101 replies to this topic

[wmarsh]

Dell E520 Snow Leopard 10.6.1 install guide

I will tell you how to install Snow Leopard on 1st HDD of Dell E520 while leaving the disk with MBR partition scheme and not altering BIOS settings. So you can still use XP/Vista as shipped from Dell. Everything works except HDD on SATA5 and SATA6 -- if you have added disks to your E520 OS X doesn't support installation on these ports past 10.5.5.

Actually the SATA ports are quite strange. My other two disks show up in "About this Mac". In Terminal, they appear to be mounted. And in terminal, I can access the disks and copy files. Finder does not see them. And when you start disk utility, it never is able to get disk information, so disk utility is useless. (Thats why I use the disk utility in Leopard in this guide).

[EDIT -- Problem fixed with blkhockeypro19's dsdt.aml file posted below.]

Shutdown is also an issue. You have to use the power button to close Snow Leopard. And it does something to the BIOS configuration -- it won't start right up the next time you turn it on, but if you power off again and start again, everything is back to normal.

[EDIT -- Problem fixed with blkhockeypro19's dsdt.aml file posted below.]

Preparation:

You need to have the following:
1) A retail copy of Snow Leopard.
2) A working preexisting Leopard installation, use my guide or someone elses.

If you don't have one, I would follow blkhockeypro19's guide and install to an external USB disk to make one.
http://www.insanelym...p...t&p=1318331

If you turn off your main disk in the BIOS while doing this, you won't accidentally erase your Windows.
Just ignore his comments about changing BIOS to Auto/ATA. Its unnecessary with install to external disk.

3) Chameleon 2 RC3 -- download from chameleon.osx86.hu
4) blkhockeypro19's dsdt.aml file posted below:
http://redirectingat.....2Ffile/76unol
5)VoodooHDA.kext -- 64 bit version available here:
http://www.insanelym...hp/t175372.html
6) Intel8256mm.kext -- 64 bit version available here:
http://www.infinitem...w-anyone-t3829/
7) Heliacal's 4 64 bit kexts for Snow Leopard -- use google.
8) DSDT Patcher Gui from pcwiz
9) 10.6.1 Update from Apple
10) As I use grub as bootloader, a working Linux installation is useful. Or you can follow someone else's bootloader instructions.
11) A USB disk with a partition of about 20 GB. Will become your Snow Leopard Backup (Needed for 10.6.1 update) I use a scavanged IDE disk in a cheap disk enclosure.
12) Room for a partition on your 1st HDD. This will become your Snow Leopard installation.
13) Modified OSInstall.mpkg for MBR installation -- use google.

System Preparation:

1) Shrink your existing NTFS partition on your 1st HDD to make room for this installation. If you run Vista compmgmt.msc is a nice tool to do this. Alternate ones are Partition Magic under XP or Parted under Linux.
2) Create a new Primary Partition, unformated, with the same tool.
3) Manually change this partition to type AF. I used PTEDIT32.EXE, which ships with Partition Magic, and runs fine as Administrator. Parted under Linux also can do this.

MBR Installation Disk Preparation.

1) Boot into your working Leopard installation. Insert Snow Leopard Retail DVD.
2) Use Disk Utility to "Restore" from the Snow Leopard Retail DVD to the USB Disk Partition.
3) Still in Disk Utility, "Erase" (means format) the partition you prepared above. Name it Snow.
3) Open a Terminal Window, Enter SU mode by typing "sudo bash". Enter your password.
4) Type "defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE"
5) Type " killall Finder"
6) Lots of stuff appears. Keep your Terminal Open. Navigate to /System/Installation/Packages on the USB image of the Install DVD.
7) Copy the modified OSInstall.mpkg to /System/Installation/Packages. Then execute it.
8) Don't reboot when finished. If it reboots unattended, just come back to Leopard.
9) To restore your Desktop to normal, return to your Terminal Window.
10) Type "defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles FALSE" (here and later without the quotes)
11) Type " killall Finder"

