Lenovo ThinkPad T420 with UEFI Only

[ScumbagSteveo]

Thanks for the suggestions guys. The side switch is set to on and I tried turning the wifi on and off in the bios to no avail. I didn't try the kext patch as I'm not really sure how to go through with that and it seems that the problem is consistent in Windows, OSX and Ubuntu Linux which I tried this morning.

I tried to rebrand the card as well, which went well until I tried to write the firmware to the card, it gave me some sort of write error. However, I think it worked anyway as OSX detects it as Airport now. However, the card still does not detect networks.

This problem seem to me to be a hardware problem which would put it out of my technical scope, so I'm just gonna buy a new card. 

Do you guys have any suggestions on where I should get another card from? The one I bought was from China and I need it shipped to Australia. 

[tluck]

@scumbagsteveo - what locale and/or country code is the card set to? may you need to tweak that? i have recollection of some errors until i changed the locale?

 

my card is an HP OEM AR5BHB92-H - works great on my 2 T420 boxes.

 

en1:

  Card Type: AirPort Extreme  (0x168C, 0x8F)

  Firmware Version: Atheros 9280: 4.0.74.0-P2P

  MAC Address: 48:5d:60:77:61:af

  Locale: FCC

  Country Code: US 

  Supported PHY Modes: 802.11 a/b/g/n

  Supported Channels: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 36, 40, 44, 48, 52, 56, 60, 64, 100, 104, 108, 112, 116, 120, 124, 128, 132, 136, 140, 149, 153, 157, 161, 165

  Wake On Wireless: Supported

  AirDrop: Supported

  Status: Connected

[ScumbagSteveo]

After rebranding: 

Card originally had no value set for the country code. 

Trying to install the wireless bootcamp drivers in Windows led to a crash (might be my hard drive), installed after, but ofc still no wireless

 

Is it true that Atheros cards card can only be rebranded once?

 

en2:

  Card Type: AirPort Extreme  (0x14E4, 0x93)

  Firmware Version: Broadcom BCM43xx 1.0 (5.106.98.100.24)

  MAC Address: 00:26:5e:08:05:70

  Locale: FCC

  Country Code: US

  Supported PHY Modes: 802.11 a/b/g/n

  Supported Channels: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 36, 40, 44, 48, 52, 56, 60, 64, 149, 153, 157, 161, 165

  Wake On Wireless: Supported

  AirDrop: Supported

  Status: Not Associated

 

EDIT: Details

[TimeWalker75a]

Hey, @tluck and co.

Was wondering if your unit can hibernate properly with AptioFix2? Since we share the same BIOS code base I though It'd be the right place to ask. 

With hibernate mode set to 7 my unit will hibernate but when resumed from sleepimage (not from actual sleep) it will sit at a black screen with keyboard and audio working. 

The only way to get it out of this limbo is to close the LID and let it partially sleep, then break the sleep cycle and only then you will be presented with login window. 

[tluck]

@TimeWalker75a - yes. it works just like that on my system. boot from hibernated image looks good but i get a black (backlight) screen. everything else is fine ie works after resumption. can screenshare/vnc to it etc.  i rarely if ever (except in testing this feature) need to resume from the hibernated image. but if so i just close the lid. wait for the moon. and open it it up and it "re-inits" the gfx.  

[TimeWalker75a]

Thanks. I've actually used the EDID from your package because of gamma, for 1366x768 screen .. I recall that it had worked at some point .. so I wonder whether this could be related. Need to find an override that I was using previously in an attempt to troubleshoot.

Yup, it's because of EDID override ... I've replaced it with my old legacy one that has an awful blue tint for gamma and it resumed straight to login window!

You've had some experience with EDIDs before I recall, perhaps you'd know what could the the culprit (both attached)? If you have some time to spare that is.

 

UPD:

 

It's something in the EDID itself .. I've changed the vendor IDs to reflect actual ones on my panel - didn't help and resulted in that same black screen. I then replaced the EDID string on IODisplayEDID and retained my original dspc leaving the RGB and gamma tables from your override, which then resumed to login window correctly. I don't actually recall why I've inherited your entire override including the EDID itself, but there's sure something in it that does this weird backlit screen thing when resuming from sleepimage. 

[tluck]

@TW - ha! well that is very interesting. sure. i will chip away at it. glad we have a root/cause to get this fixed. but i didn't see the attachments (your good/bad EDID) ... 

