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Lenovo ThinkPad T420 with UEFI Only

K0gen

By K0gen,
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tluck
tluck
Posted
Posted

so you can boot OSX from the HD via the the USB (clover OSX installer)... well then 2 things:

 

1) windows may have set your default boot option to be Windows Manager in bios...  so the system bypasses Clover on the HD.

go into the BIOS and remove or move windows manager down so then your disk0 is the first option.

 

2) when you boot up you can mount the ESP on the HD it probably contains /EFI/BOOT /EFI/Clover and /EFI/Microsoft (and maybe /EFI/APPLE)

and make sure the file /EFI/BOOT/BOOTX64.efi is actually a copy CLOVERx64.efi versus a windows bootx64.efi 

 

$ ls -l /Volumes/ESP/EFI/BOOT

total 1290

-rwxrwxrwx  1 tluck  staff  660416 Jan  7 09:13 BOOTX64.efi

 

tluck@Toms-Mac /

$ ls -l /Volumes/ESP/EFI/CLOVER/CLOVERX64.efi 

-rwxrwxrwx  1 tluck  staff  660416 Jan  7 09:13 /Volumes/ESP/EFI/CLOVER/CLOVERX64.efi

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karlamba
karlamba
Posted
Posted

Exacly...

 

I'm very sorry because it is really shame... the simplest thing was the root cause here and I didn't notice this before... but as you said:

 

I had set up in my BIOS startup order to boot first from WIN7 bootloader, then next OSX and at the end from primary HDD...

 

so at the end... the fix was to set up boot order from HDD first... and finally I have the clover booted and I can choose between OSX and WIN7!!!

 

many thx tluck again! for your patience and really fast help... :)

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tluck
tluck
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Posted

NP.  I mastered the dual boot thing since my 3 kids all have dual-boot hack laptops - they run OSX as primary. but they have a few games that only run on windows... And then windows 10 is good for streaming xbox their system!

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trifero
trifero
Posted
Posted

Yes. Everything works well & fine (temp, no throttling, etc.), see my spec.

 

Also read and see benchmarks in my posts: #2174222 , #2174665

 

Do not listen to those who live by rumors and not based on own experience.

 

Thank you so much, gromalle. I´m gonna investigate this. I suppose that 2860QM is too much. Did you notice a heavy battery consumption?

 

 

Thanks.

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gromalle
gromalle
Posted
Posted

I suppose that 2860QM is too much. Did you notice a heavy battery consumption?

 

 

i7-2860QM and i7-2720QM have the same TDP (45W) and T-Junction (100 C), I suppose that in addition to 2MB cache bonus with higher base/turbo frequency, you will not get any problems.

But I don't have information about BIOS support, because i7-2860QM have different launch date: Q4'11 vs Q1'11.

 

I use my T420 as a workstation ( + external fullhd monitor through DP-to-DVI converter cable), so 100% of time it runs from power adapter.

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Somez
Somez
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Posted

@somez - hmm weird. what does your idle CPU say? are you just using the LCD? what is

 

 

@karlamba -

 

yeah rufus is a good tool. 

 

however, for windows 10 I just downloaded the windows media creation tool to make my USB windows installer.   Then I set UEFI only in my bios, so it boots the USB in UEFI mode.

as we all probably know, the Win 7 pro license that comes with most T420 systems can also license windows 10 pro as well. i installed win10 by skipping entering the license key, and later it seems to read it from the BIOS SLIC table to activate automatically.

 

so just to validate the whole thing for myself - which i haven't down in a while - i created a "test" dual boot drive.