Prepare Snow Leopard for 1st Boot

1) Still within your Leopard, Navigate to your Snow partition.
2) Create folders /Extra and /Extra/Extensions
3) From Chameleon 2 RC 3, under Optional Extras, copy smbios.plist to /Extra and the 10.6 and Common Extensions to /Extra/Extensions.
4) Copy Heliacal's 4 kexts to /Extra/Extensions
5) Copy your existing com.apple.Boot.plist from /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration to /Extra
6) If you have not already added EFI string to com.apple.Boot.plist to enable your video, generate a string with OSX86Tools. open com.apple.Boot.plist with Textedit. Cut and paste the string. It goes after <key>device-properties</key> between <string> and </string>
7) Copy  blkhockeypro19's dsdt.aml file [posted below.] to Snow
[Only do this if you really have an E520 and are not using this as a generic install guide.]
8) Repair Permissions in /Extra. Go back to your terminal window. Type:
"cd /Volumes/Snow/Extra"
"chown -R root:wheel ./*"
"chmod -R 755 ./*"
9) Leave your Terminal window for now and copy 64 bit versions of Intel82566.kext and VoodooHDA.kext to /Snow/System/Library/Extensions
10) Repair Permissions in /System/Library/Extensions. Go back to your terminal window. Type:
"cd /Volumes/Snow/System/Library/Extensions"
"chown -R root:wheel ./*"
"chmod -R 755 ./*"

Install Bootloader

[EDIT -- there seems to be a BIOS problem in E520 / XPS410 / Dimension9200
boot1h fails with Chameleon installed in the standard way on our SATA drives.
You can read about it here.
http://blog.thestevo...01_archive.html
This method bypasses the problem.

If you want to install Chameleon in the standard way, use this boot1h instead.
http://www.insanelym...p...st&id=59185
I can confirm it works on E520.]

As I use Grub as my main bootloader, this is what I did. If you want another bootloader, there are other ways.

1) Reboot into your Linux Installation where grub is hosted.
2) Download Chameleon 2.0 RC3
3) From the i386 folder in the download, copy boot to /boot in your Linux install. Rename it boot_ch2rc3
4) Add the following entry to your grub menu.lst

Title Snow Leopard 10.6.1
rootnoverify(hdv,w)
kernel(hdx,y) /boot/boot_ch2rc3 biosdev=80
boot

(hdv,w) points to where you installed Snow Leopard or Leopard. In my case it is (hd0,1) -- the 2nd partition on 1st hdd.

(hdx,y) points to your Linux boot partition. That can be anywhere.

Boot Snow Leopard

This is easy. Reboot your computer. Pick Snow Leopard when Grub comes up.
Practically everything works.
However, I did have to use SystemPreferences, Network to set IP address manually.
And shutdown/reboot is an issue despite OpenHaltRestart.kext. I have to hold down the power button, sometimes several times, before it shuts down.

Update to 10.6.1

I could not apply the 10.6.1 update directly to this install, possibly because its an MBR install on SATA. However, I did not run software update, I just tried to run the update file I previously installed. This procedure works to update:

1) Boot into your Leopard Install.
2) Use Disk Utility to "Restore" the Snow Leopard partition to your USB disk.
3) Boot into Snow Leopard. Run the 10.6.1 Update, applying it to the partition on the USB disk.
4) Reboot into Leopard.
5) Use Disk Utility to "Restore" Snow Leopard 10.6.1 from the USB disk to the original partition.
6) Reboot into Snow Leopard.
7) Run Software Update. As of today there is 1 more update which installed fine. Shutdown remains an issue.

Update to 10.6.2

Instructions posted here
http://www.insanelym...=0#entry1325139

Modifications for E520 Variants:

If you have onboard Intel Graphics, Ionyth reports these kext work.
http://blog.thestevo...ow-leopard.html

If you don't have a C2D CPU, you may need Voodoo kernel. Dr vox reports this works
http://www.insanelym...=0#entry1323702
or check out voodoo kernel at google code

[Mike2732]

Great guide, followed it and it helped me overcome some kernel panics I previously had... although it still won't boot, this is what I get with (-v)

