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[Guide] Dell XPS 15 L502X (Early 2011) Snow Leopard Install (possibly L702x too)

wen1

By wen1,
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DoiX
DoiX
Posted
Posted

Ah, they rolled a new bios already? I googled it, it seems people have reported problems with it GFX related... i'm sorry there's nothing i can help with atm, i'll have to install the updated bios and analyze it to confirm it's a problem with it or with something else.

 

Chimera isn't necessarly a problem, since it didnt get Intel GPU related updates... do you have 3D Laptop display?

 

"Mini9MuteControl : setting to 0

Mini9MuteControl : done" < these lines you see, it means the system is fully loaded, because the sound driver is the last to load...

 

Questions i need you to answer if what AKennedy_4 suggested doesn't work:

 

1. Does your laptop have a 3D Display?

2. Do you have another PC by chance?

-. If you do, here's what i need you to do: Boot with rBootLE, go to system preferences > sharing > check Screen Sharing, then click "computer settings", check the 2 boxes there and introduces a password in the field.

-. Download VNC and connect to your Laptop using it (find the laptop IP) then do step 3

3. Download this http://dl.dropbox.co...tryExplorer.zip , unarchive it, open the program > file > save, post it here (while you;ve booted with rBoot), and another one when you are using your other PC to control your laptop.

4. Go to System Profiler > display, take a picture and post it here.

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scrappy_coco
scrappy_coco
Posted
Posted

Guys, look at my guide before posting here. I have posted solutions to most common problems. Y'all are annoying the heck out of DoiX. Please search before you post

 

For heavy bass issue: check my guide

 

For the boot issue: if DoiX package isn't installing correctly, try to install via the pack I provided in my guide. Whichever method you use, make sure you RUN KEXT UTILITY AND REPAIR PERMISSIONS IN DISK UTILITY.

 

The reason you can't boot without RBootLE is that the kext arent installed correctly. All your issues (sound, battery, an anything else WILL be fixed if they are installed correctly)

 

 

 

 

 

ya i read your guide. but i didnt understand this lines .....

 

"2)

Audio

: Search for the XPS_ALC665.kext in /System/Library/Extensions/. Right click on it, and select show contents. Click through the folders till you find a info.plist. Replace that info.plist with the one in the pack. Credits for this solution go to Whitegerry."

 

which pack are you talking about. Doix pack is an installer package, which itselfs installs the "

XPS_ALC665" kext. so i replace the "info.plist" of

XPS_ALC665.kext with another "info.plist" of which kext ???

 

Ah, they rolled a new bios already? I googled it, it seems people have reported problems with it GFX related... i'm sorry there's nothing i can help with atm, i'll have to install the updated bios and analyze it to confirm it's a problem with it or with something else.

 

Chimera isn't necessarly a problem, since it didnt get Intel GPU related updates... do you have 3D Laptop display?

 

"Mini9MuteControl : setting to 0

Mini9MuteControl : done" < these lines you see, it means the system is fully loaded, because the sound driver is the last to load...

 

Questions i need you to answer if what AKennedy_4 suggested doesn't work:

 

1. Does your laptop have a 3D Display?

2. Do you have another PC by chance?

-. If you do, here's what i need you to do: Boot with rBootLE, go to system preferences > sharing > check Screen Sharing, then click "computer settings", check the 2 boxes there and introduces a password in the field.

-. Download VNC and connect to your Laptop using it (find the laptop IP) then do step 3

3. Download this http://dl.dropbox.co...tryExplorer.zip , unarchive it, open the program > file > save, post it here (while you;ve booted with rBoot), and another one when you are using your other PC to control your laptop.

4. Go to System Profiler > display, take a picture and post it here.

 

 

nope i dont have a 3D display and ya i have another pc but in my second home, which will take time coz its around 5 Kilometers away

 

You could downgrade you bois temporarily to see if it gets osx working. Granted the older ones worked fine for you

 

 

which bios version should i go for ? A06 ????

