Dell Inspiron 600m Installation and troubles

[plaen]

Last night i successfully got windows xp and Kalyway Leopard 10.5.1 on the same drive, which was a lot easier than i thought it would be.

 

First i booted from the windows xp cd and used the drive manager on the installation wizard to partition the drive into 3 parts, one for windows, one for leopard, and the third for tiger, which is still downloading, so i cant install that as of yet, i left the two mac partitions unformatted and formatted the windows drive using ntfs

 

Then installed windows xp, restarted the computer to make sure xp boots with no problems, installed all of the xp drivers, then restarted and inserted the leopard disc, booted into the installer, and used the disk utility to format the leopard drive, leaving the third still blank, installed leopard, and restarted

 

When initially booting into leopard, i would always get the grey screen with "you need to restart your computer" after searching and playing with it for a while, found out it was the bcm5751 driver, booting with the -s -x -f -v and setting up leopard for the first time, then going into the /system/library/extensions/ionetworking.kext and removing the 2 bcm5xxx kexts from there fixed the booting issue

 

After booting, the darwin boot loader allows me to select xp or leopard, xp boots just fine and so does leopard, however i did not have drivers for the broadcom gigabit ethernet card, and the intel 2200 wireless, which is being developed still, searching the boards here, i found the bcm5xxx driver, which works flawlessly, all applications and everything is working.

 

Then i decide im going to use leopard to format the third partition since tiger is still downloading, i format the drive, everything goes well, i restart..... then i dont get any boot loaders or anything, just a flashing cursor. At this point, im thinking, well what did i do..... and after a reinstall of leopard, i am still not able to boot, guess ill have to format the whole drive and start over...

 

My system specs are

Dell Inspiron 600m

1.6 Ghz Pentium M Dothan

1.5 GB DDR pc2100 ram

60gb Hard Drive

Broadcom 5175 gigabit ethernet

Conexant d480 modem

Intel Pro Wireless 2200b/g wireless

[originalmoosed]

i have the exact same latop but i am stuck at the part where you had to edit the kext, i have no clue how to do this because i am completely new to the whole osx thing. any help would be greatly appreciated

[douirc]

plaen, would you mind listing your configuration choices during installation (I have the same Inspiron 600M). I tried the default configuration and when I reboot I get the apple logo with a busy signal that never ends. I read I have to properly configure the install for my hardware, but I'm unclear which options to select/unselect.

 

thanks for the help

[Spamdumpster]

Plaen, first you deleted the bcm5xxx kexts, then reinstalled them? Can you post the link to the drivers?

 

Thx.

[Hyperi0n.v2]

Hello. I also have a Inspiron 600M.

 

I'd like to help contribute with other 600M owners to determine how to install Mac OS X 10.5.2 Leopard successfully.

I make no claims of expertise. I'm a n3wb to .

 

First things, I have no trouble whatsoever with the Kalyway 10.5.2 installer dvd off a torrent site. Works flawlessly.

 

I partiotioned my drive (using the Disk Utility on the install disc) as a Mac OS Extendended (Journaled) with a GUID Partition Table. Seems to work fine.

 

Upon installation, I was always hanging at right after:

Mac Framework successfully initialized

using 2621 buffer headesr and 2621 cluster IO buffers'

I couldn't proceed past this point until I flashed my bios with the latest from Dell's website.

I had bios A03, and now have A17.

I possibly was hanging on ACPI stuff, as the next line in verbose mode (-v) after the above is:

 

'Extension 'com/apple/driver/ACPI_SMC_PlatformPlugin....

 

Now I can proceed further to 'localhost mDNSResponder[20]: WARNING: sandbox_init error Cannot apply profile *(Version 1)\n\n; WARNING: The sandbox rule...': Connection Refused

 

and it just sits there. I can toggle my caps lock, doesn't look frozen. I can type. Just stuck there on that screen.

 

I'll come back later and post my bios settings, and the options I've chosen for the Kalyway install.

I would appreciate if others who have successfully installed Leopard on their 600M share BIOS settings and what packages they chose of th install disc, as well as other steps required for a proper installation.

 

I have questions lile: Do I want to include a 'Hardcoded_SMBIOS' patch, and if so which one. Do these patches relate to EFI only mobos?

 

In my BIOS I have SpeedStep on. I'll share my other settings later. Maybe I'll take screenshots.