 

took a spare 120GB SATA drive

formatted it as GPT with disk utility.app

created 2 partitions OSX and Untitled  - set the 2nd sized to 48 GB with the dial. Note: this crappy new tool in El Cap cant create free space other wise i would do that for windows space.

installed OS X by USB - takes about 1 hour

installed Windows10 by USB - takes about 1 hour - Note: just have 1 USB and 1 HD in place (otherwise the installer can get confused)

select custom install

selected the 48 GB primary partition

deleted this partition - which is OSX formatted

created a new partition - which then made the MSR and Primary partitions (if there was more space I think it would also make a Windows Recovery partition)

 

here is what it looks like now with gtp:

osx made the recovery partition 3

windows made partitions 4 and 5 

 

$ sudo gpt -r show disk7

      start       size  index  contents

          0          1         PMBR

          1          1         Pri GPT header

          2         32         Pri GPT table

         34          6         

         40     409600      1  GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B

     409640  139066424      2  GPT part - 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC

  139476064    1269536      3  GPT part - 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC

  140745600       1152         

  140746752      32768      4  GPT part - E3C9E316-0B5C-4DB8-817D-F92DF00215AE

  140779520   93661184      5  GPT part - EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7

  234440704        909         

  234441613         32         Sec GPT table

  234441645          1         Sec GPT header

 

$ sudo gpt -r show -l disk7

      start       size  index  contents

          0          1         PMBR

          1          1         Pri GPT header

          2         32         Pri GPT table

         34          6         

         40     409600      1  GPT part - "EFI System Partition"

     409640  139066424      2  GPT part - "OSX"

  139476064    1269536      3  GPT part - "Recovery HD"

  140745600       1152         

  140746752      32768      4  GPT part - "Microsoft reserved partition"

  140779520   93661184      5  GPT part - "Basic data partition"

  234440704        909         

  234441613         32         Sec GPT table

  234441645          1         Sec GPT header

 

 

No external LCD is connected. However the root cause must be an OS X process syncing something from iCloud because this morning I booted up without the ethernet cable connected and my fan stayed at 2000 RPM. Then a few minutes later I plugged in the ethernet cable and nsurlsessiond, cloudd and kernel_task processes immediately fired up using only a small amount of CPU and my CPU idle is between 89 and 98%. Still this seems to be enough to push the fan up to 3200 RPM so I'll leave my machine to run for a while and have enough time to sync. We'll see what's gonna happen.

 

Thanks.

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Somez
Somez
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Hmmm... it seems I have to re-think this whole "high fan RPM" situation. Yesterday I was trying to find out what is triggering the higher RPM zones (~3200 RPM). I was under the impression that the cloudd process that is syncing to iCloud is causing it, but my fan still keeps running now even when there is no ethernet cable connected. The CPU idle is around 98% still the fan does not want to go below 3200 RPM. My CPU temp is around 50 C in these cases. Neither Activity Monitor nor TOP command from Terminal shows anything that could consume my CPU.

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rolitab
rolitab
Posted
Posted

I want to buy external display for my T420, but I never tried to connect anything to DisplayPort on my laptop. I don't even have the cable and cannot check it. Will I need some special kexts for connecting, or everything will work out of the box? I am using 10.10.4.

I am really sorry for the dumb question.

Thanks everyone in advance.

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trifero
trifero
Posted
Posted

I want to buy external display for my T420, but I never tried to connect anything to DisplayPort on my laptop. I don't even have the cable and cannot check it. Will I need some special kexts for connecting, or everything will work out of the box? I am using 10.10.4.

I am really sorry for the dumb question.

Thanks everyone in advance.

I can confirm you that My T420 with a Apple Led Display 27 works exactly as muy "old" macbook Air 2013. No further task is necessary.

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tluck
tluck
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yes an external monitors work on the DP without any issue or fuss. just connect with proper cable you will see a 2 display. For exampleI use a DP to DP cable to connect my HP 24" monitor. i also have some DP adapters for other cable types: HDMI, DVI and VGA.  i use this box for work and travel and it will connect to any option! The actual VGA is kind of wonky (passive) so DP to whatever is a lot easier.

 

@somez - 50C seems high for idle?  well my box seems to idle with CPU temps 40-44 C and then above (not sure the point), the fan moves from 1980 RPM seem  3250 RPM. and then it will jumps to 3575 RPM all day - my cores are 47-49 C -- cpu watts are 9 - with LCD + ext mon.

