42 replies to this topic

[real_sinjon]

Just in case anyone is still struggling with ethernet on their machine, I found this post tonight which has given me a fully functioning BCM5752 ethernet controller. Hope it's of some use to someone. Hopefully the device id quoted is fairly common among the D420s as the OP has a D620.

http://www.insanelym...p...st&p=907294

Now if we could just get the mute fixed on the audio....!  

[collit99]

Hi I finally made my touchpad working with ALPS Glidepad driver! I just follow this guide. You guys can try my customized com.apple.driver.ApplePS2Trackpad.plist below, the trick is adjust all the setting under "SynapticsPreferences" yes not under AlpsPreferences follow this guide on what propeties to adjust.

What's working
Tapping
Tap and drag
Scrolling(Horizontal and Vertical)

What's not
Pointing stick

Included in this package are the ALPS Installer, FFScrollDaemon and my customized plist.
Mediafire link

Good Luck!

[real_sinjon]

Update on the sound issues and lack of mute / headphone mute.

I paired up a cheap mobile bluetooth headset and switched to it for both speakers and input. Whilst sound quality is crappy it does solve the mute issue, giving me a functioning mute button on the keyboard and mute checkbox in Sound System Preferences. I suppose it's not really a workaround as I would use a headset for skype calls, which I tested and it works great.

I don't have much experience of stereo bluetooth headsets but with a decent unit my guess is that we should be able to have a more proper headphone/sound result with the benefit of not being tethered to the notebook?

We'd just have to switch to and from internal speakers as needed but those speakers are so poor I can't see me using them much anyway.

I'm going to see if I can get hold of a decent b/t headset cheap. I'll let you know how this works out.  

[real_sinjon]

A further update on the Bluetooth headphone solution.

I tried a Motorola S9 and it was pants! Very poor sound quality and the headset itself was uncomfortable and didn't lend itself to a good fit. Not recommended. Bought on ebay and sent back!

However I've had a much better experience with the Sony Ericsson HBH-DS200. This neat little unit comes with some cheap headphones but allows you to plug in any stereo mini jack so could be used with decent speakers as well as your own headphones. I plugged in my Ultimate Ears S5's and the sound quality was very good. The HBH-DS200 also has a microphone so ticks all the boxes.

As previously experienced, the Bluetooth headset pairs and connects easily. The stereo sound quality is very good, although moving too far from the laptop causes some disruption, typically more than 2/3 metres. As the Bluetooth device has it's own speaker settings, you get full control over left/right stereo, mute on internal speakers and mute control for headphone speakers.

This thing cost me £24.99 incl the cheap headphones from Carphone Warehouse in the UK and I have to say it is a pretty good solution to the whole dodgy headphone/mute functionality.

Anyone still following this thread who is having the audio problems would do a lot worse than to get themselves a decent Bluetooth headset adapter.

[youngbilly]

I am a completely newbie for Mac. I did successfully installed 10.5.2 on my D420. I got it work by accident. I struggled so long for the onboard network card. It never worked for me. I finally gave up for the wired network and bought an ebay Dell 1390 card last night.  I have not received the mini card yet.

Today I was trying to make sound work. Suddenly, by chance, it made the wired NIC card work as well!

Here is what is working for me:

1. Video card.
2. Onboard NIC card. Works fluently without any problem. No drops, nothing.
3. Sounds. Ear phone and speakers.
4. USB devices.

Don't know what else to check. Like I said, I am new, I think everything works, I just don't know how to check. I am a senior IT guy with Linux, Unix, and Windows. I am at Mac 101.  

[kamilsos]

real_sinjon , can u tell how exactly did u mange to update to 10.5.6 ? I am running 10.5.2 , I already tried update via Kalway 10.5.3 combo update but with no luck .
I am running on 9.6.0 kernel, working without problems with dual cores.
Still can't get ethernet to work, I found one kext that make ethernet card visible in ifconfig (with normal mac address ) , but sending or receiving few packages make kernel panic.
Later try make scrolling working . BT & WiFi work out of box without problem.

[themsn]

I did a retail Leopard DVD install with DellMiniBoot123 on my d420.

my video won't work on the laptop.  I can only get it to work on an external monitor (and that's only after playing with FN+F8, unplugging vga cable, etc)

I can live with using an external monitor, but can any of you tell me how to get this thing to boot w/o booting off of DellMiniBoot123 CD?

Do I just install Chameleon 2beta?  I tried that, but it didn't work, but maybe I did something wrong?

ur help would be greatly appreciated.

And Thank you to vcrman and real_sinjon for the sound tip on using taruga's appleHDA patcher and sigmatel 9200.txt dump method!

