2305 replies to this topic

[adeebm]

DoiX, on 30 September 2012 - 07:40 AM, said:

Great work JKBuha!

Some info about the Nvidia card. Using the modded bios with PEG settings and the _PS0 DSDT (which always resulted in some type of boot loop) i can get to the desktop but it freezes there, can't dump anything to see if and what has changed in the system registry. Will experiment more when i get home.

P.S this bios throttles the fan to maximum. My temp is around 35ºC at this speed....

There is also an option inside PEG settings that says PEG always on or something of the sort. I'm pretty sure that also needs to be enabled in PEG mode. From what I understand, without that enabled, the discrete still follows optimus behavior and automatically disables itself when not in use. Might be why you crash at desktop.

mackyreddy, on 29 September 2012 - 11:56 AM, said:

Hey Jbuha is there any option to enable Discrete Graphic card on L702x ( As the post from adeebm suggests) ?  Anyways i will be heading towards ur thread.



How do u know that l702 has integrated/discrete option ? where do u get that info from ? can u confirm it ? Is there any L702 bios modding thread ?  If so can u just forward me ur sources.

Secondly regarding l502 have u tested OS X on new cracked bios ? Can u use Nvidia card on OS X ? Will be eagerly waiting for ur reply.

If we can get Nvidia active on OS X then that would be real breakthrough even without optimus support.

I think the l702x option was only for the 3d screen models. I haven't tested the new bios on OSX yet, only windows. I use my OSX partition for work, so I'm trying not to brick it Will start a new partition and experiment soon..

--Adeeb

[DoiX]

@Adeeb, yes i tried that the second i installed the bios. I'll resume my testing tonight, i wasted an entire day tracing the problem to the fan. (If anyone encounters the same bug, check for a short-circuit in the small ribbon cables)

[zulqar]

@DoiX

I updated bios to A09_V3 (A06 wont work for me at least) and but A09 dose the trick for PEG option, also set the

_PS0

then

_ON

_PS0

even in PINI

also added both card ids in AGPM so i can identify shows correctly while booting and whenever i use PciRoot=2 it always select nvidia 10de first and put intel on second but it wont go to desktop and hang right after AGPM Controller and in -v mode dose lower the screen resolution before hanging..

Just want to add my inputs from my testing..

[DoiX]

Does AGPM report unkownPlatform ? It does on my system, and using the modded DSDT files blocks the nvidia kext loading for some reason, need to debug it.

[zulqar]

Not anymore how i do it, i replace 8,2 section in AGPM.kext with

	<key>MacBookPro8,2</key>
	<dict>
	 <key>Vendor8086Device0116</key>
	 <dict>
	  <key>Heuristic</key>
	  <dict>
	   <key>BusyDownThresholdPercent</key>
	   <integer>70</integer>
	   <key>BusyUpThresholdPercent</key>
	   <integer>90</integer>
	   <key>DiagnosticModeDefault</key>
	   <integer>0</integer>
	   <key>EvaluateDownInterval</key>
	   <integer>350000</integer>
	   <key>EvaluateUpInterval</key>
	   <integer>66000</integer>
	   <key>ID</key>
	   <integer>2</integer>
	   <key>SensorOption</key>
	   <integer>1</integer>
	  </dict>
	  <key>control-id</key>
	  <integer>16</integer>
	  <key>max-power-state</key>
	  <integer>15</integer>
	  <key>min-power-state</key>
	  <integer>0</integer>
	 </dict>
	 <key>Vendor10deDevice0df4</key>
	 <dict>
	  <key>BoostPState</key>
	  <array>
	   <integer>0</integer>
	   <integer>1</integer>
	   <integer>2</integer>
	   <integer>3</integer>
	  </array>
	  <key>BoostTime</key>
	  <array>
	   <integer>3</integer>
	   <integer>3</integer>
	   <integer>3</integer>
	   <integer>3</integer>
	  </array>
	  <key>Heuristic</key>
	  <dict>
	   <key>ID</key>
	   <integer>0</integer>
	   <key>IdleInterval</key>
	   <integer>100</integer>
	   <key>TargetCount</key>
	   <integer>5</integer>
	   <key>Threshold_High</key>
	   <array>
		<integer>80</integer>
		<integer>80</integer>
		<integer>80</integer>
		<integer>100</integer>
	   </array>
	   <key>Threshold_Low</key>
	   <array>
		<integer>0</integer>
		<integer>90</integer>
		<integer>90</integer>
		<integer>90</integer>
	   </array>
	  </dict>
	  <key>control-id</key>
	  <integer>17</integer>
	  <key>LogControl</key>
	  <integer>0</integer>
	 </dict>
	</dict>

