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

wen1

By wen1,
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darren cox
darren cox
Posted
Posted

That is what I experienced with v9 too, but I decided to go with sleep :)

 

Looks like it was me being stupid. Cleared out my old SSDT and DSDT and reinstalled and all is well. Now waiting for the combo update to download :)

 

Actaully scrap that. Don't seem to have sleep or wake now on A06 bios, old DSDT 10.7.2 WTH did I change?

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AKennedy_4
AKennedy_4
Posted
Posted (edited)

Alright noob moment: How do I determine how much VRAM that I have? I've looked in windows but it only gives the properties of the Intel graphics card

Looks like 1GB

 

Wait: guess you don't need it now that you deleted your post? lol

 

Either way, posted a GPU-Z screenshot just in case you need more info

post-298881-0-31487600-1328381140_thumb.png

Edited by AKennedy_4
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DoiX
DoiX
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Posted (edited)

Yeah, the second i posted i facepalmed myself :D i just googled versions of l502x and found what i needed :P thanks anyway. Since you have GPU-Z, could you try to dump the bios? (click the small icon, on the right of the BIOS Version field) I get an error on windows, need confirmation it's not just me.

 

Update: Well, after months of on and off work, i managed to use the nvidia GPU on OS X for a brief but wonderful 3 seconds then it rebooted.

 

1. Why only 3 seconds? - because in the 25 restarts/reboots i went through, only one of them actually got me through the verbose mode to the screen to see my wallpaper before suddenly restarting.

 

NVDAResman is causing this coupled with my DSDT. The way the card is activated is imperfect and i can't find the proper way without a full SSDT dump from someone with 3D display or modded bios and nvidia set as primary to guide myself from, there isn't exactly a cheat sheet for the nvidia ACPI functions.

 

2. How did i manage? - using a modified bios dump (UseNvidiaROM=Yes) coupled with GraphicsEnabler=Yes, modified IOPCIFamily.kext and a new DSDT that activates the nvidia framebuffer, or at least i think it is the FB.

 

 

3. Can it be done? - via the path i went... yes it can be done, but frankly, i think it's easier to just mod the freaking bios. But if i can get my hands on the before mentioned SSDT dump... there's a good chance that it will be the missing piece of the puzzle.

Edited by DoiX
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iMac2009
iMac2009
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Posted

Hey DoiX,

 

Some people were able to mod the BIOS, in their case to mod the voltages for proper better GPU Over / Underclocking purposes.

Also they explained how to extract, mod, and repack the BIOS for the flashprogress.

May this help?

http://www.bios-mods.com/forum/Thread-UEFI-Dell-XPS-15-15z-L502x-L511z-modded-BIOS-and-HOWTO

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jkbuha
jkbuha
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Hey DoiX,

 

Some people were able to mod the BIOS, in their case to mod the voltages for proper better GPU Over / Underclocking purposes.

Also they explained how to extract, mod, and repack the BIOS for the flashprogress.

May this help?

http://www.bios-mods...-BIOS-and-HOWTO

 

Don't worry - DoiX knows about this very well :)

 

Incidentally some progress has been made on BIOS modding for the 15/15z, but still early days. Will keep you all posted.

 

On a related note the new A09 Bios for the 15z was released this morning. Will be trying it out to see if it fixes the one problem I have remaining with my Lion installation - that of the HD3000 freezing. If it is indeed a BIOS issue.

 

Well done on the NVidia breakthru - even if it was only for just a few seconds. Many great discoveries start off in this way... :)

 

UPDATE:Sadly A09 has not done anything to improve the HD3000 performance (or lack of). Screen still freezes throughout, unless it's rotated, which works perfectly.

I've attached my ioreg standard & rotated 1920x1080 for comparison. @DoiX could you have a look at them if you're not too busy, and also guide me to do this myself one day. Might be a simple DSDT injection that may fix this and all other HD3000 users with similar issues.