 

 

Thanks,

Tyler

[douirc]

well, i'm more than happy to contribute however i can. i somehow installed it on my 600m but forgot which option i chose during installation. i created a table of possible combinations and have been through almost every one, yet i still cannot get it reinstalled. so pissed i didn't write it down the first time.

 

anyway, from the combination table i've assembled, the ones that come closest to working are where I set the SSE to on (chooseing both SSE-ACPI and SSE-APIC).

 

there are two types of crashes, the first being a never-ending busy signal (where the circle goes round and round and never stops) and where the system does something similar to BSOD (error message displays asking to reboot the machine). what i've noticed is when the BSOD comes up is the one that seems closest to actually loading. to get this consistently, i make sure to check the SSE option.

 

The other options that i keep using in combination include the Kernel (either 9.2 sleep or 9.2 speedstep), SMBIOS (either Lastnetkassbios or AppleSMBIOS-27-Default) and the Intel Mem Controller option. The number of combinations are limited because you can only choose one Kernel option and one SMBIOS option. for some reason though, i have a feeling when I actually was able to get it to install correctly, i chose only one of the SSE options, but of course i can't remember anymore :glare:

 

either way, i haven't finished all the combinations of these settings. there's a total of 32, and at ~45 mins/install, you can guess it takes a while. sadly, i've tried more than half and still no luck, so you can imagine i'm starting to get frustrated and wondering if i'll every figure out the right combination.

 

you would think it would be a lot simpler than this, but it all seems to come down to using the right combination of kernel, SSE, SMBIOS and Itel Mem Controller.

 

anyway, if anyone has better luck, or is interested in knowing more about my bios settings, let me know. like i said, i got installed ONCE, so i know it's possible. now i just need to figure out how i did it

[Hyperi0n.v2]

I'm writing this from my Inspiron 600m.

 

I think I've hit the jackpot. Douirc, try disabling Lan Controller from the bios. This was causing the seconary crash your described in your post. During my installation I exempted myeslf from a hard_coded SMBIOS patch, choose the SpeedStep kernel, and chose a few network drivers from the installer even though the lan controller was disabled in the bios. I decided to install the network drivers in case it had something to do with my mDNSResponder errors. Man, sound and AirPort work 'out of the box'. Only think I can ask for right now is to get the 'battery meter' working. Improvements that I don't care so much about, but would like would be drivers for the Lan Controller, Two Finger Scrolling, and some sort of kext driver for the video system.

 

So far, stable and good. I'll back up this disk to an image, and try to start from scratch, documenting the process very precisely to create a guide. Expect something in the next 10 days.

[douirc]

that's great news that you got it installed. i'll give the bios change a try, but i was able to get it installed before without changing the bios settings, so i'm assuming it should still work again. the speedstep kernel makes sense, but any idea how to check if it's working? can't run cpuz . also, did you pick both, none or just one of the SSE options? and which SMBIOS option did you choose, or when you say exempted, you didn't choose any (unchecked the default Lastnetkassmbios)? oh, and the intel mem controller...you check that?

[LiquidWeird]

I have an old bios, too.. I haven't updated it yet, and I think I know why the LAN doesn't work. For some reason the driver picks up a mac address of 00:00:00:00:00:00 .. ??

 

I hard-set it by opening a terminal and running:

 

ifconfig en0 lladdr 11:22:33:44:55:66

 

(any random mac should do)

 

Bingo. Lan access. I must have been getting ditched at some point along my route due to a bogus mac entry. Setting that command on startup should resolve that issue (on my system).. I've never seen that secondary crash before, so no hope there from me. I'm going to try to update my bios now. Hopefully that won't thrash my working network config.

 

Crossing fingers.

 

Thanks for the wealth of info here. This appears to be the island of info for 600m OSX.

[Hyperi0n.v2]

man, I went to reinstall last night to tweak with it and my HARD DRIVE died.

lol, I'm backing up my PowerBook now and will be gutting the HD from that to continue, or try to install to an external USB drive (which I'm less happy about).

 

What does the Intel Memory Controller option on the Kalyway install do?

 

Likewise, what does an SMBIOS patch do? I didn't get a clear understanding from the searching I've done so far.

Something about making your profiler detect your gear properly? Let glitches with certain programs?

[Hyperi0n.v2]

Okay, here is where my expiremention has taken me:

I'm getting into the desktop and playing around with it.