 

its been awhile - but i recall i needed to patch the built-in EDID to fix the nasty artifacts.  but as far as gamma - i use a display override to match the product/vendor defined by the EDID - which of course overrides the EDID values.  yeah i hate the extreme blue tint otherwise.  in my case, the EDID is set in both the DSDT and but as i migrated to clover, it injected by clover as well.  gwe have a root/cause to get this fixed. 

[TimeWalker75a]

@TW - ha! well that is very interesting. sure. i will chip away at it. glad we have a root/cause to get this fixed. but i didn't see the attachments (your good/bad EDID) ... 

 

its been awhile - but i recall i needed to patch the built-in EDID to fix the nasty artifacts.  but as far as gamma - i use a display override to match the product/vendor defined by the EDID - which of course overrides the EDID values.  yeah i hate the extreme blue tint otherwise.  in my case, the EDID is set in both the DSDT and but as i migrated to clover, it injected by clover as well.  gwe have a root/cause to get this fixed. 

oops, the attachment failed for some odd reason .. should be up now. 

trough trial and error I've learned that Clover won't inject EDID and is actually incapable of changing anything system-wise even though you see the EDID change in IOReg. Injecting it through DSDT is surely a more involved option, but swapping it out seems like a lot of work. Well, I suppose once you have everything polished down it could be purely DSDT .. 

edid_daf_1464.zip

[Tetonne]

OS X 10.10.4 has been released. Is update safe on your T420?

[tluck]

@TW - so wow - i removed EDID from CLOVER and DSDT and still black. but as soon as i remove /S/L/Display/Overrides - boom no black screen upon resumption from hibernation.  so now its matter of figuring what is needed in the display override file. but as side note there were no artifacts?!  so something has must have changed in the yosemite HD 3000 drivers to fix that problem?

and yes. 10.10.4 is fine

[TimeWalker75a]

@TW - so wow - i removed EDID from CLOVER and DSDT and still black. but as soon as i remove /S/L/Display/Overrides - boom no black screen upon resumption from hibernation.  so now its matter of figuring what is needed in the display override file. but as side note there were no artifacts?!  so something has must have changed in the yosemite HD 3000 drivers to fix that problem?

and yes. 10.10.4 is fine

In Yosemite I've still encountered severe glitching (despite having a proper EDID override that worked wonders) as soon as I removed 4 Gb of RAM. Installed the module back and haven't seen a single sliver of artifacts since then. Which makes me believe this is purely memory mapping dependent thing.. 

[tluck]

well i may have a new EDID for 1600x900 that seems to be glitch free and doesn't do the black screen thing on hibernate resumption. so thats cool. so far it works on Yosemite.

 

i am injecting the EDID by clover. and i removed some stuff from the display override files that still provide the nice gamma. i will test a day or 2 to see how it works. (want to make sure i don't get artifacts etc).  

 

the bottom line - culprit for black screen hibernation resume seems to be the EDID. 

[Tetonne]

Did someone test EI captain on your T420? will we be able to use it ?

 

i have tested for the 3rd time OsxAptioFix2Drv-64.efi with hibernate7

but my computer crash between 30 and 60 minutes after boot

so i went back to OsxAptioFixDrv-64.efi with hibernate0

[tluck]

@tetonne

 

- i am waiting for the public beta to test El Capitan.

- very weird your situation. i presume others are using the Fix2Drv without issue? you may want to post something on the general forum to see if the developers have any idea as to what could be different? i generally disable hibernation as i have a small 160GB SSD and don't need the feature. 

[Tophaholic]

Kogen - thanks for this amazing work. Thanks to this guide - I have successfully installed Yosemite 10.10.4 on my T420. I am even using it with Logic Pro X and it seems to be working great - with my audio interface.

 

Instead of swapping the internal wifi card and messing with the BIOS - I decided to get a Linksys AE6000 USB wifi adapter and it works great with the Mediatek driver.

 

Just a couple of issues that I need help with:

1. Default sound card is not working. I do not remember if it ever worked or if it stopped working after I installed drivers for my Audio interface. The audio interface is working fine - shows up in the Sounds - Input and output devices list. But not the HD realteck (build in sound card)

2. 3 and 4 finger gestures are not workig - and do not see options to enable them in the "Trackpad" settions page

 

Cheers !

[tluck]

@tophaholic 

 

glad it worked.

 

1) so is sound is working from speakers or mic/headphones? the kexts pack i provide should get the audio working when the kexts are installed in /S/L/E. some time the link from the kext is messed up and must be redone - there is script etc in the zip.

