[HowTo] Intel GMA 900 (for 915GM and 910)

[jcruzlara]

Total noob here sorry how do you find the thing if yourr comp is 810 or w/e or 915 I have no clue what you smart people mean by that and also I've tried every single thing you guys mention on this thread has anyone got it to work on a Presario X1000? with ATI Mobility <<im guesing it is 9200? if so please pm what you did to get it to work I hate the blurry display

[hatoncat]

Total noob here sorry how do you find the thing if yourr comp is 810 or w/e or 915 I have no clue what you smart people mean by that and also I've tried every single thing you guys mention on this thread has anyone got it to work on a Presario X1000? with ATI Mobility

 

You do not have a card which has drivers currently.

[hatoncat]

I'm making progress on the Inspiron 6000.

 

The only variable I can see between my system and the OP's is that his has a 910GML, and mine has a 915PM/GM/GMS (not sure which). It's possible the 915 is not compatible and the 910 is.

 

I guess I'll pick one up on eBay and find out if that difference is what's causing this.

[damski]

Hey hatoncat,

 

I've been following your research with interest, it seems to me this is the only thing preventing a realistic working mobile solution with video support.

 

What sort of results do you get when you return from sleep mode? Can you retain full graphics support?

 

Are you running a dual boot on a partitioned drive or is this a single boot ? (anything else to compare the working dell with 910 chipset with ?)

[vanja]

Running here HP Pavilion dv1310us (Celeron 1.5 GHz, 512 MB,...)

Video card is "Mobile Intel 915GM/GMS,910GML Express Chipset Family"

 

I edited AppleIntel915.kext and AppleIntelIntegratedGraphics.kext. Got blue screen. With external monitor works perfectly (native 1280x768 works like a charm) but only and only with external monitor.

I experimented and edited AppleIntel830.kext too with my device id. Same story. Only external monitor. Then I erased AppleIntel830.kext. Same thing. Then erased AppleIntel915.kext and put back AppleIntel830.kext.

With one combination (I don't remember which one!) I got QE and CI support!!

Switches -s -f don't do anything....

 

Maybe video BIOS? Windows say version is 1222. Maybe upgrade?

 

Any inputs?

[hatoncat]

Hey hatoncat, 

 

I've been following your research with interest, it seems to me this is the only thing preventing a realistic working mobile solution with video support.

 

What sort of results do you get when you return from sleep mode?  Can you retain full graphics support?

 

Are you running a dual boot on a partitioned drive or is this a single boot ?  (anything else to compare the working dell with 910 chipset with ?)

 

Waking from sleep does not crash the system if an external monitor was connected on the inital boot.

[suleiman]

Hey vanja...do you have any idea what keys you plugged in to get your drivers working? I'm really looking to get CI and QE working man. The ONE time I got it to work, I had them both but no audio. If I got that working then this laptop is set to jet....working wireless (with usb card), working sound, working everything!

[hatoncat]

Running here HP Pavilion dv1310us (Celeron 1.5 GHz, 512 MB,...)

Video card is "Mobile Intel 915GM/GMS,910GML Express Chipset Family"

 

I edited AppleIntel915.kext and AppleIntelIntegratedGraphics.kext. Got blue screen. With external monitor works perfectly (native 1280x768 works like a charm) but only and only with external monitor.

I experimented and edited AppleIntel830.kext too with my device id. Same story. Only external monitor. Then I erased AppleIntel830.kext. Same thing. Then erased AppleIntel915.kext and put back AppleIntel830.kext.

With one combination (I don't remember which one!) I got QE and CI support!!

Switches -s -f don't do anything....

 

Maybe video BIOS? Windows say version is 1222. Maybe upgrade?

 

Any inputs?

 

There are only three known combinations that have effect:

 

915 Kexts+GA+GL w/o 830 GA/GL

915 Kexts+GA+GL w/ 830 GA/GL

830 Kexts+GA+GL w/ 915 GA/GL (a variation on this is to mix/match the Mac OS folders within the kext)

 

Of course, editing the kext in question's info.plist to read 2592 wherever 2585 (except on the i830 kext, which already lists 2592).

 

However, it is appearing 910's (Celeron-M) have a much higher success rate than 915's (Pentium-M).

[suleiman]

hatoncat, I don't understand. If the 830 kext's already have 2592 in their plist's, then why can't we just run with those kexts instead of the 915 kexts? To be honest I don't think i've tried running with only the 830 kext's installed on my machine, but i'm thinking of giving it a go just to see if anything happens.

