[GUIDE] Thinkpad T420 with (Mountain) Lion

[Manwe150]

Things that are working (10.7.3):

• HD3000 graphics interface with full QE/CI (requires DSDT edit; may only necessary for 1600x900 resolution)
  
• Display Port (including conversion to DVI and HDMI with audio)
  
• VGA Port (with patch http://www.insanelym...dpost&p=1822063)
  
• Audio (VoodooHDA) -- does not auto switch between internal and external speakers, also install VoodooHDA.prefpane to control PCM boost volume and enable SSE2 for better quality (repeat after every reboot, or use VoodooHDASettingsLoader to restore)
  
• Audio (mod AppleHDA + mod dsdt)
  
• Camera (native)
  
• Keyboard, trackpad, and nub (VoodooPS2+ThinkpadUltraNav)
  
• USB ports (dsdt edits)
  
• LAN interface (AppleIntelE1000e)
  
• Bluetooth (native)
  
• Speedstep (requires AppleIntelCPUPowerManagement bin patch)
  
• Sleep (requires USB power levels edit in dsdt)
  
• 8Gb RAM
  
• Wireless N via USB (AWLL5088 http://www.amazon.co...duct/B003X26PMO)
  
• Wireless N via replacement WLAN card (I'm using the Dell 1510)
  
• CD/DVD drive read and write
  

Things not working:

• Wireless card (Thinkpad branded, Realtek 8192CE -- unlikely to ever work, I replaced the wireless card instead)
  
• Function keys (e.g., brightness via Fn-Home and Fn-End keys, see below for alternative)
  
• More than two fingers on the touchpad
  
• SD Card reader (no drivers)
  
• eSATA port (unknown)
  
• HDMI audio
  
• Nub mouse [working]
  
• VGA port (requires patch to AppleIntelSNBGraphicsFB)
  
• CMOS error on boot (only minor annoyance, no functional difference -- i haven't tried the fix in post #11, fixed in newer versions of that installer package I seem unable to mention here)
  

Summary of the install procedure (see below for details):

1. Installed OS X 10.7 per Tony's procedure in his blog. Important: drive must be formatted as MBR or it won't boot and the installer must be patched to allow installation to MBR. (possible alternative: http://www.insanelym...howtopic=266514)
   
2. Place user edited dsdt.aml on desktop (for Multibeaste installation)
   
3. Used Multibeaste to load various kexts (see below, even if you use a different installer)
   
4. Added various other kexts (list below)
   
5. Bin patched AppleIntelCPUPM and add -allowAppleCPUPM to boot flags (also delete SleepEnabler.kext)
   
6. Patch AppleIntelSNBGraphicsFB according to http://www.insanelym...dpost&p=1822063 (or use patched version below, if it matches your system 10.7.3 and 7.8.11)
   
7. Reboot
   

Multibeaste4.4.1 settings (and Unibeaste):

• User DSDT Install
  
• System utilities (rebuild caches/repair utilities)
  
• Audio – VoodooHDA 0.2.7.3 (I prefer to move this out of /S/L/E and load it manually after boot via kextload, since sometimes it KP's when it loads, the fix when it does seems to be to clear the kext caches. Make sure you've deleted AppleHDA.kext or are using my new DSDT and rebooted before loading VoodooHDA or it will KP!)
  
• Networking - hnak's AppleIntelE1000e Ethernet
  
• Miscellaneous - FakeSMC and Plugins, AppleRTC Patch for CMOS Reset, and flAked SpeedStepper
  
• Bootloaders - Chimera v1.9.2
  
• System Definition – Macbook Pro 8,1
  
• Themes - whatever you want
  

Additional Kexts:

• VoodooPS2 (delete /S/L/E/VoodooPS2Controller.kext/Contents/Plugins/VoodooPS2Mouse.kext after installation to make multi-touch work, replace /S/L/E/VoodooPS2Controller.kext/Contents/Plugins/VoodooPS2Trackpad.kext with ThinkpadUltraNav.kext from post #3 to get nub to work)
  
• VoodooBattery
  

DSDT Sections Fixed (see link):

• Explanation of all changes now posted: http://www.insanelym...4
  
• Audio (HDEF): delete fixed
  
• USB (EHC1/EHC2): enables more reliable detection of EHCI drivers and allows sleep
  
• Display (VID): enables QE/CI (add DualLink property)
  
• Brightness control enabled in Display Settings (PNLF). I then bound up/down to PrtSc/ScrLk to give me back keyboard control.
  
