[GUIDE] Installing Leopard on Dell Studio XPS i7

[lun_IX]

The USB thingy actually came shipped with my Beyedynamic MMX 2 headset:

 

http://www.beyerdynamic-usa.com/en/consume...Hash=4806b2cfd0

 

Should be nothing special, just a very simple basic USB device with mic and headphone jacks on the one end, and usb connector an the other.

Is directly detected by OS X, no driver or reboot needed, works oob.

 

Hope that helps!

 

 

I haven't had much time testing the 4850, ran a fast World of Warcraft test and had about 30FPS with every setting cranked up to max @1680*1050 in Dalaran (which is about three times as much as i had with my Late '08 MacBook Pro).

Rest of the night i had to wait until the data from my MacBook Pro was copied. During the weekend i'll be out, so no further testing until monday.

 

But I'm positively surprised about the volume of the 4850's fan, it's actuall quite silent (as opposing to that horrible case-fan).

[chipset]

I am getting further along, but still having issues.

 

I have 10.5.6 up and running.

Ethernet is installed and working at Gigabit speeds.

 

However, I cannot change to the full cpu. Every time I do, it hangs.

 

I also don't have my graphics card working (4850). I downloaded the patch up above but the screen goes blank after the reboot.

 

I believe in order to fix the blank screen, I need to remove the device information from the Boot.plist file. Then I need to figure out why that isn't working.

 

Does anyone know why my machine would halt with multiple cores and hyperthreading turned on? I am using the VOODOO kernel from Yardie.

 

Thanks,

Thomas

[teddiesmooth]

I believe in order to fix the blank screen, I need to remove the device information from the Boot.plist file. Then I need to figure out why that isn't working.

I would start fresh and remove the device EFI strings from the com.apple.Boot.plist file. That string includes the injector for audio, ethernet, and video. The vid string in the Yardie Boot.plist file is for the 3650 and would not help at all getting the drivers for the 4850 running. I would start with that, and once you get the vid working, you might not have to re-edit the EFI strings unless you object to using injectors like Natit.

 

Does anyone know why my machine would halt with multiple cores and hyperthreading turned on? I am using the VOODOO kernel from Yardie.

Make sure the DSDT.aml file is located in the root of your iAtkos and vanilla partitions. If I remember correctly the filename is case sensitive.

 

Last but not least, if you're still having issues getting your drivers to load correctly, boot into your iAtkos partition, erase the Extensions.mkext file (NOT the folder) and do a Disk Utility -> Repair Permissions on the Vanilla partition. Upon rebooting into vanilla, flush your driver cache (just to be on the safe side) by entering -f at the boot prompt.

 

Good Luck!

[chipset]

I would start fresh and remove the device EFI strings from the com.apple.Boot.plist file. That string includes the injector for audio, ethernet, and video. The vid string in the Yardie Boot.plist file is for the 3650 and would not help at all getting the drivers for the 4850 running. I would start with that, and once you get the vid working, you might not have to re-edit the EFI strings unless you object to using injectors like Natit.

Make sure the DSDT.aml file is located in the root of your iAtkos and vanilla partitions. If I remember correctly the filename is case sensitive.

 

Last but not least, if you're still having issues getting your drivers to load correctly, boot into your iAtkos partition, erase the Extensions.mkext file (NOT the folder) and do a Disk Utility -> Repair Permissions on the Vanilla partition. Upon rebooting into vanilla, flush your driver cache (just to be on the safe side) by entering -f at the boot prompt.

 

Good Luck!

 

Well, I reinstalled for the umpteenth time. I have all cores represented. I am testing Handbrake right now.

 

I do not have the video working. I wasn't able to recover the system, as it would just blank out, even when I deleted the contents of the Boot.plist.

 

So, I am currently trying to figure out my next step. I may take a snapshop using CarbonCopyCloner to another drive. Once I do that, I mess with it and just have to restore, not a bunch of steps.

 

I did run into one problem this time, though. Upon booting, it said AppleSMBIOS.kext could not be loaded. I am not sure what that is. I am going to attempt a reinstall of that from Yardie's source.

