Lenovo ThinkPad T420 with UEFI Only

[goodguess]

1/1 and 1/2 would both be right, I think. I did it 1/1 if memory serves.

2 Force cache rebuild can not harm, but I think its done anyway by default.

3 If you are using the config.plist with dual link, the manufacturer does not matter much.

 

If you are curious (like me) boot from a Knoppix 8.2 DVD, open Terminal and type in "hwinfo" without the quotes.

Display should be at entry 30 I think. (Any other GNU/Linux Life DVD should work as well.)

Do you have a BIOS with whitelist removed?

tluck posted the latest t420 BIOS 1.52 with whitelist removed a few posts back in this thread.

The removed whitelist is needed as you want to use a Broadcom WLAN card like the BCM94322HM8L DW1510.

The card is fairly cheap from China and it is picked up as Airport Extreme when dosdude1 patches have been applied.

 

This is the one for WLAN (WiFi): https://www.ebay.com/itm/PCI-E-BCM94322HM8L-DW1510-Mini-Dual-Band-300M-Wireless-For-DELL-Card-E4200-P7E5/143365127877?hash=item21613a3ec5:g:ivMAAOSwl8ZdYy8v

While you are at ebay, maybe consider a Vaseky 128GB mSATA as well, if your mPCIe slot at the bottom of the T420 is empty.

That slot is often populated by a WWAN (cell-phone) card.

(Already have three of those WWAN cards in my spares box, if anybody wants them, let me know.)

[tluck]

11. is good if you dont like the built-in color profile of the LCD - for me these overrides makes the color very natural vs bluish.

 

or to get the LCD manufacturer you can also look the built-in EDID as it provides the vendor code. just dont inject the one in config.plist and look at the EDID before you freeze up!

 

run:

ioreg -l | grep yEDID

 

[suzunski]

Hello,
First of all, my big thanks to the truck for its work and guidance, as well as big thanks to goodguess for the tips and assistance, you are №1. 
After all the tips and clarifications I received, I dare say that I already have a perfectly working Catalina on my ThinkPad T420.
I followed all your installation process guidelines and everything went smoothly.
After installing the operating system I had a freeze again but after replacing config.plist with one from the dual_link_config.plist archive, I no longer have problems. My display turned out to be AUO after checking with Knoppix 8.6, thank you @goodguess.
For WLAN (WiFi), I use the ASUS Wi-Fi Adapter USB-AC53 Nano, which I installed without a problem on Catalina.
Once again, thank you all for your support.
I continue to follow the topic and will be happy to help someone with my experience.

Edited January 23, 2020 by suzunski

[Kralj]

Nice man  . So do you have graphics glitch ?

34 minutes ago, suzunski said:

Hello,
First of all, my big thanks to the truck for its work and guidance, as well as big thanks to goodguess for the tips and assistance, you are №1. 
After all the tips and clarifications I received, I dare say that I already have a perfectly working Catalina on my ThinkPad T420.
I followed all your installation process guidelines and everything went smoothly.
After installing the operating system I had a freeze again but after replacing config.plist with one from the dual_link_config.plist archive, I no longer have problems. My display turned out to be AUO after checking with Knoppix 8.6, thank you @goodguess.
For WLAN (WiFi), I use the ASUS Wi-Fi Adapter USB-AC53 Nano, which I installed without a problem on Catalina.
Once again, thank you all for your support.
I continue to follow the topic and will be happy to help someone with my experience.

Nice man  . So do you have graphics glitch ?

[suzunski]

Everything works very well. These days I will test more extensively and write if bugs occur.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Kralj]

32 minutes ago, suzunski said:

Everything works very well. These days I will test more extensively and write if bugs occur.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Ok , nice , thanks man  .

[goodguess]

Nice work suzunski! Thanks for reporting back.

Is the USB WLAN working as Airport Extreme? Looks like that, from your pictures.

I would like to recommend Lulu, if you do not use a firewall already.

https://objective-see.com/products/lulu.html

If you are looking for anything else, send me a PM and I´ll see what can be done.

Edited January 24, 2020 by goodguess

[suzunski]

7 hours ago, goodguess said:

Nice work suzunski! Thanks for reporting back.

