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Dell XPS Studio 9000/435t Resource Extravaganza Part 2


slave-zeo
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This guide is a work in progress! I'll be filling it out with more information over the next few days.

 

This topic is based loosely on my original posting located at:

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=205088

 

I've had my XPS Studio 9000 for a couple of years now and pretty much know it inside and out. I've added more RAM, been thru half a dozen different video cards and just as many different hard drives. The hardware is solid and very compatible. Below are the base hardware specs from dell.

 

Standard Components:

X58 chipset

ICH10 disk controller

Realtek RTL8111/8168B Gigabit Ethernet controller (rev 02)

Realtek ALC1200 audio chip

JMicron Technology Corp. IEEE 1394 Host Controller

475watt Power Supply

 

Optional Components:

Intel i7 CPU, various clock speeds

Up to 3x SATA Hard Drives

Up to 2x SATA Optical Drive

Various AMD and nVidia graphics cards

 

The hardware has proven to be compatible with Mac OS X, as well as Linux and Windows. All in all this is a great machine to use as an OS X workstation or even gaming machine (with a good video card).

 

Over the past couple of days I've installed Mac OS X 10.7 Lion DP4 and GM on it a couple of times to get my method down to a science. After all the fiddling around I now have a fast and stable XPS Studio 9000 running OS X Lion. Below are my notes for this adventure.

 

Installation:

I used this guide ( http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=256729 ) for 99% of my installation. It's a great guide and has been updated for Lion GM. You'll need at least an 8GB USB memory stick (or thumb drive) for this project.

 

Just follow the instructions in the above guide for making a bootable USB installation stick. After you have your bootable memory stick in hand its time to get down to business.

 

Start out by plugging your bootable memory stick into a USB port. Next you'll want to power on your machine and start hitting f12 at the DELL boot screen. This will take you into the boot drive selection list. You'll choose your memory stick form the list of bootable drives. Every memory stick is named differently in this list so you'll have to play it by ear and choose correct drive.

 

Your system should boot to the chameleon menu, choose "Mac OS X Base System" and let it boot into the installer. From here it's the standard Mac OS X installer. Click next and at this point you MAY need to go to the menu bar and under the Utilities menu choose Disk Utility to partition and format your hard drive for OS X use.

 

Once your hard drive is formatted exit Disk Utility and continue the installation. "Continuing the the installation" consists of hitting next a few times and waiting about 20 minuets for the installer to finish. Once complete your machine will reboot.

 

Post Installation:

After installation completes and your machine reboots you'll need to hit the f12 key again at the DELL screen. Again, this will take you into the boot drive selection list. Choose your memory stick and let it boot. When the chameleon menu is displayed choose the hard drive you just installed OS X Lion to. If all went well it should boot into OS X Lion.

 

Upon first boot you'll have to answer a few questions to set your timezone and account information. Don't be scared. just provide the information it asks for. Once you arrive at the desktop you'll want to install your boot loader so you can boot your system without the USB memory stick installed. I used the same Chameleon installer .pkg that was used earlier to create the bootable memory stick.

 

Once you install Chameleon you want to move your Extras folder form the memory stick to the root of your boot hard drive. There are several Extra folders for Lion floating around you can use, but I found the exact same one from the memory stick to work the best. There are only 3 files this folder (Extensions.mkext, com.apple.Boot.plist and smbios.plist). If anyone has any trouble with this approach they can use the below linked Extra folder creator package.

 

After installing the boot loader you'll want to use the below Extra folder creator and generate an Extra folder for your installation. Just double click the .pkg and run they the installer, for SMBIOS use the Mac Pro 4,1 option.

 

Next up is ethernet and networking. You'll want to use the below linked ethernet driver form LNX2Mac, it's by far the most stable for our computer. Download the .pkg and run it. Once installed reboot and enjoy stable networking.

 

For sound you'll want to use the below VoodooHDA.kext driver. Make sure you also install AppleHDADisabler.kext.

