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Lenovo ThinkPad T420 with UEFI Only


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@arooni (David)

 

welcome to the forum! ... to answer/respond your questions.

 

1) i find it very snappy (once i replace the HD with an SSD). i don't do a lot of compiling - other than building some unix tools, clover and custom kexts. but you will find the SSD makes the box seem about 10x faster. it boots in 2-3 seconds vs about 30 seconds. 

 

2) yeah. the wifi is somewhat easy to fix. i was using a USB for awhile but then decided to buy a $10 wifi internal card from eBay. modding bios was pretty easy. just downloaded the bits and flashed it. replacing the internal card took about 20 minutes. i used Atheros 9280. 

 

3) see (1) above. i have a 160 Intel SSD but i am sure others will work.

 

4) VGA - yes the clover config patches the buffers to add VGA

 

5) i don't think OS X it can support 3 screens at once. but I use external monitor attached to the DisplayPort and LCD as 2nd display.

5.5 only thing not working is SD card. with some futzing with Serial numbers etc, one can get Message and FaceTime working. 

 

6) up to you...  I have a real mac and this Hackintosh.  i use my T420 95% of the time for 3 years. 

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Thanks for your detailed response and for trail blazing this!

 

Another few questions:

 

1) How much longer will specs on my T420 be powerful enough to have a good OS X experience?  

2) Can I run dual external monitors (display port + VGA out + laptop)?  Or can I get video out to two screens at least?

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Greetings,

Thank you so much for these detailed instructions!  I've found them so incredibly helpful and straight forward...  Saved me lots of time!  I do have an issue though:

 

At this point the machine runs great!  Ethernet works, resolution is solid (1600x900) and the system is smooth but I need to boot from USB in order to get things running... 

 - In bios, I see Mac OSX as a boot option as well as the HD...  how come?

 - I think I copied the Clover files as prescribed in the instructions...  any idea what I messed up?

 

EDIT:  I also didn't understand this part:

 

 

 

 Recommended: Use the folder with its config.plist with the custom dsdt.aml (as is) to start

 

I used the kext installer included in /Utilities from the zip you provided, but I didn't know what to do with the plist or the aml...  Yikes!  Sorry!

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@buddy.

 

so i presume your HD is GPT formatted? if so the procedure to install the zip is very similar to the USB. you mount the EFI partition and copy the same stuff you put on the USB. the comment is about not changing any parameters until you test it out. you just rename the ACPI.1600x900 folder the ACPI and config.1600x900.plist to config.plist (as outlined in the guide)

 

@arooni - 

 

1) no idea of what you consider acceptable

2) this is what i know: LCD + 1 external display on VGA or DP.  i have not not tried anything more elaborate. 

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I recently tried the latest public beta release of OS X 10.11 (El Capitan). Most things are working under the latest pack, however:

  • Brightness adjusts the meter on-screen, but will not actually brighten or dim the display backlight
  • Sound will not work, even with the kexts installed
  • The T420 will wake itself up as soon as it is put to sleep under OS X 10.11

 

Does anyone know more details about these issues?

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@Boctor. 

 

yup, i tried it last night too! worked pretty well. very encouraging. Note: i put all the custom kexts in /Library/Extensions (vs /S/L/E) and booted with arg rootless=0

 

audio worked once i rebuilt the caches. 

did not try sleep on 10.11 - will test later.  

remove the current ACPIBacklight.kext for brightness issue - i think RehabMan is working this for better/smoother brightness.

 

update 1: yup sleep issue. did this weird beep and wakes up - syslog says wake reason is EHC2 - which is USB devices...

 

update 2: so if i disable the fingerprint reader (biometric device) and BT - it will sleep/wake.

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@Boctor. 

 

yup, i tried it last night too! worked pretty well. very encouraging. Note: i put all the custom kexts in /Library/Extensions (vs /S/L/E) and booted with arg rootless=0

 

audio worked once i rebuilt the caches. 

did not try sleep on 10.11 - will test later.  

remove the current ACPIBacklight.kext for brightness issue - i think RehabMan is working this for better/smoother brightness.

 

yup sleep issue. did this weird beep and wakes up - syslog says wake reason is EHC2 - which is USB devices...

Interesting. There were sleep issues with USB on my old 2007 MBP as well, but different: The machine suspends and resumes fine, but all USB devices and the internal mouse/keyboard get disconnected on wake.

 

@tluck

I changed the BIOS to UEFI: First (vs Legacy-First).  This seems to have resolved things :)

That's how I did it when I first set up my T420 in January.

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Guys, I got this message on boot.

