Lenovo ThinkPad T420 with UEFI Only

[Adrenalation]

remove all network location/interface definitions from the |System Network panel

rm        /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/NetworkInterfaces.plist

reboot and redo network interface definitions for ethernet and then wifi

 

(i know i know - some have found the order doesn't matter - but this is just what seems to work for me!)

 

if you are on Yosemite, it was very finicky and for me it took a look of entering and reentering of ids and passwords.

seems like its looping but eventually it worked. 

 

I'm currently on mavericks and after following your suggestion here and on the guide, signing in keeps looping for both iMessage and Facetime. This is beyond my scope.

[tluck]

@adrenalation.  it may not be a loop - and not necessarily a bad sign.  i must have entered it about 5 times. same on my real mac. 

[Manwe150]

 

Atheros AR5BHB92

- dual-band: 2.4GHz + 5GHz. МасOS up to 150 Mbps on 2.4GHz and up to 300 Mbps on 5GHz, Windows up to 300 Mbps on both bands.

Broadcom BCM94322HM8L

- dual-band: 2.4GHz + 5GHz. МасOS up to 150 Mbps on 2.4GHz and up to 300 Mbps on 5GHz, Windows up to 300 Mbps on both bands.

Atheros AR5B93

- single-band: 2.4GHz only. МасOS up to 150 Mbps, Windows up to 300 Mbps.

 

 

to be fair, it may be that Windows is over reporting the speed, to make the marketers happy, whereas mac reports the actual speed. A 2.4 GHz chip with 2 antennta has a theoretical maximum speed of 150 Mbps: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_N#Data_rates. The chip spec claims that it is a 1x2 MIMO configuration with 300 Mbps max speed, so ???

[Sheep_Reaper]

Its true that wireless n is maxed at 150 per channel but a 2.4ghz card is only one band. Dual band uses 2.4 and 5 simultaneously hence the dual band. If you are using 1x2 or 1x3 you can get 300 or 450 all the way to 900 but now its unnecessary as ac can top that. So no, windows is not over reporting.

[tluck]

whether it can hit that speed is a good question.

it says connected at 300 Mbps on OS X (on 5 G) with my atheros card.

i have not benchmarked it!

i vaguely recall it reporting 450 on windows. but i could be wrong.

 

 

[Sheep_Reaper]

It depends on the antenna config. 1x3 should reach 450 but sometimes they cheap out and make it so that its 2 down and one up but 2x3 should reach 900 unless its 3 up and 3 down then its only 450

[Cowboy Mike]

9.9.2014

Wish we could say more.

[Manwe150]

my iMessage just broke because my credit card info was out-of-date (at least I'm assuming that was the initial reason) afterwards, I couldn't get it to log back in

 

after some googling, I realized my ROM value was possibly bad (all zeros):

/$ nvram -px | egrep 'MLB|ROM'
XX-XX:MLB XX%00
XX-XX:ROM %00%00%00%00%00%00%00%00%00%00%00%00%00

for some reason, this was suddenly a problem? anyways, i decided to try updating it.

 

I couldn't get `nvram` to write a new value from ROM like it is supposed to (it refused to update):

/$ sudo nvram XX-XX-XX:ROM=%00%00%00%00%00%00

So I made the edit by hand:

 

First computing the base64 encoded hex string for my mac address:

/$ python
Python 2.7.5 (default, Mar  9 2014, 22:15:05) 
[GCC 4.2.1 Compatible Apple LLVM 5.0 (clang-500.0.68)] on darwin
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import base64
>>> base64.encodestring("\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00")
'AAAAAAAA\n'

where the string of 00's was my en0 ether id:

/$ ifconfig en0 | grep ether

And pasting the result (sans \n) into the appropriate section (XX:ROM) of my `/nvram.plist` file

 

Then I moved the nvram shutdown script out of the way to avoid replacing this value:

/$ sudo mv /etc/rc.shutdown.d/80.save_nvram_plist.local /

And rebooted.