• Advanced ACPI features enabled (might not do anything, but doesn't seem to hurt)
  
• Fan and Temperature information
  

Wireless card / BIOS hack:

• I have wireless successfully working with a Dell 1510 WLAN card (the Dell 1520 I tried first refused to work) purchased for really cheap on ebay
  
• Requires BIOS hack to remove whitelist. Link to the BIOS installer package that I applied successfully is below (ran using my 64 bit Windows 7 dual boot). I saw mentioned that you should first install that specific version of BIOS from the manufacturer, so I recommend running that first
  

Audio (c.f. http://forum.thinkpa...p?f=32&t=102098):

• With edited DSDT, replace your AppleHDA with patched download from http://www.mediafire...ey7744p264ord1q
  

Helpful links:

http://www.osx86.es/?p=610 (DSDTSE)

http://www.insanelym...howtopic=258611 (AppleIntelCPUPM bin patch)

http://sites.google.com/site/danielnascime...-fixs-dicas-etc (various helpful dsdt fixes)

http://www.kexts.com/ (for extra kexts)

http://forum.voodoop...s.org/index.php (VoodooProject -- now retired)

http://forums.mydigi...ll=1#post489534 (for T420 BIOS mod)

http://support.lenov...?DocID=DS018785 (for OEM bios, see table at bottom of page for older versions)

http://www.insanelym...4 (detailed information on DSDT edits)

 

----- EDIT 10/23/2011 ------

- Nub and display port working and added a few other clarifications.

- In System Information, I have 1 processor and 2 cores listed. I assume this is either an artifact of the MacBookPro8,1 definition or hyperthreading. However, Activity Monitor shows 4 cores.

- I dual boot Windows 7 from a second hard drive without issue (except of course bios time). The only annoying thing was I had to reinstall Windows with a BIOS bootloader on an MBR partition (instead of the default EFI / GUID) to get it to work from Chimera and VMware.

- Sometimes my backlight doesn't come on after sleep (I can see the screen if I shine a really bright light on it at an angle). Putting it back to sleep (requires typing my password then hitting Fn-F4) and then waking it up again cures it.

 

----- EDIT 11/29/2011 ------

- Updated to 10.7.2 without problems. I booted without VoodooHDA and with NullCPU before installing to minimize potential conflict.

- Modified BIOS to allow 3rd party wireless card

 

----- EDIT 1/10/2012 ------

- Minor summary updates for newer versions of ######

 

----- EDIT 2/1/2012 ------

- Attached DSDT is now from Mald0n (from his post below). Should be better for switchable graphics, otherwise they are pretty much identical.

 

----- EDIT 2/29/2012 ------

- Newer BIOS's appear to have graphics glitches with this DSDT. If you are applying my DSDT to your system, you will probably need to install a BIOS similar to that which I am using (links above for OEM and wireless-hack bios).

 

----- EDIT 5/18/2012 ------

- Updated for 10.7.3

- Added link to detailed information on my DSDT changes (http://www.insanelym...4)

- Added fan speed and temperature readout

 

----- EDIT 5/21/2012 ------

- VGA output fixed!!!!!

- Audio driver fixed!

- HDMI with audio now working

 

----- EDIT 8/21/2012 ------

- Altered title to reflect recent comments that ML works, I haven't had time to test any of these.

- There are reports in recent comments that eSATA and Card Reader can be made to work as well

 

### My system is a T420, 4177-CTO, 2.7Ghz Core i7-2620M with Integrated Graphics (HD3000), 14.0 HD+ (1600 X 900) LED, THINKPADB/G/N wireless. I do not have Optimus Switchable Graphics. ###

AppleIntelSNBGraphicsFB.kext.zip

Edited August 22, 2012 by Manwe150

[Paddy O]

Excellent post! Thanks for all the hard work. I just managed to make it to Lion myself on my T420, but have not yet worked through some of the hardware issues you have.

 

I have the discrete Nvidia NVS4200M, which is working perfectly but is a battery drain. The external output works also. My HD3000 will boot but aspect and colors are off and the screen flickers - will study your DSDT.

 

Other than that, I cannot yet wake from sleep and voodoobattery is not working for me. Will be back once I have had a chance to look at how to apply your progress.

 

I have the i5-2520, and am also using the MacbookPro 8,1 profile. System Profiler for me reports 1 processor, 2 cores. Is this what you show?

 

Thanks again!

[crumpo]

THANK YOU FOR SHARING!

 

Great post, really appriciated!

