10.5.5 on Dell XPS M1330, dual boot with Win 7, only a few bugs.

[AC3D]

Using numerous guides I found on this & other sites, I finally got 10.5.5 up and running with iAtkos v5 on my 1330. I'm fairly well versed in windows, but not mac's, unix / linux, etc. So it took a lot of reading & trial and error to get it right. Not a difficult process at all, just frustrating at times.

 

I never would have been able to figure it out without other people sharing how they did it, so I wanted to share how I did it and hopefully help someone else in the process.

 

I downloaded and tried installing iAtkos v1, v5, v7, Kalyway, JaS, Leo4All, 2 versions of iDeneb, and iPC. The only installer that would even load was iAtkos v1, but it would fail shortly into the installation process. ALL the others would fail before even loading the installer.

 

 

 

My Installation Process

 

As per 1 of the guides I found, I disabled ACPI in my bios. This is the only bios change I made. Multi-core, and all other system enhancements were all left enabled.

 

I then booted off the iAtkos v1 DVD. I used Disk Utility to create my partitions- HFS+, and FAT for my eventual dual boot with win 7. I setup the drive for MBR as well, not as GUID as many guides suggest you do. But I tried it both ways and it works fine both ways. For some reason the installer for v5 will not load without the partitions already created.

 

After creating my partitions, I booted off the iAtkos v5 DVD following all of the instructions outlined here which include installation customization (only select the items listed, deselect anything not on the list), fixes for Audio & the card reader, and how to setup your dual boot menu once you get Windows re-installed.

http://mrinaltech.wordpress.com/category/mac-os-x/

 

After installation completed, I was able to re-enable ACPI in the bios, and everything worked fine.

 

Getting Networking / WiFi to work was very easy as well, I just followed the steps outlined here-

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=51725

 

Adding Windows 7 as a dual boot required no extra steps. Boot off the Win 7 DVD, select the 2nd partition, and install as usual. Follow the steps in the install guide for using EasyBCD to setup your dual boot menu.

 

You will need to add 1 registry key on the Windows side otherwise your system clock will change everytime you boot windows after being in OSX. Follow the directions outlined here-

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=31198

 

 

 

Minor Bugs / Problems I haven't been able to find solutions for yet-

 

Shutdown / Restart on the OSX side only.

It's well documented on this forum that the system will not shut down / restart. It shuts off the system, but not the computer. Lights & fans stay running and you have to power down manually. I have seen a few possible fixes posted, but it seems they all have potential other problems, so I'm continuing to read through them until I find what seems to be the best.

 

Sleep in OSX.

Doesn't recognize when the lid closes, and if I manually put it to sleep, it wakes itself back up after just a few seconds.

 

Aero Visual effects in Win 7

After using the OSX side, the 1st boot back into Win 7 will not have any Aero visual effects, and sometimes the trackpad doesn't work either (though I've had the trackpad problem occasionally since long before I started messing with OSX). Rebooting into windows a 2nd time resolves both issues.

 

Graphics card-

it's also well documented on here that the nvidia GeForce 8400GS has problems in OSX. It works fine for most of what I need, the HDMI out works fine, but Photo Booth will not run because it says my graphics card isn't compatible. There are dozens of posts about fixes, but I haven't downloaded or tried any yet until I can determine which is the best one to get.

 

Trackpad Scrolling.

The left / bottom edge scrolling does not work in OSX. I tried using FFScrollDaemon as per 1 post i found. It enabled 2 finger scrolling, but also severly messed up the normal operation of the trackpad unless I ran a line in Terminal. They suggested adding that line to the startup queue, but I wasn't able to figure out how to do that so I uninstalled it for the time being.

 

 

Other than those few minor bugs, everything on the Mac side works fine so far, and windows runs 100% normal as well.

 

 

Thanks to everyone for sharing their knowledge and making it possible for someone like me to figure it out.

[NicG]

I am finding it difficult to make sound work on my m1330 leopard 10.5.8? I have tried one listed in this site and few others.. as well. Please suggest.

[3rc]

Thanks so much for this guide! I got everything to work just like you laid it out, with v5i, except for one more minor issue.

I've notice the processing speed is a little slow, but my main concern is that OS X takes literally 20 full minutes to boot up.

 

I was wondering if there were any known fixes for this, as I know the sleep, shut down and restart functions are still broken.

 

I've tried disabling all of the performance options in my BIOS, still with between 19 and 23 minutes of startup time.

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks!

 

-Eric