[real_sinjon]

kamilsos, on May 19 2009, 11:07 AM, said:

real_sinjon , can u tell how exactly did u mange to update to 10.5.6 ? I am running 10.5.2 , I already tried update via Kalway 10.5.3 combo update but with no luck .
I am running on 9.6.0 kernel, working without problems with dual cores.
Still can't get ethernet to work, I found one kext that make ethernet card visible in ifconfig (with normal mac address ) , but sending or receiving few packages make kernel panic.
Later try make scrolling working . BT & WiFi work out of box without problem.

Sorry for late reply but I've been away from the boards for a while. Hopefully you got to the latest version by now but if not I used the excellent update tools from Mysticus found here and on his own site:- http://www.insanelym...howtopic=109102
These help you to reinstall your custom settings but back up any kexts you have altered just in case so that you can reinstall after using one of the tools such as kext helper or OSX86 Tools. I found I had to manually put back my battery meter and the lid close sleep kexts.
Good luck.

themsn, on Jun 10 2009, 03:46 PM, said:

I did a retail Leopard DVD install with DellMiniBoot123 on my d420.

my video won't work on the laptop.  I can only get it to work on an external monitor (and that's only after playing with FN+F8, unplugging vga cable, etc)

I can live with using an external monitor, but can any of you tell me how to get this thing to boot w/o booting off of DellMiniBoot123 CD?

Do I just install Chameleon 2beta?  I tried that, but it didn't work, but maybe I did something wrong?

ur help would be greatly appreciated.

And Thank you to vcrman and real_sinjon for the sound tip on using taruga's appleHDA patcher and sigmatel 9200.txt dump method!

As above, sorry for late reply but I've been awy from the boards for a while. The answer, in case you havent found it by now is to do with the AppleIntegratedFrameBuffer kext found in System/Library/Extensions. The only install disk I have found that contains a working AIFB is Kalyway 10.5.1 or 10.5.2 which both use the kext from Tiger. All the more upto date distros I've tried display exactly the symptom you are seeing because they use a later Leopard AIFB.
If you have a working install and can view from an external monitor I would suggest replacing the AIFB with the one in the Kalyway distro. I've never done this but it should work fine. Good luck.

I've never used the Dell miniboot cd but it sounds like your boot loader didn't install properly. I would try doing another install of either the latest Chameleon or PCEFI to get the boot loader on to your hard disk.

[real_sinjon]

I decided to have another go at the sound issue as I was not entirely happy with the bluetooth solution. Even though leopard is supposed to be stereo bluetooth compliant I found that I got too many dropped connections with my bluetooth device and the sound quality exhibited massive variability from excellent to very distorted.

So, I tried the VoodooHDA kext which is still in beta and has many bug reports being worked on - NB**  

You can download this here:
http://code.google.c...a...mp;can=2&q=

I backed up and then deleted the AppleHDA kext then used OSX86Tools to install the Voodoo kext. The result is certainly a big improvement but I suppose mileage will vary depending on the exact spec of each machine and it's early days yet as I havent tested it in every situation such as waking from sleep etc. However, I now have:

Sound from internal speaker - as before (still crappy)
Sound from Headphone jack - as before
Working mute function on internal speaker - as before
Working volume controls on keyboard with HUD - as before
Headphones mute internal speaker when plugged in - previously did not work
Independent volume controls for headphones - previously internal speaker was affected as well

So far so good. This is a big improvement on the HDA patcher solution from Taruga that has served me so well. I'll be watching out for updates to the voodoo project and will let you know how they work for me.

[vcrman]

Amazing research on the voodoo for the audio real_sinjon.

Any update on Framebuffer for the gma950?

Also Qoopz 9.8 kernel v2 is the way to go. (based off voodoo/xnu-fork)

Cheers

[jbloogs]

I'm not sure why this wasn't brought up earlier, but its much easier to install Snow Leopard using this guide:

http://www.insanelym...p...178411&st=0

Everything seems to work extremely well with the exception of my Intel wireless card (have ordered Dell 1490 via ebay as Intel is not supported).  For the DVD player, I downloaded VLC which seems to do the trick.

PS- upgraded to 10.6.2 without problems.

[themsn]

collit99, on Apr 4 2009, 04:58 PM, said:

Hi I finally made my touchpad working with ALPS Glidepad driver! I just follow this guide. You guys can try my customized com.apple.driver.ApplePS2Trackpad.plist below, the trick is adjust all the setting under "SynapticsPreferences" yes not under AlpsPreferences follow this guide on what propeties to adjust.

What's working
Tapping
Tap and drag
Scrolling(Horizontal and Vertical)

What's not
Pointing stick

Included in this package are the ALPS Installer, FFScrollDaemon and my customized plist.
Mediafire link

Good Luck!

collit99-

Could you maybe upload your customized plist for scrolling again?  The Mediafire link is dead.