 

working: Audio in and out, trackpad, special volume keys, power button, airport all work.

to be fixed: sleep, onboard lan, and USB (though I am booting off USB)

 

BIOS: Revision A17

BIOS Settings: Page 3

 

Boot Post: Minimal

Adapter Warnings: Enabled

Internal Modem: Disabled

LAN Controller: Disabled (if enabled, my system crashes, see notes elsewhere in thread)

PXE BIS Policy: Accept

Onboard Bluetooth: Not Installed on my system

MiniPCI Device: Wireless

MiniPCI Status: Enabled

Wireless Control: Application

Wireless: On

 

Page 4 of 7:

Serial Port: Disabled

Infrared Data Port: Disabled

Parallel Mode: Disabled

Keyboard Click: Disabled

Num Lock: Enable

Enable Keypay: Only vt <FN> Key

External Hot Key: Scroll Lock

USB Emulation: Enabled (if I disable this I can't boot off an external USB drive)

Pointing Device: Touch Pad-PS/2 Mouse

SmartCard Function: Enabled

Video Expansion: Disabled (doesn't what you set it to matter)

 

Page 6 of 7: Brightness is up for both settings

Intel SpeedStep™ Enabled

Wakeup on Lan: Disabled

Autio on Mode: Disabled

Autio on time: 00:00

 

Undocking method: Hot undock

Universal Connect: Enabled

 

Installation Options

 

Using Kalyway 10.5.2 install media.

 

Selecting SleepKernel (SpeedStep also seems to work), onboardpcata, genericpcata, and all ethernet drivers that start with 'Apple', the Jass SSE2 APIC/ACPI options, the lastnetkassmbios patch. If it's not mention here, I didn't install it.

 

Upon complete installation, for no logical other reason other then I don't want to deviate from the past success I've had, I click disk utility before the installer restarts, and do a repair disk permissions. I don't think I need to. Will confirm later.

Upon restart, I F8 it and feed it -s and -v.

Once booted in single user mode, I do a fsck -fy (probably not needed) and a -v -x to skip the startup setup assistent (though I don't know if I need to or not), then restart like normal.

 

Lot's of tweaks to be done still, but this is the brunt of it.

 

I'd like to know the difference between SpeedStep kernel and Sleep kernel. I don't expect sleep to everwork properly, so whichever kernel works most stably and reliably for our SSE2 Pentium M processors.

 

Cheers,

Hyperi0n.v2

 

More to Come.

[LiquidWeird]

i'm not sure what all those do exactly. i think they're just triggers for patches that contain known fixes for known issues.

 

i'm going round 4 right now trying to get the right settings.. i think i've almost got it. more later, along with what i had to add if i can get it to work.

[douirc]

thanks for all the hard work and contribution guys. i've gone through multiple iterations on my external USB drive with no success, so i've pulled my internal and swapped it with the USB and am trying again. If i have success, i'll post my configuration, otherwise i might just have to do as you've setup above. i'll repost after i've gone through every configuration.

[Hyperi0n.v2]

I did an install without the Jas SSE2 stuff, same config as I posted in last message otherwise, with and no dice.

Crashed at 'Mac Framework successfully initialized.

 

Is it required to install both JAS SSE2 patched? One is for APIC, one for APCI.

What about passing along a flag to modify something, I saw startup commands like platform=x86 or something.

 

 

I see that intel memory controller also has something to do with APCI? One in lie of the other?

[douirc]

ok, so after extensive testing i've come to the conclusion that the simplest way to install is to disable the ethernet controller, like you said. i'm currently running with options 9.2 speedstep, SSE (ACPI & APIC), Lastnetkassmbios and Intel Mem Controller. I also checked the entire Audio and Network boxes instead of picking and choosing. I tried other combinations and they all work too, as long as the network driver is disabled in bios. I just picked the Intel Mem Controller and Speedstep since I figured it would help, but no idea if it really does.

 

I also edited the file /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.Boot.plist and inserted the lines:

<key>Graphics Mode</key>

<string>1400×1050×32</string>

 

any idea how to check if the cpu is actually speedstepping or not? i'm thinking not since the fan is always running.

[Hyperi0n.v2]

Allright, I tried doing it with Intel Memory Controller and PowerManagementBundle and again it freezed as 'Mac Framework Successfully Initialized' . Tried doing it with only the AppleACPIPlatform and no AppleAPIC under the SSE2_Jas section. Did not work, same error as above. Tried with only the AppleAPIC and no AppleACPIPlatform and it got past that point but kernal dumped right away.

