Lenovo ThinkPad T420 with UEFI Only

[SnuK]

The first post tells you 

Quote

...add the AirPortAtheros40.kext to IO80211Family.kext/Contents/Plugins...

 

So copy the AirPortAtheros40.kext from the HighSierra IO80211Family.kext to the Mojave IO80211Family.kext/Contents/Plugins and run the Kext Utility to repair permissions and update the caches.

 

Will work at the moment, nobody knows if this will work with the official release of Mojave.

[maihoward1985]

On 9/15/2018 at 10:12 AM, bedfellow said:

I had tried copying over High Sierra IO80211Family.kext, but that didn't work, even after several reboots, so thought I would give an external USB wifi dongle a try whilst trying to work out how to get the internal card working.

 

The USB dongle didn't work so I went searching for drivers for that and discovered https://github.com/chris1111/WIFI-Network-macOS-High-Sierra, which I installed. On reboot I had wifi, so assumed it was the dongle, but surprisingly it is actually the built in wifi card. Not sure if it's c combination of both the kext and driver, or whether just the driver.

 

Next problem is that sleep does not work from either the menu nor shutting the lid.

Wow. Cool. 
I am downloading the driver you have shared and tried if it works to my USB Dongle.
 

[tluck]

I am sure this is mentioned before... these are the Apple kexts preserved (copied) from High Sierra to enable Mojave on the T420.  I put them all in /S/L/E. 

Note: the AirportAtheros40.kext does not need to be under the IO80211Family.kext directory. This is found in a subdirectory for HighSierra.

 

tluck@Toms-Mac /System/Library/Extensions

$ ls -ld *3000* *SNB* *Ath*

drwxr-xr-x  3 root  wheel  96 Mar  5  2018 AirPortAtheros40.kext

drwxr-xr-x  3 root  wheel  96 Mar  9  2018 AppleIntelHD3000Graphics.kext

drwxr-xr-x  3 root  wheel  96 Mar  9  2018 AppleIntelHD3000GraphicsGA.plugin

drwxr-xr-x  3 root  wheel  96 Mar  9  2018 AppleIntelHD3000GraphicsGLDriver.bundle

drwxr-xr-x  3 root  wheel  96 Mar  9  2018 AppleIntelHD3000GraphicsVADriver.bundle

drwxr-xr-x  3 root  wheel  96 Mar  9  2018 AppleIntelSNBGraphicsFB.kext

drwxr-xr-x  3 root  wheel  96 Mar  9  2018 AppleIntelSNBVA.bundle

 

@bedfellow - i presume the kext/driver bundle from chris1111 is making your USB wifi work - not the built-in Intel WiFi.

Edited September 18, 2018 by tluck
Updates for Mojave

[bedfellow]

@tluck, my in-built wifi does not work on Mojave but is ok in High Sierra. Installing the driver bundle from chris1111 made the in-build wifi work in Mojave!

 

According to system report in High Sierra, my wifi card is:

Atheros 9280: 4.0.74.0-P2P

 

I have since removed Mojave and reinstalled High Sierra. Again my wifi works in High Sierra with no further drivers/kexts required. Mojave also has an issue with power management on my T420, where the laptop will not sleep when either shutting the lid or from the menu.

Edited September 18, 2018 by bedfellow

[tluck]

@bedfellow - so i take it you replaced the typical Intel WiFi chip with the Atheros chip? what model Lenovo do you have? maybe add that info to your signature?

[bedfellow]

@tluck, I'll look at updating my signature. Meantime, I have a Lenovo Thinkpad T420 (4238AC6) and read that the standard built-in wifi card was not compatible so changed it to a Dell card (DW1510, I think?), having obtained a whitelist removed BIOS.

[SuperReaper]

Hi, I just test your new boot pack (2018.09.18) and it work fine with lastest version of clover, I'm not see any errors yet

[maihoward1985]

@tluck Your new packages work really smooth on my machine !!! Thank you so much

[freddie]

Hi, I managed to install Mojave on my T420s with Intel HD3000 (1024 VRAM), but the colours of the menu bar and menus are not OK. See images attached.

 

Anyone knows how to fix this?

 

Thanks!

