Lenovo ThinkPad T420 with UEFI Only

[Sicole1811]

I now have ethernet working. Turns out it wasn't even working on windows 10 either, had to set it to fast via my router and it now works on both windows and macOS. I did a clean install of Catalina once again and not touched any kext manager/Utility and not faced one kernel panic and it's been running for a while now too. Ran dosdude1 post install after the installation and still the wifi kexts aren't loading. So with the patch updater, I selected the legacy wifi and done a reinstall. Doing a reboot in a few to see if it works. If not then I'll plug in a usb wifi dongle I've just got.

 

Catalina runs quite well tbh, just now need to figure out how to get it over to my ssd, as my ssd isn't being initialised on Catalina. May have to partition my high Sierra hdd as it's on a 500gb hdd, copy over Catalina via carbon copy, insert the ssd and run high Sierra as the ssd works on that, then copy over Catalina that way. Long process but that's the only thing I can think of

15 hours ago, tluck said:

after you unzip the file, make it executable by: 

chmod +x dspci

 

what was the KP from?

Sorry I didn't even see this. 

 

I don't know were the panics are coming from, I don't know how to log them when or before it happens

[goodguess]

Concerning SSD initialising - I seem to recall similar issues with SSD or HDD where DiskUtility refused to do its thing or stalled.

Usually Gparted is a good helper in such cases. There are Live CDs to be found online.

Gparted so far did handle anything in a mess for me. Depending on the Linux Live version you may need to set your T420 to legacy booting temporarily.

 

For KP, Console.app located at /Applications/Utilities does keep track of everything going on behind the curtains in macOS.

[tluck]

good to hear you are up and running.

 

well if you run the dspci tool, you check that the wifi card shows up at the HW level.

yup. my sdd has some SMART errors and cant directly install to it so i do what you did. i install macOS to my HD and the use CCC duplicate to my SSD.  but I have an expansion bay which makes it easy to have 2 drives.

note: Sierra likes to formart disks as HFS vs Mojave/Catalina likes APFS.  

 

have fun!

 

[Sicole1811]

@tluck

 

I'll run the tool very soon, just need to do some stuff first.

Oh I'm having fun, tried the copy over via booting to high Sierra where the ssd works, cloned catalina over but it refuses to boot. Gets to kernel version Darwin 19.3 and screen goes all weird. I'll just have to settle having Catalina on a hdd for now until I get a newer ssd. What's weird is on Mojave, my ssd didn't work on that, but when I used kext Utility to install appleAHCIport kext, the ssd then works, but can't do that on Catalina. Even that appleAHCIport kext doesn't get injected via clover, says failed or not patched. 

But anyway, I'll run the tool soon to see if my wifi card appears. Oh i did do a generate boot log in clover configurator earlier and my wifi card does appear there with the vendor ID etc

@goodguess

 

I'll give Gparted a go soon and thanks for the tip to set to legacy boot. Fingers crossed I can get it going.

So the console app does all the logging, thanks. I'll take a look if I get a panic.

 

Thank you both for all your help so far. It really is appreciated

[tluck]

you dont need any extra kext for SSD. make sure your bios is set right.

 

[_Cute_Kitty_]

tluck. I have it all set up great - everything is recognized and working but the wifi and sd card reader, as expected. intel graphics hd 3000 are also recognized with 500 mb of vram, but I'm having screen tears occasionally. I ran the display edid command to insall the display vendor IDs, but that doesn't seem to have helped it much. digging around on the internet, hd 3000 on high sierra seems to be a common occurence with screen tearing. I have 8gb of ram in my thinkpad t420 by the way, so that's not the issue. 

 

Any suggestions? Does your install do this too?

[Sicole1811]

@_Cute_Kitty_

 

I also have 8gb of ram too but I think it's down to hd3000 itself. I don't get any glitches on High Sierra, only on Mojave and Catalina. Catalina I can live with. But regarding hd3000 again, I'm sure I read somewhere on here that tluck had fixed the glitches. What hd3000 kexts to you have?