 

That, and getting this damn video card going. Ugh. Good thing I have a ton of hard drives laying around. I wasn't able to install Vista on the same drive, so I am running OSX from USB. Not the best solution, but it works.

[chipset]

Well, I am down to just my last little issue. Video card.

 

I have everything working and I think it is stable.

 

When I installed the video drivers, the screen stops working when it comes up. If I plug the DVI2VGA adapter into the second port, the video is a horrible 800x600.

 

I can still get to the system through screen sharing on one of the other macs in the house, but I would like to get the video working.

 

lun_IX. I know you are gone for the weekend, but what was your process for getting your video card working? Did you install the two files and reboot?

 

If I pull up System Profiler, it crashes when I select graphics.

 

Any help is appreciated.

 

 

 

Well, I am down to just my last little issue. Video card.

 

I have everything working and I think it is stable.

 

When I installed the video drivers, the screen stops working when it comes up. If I plug the DVI2VGA adapter into the second port, the video is a horrible 800x600.

 

I can still get to the system through screen sharing on one of the other macs in the house, but I would like to get the video working.

 

lun_IX. I know you are gone for the weekend, but what was your process for getting your video card working? Did you install the two files and reboot?

 

If I pull up System Profiler, it crashes when I select graphics.

 

Any help is appreciated.

 

 

 

Never mind. Got it worked out. Needed a different driver. I found one that works but the screen was jittery. So, I fount Netkas' jitter fix and applied that. I am all set. Not the best resolution, but it will work (I am used to 1920 x 1200, it is 1600x1200). I am not going to get switchresx again. Did that once before. I will just wait that one out.

 

Thanks, all

[teddiesmooth]

Well, I am down to just my last little issue. Video card.

Were you able to get sound working too? I would be very impressed if you were able to get that worked out!

[chipset]

hehe.. no.

 

I am not overly concerned about sound, as this is mainly going to be used as a media and encoding server.

 

I did get the video working. It turned out I needed to change video ports. Switched the cables and I was good to go.

 

Sound would be nice, but not required for me.

[lun_IX]

Glad I could be of help.

 

Congrats to your working video!

 

All I did was install the driver, replace Boot.plist with the one from vanilla-installation, switch DVI2VGA and normal DVI Cable and everything worked just fine.

 

 

Last thing i did today was replacing the Dell-installed case fan with a Noctua 92mm one. System's quite nice now but i can't find an application for reading out temperature sensors. Non but the HDD-ones seem to work.

 

Any idea on that?

[chipset]

Try iStatPro. It's a widget.

 

I would try it out, but I am in the midst of reinstalling everything. I had it installed on an external USB drive. I couldn't get Vista to install on a GPT disk, so I bought a new 1.5TB drive for Mac OS. But, I have been having issues. Right now, I am getting panics right after boot. It's been a bunch of trouble. Ugh.

 

I can still boot to the USB drive, but I am having issues on the internal. I am waiting to see if it will boot up right now. Ugh.

 

Anyway, let me know if iStatPro works for you.

 

http://www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/s...s/istatpro.html

[lun_IX]

I'm sorry that you're having so much trouble.

I think you must be missing one vital step in your kernel setup.

 

But one quick question: how were you able to boot from USB? I didn't find any option in BIOS to activate it?

 

 

Thanks for the tip, but sadly no software i've tested so far shows any other temperatures, than the hdd temp.

There just seems to be no sensor.

 

 

And i just found another problem:

When i put the computer to sleep and wake it, LAN doesn't work any more.

After a reboot everything is just fine.

[teddiesmooth]

I did a fresh codec dump and am in the process of mapping the pinouts. Not that I doubt Yardie's efforts but I want to double check that the info that he provided (codec dump, pinouts, etc.) is accurate.

