S20/S20II laptops (Hasee, Advent, Haier...)

[.:LoZar:.]

OK coconup, tnks for the hint! I'll keep you updated on my progresses...

[cairb21]

In reply to your question, Lozar, now I'm using Ideneb 1.04 which is based on osX 10.5.6, and yes the graphics card is working perfectly once installing the two drivers I gave a link to earlier. The issue is only BEFORE installing them, on first boot, if you are unlucky you will get a white screen and you will have to reboot 1,2 or 3 times before getting the welcome video, and then the registration screens. But once the system is fully loaded you can install the kexts you need, natit.kext and AppleIntelGMAX3100F.kext included in order to solve the white screen issue.

The only graphical issue I have is with an external monitor, if I select mirrored mode, but by default the settings are on wide desktop, not mirror, and this works perfectly.

As I said what I can't get to work is : 4 in 1 card reader, pc card slot, and firewire (half working), which are all made by O2micro, at least on my laptop, shutdown is never properly finished and requires me to press the power button during four seconds, sleep is working but not deep sleep. Apart from the fact I can't use the standard 10.5.6 AppleIntelGMAX3100F.kext (not a big deal because of the workaround) and the shutdown issue, I guess I have everything working as good as it is for coconup - except in my case I already had an OsX compatible wifi chip.

 

Regarding the bios, we all have phoenix bios, but I'm not sure if 1.11 given by Hasee and 1.11 given by Advent are the same. The 1.11 I tried gave me a noisy fan, but maybe it solved other issues I couldn't see, such as cpu support (I have a Celeron 550 which has a 533 mhz fsb, I know some Hasee laptops come with 800 mhz fsb cpus). Maybe that is also the reason why 2gb work properly for me but not 4gb... I never tried XP on this laptop, but I'm sure my memory issue has nothing to do with OsX because of Ubuntu memory test getting stuck if I launch it with 4gb. Anyways in your case I wouldn't recommend changing the bios, as there could be a risk regarding processor suport. In my case I was putting a higher version so I knew it would work. The fact that you nearly can't change anything in the bios is normal (my original one and the two others I tried always had the same options : boot priority, password settings, but unfortunately no possibility of changing memory clocks, for example.)

I found the 1.04 bios I'm using on this chinese site, searching for "hasee s20ii8 bios" in google. They seem to have other bioses but I don't speak chinese. For the advent bios I found the same page as Tormentor.

[coconup]

There is really something that I've to know more on EFI partitions and the rest, yesterday I tried the new (official) chameleon 2.0 RC and the coconup sound kext stopped to work, I had to come back to PC EFI v9

 

As coconup suggested, voodoopower worked only in the /System/Libraries/Extensions folder and not in the /Extra/Extensions.mkext , now it's ok.

 

the audio kexts will work only if you put them in extra/extensions.mkext. if you use the extra/extensions folder they won't load so that's why your audio stopped working , nothing to do with chameleon which btw works really great here (however I read about issues when dual booting xp).

[.:LoZar:.]

In reply to your question, Lozar, now I'm using Ideneb 1.04 which is based on osX 10.5.6, and yes the graphics card is working perfectly once installing the two drivers I gave a link to earlier. The issue is only BEFORE installing them, on first boot, if you are unlucky you will get a white screen and you will have to reboot 1,2 or 3 times before getting the welcome video, and then the registration screens. But once the system is fully loaded you can install the kexts you need, natit.kext and AppleIntelGMAX3100F.kext included in order to solve the white screen issue.

The only graphical issue I have is with an external monitor, if I select mirrored mode, but by default the settings are on wide desktop, not mirror, and this works perfectly.

As I said what I can't get to work is : 4 in 1 card reader, pc card slot, and firewire (half working), which are all made by O2micro, at least on my laptop, shutdown is never properly finished and requires me to press the power button during four seconds, sleep is working but not deep sleep. Apart from the fact I can't use the standard 10.5.6 AppleIntelGMAX3100F.kext (not a big deal because of the workaround) and the shutdown issue, I guess I have everything working as good as it is for coconup - except in my case I already had an OsX compatible wifi chip.

 

Regarding the bios, we all have phoenix bios, but I'm not sure if 1.11 given by Hasee and 1.11 given by Advent are the same. The 1.11 I tried gave me a noisy fan, but maybe it solved other issues I couldn't see, such as cpu support (I have a Celeron 550 which has a 533 mhz fsb, I know some Hasee laptops come with 800 mhz fsb cpus). Maybe that is also the reason why 2gb work properly for me but not 4gb... I never tried XP on this laptop, but I'm sure my memory issue has nothing to do with OsX because of Ubuntu memory test getting stuck if I launch it with 4gb. Anyways in your case I wouldn't recommend changing the bios, as there could be a risk regarding processor suport. In my case I was putting a higher version so I knew it would work. The fact that you nearly can't change anything in the bios is normal (my original one and the two others I tried always had the same options : boot priority, password settings, but unfortunately no possibility of changing memory clocks, for example.)

