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Lenovo ThinkPad T420 with UEFI Only


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4 hours ago, suzunski said:

Hello,
After having a fully working Catalina on my T420, I wondered if it really would work faster and better with Sierra.
Before I started with Hackintosh, I had installed High Sierra and was very fascinated by the quick work of opening Photoshop, even though the laptop back then had its usual HDD.
Now that I am with SSD I expect the performance to be much better, but I notice that there is a delay in starting heavier programs and I am thinking very much about going back to Sierra.
As much as I was careful about the forum posts, I was left with the understanding that Sierra is best for the T420 and Intel HD Graphics 3000, right?

 

The graphics is the exact same for all OS from Sierra to Catalina. 

The native support of HD 3000 gfx stopped at High Sierra. I also have real 2010 MBP6,1 that is "stuck" at HighSierra. 

But for MBP8,1 (and MBP6,1) to use Mojava and Catalina we are essentiall running a bunch of High Sierra items via the DosDude1 patching methods.

 

after you install any OS you need to let it settle for about 1 day to get all the indexing out of the way. 

starting with HighSierra and with default APFS - you will want to be on SSD. 

So sure, If you dont need the latest mac Apps then, then Sierra or High Sierra still works fine.

The point pick your OS and this same Clover bundle works for all of them! My 2nd/backup HD has all 4 versions on the same disk. my SSD runs Catalina (and Win10.)

 

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Hello everyone!

I've been working on my first install of High Sierra using the guide in this thread, based on an earlier post that stated High Sierra would be the easiest version to install. During my efforts I came across 80486sx's posts about his Ethernet adapter, as I ran into the same trouble. 

If anyone else decides to install High Sierra instead of going straight for Catalina, they should know that the IntelMausiEthernet.kext (v2.5.0) included in the current T420 file Lenovo-T420-Clover-2020.01.25.zip will not work with anything earlier than Mojave. I grabbed the 2.3.0 kext from Lenovo-T420-Clover-2018.12.30.zip and copied it to the appropriate location on my install USB drive, and it seems to work fine.

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Hello,
After working a little on Catalina I went back to Mojave, I do not know if I am impressing but with Mojave my T420 I think works much better.
With Catalina I had a constant appearance of black lines when working with Safari and at Mojave after a week of work there is no memory of them.
I don't want to mislead anyone, but in Mojave's view, things are much smoother and more seamless.
I have installed many different software on the laptop and everything works very well.
The only thing I have a problem with is an update: Security Update 10.14.6 - Security Update 2020-001 is recommended for all users and improves the security of macOS, which after booting the laptop loads and comes to a black screen and nothing goes wrong happens.
Now that I see the difference in working under Catalina and Mojave, I definitely think that Mojave is much better.
I mentioned that when I started this venture I had installed High Sierra which was on the standard T420 HDD and was fascinated by the speed of opening and working with Photoshop, now I thought that after changing the HDD with SDD, things would be much better better but not that fast, is it not that i'm with Mojave now, will there be a change in work if i go back to high sierra?
And one more question, if I decide to add more RAM Memory because apparently 8 GB is small (the attachment is at system startup, no applications open), should I do the installation from the beginning.

CleanMyMac.jpg

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You do not need to install again after upgrading RAM.

Look for 2x8GB 1600MHz DDR3 SoDIMM.

After every system upgrade, the patches from your boot stick need to be installed again.

For me, Sierra was the last OS working with CS 5.5 without issues. CC should work with Catalina, but I did not try.

 

On a side note, Mac Command-Shift-3 takes a full screenshot.

Command-Shift-4 gives you a cross-hair for selecting the area you want to grab. ;)

 

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6 hours ago, Tetonne said:

update to 10.5.3 with http://dosdude1.com/software.html method. Everything is ok

except for my display DisplayVendorID & DisplayProductID which must be added again in the correct folder (it is a pain and a neck at every update, because of right to add something in the 


System\:Library\:Displays\:Contents\:Resources\:Overrides

yeah. this is a bit tricky in Catalina because you have make / (root) a read/write filesystem to add this files.

you can doit by:

 

sudo mount -uw /

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Hello to all
I have Thinkpad T420i. before i flash my bios to 1.46, in win10 booting screen the resolution was high (I think it was 1600x900) , after the flashing bios and install dual-boot mac and windows : in clover bootloader , apple logo when start mac Mojave and also Win10 loading screen the resolution is very low (i think 800x600).

 

i have tried every solution in internet they dont work.

please tell me a good solution for Lenovo Thinkpad T420i

Thanks :) 

 

Edited by mortezaom
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On 2/11/2020 at 9:04 AM, jengpeng said:

Hi @tluck I want to upgrade my T420  from 10.10.5 to 10.15 how should i do?

