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

[Ulysse31]

Hi again,

 

I have posted a new version (v0.3) of my kext for cypress touchpad, you will find sourcecode and a release kext available for download at :

 

https://code.google.com/p/voodoops2controllercypress/

 

it seems that on some computers tap to click does not work on v0.2, those that would like to help please PM me, i will send them a debug kext to get logs from it.

 

Actual Features:

- basic tap to click

- basic two fingers scrolling (no smooth momentum)

- 3 fingers tap/window move/select (v0.3 only)

- 4 fingers swipe: need to have in keyboard input set shortcut to control+command+[up/down/left/right] (v0.3 only)

 

From now on, to avoid multiple/cross-posting, i will post updates about my kext dev under this topic :

 

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/294608-cypress-ps2-trackpad-kext/

 

 

Cheers to all,

 

--

Ulysse31

[FireJam]

i have an SSD installed in my XPS L502x in place of the HDD.

The HDD is installed in the caddy.

 

I want to triple boot linux, windows and OSX on my SDD (i use linux for work, windows on school and want to use OSX sometimes).

I had OSX installed one time thanks to DoiX awesome guide, but never dual or even triple booted it.

 

I was wondering if it is possible to get a triple boot with clover as bootloader, and if someone knows in general how to achieve this?

Also, which files do i need for the guide from TimeWalker? I tried to find it in this thread but i didn't. excuse me if someone already gave answer to this.

Oh and if i follow TimeWalker's guide, can i do a post install with the DoiX package?

 

My system specs are:

Intel Core i7 2720QM

8,00GB DDR3

Intel Sandy Bridge HM67

1366x768 screen

 

Many thanks,

Maik

 

P.S: does anyone have the same problem as me? i cannot install OSX from a USB drive, i always get the message 'waiting for root device' no matter wich port i use or whatsoever. I've tried a thousand things, with no succes. I just burn it on a dual layer most of the time, but it's expensive after a while.

 

So i did some research on this and i will try to make a guide based on the TimeWalker guide since i have vacation soon

I will let you guys know!

 

The only thing i'm not really sure of is: can i use the doix package from mountain lion on mavericks?

 

Maik

[Monkeys]

Still waiting on a reply about the USB3 ports working correctly?

 

Has anyone gotten them working properly in the last year or so? Currently mine will only work with USB fkash drives, but that's flakey at best. Still no support for USB midi interfaces or sound cards etc.

 

Also HDMI?

Still waiting on a reply about the USB3 ports working correctly?

 

Has anyone gotten them working properly in the last year or so? Currently mine will only work with USB fkash drives, but that's flakey at best. Still no support for USB midi interfaces or sound cards etc.

 

Also HDMI?

[youngwake]

Can anyone help me patch my DSDT with nvidia off and dual link? I tried MaciASL, DSDTSE, and DSDT Editor, but I always get errors..."Arg0 etc etc. any help would be appreciated.

DSDT.AML.zip

[styrian]

Your aml file can not be opened, because of brackets are not updated. Upload a DSDT.dsl version, if you want to get help.

Are there any gfx methods in one of your ssdt tables? This table seems also to be neccessary to be able to switch your Nvidia off.

If you have in the bios an option to set gfx to integrated only, this would be the best bet and cleanest way to switch your Nvidia off.

 

Have fun.

[youngwake]

Your aml file can not be opened, because of brackets are not updated. Upload a DSDT.dsl version, if you want to get help.

Are there any gfx methods in one of your ssdt tables? This table seems also to be neccessary to be able to switch your Nvidia off.

If you have in the bios an option to set gfx to integrated only, this would be the best bet and cleanest way to switch your Nvidia off.

 

Have fun.

I am not sure why it is giving the brackets error. But here is a .dsl thank you styrian

 

and no there is no gfx method. I don't think so because I extracted dsdt from windows.

dsdt.zip

[styrian]

I have removed all remarks and warnings, but no patches applied. You can try to ad patches and then just compile it.

 

Anyway you have bad luck with your DSDT to switch off Nvida. Some methods are missing. Try to extract with Aida64 under ACPI tables, all SSDT.tables. In one of them should be the missing methods (for example: _ON, _OFF, _PS3) included. (path like this: SB_PCI0.PEG0....)