 

I was then able to log into iMessage. (and I then also moved the rc.shutdown script back)

[samsunlu55]

Hello.

 

I bought a T420 with i5 Cpu and only Intel HD3000 GPU

 

I need a Bios with Whitelist Removed to install a AR5B93 Wlan Card.

 

My Bios is UEFi Version 83ET53WW ( 1.23 )

Maschine Type 4236MBG

 

Its has a German Qwertz Keyboard.

 

My Question is:

 

I found some T420 Bioses with 1.46 and Wlan Whitelist removed.

 

Can i Flash any T420 Bios Files without Problems or exist different T420 with different Bios

 

I attached the Bios as Picture.

 

Thank you

[tluck]

@manwe150

 

well its good to know how to do this. i was not familiar with either of these i did some reading. looks like clover supposedly does this for us by reading the SMBIOS now. i don't have either of these vars in my nvram. and perhaps yours were out of date and overiding the SBMIOS values? one may need to remove them from nvram.plist and let clover generate the stuff by populating/reading SMBIOS.

 

from the wiki - says that these 2 vars (MLB and ROM) are now deprecated and clover generates a SMBIOS string with these. clover-genconfig will spit out the MLB value for you. 

 

see RtVariables

 

ioreg -l |grep SMBIOS

cut and paste the stuff between <> and run through xxd -p -r and you see what this byte string has in it.

 

 

@samsunlu55

 

well yes. many of us have done this without issue.

flash to real bios v1.46 and then flash with modded bios v1.46. (i did on my 2 boxes) see post #2036738 on this.

[Tetonne]

my iMessage just broke because my credit card info was out-of-date (at least I'm assuming that was the initial reason) afterwards, I couldn't get it to log back in

 

after some googling, I realized my ROM value was possibly bad (all zeros):

/$ nvram -px | egrep 'MLB|ROM'
XX-XX:MLB XX%00
XX-XX:ROM %00%00%00%00%00%00%00%00%00%00%00%00%00

for some reason, this was suddenly a problem? anyways, i decided to try updating it.

 

I couldn't get `nvram` to write a new value from ROM like it is supposed to (it refused to update):

/$ sudo nvram XX-XX-XX:ROM=%00%00%00%00%00%00

So I made the edit by hand:

 

First computing the base64 encoded hex string for my mac address:

/$ python
Python 2.7.5 (default, Mar  9 2014, 22:15:05) 
[GCC 4.2.1 Compatible Apple LLVM 5.0 (clang-500.0.68)] on darwin
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import base64
>>> base64.encodestring("\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00")
'AAAAAAAA\n'

where the string of 00's was my en0 ether id:

/$ ifconfig en0 | grep ether

And pasting the result (sans \n) into the appropriate section (XX:ROM) of my `/nvram.plist` file

 

Then I moved the nvram shutdown script out of the way to avoid replacing this value:

/$ sudo mv /etc/rc.shutdown.d/80.save_nvram_plist.local /

And rebooted.

 

I was then able to log into iMessage. (and I then also moved the rc.shutdown script back)

 

i experiment same problem here (same case here visa card was out of date,) except nvram -px | egrep 'MLB|ROM' give me nothing even right now (even if i got further (a bit)

thanks to your advice manwe150

Now :

nvram 4D1EDE05-38C7-4A6A-9CC6-4BCCA8B38C14:MLB and nvram 4D1EDE05-38C7-4A6A-9CC6-4BCCA8B38C14:ROM give me the same value as i have on my FaceTime/imessage 2nd HD

so i consider is ok (confirmed with iMessage.debug) 

but no connection right now 

 

i moved out all rc.(clover) script from /etc

 

must have a pb with nvram data cos then i try

sudo nvram -d efi-boot-device,

nvram efi-boot-device still there

<array><dict><key>IOMatch</key><dict><key>IOProviderClass</key><string>IOMedia</string><key>IOPropertyMatch</key><dict><key>UUID</key><string>FF33309E-7909-4F25-BEA9-xxxx...</string></dict></dict><key>BLLastBSDName</key><string>disk0s2</string></dict></array>