 

 

So SSE2_Jas it is then, it's the common denominator of all successful installs on the 600m.

[douirc]

ok, so i'm pretty happy with the results so far. wireless is working, display is at 1400x1050, sound is working and things seem to functional. next question - how do you get the panel at the bottom to show the icons magnified as you move the mouse across them? also, how do you see the processors realtime speed to see if speedstep is working? also, when on battery, how do you see remaining battery % and time?

 

UPDATE:

ok, apparently you can just right-click the toolbar on the bottom to access the configuration options. There's a check box to turn on magnification. pretty cool! next, cpu speedstep (if possible) and battery life.

[Hyperi0n.v2]

Oh man, this is fustrating. I can't get the Graphics Mode to set! The system just loads to 1024x768. :(I know for a fact that I was able to set it to 1400x1050x32 previously. Douirc, did you update your BIOS to A17? I'm wondering if the ability to set the screen resolution was lost when I went from A03--- I know the BIOS flash effects some of the ATI firmware. I agree about battery meter. Also, two finger scrolling if possible. Are you having weirdness with your USB? My digital camera detects if it's present during startup, but my iPhone doesn't detect or even charge... Is the USB bus on these computers powered?I got to figure out this graphics mode thing... any bios settings that can be related? hmmm.also - I selected 'get info' on on both iCal and Mail, and chose 'run under rossetta' (selected the check box) and they seem stable now. They where crashing before.I have no luck with video of any sort, through VLC or quicktime or in iTunes. A natural consequence of not having a video driver?

[douirc]

well, if you're trying to get the resolution to work from the Settings, I wasn't able to make that work either. Instead, I had to edit the com.apple.Boot.plist and manually add the resolution (post #15 above). I don't know what BIOS i'm running. How do I check? My USB seems to work fine for some things and not others. I have an external HDD that I used to install the OS on, so that's obviously working. I just plugged my Canon PowerShot S500 Digital ELPH into the USB port and iPhoto automatically started and read the pictures on the camera, but when I try my iPhone, the OS doesn't detect it. I also have no idea if I'm running at 2.0 speed though. I would assume so since the OS is running fairly fast, but not 100% sure.

 

When I tried running a DVD I get the error: A valid video device could not be found for playback [-70017]. i'm sure you're right about not having a video driver installed. it's probably causing the issue.

 

someone in this thread with a 600m said they got most everything working:

http://209.85.215.104/search?q=cache:kG_Cv...p;client=safari

[Hyperi0n.v2]

douirc, as per post 15, I did indeed have my Boot.plist set to pass along the "1400x950x32" command.

I just didn't work. I saw a suggestion from the thread on the wiki you suggested about removing all the ATI kexts and the kext cache. Did that, restarted with a -f, and still no go (stuck in 1024x768). I went into the bios an set video expansion to enabled and restarted. For some reason it went into 1400x950. I went back into the bios and disabled video expansion, but she's still booting in 1400. I'm pretty satisfied about that.

 

I left the computer running all night, with Transmission downloading a torrent containing the movie 'Our Daily Bread'. Was up and running all night. Wireless networking seems really stable.

 

Of course, I now want to watch the movie 'Our Daily Bread'. VLC kept crashing on me despite changing display output options from the advanced preferences menu. I even tried running it in Rosetta, which worked better, but still crashed. The partial solution to watching video is the fabulous MPlayer. MPlayer will play back DVD's as well as almost every other video file you can throw at it. I found that the playback window has to be fairly small in order for the video to play smoothly. If it's larger, then the playback is choppy. Again, most likely and effect of not having any kind of hardware acceleration.

 

Any progress on battery meter, sleep, or trackpad?

 

--

Update 1

 

I tried getting the battery meter to work by installing the powermanagement.bundle found elsewhere in this forum, as well as the the PowerManagement package of the Kalyway 10.5.2 install disc. The PowerManagement bundle by itself hasn't made any difference. When I installed the AppleACPIPlatform.kext and the AppleAPIC.kext from the PowerManagement package off Kalyway I get the usual 'MAC successfully initialized' crash. I'm content to leave this one alone for the time being. Let me know if you come across a solution.