 

Did you try the UltraNav.kext to get the nub mouse to work? It can be d/l'ed from here: http://www.kexts.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=1639

[Paddy O]

Thanks crumpo, that kext got the nub working for me. Also got my battery icon working now with the voodoo "battery for Lion" zip combo off kexts.com.

 

Still cannot get the HD3000 working properly - sometimes boots to unusable, with strange patterns on the screen, and sometimes boots to an aspect ratio that looks like it thinks the screen is twice as wide, and shows half of it. The screen flickers between oversaturated with green and blue hues. The NVS4200M works great but runs hot.

 

I did the AICPUPM patch, and my machine goes to sleep, but seems to be doing some cycle every 15 seconds or so - hard drive activity, and the DVD drive "bumps".

[crumpo]

Thanks crumpo, that kext got the nub working for me. Also got my battery icon working now with the voodoo "battery for Lion" zip combo off kexts.com.

Thanks for reporting that back

Still cannot get the HD3000 working properly - sometimes boots to unusable, with strange patterns on the screen, and sometimes boots to an aspect ratio that looks like it thinks the screen is twice as wide, and shows half of it. The screen flickers between oversaturated with green and blue hues. The NVS4200M works great but runs hot.

 

I did the AICPUPM patch, and my machine goes to sleep, but seems to be doing some cycle every 15 seconds or so - hard drive activity, and the DVD drive "bumps".

I didn't manage to find time to give Lion a shot on my T420 yet. I only have integrated chipset graphic (HD3000). I'll report back if there are any problems soon.

[crashnburn_in]

Manwe - Your HD3000 works

PaddyO - Your nVidia works and some issues with HD3000

 

PaddyO - Does this T420 come with Switchable Graphics? Allowing you to use nVidia for performance and switch to HD3000 when you want to save battery?

I am guessing this switch between both works perfectly in windows and you want to get it to do the same in OSX

[MaLd0n]

some fixs in accordance with chipset

dsdt.Manwe150.zip

[Paddy O]

@crashnburn_in - Yep, the machine has Optimus, which switches between HD3000 and nVidia just fine in Windows. Ideally I would love it to switch in OSX, but otherwise, I would be OK with just setting it to HD3000 in my BIOS and leaving it.

 

@MaLD0n - thanks for the help, and all of your contributions. I was referencing your procedure to install Lion from USB for most of the process. I'll play with that DSDT.

 

UPDATE: MaLD0n!!!!!! All graphics working beautifully!!! I can now set Optimus in my BIOS and both integrated and discrete graphics are recognized in OS X. Can you please tell me what was modified in that DSDT? By the way I do not know if you have a Donate link set up some where, but I will be looking for it. (EDIT - found it on your site)

 

Sleep now works as well, but does not happen on lid close. Is there another place to make that mod? Also, when rebooting after a sleep, I receive a "CMOS checksum bad" during BIOS load, but I can ignore and boot normally.

 

Do not yet know if Speed Step is working properly as I do no fully understand what I am looking for, but MSRDumper reports quite a few P-states

 

MSRDumper CoreMulti(8)

 

PStatesReached: 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 18 19 20 22 25 27 30

 

After I tie up these few last loose ends (and receive my AWLL5088), I will be fully satisfied with this setup.

[crumpo]

Hi,

 

this is my first Lion hackintosh installation, so I need a little help to get started...

[*]Installed OS X 10.7 per Tony's procedure in his blog. Important: drive must be formatted as MBR or it won't boot and the installer must be patched to allow installation to MBR.

 

After I did that, I can't boot into the installer...can anyone gibe me a clue where I went wrong?

What I did:

 

1. added an external harddisk to my mac

2. using diskutil, I partitioned the hdd (mbr, both partitions osx extended, 2nd partion 8gb, named 2nd part. "Installer")

3. startetd osx lion installer, after restart installed ##### to 2nd partition

4. after ###### installation (took a couple of minutes) downloaded nawcoms mbr patch and extracted to Installer partition

5. put external hdd into ultrabay adapter of T420

6. boot T420 from 2nd drive - doesn't work

 

Thanks a lot

crumpo

[Paddy O]

Sorry I'm not more help crumpo, I'm a noob too, but FYI I did not use ######, I instead loosely followed MaLD0n's guide at http://www.insanelym...howtopic=256729

[MaLd0n]

Sleep now works as well, but does not happen on lid close. Is there another place to make that mod? Also, when rebooting after a sleep, I receive a "CMOS checksum bad" during BIOS load, but I can ignore and boot normally.

