Asus UL80J - Successful install

[elementality]

This review shows that it is DDR3 @ 800 MHz, 1066.

http://reviews.cnet.com/laptops/asus-ul ... eviewPage1

 

[flexgrip]

Well I'll tell you what, I have found all kinds of reviews and articles about this laptop. And I think only ONE review I found while searching for UL80JT mentioned it had the correct hardware. Most of the time I see core i5 and **** like that.

Another thing to keep in mind was that when I purchased this laptop, the best buy website listed it as a core i3 2.7ghz or something. They had the CPU way off.

I am not positive about what speed the ram should be looking at, but check out my screenshot now. After I used the debug free chameleon boot file that I uploaded earlier my system is now showing the absolute correct CPU.

Also, I have verified that the external clock is in fact 133mhz.

As far as the ram goes, I have no idea where to even start while looking into this issue. I don't know what controls the memory speed or memory detection. But I have yet to see an operating system not pull that correctly. Must be another one of snow leopards fantastic issues.

God I really hate this hobbyist piece of **** operating system. I have two brand new macbook pro 15inch laptops with the same spec hardware sitting in my kitchen. I bought them for my designers at work and they are gone now. So I own them. But Jesus, I do not see the big deal. This asus feels faster than them and is so much easier to work with. Not to mention it cost 1/3rd of what they cost.

With all of that said, that is my actual theory right now. I would think that Snow Leopard is actually using the ram at the proper speed and channels. But its printing the wrong info about it in system info. Keep in mind that "About this mac" screen can be edited to say whatever you want using osx86tools. So I think rather than screw with it I will just not even care. It feels fast, thats all that matters to me.

The battery stuff I believe will require a DSDT, but I honestly have not looked into any of the power management kexts. Im sure even without a DSDT you could install one of those kexts and get battery/power management.

 

[elementality]

Idk man, really frustrated with this. Just lost keyboard input after running multibeast or maybe it was after the combo update and before multibeast. I'm unsure.
The wifi kext and ethernet kext both work, however the links you posted both lead to the wifi kext.

Have not even begun to play with the trackpad, (in the guide a link is missing here as well)

With the compiled boot file you uploaded is the osx86tools instalation of the modified kernel and boot flags/strings mentioned in your walkthrough necessary anymore? My understanding is no.

Not working for me:
*battery info in the menu bar
*audio
*webcam
*trackpad

 

[flexgrip]

If you lost keyboard, you can try one of two things. This happened to me several times during my first install.

1. Boot snow leopard live cd, open terminal, and check whats in your /E/E folder. Is there a VoodooPS2 kext? If so, try deleting the voodoops2 kext.

2. I believe one of the issues was that multibeast is dumb and installs a bunch of junk to /S/L/E. I would get rid of all of the ApplePS2 and AppleACPI kexts and start with just the voodoo kexts.

Usually just removing those kexts would work for me. The reason I know it was majorly jacked up was because even when I plugged in a usb keyboard it wouldn't work.

If you can't figure it out, let me know. You can delete your entire /e/e folder and boot without it. If you would like, I can send you my entire /E/E folder.

As far as the boot flags my system still uses them. The busratio is always improperly set no matter what version of chameleon you are using.

To get the ethernet kext, just search kexts.com for ar8131. You will find that I posted a link to them several pages back.

--

Moving forward, I am done. Im not going to worry about if snow leopard is displaying the memory info right or if its seriously running it at a lower speed. I don't see how thats possible, but whatever. The system runs fast and is working perfectly for me. All the hardware works and really the only reason I need this stupid snow leopard install is so I can continue titanium development for iOS.

Beyond that, Windows, Linux, and Snow Leopard all report the memory, external clock, and a bunch of other stuff differently. Like Windows says the memory is 533mhz, Linux says 800, and SL says 667. Not to mention they all claim different bus speeds like 133/177 and whatever. So I am throwing in the towl on this one. I can guarantee you that if we were to fix the memory issue on SL to work at the proper speeds we wouldn't notice any real world performance increases. So who gives a ****.