[maihoward1985]

12 hours ago, freddie said:

Hi, I managed to install Mojave on my T420s with Intel HD3000 (1024 VRAM), but the colours of the menu bar and menus are not OK. See images attached.

 

Anyone knows how to fix this?

 

Thanks!

 

@Fridde: Different than previous MacOS which run smooth in machines that have non-metal supported graphics cards. MacOS Mojave have more requirements that only machines have Metal supported can able to run smooth. So that when we use HD3000* Kexts and Plugin that from High Sierra, these uncomfortable things are what we have to deal.

Here few things you can try: 
If you want your machine run "well" in Mojave. Turn on Dark Mode features, everything will turn into dark. 

If you want your machine looks "perfect" in Bright mode, 
You can try to put HD3000* Kexts and Plugin into L/E than S/L/E. There will little bit delay or slow down but the menu Bar colors will bright.

 

I hope it help, because I have tried both then I have decided just leave these kexts and Plugin in L/E.

 

Howard,

 

 

[freddie]

19 minutes ago, maihoward1985 said:

 

@Fridde: Different than previous MacOS which run smooth in machines that have non-metal supported graphics cards. MacOS Mojave have more requirements that only machines have Metal supported can able to run smooth. So that when we use HD3000* Kexts and Plugin that from High Sierra, these uncomfortable things are what we have to deal.

Here few things you can try: 
If you want your machine run "well" in Mojave. Turn on Dark Mode features, everything will turn into dark. 

If you want your machine looks "perfect" in Bright mode, 
You can try to put HD3000* Kexts and Plugin into L/E than S/L/E. There will little bit delay or slow down but the menu Bar colors will bright.

 

I hope it help, because I have tried both then I have decided just leave these kexts and Plugin in L/E.

 

Howard,

 

 

 

Thanks! I will give it a try... what if I but it in both L/E and S/L/E?

[freddie]

57 minutes ago, maihoward1985 said:

 

@Fridde: Different than previous MacOS which run smooth in machines that have non-metal supported graphics cards. MacOS Mojave have more requirements that only machines have Metal supported can able to run smooth. So that when we use HD3000* Kexts and Plugin that from High Sierra, these uncomfortable things are what we have to deal.

Here few things you can try: 
If you want your machine run "well" in Mojave. Turn on Dark Mode features, everything will turn into dark. 

If you want your machine looks "perfect" in Bright mode, 
You can try to put HD3000* Kexts and Plugin into L/E than S/L/E. There will little bit delay or slow down but the menu Bar colors will bright.

 

I hope it help, because I have tried both then I have decided just leave these kexts and Plugin in L/E.

 

Howard,

 

 

 

This way it works fine, but my VRAM is 5MB... this makes everything impossible to use.

[bedfellow]

I didn't find the experience with Mojave to be very smooth. For me, the inbuilt wifi wouldn't work without additional kext/drivers, the system wouldn't sleep and everything just felt a bit sluggish.Maybe things will get smoother in the future, but for now I have reverted to High Sierra, which runs buttery smooth on my T420.

[freddie]

4 hours ago, bedfellow said:

I didn't find the experience with Mojave to be very smooth. For me, the inbuilt wifi wouldn't work without additional kext/drivers, the system wouldn't sleep and everything just felt a bit sluggish.Maybe things will get smoother in the future, but for now I have reverted to High Sierra, which runs buttery smooth on my T420.

 

I also had High Sierra, but I had occasionally glitches on the graphics; some lines appear randomly... Now I switched back to Sierra, which is very stable. Everything works fine...

 

Do you have these types of glitcheS?

[maihoward1985]

11 hours ago, freddie said:

 

Thanks! I will give it a try... what if I but it in both L/E and S/L/E?

 

Fredde: I have no idea. You can try to put them in both locations but I think the screen will still the same.

[bedfellow]

9 hours ago, freddie said:

 

I also had High Sierra, but I had occasionally glitches on the graphics; some lines appear randomly... Now I switched back to Sierra, which is very stable. Everything works fine...

 

Do you have these types of glitcheS?

 

I used to get lots but using the mojave.plist on High Sierra has reduced these significantly (it required a tweak to get 1600 x 900, as for some reason this was not the default). Now I only get the rare single line glitch whilst watching YouTube videos. I would say that on High Sierra, the hackintosh experience is very satisfactory for me. I wonder is Mojave is pushing the hardware a little too far though, especially with Apple dropping HD3000 support, I guess time will tell.