 

backup kext

sudo cp -R /System/Library/Extensions/AppleRTC.kext /System/Library/Extensions/AppleRTC.kext.orig

run o terminal

sudo perl -pi -e 's|\x8b\x45\xc8\x39\x45\xcc\x74\x0b|\x8b\x45\xc8\x39\x45\xcc\xeb\x0b|; s|\x8b\x45\xb4\x39\x45\xb8\x74\x08|\x8b\x45\xb4\x39\x45\xb8\xeb\x08|' /System/Library/Extensions/AppleRTC.kext/Contents/MacOS/AppleRTC

update kernelcache (or Extensions.mkext, if you use)

sudo touch /System/Library/Extensions

 

Credits tseug/blackosx/DHP and others

[Paddy O]

@MaLD0N Wow. In two posts you have just wiped out the last week's worth of late nights and hair pulling for me. The sleep fix works great. Thank you very, very much.

 

EDIT: Hmm. Sleep fix works on lid close for nVidia, but not for the HD3000. ?

 

One other question: I have brightness control in the Display prefpane for the HD3000, but not for the NVS4200M when I boot directly to it. Is this another backlight DSDT mod similar to the PNLF one Manwe mentioned?

 

UPDATE: Additional observations -

 

Bluetooth is always enabled upon startup, and cannot be turned off (tick box is grayed out). Older solutions mention turning off instead in Bluetooth File Exchange/File Transfer, but I have no On/Off setting there.

 

After sleep, the bluetooth is off, and the bluetooth hardware is not even seen in System Information.

 

Prior to sleep, when using the HD3000, brightness control works in the Display prefpane, but full bright is not very bright. After sleep, the display wakes up brighter, and fan is running all the time. As far as I can tell it has not switched to NVS4200.

[Paddy O]

I can't boot into the installer...can anyone gibe me a clue where I went wrong?

Any luck crumpo? As I mentioned, I did not use #####, but I did have some other issues that might be applicable.

 

I have not had good luck with the Chimera boot loader. You might try installing the latest Chameleon intead, I am using Chameleon_v2.1svn_r1506 . No need to start over, it should overwrite the Chimera.

 

Also after a lot of bewliderment I finally discovered that for whatever reason my original USB drive was not bootable - it was physically defective in some way. I determined this by trying a couple of known simple USB bootable systems, like syslinux. It was also failing dmg restore operations at tthe very end with "cannot allocate memory" messages. I replaced the bad USB with the cheapest 8 GB Kingston off of Amazon and it worked like a charm.

 

Hope this helps.

[crumpo]

Any luck crumpo?

I'm still struggeling, but haven't been able to spend too much time, weekends always are kinda busy

As I mentioned, I did not use ######, but I did have some other issues that might be applicable.

I have not had good luck with the Chimera boot loader. You might try installing the latest Chameleon intead, I am using Chameleon_v2.1svn_r1506 . No need to start over, it should overwrite the Chimera.

Thanks - I gave it a try and chamelon also seems to be able to boot on my machine.

 

I'll try to get lion running tonight. Wish me luck

 

Thanks again for your input!

crumpo

[Mr.noname]

hello i have just two questions

Does it also work with the T420s

and is it able to do something with dualboot

 

Mr.noname

[myran2]

I've got wireless working with a Dell 1397. This required patching the bios to remove the wireless card whitelist that lenovo has on all of their machines.

Although it was risky, it was certainly worth not having to carry an external USB wireless device with me wherever I go.

[Prelator]

Hello,

 

how i cant install an MAC OS on a MBR formated HDD? Mac OS needs GUID parted HDD, or not?

 

Whats you Steps detailed?

[crumpo]

Hi,

Any luck crumpo? As I mentioned, I did not use ######, but I did have some other issues that might be applicable.

 

I have not had good luck with the Chimera boot loader. You might try installing the latest Chameleon intead, I am using Chameleon_v2.1svn_r1506 . No need to start over, it should overwrite the Chimera.

Hope this helps.

after a lot of trying this is what worked for me:

- I installed Lion in vmware

- after installation I duplicated the virtual disk container file and added the copy as virtual harddrive to the vm

- I started up the vm

- I mounted an external usb drive (with mbr)

- then I used disk utility to restore the copy of the virtual drive to the usb disk

- then I ran [url="http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/"]#####[/url] on the external drive (with the settings from post #1 and with NULL Power management - otherwise I get kp on startup)

- after that I installed Chameleon_v2.1svn_r1506

 

There are some quirks I yet have to figure out:

- sound doesn't work, the VoodooHDA kext from post #1 produces kp, even when I load it manually via kextload

- profiler shows only two cores (should show 4 cores as I have a cpu with hyperthreading - i7 2620m)

 

apart from that it's running great - I have a multiscreen setup (internal display at 1600x900 and external display at 1920x1080 via dvi from the docking station)

 

Thanks for all the valuable input folks!