 

Have fun.

Youngwake-DSDT.dsl.zip

[youngwake]

I have removed all remarks and warnings, but no patches applied. You can try to ad patches and then just compile it.

 

Anyway you have bad luck with your DSDT to switch off Nvida. Some methods are missing. Try to extract with Aida64 under ACPI tables, all SSDT.tables. In one of them should be the missing methods (for example: _ON, _OFF, _PS3) included. (path like this: SB_PCI0.PEG0....)

 

Have fun.

gracias. I will try to patch now. Also, are you saying I can't Nvidia off with this dsdt? sorry I'm still a bit of a newbie. 

[styrian]

With the on Win extracted SSDT tables it should got working. But you have to inject with the needed methods also some declarations in your DSDT.aml. It seems to be easier tos add the ssdt table with the needed gfx informations as second SSDT.aml to your EXtra folder and declare the needed methods as external in DSDT.aml.

 

Have fun.

[YuLeven]

Hello,

Hou are you doing?

 

I've been reading this topic silently since I started considering a Hackintosh on my XPS 15. After some consideration and trials on OS X, I think it's quite time to give it a shot.

However, before starting I have a set of questions that weren't settled upon reading the thread, so I was wondering if any of the users that contributed to this topic would be so kind and help me solving my doubts. I'd be very thankful if anyone answered those questions:

 

1) How is L502X performing on Mavericks? I have a painfuly slow 5400RPM hard drive and Windows is quite ok with performance, albeit intense IO situations (as in hi-speed torrent) being more than enough to put my system to the ground. Will the performance penalty of a Hackintosh make this situation worse?

 

2) I have the 9 cell L502X. How's our battery doing? After installing proper speedstep management and disabling the nVidia discrete GPU, can we achieve livable battery life with OS X? Mavericks 'under the hood' improvements that gave a lil' extra juice to actual Mac hardware did benefit us?

 

3) Is dual boot possible somehow in one partitioned HD?

 

Thank you very much. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

[FireJam]

Is anyone good in chinese here?

I tried to follow this guide, but i can't get it to work.

It's a guide for the L502x with clover. He also gave some files for installation

Maybe you guys can do something with it, or just as research.

 

http://bit.ly/1kDdKv0

[YuLeven]

I bet no one come here anymore.

 

I have ML 10.8.3 fully working on my L502X. The only thing that still bother me a bit is that even with the nVidia card properly disabled and temperatures nearly identical to Windows, my machine still is considerably more noisy on OS X.

 

Don't really know why...

[youngwake]

can anyone running with clover upload their clover folder? I am on Chameleon everything is working great, just want to try clover....of course backup is made. I can't boot with the clover USB I made....this usb does not have osx on it, just Clover. Does that even matter? Anyway, I am on 10.9.1 Mavericks, i5 XPS 15z 1080p. Or anyone with a similar setup with Clover. Thanks in advance! 

 

p.s I have just about everything working on Mavericks expect HDMI, SD-CARD! 

 

Audio; Mic and Speaker and headphone switching even after sleep!

pretty much everything, if you need something from me, ask and I'll see if i can help!

 

here's HiDPi you will only get half res though...looks awesome

 

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.windowserver DisplayResolutionEnabled -bool YES

 

log out and log back in, enjoy...check your display

I bet no one come here anymore.

 

I have ML 10.8.3 fully working on my L502X. The only thing that still bother me a bit is that even with the nVidia card properly disabled and temperatures nearly identical to Windows, my machine still is considerably more noisy on OS X.

 

Don't really know why...

interesting, are you on modded bios? I barely even knew my processor was on in 10.8 and 10.9. I have i5 on xps 15z maybe it's just me?

[one9092002]

Hi guys,

 

Is there anyone get their XPS L502x's SD card working properly on Mavericks? I use this kext ftp://driver.jmicron.com.tw/CardReader/MAC_OS_X/SD/ but still not working properly. it ONLY works IF you plug your SD card first before booting into mac osx. Is there any solution to that? or any work around that I can try? or maybe different kext that I can try?