[_Cute_Kitty_]

2 hours ago, Sicole1811 said:

@_Cute_Kitty_

 

I also have 8gb of ram too but I think it's down to hd3000 itself. I don't get any glitches on High Sierra, only on Mojave and Catalina. Catalina I can live with. But regarding hd3000 again, I'm sure I read somewhere on here that tluck had fixed the glitches. What hd3000 kexts to you have?

I don't have any HD 3000 kexts as far as I'm aware. I simply installed High Sierra and graphics work straight out of the box, albeit the glitches. I did install display IDs contained in Tluck's t420 folder. BTW I have the 1366x768 screen version. That's interesting to hear that you don't have any glitches. May I ask what you did to tweak the display?

[tluck]

8 hours ago, Sicole1811 said:

@_Cute_Kitty_

 

I also have 8gb of ram too but I think it's down to hd3000 itself. I don't get any glitches on High Sierra, only on Mojave and Catalina. Catalina I can live with. But regarding hd3000 again, I'm sure I read somewhere on here that tluck had fixed the glitches. What hd3000 kexts to you have?

 

Glitches became a problem with HighSierra - and now with Mojave and Catalina since these last 2 use the same graphics kexts from High Sierra s (installed by Dosdude1 patcher)

 

before that 10.8->10.12, injecting a fake EDID fixed the problems - particuallary with the crappy AUO display. The alternate EDIDs and display overrides i put github work for 1600x900. i seem to recall tetone or someone posting there 1368 EDID which may hale

 

17 hours ago, _Cute_Kitty_ said:

tluck. I have it all set up great - everything is recognized and working but the wifi and sd card reader, as expected. intel graphics hd 3000 are also recognized with 500 mb of vram, but I'm having screen tears occasionally. I ran the display edid command to insall the display vendor IDs, but that doesn't seem to have helped it much. digging around on the internet, hd 3000 on high sierra seems to be a common occurence with screen tearing. I have 8gb of ram in my thinkpad t420 by the way, so that's not the issue. 

 

Any suggestions? Does your install do this too?

 

before that 10.8->10.12, injecting a fake EDID fixed the problems - particuallary with the crappy AUO display. The alternate EDIDs and display overrides i put github work for 1600x900. i seem to recall tetone or someone posting there 1368 EDID which may help you. 

 

[_Cute_Kitty_]

At the bottom of page 185 on this thread, I found a user that reported success switching EDID to 313c, but I'm not sure how to do that. I will look into it.

[tluck]

6 minutes ago, _Cute_Kitty_ said:

At the bottom of page 185 on this thread, I found a user that reported success switching EDID to 313c, but I'm not sure how to do that. I will look into it.

It was probably work i did with tetonne in 2013: try using one of these config.plist files attached. (these have that edid in there)

1366x768-config.plist.zip

Edited March 20, 2020 by tluck

[_Cute_Kitty_]

2 hours ago, tluck said:

It was probably work i did with tetonne in 2013: try using one of these config.plist files attached. (these have that edid in there)

1366x768-config.plist.zip

Hey thank you! I think that was exactly what I needed, so far so good, there are a few screen glitches but I can tell it's better, plus I can see that the EDID was injected in Clover Configurator - so that's all I can do with that - I'll leave it alone now. Thank you so much!

[freddie]

Hi guys, I came across some kexts that provide 1024Gb VRAM to the HD3000. I don't know if it is better or not than the original ones, but here they are in case someone wants to play with them and find out if we can improve the stability within HighSierra.

I'm in HighSierra with a T420s, and I continue to suffer with glitches and freezes...

1Gb HD3000.zip

Edited March 23, 2020 by freddie

[_Cute_Kitty_]

freddie: where did you find this? Have you tried it on a 1366x768 display?