Quote

MAC Framework successfully intialized
using 10485 buffer headers and 4096 cluster IO buffer headers
dsmos: Hook and decrypton contexts set!
dsmos: ProbbingA(with tilde) ...
dsmos: Starting...
IOAPIC: Version 0x20 Vectors 64:87
ACPI: System State [S0 S3 S4 S5] (S3)
RTC: Only single RAM bank (128 bytes)
mbinit: done (64 MB memory set for mbuf pool)
From path: "uuid",
Waiting for boot volume with UUID 44DDE69D-56B7-3EC9-BB78-55AFBEAB9588
Waiting on <dict ID="0"><key>IOProviderClass</key><string ID="1">IOResources</string><key>IOResourceMatch</key><string ID="2">boot-uuid-media</string></dict>
com.apple.AppleFSCompressionTypeZlib load succeeded
USBF: 1.835 AppleUSBUHCI[0xffffff8026220000]::start unable to initialize UIM
USBF: 1.835 AppleUSBUHCI[0xffffff80262e5000]::start unable to initialize UIM
FireWire runtime power conservation disabled. (2)
venderid: 0x8086 de[GREYcursorHERE]

Any idea?

[wmarsh]

Mike2732, on Oct 17 2009, 04:27 PM, said:

Great guide, followed it and it helped me overcome some kernel panics I previously had... although it still won't boot, this is what I get with (-v)

Any idea?

Looks like you can't get root device. This is exactly what I saw when I tried to install on 2nd or 3rd HDD, which in my config are on SATA5 and SATA6, neither of which are supported.

On E520 you can only install on 1st HDD.

What is your config?

[Mike2732]

This is my setup:

Quote

/dev/disk0
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:     FDisk_partition_scheme                        *149.1 Gi   disk0
   1:               Windows_NTFS                         62.2 Gi    disk0s1
   2:               Windows_NTFS DATA                    16.8 Gi    disk0s2
   3:                  Apple_HFS Snow                    20.0 Gi    disk0s3
   4:                  Apple_HFS Leopard                 50.0 Gi    disk0s4

Here is my boot.plist

Quote

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com...yList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>Kernel</key>
<string>mach_kernel</string>
<key>Kernel Flags</key>
<string></string>
<key>Graphics Mode</key>
<string>1680x1050x32</string>
<key>Timeout</key>
<string>5</string>
<key>device-properties</key>
<string></string>
</dict>
</plist>

Leopard 10.5.6 runs perfectly fine, installed with iDeneb v1.4 10.5.6.

Let me know if you need anything else

wmarsh, on Oct 17 2009, 05:21 PM, said:

Looks like you can't get root device. This is exactly what I saw when I tried to install on 2nd or 3rd HDD, which in my config are on SATA5 and SATA6, neither of which are supported.

On E520 you can only install on 1st HDD.

What is your config?

[wmarsh]

Mike2732, on Oct 17 2009, 05:25 PM, said:

Let me know if you need anything else

CPU? Motherboard? North and South bridge?

And what bootloader?

[Mike2732]

wmarsh, on Oct 17 2009, 05:28 PM, said:

CPU? Motherboard? North and South bridge?

And what bootloader?

I used chameleon rc3 658 64 bit, and then changed kexts to 32 bit and tried netkas/PC EFI 10.3 with -x32 boot argument

CPU = Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4GHz (E6600)
Motherboard = Lenovo? (Laptop) T61p
not sure about north/south bridge.

I know I can run 10.6 on my laptop cause this guy here did it:
http://www.insanelym...p...t&p=1296656

His explanation isn't that detailed though so I haven't been able to get it working properly.

With netkas 10.3 and 32 bit/32-bit kexts:

Quote

MAC Framework successfully initialized
using 10485 buffer headers and 4096 cluster IO buffer headers
IOAPIC: Version 0x20 Vectors 64:87
ACPI: System State [S0 S3 S4 S5] (S3)
netkas presents fakesmc, a kext which emulates smc device
RTC: Only single RAM bank (128 bytes)
mbinit: done (64 MB memory set for mbuf pool)
From path: "uuid",
Waiting for boot volume with UUID 44DDE69D-56B7-3EC9-BB78-55AFBEAB9588
Waiting on <dict ID="0"><key>IOProviderClass</key><string ID="1">IOResources</string><key>IOResourceMatch</key><string ID="2">boot-uuid-media</string></dict>
FireWire runtime power conservation disabled. (2)
USBF: 0.677 AppleUSBUHCI[0x52ed000]::start unable to initialize UIM

I think it might be the same problem...

