Jump to content

Lenovo ThinkPad T420 with UEFI Only

K0gen

By K0gen,
in Installation Guides

 Share
5,282 posts in this topic

Recommended Posts

tluck
tluck
Posted
Posted (edited)

@verleihnix - 

 

cool. excellent news. can you post the file or link to it? does it have whitelist for wifi?  i am guessing NWL means no white list.

 

well i found this on bios-mods.com

 

Here You go (Lenovo_ThinkPad_T420_83ET76WW-83uj28us_NWL_LEN21_ADV_RAM_Speedo_AES_vBios-2170) :

https://www.sendspace.com/file/ssxsqk

 

and i see that there is a 1.48 BIOS released about a month ago on Lenovo.com but i don't see any modded version.

 

Edited: i installed the BIOS from this post -- and time will tell.

 

it did give me 1600x900 resolution in the bios. cool.

it also opened up an advanced menu in bios - so i went in there and set my memory speed to 1333.

well so far so good. 

 

-- 
Edited by tluck
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Ezhik
Ezhik
Posted
Posted

Well, I downgraded back to Yosemite, no more glitches, and I get to use XtraFinder again, woop.

 

For whatever reason iMessage broke for me, though, wrote more about it here: https://www.reddit.com/r/hackintosh/comments/4bldsk/downgraded_to_yosemite_broke_imessagefacetime/


 

 

it did give me 1600x900 resolution in the bios. cool.

it also opened up an advanced menu in bios - so i went in there and set my memory speed to 1333.

well so far so good. 

 

Interesting! I wonder if it'll help get the Clover boot menu to go at native res?

Link to comment
Share on other sites
tluck
tluck
Posted
Posted

10.11.4 glitches - summary and notes on this issue

 

not sure what is causing them - other than something in 10.11.4 !

rolling graphics kexts back might work but the 11.4 GLDriver seems to be needed to get some apps java etc to work without KP.

i get glitches on my LCD as well as my external HP - so it seems to not be about the LCD EDID etc.

with the custom Graphics kext that seems to eliminate the  freezes.

the newest modded bios added native 1600x900 and some methods to set memory speeds etc. so i set memory to 1333 and 2N. and i played with memory allocations - results seems better... but again not certain it really did anything...

 

will report more as i get it 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
jus12
jus12
Posted
Posted

Hi Tluck,

 

at the moment since I booted my system this morning I didn't experience much glitches. I did have freezes and seroious graphic anomalies, as it was presented (screenshots) and mentioned by others. But after updating all kexts and EFI to the latest in this thread and rebooting twice, all has almost gone. I'm not sure if it's gone completeley, will monitor that. Usually I only boot the system once a day in the morning, so I need to do couple of more.

 

I was runnign Windows 10 in VMWare Fusion, all seems to work fine. I didn't do that bios update, but I'm not sure if that will help or is related.

What I have found somewhere else (I may try that once the glitches come back):

 

"

Its looks like i have solved the Intel HD3000 artifacts (not the problems caused by a wrong EDID).

 

Steps, if you want to try:

Go to S/L/E, copy AppleIntelHD3000Graphics.kext to desktop.
Right click and select show contents.
Open Info.plist.

Add this key:
 

Code:
<key>VRAMOverride</key>
<integer>100000000</integer>

Save and install the kext with Kext Wizard, reboot, you don't see any artifacts.

If you still have artifacts, try bigger value for VRAMOverride key.
Note: Always make backup!

"

Link to comment
Share on other sites
tluck
tluck
Posted
Posted

@jus12 -

 

yup i rebooted today and have not seen glitches all day. fingers crossed.  it seems random. so at the minimum i would install the custom kext which seems to prevent freezes - which for me requires a hard power off. 

 

i will look at that link later on

Link to comment
Share on other sites
tluck
tluck
Posted
Posted

@jus12 

 

well that information and approach is half right. the custom kext is similar but i got it from a different post referencing some very old work by revogirl.

 

$ strings AppleIntelHD3000Graphics |grep -i vram
VRAMAllocationMethod
VRAMSegmentMethod
VRAMMethod
invalid vram method %d
Not enabling dynamic vram
Using Dynamic VRAM method %d
init_VRAM_segments
VRAMSize
vramFreeBytes
vramUsedBytes

 

so the kext seems to read/use some VRAM vars - so perhaps VRAMOverride is totally useless.

but VRAMMethod and VRAMSize seem to have a positive effect. in the custom HD3000Graphics i set VRAMMethod 2 and VRAMSize 512

 

i updated my BIOS with this more recent modded bios. i went into to Adv menu settings and memory speed to 1333, mode to 2N and changed to TOLUD to dynamic and upped the gfx memory items to their respective max. so anyway i don't know which one had the right effect but I have not seen a glitch since.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
goodguess
goodguess
Posted
Posted

The big grey squares have gone away, without me doing anything about it except rebuilding permissions and re-starting.
What I´m seeing now are random grey squares, seemingly related to keyboard/touchpad action. Still very annoying.
I´ll try the HD3000 kext above...
 
Its not only Safari, as I thought before, the graphics errors occur with all kind of apps.
Thanks for caring comrades! Good to know I´m not alone with these "improvements" in 10.11.4.
 
Bnd.png

EDIT:
The HD3000 kext from #2402 solved the problem, but only for a short while.

