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

[maxey]

Hi,

 

Since i am STILL using the IAtkos_DVD to boot ( somehow i am not capable of fixing that) i am thinking about installing ML at some point down the road.

Now i am interested in 2 things:

1. a)Is there a way to sort of save all the files i have in Lion (not the system configuration only the software and personal files) and then inserting them in a ML running system?

b ) or could i access all my files in i have in Lion from my ML installation? (is this to be recommended or would the file access time be too long?)

 

2. Is it possible to install ML on a SSD? I Know pcwiz didn't do it, but basically, could i run into different problems than installing it on my normal hd?

 

thanks

[Cisar Alexandru Marius]

Hi,

 

I have a Dell XPS L502x and i changed my Intel Centrino Wireless with a Dell Wireless 1701 802.11 b/g/n from a Dell Inspiron N5050 (as far as others say it works with an Atheros AR5B95 kext). I tried to install the kext using KextWizard, fixed permissions and rebuild cache, restarted the laptop but the kext doesn't load. I then also installed a kext for Dell Wireless 1702 but it's the same, it doesn't load. The Wireless card get's recognised as Dell Wireless 1701 802.11 in the system information. Any1 ever tried this wireless card or has any ideea if something else must be done to get the kext loaded?

 

10x

[DoiX]

@Cisar, salut

 

I have the same card installed. It works out of the box if you're on Lion 10.7.2 or Mountain Lion GM. For lion 10.7.3 and above you need to rollback the IONetworkFamily kext (as stated in the install tutorial on page 6 or 11 (depending on your view). Remove whatever kext you installed, make sure the card is installed in the first PCI slot (instead of the original card) and don't forget to use the FN+F2 key to activate it.

 

@Maxey, It's possible to install it on a SSD without problems. I don't know about backing up... personally i just moved all important informations to another partition. I read that some users managed to update directly from lion to ML... best search the forums for this.

[Cisar Alexandru Marius]

Hmm i downgraded ionetworkfamily to 1.10 and io80... from your package but it's still not loading. I got the ionetwork from osx86.net, i had no backup. Is it the wrong version? If so could you share yours? :>

 

Edit: ethernet is not working anymore after downgradeing ionetwork. Before downgrade i had version 2.1

[DoiX]

@Cisar Alexandru Marius, http://www.insanelym...2 download the installer and install only the atheros rollback from network.

 

Here it is: The Osx86 RetailDisk KitGen v1.0

 

It's a simple app that prompts the user to select a OS X Retail Disk Image then does the nasty, somewhat time consuming, job of making hidden files visible, mounting BaseSystem.dmg, restoring, copying packages and so on into a simple 3 click one!

 

It will even download and install FakeSMC.kext, NullCPUPowerManagement.kext, ApplePS2Controller/AppleACPIPS2Nub.kext and Enoch bootloader. All that's left for the user to do is restore the newly created image to the partition/thumb drive of choice or burn it on a dual Layer DVD!

 

Updated: included ApplePS2Controller.kexts (forgot the first time, my bad)

DOWNLOAD:

Osx86 RetailDisk KitGen v1.1.zip

 

Guide updated.

Edited July 30, 2012 by DoiX

[scrappy_coco]

hmm seems like this GT540M will never work out. Anyway, our XPS 15 L502x has become old now with its old hardware. I'm getting a new laptop after couple of months. But I'm confused whether to buy Macbook Pro 15 Retina or Alienware 17x. Why don't you guys go for new laptop too ? My xps 15 lags now while playing games like battlefield 3 at high settings. It won't keep up with the new games.

[DoiX]

If the L502x is old hardware then i got a PhD in Quantum Physics.

 

And some of us rarely have time for games, and anyway, who the hell buys a laptop to play games on High settings? Get a console or a desktop pc.

[birdibird]

What's the difference between the 'normal' chameleon and the Enoch version?

 

I upgraded Lion with ML and everything seems to work. Only sleep doesn't work (I have A06)

I will also install a clean version of ML to check which kext might be the problem

 

@scrappy_coco: not everyone has the money to buy a new laptop every year :wink2:

[DoiX]

@birdibird, Chameleon is basically Enoch (by fabio) Fabio keeps his branch updated constantly, the chameleon one gets updated last based on the updates applied to enoch branch. So... basically, there no real difference.

 

Sleep depends on the AICPUPM.kext, if it's patched then it should pretty much work... if not, i saw a new sleepenabler.kext (universal) on osx86.net, you could try that one and see if it's working. if it is, we could maybe finally update the bios and still have working sleep!

 

http://www.osx86.net/view/2972-sleepenabler_universal.html Here's the link to the kext.

Edited July 30, 2012 by DoiX

[birdibird]

That did the trick indeed!

Good find

 

1 problem remaining: the security and privacy prefpane is not loading

also something weird: in network settings it says that I'm connected through Bluetooth PAN and that my 802.11n adapter has cable unplugged :mellow:

 

edit: I'll try and update to bios A11 to see if it still works...

[DoiX]

Hm, the pref pane bug could be related to the straight update. Possibly it got corrupted, but i'm not sure. See if it works after you reset your system.

 

About the network thing. I've noticed yesterday that it tends to misbehave when only on battery, it's definitely a bug, however i have no idea whats causing it.

[birdibird]

A11 bios still doesn't work (after back from sleep: black screen)

I noticed that the chameleon boot screen is out of proportion: I have it set to 1920 x 1080, but now it looked much more like 1024x768 because the chameleon them icons were huge.