Also if you know where I can find 32/64 bit kexts of these:

Quote

platformuuid,
nullcpu..., appleacpinub, appleps2controller, fakesmc.

I currently have these (but I'm not sure they're correct):

Quote

AppleACPIPS2Nub.kext (not sure if 32bit)
ApplePS2Controller.kext (not sure if 32bit)
fakesmc.kext
IOAHCIBlockStorageInjector.kext
NullCPUPowerManagement.kext
OpenHaltRestart.kext
PlatformUUID.kext

Last 5 are from Black osx support files, they are listed as working for both 32 & 64 bit.

Please help, thanks!

Can you please let me know?

Any other idea?
Tell me if you need more info !!
EDIT: also i pm'd hiqu already so don't tell me to ask him !!

[wmarsh]

Mike2732, on Oct 17 2009, 06:14 PM, said:

not sure about north/south bridge.

I didn't think you were on an E520

The southbridge is likely the issue. Check you disk controller device ID, either in Windows or Leopard.
See if it is supported by Chameleon 2 RC3 by looking for your device id in info.plist in AHCIPortInjector.kext and IOAHCIBlockStorage.kext

What I read on the web is you have ICH-8M, which ought to work. You might just have to manually add your device id to those two injectors.

Quote

Also if you know where I can find 32/64 bit kexts of these:

My guide told you to get heliacal's kexts. Board rules forbid me from posting links.
Google is your friend.

[blkhockeypro19]

Nice guide vmarsh! glad to see your still around =)

And you can get ports 5 and 6 for sata if you use autodetect/ata mode along with VIAATA or PIIXATA and a DSDT patch.

[dr.vox]

Thank you, wmarsh!
You're actually amazing.

Also, I've been meaning to tell you for ages now: I have the SATA issues on 10.5.7 (I think we may even have discussed it when on 10.5.6 or talking about Snow Leo alphas). But it differs, in that Finder can see the drives, Disk Util can see them, everything can see them, but they're incredibly slow.
As a result, I unplugged them because it meant opening a Save As… dialogue meant waiting a good 30-60 seconds for it to recognise the drives.
And if what blkhockey says is true, I'd be interested to see what happens there.

Ok, a few comments on this thread, though:
Does the process differ any if I'm only running Leopard (i.e. no NTFS/MBR and Windows partitions to worry about)?
On a similar note, any guidance on what to do considering I don't have Linux, and therefore grub?
Also, I thought Chameleon 2 didn't work on E520s.

[Mike2732]

Fixed my problem, I needed AppleIntelPIIXATA.kext and IOATAFamily.kext.
Found here: http://osx86.sojugarden.com/downloads/

Your guide is more of a generic one, rather then specific to E520, that's why I was using it.

wmarsh, on Oct 17 2009, 06:59 PM, said:

I didn't think you were on an E520

The northbridge is likely the issue. Check you disk controller device ID, either in Windows or Leopard.
See if it is supported by Chameleon 2 RC3 by looking for your device id in info.plist in AHCIPortInjector.kext and IOAHCIBlockStorage.kext

What I read on the web is you have ICH-8M, which ought to work. You might just have to manually add your device id to those two injectors.



My guide told you to get heliacal's kexts. Board rules forbid me from posting links.
Google is your friend.

[wmarsh]

blkhockeypro19, on Oct 17 2009, 10:30 PM, said:

Nice guide vmarsh! glad to see your still around =)

And you can get ports 5 and 6 for sata if you use autodetect/ata mode along with VIAATA or PIIXATA and a DSDT patch.