Backtrace 0xffffff80008db55c 0xffffff80008dbd62 0xffffff7f80f97be0 0xffffff7f80f7c6df 0xffffff7f80f97afa 0xffffff7f80faa9bb 0xffffff7f8101e3a7      Kernel Extensions in backtrace:
         com.apple.iokit.IOHIDFamily(2.0)[9E0049E8-0907-32A9-BB22-E3DAE3646FE6]@0xffffff7f80f79000->0xffffff7f81002fff
            dependency: com.apple.driver.AppleFDEKeyStore(28.30)[3BAA7FEE-7EF3-3A9A-A0B1-902A4AB7171F]@0xffffff7f80f6e000
         org.rehabman.voodoo.driver.PS2Trackpad(1.8.13)[37C5CAE2-1957-31DF-AAC3-CC872AA2BFF4]@0xffffff7f8101a000->0xffffff7f81028fff
            dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOHIDFamily(2.0.0)[9E0049E8-0907-32A9-BB22-E3DAE3646FE6]@0xffffff7f80f79000
            dependency: org.rehabman.voodoo.driver.PS2Controller(1.8.13)[2F4905F4-3979-30ED-89CE-235AC0C67C42]@0xffffff7f8100c000
 
I'm not sure what does it mean, since everything run without any problem. How to get rid this message?
 
Thanks.
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@Boctor. 

 

yup, i tried it last night too! worked pretty well. very encouraging. Note: i put all the custom kexts in /Library/Extensions (vs /S/L/E) and booted with arg rootless=0

 

audio worked once i rebuilt the caches. 

did not try sleep on 10.11 - will test later.  

remove the current ACPIBacklight.kext for brightness issue - i think RehabMan is working this for better/smoother brightness.

 

update 1: yup sleep issue. did this weird beep and wakes up - syslog says wake reason is EHC2 - which is USB devices...

 

update 2: so if i disable the fingerprint reader (biometric device) and BT - it will sleep/wake.

Yes, finally you installed it. How to disable the fingerprint reader  ?

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@parcox - you could install the newer VoodooPS2Controller from the zip.  is it installed in /S/L/E so it can handle all dependency?

 

@pmgh10 - i used pokenguyen's advice about the new USB port enablement kexts. So then i remove the EHC2/PRTA (device 0x9) from  the DSDT so the port for Biometric device was not present. for BT i used the switch on the side which disables radios.

 

so if EHC2 is empty then it sleeps. will have to see if later versions of El Cap behave differently. and what others can say about how to get these devices on the internal USB HUB to behave during sleep.  the 10.11 BT kext  ver 4.4 would not load properly for me. so i tried the 10.10 version and it loaded. got some KPs related to BT tho.

 

Update: was able to update the BT kext (custom) for 10.11 and it loads properly now.  but the big issue still is the EHC2 channel prevents sleep. the BT and finger print are on this hub. And when you try to put it sleep, the box acts like when you don't have the _DSM patch for the USB (EHC1/EHC2) device in place. meaning it just won't sleep due to the activity on the USB bus.

 

from what i am reading the 10.11 USB stack has been rewritten so will have to see what can be done about. whether its kexts or DSDT work. should be fixable.

Edited by tluck
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@maco55 -- if you installed the kexts in /S/L/E with proper permissions (root:wheel) then it could be a cache issue. so rebuild and you should be good to go.

 

the standard Intel wifi wont work ever.  use a USB wifi or replace with the intel wifi with a  Atheros or Broadcom chip. there are a couple of good lists for chips that are compatible with OSX. i personally have had good luck with Atheros 9280 (model AR5BHB92 1/2 height) in 3 of my Lenovo laptops. bought on ebay for about +/- $10 US. often found as HP Pavillion cards.   Anyway, you will need to install a modded 1.46 BIOS and then it works OTB.

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@maco55 -- if you installed the kexts in /S/L/E with proper permissions (root:wheel) then it could be a cache issue. so rebuild and you should be good to go.

 

the standard Intel wifi wont work ever.  use a USB wifi or replace with the intel wifi with a  Atheros or Broadcom chip. there are a couple of good lists for chips that are compatible with OSX. i personally have had good luck with Atheros 9280 (model AR5BHB92 1/2 height) in 3 of my Lenovo laptops. bought on ebay for about +/- $10 US. often found as HP Pavillion cards.   Anyway, you will need to install a modded 1.46 BIOS and then it works OTB.

I installed them in their proper places, but not sure what "proper permissions" mean. It just got installed without errors.

Rebuild what exactly?

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@maco55 - proper permissions means they are owned by root and group is wheel with 644 perms etc. i meant rebuild the kernel caches (sudo touch /System/Library/Extensions

 

---

 

@all  - been playing with El Capitan. here is zip file that is seems to be working for me on Public Beta 1 and 2. give it a try if you are testing out 10.11.x and let me know what you find.

 

update: see guide (link in signature)  for El Capitan support now.