 

HD (digital) will work/show up only if you plug in a DisplayPort/HDMI TV etc. then the sound panel will offer that output

 

2) well the T420 track/touchpad is not a mac touchpad and will not be fully functional. out of the box, the PS2 kexts have the 3 figure swipes l- eft and right - mapped to Safari back /forward. 

[Tophaholic]

no sound coming out of the headphones or speakers - basically if I go to "Sound" setings - I do not even see the built in audio as a device to select it

I will try to reinstall the kexts for audio. My guess is when I installed the driver for my audio interface (external sound card) - it must have displaced/replaced my built in audio

So when I connect my audio interface (via USB) - it shows up as a sound device in Sound settings and I can get audio routed to it.

 

not a dealbreaker at all with the 3/4 finger swipes. Pretty happy the way it is.

1) so is sound is working from speakers or mic/headphones? the kexts pack i provide should get the audio working when the kexts are installed in /S/L/E. some time the link from the kext is messed up and must be redone - there is script etc in the zip.

 

HD (digital) will work/show up only if you plug in a DisplayPort/HDMI TV etc. then the sound panel will offer that output

 

2) well the T420 track/touchpad is not a mac touchpad and will not be fully functional. out of the box, the PS2 kexts have the 3 figure swipes l- eft and right - mapped to Safari back /forward. 

[Tetonne]

F5521gw driver : 

CellPhoneHelper.kext.zip

Informations WWAN :

 

  F5521gw :

  Device Version Number : 0

  idProduct : 0x1911  idVendor : 0x0bdb

 

[entrixo]

I managed to successfully install and boot 10.11 El Capitan.

 

• Wi-Fi (DW1510) and Ethernet (not tested) seem to work (they appear in Network Preferences).
• During boot-up I occasionally get kernel panics due to FakeSMC. Updating to the newest version of FakeSMC doesn't seem to change much.
• The Finder window seems to get some sort of graphical glitches at times and it makes file browsing impossible.
• Audio doesn't seem to work but I'm trying to fix it. Patching the new codec using the tool in the .zip file makes sound work just fine.
• One thing I noticed is that my second display on VGA has some flickering when I'm using Synergy to share my keyboard and mouse from my Windows PC. The flickering does not occur while using the touchpad/mouse plugged in to the laptop. EDIT: It seems like any network traffic causes interference on the graphics chip? No idea what's going on.

Unfortunately my main PC has suffered from a serious hardware failure and as such I will need a stable OS on my ThinkPad. I won't be able to test any fixes as I'm reverting to 10.10.4. Sorry

[Tophaholic]

installed the AppleHDA kext from the kexts folder via the GUI utilty and the internal sound is now enabled !!! Thanks for the help !

 

 

 

no sound coming out of the headphones or speakers - basically if I go to "Sound" setings - I do not even see the built in audio as a device to select it

I will try to reinstall the kexts for audio. My guess is when I installed the driver for my audio interface (external sound card) - it must have displaced/replaced my built in audio

So when I connect my audio interface (via USB) - it shows up as a sound device in Sound settings and I can get audio routed to it.

 

not a dealbreaker at all with the 3/4 finger swipes. Pretty happy the way it is.

1) so is sound is working from speakers or mic/headphones? the kexts pack i provide should get the audio working when the kexts are installed in /S/L/E. some time the link from the kext is messed up and must be redone - there is script etc in the zip.

 

HD (digital) will work/show up only if you plug in a DisplayPort/HDMI TV etc. then the sound panel will offer that output

 

2) well the T420 track/touchpad is not a mac touchpad and will not be fully functional. out of the box, the PS2 kexts have the 3 figure swipes l- eft and right - mapped to Safari back /forward. 

 

[SimonLL]

Hi all,

 

I had a working W520 with Mavericks 10.9.3 up until today. I rebooted into Windows (which is on a separate SSD) to do something, and when I tried to boot OSX after that, it gets stuck on Waiting for DSMOS. It never did that before, I did not fiddle with any kexts or config before rebooting, and FakeSMC is present and still the same in /EFI/CLOVER/kexts/10.9

 

I really don't understand what is happening. The machine is kinda old and has been used extensively. Lately some weird things have happened (sound stopped working suddenly between 2 reboots, now the sound card that used to work just fine is not seen by OSX anymore, heating issues). Does anyone have any idea what could be causing that and more importantly: Any way to fix the DSMOS issue through Windows? I have MacDrive on my Windows partition, which allows me access and basic repair functions on my OSX disk.

