Thread: EFiX Firmware 4.6.14 released

TimeMachine Fix.

Edit: 10-Sep-2009 0:44. Edited due to legal reasons. Sorry

Now you see here's the funny thing. I plugged in my EFi-X and did a clean install of OS X on an extra hard drive, and after the firmware update, Time Machine worked perfectly fine after figuring out which of the two onboard LAN OS X was recognizing as the built-in interface.

Initially, I got the "built-in network interface could not be found" error in TM preferences after updating, and clearing NetworkInterfaces.plist and other preference files didn't resolve the issue. I had only onboard LAN 1 enabled in BIOS (LAN 2 was disabled, and my Netgear GA311 was removed). When I disabled LAN 1 and enabled LAN 2, Time Machine worked fine. When I had both enabled, it also worked, and I checked NetworkInterfaces.plist, and LAN 2 was flagged with IOBuiltin true when LAN 1 would always be flagged as false.

After that, however, I started running into the usual issues where EFi-X started disappearing from BIOS, or got stuck at "EFIXv1 Loading Please Wait", and realized that Chameleon is so much better, so I unplugged the bugger and went back to using Chameleon.

If I have some spare time this weekend I'll plug it back in and get you the information.

Here's a dump of my 4.6.12 system if it helps.
BTW: my device was broken with a hardware defect after upgrading to 3.6.11 (on bootup the black box was hiding the OS selection screen). Reflashing did not work as the firmware updater did not allow that .
So my Chameleon stick is prepared and (90%) running.
When 4.6.12 was released I gave it a try to update and....tada...my harware defect went away and that expensive usb stick is booting again...how long...who knows.
But anyway: also with 4.6.12 Time machine is not working so here's the dump file...

Originally Posted by chamelefi-X

Here's a dump of my 4.6.12 system if it helps.
BTW: my device was broken with a hardware defect after upgrading to 3.6.11 (on bootup the black box was hiding the OS selection screen). Reflashing did not work as the firmware updater did not allow that .
So my Chameleon stick is prepared and (90%) running.
When 4.6.12 was released I gave it a try to update and....tada...my harware defect went away and that expensive usb stick is booting again...how long...who knows.
But anyway: also with 4.6.12 Time machine is not working so here's the dump file...

Hi,

can you tell me what mainboard do you have and what BIOS version do you use? Your ioregdump shows an GA-EP35-DS3 mainboard and 2 ethernet interfaces "en0" and "en2". But the GA-EP35-DS3 has only one ethernet chip. Do you have an additional PCI-Networkcard?

Yes, you're right. I have an additional Network card (Netgear GA311) as there was always problems with the internal one.

Intersting that this FW was released just as Chameleon 2.0 RC2 was released too!

I did not make the relationship right away, but now that you're mentioning it .... :-)

Originally Posted by chamelefi-X

Yes, you're right. I have an additional Network card (Netgear GA311) as there was always problems with the internal one.

OK, this makes sense. TM cannot work, because your onboard nic has no "built-in" property. Here's the relevant part of the ioreg:

Code:

+-o PEX4@1C,4  <class IOPCIDevice, registered, matched, active, busy 0, retain 10>
| | {
| |   "acpi-path" = "IOACPIPlane:/_SB/PCI0@0/PEX4@1c0004"
| | }
| |
| +-o IOPCI2PCIBridge  <class IOPCI2PCIBridge, registered, matched, active, busy 0, retain 7>
|   | {
|   | }
|   |
|   +-o ethernet@0  <class IOPCIDevice, registered, matched, active, busy 0, retain 10>
|     | {
|     |   "IOPCIResourced" = Yes
|     |   "IOInterruptControllers" = ("io-apic-0","IOPCIMessagedInterruptController","IOPCIMessagedInterruptController")
|     |   "IOName" = "ethernet"
|     |   "subsystem-id" = <00e00000>
|     |   "IOPCIExpressLinkCapabilities" = 259089
|     |   "IODeviceMemory" = ({"parent"=({"address"=0,"length"=65536}),"offset"=49152,"length"=256},({"address"=18446744073592111104,"length"=4096}))
|     |   "class-code" = <00000200>
|     |   "IOPowerManagement" = {"ChildrenPowerState"=2,"CurrentPowerState"=2}
|     |   "revision-id" = <01000000>
|     |   "IOInterruptSpecifiers" = (<1000000007000000>,<0200000000000100>,<0300000000000100>)
|     |   "assigned-addresses" = <...>
|     |   "IOChildIndex" = 1
|     |   "IOPCIMSIMode" = Yes
|     |   "device-id" = <68810000>
|     |   "vendor-id" = <ec100000>
|     |   "name" = "ethernet"
|     |   "subsystem-vendor-id" = <58140000>
|     |   "IOPCIExpressLinkStatus" = 4113
|     |   "reg" = <...>
|     |   "compatible" = <"pci1458,e000","pci10ec,8168","pciclass,020000">
|     |   "IOPCIExpressASPMDefault" = 0
|     | }
|     |
|     +-o AppleRTL8169Ethernet  <class AppleRTL8169Ethernet, registered, matched, active, busy 0, retain 6>
|       | {
|       |   "CFBundleIdentifier" = "com.apple.driver.AppleRTL8169Ethernet"
|       |   "IOVendor" = "Realtek"
|       |   "IOUserClientClass" = "RTLNICClient"
|       |   "IOClass" = "AppleRTL8169Ethernet"
|       |   "IOModel" = "RTL8168B"
|       | }
|       |
|       +-o IOEthernetInterface  <class IOEthernetInterface, registered, matched, active, busy 0, retain 10>
|           {
|             "IOPrimaryInterface" = No
|             "BSD Name" = "en0"
|             "IOBuiltin" = No
|           }

Normally the "built-in"="1" property appears under ethernet@0.

But the really strange thing is, that your system uses the original Apple AppleRTL8169Ethernet.kext as the ethernet driver and not the one from ASEM. Your mainboard uses a Realtek 8111B, which is a reduced version of the 8168. The 8169 & 8110 (reduced version) are for PCI. The 8168 & 8111 (reduced version) are for PCI-Express. I don't know whether the Apple driver should work for the 8111B chip, but I don't think so, because it makes no sense to work on opensource drivers (like the Psystar R1000.kext), if the Apple supplied driver would work.

By the way... here is your patched DSDT ready to use with Chameleon.

Thanks a lot for the feedback and especially the patched DSDT file!
noob question: what is the benefit for me having this file? How do I use it?

cu
chamelefi-x

Originally Posted by chamelefi-X

Thanks a lot for the feedback and especially the patched DSDT file!
noob question: what is the benefit for me having this file? How do I use it?
cu
chamelefi-x

A quick response: Put it (dsdt.aml, the dsdt.dsl is the source code) into the Extra Folder along with com.apple.Boot.plist. Then you can remove the Disabler.kext from the Extra/Extensions folder. AppleRTC.kext and AppleIntelCPUPowerManagement.kext will work with this patched DSDT. With the "buggy" DSDT from Gigabyte these two kext's will crash. Disabler.kext disables the two. More info here: Link.