Is the USB WLAN working as Airport Extreme? Looks like that, from your pictures.

I would like to recommend Lulu, if you do not use a firewall already.

https://objective-see.com/products/lulu.html

If you are looking for anything else, send me a PM and I´ll see what can be done.

 

Hello,
no idea how my USB WLAN works  i used this link to install it Wireless USB Adapter.

I looked the web site of Lulu and I'm impressed  thanks for the suggestion.

Do I need to activate the built-in firewall or is it enough to install Lulu?

 

P.P. I noticed the appearance of black horizontal lines all over the display after using Safari and Google Chrome 

[goodguess]

Yeah, I did notice a few black stripes on a white/grey background too occasionally with WhatsApp under Mojave, LG display.

I can´t reproduce this "feature", its only now and then and usually goes away soon.

Guess thats the downside with an unsupported GPU.

Apple had a reason for stopping support of the HD3000.

If we would stay on the safe side, Sierra or maybe High Sierra would be the one for the T420.

Never saw black stripes with Brave browser, maybe try that one too, it has a Chromium engine under the hood.

 

Lulu starts the firewall after installation, you may choose to allow already installed apps or Apple apps to phone home - or not.

Other new outgoing traffic is always blocked and a requester pops up, where you may choose what to do.

 

[suzunski]

The first big bug came up, the mouse/touchpad and keyboard stopped working 

The only thing I have done before is that I changed the system to not start from dual_link_config.plist and from config.EDID-2e2.plist, which lost the horizontal black lines from the display but then the mouse and touchpad.

With external mouse and keyboard works.

I think I should switch to High Sierra, but the main purpose of this project is to use it for Photoshop and Lightroom and that was the reason for installing the latest version.

Edited January 24, 2020 by suzunski

[Kralj]

18 hours ago, suzunski said:

 

Hello,
no idea how my USB WLAN works  i used this link to install it Wireless USB Adapter.

I looked the web site of Lulu and I'm impressed  thanks for the suggestion.

Do I need to activate the built-in firewall or is it enough to install Lulu?

 

P.P. I noticed the appearance of black horizontal lines all over the display after using Safari and Google Chrome 

So I see you have black horizontal lines in safari and chrome. When I used High Sierra I had white horizontal lines in chrome , Skype , discord , also I had graphic glitches in Kodi so I installed Sierra and had only one time white lines in chrome ,also I have weird graphics glitch when I use chrome in this site and apple site , in this site glitch happens when I write message and in apple site whole header have glitch when I move mouse.Also I try Mozilla and also have line glitches but now lines are black. But in Safari there is no problem it runs without any glitch , so this days I use more safari than chrome.  Here is a video in using chrome to write the message  .

[ShroomKing]

Hey everyone. So first i want to thank @tluck for their work on this. It's amazing how the t420 is running the latest version of macOS, many years later.

Sorry if this has been asked before, i was having trouble finding an answer. I need to be able to access F1-F12, and i was wondering how i can remove/change the button mapping.

 

Also i just want to put this here for others:

I swapped my 768p screen for a 900p screen, when i tried booting i was met with a similar graphics glitch @goodguess posted a picture of.

Enabling duallink fixed the issue but i started experiencing a bunch of freezes/system lockups when doing almost anything (moving windows, opening notification center, playing a video fullscreen in safari etc.) and i just couldn't figure out why, i tried different macOS versions and reinstalling from scratch but nothing helped.

Yesterday i decided to check this thread to see if there is any information about this. I ended up trying the config from the dual_link_config.plist.zip @goodguess shared.

Surprisingly all the issues went away, and almost everything works perfectly now, even better than before i swapped the screen. (the black horizontal lines rarely show up now)

 

TL;DR: If you are having issues with a refurbished t420 or after swapping the screen try the config.plist in the dual_link_config.plist archive from goodguess' post a page back.

Also huge thanks to goodguess for posting the config. BTW, i bought one of DW1510, it hasn't arrived yet but i'm curious, did it work "Out of the Box" or did you have to install something to make it work? (other than dosdude1 patches)

[davidian]

DW1510 works out of the box afaik.