Now it shows both card names correctly and with PciRoot=2 it always selecting Nvidia but wont go to desktop..

[adeebm]

Don't know if you guys get this, but I KP with the A11 bios. AppleIntelCPUPM doesn't like some change in the power states with that bios. Using the unlocked A06 got me booting again. Also, DoiX, you might want to try testing the nvidia gpu on the A06 as well for several reasons. For one, when I boot A06, chameleon boots 1920x1080 like it should, but on A11, it boots with 1366x768 or some such resolution. I'm guessing the later bios changed some video settings. Also, on A11, the default selected card was IGD, which kind of doesn't make sense as that would be disabling optimus. On A06, the default card is Auto, which would be optimus switching. My guess is that the video card setting isn't working properly in A11, or was disabled by Dell. Just a thought.

--Adeeb

[DoiX]

@zulqar, how can you tell it's selecting Nvidia? I couldn't see any text line saying that in verbose mode. Also, what DSDT are you using to test the nvidia card?

@adeeb, i noticed that too(IGD), i'm using 06 v3 bios at the moment. The resolution thing is nonsense, dell made a really shitty bios imo. In the graphics section you could change the boot resolution but several "stock" resolutions are missing.

[zulqar]

@DoiX

It only shows when we provide PciRoot 1 or 2 via boot.plist otherwise it wont show!

<key>PciRoot</key>
<string>1 or 2</string>

When i provide PciRoot=1

[AGPM Controller] Build GPUDict by Vendor8086Device0116
[AGPM Controller] Build GPUDict by Vendor10deDevice0df4

When i use PciRoot=2 (with re-install nvidia kext)
[AGPM Controller] Build GPUDict by Vendor10deDevice0df4
[AGPM Controller] Build GPUDict by Vendor8086Device0116
But then it lower the brightness and hang..

Also now i am using A06_V3 today i got also vga is always set to PEG whatever PciRoot i chose later..

[DoiX]

Oh, you meant the AGPM verbose. Please tell me what DSDT you're using.

Forgot to mention something: when i use 8,x smbios, the system hangs on the verbose output (the grey screen doesn't appear) when i use 9,1 the grey screen appears.

Edit: Now with this bios we can change the backlight properties and fix the lesser brightness or the total dark out. Go in SA configuration > Graphics > IGD Configuration > the array with BLC name in it, simply change it to inverted.

[jkbuha]

Hey DoiX!

Good to hear you're using the modded BIOS. Have you tried the fast strings option + faster mem speed combo? I found it increases performance in CPU intensive routines. Do you have any good combo options to use?

What lesser brightness fix are you referring to? I still boot OSX on a lower brightness and have to make it sleep or switch off display in order to achieve full brightness. Changing the BLC option to inverted (both options) didn't change the brightness on bootup unfortunately. Or were you referring to another mod?

I need your help on another matter. My OSX HDD access is notably slower on NTFS partitions than Win64. Is this due to tuxera ntfs or IO kexts?

Am busy trying to unlock CPU overclocking + voltage options at the moment. Will keep you posted as usual

[DoiX]

Check Clover for CPU overclocking, it's working "natively" there. Check this http://imgur.com/a/HfbK6 i posted it around 3 months ago here.

I tried the fast strings but any change i make to the mem part are not saved, on my machine at least. Probably because i have 4gb in one slot and 2gb in the other, different vendors(this is how the laptop came).

Well in my case, when i select PW-Inverted, the brightness keys are inverted, fn+F4 raises the brightness by an additional "layer" compared to PW-Normal and fn+F5 lowers the brightness, although not as much as PW-Normal does.