 

Thanks

I'm having the same issue 

[YuLeven]

interesting, are you on modded bios? I barely even knew my processor was on in 10.8 and 10.9. I have i5 on xps 15z maybe it's just me?

 

Yes, I'm using a modded bios that fixes OS X sleep, include a newer CPU microcode, native speedstep and also undervolt the GPU to 0.83v so it runs cooler when gaming on Windows. Also, this bios unlocks a handful of options on the setup.

 

-

 

I have a 2450M i5 on a L502X (XPS 15 R2 or 2011).

 

-

 

 

Hello,

Hou are you doing?

 

I've been reading this topic silently since I started considering a Hackintosh on my XPS 15. After some consideration and trials on OS X, I think it's quite time to give it a shot.

However, before starting I have a set of questions that weren't settled upon reading the thread, so I was wondering if any of the users that contributed to this topic would be so kind and help me solving my doubts. I'd be very thankful if anyone answered those questions:

 

1) How is L502X performing on Mavericks? I have a painfuly slow 5400RPM hard drive and Windows is quite ok with performance, albeit intense IO situations (as in hi-speed torrent) being more than enough to put my system to the ground. Will the performance penalty of a Hackintosh make this situation worse?

 

2) I have the 9 cell L502X. How's our battery doing? After installing proper speedstep management and disabling the nVidia discrete GPU, can we achieve livable battery life with OS X? Mavericks 'under the hood' improvements that gave a lil' extra juice to actual Mac hardware did benefit us?

 

3) Is dual boot possible somehow in one partitioned HD?

 

Thank you very much. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

 

I will answer my questions myself as It may be useful for other L502X owners looking for a Hackintosh.

 

First, I didn't go for Mavericks after all, prefering Mountain Lion as it is better documented in the Hackintosh community. I have no regrets. Mavericks is nice, but  it's still a bit glitched.

 

So

 

           1) How the L502X is performing on ML?

 

Overally it feels fast. Despise using the Intel HD3000, light gaming as League of Legends and World of Warcraft is more than possible on low settings, native resolution.

Sometimes the system do hiccup and it can suffer from intense IO usage scenarios: My advice is get a SSD.

 

I feel that ML is doing better than Windows 8.1 on my machine, specially for things like writing (or coding), browsing, listening to music... basic stuff, basically. The apps do open faster on my machine. But, it could be buttery smooth using a SSD. My CPU is rarely stressed on a daily usage, but the slow 5400RPM HD that Dell included on the L502X is taken to it's limits easily.

 

One sort of a Easter egg that I found on Mountain Lion was video reproduction! I rented a bluray movie to watch with my GF and went to watch it days before installing ML. Unfortunately, we couldn't finish the movie that night.  So I installed OS X 10.8.3 and downloaded VLC in the days between seeing her again. When we opened the movie, we both agreed 'Wow! Isn't the image a lot better?'.

 

I have barely any knowledge on video reproduction so I can't say why, but my movie appeared a lot more 'HD', it is... sharper and clearer in Mountain Lion compared to Windows. I used VLC on both machines. I don't really know why. Perhaps it's the QE execution that VLC uses on ML, perhaps it's how the system treat graphics overally (as colour profiles and rendering schemes), and I say that because I feel that web and document browsing is a bit clearer on ML too.

 

The downside of Mountain Lion is that albeit my processor isn't any hotter compared to Windows, the fan is audible louder. I'm currently working on this issue, that I found particularly annoying.

 

2) I have the 9 cell L502X. How's our battery doing? After installing proper speedstep management and disabling the nVidia discrete GPU, can we achieve livable battery life with OS X? Mavericks 'under the hood' improvements that gave a lil' extra juice to actual Mac hardware did benefit us?

 

After fine tuning, installing speedstep, getting rid of the (on my case) useless turbo boost and some bios modifications, I'm getting nearly 5:30~5:40 of web browsing with the screen dimmed. That's a pretty good value, since it's a hackintosh and my 9 cell battery is quite weary by 18 months of heavy, daily usage. Battery when reproducing video isn't anything to write home, though. I'm getting 3:40 out a 720p AAC MKV encoded video.