I found the 1.04 bios I'm using on this chinese site, searching for "hasee s20ii8 bios" in google. They seem to have other bioses but I don't speak chinese. For the advent bios I found the same page as Tormentor.

 

what's the difference between sleep and deep sleep?

 

BTW my 1.11 bios is from hasee because of the fullscreen logo at the startup.

[tormentor]

Yes, the bios are personalized with the logo of the company that sells it, what i meant is that if you change the bios with the one of another brand (for example advent) the laptop will work the same way but you'll see the logo from Advent (ok, maybe it's something weird and funny) . If you can do a backup of bios 1.11 it will be much appreciated...

[coconup]

small update: by deleting all the usb ports in dsdt I got rid of all those usb kexts, including ehci sleep enabler. it's a kind of a dirty way to go but in this way I can use vanilla kexts for usb without losing sleep and the only kexts that I have to load are ApplePS2Controller, ACPIPS2Nub, HDA and dsmos

[cairb21]

what's the difference between sleep and deep sleep?

 

BTW my 1.11 bios is from hasee because of the fullscreen logo at the startup.

Deep sleep (or safe sleep) is like hibernate in Windows. By default there is no hibernate mode in Mac Os X, but it does write memory to disk so that if the battery gets completely empty during sleep, the system can restart were it was before. Some people made a small widget for real macs to enable deep sleep directly without going through sleep, in order to have an equivalent to hibernate mode. However I couldn't get that to work on my laptop, there is a message on startup saying the memory image is corrupted (or something like that).

[Daniel Gustavsson]

Yes, the bios are personalized with the logo of the company that sells it, what i meant is that if you change the bios with the one of another brand (for example advent) the laptop will work the same way but you'll see the logo from Advent (ok, maybe it's something weird and funny) . If you can do a backup of bios 1.11 it will be much appreciated...

I flashed my Hasee with the Advent bios and evrything works better than before, maybe becouse i hade the hasee 1.0 version of the bios and i think its older than 1.04? Nothing weird with my fan. Its noisy as hell but i am about to fix that somehow? If somebody has any idea how to? i would be very happy to know

I use an extra ATA HD instead of the internal DVD as you can see in the pics and i have also switched the ralink wifi card to the original broadcom airport extreme mini pci. i can use wifi even if the wifi switch is set to off and thats good cause i hate the blue ledlight when its set to on.

[Daniel Gustavsson]

I flashed my Hasee with the Advent bios and evrything works better than before, maybe becouse i hade the hasee 1.0 version of the bios and i think its older than 1.04? Nothing weird with my fan. Its noisy as hell, but i am about to fix that somehow? If somebody has any idea how to? i would be very happy

I use an extra ATA HD instead of the internal DVD as you can see in the pics and i have also switched the ralink wifi card to the original broadcom airport extreme mini pci and its like a real mac with all the features. I can use wifi even if the wifi switch is set to off and thats good cause i hate the blue ledlight when its set to on.

By the way i cant get 4 gigs of ram working either. I have tried with 3 different brands of ram, but its a dead end. Becouse evrytime i do something graphical or doing somthing process demanding like fixing diskpermissions in diskutility the computer just hangs with a weird looking screen, so iam stucked with only 3 gigs of ram and if anybody knows why? Please let me know?? I have only tried Mac osx86 on this notebook so i dont know if it would work in linux or windows vista.

[cairb21]

If you had 1.0 version of the bios before, maybe you should try 1.04. It is less noisy than Advent's 1.11 ( you can use silent mode, the button to the left of the on / off button ). With the bios from advent, I don't hear any difference when it's pressed, even if a small moon lights up. With 1.04 in silent mode, the fan is always on, but doesn't turn as fast.

Regarding the memory issue, and as other people don't seem to have it, maybe it would be caused by the processor overheating, because I have read somewhere that on these laptops dual channel memory raises temperatures. The screen corruption I get after launching a game is pretty close to what you would get on a computer overclocked above it's limits. I am waiting for a dual core processor I bought on ebay, maybe it will solve my issue (or not : ) ). Just to be sure, did you use coconup's method to install os X (I guess so by looking at your about this mac screen, but maybe I'm wrong ?) because if you have we are sure the memory issue has nothing to do with the way osX is installed (I really doubt it does, specially given ubuntu's memtest which just gets stuck with 4 gigs on my computer, but as I have tried neither windows nor coconup's installation method, I cannot be sure...)

