No keyboard in Chimera

[Thinkcat]

Hello

I have Asus P8C WS with latest BIOS from Asus, 3306.

The board came with unmodified 3010. I have installed a Mountain Lion system. The installer would not start until I used -x (safe mode) but went ok. After installing, I booted the system. Again, had to do -x (safe mode).

I tried running custom things in MultiBeast, and when that didn't help, I did the EasyBeast installation.

Before that, booting up with -v (verbose) and no -x (safe mode) I saw the boot simply get stuck. The mouse appeared as a beachball and nothing went anywhere. After running MultiBeast / Easybeast and booting with -v (verbose), there are two consecutive crashes or something before the boot process stops.

I could try to boot again into the OS with -x (safe mode). But after the BIOS update I suddenly discovered that the keyboard is not responding in Chimera. So the OS disk tries to do a normal boot after the timeout, but the spinner keeps spinning and no mouse appears. And the USB stick that I made with UniBeast shows the boot options, but I can't do anything because the keyboard does not work.

The keyboard does work in the BIOS setup. Should I downgrade my BIOS in the hope that Chimera would start seeing it again?

Will I need a customized BIOS? I tried to flash the custom 3108, but the EZ Flash complained of security check failure after reading the file.

 

[Thinkcat]

I did a "Reset to Optimized Defaults" in BIOS. Chimera found keyboard again.

Began testing it around. Under Fast Boot, setting USB Support to Disabled, Partial Initialization or Full Initialization. Keyboard worked with all these settings.

Attempting a boot from HD (with Chimera and ML) resulted in forever spinning spinner and no cursor. And no keyboard in Chimera from HD or Chimera from USB stick (the one made with UniBeast, with ML installer). But, keyboard in BIOS. So, a failed boot into ML does something to the USB controller that causes Chimera to not find an USB keyboard.

Fixed with powering off the machine and powering on again.

Now trying some more.

 

[Thinkcat]

Sometimes a failed boot causes the keyboard to be totally lost.

I have tried, in BIOS (the newest from Asus and thus unmodified) randomly enabling and disabling all kinds of legacy this and that, USB this and that, but all effects seem quite random. Switching off the power supply and waiting about 10 seconds (so that the mobo, P8C WS, loses power) is a guaranteed way to get the keyboard (a Tesoro Durandal with leds) back. And attempting to boot any Mountain Lion without safe mode is 90% sure way to lose the keyboard.

Now I'm turning more desperate, because I've been randomly unable to enter the installer, even in safe mode. I sometimes get an immediate kernel panic with no Mac OS version yet set and no extension information available. I once got a crash that was about the CPU power management.

But I'll keep on fighting and I'll come back as soon as I find something out.

 

[samisnake]

list your full specs

 

[Thinkcat]

Asus P8C WS motherboard, the newest BIOS from Asus (3306)
Xeon E3-1245v2 CPU, 8GB of 1333MHz ECC memory
No graphics card, using the HD4000 in the CPU
One 128GB Kingston SSD in 3rd SATA port
One 1.5TB HD in 4th SATA port
Sunix FWB3414 Firewire card (with LSI FW643 chipset) with nothing connected ATM
An USB keyboard with a 2-port hub built in, an USB mouse in one port of the keyboard

After getting kernel panics on boot with almost every system (the two I had installed and the USB stick I made by UniBeast) I made a new USB stick, the same way as before. Was able to install one more ML by booting installer with -x and then the system with -x and now here trying to find out about making a DSDT.

 

[samisnake]

that cpu doesnt have hd4000 graphics, it has p4000.

from what i can see online, it doesnt look like theres full support for the p4000, which would be why youre having trouble.
do you have a graphics card you could use to test?

 

[Thinkcat]

I have a GeForce GT7300. How well supported is that in ML?

Seems like I could have as well bought E3-1230v2. It would have saved me some 20 euros and a month of waiting.

Is there any chance a HD4000 driver would ever support P4000?

 

[samisnake]

theres no support for the 7300gt in mountain lion.
youre gonna need a new graphics card.
if you are on a tight budget, you can get a used 8xxx card 2nd hand from ebay, or a 2nd hand 5770 or something.
or could go for a gt640 if you have a bit more money.

the only info i can find on the p4000 is http://www.tonymacx86.com/mountain-...00-drive-ok-but-no-qe-need-advice-thanks.html
the guy got the hd4000 kext to load, with full res but no qe/ci (acceleration).
for the cost of a graphics card, its worth getting one to save headache and aggro

btw, as for the other stuff mentioned in your first post, you shouldnt use easybeast with that build.
all you need to do is flash a patched bios, and use userdsdt in multibeast.
read www.biosrepo.wordpress.com/faq for more info on patched bioses. you cant use ezflash to flash a patched bios, you have to either use usb flashback on your board, or if your board doesnt have that feature you can use something like FTK (theres a guide for ftk on the homepage of the biosrepo blog).

 

[Thinkcat]

Ok. I'll buy a card, maybe GT 640. Or does anyone recommend 7750?

Unless GT 8600 has any better support? I can swap GT 7300 into where I have the GT 8600.

I can flash the BIOS and will get to it soon. Is there any chance to get someone to patch the newest one, or will I have to downgrade?

There seems to be no DSDT for Asus P8C WS. I could help someone make one if that is possible, by reporting details from the hardware by maybe booting into linux temporarily. It will take a long time if I must study how DSDTs are made and start from nothing.

EDIT: Found some of your guides and information. Will look into those later today.

 

[samisnake]

the gt640 is a good choice. id say get that over a 7750.

you wont really need to edit your dsdt. youll find most things work without a edited dsdt (using the boards native dsdt).

you can patch the latest bios file using pmpatch. theres a guide for pmpatch on the biosrepo blog