Device Lenovo T420 | i7-2620M | HD 3000 | 8GB | 1600x900  | macOS 10.10.5 

1) make a clone/backup

2) create a dosdude1 style USB installer for catalina

 

3) update clover on your HD/SSD to make sure you can boot old OS and be ready for new OS

    put old kexts in 10.10 folder vs Other (EFI/CLOVER/kexts/10.10)

    put new kexts in 10.15 folder (rename from EFI/CLOVER/kexts/Other to EFI/CLOVER/kext/10.15

 

you can install on top of 10.10 and it will convert from HFS to APFS (so better to have SSD)

after you install 10.15

boot USB again to complete post install to patch everything

 

note you can run APFS on HD 

for example, i have a HD with 2 main partitions

 APFS partition for HighSierra, Mojave, Catalina

 HFS+ for Sierra

 

my SSD has 2 main paritions -  windows (NTFS) and Catalina on APFS

 

 

On 2/13/2020 at 2:55 AM, mortezaom said:

Hello to all
I have Thinkpad T420i. before i flash my bios to 1.46, in win10 booting screen the resolution was high (I think it was 1600x900) , after the flashing bios and install dual-boot mac and windows : in clover bootloader , apple logo when start mac Mojave and also Win10 loading screen the resolution is very low (i think 800x600).

 

i have tried every solution in internet they dont work.

please tell me a good solution for Lenovo Thinkpad T420i

Thanks :) 

 

 

well. the BIOS (and Clover boot phase) may or may not be able to show full resolution. but ater the OS boots (windows or macOS) you will be able to use 1600x900. some bios mods open up more bios resolutions. i have 2 420 - with different mods and 1 can do 900x600 and one can do 1600x900.

 

 

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Hi, since I have to get my T420 back, I'm thinking of starting again with Hackintosh on my personal X250. Can you advise me where I can find the files I need and a guide, although the process will probably be the same as with the T420. Thank you.


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Hello friends, please let me add to the heap of problems my own contribution.

I have trouble installing High Sierra on my pretty standard i5 T420.

When I erase the disk at Disk Utility after first USB install boot, the "install macOS" option seems to end before it should - when it is copying files to HD and says about 2 minutes remaining, the progress bar being about 25 % done, it reboots. Then at Clover I can choose to boot install from HD, but then I get the graphical installer error "macOS could not be installed on your computer. An error occured while loading the installer resources." and I have the option to restart only.

 

Is there anything I can do? I don't really have access to a Mac, only Windows. I made the USB bootable with a virtual machine.

The only Clover "editing" I did was choosing the config-EDID2e2, because the default config didn't start up the graphical interface, only black screen.

 

Thanks a lot.

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On 2/17/2020 at 11:45 AM, suzunski said:

Hi, since I have to get my T420 back, I'm thinking of starting again with Hackintosh on my personal X250. Can you advise me where I can find the files I need and a guide, although the process will probably be the same as with the T420. Thank you.
 

i referred to this repo when i did the T460 years ago. but the X250 is similar to T450: https://github.com/shmilee/T450-Hackintosh

 

8 hours ago, jimrs said:

Hello friends, please let me add to the heap of problems my own contribution.

I have trouble installing High Sierra on my pretty standard i5 T420.

When I erase the disk at Disk Utility after first USB install boot, the "install macOS" option seems to end before it should - when it is copying files to HD and says about 2 minutes remaining, the progress bar being about 25 % done, it reboots. Then at Clover I can choose to boot install from HD, but then I get the graphical installer error "macOS could not be installed on your computer. An error occured while loading the installer resources." and I have the option to restart only.

 

Is there anything I can do? I don't really have access to a Mac, only Windows. I made the USB bootable with a virtual machine.

The only Clover "editing" I did was choosing the config-EDID2e2, because the default config didn't start up the graphical interface, only black screen.

 

Thanks a lot.

 

i think the error "could not be installed" is becuase of the microsoft stuff in EFI... for the time being rename/move the /Volumes/ESP/EFI/microsoft folder to somewhere else.

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2 hours ago, tluck said:

i referred to this repo when i did the T460 years ago. but the X250 is similar to T450: https://github.com/shmilee/T450-Hackintosh

 

 

i think the error "could not be installed" is becuase of the microsoft stuff in EFI... for the time being rename/move the /Volumes/ESP/EFI/microsoft folder to somewhere else.

 

Thank you for your reply. I am writing this from my new hackintosh:)

If anyone has the same problem, I made the USB through a VM and it might have caused problems. I used linux with internet recovery image and the installation had no trouble.

 

Since you're here, it's only a small thing but still...

The three finger swipe up/down doesn't seem to be working. The left/right three finger swipe works kind of ok. I don't know if it is related, but the touch click on touchpad doesn't work neither.

I usually use a mouse so no big deal, I'm just curious and excited to find out more, or if I can patch it myself somehow, because so far it looks to be the only thing not working as it should. (honestly I don't even know if it should work, out of the box.

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24 minutes ago, jimrs said:

 

Thank you for your reply. I am writing this from my new hackintosh:)

If anyone has the same problem, I made the USB through a VM and it might have caused problems. I used linux with internet recovery image and the installation had no trouble.

 

Since you're here, it's only a small thing but still...

The three finger swipe up/down doesn't seem to be working. The left/right three finger swipe works kind of ok. I don't know if it is related, but the touch click on touchpad doesn't work neither.

I usually use a mouse so no big deal, I'm just curious and excited to find out more, or if I can patch it myself somehow, because so far it looks to be the only thing not working as it should. (honestly I don't even know if it should work, out of the box.