 

What I found interesting is when I was in Linux (Mandriva) I noticed two codecs:

 

codec#0 is the ATI audio passthrough (HDMI) (ATI HD3650)

codec#2 is the ALC888 codec

 

Since I am able to get sound out of the HDMI port in Mandriva and in Vista, I think it would just be a matter of making sure the ATI codec is in the AppleHDA.kext and that the pinouts from the "SPDIF Internal ATAPI" are routed properly. It might just be a matter of adding that to the AppleHDA.kext and putting the proper config information into the HDenabler.kext

 

@chipset

 

Have you tried using formatting your internal drive with the GPT boot record instead of MBR?

 

@lun_IX

 

I haven't tried booting from USB other than booting off a flash drive once. To do this I plugged the USB drive into the computer, booted up, and while the DELL splash screen is up press F12 and it will give you a list of drives that the BIOS detected after POST.

[chipset]

I'm sorry that you're having so much trouble.

I think you must be missing one vital step in your kernel setup.

 

But one quick question: how were you able to boot from USB? I didn't find any option in BIOS to activate it?

Thanks for the tip, but sadly no software i've tested so far shows any other temperatures, than the hdd temp.

There just seems to be no sensor.

And i just found another problem:

When i put the computer to sleep and wake it, LAN doesn't work any more.

After a reboot everything is just fine.

 

You just use F12 and you can also set the boot order. It works pretty good, but it is a little bit slow. So, I wanted to put it on a fast dedicated drive. Plus, I won't have extra cables hanging out of the computer.

 

I had mine go to sleep but I didn't test the LAN. I will check it out for you.

 

@chipset

 

Have you tried using formatting your internal drive with the GPT boot record instead of MBR?

 

At first, I had a problem where the screen would come up blank, like there was no OS and it just hung. I have gotten past that.

 

I have done about 5 installs only to get the system to boot but any time I try to turn on hyperthreading and cores, it would hang during the boot process after finding reporting on the MACF.

 

I have even cloned the USB hard drive (Carbon Copy Cloner), which is supposed to make an exact duplicate and it doesn't work right. It will boot, but again, issues with the CPU.

 

I have followed the instructions diligently, used the DSDT.aml file provided, tried creating my own, etc.

 

Still trying to work through the issues.

[lun_IX]

You just use F12 and you can also set the boot order. It works pretty good, but it is a little bit slow. So, I wanted to put it on a fast dedicated drive. Plus, I won't have extra cables hanging out of the computer.

 

That's weird, tried exactly that and the BIOS didn't offer me my USB- HDD as boot-option.

Well, no worries since i did it via iATKOS i5 DVD install.

(I just wanted to have a USB-HDD with 3 Partitions with 3 different distributions on them to try each and don't have to exchange DVD's every time. But since it worked out so well using iATKOS and didn't have to try any other distribution.)

 

 

 

chipset, you're able to boot up your vanilla install with disabled cores and HT?

Have you set "busratio=20" in your Boot.plist? You have to user that flag once you enable cores (using voodoo-Kernel that is).

And have you tried booting with the "-f" flag?

[chipset]

That's weird, tried exactly that and the BIOS didn't offer me my USB- HDD as boot-option.

Well, no worries since i did it via iATKOS i5 DVD install.

(I just wanted to have a USB-HDD with 3 Partitions with 3 different distributions on them to try each and don't have to exchange DVD's every time. But since it worked out so well using iATKOS and didn't have to try any other distribution.)

chipset, you're able to boot up your vanilla install with disabled cores and HT?

Have you set "busratio=20" in your Boot.plist? You have to user that flag once you enable cores (using voodoo-Kernel that is).

And have you tried booting with the "-f" flag?

 

I will verify after this install attempt. I am cloning a drive again, one that is fully set up and works but is USB.

 

Plug any USB drive in, and hit F12. It will show up. I had 4 USB drives plugged in at one point with three different installs of OS X on them. I have one called main that works well. I just wish I could get it to work completely on an internal 7500 RPM drive.

[chipset]

I was able to get it installed on the smaller of my two drives. Instead of CCC, I used SuperDuper! Then you make the drive active with vsdbutil and install EFI.

 

It is working just as well as the USB, just much faster. I am now trying to reinstall on the 1.5TB drive. I was going to used the 750GB for Windows.

