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Dell E521 - Success!

NUCLEaR

By NUCLEaR,
in OSx86 10.5 (Leopard)

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NUCLEaR
NUCLEaR
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Guide updated: 8/21/08

 

After around half a year of looking around, searching for drivers, fixes, and working install methods, we finally have a successful installation of Mac OS X 10.5.2 on the Dell Dimension E521.

 

When I say installation, I mean just an install. Only the networking driver is included. Some have to be installed manually. And some aren't figured out yet.

 

Enough chit chat, what do I do?!

 

Leo4All V3, the recent release (on the usual place), has proved a successful installation on the E521, straight from the DVD! No VMWare! The networking driver (Broadcom 440x) is included with the installation, meaning internet works out of the box.

 

Now don't get overexcited, E521 owners, your computer may have a slightly different configuration than mine (better sound card, lower-end graphics card, etc...) so different drivers may need to be applied. I cannot help you with whatever you need help with if you have a different configuration as me, as I do not have the same hardware.

 

To Install:

1) Right click My Computer -> Manage.

2) Click on Disk Management in the left pane.

3) Right click the main partition (C: on Disk 0 usually) and click shrink.

4) Go through the wizard, and shrink the partition around 20,000MB (20 GB) or more if you desire.

5) Right click the new volume that appears to the right of the C: partition, and click New Simple Volume.

6) Go through the wizard, format with NTFS quick-format, and assign whatever letter you want.

7) Pop in the burned Leo4All DVD, and boot from it in the BIOS (F12 at the Dell screen)

8) Go to Utilities -> Disk Utility on the menu bar on the top. Select the newly made partition on the left pane, click the Erase tab, and Erase the partition with Mac OS X Journaled. Close disk utility.

9) Follow the installer to install Leopard. Make sure to click Customize and select the 9.2.0 kernel, the AMD Fixes, and the nForce chipset driver (not testing). Install all the network drivers to ensure that the right one is selected (as I do not know which one it is, but the default E521 one works when doing this.)

 

The bootloader doesn't seem to configure correctly, displaying an HFS partition error on first restart so follow these steps to make a dual boot possible.

Be aware that the E521 comes with Vista, so this guide will be for Vista. Please have a Vista restore CD ready.

1. Boot into the Vista CD. Select language, click "Repair your computer" and then click Next (even if nothing is selected above). Click "Command Prompt".

2. Input the following commands:

diskpart
select disk 0
list partition
- Find the partition with Vista on it, then find the # that it's listed as (Partition 1, Partition 2, etc...). Enter the following command using this number.
select partition #
active
exit
exit

3. You may now restart your computer, and it will boot into Vista.

4. Follow the guide at this link. Use the part of the guide where you use Vista's bootloader and not Darwin bootloader (scroll down a bit).

A quick note: to get the "CHAIN0" file needed for this guide, use the guide at this link. Make sure that you "cd" into the C:/ directory or whatever drive letter your Vista is on.

5. Reboot, you should be at a Darwin bootloader, select the Mac OS X partition and Leopard will boot!

 

To install the sound driver, download http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?act...st&id=28230 or http://filebeam.com/a6aa7a7d01f17759abcda62951d03773 (Mirror) using Leopard, unpack it on the desktop, and follow the instructions located at this link.

 

There is no known driver for the video card "Radeon X1300" that works on the E521, so a solution to change resolution is below (thanks to ozzzzysh):

You have to edit your com.apple.Boot.plist which is located in /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/

add the following lines

 

<key>Graphics Mode</key>

<string>1280x1024x32</string>

 

but of course punch in ur own resolution... then reboot... works fine for me... still waiting for the driver to come around...

Note that you must do this while in Vista, using MacDrive to browse the contents of the Mac partition, because Mac does not allow you to edit com.apple.Boot.plist from inside the OS.

 

Need help? Contact me by PM.

And I mean that, I don't check this thread as much as I check my PM inbox.

 

Enjoy!

~NUCLEaR

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NUCLEaR
NUCLEaR
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Glad you got it working, and glad to be of assistance :gun:

 

Ahh, Leo4All release guy. Thanks for the release, I've wanted Mac on my comp for a while. Now if I could only rid of this graphics problem...

 

Just a side note... I used the Rev 2 of Zephyroth before this, it worked too but this release had the ethernet driver integrated, so it's a lot more convenient to retrieve drivers.

NUCLEaR
NUCLEaR
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With Video your pretty much up the creek.. Not much support for alot of ATI cards.

 

Actually its the specific series that the E521's card is in. X1300 is only supported for a certain device ID, while Dell manufactures the card under a newer revision (no clue what this means) and a newer device ID, which doesn't work with the NatitX1300.kext.

NUCLEaR
NUCLEaR
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omg i have been waiting for so long .......i am downloading ..and i hope this worksssssss.....thank you so much

 

Thanks, all credit to eddie11c (Leo4All), Zephyroth (AMD Leo 10.4.2 Rev. 2), and Taruga (AppleHDA).

 

I know some other people who have been waiting for this as well, enjoy.

Reality-X
Reality-X
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Well i had Zeph's booting (no sound, no internet, had to boot off cd rd=disk0s4), but it wasnt quite working out for me. Im downloading leo4all right now to test it out on my E521 w/ GeForce 8500GT

 

Going to try and reinstall Zeph's while i wait for l4a to finish d/ling :D

NUCLEaR
NUCLEaR
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its done downloading and im going to try it soon......also i have a NVDIA Geforce video card so how can i get this working....also my internet should work out of the box right?