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AKennedy_4
AKennedy_4
Posted
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Also, I've ran into that error when my system was fully up and running and I tred the -v flag to make sure their we're no problem with the boot. May want to try and boot without any boot flags once you get the system fully installed correctly. It may or may not work. For some reason using any boot flag (-v -x -f) once it was working broke the boot

 

There's a download link to the pack in the guide. At the begginning under essientials. Then you use that info.plist to replace the one you installed. Sorry if I'm vague. I'm on my mobile. Will reply more thoroughly when I get home

 

As for the BOIS. A06 should work

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birdibird
birdibird
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A great thanx to DoiX for all his work and AKennedy_4 for his guide!

(and wen1 for starting it and doing the first work)

 

I tried to install in june and gave up after a while on Snow Leopard, but now

Lion here perfectly working @ L502x 2630qm 6 gb Full HD!!

 

IAtkos L2 gave me problems, but IAtkos L1 did the job

 

I had to go back to bios A06 for sleep, as A09 was not working.

 

keep up the good work guys!!

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DoiX
DoiX
Posted
Posted

@biedibird, unfortunately i can't find the bug with sleep in A09 bios, i know it's related to the intel MicroCode but since it's not actually opensource i'm limited to OSX logs which are not helping me that much.

 

@JKbuha, well that confirms it again, with normal screen connector is: 00 with rotated screen 02... this leads me to think that it could be a bios bug anyway.

 

Give me your connector table dump please, i've seen in the other thread you tried to fix it by modding it but still i'd like to see how it looks.

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Monkeys
Monkeys
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Posted

Hello again guys,

 

I am still struggling with the power management on my l502x with i5 2410m processor. I have p states enabled with SSDT exctracted through windows which are confirmed working correctly through MSRdumper.kext.

 

However the batter life is still not great, the highest figure that the batter shows after a full charge, idling, with screen brightness at minimum is around 2 hours and 45 minutes (with the 6 cell batttery). This doesn't seem right to me. From the reviews I have read we should be getting around 4+ hours with light usage (web surfing) with screen brightness set to around half. See the review here:

 

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4274/dell-xps-15-l502x-now-with-sandy-bridge/5

 

The laptop also feels a little warm for idle usage, and temps are around 50C+. This make me wonder if C-States are really being initiallised correctly by chimera with the flag CSTUsingSystemIO=Yes.

 

Does anyone know how to check if C-States ARE actually enabled? Other than by monitoring heat and battery life alone?

 

Any info here would be greatly appreciated.

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DoiX
DoiX
Posted
Posted (edited)

C-Steps are sleep steps if memory serves, they don't really help the battery. Your batter life is as good as it will get on OS X, remember we are using hackintoshes, not everything is fully compatible.

 

People reported that disabling the Nvidia GPU improves the battery by 20-25% (on linux at least) however using IDDPioneers work (a nifty DSDT that disables the Nvidia GPU but also the laptop display) i did not see a increase in battery life or decrease in temps, meaning that the card is either not disabled properly (ioregs shows it as disabled and no nvidia kext gets loaded) or already the card, per say, is not powered up fully(confirmed by ioreg).

 

As for the temps, on windows they are idling at around 60ºC, on OS X 55ºC so in my case, it's actually better. When it's sitting on the desk the laptop doesn't warm up much, actually at all.

 

Here's my deal, you find out what exactly drains the battery (i assume there would be programs that monitor this on the internet) i'll find out if we can do anything to increase the battery.

 

Oh, before i got a wifi card, my Battery lasted around 3hours-3.30h doing the usual stuff, IM, web browsing, some photoshop. However i also kept the other dell card (the one with bluetooth) which is perma powered, this also increases heat and decreases battery. :)

 

Update: Who want's to guess what this is? (notice the blue selection)

post-167221-0-29864300-1327461368_thumb.png

I'll give you a hint, it means i won't be sleeping for 24 hours and i will skip work today! Hopefully not in vane.