 

When I tried on the 1.5TB, I got a message related to oot0:GPT, oot0: HFS+, oot:error. So, I must've messed something up and am starting again. There is good news, it's very fast at copying data and only going through two steps.

 

After this, I can move it to a small portable usb drive and have a backup whenever I need it.

[lun_IX]

I was able to get it installed on the smaller of my two drives. Instead of CCC, I used SuperDuper! Then you make the drive active with vsdbutil and install EFI.

 

It is working just as well as the USB, just much faster. I am now trying to reinstall on the 1.5TB drive. I was going to used the 750GB for Windows.

 

When I tried on the 1.5TB, I got a message related to oot0:GPT, oot0: HFS+, oot:error. So, I must've messed something up and am starting again. There is good news, it's very fast at copying data and only going through two steps.

 

After this, I can move it to a small portable usb drive and have a backup whenever I need it.

 

Creating a backup-usb-drive via SuperDuper sounds linke a very good idea.

 

Glad you're making progress!

 

 

I've got one new glitch: every time i try to receive eMail via Apple Mail the program just crashes completely.

 

edit: Deinstalling Safari 4 fixed that. Seems to be an error associated to GrowlMail.

[chipset]

I gave up on trying to get everything set up on the 1.5TB drive. I ended up creating a little 200GB partition for Windows and used the rest as a data storage drive for the Mac. Not quite what I wanted, but the end result is the same.

 

I kept getting boot0: errors. I even reformatted the drive MBR and back to GPT to try and get rid of it, to no avail.

 

So, I am all good now. I have a nice clean image. I am debating stripping out on of my images and hosting it. Then you just need to extract it to a hard drive with iAtkos.

 

If someone gets sound working, that would be terrific. If not, I am still set.

[lun_IX]

Just wanted to let you know that an older Version of Temperature Monitor shows Temperatures for all Cores separately.

You have to use Temperature Monitor 4.5.1 (hosted by digital_dreamer).

 

I'm wondering right now if i should try striping my two 500GB harddrives to a RAID 0 ... but that seems to be not so easy to get working.

So maybe i should just stick to my very well running system..

 

Last night i installed a USB WLAN Adapter, D-Link DWL-122G. It just works out of the box using the included 10.4. drivers.

It even connects after putting the computer to sleep without replugging or rebooting.

Pity, it isn't recognized as Airport-Card. That'd be icing on the cake....

[chipset]

I thought about RAID 0, as well. I just didn't want to buy yet another HD for some added performance.

[lun_IX]

Well, there are some things that really are annoying me.

 

During the last two days i've had 2 kernel panics due to the new WLAN dongle.

They just happened while browsing with Safari... not reproducable.

 

Additionally i'm having regularly disconnects from my WLAN router... kinda s*cks during playing World of Warcraft (which is quite nice on that machine. )

Perhaps i'll better use cabled LAN.

 

Also, the hdds are quite noisy. It's a constant drone. But i'm not sure yet, how to isolate them from the case. There just is not enough space for two hdds... one i could fit into the spare 5 1/4" bay using ... but the other?!

 

 

 

Oh, and btw: Dell just released a new BIOS, 1.0.12, which disables that occasional fan-speedup!

http://ftp.us.dell.com/bios/S4351012.EXE

[chipset]

Well, there are some things that really are annoying me.

 

During the last two days i've had 2 kernel panics due to the new WLAN dongle.

They just happened while browsing with Safari... not reproducable.

 

Additionally i'm having regularly disconnects from my WLAN router... kinda s*cks during playing World of Warcraft (which is quite nice on that machine. )

Perhaps i'll better use cabled LAN.

 

Also, the hdds are quite noisy. It's a constant drone. But i'm not sure yet, how to isolate them from the case. There just is not enough space for two hdds... one i could fit into the spare 5 1/4" bay using ... but the other?!

Oh, and btw: Dell just released a new BIOS, 1.0.12, which disables that occasional fan-speedup!

http://ftp.us.dell.com/bios/S4351012.EXE

 

 

Have you applied the Bios update? I did one last week. It changed the bios logo to a Dell Studio XPS logo.