Glad you are still here too.
I know you change the BIOS settings on your E520. And that might fix the SATA problem. But reinstalling Vista and everything on it is way too much work; I wanted to use BIOS and MBR as is. I think the problem is fixable, as I can access the drives fine thru Terminal, just not thru any GUI tools.

Mike2732, on Oct 18 2009, 01:23 AM, said:

Fixed my problem, I needed AppleIntelPIIXATA.kext and IOATAFamily.kext.
Found here: http://osx86.sojugarden.com/downloads/

Your guide is more of a generic one, rather then specific to E520, that's why I was using it.

Glad it worked for you.
I only can test it on my desktop (my laptop has unsupported video) so I did not want to claim it as generic.

dr.vox, on Oct 17 2009, 10:59 PM, said:

Thank you, wmarsh!
You're actually amazing.

Not really. Just around since 10.4.1 so I learned some tricks. But its nice to be appreciated.

dr.vox, on Oct 17 2009, 10:59 PM, said:

Also, I've been meaning to tell you for ages now: I have the SATA issues on 10.5.7 (I think we may even have discussed it when on 10.5.6 or talking about Snow Leo alphas). But it differs, in that Finder can see the drives, Disk Util can see them, everything can see them, but they're incredibly slow.
As a result, I unplugged them because it meant opening a Save As… dialogue meant waiting a good 30-60 seconds for it to recognise the drives.
And if what blkhockey says is true, I'd be interested to see what happens there.

He uses the other setting in the BIOS for SATA; we have discussed this alot and he has his own install guide. But maintaining compatibility with existing XP/Vista installations is important to me so we install differently.

dr.vox, on Oct 17 2009, 10:59 PM, said:

Ok, a few comments on this thread, though:
Does the process differ any if I'm only running Leopard (i.e. no NTFS/MBR and Windows partitions to worry about)?

Yes, I would do a GUID install with the other BIOS settings, like blkhockeypro has advised if I did not care about my existing XP/Vista installs. Its more compatible.

dr.vox, on Oct 17 2009, 10:59 PM, said:

On a similar note, any guidance on what to do considering I don't have Linux, and therefore grub?
Also, I thought Chameleon 2 didn't work on E520s.

Chameleon looks like a very nice bootloader. I would switch to it as my primary bootloader if it could recognize Linux. (and maybe FreeBSD although I had to wipe that install to put Snow Leopard on my 1st HDD)

[EDIT -- E520 BIOS has a problem with boot1h so Chameleon 2 RC3 installed to SATA drive in the standard way does not work. See Stevo's blog linked in the top post.]

Chameleon 2 RC3 installed in the standard way works on my USB drive. I also installed it on my 3rd HDD (on SATA6) with my 1st 2 disks disabled in attempts to get Snow Leopard to work. It successfully booted the 1st 2 phases and got hung on the 3rd phase. I attributed this to the SATA problem. In your case, starting from scratch, and working with SATA1, and not caring about Linux, I would try Chameleon 2 RC3.

[marthastewart333]

I installed everything exactly as stated in the guide, but my machine just continuously reboots on startup. I've booted with the verbose flag many times in an attempt to see the error,  but the message does not stay onscreen long enough for me to see it. It appears that after all of the kexts are loaded the machine just cuts off and restarts.

I had this same problem in Leopard, but fixed it by using the Voodoo kernel. Obviously, that solution won't work for SL. Any ideas?

[wmarsh]

cullumsmith, on Oct 18 2009, 10:57 AM, said:

I installed everything exactly as stated in the guide, but my machine just continuously reboots on startup. I've booted with the verbose flag many times in an attempt to see the error,  but the message does not stay onscreen long enough for me to see it. It appears that after all of the kexts are loaded the machine just cuts off and restarts.

I had this same problem in Leopard, but fixed it by using the Voodoo kernel. Obviously, that solution won't work for SL. Any ideas?

Sounds like your CPU is incompatible with vanilla kernel, which is what this guide uses.

I would follow the Voodoo Kernel (XNU) project.
http://code.google.com/p/xnu-dev/

When a compatible kernel comes, you can access your Snow partition from Leopard, and replace the vanilla kernel with the new one.