 

At this point you should have a bootable system with sound and networking. I'll touch upon video cards a little later since there are so many possibilities.

 

Standard Hardware Drivers:

Sound: Dell_XPS_Studio_9000_Audio.zip Don't forget to install AppleHDADisabler.kext along with VoodooHDA.kext

Ethernet: LNX2Mac Realtek Driver

Use this driver for ethernet. Very stable and no KPs (so far).

 

Misc Files:

Extra Folder Creator: Extra_Folder.pkg.zip Package to generate a Extras folder for various computer systems

 

post-446-1310077897_thumb.jpg

My workstation

 

Chameleon Dell Theme: Dell_Theme.zip This is a boot loader theme with a Dell motif, edited from another theme (can't remember name) but actually looks pretty good

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EDIT: Netowrking fixed. Working stable now.

 

For some strange reason I'm having stability issues with this machine and OS X 10.7 Lion. I've narrowed it down to networking driver for the realtek chip. At times the network interface will just die after a period of inactivity. At other times it'll just kernel panic randomly.

 

My other 2 self built computers which use the same realtek ethernet chip and driver are rock solid. Frighteningly rock solid.

 

So far I've tried the Official 10.6 Realtek driver from Realtek's site and the 2 drivers from Tonymac's [url="http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/"]#####[/url] pack. All either do not work or have the same outcome.

 

I'm actively trying to find an alternative network driver for this configuration, I'll post back more info when i have it.

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  • 2 weeks later...

EXCELLENT guide! Thanks! Can't wait to try this when I get home. I'll be doing a fresh install so I'm anxious to get started. I'll let you know how it goes!

 

Update: Jul 12 @ 12:16AM

 

Worked!!! Flawlessly!!! I had to install the NVEnabler64 kext to get my XFX GTX 285 to work properly. This has to be the easiest, most clean & problem-free hackintosh installation I have ever done. Many many thanks to you slave-zeo and huge thanks to the community!

 

Next up: rather then fresh install, see if I can get the migration assistant to work.

After that: purchase a SSD and repeat the process!

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Hi,

Thanks for the guide,

I have a nice smooth working Lion with the dell GTX260 video card (I had to add the id in the video package, same as in the Leopard/Snow Leo).

 

I have one problem with my xps9000, when I shutdown Lion, often the system stop but the power

supply stay one (yellow light on the power button), Snow Leo never did it to me.

How do you fix that ? What is in your Extra directory (Kext ?)? in your smbios et com.apple... files ?

 

Have you been able to make the sleep work too ?

mine seems to be able to go to sleep, but I am unable to wake it up, and it result in a bios setting reset after that.

 

Cyril

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Hi,

Thanks for the guide,

I have a nice smooth working Lion with the dell GTX260 video card (I had to add the id in the video package, same as in the Leopard/Snow Leo).

 

I have one problem with my xps9000, when I shutdown Lion, often the system stop but the power

supply stay one (yellow light on the power button), Snow Leo never did it to me.

How do you fix that ? What is in your Extra directory (Kext ?)? in your smbios et com.apple... files ?

 

Have you been able to make the sleep work too ?

mine seems to be able to go to sleep, but I am unable to wake it up, and it result in a bios setting reset after that.

 

Cyril

 

I rarely have the shutdown bug you mentioned. but it does happen every so often. I haven't been able to find a definitive fix for it yet -_- SL did it for me too, strangely enough. In my extras/extensions directory I have FakeSMC.kext and IOAHCIBlockStorageInjector.kext only. It seems to work ok (for the most part) with only these two. If you come up with anymore info or a fix let em know and i'll update the original post.

 

Sleep does not work. It make the poor computer go into a coma ;)

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 7 months later...

I got the networking working using this method. I can't get the spdif audio output to work, just the green line out(front and rear). Also when i try to go into the app store it says it cannot authenticate the device. Any ideas?

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