I don't know how to replace nvram with the one i prepare on /root place

nvram -x -p give me the file i want to delete but not the date stored in /nvram.plist

 

why nvram 4D1EDE05-38C7-4A6A-9CC6-4BCCA8B38C14:MLB or ROM give me a value

and i've the trace of 4D1EDE05-38C7-4A6A-9CC6-4BCCA8B38C14:MLB  when i do nvram -x -p?

 

FYi : i did visa card update, Apple password change,

Clean up all interfaces in System Preferences > Network and sudo mv /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/NetworkInterfaces.plist

login to AppStore than iCloud,

but FaceTime and iMessage are not usable (message say please contact apple...)

 

when we see number of pages talking about iMessage issue on mackintosh (clover or chameleon)...

may be dev could work on this issue to make it work easyly a improvement of iMessage.debug...

 

many contradictions can be read too

iMessage and FaceTime are not my priority but it use to work that the reason why i'd like to make it work again lol

 

I wish to all a good WE

 

update : i found that :

 Solving The Nvram Problem, Solved in Clover 2837+

#36

[Manwe150]

My message was that there was a login problem, but not the contact apple problem. My research suggested that changing your ROM, MLB, or wifi card will result in your getting blacklisted by the apple servers and cause the message to say "please contact apple". The correction for which is to call them and ask for them to unblock you.

[Tetonne]

iMessage information :http://www.projectosx.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=3298&st=120&p=41567&&do=findComment&comment=41567

it may be useful many information about this and all are not good quality

my information must be block by apple so i failed to repair (1st HD KO, 2nd HD OK)

 

Hope clover configurator dev will release a auto filled solution then i'll start for a new serial

[Cowboy Mike]

Yosemite DP7 out - installing - will report back

[tluck]

yup installed DP7 and all went ok. Except now I have the dreaded iMessage call support message. 

[Cowboy Mike]

iMessage is dead, I can confirm that. Then I do have another issue with my SSD

 

 

And have a look at this

 

tluck - are you preparing an updated bundle today? Otherwise I'll go and update clover just like that.

[tluck]

Just posted a new bundle for Yosemite DP7 here: Clover UEFI on T420 Guide

 

03-September-2014 - 10.10 DP7/Beta Update

• Clover updated to v2850
• FakeSMC updated to 6.11.1328
• Added drop table MCFG for Nvidia/Optimus (mixed gfx)
• Added drop table DMAR so VT-d does not have to be disabled
• ACPIBacklight.kext - v2.0.3 - with modified code to fix/workaround for LCD brightness in Yosemite.
• Added 10.10 kext folder (revised AppleHDA.kext and BroadcomBluetooth kext - are different than Mavericks or last DP)
• Note: To make an Yosemite USB installer, just follow the 10.9 Mavericks method

 

Notes:

1. screen sharing does weird things with the mouse. have to move mouse to dock or click on menu to show it after moving it out of screen share.
2. @Cowboy Mike - i am getting the same (not accurate picture for my boot drive  (SSD) that shows inaccurate category amounts
3. iMessage was dead (got can't use ID until you contact support message/error). So i put in the same MLB and ROM values from my real mac in the config.plist RtVariable section and it worked to register iMessage. not sure if one of both did the trick. my suspicion is it is all about the ROM value. but i have not tested this theory. (ran imessage_debug on my mac and then put the values in config.plist with Plist editor.)