[coconup]

with the new VoodooPS2Controller 2 finger scrolling is working perfectly, now I have only 3 kexts to load in extra/extensions.mkext: dsmos, HDA and VoodooPS2Controller

[tormentor]

Thank you coconup, I'm going to try the voodoo ps2 controller

 

If you use the AnV XNU Kernel V1.4 you don't have even to load the dsmos kext

 

( http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=153414 )

 

Just remember (but you should know it...) to add the dsmos and the decrypter just before a software upgrade to a newest version (for example 10.5.7) because it uses to change the kernel (or change the path to the kernel in use)

 

If you're so kind to attach your dsdt.aml without the USB thing it would be appreciated a lot (I'm not able to patch a dsdt...)

 

With the 1.04 bios the fan starts spinning at an accetable rate, I think that is more linked to the GPU usage (video card) than the CPU, but I've not a way to test it if not looking at the CPU meter of istat menus.

 

The shut down problem should be fixed with the openhaltrestart.kext or a modified kernel like the the AnV XNU Kernel V1.4, mine works like a charm, I'm prone to suggest to exeryone to try this kernel on 10.5.6 (restart with -f and clear all the caches with OSX86tools or it will give kernel panic when it loads)

 

P.S.

 

I tried the VoodooPS2controller, got a mega Kernel Panic at first even after deleting the ApplePS2controller, then I found the appleps2nub under appleacpiplatform, deleted it and now it works, side scrolling and 2 fingers scrolling.

 

I don't know but probably on the next software upgrade I'll have another kernel panic...

[Daniel Gustavsson]

If you had 1.0 version of the bios before, maybe you should try 1.04. It is less noisy than Advent's 1.11 ( you can use silent mode, the button to the left of the on / off button ). With the bios from advent, I don't hear any difference when it's pressed, even if a small moon lights up. With 1.04 in silent mode, the fan is always on, but doesn't turn as fast.

Regarding the memory issue, and as other people don't seem to have it, maybe it would be caused by the processor overheating, because I have read somewhere that on these laptops dual channel memory raises temperatures. The screen corruption I get after launching a game is pretty close to what you would get on a computer overclocked above it's limits. I am waiting for a dual core processor I bought on ebay, maybe it will solve my issue (or not : ) ). Just to be sure, did you use coconup's method to install os X (I guess so by looking at your about this mac screen, but maybe I'm wrong ?) because if you have we are sure the memory issue has nothing to do with the way osX is installed (I really doubt it does, specially given ubuntu's memtest which just gets stuck with 4 gigs on my computer, but as I have tried neither windows nor coconup's installation method, I cannot be sure...)

No it has nothing to do with how you install mac osx. Mayby we need mac memories? I have tried with 2 different processors of the core2duo merom family, still the same issue with 4 gigs of ram. I know nothing about dos and dont understand how to install the 1.04 bios??

[cairb21]

So I got the T5550 I was waiting for, and made some tests. It works perfectly on the laptop and is of course better than the one core celeron I had before. Unfortunately it didn't solve my memory issue, 4gb still doesn't work for me, so I guess it has nothing to do with the type of processor. While dismantling the cooling system, I noticed that the thermal paste which was on the chipset seemed kind of weird, as it was solid, whereas the one on the processor which I had to renew was normal (white grease). Maybe that is causing the issue ? I'm not sure if the chipset is correctly cooled, but as I wasn't sure I prefered to let it the way it was.

I'm going to try Windows 7 x64, certainly more reliable than ubuntu, on the laptop to check if 4 gigs of memory work in it or if it's an issue I only get in os X.

By the way I was wondering, are you people who are using 4 gigs of memory on the laptop using normal Leopard, or Snow Leopard ? Because I'm a bit surprised a 32 bit os is able to handle such an amount of memory ?

[cairb21]

No it has nothing to do with how you install mac osx. Mayby we need mac memories? I have tried with 2 different processors of the core2duo merom family, still the same issue with 4 gigs of ram. I know nothing about dos and dont understand how to install the 1.04 bios??

No, one of the memory types I tried was designed for macs (g-skill brand), and it didn't solve the issue.

I'm beginning to wonder if there isn't a difference in the way the memory system is built on some of these laptops ...

 

There are certainly other ways to install the bios, but here is what you can do :

- download a windows millenium boot disk here and burn it on a blank cd (you can do it with disk utility for example).

- Burn the three files given for the 1.04 bios update on the root of another cd (autoexec.bat, bios.wph, plash16.exe).

- Insert the windows millenium boot disk in your dvd drive and restart the laptop.

- You should be prompted to boot from cd or hard disk, chose boot from cd

- Then you should be prompted to enable cd drive or not, chose to enable it

- Once Dos is fully loaded (it should display A:\ or C:\, I'm not sure) remove windows millenium boot disk and insert the cd on which you burned the bios files.

