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OSX on DELL Vostro 3450 / Inspiron N4110 / XPS L702x UEFI Clover


TimeWalker75a
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Sorry, I don't think I'm ready for this at the moment. It would require me to restructure the entire thread and support package (which in hand creates a subsequent routine of figuring out differences for different XPS L502x/L702x revisions produced during 2011 and 2012). Also, I would need to make a custom BIOS for XPS with all the recent changes (including ACPI fixes for Dell's retarded mistakes). I just don't have time for any of this... and won't have for good month to two month in advance.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

Guys, I had to format my HD that was Mac and reinstalled everything again, through the pendrive, but it occurred that have two HDS and this one with windows installed, so will not appear on the screen he clover. Bootmgfw.efi need that to load the system, someone has?

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Hi, I have spent the past few days tinkering with my Vostro 3450 to get it set up the way I'd like it, and I have to say I'm very impressed by the time you have spent on this. It performs and runs like a charm, with little issues, as I followed your guide to a T. I have a few lingering questions to make sure that OS X is fully optimized.

 

I have the AMD Radeon 6630M/Core i5-2410M model (I've replaced the HDD with an SSD), and I'm wondering how to best optimize the CPU. I'm noticing that once the fan turns on, it stays on forever. According to HWMonitor, on idle it sits at 3100-3255 RPM at 50-55 degrees C. I simply wanted to ask if others are achieving the same temperatures/fan speeds. The processor seems to be utilizing Pstates properly, as the CPU Freq/Multiplier change according to the load; however, it just seems that things could be running cooler and quieter.

 

If there's any optimizations I can apply, I'm all ears. However, I don't consider myself an expert on DSDT/SSDT stuff, so I'm hoping the solution (if there is any) isn't that involved. The only other OSX PC I have is my desktop, which runs cooler and quieter than Windows seems to for similar tasks; didn't have to do any tuning there.

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After I opened my vostro and removed all the dust from the cooler and replaced the thermal paste from the processor, the temperature decreased. Right now cpu is 52ºC, hd is 33ºC and the fan is off. Maybe by doing this you will improve the temperature.

 

Have any of you updated the Osx to version 10.9.3? Are there any CPUPM or audio issues?

 

Regards,

 

Júlio

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So I must've broke something, because a recent reboot caused my laptop to not even boot.

 

I decided this was a good chance to start from scratch (I've been using the same setup since I first found this thread), and this'll give me a better chance to play with the artifacts issue. I'll update on this one as soon as I find something, but I'm not having much of an issue with them quite yet. We'll see in due time, I'm sure.

 

However, sound still remains a touchy thing. I can put my system to sleep and start it up, but then the headphones sometimes don't get picked up, and sound goes through to the speakers regardless of whether the headphones are plugged in or not. I might have to try reading up on the HDA spec if I need to, but I think I tinkered with some settings that got it to work before. If anyone has any information, please let me know. Otherwise, I'll see what I can find out.

 

And for all who helped develop this resource, thank you!

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... but then the headphones sometimes don't get picked up, and sound goes through to the speakers regardless of whether the headphones are plugged in or not. 

 

EAPD Codec Commander, v.2.1.1 changelog:

 

Add a workaround to jack sense loss after 2 PIO operations (use Apple - Sleep and tap any key after 5 seconds, jack sense should work thereafter).

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After I opened my vostro and removed all the dust from the cooler and replaced the thermal paste from the processor, the temperature decreased. Right now cpu is 52ºC, hd is 33ºC and the fan is off. Maybe by doing this you will improve the temperature.

 

Have any of you updated the Osx to version 10.9.3? Are there any CPUPM or audio issues?

 

Regards,

 

Júlio

I did this with my CPU, it now runs 10°C cooler or so..but I didn't replace the thermal pad on the PCH (which gets to 60°C under really small load). Is the PCH die temperature what triggers the fan? Is there no way to change when the fan is triggered? It's very frustrating, as the fan triggers with the slightest action, or if any USB device is plugged in. When I ran Linux on this laptop, it ran beautifully and silently. Hopefully I can eventually achieve the same with OSX.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Hey guys!

 

I am having a huge problem with my system. The mac is now running painfully slow, taking up to 30 minutes to boot and then up to 2 hours to fully load (period when it keeps the HDD light on, as if it was loading/writing data). Already tried fixing HDD and HDD permissions (no errors whatsoever), completely disabled Spotlight (which seemed to be the problem but it wasn't), deleted cache and nothing seems to help it.

 

Also, when monitoring the usage of the resources via activity monitor, the memory and CPU are OK (5-10% max use) and the HDD is almost not being read (0.2 MB/s, almost nothing). As I said, it seems that everything just got lazy and doesn't work in the speed it should.

 

Has anyone got a clue on this? Thanks guys!

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Well, this is my HD Tune screenshot (can't use my mac partition now, I'm finishing backups so to install everything again)

 

25hn37q.png

 

I think it is not that bad. is it? The HDD is like, 4 months old lol

 

The worst thing in my Vostro is the interal 7200 rpm Seagate. It is always running @ 45-50 C, which is pretty hot for a drive.

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Yeah, I've seen cases similar to yours before. Even though SMART looks fine the drive progressively becomes slower and slower until one day it won't spin up at all. The drive is failing (these particular Seagates are notorious for failing, numerous reports on Russian IXBT forums for this particular laptop model) and you better of replace it soon. 

 

The 7200 rpm drive (SATA2 too, seriously, Dell?!) is the worst mistake Dell engineers have done to this laptop, among many others. The drive is screwed to the motherboard and is not seated at its own dedicated place, so it heats the board (it's mounted upside down) and warps it, causing led-free solder joints to crack eventually. Not to mention that due to being screwed to the board it creates enormous amounts of vibrations too!! The drive is considered non-user replaceable, since you have to dismantle the laptop until the bare board to access the HDD mounting bracket. I made sure this piece of junk was the first to go from the laptop after clarifying with Dell that I can replace the drive without voiding the warranty. So now I have an SSD in my primary disk bay and machine is silent when fan is not running. I have also replaced the crappy SUNON brand system fan with a third-party compatible fan that runs much quieter at the same speed the original fan ran, this one has proper ball bearings.

 

P.S. Update 10.9.4 went without a hiccup.

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Oh god, I just found some reports on that HDD, another Samsung {censored}, aparently (we have lonh history of faulty Samsung drives here in Brazil).

 

Well I think I will replace it (or the internal one) with a brand new 3rd gen Seagate SSHD. I won't buy a SSD because I need storage room in the laptop, and can't always travel with an external drive.

 

I didn't imagine that this laptop's problems were so extense. Really it makes more sense to use a slower (and colder) HDD in such a project. Or a ssd. When looking the SMART of the internal one it seems that it is almost failing too (partially because of the temperature). Need to replace it asap as well. I remember when buying it, trying to find the HD and realising such a mistake. Unfortunatelly, here in Brazil, exchanging it would void the warranty, so I had to give to my brother a 1st gen momentus xt I had bought back then (and he has an old C2D with a 2400XT radeon, such a waste lol)

 

As for the cooler, do you recall what model you bought? Would be a nice investment to buy one.

 

And thanks for the help bro, will keep you updated as soon as I figure everything out.

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