Edited by DoiX
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Rockball73
Rockball73
Posted
Posted

Hi everyone, I don't know if my question has already been answered, but I was wondering if I could delete some kexts in S/L/E to boot my OS X faster.

 

When I did get my L502x (nearly) fully fonctionnal, I installed kexts for my HP OfficeJet 7300, Microsoft Office, and such softwares that I frequently use. So, I noticed that there were lots of HP kexts that were not related to mine (like Photosmart, ...) and also a lot of other kexts from OS X...

 

My question is the following : Is it possible to delete some of the kexts in S/L/E without getting troubles? Will this make my L502x boot faster on OS X? (it takes about 1min 30 secs)

Can I give you a list of my kexts, this way, you could tell me which ones I DO NOT delete... :)

 

Thansk a lot

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DoiX
DoiX
Posted
Posted

It's system dependent, usually some kexts depend on others, it's a hard task for beginners. It's goes kinda like this, using IORegExplorer or kextstat (terminal command) you check which kexts are loaded for what, avoid anything that has "apple or IO" in the name...

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DoiX
DoiX
Posted
Posted

Thanks, i'll check it now. That's actually the Audio Chip powered on the card, which is another step forward. And yes you are correct, around 200 DSDT lines.

 

Set the 0200 value on the 000000c line to 0300 try with 3000 or 0000 too, if i got the OS X drivers right... setting the value to an error would emulate the same kickstart you get from rotating

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Rockball73
Rockball73
Posted
Posted

It's system dependent, usually some kexts depend on others, it's a hard task for beginners. It's goes kinda like this, using IORegExplorer or kextstat (terminal command) you check which kexts are loaded for what, avoid anything that has "apple or IO" in the name...

Thaks DoiX, I'll try it and let you know how it goes.

But just another little question : Which one do you prefer/is easier to use (I learn fast and easy, but which one is "easier to understand), kextstat command line or IORegExplorer?

Thanks a lot for your help, and GOOD LUCK with the nVidia 540M card :) You simply amaze me.

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DoiX
DoiX
Posted
Posted

For me i guess it would be IORegExplorer, because it has a detailed GUI. Oh i forgot, there is also the Kext Wizard option, simply load into Kext Info the kext you want to delete and check it's dependencies.

 

post-167221-0-54482900-1327484433_thumb.png

 

The kext requires some heavy patching, atm it's out of my interest... i'm just glad the audio part of the card is being powered which im pretty sure it means the whole card is powered (my battery drains even faster). This means that the DSDT part is done, now i have to focus on some kext that isn't loaded.

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adv392
adv392
Posted
Posted

followed AKennedy_4's guide using iAktos L2 the 10.7.2

after installing all kexts, [url=&quot;http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/&quot;]#####[/url], system definations 8,1 , only HD(not full HD), SSDT 3 step, kext utility, disk utility for repair permission still unable to boot without -v GraphicsEnabler=No busratio=20 cpus=1

bios is 06

here is a screen shot of -v post-935936-0-62483500-1327489932_thumb.jpg

any help would be appreciated,

thank you all

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Rockball73
Rockball73
Posted
Posted

For me i guess it would be IORegExplorer, because it has a detailed GUI. Oh i forgot, there is also the Kext Wizard option, simply load into Kext Info the kext you want to delete and check it's dependencies.

Thanks a lot!! I'm trying it at the moment... After I deleted some kexts, I repair permissions & cache with Kext Utility and then reboot, to know if I did it right and if the system always boot without the kexts I deleted.

Is this a good way to ensure I didn't deleted something essential, or is there another way?

 

PS: While doing it, I disabled UseKernelCache (so, UseKernelCache=No in boot.plist)... Is it good?