[Paddy O]

@Prelator - you need the OSintall files (2) from here to replace those in your Lion install media so you can install to MBR disk

 

http://blog.nawcom.com/?p=812

 

@crumpo - congrats! I also had Voodoo problems in the beginning and not sure which action fixed it, as I was changing multiple things at once. Do not think I ever got any of the versions from [url="http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/"]#####[/url] to work, think I did a search for "VoodooHDA" on kexts.com, and may have picked the Prasys recompile. I am on 2.7.2. I removed my AppleHDA.

 

Am not using NullCPU as I have removed that one when I patched the AppleIntelCPUPowerManagement as per the OP. Is your sleep working?

 

I have i5-2520 dual core. it shows up as one processor, two cores although it hyperthreads to four.

 

Lastly, received my AWLL5088, whch works great out of the box with the supplied CD's driver for 10.6.

[crumpo]

@crumpo - congrats! I also had Voodoo problems in the beginning and not sure which action fixed it, as I was changing multiple things at once. Do not think I ever got any of the versions from [url="http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/"]#####[/url] to work, think I did a search for "VoodooHDA" on kexts.com, and may have picked the Prasys recompile. I am on 2.7.2. I removed my AppleHDA.

I'll give that a spin, right now I have tried to work on several issues and the machine became dog-slow after rebooting, not sure what happened here and hope I don't have to start from scratch here...

 

Am not using NullCPU as I have removed that one when I patched the AppleIntelCPUPowerManagement as per the OP. Is your sleep working?

Well kinda...it goes to sleep but doesn't wake up...

 

I have i5-2520 dual core. it shows up as one processor, two cores although it hyperthreads to four.

Ok same here. I just thought that the virtual HT cores should show up as "physical" cores .

[Paddy O]

Well kinda...it goes to sleep but doesn't wake up...

That is the same behavior I had until I patched the AppleIntelCPUPowerManagement and removed NullCPU

[yeast]

Hi, can anybody help me with my problem. I was able to use this guide to install lion onto my t520 instead of t420. Everything is working fine except for one thing. Whenever I enter sleep mode and wake up from it, all my usb ports would stop working. It will not detect anything anymore unless I restart. Since I am using the airline 5088, this cause me to lose internet connection whenever I enter sleep mode. If anybody know how I can fix this, please let me know. Thank you

[crumpo]

Hi,

I finally found a VoodooHDA kext that doesn't crash on startup for me, great! Also I found a wifi dongle that works for me with the Aeronet drivers

 

That is the same behavior I had until I patched the AppleIntelCPUPowerManagement and removed NullCPU

 

I did that but it still doesn't work. After I patched AppleIntelCPUPowerManagement and deleted the NullCPU kext, I'd get CMOS errors on resume. I then applied madl0n's RTC patch which fixed that BUT it still does not wake up from sleep.

 

When I hit FN+F4 or select Sleep from the menu, the screen gets blank, I have some harddisk activity and the machine finally sleeps.

 

When I try to wake it up vis the fingerprint sensor or the power button, the machine comes to life a little, there is harddisk and fan activity, but the screen remains blank and the power light continues to fade in and out. The machine doesn't ract to keyboard or mouse actions. At that point, I have no choice but to force power off by holding the power button for a few secs.

 

Just for the record, I am using madl0n's dsdt and I have an i7-2620m if that makes any difference.

 

I'm gratefule for any help at this point...thanks!

[crumpo]

Here is a link to a thread that deals with the T420: (it's Chinese so you may want to use google translate if your Chinese is a little rusty

 

One noob question though - are the posted dsdts supposed to work with an i7 configuration, too (i7-2620m here) or do they need extra patches? - I have tried both madl0n's and the one from the first thread and my machine goes to sleep doesn't wake wake up.

 

Thanks!

[mysho]

i have lion 10.7.2 working on my t420i only with rBoot LE DVD. when i boot with rBoot everything works fine, i have 1600x900, trackpad, etc. but when i want to boot from hdd i always get stuck at blue screen when desktop should show up.

and AppleIntelCPUPM.kext is causing KP even after using speed stepper utility, so for now I'm not using -allowAppleCPUPM flag

can anyone help me?

 

and how can i see power consumption of my osx? i would like something similar to powertop in linux

 

edit: my integrated webcam stopped working after 10.7.2 update