And thank you, real_sinjon, for your response.  I actually took jbloogs suggestion and used the d620 guide by Leppy700m to install everything over again.  

That allowed everything to work (even the video!).  And Jabbaranks' tip from Gujal for the sleep works PERFECTLY!

I could never get chameleon 2 to work on my laptop, so I just boot off of a usb stick as described by stickpin here: http://www.insanelym...howtopic=115064

Now I'm just trying to get any form of scrolling to work.

Thank you everyone for helping me hack my d420!

[rj]

Ok, lurker here. Add me to the ranks of those who have installed 10.6 on their D420.

I used the thread that was mentioned by jbloogs. Everything installed smoothly, I'm just waiting on my Dell 1490 Card also.

@jbloogs: Does sleep work for you when you set a System Password? As mentioned in the other thread, it can be inconsistent and mine doesn't work.


Everything else that I care about immediately seems to work, but I will get more in depth once I have working wireless and can do it from my couch.

Thanks to everyone here for posting and sharing their knowledge.  

[collit99]

themsn, on Dec 8 2009, 11:36 PM, said:

collit99-

Could you maybe upload your customized plist for scrolling again?  The Mediafire link is dead.

And thank you, real_sinjon, for your response.  I actually took jbloogs suggestion and used the d620 guide by Leppy700m to install everything over again.  

That allowed everything to work (even the video!).  And Jabbaranks' tip from Gujal for the sleep works PERFECTLY!

I could never get chameleon 2 to work on my laptop, so I just boot off of a usb stick as described by stickpin here: http://www.insanelym...howtopic=115064

Now I'm just trying to get any form of scrolling to work.

Thank you everyone for helping me hack my d420!

Hi, here's the link of my plist.

Dell D420/D430 2 fingerscroll

[Nexar]

hey guys, great that you contributed so much! i wasnt able to update my d420 to 10.5.5 so i installed win xp again and currently im pretty happy with win 7...but since you guys got almost everything working, im thinking about to reinstall osx86. If so i will update my post with all your contributions i used.

[ps2pk]

anyone found a solution to getting rid of the artifacts in office 08?

[maykmac]

has any one successfully installed SL on D420?

[maykmac]

got SL working on my D420, but it would be nice if dual monitor is working...

any clues?

[ja3h]

Hi guys,

I'm new here - I've been using a Mac at work for some time now and I'm thinking of getting putting osx on my d420.

So have people used the D620 guide to install it?

I would love to get this installed on my d420 - I don't have the external burner is it easier to copy the retail dvd onto a usb stick and install?

Sorry for all the questions!

[Mr John Smith]

Here is a new gospel: Perfect Snow Leopard 10.6.3 on Dell Latitude D420

Preface

• There are two varieties of D420: single core and core duo. This guide applies to core duo only
  
• Most of D420 used to ship with Intel wireless. It has to be replaced with a compatible Broadcom wireless

Requirements

• As per leppy700m's guide

Walk through

• Follow to leppy770m's guide step by step. Don't go for software update yet
  
• Once you have working Snow Leopard, do some fine-tuning
  
  • Remove the following kexts from /Extra/Extensions/
    
    • AppleBCM5751Ethernet.kext - I'm not interested in wired Ethernet. The laptops are for mobility == go wireless
      
    • IONetworkingFamily.kext - The less non-vanilla stuff, the better
      
    • AppleIntelGMA950.kext - Vanilla GMA950 appears to be fine
      
    • IOGraphicsFamily.kext - This is supposed to be in /S/L/E/. Native kext works okay
      
    • Natit.kext - Doesn't do anything good for GMA950, it's mostly for nVidia

  • Remove AppleIntelIntegratedFramebuffer.kext from /S/L/E/:
    sudo rm -rf /System/Library/Extensions/AppleIntelIntegratedFramebuffer.kext
    
  • Move AppleIntelIntegratedFramebuffer.kext from /Extra/Extensions/ to /S/L/E/:
    sudo mv /Extra/Extensions/AppleIntelIntegratedFramebuffer.kext /System/Library/Extensions/
    
  • Don't do anything to /S/L/Extensions.mkext - Leopard takes care of cache on its own
    
  • Rebuild /Extra/Extensions.mkext:
    sudo kextcache -quiet -a i386 -z -m /Extra/Extensions.mkext /Extra/Extensions

• Reboot and confirm you still have perfect Snow Leopard 10.6.0
  
• Run Software Update, take 10.6.3 Combo Update, and all the rest
  
• Reboot and confirm you have perfect Snow Leopard 10.6.3

Notes

• As it is the same frame buffer from Tiger, you would expect exactly the same artefacts
  
• Green WiFi indicator keeps off all the time
  
• Insomnia. It wouldn't sleep

EDIT: Corrected some spelling and updated HCL 10.6.3