 

[tluck]

@ShroomKing

glad you got things working. Just curious about your new LCD - what manufacture is it?

 

and you can remove the F1-F12 keys maps by swapping out the SSDT-T420-PS2K-keys.aml file with the one without the map - SSDT-T420-PS2K.aml - or moddify the .dsl and recompile it.

 

this how they are mapped now:

          

    Name(_SB.PCI0.LPC.PS2K.RMCF, Package()
    {
        "Keyboard", Package()
        {
            "ActionSwipeLeft",  "37 d, 21 d, 21 u, 37 u",
            "ActionSwipeRight", "37 d, 1e d, 1e u, 37 u",
            "SleepPressTime",   "1500",
            "Swap command and option", ">y",
            "Custom ADB Map", Package()
            {
                Package(){},
                "e01e=4d", //previous (audio)
                "e045=42", //next (audio)
            },
            "Custom PS2 Map", Package()
            {
                Package(){},
                "e01e=e037", //Map tp disable to f8
                "e037=e01e", //Prevent PrntScr from triggering tp disable
            },
            "Function Keys Special", Package()
            {
                Package(){}, // The following 12 items map fkeys to Fn+fkeys
                "3b=e012", // F1  - Brightness Down
                "3c=e017", // F2  - Brightness Up
                "3d=3d",   // F3  -
                "3e=3e",   // F4  - Set Keyboard Shortcuts for Launchpad to F4
                "3f=3f",   // F5  - Set Mission Control Show Desktop from F11 to F5
                "40=40",   // F6  - Set Mission Control Show Dashboard from F12 to F6
                "41=e06e", // F7  - Video Mirror
                "42=e037", // F8  - TP on/off
                "43=43",   // F9  - 
                "44=e020", // F10 - Volume Mute
                "57=e02e", // F11 - Volume Up
                "58=e030", // F12 - Volume Up
                "46=e022", // ScrLck - iTunes - play/pause
            },
            "Function Keys Standard", Package()
            {
                Package(){}, //The following 12 items map Fn+fkeys to Fn+fkeys
                "e05f=e05f",
                "e012=e012",
                "e017=e017",
                "e06e=e06e",
                "e00a=e00a",
                "e009=e009",
                "e020=e020",
                "e02e=e02e",
                "e030=e030",
                "e010=e010",
                "e022=e022",
                "e019=e019",
                //The following 12 items map fkeys to fkeys
                "3b=3b",
                "3c=3c",
                "3d=3d",
                "3e=3e",
                "3f=3f",
                "40=40",
                "41=41",
                "42=42",
                "43=43",
                "44=44",
                "57=57",
                "58=58",
            },
        },

@Kralj

 

I started seeing random glitches from HighSierra+.

the alternate EDID gave us glitch free use for many years.... Mavericks, EL Cap, Sierra etc etc. but the magic stopped.

 

i have said this many times before.

my T420 with LG LCD + 16GB is virtually glitch free

my T420 with AUO LCD + 8GB is very glitchy. I often reset the screen size to remove glitches.

 

 

[goodguess]

One little gadget I received to today from China:

 

 

The ExpressCard is available for round about five bucks from Chnese sellers.

To my bewilderment this beast just works with macOS in the T420 ExpressCard slot.

No driver has to be installed no kext has to be patched, I tried with Mojave and Catalina.

 

 

So this looks like the solution for everybody still looking for a SD Card reader.

The ExpressCard fits in he slot perfectly, as does the SD Card fit into its place.

There seems to be no way to get out the SD Card however.

There is no spring to let the SD slide out as usual, pulling at the SD drags out the attached ExpressCard with the SD.

That seems to be the usual behaviour for this type of card.

Maybe a feature rather than a bug, as SanDisk designed this item as a permanent backup solution.

Except for that the SDAD-111 is working surprisingly well.

 

Edited January 27, 2020 by goodguess

[tluck]

Cool. i went with a USB SD card reader, as i have a USB3 card in my express slot.

[goodguess]

Interesting. I was trying several USB3 express cards, but they usually were very unreliable.

Data transfer hit and miss on my side. Which brand/device are you using? Can you recommend it?