15z_ioreg_rotate_and_standard.rar

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DoiX
DoiX
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Posted (edited)

@jkbuha, the norotate and rotate ioregs are the same, both were created at [ 2/5/12 7:54:43 ] :P dump them again and pay attention to the time stamp.

 

Btw, when you've disassembled the bios, have you found any .rom file of around 57KB?

Edited by DoiX
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jkbuha
jkbuha
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Posted

@jkbuha, the norotate and rotate ioregs are the same, both were created at [ 2/5/12 7:54:43 ] :P dump them again and pay attention to the time stamp.

 

Btw, when you've disassembled the bios, have you found any .rom file of around 57KB?

 

Actually they should be different. After saving one file, I closed, rotated reopened and dumped the second ioreg file. In fact there should be one minute difference in the timestamp between them.

However you're right - a binary comparison of the two files shows no diff but they're definitely from a rotated and non-rotated screen. Can I take a dump of anything else in the system (besides ioreg) when i rotate a screen?

 

No files of 57kb - the next largest/smallest are 62kb/52kb. What are you looking for?

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DoiX
DoiX
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Open the ioregs and check for yourself the time stamp(bottom right), identical...

 

I need the nvidia rom(bios) file to compare some things. I can't dump it from windows or mac since the IGPU has priority and my DSDT isn't activating everything the gpu needs. I'm hoping i can substract the info i need from the bios file.

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jkbuha
jkbuha
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Posted

Open the ioregs and check for yourself the time stamp(bottom right), identical...

 

I need the nvidia rom(bios) file to compare some things. I can't dump it from windows or mac since the IGPU has priority and my DSDT isn't activating everything the gpu needs. I'm hoping i can substract the info i need from the bios file.

 

Here you go :)

It's actually 64kb in total. Some BIOSes may vary (eg: 525M vs 540M) but in principle they all work the same way.

 

I'll try and dump the ioreg files again. Hopefully with some more luck,

GT-525M.rar

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Monkeys
Monkeys
Posted
Posted

Hello again guys,

 

Could someone here who has successfully updated to 10.7.3 with speedstep working please patch their patched AppleCPUPM kext? I have tried reinstalling from scratch and restarting after every change. I was able to get to 10.7.3, but then after running speed stepper on 10.7.3 I am now getting the "Still waiting for root device" loop on boot. I don't know what I could be doing wrong?

 

I have tried replacing ACPUPM with an unpatched version but it still hangs, which leads me to believe that speed stepper changes more than just that kext.. Or it could just be me =p

 

Sorry, I meant "post their patch 10.7.3 AppleCPUPM kext"

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fernandoalrs
fernandoalrs
Posted
Posted

Hello again guys,

 

Could someone here who has successfully updated to 10.7.3 with speedstep working please patch their patched AppleCPUPM kext? I have tried reinstalling from scratch and restarting after every change. I was able to get to 10.7.3, but then after running speed stepper on 10.7.3 I am now getting the "Still waiting for root device" loop on boot. I don't know what I could be doing wrong?

 

I have tried replacing ACPUPM with an unpatched version but it still hangs, which leads me to believe that speed stepper changes more than just that kext.. Or it could just be me =p

 

Sorry, I meant "post their patch 10.7.3 AppleCPUPM kext"

 

Here is my patched 10.7.3 AppleIntelCPUPowerManagement.kext http://cl.ly/1I3R0U193T3505110K1R

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Monkeys
Monkeys
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@Fernandoalrs - Thank you! That did the tric. Now successfully at 10.7.3 with full speedstep functionality =)

 

Word of warning to others, not sure why, but the speedstepper patch for 10.7.3 didn't work for me and resulted in a non bootable system with the 'Still waiting for root device error'. I recommend using the AppleIntelCpuPowerManagement.kext posted above from fernandoalrs.

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DoiX
DoiX
Posted
Posted (edited)

I somehow expected them to be general, not specific to systems.

 

Stupid question: if you would replace the intel bios rom with the nvidia one would the bios still flash/ pc boot?

Edited by DoiX
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