 

I haven't had a single panic. I am not using the DLINK (or Belkin, I can't remember which one you bought) wireless adapter, as I have it wired. It might be related to that.

 

As for the fan noise, it hasn't been too bad. Certainly no a Mac, although my old G5 Dual would occasionally sound like a jet engine, it has been reasonable.

 

My hard drives don't make much noise. I am not sure about yours, but mine came with a 7200 RPM hitachi 750 GB drive. I added a 7200 1.5 TB Seagate drive. I am contemplating putting my 1 TB samsung drive in as well, as it would be faster than the usb interface.

 

Let us know about your kernel panics. It would be interesting to see if they are network or video related.

[yeraym]

Hey, if you can't get your 3650 working fully try this package:

 

http://www.mediafire.com/?m93juvfld2w

I have the dell installed 3650 256mb, and only this package worked. I used the OP's boot plist.

 

Thanks aplats, I finally have my 3650 with 256mb working with QE/CI. This package is the only one that worked.

I'm not using yardie's .plist but Natit instead

I just hope anyone would find a solution to get sound (I will try myself)

 

Thanks to everybody in this thread as well

[lun_IX]

Yeah, i applied the BIOS update, installed windows just for that purpose because it was faster than buying a USB Stick and making it bootable.

The fans are very quiet now, just a whoosh at startup and that's it. (But with a Noctua 92mm Case-Fan instead of the original one, that is.)

 

I think the HDD noise is because of the vibrations that are transferred to the whole case.

It's not really bad, just a slight hum. But since i'm a silence lover when i'm not doing much but browsing the internet and such.

 

 

Since yesterday no more kernel panics... but they were definitely wlan related!

Perhaps i can find the trace in one of the .log files?

[WilliamsEph97]

@lun_IX

 

Congrats on getting your system up and running! I've seen your exact system at the local microcenter and best buy and am seriously considering getting it. I'm completely a newb when it comes to using the terminal though. Is there any chance you could write a step by step guide for your system and post the needed files (kexts and plists, etc.) somewhere? It would be a great benefit to terminal averse folks like me and would probably get others to jump onto this system. Thanks.

[teddiesmooth]

@lun_IX, chipset,

 

Have you guys had any issues getting the 48x0 drivers running properly on the Vanilla install? Last week I ordered the Sapphire Radeon HD 4870 1GB and popped it in the computer this weekend. I booted into my vanilla install and to no surprise I got a flash of blue then a blank screen. I booted into safe mode and installed the drivers and removed the EFI strings and rebooted with -f (dvi2vga adapter in second port, monitor in first port) with the same results.

 

I figured heck, what do I have to lose, let me try installing it on my iAtkos (rescue) partition. Installed in iAtkos, rebooted, works perfectly without dvi2vga adapter, QE/CI enabled and everything. I think I will wait until 10.5.7 is released before trying to get the drivers working again in the Vanilla install. Call me naieve, but since the new Vanilla kernel will support i7 natively as well as the 4800 series of ATI cards, we shouldn't have to install special drivers.

 

One thing to note is that the iAtkos kernel at boot time is "custom", whereas I am using Voodoo 9.6.0 "mach_kernel.voodoo" for my Vanilla install... methinks there is a slight difference in how the kext is addressed.

 

@all

 

Sound

Making some progress getting sound working. The Vanilla AppleHDA.kext was patched using Taruga's AppleHDA Patcher 1.20 with a codec dump produced from Mandriva Linux. I just need to get the HDAEnabler.kext patched with the right pinconfig. Once I have that working I will see what I can do to integrate it with DSDT.aml

 

Power Supply

One thing I noticed this weekend is that the power supply is adequate only for stock stuff and is only good for running apps that don't draw too much power. I booted into Vista and fired up Crysis with the new card. A few seconds after it started rendering the scene in 1280x1024 at high detail, 4xAA, the computer just powered off, no warning whatsoever. I tried it a few more times and it did the same thing. I had a spare 500W PS lying around and figured I'd give that a try. Worked like a charm!

 

If you plan on doing anything graphic intensive and plan on having more than one HDD in the computer, please upgrade your power supply!