 

interesting is that i have a different T420 now. old box MoBo died. so replaced mine for a "parts" one $75 on eBay. anyway, this one seems to hardly have been used. my old one used to heat up to around 95C when i compiled stuff, transcode video or ran geekbench3. i mean it got super hot under heavy load.  but this new one stays in the low to mid 80s at most. so you may be check the heat sink and apply new paste to your CPU - it may be old and dry. and if necessary rid all the dust from the fans etc while you are in there. 

 

@trifero yes you can change the serial numbers and other other variables such as MLB and ROM values so iMessages (Messages) FaceTime will work

my config looks like this - of course the  ABC and 123 strings are set to my set of unique values 

 

        <key>RtVariables</key>

        <dict>

                <key>BooterConfig</key>

                <string>0x28</string>

                <key>CsrActiveConfig</key>

                <string>0x3</string>

                <key>MLB</key>

                <string>C02ABCDEFGHIJKLMN</string>

                <key>ROM</key>

                <string>ca02ab123456</string>

        </dict>

        <key>SMBIOS</key>

        <dict>

                <key>Mobile</key>

                <true/>

                <key>SerialNumber</key>

                <string>C02ABCDEDFGH</string>

                <key>Trust</key>

                <true/>

        </dict>

 

 
if you run the command line tool clover-genconfig (install as part of the full Clover install pkg) you can see the full set of SMBIOS options.
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Somez
Somez
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yes an external monitors work on the DP without any issue or fuss. just connect with proper cable you will see a 2 display. For exampleI use a DP to DP cable to connect my HP 24" monitor. i also have some DP adapters for other cable types: HDMI, DVI and VGA.  i use this box for work and travel and it will connect to any option! The actual VGA is kind of wonky (passive) so DP to whatever is a lot easier.

 

@somez - 50C seems high for idle?  well my box seems to idle with CPU temps 40-44 C and then above (not sure the point), the fan moves from 1980 RPM seem  3250 RPM. and then it will jumps to 3575 RPM all day - my cores are 47-49 C -- cpu watts are 9 - with LCD + ext mon.

 

interesting is that i have a different T420 now. old box MoBo died. so replaced mine for a "parts" one $75 on eBay. anyway, this one seems to hardly have been used. my old one used to heat up to around 95C when i compiled stuff, transcode video or ran geekbench3. i mean it got super hot under heavy load.  but this new one stays in the low to mid 80s at most. so you may be check the heat sink and apply new paste to your CPU - it may be old and dry. and if necessary rid all the dust from the fans etc while you are in there. 

 

@trifero yes you can change the serial numbers and other other variables such as MLB and ROM values so iMessages (Messages) FaceTime will work

my config looks like this - of course the  ABC and 123 strings are set to my set of unique values 

 

 
if you run the command line tool clover-genconfig (install as part of the full Clover install pkg) you can see the full set of SMBIOS options.

 

 

Thanks for the tip tluck. I'll check how worn the thermal paste is on the CPU. Truth to be told I bought this machine from a second hand shop, they give me 6 months of warranty and the machine looked clean inside so I'm assuming new thermal paste has been applied. But it's definitely worth a quick check.

 

I've also found settings in the BIOS to adjust the amount of throttling on battery and also on AC power. There aren't too many options as I can recall (I'm at work now, can't check my T420 which is at home): maximum performance, balanced performance.

 

Anyway, I'll report back my findings so hopefully others will benefit from it too.

 

ps. Do you think the "create custom SSDT" option of the installing guide could have any impact on this? I mean if i do something wrong then could it cause higher CPU frequency hence higher fan RPM?

 

Thanks.

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tluck
tluck
Posted
Posted

i would check the paste!!! blowing out the dust is easy to make it look good. 

 

last i checked the Clover generate P states pretty much matched what comes of the ssdt generation script - so i just use the Clover SSDT.  Some have created a "mobile" SSDT power profile so it will not run so fast on battery etc. i have not played with BIOS perf options much. 