About the HDD thing, are you using a SSD, because if you are, it may be the IO Kexts. For NTFS access i'm using Paragon NTFS for Mac, the speed is fairly good.

[zulqar]

@DoiX

I am using your DSDT from 1.4, just changed my System IDS so it can boot and also

_ON..

_PS..

I did tried smbios but didn't work for me but i am happy and realizing there are zero graphics glitch since i added my both card ids in AGPM and did see the image improvements and fast loading etc.

[Monkeys]

@Zulqar - How would I go about adding my device id's to AGPM to fix graphics glitches?

[zulqar]

very easy in info.plist:
search and do below in 8,1, 8,2, 8,3 sectoins:
<key>IGPU OR GFX0</key> replace it with <key>Vendor8086Device0116</key>

then replace the file in s/l/e/

run these as well after that:

sudo rm -R /System/Library/Caches/
sudo touch /System/Library/Extensions

dont fix disk permissoins right away just use for few hours and reply..

[jkbuha]

Hey DoiX - sorry for not replying, was quite busy this week. I don't have an SSD (yet) so I swapped Paragon for Tuxera and the disk access was significantly improved. Let's see if that remains for the time being.

PW-inverted still left my display at semi-bright on startup, had to sleep/switch screen off to restore full brightness. Am convinced now that this is most likely a hardware(EDID) issue - i'll try and play around to see if anything changes.

Any progress on the Nvidia DSDT?

[DoiX]

No progress at all. I came to the conclusion that ACPI handles brute actions only, such as powering. The more complex part like the framebuffer is handled by the bios itself, sure the DSDT can afflict the drivers but i couldn't find the exact reason, it may be a BIOS conflict.

TimeWalker suggested that the bios may use EDID to detect what to activate, optimus or Nvidia3D, in this case swapping the EDID with a 3D screen one may do the trick, problem is it requires an EFI driver, which to my knowledge... won't work, because the bios has the last word in this case, so simply loading the EFI driver in, say, Clover/XPC will bring us nowhere.

[jkbuha]

If that's the case then we may need to patch the EDID detection in BIOS. I've seen it done before. But I'd rather we determine if this is indeed the case (Linux dump?) before we try this approach - it's quite risky as it involves multiple patches to BIOS checks. However on a more positive note we're making inroads towards bios recovery - seems like we have found the way to activate the process on Dell machines, now just a case of finding the right files to patch.

[DoiX]

Speaking of Linux, something i noticed: BackTrack 5 Live CD can't display anything with the patched BIOS installed, specifically the PEG settings activated, even if i restore to default settings it's still a blackscreen. However when i install the stock BIOS everything is fine. I'm not speaking of some complex GUI, but the basic command line interface.

I'll try other distros as soon as they're done downloading.

Good luck on the bios recovery, i've been keeping track on the bios-mods forums for quite some time now.
Related to what TimeWalker described there, the accidental recovery activation: it happened to me several times when the laptop's AC cord disconnected while the battery was out of the laptop and i was typing. One time i had my flash stick connected, that contained a clone of the L502x Driver DVD which the laptop used to boot in it at the press of the power button, then i learned there's a recovery application on the dvd. The rest of the times some diagnostic screen appeared "System Build Assessment" i believe it was called.

[jkbuha]

That's interesting. I've used BT5 before (on a different laptop) and I know the display driver on the live dvd accesses the VESA interface directly, as opposed to the 'proper driver'. However that also means that enabling the suppressed menus in the BIOS (even in default settings) automatically sets some different values to the BIOS than with the normal menu settings.

You've got me thinking about something now - what if the recovery dvd of the 15/15z actually contains the flash bios? If that's the case then we just need to trigger the recovery capsule (fvrecovery.fd) and then it should run from the dvd. Let me check on the bios forums to see if someone still has the recovery dvd from the default set...

[DoiX]

This is the content of the before mentioned DVD. I'll boot it and take some pictures.
 Screen Shot 2012-10-06 at 7.04.01 PM.png   431.44K   60 downloads