Edited March 24, 2020 by _Cute_Kitty_

[freddie]

16 minutes ago, _Cute_Kitty_ said:

freddie: where did you find this? Have you tried it on a 1366x768 display?

 

I found it a couple of years ago when I started hackintoshing my T420s, but I don't remember where. It works and you get 1024MB VRAM, but I'm not sure if it really helps or not.

I have tried it but my res is 1600x900. Currently, the most stable is using the config file "3e-3" on the tluck repository.

 

But since I'm kind of a noob on these configurations, I have not messed around too much on the config files; I just use the ones I find around here.

[tluck]

2 hours ago, _Cute_Kitty_ said:

freddie: where did you find this? Have you tried it on a 1366x768 display?

guys - you wont need any special/different kexts to increase VRAM - may help remove glitches 

-- anyway if you want to increase your vram to 1G  just use these clover patches that i posted a couple of weeks ago.

 

@Freddy maybe you can try the "366" EDID. i am using that one now.

 

 i 

Edited March 24, 2020 by tluck

[freddie]

54 minutes ago, tluck said:

guys - you wont need any special/different kexts to increase VRAM - may help remove glitches 

-- anyway if you want to increase your vram to 1G  just use these clover patches that i posted a couple of weeks ago.

 

@Freddy maybe you can try the "366" EDID. i am using that one now.

 

 i 

 

@tluck probably you're right about the VRAM. But anyway, I was digging the past and I've got these kexts from here.

 

Today I've been using the 3e-3 the whole afternoon, doing some work between chrome, AirPlay with iTunes, YouTube, scripting with Atom, Excel and up to now no freezes. Only some graphical glitches.

 

@tluck Do you think the 366 is more stable? Which OS are you using? I'm on High Sierra.

 

 

 

[tluck]

21 minutes ago, freddie said:

 

@tluck probably you're right about the VRAM. But anyway, I was digging the past and I've got these kexts from here.

 

Today I've been using the 3e-3 the whole afternoon, doing some work between chrome, AirPlay with iTunes, YouTube, scripting with Atom, Excel and up to now no freezes. Only some graphical glitches.

 

@tluck Do you think the 366 is more stable? Which OS are you using? I'm on High Sierra.

 

 

i suggest the "366" version since I just replaced my LCD from the original AUO to a better LG model.  And this is EDID for the LG. 

Since the box has 16GB of RAM i decided to patch VRAM to 1GB (instead of 512M by default). High Sierra/Mojava/Catalina all use the SAME graphics. 

 

Note: I had to replace the LCD a few years since then it was in my son's laptop and he broke it!  $40 later i have no glitches.

 

 

Edited March 24, 2020 by tluck

[freddie]

15 minutes ago, tluck said:

 

i suggest the "366" version since I just replaced my LCD from the original AUO to a better LG model.  And this is EDID for the LG. 

Since the box has 16GB of RAM to patch VRAM to 1GB (instead of 512M by default). High Sierra/Mojava/Catalina all use the SAME graphics. 

 

Note: I had to replace the LCD a few years since then it was in my son's laptop and he broke it!  $40 later i have no glitches.

 

 

OK. I'll give it a try. Thanks!

Which OS are using right now? 

[tluck]

10 minutes ago, freddie said:

OK. I'll give it a try. Thanks!

Which OS are using right now? 

all of the them! but Catalina is the default.

i mostly use this box as a "Home Media PC" to stream video to my Samsung HDTV (and it is my TimeMachine)

 

the same ESP config.plist supports all 4 macOS versions:

 

HD 750GB

    Sierra on HFS partition

    High Sierra APFS volume

    Mojave on APFS volume

    Catalina (CCC Backup) on APFS Volume

SSD in expansion Bay

    Catalina (default) on APFS

    Win10 on NTFS

 

[freddie]

11 minutes ago, tluck said:

all of the them! but Catalina is the default.

i mostly use this box as a "Home Media PC" to stream video to my Samsung HDTV (and it is my TimeMachine)

 

the same ESP config.plist supports all 4 macOS versions:

 

HD 750GB

    Sierra on HFS partition

    High Sierra APFS volume

    Mojave on APFS volume

    Catalina (CCC Backup) on APFS Volume

SSD in expansion Bay

    Catalina (default) on APFS

    Win10 on NTFS

 

 

And Catalina runs as good as High Sierra on your T420? Do you have glitches or freezes in Catalina?