[marthastewart333]

wmarsh, on Oct 18 2009, 04:29 PM, said:

Sounds like your CPU is incompatible with vanilla kernel, which is what this guide uses.

I would follow the Voodoo Kernel (XNU) project.
http://code.google.com/p/xnu-dev/

When a compatible kernel comes, you can access your Snow partition from Leopard, and replace the vanilla kernel with the new one.

Wow, you posted that right after I found the solution, I was about to make an update.

Anyway, I used a patched vanilla kernel that bypassed the CPU check, thus solving the rebooting issue. However, SL simply will not boot. When booting with the verbose flag, it seems as though the startup process hangs at ACPI_SMC_PlatformPlugin...blah blah....AppleIntelCPUPowerManagement timed out.

EDIT: Still hanging at AppleIntelCPUPowerManagement. My E520 has a Pentium 4, if that helps. Oh, and thanks so much for such a great guide, wmarsh. I really appreciate your work on this.

[wmarsh]

cullumsmith, on Oct 18 2009, 12:35 PM, said:

Wow, you posted that right after I found the solution, I was about to make an update.

Anyway, I used a patched vanilla kernel that bypassed the CPU check, thus solving the rebooting issue. However, SL simply will not boot. When booting with the verbose flag, it seems as though the startup process hangs at ACPI_SMC_PlatformPlugin...blah blah....AppleIntelCPUPowerManagement timed out.

EDIT: Still hanging at AppleIntelCPUPowerManagement. My E520 has a Pentium 4, if that helps. Oh, and thanks so much for such a great guide, wmarsh. I really appreciate your work on this.

My understanding was the Disabler.kext you installed with Chameleon would block the loading of AppleIntelCPUPowerManagement. I also understood that heliacal's NullCPUPM.kext would do so.

I would make sure you did indeed put the 10.6 Disabler.kext in /Snow/Extra/Extensions, have repaired permissions there, and are either using Chameleon 2 in the standard way or via grub.

If all those are the case, then use your Leopard install to remove AppleIntelCPUPowerManagement.kext from /Snow/System/Library/Extensions. Then try rebooting Snow with -f -x -v boot flags. (In Leopard, before Boot-132, I always had to do that.)

[marthastewart333]

wmarsh, on Oct 18 2009, 06:18 PM, said:

My understanding was the Disabler.kext you installed with Chameleon would block the loading of AppleIntelCPUPowerManagement. I also understood that heliacal's NullCPUPM.kext would do so.

I would make sure you did indeed put the 10.6 Disabler.kext in /Snow/Extra/Extensions, have repaired permissions there, and are either using Chameleon 2 in the standard way or via grub.

If all those are the case, then use your Leopard install to remove AppleIntelCPUPowerManagement.kext from /Snow/System/Library/Extensions. Then try rebooting Snow with -f -x -v boot flags. (In Leopard, before Boot-132, I always had to do that.)

Well, I'm not really sure what I did, but I repaired permissions about 5 times and SL finally booted. However, I have no ethernet. The ethernet card is recognized in Network Preferences, and Network Preferences even shows that I am connected. I can even see other computers on my campus network. But any attempts to run updates or use Safari result in "You are not connected to the internet." I tried repairing permissions on the whole disk, but Disk Utility says "Error: No installer packages can be found on this disk." Very strange...I've never seen an error like that before.

EDIT: Oddly enough, networking works perfectly in safe mode, but sound is broken.

[wmarsh]

cullumsmith, on Oct 18 2009, 06:11 PM, said:

Well, I'm not really sure what I did, but I repaired permissions about 5 times and SL finally booted. However, I have no ethernet. The ethernet card is recognized in Network Preferences, and Network Preferences even shows that I am connected. I can even see other computers on my campus network. But any attempts to run updates or use Safari result in "You are not connected to the internet." I tried repairing permissions on the whole disk, but Disk Utility says "Error: No installer packages can be found on this disk." Very strange...I've never seen an error like that before.

EDIT: Oddly enough, networking works perfectly in safe mode, but sound is broken.

Well that is significant progress.