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DoiX
DoiX
Posted
Posted

Thats the only way i can think of, UseKernelCache=No means it will load each kext every time you reboot, people prefer to use UseKernelCache=No when they are experimenting, this allows them to keep a working cache copy.

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birdibird
birdibird
Posted
Posted

hmm after playing around a lot:

the only 'real' problem for me is the inconsistency of the trackpad 2 finger scrolling

 

sometimes it works perfectly, then after sleep or restart it is quirky.

 

have no idea what the reason or solution might be

 

 

I tried different combinations of voodoo and no voodoo: no difference in performance

 

atm I only have AppleACPIPS2Nub and ApplePS2Controller in S/L/E

but console says this:

 

 

25-01-12 13:56:32,000 kernel: ApplePS2Controller: Timed out on mouse input stream at readDataPort.

25-01-12 13:56:32,000 kernel: ApplePS2Controller: Timed out on mouse input stream at readDataPort.

25-01-12 13:56:32,000 kernel: VoodooPS2SynapticsTouchPad loaded

25-01-12 13:56:32,000 kernel: VoodooPS2Trackpad: Synaptics TouchPad v7.4

 

so: where did it load voodoo?????

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scrappy_coco
scrappy_coco
Posted
Posted

guys i installed the battery detector that came with the lion iaktos l2. it detected my battery but in battery condition it shows that "Condition:Replace soon". is it normal or what ?????

because the battery detector that came with DoiX installer package didnt detect my battery

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Rockball73
Rockball73
Posted
Posted

hmm after playing around a lot:

the only 'real' problem for me is the inconsistency of the trackpad 2 finger scrolling

 

sometimes it works perfectly, then after sleep or restart it is quirky.

 

have no idea what the reason or solution might be

 

 

I tried different combinations of voodoo and no voodoo: no difference in performance

 

atm I only have AppleACPIPS2Nub and ApplePS2Controller in S/L/E

but console says this:

 

 

25-01-12 13:56:32,000 kernel: ApplePS2Controller: Timed out on mouse input stream at readDataPort.

25-01-12 13:56:32,000 kernel: ApplePS2Controller: Timed out on mouse input stream at readDataPort.

25-01-12 13:56:32,000 kernel: VoodooPS2SynapticsTouchPad loaded

25-01-12 13:56:32,000 kernel: VoodooPS2Trackpad: Synaptics TouchPad v7.4

 

so: where did it load voodoo?????

Maybe you have UseKernelCache=Yes?
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scrappy_coco
scrappy_coco
Posted
Posted

i see that the file "smbios.plist" exist in two places in my mac drive. One in root folder with System definetion of MacBookPro8.1. And the other smbio.plist in "Extra" folder with system definetion of MacPro3.1

 

is it ok ??

 

then i deleted the second smbios.plist with system definetion of macpro3.1 and in system preferences/bootloader, i used the smbios.plist with macbookpro8.1 system definetion, and didn't select the "Defaults" option.

 

after that i rebooted without the rBoot-LE cd, now i could pass the apple boot screen with loading animation (for the first time i could boot without rboot-le), but i get sumthing like grey screen after that.

 

so to retry, this time i booted with rBoot-LE cd as usual with "-v GraphicsEnabler=No"..........and after the loading lines, i get the grey screen.

this happened for the very first time with me while booting with the boot cd.

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birdibird
birdibird
Posted
Posted

You need the one in the Extra folder.

Make it manually, use [url=&quot;http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/&quot;]#####[/url] or Champlist and you'll be fine!

 

VoodooPS2* are plugins situated inside ApplePS2Controller....

 

I do have UseKernelCache=Yes indeed, but I rebuilt it of course

 

 

I looked already inside ApplePS2Controller and found these kexts:

Are you saying they are voodoo? I don't see it...

 

ApplePS2Keyboard

ApplePS2Mouse

ApplePS2Trackpad

 

More important: anyone has a solution for the unstable 2 finger scrolling?

(right-edge scrolling is working fine all the time)

:)

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