 

my bad, touch click works:)

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Hello it's me again unfortunately... I'll get straight to the point.

Had working High Sierra, even when I plugged in an LCD through VGA, it worked flawlessly - OsX recognized the monitor in Display settings, it extended the displays, out of the box correct resolution.

I had to do a fresh install, did everything the same way - but now when I plug in the LCD, no matter which config I try, it doesn't work. The screens are mirrored, but the external LCD is so blurry and shaky, hurts to look at. Doesn't recognize it in Display settings.

The only thing I did differently was not install a system  update, but I doubt that will be the reason...

Any pointers to what should I do?

Thanks a lot friends

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On 3/4/2020 at 12:32 AM, jimrs said:

Hello it's me again unfortunately... I'll get straight to the point.

Had working High Sierra, even when I plugged in an LCD through VGA, it worked flawlessly - OsX recognized the monitor in Display settings, it extended the displays, out of the box correct resolution.

I had to do a fresh install, did everything the same way - but now when I plug in the LCD, no matter which config I try, it doesn't work. The screens are mirrored, but the external LCD is so blurry and shaky, hurts to look at. Doesn't recognize it in Display settings.

The only thing I did differently was not install a system  update, but I doubt that will be the reason...

Any pointers to what should I do?

Thanks a lot friends

 

For anyone with the same problem:

Vram was somehow very low - patched it at config.plist using a guide from x220.mcdonnelltech.com (at the bottom of the guide is a link).

Also what kind of a retard made this forum? 195 pages of useful information in this topic, but you can only search through the whole forum and can't search through this topic. Bravo.

Good luck to everyone

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13 hours ago, jimrs said:

 

For anyone with the same problem:

Vram was somehow very low - patched it at config.plist using a guide from x220.mcdonnelltech.com (at the bottom of the guide is a link).

Also what kind of a retard made this forum? 195 pages of useful information in this topic, but you can only search through the whole forum and can't search through this topic. Bravo.

Good luck to everyone

how much memory do you have? was the patch to increase VRAM as here: 

 

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6 hours ago, goodguess said:

Never felt the need for increasing VRAM with 10.14 or 10.15, but why not with 16GB RAM. ;)

Is the patch SuperReaper posted still working the same way for Mojave / Catalina?

 

 

yeah without more info from @jimrs what was going on with his vram hard to comment.  i recall memory vram defaulting to something like this:

RAM / gfx VRAM

 4GB -> 386M

 8GB -> 512M

16GB -> 1024M

 

for the heck of it mostly (and because I got a PM request on how to do it) on my 8GB T420 I patch VRAM to 1024 - but i dont think it matters much for me and my uses.

 

there are 2 different patches depending on version:

1) 10.12.x - Sierra

2) 10.13.x - HighSierra/Mojave/Catalina

 

			<dict>
				<key>Comment</key>
				<string>1024MB memory</string>
				<key>Disabled</key>
				<false/>
				<key>Find</key>
				<data>
				x0XQAAAAIA==
				</data>
				<key>MatchOS</key>
				<string>10.13.x,10.14.x,10.15.x</string>
				<key>Name</key>
				<string>com.apple.driver.AppleIntelSNBGraphicsFB</string>
				<key>Replace</key>
				<data>
				x0XQAAAAQA==
				</data>
			</dict>
			<dict>
				<key>Comment</key>
				<string>Sierra 1024MB memory</string>
				<key>Disabled</key>
				<false/>
				<key>Find</key>
				<data>
				x0XEAAAAIA==
				</data>
				<key>MatchOS</key>
				<string>10.12.x</string>
				<key>Name</key>
				<string>com.apple.driver.AppleIntelSNBGraphicsFB</string>
				<key>Replace</key>
				<data>
				x0XEAAAAQA==
				</data>
			</dict>

PS. @jimrs -  click on the search field to toggle search to search this topic.

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Lmao how did I not see that you can search in the topic? I guess I was looking only at the mobile version... I apologize to everyone who I may have offended.

 

@tluck thank you for your help again.

To clarify: I had a very low VRAM in "About this Mac" displayed, 7 MB only. I think as a result, the external monitor was extremely blurry and wavy, it's kinda hard to explain as english is not my primary language. At the same time, OSX was unable to detect my external monitor, even when I explicitly pressed the button "Detect displays" in the system preferences. Anyway after I patched the config.plist with the patch you mentioned in your first reply to me (the one from 2018) and rebooted, it suddenly worked and I got 1024 MB VRAM.

On subsequent boots, the number was reduced to 512 MB (?), though the monitor still works with no trouble.

I suffer from occasional random horizontal glitchy lines (especially in browser) and raising the VRAM to 1024 MB might help with that, as I have read somewhere else, so I will try your patch. The difference I see is that you put in the name string "com.apple.driver.AppleIntelSNBGraphicsFB" while the patch from 2018 puts only "AppleIntelSNBGraphicsFB".

Will report on how it goes. Wish me luck.

 

PS. just to be sure - I put this patch in config.plist inside the dictionary <array> of KextsToPatch right?

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