[tluck]

i have a 4 port with a FresnoLogic chipset by AKE - it works out of the box in MacOS.

[suzunski]

Hello,
I had a slight problem with touchpad and the keyboard I solved by reinstalling Catalina.
I installed the operating system and everything was working fine, then I installed:
- Microsoft Office 2019;
- ABBYY FineReader 2019;
- Acrobat DC v.19;
- Photoshop 2020;
- Lightroom Classic 2020;
- Adobe InDesign 2020;
- CorelDRAW 2019;
- and more free software ... 
All the programs work very well on my hardware and on Catalina, and now I want to backup everything before I continue to install other software and modify the Clover files.
Previously, I used Corsair Voyager GT USB 3.0 - 32 GB for backup, which I backed up to 16 GB at the beginning.
But now I need a free 55 GB to make an archive 
I have WD My Passport Ultra USB 3.0 - 2 TB but after plugging it into my laptop the message from the Print Screen application comes out.
Please give me advice on how to get the laptop to look at the portable hard drive so I can back up everything and be reassured that if the system fails I can restore it to that position.
Thank you!

[goodguess]

My wife has a yellow 2TB USB3 WD Passport device for file transfer.

(WD My Passport Mobile WDBYFT0020BYL-WESN 2TB)

That hard disk is working with any of the T420 USB2 ports.

 

Some people are very fond of TimeMachine.

I do prefer bootable backups made with CarbonCopyCloner on SSD.

Still have a Sierra backup on a USB2 HDD, its working but is hardly usable for its slowness.

[tluck]

7 hours ago, suzunski said:

I have WD My Passport Ultra USB 3.0 - 2 TB but after plugging it into my laptop the message from the Print Screen application comes out.
Please give me advice on how to get the laptop to look at the portable hard drive so I can back up everything and be reassured that if the system fails I can restore it to that position.
Thank you!

its odd that it would need more power? but there are 4 ports - did you try all of them? maybe you need a usb3 Y cable that provides double/extra power.

[goodguess]

At Amazon for example, there is nothing regarding USB2 compatibility of the WD Ultra line.

The 2TB WD Portable on the other hand is offered as USB2 compatible.

Do you need a USB C to 3.0 Adapter with that device?

Could it be such an adapter is not usable for USB 2.0?

[suzunski]

12 minutes ago, goodguess said:

At Amazon for example, there is nothing regarding USB2 compatibility of the WD Ultra line.

The 2TB WD Portable on the other hand is offered as USB2 compatible.

Do you need a USB C to 3.0 Adapter with that device?

Could it be such an adapter is not usable for USB 2.0?

 

My WD My Passport Ultra started after I removed the USB WLAN, but I still backed up the Time Machine to an old external drive.
Now I plan to install CarbonCopyCloner and create an archive with it.
Is it possible to backup the system without user files and in the event of a system crash in which I cannot fully load the operating system, how to start recovery?

[tluck]

3 hours ago, suzunski said:

 

My WD My Passport Ultra started after I removed the USB WLAN, but I still backed up the Time Machine to an old external drive.
Now I plan to install CarbonCopyCloner and create an archive with it.
Is it possible to backup the system without user files and in the event of a system crash in which I cannot fully load the operating system, how to start recovery?

For me, i would just CCC everything to a 2nd disk so you can have a full (bootable) backup. Clover can boot from USB2 even though it may be sloooooow.

I prefer to CCC my SSD to a 2nd HD. recovering from a 2nd HD is way faster than a restore from timemachine.

For the OS, I consider the USB installer my system-only backup.

 

but sure, CCC allows you to pick and choose what folders get cloned.

[suzunski]

Hello,
After having a fully working Catalina on my T420, I wondered if it really would work faster and better with Sierra.
Before I started with Hackintosh, I had installed High Sierra and was very fascinated by the quick work of opening Photoshop, even though the laptop back then had its usual HDD.
Now that I am with SSD I expect the performance to be much better, but I notice that there is a delay in starting heavier programs and I am thinking very much about going back to Sierra.
As much as I was careful about the forum posts, I was left with the understanding that Sierra is best for the T420 and Intel HD Graphics 3000, right?