two possibly unrelated issues

[JayArby]

Hi, my system is ASUS Z68 PRO/GEN3, core i7.

My first problem is occasional kernel panic during startup. I've heard something about modding the BIOS to fix this?

The other issue, possibly related, is that I'm getting very poor performance. My CPU speed won't max out. It seems to have some kind of limiter.

to set up, I simply used multibeast with the "UserDSDT/DSDT Free Installation" option and did not supply a DSDT. (Actually, I am not totally clear on exactly what a DSDT is. I'd also appreciate a brief explanation of DSDTs.)

I'm not sure what other details to supply. I will appreciate any help and provide additional details as requested. Thanks!

 

[mike5065]

this thread from samisnake may help. i ended up flashing my BIOS, and no issues since.

http://www.tonymacx86.com/dsdt/43486-asus-1155-patched-bios-repository.html

 

[JayArby]

I just tried the modded bios. It may or may not have solved the boot crash issue (it doesn't happen most of the time anyway, so I don't know for sure), but it is not solving the cpu limiting issue. Also, it makes the bios load really slowly and display several error messages before successfully starting the boot loader. So on the whole, the bios mod doesn't seem to have worked.

Any other suggestions?

 

[samisnake]

youre gonna need to supply more info, like what the kernel panic shows (does text appear on the screen?)

also, what exact options in multibeast did you select.
a screenshot of the multibeast options would be helpful

 

[JayArby]

Problem is, the kernel panic doesn't happen predictably, so I haven't had a chance to take note of the output yet. I'm not quite as worried about that at the moment, though. The main issue is the processor speed.

As for my multibeast settings, aside from my network and sound drivers, the only option I selected was "UserDSDT/DSDT Free Installation", so I don't really think a screenshot is necessary.

 

[samisnake]

in that case, im slightly confused as to how you were able to boot off the hard drive.
read http://www.tonymacx86.com/dsdt/71307-modified-uefi-rom-faq.html

basically, on asus boards, you need to either flash a modded bios, use a patched aicpupm kext or use nullcpu to be able to boot off the hard drive.
if you dont do one of those three, you cannot boot off the hdd, as itll kernel panic on the aicpupm kext.

if you only used userdsdt, it doesnt explain how you booted off the hdd.
you only just flashed a modded bios, so what were you doing before?

thats why more info is needed. it doesnt make sense atm, so itll be hard to help without the full story.

with your next reply, post your geekbench score, and the results of msrdumper
http://www.tonymacx86.com/247-how-test-speedstep-socket-1155-cpus-using-msrdumper.html

 

[mike5065]

the panics are in your console, and may yield clues...

these patched BIOS allows you to avoid using nullcpupowermanagement.kext, and use the native appleintelcpupowermanagement.kext.

if nullcpupowermanagement.kext is still in S/L/E, delete it and rebuild your cache.

you can use msrdumper.kext to display the cpu multipliers being used. tony has a good article on this.

http://www.tonymacx86.com/247-how-test-speedstep-socket-1155-cpus-using-msrdumper.html

without a proper DSDT / SSDT, or a patched appleintelcpupowermanagement.kext (which are now less common, and which you no longer need now that you've flashed), you will be challenged to reach the speeds you are looking for--in my case, i was limited to 16x and 33x multipliers prior to using a DSDT.

tony has included gigabyte DSDTs in multi beast. there are others out there. you can extract your own too.

but once you have DSDT / SSDT that work, you should be reaching your maximum clocks (again, verified with msrdumper.kext)

 

[JayArby]

I've done so many attempts at this before that I'm honestly not sure exactly what I have done, but I believe I may have modded my bios already a while back (with a different mod made by someone else I guess), so that could explain why it is booting up most of the time. Just to be clear, there are definitely no nullcpu or patched cpu management kexts in my current installation.

I had never heard of Geekbench, but I downloaded it and ran it and my score was 14338. However it's not free apparently, so that score was in "tryout mode" which apparently isn't complete or something, so I don't know if that's what you were looking for.

All that MSRDumper is outputting is "MSRDumper PStatesReached: 16 43" over and over again.

I've tried many times to figure out the whole DSDT/SSDT thing, but I've never even been able to figure out exactly what they are, much less how to generate one myself, so any information on DSDTs would be fabulous.

Sorry if I have followed any steps improperly! Thanks to all for their assistance so far.

 

[samisnake]

ok, thatd explain why youre able to boot.

for the dsdt, with your board/bios version, you dont 'need' an edited/modified dsdt (by that i mean you could consider your board 'dsdt-free', although for hdmi audio you need dsdt edits, and some people chose to edit their dsdts for specific reasons).
atm you are using the board's native dsdt. hope that helps somewhat

for your cpu (im assuming youre using a sandy bridge 2600/2600k/2700k) youll need an ssdt.
an ssdt defines which pstates your system can reach.
atm you are hitting 16 and 43 (cpu multipliers, times by base clock 100 to give cpu speed, eg. 100x16=1600mhz/1.6ghz. 100x43=4300mhz/4.3ghz).
you arent hitting inbetween states, meaning speedstep isnt working, because you arent using an ssdt.
http://www.tonymacx86.com/ssdt/56186-revogirl-ssdt-generation-script.html
follow that to make your own ssdt. instructions are on post 4.

your geekbench score is correct for an i7 at that speed. along with your msrdumper output, you know your cpu is actually hitting max speed.

EDIT- in fact, theres an easier way to make your own ssdt.
download maciasl http://www.tonymacx86.com/dsdt/83565-native-dsdt-aml-ide-compiler-maciasl-open-beta.html
then go to Tools>generate ssdt, then enter in your cpu info, and hit ok.
then file>save as. save filename as SSDT and fileformat as acpi machine language binary.
save the ssdt to the /extra folder. restart and test with msrdumper again. you should see a nice spread of speeds after about 10mins

 

[JayArby]

sorry, just got around to revisiting this issue.

So, maybe I am not understanding you, but are you saying that I am not in fact experiencing cpu speed issues, so that isn't the reason I am getting poor performance?