- Type d: and press ENTER, this should get you to your cd drive.

- Type autoexec and press ENTER, this should launch the bios update utility.

Note: If you had a bios.bat file and not an autoexec.bat one, type bios, or anything the .bat file is called, and press ENTER. If you are not sure of the file names you can type dir and press ENTER to list the files of the directory you are in.

 

This method enables you only to update your bios, it doesn't allow it to be backed up as the sata hard drive is not recognized.

[Daniel Gustavsson]

So I got the T5550 I was waiting for, and made some tests. It works perfectly on the laptop and is of course better than the one core celeron I had before. Unfortunately it didn't solve my memory issue, 4gb still doesn't work for me, so I guess it has nothing to do with the type of processor. While dismantling the cooling system, I noticed that the thermal paste which was on the chipset seemed kind of weird, as it was solid, whereas the one on the processor which I had to renew was normal (white grease). Maybe that is causing the issue ? I'm not sure if the chipset is correctly cooled, but as I wasn't sure I prefered to let it the way it was.

I'm going to try Windows 7 x64, certainly more reliable than ubuntu, on the laptop to check if 4 gigs of memory work in it or if it's an issue I only get in os X.

By the way I was wondering, are you people who are using 4 gigs of memory on the laptop using normal Leopard, or Snow Leopard ? Because I'm a bit surprised a 32 bit os is able to handle such an amount of memory ?

Ok!

I got the same solid paste on my chipset, im gonna try the white stuff for the gpu as well and see if it runs cooler.

 

No, one of the memory types I tried was designed for macs (g-skill brand), and it didn't solve the issue.

I'm beginning to wonder if there isn't a difference in the way the memory system is built on some of these laptops ...

 

There are certainly other ways to install the bios, but here is what you can do :

- download a windows millenium boot disk here and burn it on a blank cd (you can do it with disk utility for example).

- Burn the three files given for the 1.04 bios update on the root of another cd (autoexec.bat, bios.wph, plash16.exe).

- Insert the windows millenium boot disk in your dvd drive and restart the laptop.

- You should be prompted to boot from cd or hard disk, chose boot from cd

- Then you should be prompted to enable cd drive or not, chose to enable it

- Once Dos is fully loaded (it should display A:\ or C:\, I'm not sure) remove windows millenium boot disk and insert the cd on which you burned the bios files.

- Type d: and press ENTER, this should get you to your cd drive.

- Type autoexec and press ENTER, this should launch the bios update utility.

Note: If you had a bios.bat file and not an autoexec.bat one, type bios, or anything the .bat file is called, and press ENTER. If you are not sure of the file names you can type dir and press ENTER to list the files of the directory you are in.

 

This method enables you only to update your bios, it doesn't allow it to be backed up as the sata hard drive is not recognized.

Thank you i try the bios update right now!!

[coconup]

this is my dsdt.aml: DSDT.aml.zip

[coconup]

I updated the Boot CD. It now installs VoodooPS2Controller and it autodetects the booting drive, please let me know if it works

[tormentor]

Thank you coconup Sleep is working perfectly now, tried with Fn+F1

[Daniel Gustavsson]

Ok!

I got the same solid paste on my chipset, im gonna try the white stuff for the gpu as well and see if it runs cooler.

Thank you i try the bios update right now!!

Silent mod is working now with the hasee bios. Thank you very much for your help.

Tonight im gonna try the thermal paste on the gpu and see if it helps.

[aRiFy]

I got rid of the USB kexts by deleting all the USB devices in my DSDT. In this way, all the USBs are shown as 'Expansion Slot' and not 'Built in' in system profiler and they don't break sleep.

 

what does this mean?

does this fix the usb problem im having? also how do i do this? what is DSDT?

[aRiFy]

noone want to help answer my question?

[tormentor]

ARify, for what's DSDT.aml you should search in the forum, in any case stick it in the root directory of your hard disk and install chameleon, PC EFI or whatever, as far as I know the modified one from coconup is for solving a 'sleep' problem related to the USB, if you've something not working on your USB ports it's all a different matter.

[aRiFy]

the usb problem im having is that when i take out a usb device such as a usb stick and try put it in again it wont open it.. but if i restart it does until i take it out again!

[tormentor]

I've not the solution at hand, anyway it's a common issue that can have more than one cause, and I think there are specific topics about it in the genius bar section of this site. It happened to me when I had installed an old Kernel on newer kexts. In any case if you've a vanilla installation with no strange kexts installed it doesn't happen on this laptop, follow the guide, upgrade to 10.5.6 (kernel included, make sure that your boot doesn't point to something different from mach.kernel) and it's done.