 

EDIT2: Installed the 10.11.4 combo update onto the 10.11.4 system and the dead grey squares vanished.

After restart the graphics errors do come back at times - or not. No idea what triggers the grey squares.

Guess I´ll get me another SSD for the optical drive compartment and install 10.11.3 on it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
tluck
tluck
Posted
Posted

I reposted the workaround/fix kext above with install instructions - still working through this.

 

for some reason that i don't understand, the Info.plist values from the /S/L/E AppleIntelHD3000Graphics.kext are getting loaded even though to it seems to be loading the kext in /Library/Extensions. so to make sure the /L/E kext is loaded, I remove the one in /S/L/E by renaming it.

 

you should see some thing like this when you run this:

 

$ ioreg -l|grep VRAM |grep -v Kit
    | |   | | |   "VRAM,totalsize" = <00000020>
    | |   |   |   "VRAMMethod" = 2
    | |   |   |   "VRAMOverride" = 20000000
    | |   |   |   "VRAMSize" = 512

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites
tluck
tluck
Posted
Posted

XSmile2008 - did you get the newest kext and install with the procedure to make sure it is using the VRAM variables changes?

 

because for me without these VRAM settings i get glitches almost immediately. and i have not had a freeze since using them.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites
jus12
jus12
Posted
Posted

@tluck

 

could this problem be linked to the fact that in config.plist we don't have snb-platform-id injected? Or it's not required for hd3000 on t420?

I found in some posts mentioning that injections for hd3000.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
tluck
tluck
Posted
Posted

@jus12 - well i don't believe so. i did some testing by reducing the number of buffers down to 2 (LCD and external DP). and still got glitches. but if you would like to test out this theory -  there are 8 60 bytes tables in the SNB buffer kext to play with. which table to use is determined either by the snb-platform-id or board ID or model type. we use table 0 (the first one). search topics from bcc9 for more extensive info on HD 3000 buffer patching. Our Clover config.plist patches the buffer to change the 4th buffer to VGA.

 

i am thinking this is not a frame buffer problem. things have been working just fine for close to 3 years and all of a sudden we have this odd behavior. when i do get glitches i get them on both my LCD and External monitor. Interestingly, I have another HD 3000 box (not T420) and it is using model Mac mini5,1 -- and it is getting glitches too. so it doesn't seem to be a T420 problem per se. 

 

tests conducted so far without any real long term effect:

 

reduce SNB buffer count and buffer order

increase memory to 1024 (patching binary)

play with slide value 0 

reduce my memory from 16 GB to 8 GB

 

for me, changing the VRAMMethod has pretty much eliminated the lines etc. not entirely. but without this i see lines and squares immediately. 

 

anyway i have to think others are seeing this too. and someone smarter than me can provide guidance or we see what the next revs bring us. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
jus12
jus12
Posted
Posted

@tluck

 

I didn't do the Vmethod as of yet. Yesterday system frozen, so after that I have updated the bios to 2170 you have posted, and made same bios changes. I don't see glitches, or I didn't notice them. Will see how that works, but vmethod will be next correction, if I realise system is not performing well.

If that will also not work, I will go back to 10.11.3, as that version was really stable.

 

Downgrade Question:

if I install MacOS Install (with 10.11.3) over current 10.11.4, would that work? Or clean install is recommended?

Link to comment
Share on other sites
tluck
tluck
Posted
Posted

thanks for dialog on this topic. what bios changes did you make? i was thinking that memory speed could be a factor - so i set some of those ... and then i increased anything that looked like a gfx buffer to highest values.

 

this VRAMMethod variable was discovered and discussed a long time along in various threads when HD 3000 was just being supported in OS X. and for me has had the best effect (still get some glitches). BUT the hard freeze is the worst situation. i have to force power off. and with VRAMMethod set, no freezes. i don't think VRAMOverride is even used but i changed just for the heck of it. and I am not sure VRAMSize is the right value (512?). 

 

yes - you can just install 10.11.3 on top on 10.11.4

i cloned my 10.11.4 disk onto a test disk and did just that.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
jus12
jus12
Posted
Posted

@tluck, after the update to 10.11.4 all I have done was to update the EFI and the kexts included. I have updated BIOS to the latest and made changes there, based on your suggestion:

"i updated my BIOS with this more recent modded bios. i went into to Adv menu settings and memory speed to 1333, mode to 2N and changed to TOLUD to dynamic and upped the gfx memory items to their respective max."

 

Nothing else, Now system works nicely, so far. I still need to monitor that, the system has frozen few times just before I did all the changes. And the grey boxes were really scary, now all looks much much better.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
XSmile2008
XSmile2008
Posted
Posted

@tluck, after the update to 10.11.4 all I have done was to update the EFI and the kexts included. I have updated BIOS to the latest and made changes there, based on your suggestion:

"i updated my BIOS with this more recent modded bios. i went into to Adv menu settings and memory speed to 1333, mode to 2N and changed to TOLUD to dynamic and upped the gfx memory items to their respective max."

 

Nothing else, Now system works nicely, so far. I still need to monitor that, the system has frozen few times just before I did all the changes. And the grey boxes were really scary, now all looks much much better.

 

This BIOS has modded wifi whitelist? I replaced my wifi module by DELL 1510.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
 Share
Go to topic listing
×
×
  • Create New...