 

I'm still considering Mavericks on another HD so I can check how it fares when it comes to battery life. Many Apple-hardware OS X users saw a healthy increase in battery with Mavericks, I can't but wonder that I might benefit from that on my Hackintosh too.

 

Yet again, a SSD instead of the mechanical HD would help a lot here. A bloke on notebookreview's forum saw a battery increase of one hour with a SSD.

 

3) Is dual boot possible somehow in one partitioned HD?

 

In a single word: Yes, it is. And it was pretty easy to do it. I just patched Mountain Lion installer so it could be installed on a MBR partitioned HD, created a partition for OS X using Windows's dskmgmt.msc service and voilá, installed. Works like a charm. I didn't even had to lose my Windows files, which I can access from OS X now using Tuxera NTFS.

 

However, I found some downsides using this.

 

First: MBR won't partition a disk in more than 4 partitions whilst GUID is pretty much (piratically) limitless on this area. This hurts my Hackintosh as I have one partition to Windows, another to Windows Recovery (which I unfortunately need), one to OS X and one small one from Dell that I can't delete without loosing my data.

 

Because of this, I couldn't create a 50GB partition I was wanting to use Time Machine. As converting to GUID requires erasing data, I'll have to live without it for a while.

 

Second: UEFI won't do well with MBR. If I wanted to use CLOVER instead of Chameleon, I'd had to go GUID.

 

Third: I can't really say whether it was MBR's fault or not, but I had a hard time getting the bootloader working on this scheme.

[youngwake]

Yes, I'm using a modded bios that fixes OS X sleep, include a newer CPU microcode, native speedstep and also undervolt the GPU to 0.83v so it runs cooler when gaming on Windows. Also, this bios unlocks a handful of options on the setup.

 

-

 

I have a 2450M i5 on a L502X (XPS 15 R2 or 2011).

 

-

 

 

 

I will answer my questions myself as It may be useful for other L502X owners looking for a Hackintosh.

 

First, I didn't go for Mavericks after all, prefering Mountain Lion as it is better documented in the Hackintosh community. I have no regrets. Mavericks is nice, but  it's still a bit glitched.

 

So

 

           1) How the L502X is performing on ML?

 

Overally it feels fast. Despise using the Intel HD3000, light gaming as League of Legends and World of Warcraft is more than possible on low settings, native resolution.

Sometimes the system do hiccup and it can suffer from intense IO usage scenarios: My advice is get a SSD.

 

I feel that ML is doing better than Windows 8.1 on my machine, specially for things like writing (or coding), browsing, listening to music... basic stuff, basically. The apps do open faster on my machine. But, it could be buttery smooth using a SSD. My CPU is rarely stressed on a daily usage, but the slow 5400RPM HD that Dell included on the L502X is taken to it's limits easily.

 

One sort of a Easter egg that I found on Mountain Lion was video reproduction! I rented a bluray movie to watch with my GF and went to watch it days before installing ML. Unfortunately, we couldn't finish the movie that night.  So I installed OS X 10.8.3 and downloaded VLC in the days between seeing her again. When we opened the movie, we both agreed 'Wow! Isn't the image a lot better?'.

 

I have barely any knowledge on video reproduction so I can't say why, but my movie appeared a lot more 'HD', it is... sharper and clearer in Mountain Lion compared to Windows. I used VLC on both machines. I don't really know why. Perhaps it's the QE execution that VLC uses on ML, perhaps it's how the system treat graphics overally (as colour profiles and rendering schemes), and I say that because I feel that web and document browsing is a bit clearer on ML too.

 

The downside of Mountain Lion is that albeit my processor isn't any hotter compared to Windows, the fan is audible louder. I'm currently working on this issue, that I found particularly annoying.

 

2) I have the 9 cell L502X. How's our battery doing? After installing proper speedstep management and disabling the nVidia discrete GPU, can we achieve livable battery life with OS X? Mavericks 'under the hood' improvements that gave a lil' extra juice to actual Mac hardware did benefit us?