 

Thanks for the help.

[tluck]

@SimonLL. i don't know what could be causing your OS X issues. i think you are saying that FakeSMC is present in /S/L/E  of OS X and is the same version as in /EFI. missing FakeSMC is often he cause of your situation. could there be some disk (corruption?)... if you have a USB OS X installer perhaps you could boot up and reinstall? not sure what else to suggest. sorry.

[SimonLL]

Thanks tluck,

 

FakeSMC is not in S/L/E. Should it be there AND in EFI???? I don't think I've ever had it in S/L/E

[tluck]

@SimonLL - many recommend to put all the custom kexts in /S/L/E instead of EFI. I find this to best to allow the kernel cache to be built without kext dependency issues. its ok to have a few kexts in EFI. These are good for the OS X installers and recovery HD.

 

@Tetonne

 

- SD card - never seen or heard it working (i have ricoh card) and to  my knowledge there isn't a working driver. i have been using a USB SD card reader for about 4 years.

 

- shutdown issues - boot with verbose (-v). Then when you shutdown you can see where does it hang on the shutdown process.  

you should see it run some commands on the console. maybe stuck on something (unmount filesystem). you can always reinstall the OS on top to rule out some weird corruption etc. 

 

but i would

 

1) repair disk (select disk0) with Disk Utility

2) boot single user and repair the filesystem

3) repair permissions

 

test shutdown

 

4) create a test disk with just base OS X (fresh install)

[arooni]

Hey everyone!

 

I'm a Lenovo T420 owner and I want to get into iPhone app development, but I'm on a budget.  I stumbled onto this thread.  It looks very interesting.  I'm a new member to this forum, so if there are other ways of answering these questions, please don't hesitate to let me know how to find them so I don't ask stupid questions.

 

My rig:

Lenovo T420 with 1600x900 resolution

Intel I5-2520 Processor

Intel Corporation 2nd Generation Core Processor Family Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 09) (Integrated graphics I'm pretty confident)

8GB RAM 

500GB Platter Hard Drive // 2 partitions; both ext4 for Ubuntu.  one for /root/ and one for /home/

 Intel Corporation Centrino Advanced-N + WiMAX 6250 [Kilmer Peak] (rev 5e)

OS: Running Ubuntu 14.04 

 

My interest in trying to make this into a Hackintosh is being able to use XCode to develop iPhone apps as well as pipe video output to an external monitor to make it easier while programming.  It would be nice if enough things worked on OS X to make using it my primary OS, but I'm also content dual booting between Ubuntu / OS X when I want to work on iPhone apps and keep Ubuntu for everything else.  

 

Questions:

1) For those of you who have successfully made this into a Hackintosh booting OS X 10.10; does it feel 'snappy'?  Are you running XCode on it?  Can you run iPhone apps you're building on the emulator?  According to http://browser.primatelabs.com/mac-benchmarks, it looks like the 2520 Processor sets a baseline, and that a 2015 Mac Book Pro 13" Laptop (what I was thinking about buying) only scores a 3100 on the processor score (about a 24% better CPU performance).  So theoretically it looks like it would be fast enough.  

2) It looks like even after all this work, the Intel Wireless Adapter doesn't end up working.  According to the sticky guide above, "The stock Intel WiFi will not work. There are options to replace and use modded bios."  Does that mean that I need to purchase a new wireless adapter?  Would it be a USB adapter?  Or can I use the existing adapter in the system?  I don't see any notes on where to use a different BIOS. 

3) I was thinking about buying a ESATA SSD drive in order to install OSX and to breath some new life into my aging laptop.  And leave the existing 500GB platter drive for storage/photos/media etc.  Would you recommend this?  What size / brand?  Are there any restrictions on which brand/model OSX would support?

4) Does video out work on the VGA port?  

5) Is there any way on the T420 with integrated video to have video out among two different monitors on OS X? (i.e. my laptop screen plus two separate monitors)?  

5.5) Anything else not working that would make it difficult/impossible to run XCode and build apps?  I'd hate to do all this work to get OSX running but not be able to do what I set out to do...

6) Should I just buy a cheap, used Mac Desktop rather than messing with all this?  I am thinking about buying a Mac laptop, but they look way over priced in terms of hardware and I already have a working laptop, so hence the Mac Desktop idea.  

 

Would appreciate your help!  

Thanks,
David