I will try to help out in any way that I can. But on the plus side I found out we are running an H55 board. So I mean it should be easy to generate a DSDT. Once again I dont care anymore. Theres nothing I can do to make this system run better or faster. I could care less about seeing how much battery I have left either. I just get all ADD and try to fix everything in these situations

 

[flexgrip]

Element,

I went ahead and updated my instructions a few pages back and added two things.

1. An extra box to check in multibeast that will get your sound working. Basically just install VoodooHDA Official and reboot and your sound will work perfectly.

2. I added a link to all of the kexts and instructions that were missing in touchpad section. The instructions AFTER the kernel is installed are what you are looking for. After you install those, add my attached pack of kexts to /E/E as well and that should give you touchpad functions.

Make sure to only do the ApplePS2 section of that link about the touchpad and not the voodoo section. only use the voodoo kext attached. It seriously was the only one that would work for me while I was installing the appleps2 kexts. Any other combos would cause the keyboard to stop working.

 

[elementality]

Thanks so much.

I truly appreciate the time, effort, and most of all the communication of all that you've done.

I also see after running cpu-z in windows that the bus speed is being reported as 177mhz, and not 133.

At crucial.com the memory is reported as DDR3
http://www.crucial.com/store/listparts. ... del=UL80Jt

From reading this, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDR3_SDRAM

my understanding is that PC3-8500 operates at a 133 MHz Memory Clock and 533 MHz I/O bus clock.

...and PC3-10600 (which one would assume we are running) operates at a 166 MHz Memory clock and 667 MHZ I/O bus clock. (would you believe this to be what snow leopard is reporting?)

I don't know if you even care, as you said you are done with this project, I'm just trying to learn. As long as this baby is running at optimal speeds I like you would be happy.

Is your web cam in fact working flex? mine is not.

I believe these to be all my thoughts and concerns at the moment.

 

[flexgrip]

Yep, webcam is working. The image I took of myself on the prior page was taken from the webcam. I believe both KZH and I both saw the webcam begin to work after the 10.6.4 update.

Your sound and keyboard good now? I just recompiled my modified chameleon and got it running at 177mhz fsb frq. Same cpu frequency just different fsb and multiplier. Absolutely no change in performance. I believe on these chipsets the external clock really doesn't matter unless you are doing scaling. And considering the scheduler that apple uses is a bit tight on resources I would say theres not much in that area that will show a performance increase.

If you would like I can send you the boot file for 177mhz.

 

[elementality]

yeah that would be nice if you could send me the 177 boot.

..and just for a final clarification in your walkthrough you say to use busratio=17 when earlier on in the thread you were using busratio=16, right? Also, I'm pretty sure I read that you said somewhere that the correct busratio is 9.

my real question is what are the boot flags you are using in osx86tools now? is this a critical step?

no to audio and keyboard as of now dude. I'm in windows and trying to further understand some things. I think im gonna do a single snow leo install and not check the easybeast option, and only choose certain kexts from the accessory menu.

Ive got a busy day of work and other stuff coming up so Ill try and post progress by monday if not sooner.

thanks again,

 

[flexgrip]

Sorry, I think me typing busratio of 16 and 17 was a mistake. but honestly I found the number didn't matter. The system would not boot without a busratio being set between somewhere between 7 and 24. Either way, the intel website lists the busratio for our CPU as 9. So that is what im using as of now. -f busratio=9 arch=i386

 

[flexgrip]

No kidding. I was sitting there trying to figure out how exactly 64-bit hexadecimal variables worked under unix when I just took a step back and asked myself why I was going through all of this.

I am a developer and only one portion of my career has to do with osx. iOS emulators only run in osx...

Attached is the chameleon /boot file for 177mhz fsb.

Just backup your existing /boot file and if you have any issues boot from iboot and restore.