I have only 8GB of RAM, do you think I could install Catalina and get the same performance as in High Sierra?

 

Sorry for all the questions

[freddie]

I have installed macOS Catalina on my T420s. It's working more or less good, I had a system freeze, some glitches, but it runs OK.

I'm experience a very annoying thing: with some Apps, like for example, Chrome and any Microsoft Office app, when I click to start they don't. After trying several times, I get an error:

 

Exception Type:        EXC_CRASH (Code Signature Invalid)
Exception Codes:       0x0000000000000000, 0x0000000000000000
Exception Note:        EXC_CORPSE_NOTIFY

Termination Reason:    Namespace CODESIGNING, Code 0x1

 

After several trials, the app eventually starts.

I've read across the web about this error, but I couldn't find a solution. Some say is due to some eventual issue with the kexts but I don't know exactly on what aspect and how to fix it.

 

What do you think it could be issue here and how to solve it?

 

Thanks!

[tluck]

44 minutes ago, freddie said:

I have installed macOS Catalina on my T420s. It's working more or less good, I had a system freeze, some glitches, but it runs OK.

I'm experience a very annoying thing: with some Apps, like for example, Chrome and any Microsoft Office app, when I click to start they don't. After trying several times, I get an error:

 

Exception Type:        EXC_CRASH (Code Signature Invalid)
Exception Codes:       0x0000000000000000, 0x0000000000000000
Exception Note:        EXC_CORPSE_NOTIFY

Termination Reason:    Namespace CODESIGNING, Code 0x1

 

After several trials, the app eventually starts.

I've read across the web about this error, but I couldn't find a solution. Some say is due to some eventual issue with the kexts but I don't know exactly on what aspect and how to fix it.

 

What do you think it could be issue here and how to solve it?

 

Thanks!

 

Well to answer your earlier question. Catalina (and Mojave) will pretty much run exactly the same as High Sierra because some of underlying frameworks and in particular the GfX kexts are from High Sierra since apple does have support for HD3000 etc in Catalina (or Mojave)

 

i would try the 366 EDID to see if that help. and maybe try patch up to 1GB Vram

 

Catalina removed support for any 32-bit applications - so many older apps will flat out not work. Chrome will work if you upgrade it to the latest version etc.

 

Anyway, I hope you build your dosdude1 installer to automatically install the patches (see option in the Patcher tool) or did you apply the patches afterward? 

[freddie]

8 minutes ago, tluck said:

 

Well to answer your earlier question. Catalina (and Mojave) will pretty much run exactly the same as High Sierra because some of underlying frameworks and in particular the GfX kexts are from High Sierra since apple does have support for HD3000 etc in Catalina (or Mojave)

 

i would try the 366 EDID to see if that help. and maybe try patch up to 1GB Vram

 

Catalina removed support for any 32-bit applications - so many older apps will flat out not work. Chrome will work if you upgrade it to the latest version etc.

 

Anyway, I hope you build your dosdude1 installer to automatically install the patches (see option in the Patcher tool) or did you apply the patches afterward? 

Yes, I had "Auto-apply" patch option activated when I created the bootable USB. I think it is due to the fact that I installed the latest update of Catalina 10.15.4. Which one do you have?

 

[tluck]

Just now, freddie said:

Yes, I had "Auto-apply" patch option activated when I created the bootable USB. I think it is due to the fact that I installed the latest update of Catalina 10.15.4. Which one do you have?

 

i just reinstalled 10.15.4 (i say that because i must do it from the USB installer)