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Lenovo T420 or T420s - how does it work with OSX?


waire
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I searched the forum for the Lenovo T420 to no avail.

 

Has anyone had any success with installing OSX on the relatively new sandy bridge T420?

 

I'm thinking about getting one without discrete graphics, so I guess the thing works well as far as video/cpu/ram, trackpad, usb/ieee1394 and other standard ports are concerned. Question is what about the rest..

bluetooth, wifi, power management (sleep?), external video out (vga, displayport), card reader, cam

 

I'd switch back to win7 (from a late 2008 macbook pro) but my Logic pro stuff is kinda stuck in osx.. my focusrite saffire le audio device is not fully working under windows7 (x64) and I'd love to keep the workflows I've become accustomed to under logic.

 

So please, if anyone has experience with this machine let us hear it!

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  • 1 month later...
I'm about to buy a T420, did someone try to run OSX on thatmachine already?

 

Thanks crumpo

 

I'm in the same boat guys, looking to get either a T410/T520/W520. Also not sure which graphics option to go for...

I have a friend out of state who'll be harassed to let me borrow his W520 when he comes around :D Till then, someone please share your experiences with either of those 3 models.

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I searched the forum for the Lenovo T420 to no avail.

 

Has anyone had any success with installing OSX on the relatively new sandy bridge T420?

 

I'm thinking about getting one without discrete graphics, so I guess the thing works well as far as video/cpu/ram, trackpad, usb/ieee1394 and other standard ports are concerned. Question is what about the rest..

bluetooth, wifi, power management (sleep?), external video out (vga, displayport), card reader, cam

 

I'd switch back to win7 (from a late 2008 macbook pro) but my Logic pro stuff is kinda stuck in osx.. my focusrite saffire le audio device is not fully working under windows7 (x64) and I'd love to keep the workflows I've become accustomed to under logic.

 

So please, if anyone has experience with this machine let us hear it!

 

 

Hello, waire. Have you tried this yet? I've got a T420 with discrete graphics and would be happy for a leg up if you've blazed the trail. May just wait on Lion at this point. Thanks!

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  • 2 weeks later...

Could you please show me a copy of your dsdt.aml? I am very curious how does it look like... I mean Lenovo's dsdt was almost perfect and I wonder if it is still good or not.

If u face any problem with that model I might be able to help u too - I <3 these laptops when it comes to os x installation ;)

 

PS I heard that Lion works perfect on T420s

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  • 2 weeks later...

I've got it going, typing from it right now on OSX86 10.6. The only boot CD I found that worked was nawcom's modCD. If you have the discrete graphics option (as I do) go into the BIOS and set it to Integrated - the HD3000 works, I have not yet worked out the NVS 4200m.

 

After installing, you can boot into your installation using the modCD. Booting from the installation itself is a little trickier. I have a dual boot with win7 using the Win7 bootloader. When installing I used disk utility to set the OSX partition as MBR. Then use EasyBCD in Windows to create an Mac OS X (MBR) entry (not EFI!). I have 8 GB RAM, but had to edit the /Extra/com.apple.boot.plist to add a kernel flag maxmem=2048.

 

<key>Kernel Flags</key>

<string>maxmem=2048 arch=i386</string>

 

Sound works with the VoodooHDA kext. LAN works with the AppleIntele1000e kext. Trackpad works, if you have problems install the VoodooPS2 kext. Have not found anything to make wireless work, tried idarwin. I have the Centrino Ultimate N 6300, looks like no support. Am tethering right now from my Android phone with EasyTether.

 

I could use help with

 

  • the NVS 4200m - need driver/kext. As a side note I am currently unable to control brightness on the HD 3000. (I tried Shades)
  • memory - do I really have to limit to 2 GB?
  • CPU recognition - in "About this Mac" my i5-2520 is not recognized, shows as "Unknown Processor 4.3 GHz". This keeps us from going up to Lion, because it believes the processor is not supported.
  • sleep - sleepenabler kext does not help, even if I remove the AppleIntelCPUPowerManagement kexts. The machine seems to sleep but the display does not. May be solved once the 4200 issue is resolved.

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