[hatoncat]

hatoncat, I don't understand. If the 830 kext's already have 2592 in their plist's, then why can't we just run with those kexts instead of the 915 kexts? To be honest I don't think i've tried running with only the 830 kext's installed on my machine, but i'm thinking of giving it a go just to see if anything happens.

 

Basically, it's worth a shot, but the 915 support in the 830 kexts was very undeveloped (open source Darwin progress). Apple had made more progress internally when they decided to "pull the trigger" on Mactel, and had to quickly chose a graphics card to use with the developer platform. ATI and Nvidia both weren't ready, so Apple chose the 900.

 

Which means, the 915 kexts are extremely developed branches of the 830, but were only meant for the desktop GMA900, the 830's kext is less developed, but more tolerable. That doesn't mean either (or, some Frankenstein combination of the two) is going to work with a laptop, neither were developed to work with QE and CI on a mobile GMA900.

 

Unfortunately, my patience is growing thin on this, and I am prepared to stick with my PowerBook (the lack of true carbon fiber on my carbon fiber Dell 6000 is justification enough to not pay the restock fee). I did put together an iPod USB install, and will plug it in to every potential system at Best Buy and Circuit City tomorrow to see if there's any chance of it working.

[suleiman]

okay so here's the low down dillyyo on the 830 kexts: do not pass go, do not collect 200 dollars. I tried and tried till my thumbs fell off, using every possible combination of kext's i could find. The final result was the same dismal blue-screen where nothing worked, not even my touchpad. In short, this sucks. Yet another feature i thought i was lucky enough to have hardware support for on my Dell D610, only to find out i was just a hair shy. The first was integrated wireless, but that was solved with the belkin usb card. This graphics problem i fear, will not have as simple a work-around....

[vanja]

Update

 

Actually, almost nothing is new. When i booted with external display connected, I disconnected monitor and clicked on Detect Displays. After that I got just picture on LCD and restarted. IT WAS WORKING WITHOUT EXT. DISPLAY!! I was sooo happy, but after second reboot again blue screen (

Anyway, with 915.kext and erased 830.kext I have both QE and CI. Only With external display (

 

Did anybody notice /system/library/display?? Maybe something with that could be solved...

 

Still trying... If I could get native 1280x768 I would switch on OS X completely!!! OS X looks just perfect on TrueBright screen!

[vanja]

Hey vanja...do you have any idea what keys you plugged in to get your drivers working? I'm really looking to get CI and QE working man. The ONE time I got it to work, I had them both but no audio. If I got that working then this laptop is set to jet....working wireless (with usb card), working sound, working everything!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I erased 830.kext+GA+GL (although kextstat is showing it is used) and used just 915+GA+GL+Integrated Graphics....

I am waiting for solution on Intel wireless and native resolution. I gave up of modem! everything else is working pretty nice...

[Guest timepassx]

Alright, I was booted up in Dual Display mode. It was working great, but I accidentally clicked on "Mirror Displays" (or something) and it made both monitors display the dreaded blue screen. Now it'll boot up to the blue screen (without an external monitor attached) but I get the mouse. Is there a single-user command to turn off the duplicate displays switch?

[suleiman]

lol...timepassx I did the exact same thing you did buddy...unfortunately no way that I know of. I got so excited when i tried to mirror displays, I thought i finally would get it to work!

[suleiman]

lol...timepassx I did the exact same thing you did buddy...unfortunately no way that I know of. I got so excited when i tried to mirror displays, I thought i finally would get it to work!

[mortis]

Alright, I was booted up in Dual Display mode. It was working great, but I accidentally clicked on "Mirror Displays" (or something) and it made both monitors display the dreaded blue screen. Now it'll boot up to the blue screen (without an external monitor attached) but I get the mouse. Is there a single-user command to turn off the duplicate displays switch?

 

I recovered from that error by booting OSX in VMWare and editing the system/library/preferences/com.apple.somthing like display.plist (im not in OSX now)

 

I guess there should be no problem by booting OSX in single user (-s) mode and doing that from terminal:

pico /pathto/that preference

 

change entries or mirroring to 0

 

you should also remove the preferences in your home folder (/users/yourname/library/preferences/thatprefereceondisplay.plist

 

using rm -r

[suleiman]

has anybody found anymore success with this method? I know that there was some talk in another related thread (the 855 chipset thread) for getting past the blue screen using linux or something? Just wondering if there has been...i really wanna get full graphics support on my laptop!