 

Also, it looks like our 600m's use an ALPS trackpad. The following wiki has some basic information on the hardware in these laptops. http://gentoo-wiki.com/HARDWARE_Gentoo_on_Dell_Inspiron_600m

 

Update 2

 

I installed a modified driver that enables 'tap to click', the trackpad system preference, and two finger scrolling. The two finger scrolling is really spotty. I wonder what can be done to get it to work smoothly.

 

Linked to driver: http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?s=&...st&p=160695 (note, possibly deleting the ApplePS2Mouse.kext from inside ApplePS2Controller.kext may suffice to enable the trackpad, and may offer better results then installing the kext from the forum link above, I may experiment later)

 

Observation

 

I get kernel panics when I start up without the AC adapter plugged in. I have not tried using other SSE2 kernels. I wonder if there is a flag we can send to the kernel, or some modification we can get to prevent this.

[douirc]

i haven't played with it much today and am leaving out of town for the rest of the week. sorry to hear the resolution isn't cooperating. i just checked my bios and it says A14. not sure how helpful that is. i also found this thread on the radeon mobility 9000:

 

http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showtopic=41235

 

i'd love to get the video working properly, the usb fixed for iphone, speedstep and the battery working before making the switch permanent, otherwise i'll just stick with XP since it works.

 

instructions found in the thread (makes no sense to me)

http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?s=&...st&p=330155

 

UPDATE

so i searched some more and noticed there's a file that can be edited to force Quartz on for accelerated graphics. the problem is the filed doesn't exist on my machine, so i had to download a plist editor and create the file myself (although I still can't get Quartz to turn on). the name of the file is called com.apple.windowserver.plist, in the Library\Preferences folder, but you can read more about it here:

 

http://209.85.207.104/search?q=cache:y_Oie...;cd=1&gl=us

[Hyperi0n.v2]

I've noticed that more often then not the computer kernel panics if started off the battery - often but not always. I suspect, and this warrants more testing, that if you want to start the computer off the battery, one needs to ender into the bios first, then continue booting. What's interesting is that if you successfully boot of the battery, the battery power meter shows up!

 

I've found the stability of a few of the programs lacking, probably do to having SSE2 hacks in our kernels combined with some older code from 10.4 in order to make all this stuff work (Jas SSE2 ACPI, etc).

 

Mail crashed out on my frequently. Mail is a major productivity app for me.

 

I'll look into the Radeon stuff, and try to get to the bottom of this power meter stuff.

Did you try the ALPS trackpad driver? Tap clicking is nice.

[bebemunchies]

Hey, I havent been able to get my 600m wireless card to be detected. Im not too sure what card i have. Is there a way to check?

 

Otherwise, did you guys get your wifi to work out of the box or did it need a special kext.

 

I installed most of the network wireless drivers, but it didn't seem to get it to work.

 

Thankssss

[plaen]

@bebe, i think that most if not all of the 600m's came with the intel pro-wireless 2200's which the driver is here i have tried it and the airport section sometimes has issues coming up, but the software that comes with it, seems to work pretty well, but ive noticed that ill connect to a network and the application will close it self and i cant get it back open unless i restart

 

I've never actually had any kernel panics when i boot from the battery, occasionally the finder will appear to hang, but just restarting it works, and when running off battery, the battery meter does show up for me

 

however, i am running 10.5.1, and i did an upgrade when i was on vacation and it upgraded the system to 10.5.4 or .5 im not sure, but it crashes everytime i boot now, so im gonna have to do a reload

 

 

also, the most my lcd can run is 1280x1024, which the mac side does well with, i havent played around with the quartz stuff to play any 3d applications

 

i do have the same problem with VLC, where it will crash every time i try to play something, i dont know if thats related to the quartz issue or not

 

the Kexts that i was talking about are the ones loaded with the install, i deleted those and installed the ones from this board in there and it worked with no problems

 

My goal for this weekend is to install the updated leopard on here and see how well that works, since i broke it by updating, i just need to get a bigger hd cause this 60gb isnt cutting it with windows and leopard

 

also, thats why i loaded xp on it as well, that way i could still have a functional operating system while playing around with leopard

[silencer88]

For those of you with the battery boot kernel panic/hang problem, try this:

 

In the BIOS settings I turned off the modem (which I don't think fixed the problem), and changed the boot tests from QUICK to THOROUGH. I have yet to have a hang with these new settings. Give it a shot!