 

After fine tuning, installing speedstep, getting rid of the (on my case) useless turbo boost and some bios modifications, I'm getting nearly 5:30~5:40 of web browsing with the screen dimmed. That's a pretty good value, since it's a hackintosh and my 9 cell battery is quite weary by 18 months of heavy, daily usage. Battery when reproducing video isn't anything to write home, though. I'm getting 3:40 out a 720p AAC MKV encoded video.

 

I'm still considering Mavericks on another HD so I can check how it fares when it comes to battery life. Many Apple-hardware OS X users saw a healthy increase in battery with Mavericks, I can't but wonder that I might benefit from that on my Hackintosh too.

 

Yet again, a SSD instead of the mechanical HD would help a lot here. A bloke on notebookreview's forum saw a battery increase of one hour with a SSD.

 

3) Is dual boot possible somehow in one partitioned HD?

 

In a single word: Yes, it is. And it was pretty easy to do it. I just patched Mountain Lion installer so it could be installed on a MBR partitioned HD, created a partition for OS X using Windows's dskmgmt.msc service and voilá, installed. Works like a charm. I didn't even had to lose my Windows files, which I can access from OS X now using Tuxera NTFS.

 

However, I found some downsides using this.

 

First: MBR won't partition a disk in more than 4 partitions whilst GUID is pretty much (piratically) limitless on this area. This hurts my Hackintosh as I have one partition to Windows, another to Windows Recovery (which I unfortunately need), one to OS X and one small one from Dell that I can't delete without loosing my data.

 

Because of this, I couldn't create a 50GB partition I was wanting to use Time Machine. As converting to GUID requires erasing data, I'll have to live without it for a while.

 

Second: UEFI won't do well with MBR. If I wanted to use CLOVER instead of Chameleon, I'd had to go GUID.

 

Third: I can't really say whether it was MBR's fault or not, but I had a hard time getting the bootloader working on this scheme.

If the system is running fine besides the added processor noise, I'd say leave it although it may be annoying. But consider trying a different dsdt or patching your own if you haven't done so already. good luck buddy. 

[YuLeven]

Thank you, I'll see what can I do about it. When using it on a table to type the noise is a non issue, but when watching video it becomes quite annoying.

Right now I'm thinking of going Mavericks on a SSD to see how it behaves. Loudness apart, my focus is snappiness and battery life.

 

-

 

Perhaps it's time to open it and do some modding too. Repaste the CPU, clean the blower and get rid of the dust filter.

 

-

 

One nice thing about our notebook is using a modded bios that undervolts the GPU to 0.83v.

I used to have GPU temperatures on the upper 90's gaming on Windows, now it stays on lower 80's. No artefacts or whatsoever. Absolutely worth it.

[t65902]

just updated to 10.9.1 no issues except to reinstall audio, other than that ..fine. nothing new worth writing home about though.

[YuLeven]

just updated to 10.9.1 no issues except to reinstall audio, other than that ..fine. nothing new worth writing home about though.

 

Nothing clearly different in performance, power consumption or heat?

[jkbuha]

Here's my feedback on Mavericks so far with a 15z.

 

I've actually found quite a few (good) differences in power consumption in 10.9.1 vs 10.8.5. It could be to do with the AppNap feature in Mavericks, or even the memory compression at runtime. Apple claims that both of these help reduce power consumption. I've also found the new energy impact feature in the activity monitor to be quite effective, and because of this reporting for the first time I've switched to Safari instead of Chrome/Firefox/Opera, as (at least according to Apple's own software) the former consumes way less power with the same amount of tabs + threads active.

 

True it may be Apple software favouring Apple products (the auto-plugin disabling until mouse hover/click is a neat feature though), but it seems to be working as I am getting approximately 3:50 actual battery time for 4200mAh capacity (I've just swapped out my ageing battery for a new one) so that's just over 1000mAh avg consumption, way lower than what I've seen in ML and L.

 

Video quality from my experience is comparable to ML/L, though a large part of the picture clarity will depend on the LVDS colour maps set on each OS. Fan speed is quieter under Clover than Chameleon (most likely due to the additional C6 state usage under the former) though I haven't seen any noticeable differences in temps. @KD - nice tip re: enabling retina, 540p looks awesome, pity we can't run it at FHD.