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trifero
trifero
Posted
Posted

 

yes an external monitors work on the DP without any issue or fuss. just connect with proper cable you will see a 2 display. For exampleI use a DP to DP cable to connect my HP 24" monitor. i also have some DP adapters for other cable types: HDMI, DVI and VGA.  i use this box for work and travel and it will connect to any option! The actual VGA is kind of wonky (passive) so DP to whatever is a lot easier.

 

@somez - 50C seems high for idle?  well my box seems to idle with CPU temps 40-44 C and then above (not sure the point), the fan moves from 1980 RPM seem  3250 RPM. and then it will jumps to 3575 RPM all day - my cores are 47-49 C -- cpu watts are 9 - with LCD + ext mon.

 

interesting is that i have a different T420 now. old box MoBo died. so replaced mine for a "parts" one $75 on eBay. anyway, this one seems to hardly have been used. my old one used to heat up to around 95C when i compiled stuff, transcode video or ran geekbench3. i mean it got super hot under heavy load.  but this new one stays in the low to mid 80s at most. so you may be check the heat sink and apply new paste to your CPU - it may be old and dry. and if necessary rid all the dust from the fans etc while you are in there. 

 

@trifero yes you can change the serial numbers and other other variables such as MLB and ROM values so iMessages (Messages) FaceTime will work

my config looks like this - of course the  ABC and 123 strings are set to my set of unique values 

 

        <key>RtVariables</key>

        <dict>

                <key>BooterConfig</key>

                <string>0x28</string>

                <key>CsrActiveConfig</key>

                <string>0x3</string>

                <key>MLB</key>

                <string>C02ABCDEFGHIJKLMN</string>

                <key>ROM</key>

                <string>ca02ab123456</string>

        </dict>

        <key>SMBIOS</key>

        <dict>

                <key>Mobile</key>

                <true/>

                <key>SerialNumber</key>

                <string>C02ABCDEDFGH</string>

                <key>Trust</key>

                <true/>

        </dict>

 

 
if you run the command line tool clover-genconfig (install as part of the full Clover install pkg) you can see the full set of SMBIOS options.

 

tluck,  Where is located that .plist file?

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trifero
trifero
Posted
Posted

Yes. That´s the first thing i did. Nothing there

 

<key>RtVariables</key>\

        <dict>\
                <key>CsrActiveConfig</key>\
                <string>0x3</string>\
        </dict>\
<key>SMBIOS</key>\
<dict>\
<key>Mobile</key>\
<true/>\
<key>Trust</key>\
<true/>\
</dict>\
<key>SystemParameters</key>\
<dict>\
<key>InjectKexts</key>\
<string>Detect</string>\
<key>InjectSystemID</key>\
<true/>\
</dict>\
</dict>\
</plist>\
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Somez
Somez
Posted
Posted

Thanks for the tip tluck. I'll check how worn the thermal paste is on the CPU. Truth to be told I bought this machine from a second hand shop, they give me 6 months of warranty and the machine looked clean inside so I'm assuming new thermal paste has been applied. But it's definitely worth a quick check.

 

I've also found settings in the BIOS to adjust the amount of throttling on battery and also on AC power. There aren't too many options as I can recall (I'm at work now, can't check my T420 which is at home): maximum performance, balanced performance.

 

Anyway, I'll report back my findings so hopefully others will benefit from it too.

 

ps. Do you think the "create custom SSDT" option of the installing guide could have any impact on this? I mean if i do something wrong then could it cause higher CPU frequency hence higher fan RPM?

 

Thanks.

 

Damn, I managed to disassemble my machine and remove the heatsink. Everything looked good on it so I wanted to clean the sink and apply new thermal paste when I realised I don't know where have I left it. So at the end I had to skip this part and assemble everything. Will buy new paste next week.

 

Here are my values, do you think these justify my 3200 RPM?

post-1647866-0-35891500-1453495359_thumb.png

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