[tluck]

Not bad for a 7 year old box...

macOS 10.9, 10.10, 10.11 and 10.12 (Sierra) all worked fantastic.

But with 10.13 High Sierra - generally worked fine - but some glitches started showing up on systems with less than 16GB and some LCDs

Mojave for me seems to work about as good as as High Sierra overall - except with some trade-off in light mode color. so i often switch to dark mode.

 

if you put the HD3000 kexts in /L/E, I don't believe you will get full acceleration. 

[bedfellow]

2 hours ago, tluck said:

Not bad for a 7 year old box...

macOS 10.9, 10.10, 10.11 and 10.12 (Sierra) all worked fantastic.

But with 10.13 High Sierra - generally worked fine - but some glitches started showing up on systems with less than 16GB and some LCDs

Mojave for me seems to work about as good as as High Sierra overall - except with some trade-off in light mode color. so i often switch to dark mode.

 

if you put the HD3000 kexts in /L/E, I don't believe you will get full acceleration. 

 

I certainly have no complaints and really appreciate the continued work you have put into this. I'm more than happy with High Sierra with the mojave.plist and an upgrade to 16GB. I may attempt an upgrade to Mojave again a few months after full release, when everything will likely have settled down.

 

@tluck, what would you consider a good hackintosh successor to the T420?

[freddie]

3 hours ago, tluck said:

Not bad for a 7 year old box...

macOS 10.9, 10.10, 10.11 and 10.12 (Sierra) all worked fantastic.

But with 10.13 High Sierra - generally worked fine - but some glitches started showing up on systems with less than 16GB and some LCDs

Mojave for me seems to work about as good as as High Sierra overall - except with some trade-off in light mode color. so i often switch to dark mode.

 

if you put the HD3000 kexts in /L/E, I don't believe you will get full acceleration. 

 

I have 8GB of RAM and I only get a flawless experience with Sierra... 0 glitches. You don't have any glitches with High Sierra/Mojave with 16GB?

[bedfellow]

1 hour ago, freddie said:

 

I have 8GB of RAM and I only get a flawless experience with Sierra... 0 glitches. You don't have any glitches with High Sierra/Mojave with 16GB?

 

It's not flawless, but almost. I use Google Chrome for watching YouTube Video and I very rarely get a white line across the video. Quitting and restarting the browser clears it. If you are happy with Sierra and it does all you need it to do, then I see little point in changing. In my circumstances, I came to Hackintosh when High Sierra was the release.

[tluck]

my son's T420 has 16GB with LGD LCD replacement and  it works great. I took his 8GB with AUO LCD and i get occasional freeze and glitches.

In terms of next laptop options -- there are lots of other hackintosh-able laptops. i am familiar with Lenovo because it was my former company standard so tended towards these. I was really happy with my T460 (which may be great option again when it gets a little cheaper). 

[bedfellow]

I've been on the lookout for an LGD LCD but they are not easy to come by!

[pcace]

Heyhey, 

 

i have a question about the fan control: i am using a t420 with  an i7 2630 and was a litte disappointed with the heat problem running OSX. 

I never ran Windows on that machine until now. And now i realize that the fan can do MUCH more thant 4500rpm. On Windows it goes up to 6500rpm! 

 

What can i do to get this kind of cooling??? 

 

On OSX it usually runs at around 100 Celsius, when on full load. On Windows it does around 80....

 

Any help would just be great!!!

Thank you so much

[freddie]

55 minutes ago, pcace said:

Heyhey, 

 

i have a question about the fan control: i am using a t420 with  an i7 2630 and was a litte disappointed with the heat problem running OSX. 

I never ran Windows on that machine until now. And now i realize that the fan can do MUCH more thant 4500rpm. On Windows it goes up to 6500rpm! 

 

What can i do to get this kind of cooling??? 

 

On OSX it usually runs at around 100 Celsius, when on full load. On Windows it does around 80....

 

Any help would just be great!!!

Thank you so much

 

My fans are quiet on Sierra with my T420s i7-2620@2.7GHz. Maybe dust on the fans?

[maihoward1985]

Does anyone update official Mojave?.