It seems the A11 bios does something different with the display

 

I have no idea how to solve the prefpane bug, all other prefpanes except Security & Privacy work fine

 

the network bug happens both on ac adapter and on battery

 

edit: I also have the brightness bug. If I let my screen sleep and come back, it is much brighter

 

btw: smartbatterymanagement from your Lx02X installer is still not working. Only VoodoBattery works fine (notice: you have a typo there )

Also, AppleHDA (first option) didn't work, but L702x option did

[DoiX]

Yeah, the display is fixed to min after A06, another thing i hate about the bios.

 

Well, for some reason it works for some people and doesn't for others. The AppleHDA binary is identical to the first option, the only difference is in the platforms. On Lion it didn't make a huge difference but on ML it's extremely picky on that subject.

 

Thanks for bringing my attention to the typo. I don't know how they keep slipping in

[scrappy_coco]

Its just my opinion. And its not just about games. I am currently studying computer science engineering and i have to work with 3D rendering. I also use photo editing and video editing. I do it in desktop in lab, but sometimes when i push it in XPS 15 its slow. For all these task the GT540M kinda seems old plus i only have 4GB of Ram. And I am also an iOS developer (jailbreaking stuff).

[birdibird]

How about upgrading to 8 GB, that will make a huge difference!

 

another thing which is interesting:

We talked before about the 2 finger scrolling.

I noticed that if I run windows and then boot into osx, 2 finger scrolling works flawless

If I go to sleep in osx and then return, it doesn't work as good anymore: i have to place my 2 fingers not at the same moment to let scrolling function

[scrappy_coco]

@birdibird

 

Hmm exactly, I was going for that but then apple released macbook pro 15 retina. So thin so light, yet a 2.6GHz core i7, 8GB DDR3 1600Mhz, GT650 1GB DDR5(2.5x faster than GT540M), 512GB SSD and the retina screen offcourse. So i thought its better to buy new laptop.

[DoiX]

Again, you're comparing a mid entry laptop to a desktop. An developing iOS apps doesn't mean you need NASA grade servers. You're also over judging the MBP Retina. Retina display actually eats from the CPU/GPU power because it's not natively generated but rather composed using vector like technique. The CPU is pointless in that laptop, it's not that much better than what we have. The only real advantage of the new MBP laptop is the SSD. Which can be equipped to our laptops as well.

 

Since you're studying computer science you should be familiar with Moore's law and taking into consideration we are talking about laptops here, the time spawn proposed gets cut in half. So yeah, there are newer models with 10% more computing power, but the user won't even feel the difference, because a 2.9GHz cpu is slower than a 3.1ghz cpu by 2 seconds, depending on the job. You should also take into consideration that most software are not even created with quad core in mind, a dual core desktop will outbeat a quad core one if the software is developed with dual core in minds. Like CUDA only helps certain programs.

[scrappy_coco]

ok ok guys just chill. I meant no offence. And i will keep using XPS 15 as 2nd laptop.

[birdibird]

I deleted the bluetooth pan and 802.11n adapter from the prefpane and added a new 802.11n one and now it show it correct

[markmac81]

@Doix

 

The download link for the lion 1.2 package installer links to lion 1.1 package download...

 

So I can restore ML to a sd card and then boot from it?!

[DoiX]

@markaman, thanks for reporting the link. DOWNLOAD HERE here's the correct one.

 

Yep, you can restore it to a SD card, as long as you got a working card reader.

[birdibird]

I'm trying to create a solution to boot and install ML on a laptop which doesn't have any osx installed yet.

Somehow we need to copy fakesmc and nullpowercpu to the new created osx installation.

I had the idea to boot back into the installer usb, go to terminal and copy it by hand.

 

I tried to mount the partitions as readwrite and the cp -r the kexts

by using

mount -a -u -w

 

it didn't work

I cp -r the kexts but they didnt appear in the target folder

 

what is wrong with the mount syntax?

 

Even better: couldn't we get the install procedure to automatically copy these kexts?

[markmac81]

@markaman, thanks for reporting the link. DOWNLOAD HERE here's the correct one.

 

Yep, you can restore it to a SD card, as long as you got a working card reader.

 

Thanks!

[DoiX]

I'm trying to create a solution to boot and install ML on a laptop which doesn't have any osx installed yet.

Somehow we need to copy fakesmc and nullpowercpu to the new created osx installation.

I had the idea to boot back into the installer usb, go to terminal and copy it by hand.

 

I tried to mount the partitions as readwrite and the cp -r the kexts

by using

mount -a -u -w

 

it didn't work

I cp -r the kexts but they didnt appear in the target folder

 

what is wrong with the mount syntax?

 

Even better: couldn't we get the install procedure to automatically copy these kexts?

 

Uhm, i don't exactly understand what you mean. So you made a bootable stick/dvd/whatever and installed ML on that laptop. But you can't boot because you lack FakeSMC and NullCPUPM, right?

 

Simply boot with rBoot LE.. it's the easiest method. Then just install the kext necessary to make the laptop boot ok from within the OS.

 

Even better: couldn't we get the install procedure to automatically copy these kexts? < Not without modifying the installer, then it just isn't retail anymore and it would be like iAtkos DVD.

[birdibird]

Uhm, i don't exactly understand what you mean. So you made a bootable stick/dvd/whatever and installed ML on that laptop. But you can't boot because you lack FakeSMC and NullCPUPM, right?

 

Simply boot with rBoot LE.. it's the easiest method. Then just install the kext necessary to make the laptop boot ok from within the OS.

 

Even better: couldn't we get the install procedure to automatically copy these kexts? < Not without modifying the installer, then it just isn't retail anymore and it would be like iAtkos DVD.

Yes I was thinking the same.

Forgot all about the rBoot LE option! thanx

 

edit: rBoot LE on a cd doesn't work: Mach-0 file has bad magic number

This happens with trying to boot both my existing mac partition as the new one

 

hmm, no time now anymore. will continue further in the week

 

what did you think about my mount frase, did I make a mistake?