 

 

Clover is updated to 3248

added rootless=0 boot arg

added El Capitan Disk icon

modifed the  DSDT for sleep (seems to work on Yosemite too)
- changed the _PRW method in HDEF and GBE device and it seems to work now -  versus wake immediately (Thanks Rehabman).

- instead of using "Dummy/modified" kexts for USB - i chose to patch the DSDT renamed EHC1/EHC2 to EHCA/EHCB etc. the mod/patch was based on RehabMan's U430 usb patch. 

 

created new Bluetooth Kext for El Capitan - find it in kexts/10.11_El_Capitan 

 

Note: for El Capitan, i have been putting all the custom kexts in /Library/Extensions vs /System/Library/Extensions.

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Clover is updated to 3248

added rootless=0 boot arg

added El Capitan Disk icon

modifed the  DSDT for sleep (seems to work on Yosemite too)

- changed the _PRW method in HDEF and GBE device and it seems to work now -  versus wake immediately (Thanks Rehabman).

- instead of using "Dummy/modified" kexts for USB - i chose to patch the DSDT

renamed EHC1/EHC2 to EHCA/EHCB (a 

 

created new Bluetooth Kext for El Capitan (put in kexts/10.11_El_Capitan 

 

Note: for El Capitan, i have been putting all the custom kexts in /Library/Extensions vs /System/Library/Extensions.

thanks a lot for the new pack

 

here is my feed back on Yosemite :

reboot ok, bluetooth ok

everything is ok  :)

 

I notice ntsf.efi is no more there in drivers64UEFI, am I true?

i'll test more tomorrow :)

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@maco55 - proper permissions means they are owned by root and group is wheel with 644 perms etc. i meant rebuild the kernel caches (sudo touch /System/Library/Extensions

 

 

Is there a specific way to apply these permissions?

 

I have the official BIOS 1.46, where's the modded one? And from my understanding I'll need the modded one to get OSX generally working?

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@maco55 - the easiest way is to use the Kext Utility.app -- its included in the zip. open the app and select and drag all custom kexts from the zip onto it and it will install them all and rebuild the caches. reread the guide for more details.

 

the modded bios generally is to unlock/remove the whitelist to allow a non-standard wifi card to replace the intel wifi. and no it is not required to get OS X working.

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@maco55 - the easiest way is to use the Kext Utility.app -- its included in the zip. open the app and select and drag all custom kexts from the zip onto it and it will install them all and rebuild the caches. reread the guide for more details.

 

the modded bios generally is to unlock/remove the whitelist to allow a non-standard wifi card to replace the intel wifi. and no it is not required to get OS X working.

Thanks! Got it to work!

 

Is it possible to mute mic and have the LED on/off on keyboard?

I cannot sign in with my AppleID in store, but can do online, suggestions?

 

I've been trying the trackpad gestures but none of them work, is there something i'm missing?

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mic mute - perhaps don't know for sure - not implemented  - speaker mute yes. 

 

appleID - is your ethernet device en0? otherwise no idea why not. remove all your network devices with sys prefs. then run the _post_install script in the kext folder. reboot and add ethernet device 1st.

 

enable the trackpad stuff in system prefs. you can do 1 and 2 fingers. up/down swipe (scroll etc).  and then realize it's not a mac trackpad so won't do fancy swipe stuff.

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mic mute - perhaps don't know for sure - not implemented  - speaker mute yes. 

 

appleID - is your ethernet device en0? otherwise no idea why not. remove all your network devices with sys prefs. then run the _post_install script in the kext folder. reboot and add ethernet device 1st.

 

enable the trackpad stuff in system prefs. you can do 1 and 2 fingers. up/down swipe (scroll etc).  and then realize it's not a mac trackpad so won't do fancy swipe stuff.

no, it's en1. How can i change that?

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Tluck. You're a genius. Your tutorial/method was the only one to work for me, after days of trials with other guides.
I'm still trying to solve some things, I can sofar boot only with a flash drive attached. Solved. Some fiddling, and r e a l l y careful re-reading and paying attention.

 

Do you know of a way to mod the bios from within OSX (I have a T420s), without having Windows installed? So I could actually use my Broadcom... until getting Windows installed.
Thanks.

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@csioucs - i don't know how to do it from OS X offhand. you have to make a bootable dos usb to flash the bios. imo, installing windows is probably the easiest way. 

I like a tool called rufus to make the bootable usb. if you don't want to make a physical instance of windows, you can make a VM - would not have to activate it.

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no, it's en1. How can i change that?

your main network souk be  en0. You could check it in System Profiler software, clic on  Ethernet or Wifi. In your case it must be opposite to the expected valus. To make it ok. go there /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration and delete « NetworkInterfaces.plist » and « preferences.plist »

 

after reboot i should be ok :)

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