy of apple.Boot.plist to /Volumes/EFI/Extra and modify it to select either default, embed or mint themes with RC5 trunk from a few weeks back.
4.  All goes well with installation and final commands including "umount /Volumes/EFI" and "rm -rf /Volumes/EFI".
5.  When I reboot, computer comes back with only 1280x1024 video vailable.

Have searched these forums and cannot find any guidance as for what keys and strings cause this. Also checked forums at Cartri's website. Had registered over there, but have not gotten e-mail to click back on a link to complete registration, so have been unable to register in order to post this over there. I know some here are active or actively use his BIOS modifications for their Gigabyte motherboards.

Has this happened to anyone else here that after completing update of Chameleon or modifying it in order to change theme selection, and their display options go to the crapper? SL looked great at 1920x1080. Lost some considerable real estate on my lcd monitor at 1280x1024.

Appreciate any help that others can provide.

nesnfsn in sunny South Florida

[Gringo Vermelho]

Simple things first - did you set your native resolution in theme.plist of the theme you're using?

[nesnfsn]

Gringo:

Thanks for your reply.

I did not modify the theme.plist in any of the themes available, whether default, embed or mint. Will check when I get time this AM. Finishing up work project as I type this response.

UPDATE: Went back into terminal between portions of my work task. Modified the theme.plist for screen width of 1920 and screen height of 1020. Are these the key strings you are referring to as the native resolution? If so, it made no difference and my resolution is still 1280x1024. No other display resolutions available.

However, in 10.5, using Chameleon, changing the screen width and height never affected the number of resolutions alternatives available in the monitor icon in the top menu bar. Does this change in 10.6 such that you will only get 1 resolution available in the monitor icon if you select a screen resolution setting in either the theme.plist and/or the com.apple.Boot.plist file?

nesnfsn

[Blackosx]

You might need to set PciRoot=1 in your com.apple.Boot.plist?
What version of Chameleon are you now using?

[nesnfsn]

Blackosx:

Here's the information from the vers.h file:

#define I386BOOT_VERSION "5.0.132"
#define I386BOOT_BUILDDATE "2010-10-18 08:26:22"
#define I386BOOT_CHAMELEONVERSION "2.0-RC5"
#define I386BOOT_CHAMELEONREVISION "596"


On a separate but related note, I had noticed in a post you had posted on Cartri's forum that you had moved away from his BIOS mod with your Gigabyte motherboard. Any reasons that had prompted you to undo the BIOS mod, go back to Gigabyte's BIOS, such that  others, such as myself, should consider?

nesnfsn

[Blackosx]

The latest versions on Chameleon will auto-detect your PciRoot from your DSDT.aml but as you're probably not using a separate DSDT.aml file with Cartri's BIOS, then you'll have to add PciRoot=1 to your com.apple.Boot.plist. Hopefully that'll sort your issue, but I can't speak from experience as I haven't used HDMI on my system, though I do remember reading some issues with HDMI and 10.6.3/4 on InsanelyMac.

On a separate but related note, I had noticed in a post you had posted on Cartri's forum that you had moved away from his BIOS mod with your Gigabyte motherboard. Any reasons that had prompted you to undo the BIOS mod, go back to Gigabyte's BIOS, such that  others, such as myself, should consider?

When I was doing some testing of mozodojo's P&C State implementation in RC5, I flashed back to the standard Gigabyte BIOS as I wasn't sure how the automatic speedstep in Cartri's BIOS would affect the result.  I just haven't flashed back to Cartri's BIOS as the latest version of Chameleon in conjunction with the DSDT.aml I use does everything I need.

[nesnfsn]

Blackosx, thanks for the feedback on PciRoot=1. I take it that I should insert this into a <string> following a <key>Kernel Flags</key>. Correct? If not, please advise as to the correct entry for this into com.apple.Boot.plist.

With regard to RC5, I am using MacBIOS bootloader v0.5b from the download forum at Cartri's site. It is based upon RC5 as well. Would I be better off starting anew with Gigabyte's BIOS since RC5 is and has been undergoing major changes in the past few months? I understand now why you flashed your board back to Gigabyte's provided BIOS, although I have not tried the latest of RC5 and consequently have not experienced the need for such BIOS change to accomodate P&C State implementation (whatever that might mean - I will google).

Thanks again, for the insight, and I hope you can reply to this shortly. I have some free time this afternoon since my project is now completed and approved by my client. So, I can play with Chameleon and com.apple.Boot.plist a little.

nesnfsn in sunny South Florida

[Blackosx]

Yes, you would add the following in to your /Extra/com.apple.Boot.plist

Code: [Select]

<key>PCiRoot</key>
<string>1</string>
But I don't know if this is the solution to your problem, it's just a suggestion.

As for the BIOS question, it's entirely up to you - If you are using Cartri's modified Gigabyte BIOS, you can still use the latest version of Chameleon to load your own DSDT.aml at boot which will replace the DSDT in the BIOS, effectively negating the need to have the BIOS in the first place.

The P&C states are for vanilla CPU powermanagement which enables OSX to take advantage of Intel's speedstep technology, and this can now be enabled automatically by Chameleon RC5 for supported CPU's without having to manually work out and enter the required values in to your ACPI tables. See topic 225766 in InsanelyMac for more info. Cartri's BIOS will enable speedstep without the use of this Chameleon feature.