 

Dual booting works fine under Chameleon/BIOS - i triple boot myself and it works a treat. If you already have an existing installation of (non-UEFI) windows and don't want to go through the tribulations of repartitioning and reformatting then you're stuck with Chameleon or (as I do) UEFI boot into OSX via USB. If you want to do things properly (but most likely incur a repartition and reformat) TW has documented the process around page 125-130 of this topic. It doesn't apply to my setup because (i) UEFI Windows under Dell SCT2.0 is actually counter-productive (ii) with my existing MBR setup I can freely access HFS/NTFS partitions from Win/OSX respectively (thank you Paragon - well worth Eur14.99) (iii) I still consider Clover to be an experiment in progress, occasionally with a new commit a new feature/bug prevents me from booting OSX properly, but if I refrain myself from git pulling it works just fine.

 

This is just my two cents worth, and it's for a (heavily bios modded, see my thread on the bios mods forum) 15z, so your own mileage may vary.

[t65902]

Nothing clearly different in performance, power consumption or heat?

 

can't really say there is a big difference from 10.9.0 but i can wait and see. i think the big changes may come of a .2 release.

 

@jkbuha personally i dual boot with clover only . i don't use chameleon outside of install phase. did triple boot on several occasion with linux ubuntu, fuduntu, mint ..i want to try crunch bang and stella this month. 

i typically am weary of paragon hfs my friend and also a thread on this forum and data loss is the reason for that.

as for paragon ntfs i am my own witness to the same , i lost 20GB, these days i use tuxera . through paragon it seems like u r copying to a different ntfs partition and delete the source of the copy thinking your data is still sure but then you check at what you copied and nothing.

 

with 10.9.0 i was very concerned with quicklime if you accidentally open a video with it ,it will try to convert it and if you don't stop it properly it can take up 99% of CPU load. ibook behaved that way too on one occasion. maybe they fixed that with .1 release still too early to tell.

 

really happy with ulysses work on the track pad now with all 5 fingers now the work is to add more functionality no hurrys from me on him .

[jkbuha]

Thanks @t65902 for the feedback. Personally I hadn't experienced any issues so far with Paragon (at least with v11.2) and as I use NTFS intensively the performance is significantly better than Tuxera, at least IMO. That said I use a few file integrity checks on NTFS to ensure all files are replicated correctly, so I'll just step up the update rate between Win/OSX.

 

Totally agreed on @Ulysse31's work - it is simply awesome, I can now use two/three/four/five finger multitouch on the cypress touchpad. Amazing!

[YuLeven]

Wow... t65902 just convinced me about Maverick's prowess.

I'll try it as soon as my new SSD arrives from China.

 

-

 

By doing so, I'll be free to use Clover instead of Chameleon. I have high expectations on this.

 

-

 

I enabled retina and tried 540p HiDpi. Things looks absolutely great, indeed. But everything got so absurdly big that I can't really use the laptop this way. Apple's + Safari's toolbars alone are munching pretty much 1/4 of the screen.

[YuLeven]

I updated to 10.9.1 and bloody hell, it is so much better! The machine feels so faster and there are so many improvement hackintosh wise that I can only think that I must have screwed up with 10.8.3 installation.

 

My visible improvements:

 

25 extra minutes of battery life with video (for nearly 3:40).

45 extra minutes of battery life with wifi (for nearly 6 hours).

The system feels much snappier. Benchmarks are the same, but programs open faster and it boots on 1/3 of the time of ML.

My audio is crisper, won't gets distorted at higher volumes as it was on ML.

My screen can get as bright as in Windows (On ML the max was always a bit dim).

My fan turns off when the CPU is cool - I could almost cry for this one. Was so annoying having it on all the time on ML.

UI animations feels more fluid.

Time Machine is doing it's mojo in less time. Can't precise how much.

I'm properly getting S states (Enabling them with a SSDT caused a kernel panic on ML).

HWInfo not display more information than before (Fan RPM).

I had some pesky lags UI wise (as having the system hiccuping when accessing the menu 'Share' in finder), they are all gone.

The reboot bug is gone.

 

-

 

I couldn't be happier.

[t65902]

glad it worked out well for you kai