I found I had to set a manual IP address rather than DHCP.
On a campus that might be hard, since you cannot give yourself a fixed IP address, unless the IT people would assign you one.

Under SystemPreferences, Network do you see an IP address? If not, try assigning the one you see in another OS, and either use the DNS numbers you see or the OpenDNS ones (208.67.222.222, 208.67.220.220)

[marthastewart333]

wmarsh, on Oct 19 2009, 03:24 AM, said:

Well that is significant progress.

I found I had to set a manual IP address rather than DHCP.
On a campus that might be hard, since you cannot give yourself a fixed IP address, unless the IT people would assign you one.

Under SystemPreferences, Network do you see an IP address? If not, try assigning the one you see in another OS, and either use the DNS numbers you see or the OpenDNS ones (208.67.222.222, 208.67.220.220)

Sometimes I guess people overlook the simplest of solutions.

Simply reinstalling the intel network controller kext (I used Kext Helper) completely solved the networking issue. (I actually have a job as a student employee at the campus IT department...I could've pulled some strings and gotten a static IP if all else failed...)

Anyway, everything's working flawlessly...shutdown/restart work fine (no sleep though), and my ATI Radeon X1600 card worked perfectly with ATIinject on 10.6 (Quartz Extreme and Core Image both enabled), but the 10.6.1 update broke graphics...so, I will most likely just reinstall and not upgrade to 10.6.1 unless I find a solution. My BIOS settings get reset everytime I boot Snow Leopard, but I think I saw a fix for that somewhere, so I'll definitely try it and post if I have any success.

I'm also thinking of splurging on a USB 5.1 digital surround sound adapter, since VoodooHDA doesn't detect the surround sound output on the E520. On Leopard, I could never get surround to work, even with a patched AppleHDA with a codec dump for the onboard Sigmatel 9227...I saw one on Newegg that was PC/Mac compatible for $30. Not too shabby...it'd go great with the 5 speaker setup I have attached to the underside of my lofted bed

Thanks for all the help. I've been meaning to make a guide myself for the Dell Latitude E6500 (I've gotten everything working on it except shutdown/restart). I'll get on it whenever my professors stop assigning all these projects.

Thank you (and thanks to everyone here at InsanelyMac) for all the help!

[blkhockeypro19]

has anybody got all sata ports working in AHCI mode OR ATA mode WITHOUT DSDT patches??

[wmarsh]

blkhockeypro19, on Oct 19 2009, 03:26 PM, said:

has anybody got all sata ports working in AHCI mode OR ATA mode WITHOUT DSDT patches??

All my SATA ports work, although I can only install on SATA1. Its RAID0 mode. Our BIOS only offers AHCI and RAID modes, ATA is not supported.

I did use a DSDT patch.

I think I'm going to swap my disks. My new disk can hold Windows7, Snow Leopard and Leopard. Then I can upgrade Leopard to 10.5.8 too.

With grub I can map the 3rd disk to 1st port, so when I boot Vista it will still think its the 1st disk and boot ok. Mapping didn't work for OS X.

cullumsmith, on Oct 19 2009, 01:33 PM, said:

Sometimes I guess people overlook the simplest of solutions.

Simply reinstalling the intel network controller kext (I used Kext Helper) completely solved the networking issue. (I actually have a job as a student employee at the campus IT department...I could've pulled some strings and gotten a static IP if all else failed...)

Anyway, everything's working flawlessly...shutdown/restart work fine (no sleep though), and my ATI Radeon X1600 card worked perfectly with ATIinject on 10.6 (Quartz Extreme and Core Image both enabled), but the 10.6.1 update broke graphics...so, I will most likely just reinstall and not upgrade to 10.6.1 unless I find a solution.

Please tell us what you did to fix shutdown.

Do you think ATIinject would support Mobility Radeon HD 4330
Thats why I haven't tried on my laptop -- Inspiron 1545

cullumsmith, on Oct 19 2009, 01:33 PM, said:

My BIOS settings get reset everytime I boot Snow Leopard, but I think I saw a fix for that somewhere, so I'll definitely try it and post if I have any success.

Please do, I have that problem too.

Good luck with the new sound system.