[Cowboy Mike]

@tluck - thanks a mil

[Adrenalation]

 

Just posted a new bundle for Yosemite DP7 here: Clover UEFI on T420 Guide

 

03-September-2014 - 10.10 DP7/Beta Update

• Clover updated to v2850
• FakeSMC updated to 6.11.1328
• Added drop table MCFG for Nvidia/Optimus (mixed gfx)
• Added drop table DMAR so VT-d does not have to be disabled
• ACPIBacklight.kext - v2.0.3 - with modified code to fix/workaround for LCD brightness in Yosemite.
• Added 10.10 kext folder (revised AppleHDA.kext and BroadcomBluetooth kext - are different than Mavericks or last DP)
• Note: To make an Yosemite USB installer, just follow the 10.9 Mavericks method

 

Notes:

1. screen sharing does weird things with the mouse. have to move mouse to dock or click on menu to show it after moving it out of screen share.
2. @Cowboy Mike - i am getting the same (not accurate picture for my boot drive  (SSD) that shows inaccurate category amounts
3. iMessage was dead (got can't use ID until you contact support message/error). So i put in the same MLB and ROM values from my real mac in the config.plist RtVariable section and it worked to register iMessage. not sure if one of both did the trick. my suspicion is it is all about the ROM value. but i have not tested this theory. (ran imessage_debug on my mac and then put the values in config.plist with Plist editor.)

 

And for users that don't have access to a mac? Is there any hope in fixing imessage? My smbios looks quite empty

[ted23p]

Thanks for the guide. Everything worked on a first install with the 03-September-2014 release without modifications.

I have a T420i (4177-CTO).

I only had to turn the levels up in the MIDI sound utility to actually hear the internal speakers.

I won't be replacing the Intel (6300) Wi-Fi card, so I am using HoRNDIS for Android USB tethering.

 

EDIT: I guess the only issue is that I've had to disable hibernate (like some other people) because when trying to wake from hibernate it would get stuck on the screen with the apple logo and loading bar. The last bar segment never completes / gets colored. I have to hard power cycle and cancel hibernate from the clover spacebar menu.

[d.u.o]

I just want to thank you tluck because with your gide i've been able to install mavericks on my T420 and everything is working fine. Now i want to install Yosemite, let me mention here that i don't use clover, instead i use the chameleon method. Everything works fine in Yosemite except audio, apparently the kext doesen't load. Can you help me out and give me a solution to the problem? Thank you!

[tluck]

@d.u.o - i can't think of a good reason why the AppleHDA.kext would work for Clover and not for Chameleon. why won't it load for you?

 

you have you tried Clover say on a USB? it's very easy to use. I am running Yosemite DP7 on the latest release of clover.

[d.u.o]

I guess i will give it a shot, just to see if the audio works with the clover installation. Thank you and I will get back with the result.

[d.u.o]

Ok, so after countless attempts i've managed to install Yosemite using clover and updated to dp 7. Sound is working tluck, as you said, but only if I choose from system preferences the internal speakers as output and the headphones jack doesen't seem to work. The battery icon doesn't want to appear in the  menu bar. I ran into some problems because on my notebook I'm able to install os x only on a mbr formated drive, but i've managed to bypass the problem. Now I have to learn a little bit about Clover Any ideeas on sound output and battery icon? Than you for your hard work!

[tluck]

@d.u.o

if you follow my installation guide exactly, then you will have a fully working system using clover.  The problems you are seeing are not uncommon if the configuration steps are not followed closely. The lack of sound and battery makes me think you don't have the custom dsdt.aml in place - meaning the file  /Volumes/EFI/EFI/CLOVER/ACPI/patched/dsdt.aml is not there? Did you rename the folder ACPI.1366x768 to ACPI?

 

Using clover means direct installation on GPT disks -  so thats the big difference. It means reformatting your system drive GUID/GPT. 

No more MBR formatted system drive  so that means you also boot via UEFI - both OS X an Windows.

 

Not sure why you had so much trouble getting OS X installed? 

if you have a 2nd drive, then i would format that GUID so you can get it working with OS X and Clover - then you can mess with dual boot etc.