 

Check device manager under Network Adapters. If it says "Broadcom 440x 10/100 Integrated Controller" then yes, right out of the box. And for the GeForce, you need a kext to make it work. Search it on the forum and you should find it.

indyslim
indyslim
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Posted
Check device manager under Network Adapters. If it says "Broadcom 440x 10/100 Integrated Controller" then yes, right out of the box. And for the GeForce, you need a kext to make it work. Search it on the forum and you should find it.

 

Hi Nuclear,

 

I have a plain E521 without any upgrades. It seems to have an on board GeForce video (Integrated NVIDIA GeForce 6150 LE graphic GPU). Will I still have to install a kExt to make it work?

 

Another thing. You say that you got Zephyroth's rev2 to work too. My installation goes fine, but on reboot it says, cannot find a .plist file and hangs. Any ideas?

 

thanks

Indy

Reality-X
Reality-X
Posted
Posted

Well its boots up just fine, now im having issues w/ the network card not recognizing that it is actually plugged into a a network. It finds the card just fine, but says its disconnected, even though it shows up just fine on the router link lights, and i can see the traffic light blinking on the back of the box. Any clue to whats going on here?

eddie11c
eddie11c
Posted
Posted
ok so i installed it with the vanilla kernel and amd and after it finishes the install darwin shows up...yaahhhhhhhhh....but the it starts loading in verbrose mode and then it suddenly restarts again...when you installed what specific tabs did you selecet

 

You can not use the Vanilla kernel on an AMD machine. Choose the other option for netkas modified kernel.

iwantsound44
iwantsound44
Posted
Posted

alright i got it ....thank you so much guys..but i have a few questions.....pleasebe patient with me im kinda noobish......

1)i had sound working is there a way to have automatic switch between headphones and speakers

2)i have a linksys wirless G for internet....the model number is WMP5G how can i get this to work

3)i have a NVIDIA GeForce 6150 how can i get this to work

indyslim
indyslim
Posted
Posted

OK after all this time on my E521, all I had to do for Leopard to boot, was to plug the SATA cable into a different port on the motherboard and it works. No more can't find Boot.plist {censored}. Thanks to all for the help. I am using Rev2 of Zephyroth's release by the way.

 

Quick questions: I have the on board nvidia 6150 LE for video. I have read in various forums that there are no drivers for these. So, I'm stuck at 1024x768 unless I get a 73xx GeForce card. Is that true?

 

thanks

Indy

indyslim
indyslim
Posted
Posted

I am posting from my new E521 Mac. Awesome - Everything is working except for the video drivers. Still stuck at 1024x768.

I'm looking to buy a cheap 7300 video card. I also compared an Xbench run with my E521 (3800+) with my iMac 1.8Gz power PC.

The E521 scored 50-100% better in all tests except video and open GL graphics - there is more than twice as slow.

 

Cheers again to all. Many many thanks.

indy

Cobretti
Cobretti
Posted
Posted

installing zeph's v2 now since it just downloaded today - initially was for my acer 3050 which I have been struggling with all week on iatkos and zeph's v1 - could never get it to load after a successful install - crapped out on ACPI errors

 

so my E521 is about 20 minutes away from being a MAC ;) and will try the acer next as soon as 2nd dvd is cut

 

also getting leo4all just in case

Reality-X
Reality-X
Posted
Posted

Ok well after some tinkering (make it boot properly off the MBR) my network card is up and working just great. Im posting from the Leo4All distro right now.

 

Issues I still have to resolve are the sound is not working, and I need to get drivers for my 8500GT 512mb card. Will post back when/if I find a way to get these working right.

Reality-X
Reality-X
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Posted
success on acer 3050 - e521 won't boot into Leopard - had to set XP partition to active to get system to boot at all. Leopard partition is 2nd on same disk as XP - tried chain0 but gives chain0 boot error....very happy about the laptop though :P

 

You might try EasyBCD. I had the same issue w/ chain0 but I downloaded and installed EasyBCD and just used the mac option and my system booted just great, so long as you told your Leopard install to install a bootloader (defaults to this most of the time). Check it out

 

http://neosmart.net/dl.php?id=1

 

Oh btw its free too =)

NUCLEaR
NUCLEaR
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can someone help me getting my linksys WMP54G card working

 

Google around for this, I can't really help you but doing a simple "Linksys WMP54G kext" search goes a long way. I got sound to work by google.

Here's something: http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showtopic=83428

 

@indyslim - If there are truly no kexts, then yea you're stuck at the default resolution.

 

@Reality-X - Go into device manager on Vista, and to Sound, video, and game controllers. Right click on the entry there, and click Properties. Click the Details tab. Then use the dropdown to select "Hardware IDs". Mine says "HDAUDIO\FUNC_01&VEN_8384&DEV_7618&SUBSYS_102801ED&REV_1002" Only look at the VEN_ and the DEV_. Now put a 0x in front. For the above example, my "number" would be "0x83847618" (VEN_8384 and DEV_7618). That's your Device ID. Now go to google, and search "[DEVICE ID] kext", and you should find a working kext for your sound.

 

Glad that people got this working finally. I hope that someday AMD releases will be a lot more complete. We need a iATKOS for AMD really soon. But Leo4All/Zephyroth are really pioneering the AMD movement of Leopard.

 

~NUCLEaR

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