[suleiman]

so i'm guessing this is a pretty dead-end road then. It's extremely frustrating that on a laptop where I'm running this gorgeous OS natively, taking all my notes in class on it, and using it as my base system for everything that I do really, I can't get CI and QE working. ESPECIALLY when I KNOW that it should be able to work with my laptop. There has to be a bug fix somewhere, I've been inside of this OS once before where QE and CI were detected and working beautifully. But that was it. The one time fluke. The day my Mactel got up on the right side of the bed.

 

Working wireless, sound, usb, office apps, macromedia apps, cs2 apps (minus littlesnitch kext to stop those apps from callin the honcho's over at adobe), and it all looks and runs so damn fine.

 

Whyyyyyy oh whyyyy can't we figure this problem out!!! I wish I was a developer man...hmmm..maybe wee should make a "Maxxuss Please Help Laptop GMA900 Intel 915 Users!"

 

At this stage...i'm thinking that may be the only last resort.

 

-Sleepless in Seattle.

[alockbox]

I emailed Maxxuss, and he said he'd be more than happy to look at it....But at the moment he's working on another project. (Don't know if he wants everyone to know what yet, so I'm gonna respect his privacy to develop...

 

Anyway, just wanted to let you all know Maxxuss may soon be here to save the day for us......again

 

 

peace

 

 

btw: i've got a sony vaio VGN-FS770/w

 

everything works but the onboard wireless, mic in and graphics acceleration...

[suleiman]

yepp...i e-mailed Maxxuss too. Isn't it great to have a developer like that in the community? He's pretty much the last resort here...here's hoping he fixes that other problem soon....though I read somewhere else that it wasn't something specific to OS X...so don't know if it'll be a while or what.

[alockbox]

Maxxuss, I'm sorry I couldn't send them the other way....

LCD_ioreg.rtf

External_ioreg.rtf

[Españoleitor]

mmmm i think about the intel graphics chips (I haI think the only solution for this is doing one driver project, but is difficult. Is the one way

[suleiman]

mmmm i think about the intel graphics chips (I haI think the only solution for this is doing one driver project, but is difficult. Is the one way

 

 

Have faith my Spanish compadre. We have none other than the likes of Maxxuss working amidst us...

[maxxuss]

I only got recently involved in this topic.

 

I think two observations from you are very interesting.

 

Firstly, from what I understand you can get QE and CI working without the need of an external monitor if you boot into windows first and then restart into Mac OS X with the -f option. (Question: is -f really required?)

As a side note, Apple released the Integrated Graphics and 915 drivers with the desktop variant in mind, leaving the LCD display untested.

 

This seems to indicate that Windows or the GMA900 or 915 driver properly initializes the chipset to something which is not overridden with a reset and stays so the AppleIntegratedGraphics kext can recognize the LCD screen as the primary screen.

 

Here again a question: I read that the blue screen is actually not a halted state but just the background of the 2nd display (here: the LCD), meaning that the LCD is recognized as a 2nd display. Is this agreed upon?

 

 

Secondly, if you got it working with the trick mentioned above and you reboot, you will get the blue screen again.

 

Again a question: what happens when you instead go into power save mode so that the screen gets blank. Does it come up properly?

 

The fact that pre-booting windows is a working solution might lead to something.

The problem is that the drivers here are closed source.

 

My big question is, can you get it working by pre-booting linux or freebsd with X11 (using the i810 X11 driver)? If this works, then the next question is: how far do you have to go so that Mac with i915 is working afterwards, i.e. is it enough just to load into the text console, do you really have to start up X11, do you really need the X11 i810 driver?

If the last case is true (i.e., yes, X11 i810 is required), then we could focus on how it inits the 915 chip and have it this code loaded before the gfx kext are loaded. (Again a request: save and provide the X11 log file and your XF86Config* (XFree) or /etc/X11/xorg.conf (X.org) file in any case!) I think the latest X.org has a up-to-date i810 driver, which I would prefer. Config options are explained here: http://www.x.org/X11R6.8.2/doc/i810.4.html

 

BTW: it seems that the mac gfx driver can utilitize up to 256 MB for the framebuffer as you find "IOFBMemorySize" = 268435456 in the ioreg for both cases (with external and with LCD only). So I guess the 16 MB VRAM limit of QE is not the problem here. Or do I miss s.th here?