Catalina on Dell Latitude E6410 (Nvidia Graphics) With Working Sleep

[deeveedee]

I don't know enough about OC to say whether the DSDT could be a problem, but I don't think so.  You'll need to read my entire Mojave thread and my entire Catalina thread to learn what I did.  You will also need to fully understand DSDT patching for macOS.

 

My suggestion would be to separate the conversion to BS and OC instead of trying to do both.  It looks like Slice is getting ready to release a new version of Clover which borrows some things from OC.

 

A brute force approach to seeing the DSDT patches would be to extract and disassemble your own DSDT and diff them.

 

Additional thoughts:

• I'm a firm believer that people who do the impossible didn't know it was impossible and those who didn't/couldn't had concluded or simply believed it was impossible.
• Thoroughly read the MacRumors BS on Unsupported Macs thread to be sure that you're not trying to solve problems that the DosDude team is still solving.  At this early stage in the migration to BS, you are likely to encounter problems caused by the incompatibilities between our old hacks and BS.  I have worked very hard to make sure that the patched Latitude E6410 ACPI mimics a real MacBookPro6,2, so if the problem exists on a real MacBookPro6,2, it's likely to exist (and be solved) on our patched E6410s.
• Thoroughly read the Clover commits after the release of r5119 to understand what Slice and his team are solving / trying to solve for BS
• When you read my Mojave thread, you'll see at least one of my posts that suggests that people running Windows on the E6410 had problems with Windows when trying to boot UEFI.  It's why I abandoned my attempts to run UEFI.  I figured if Windows didn't work well when booting UEFI, I wasn't going to solve the problem by booting macOS.
• I think there is a lot to learn from getting Catalina 10.15.6 fully running on the E6410 that will lend itself to getting BS to run.  Skipping Catalina to work on BS may actually not be the best strategy.  If I wanted to get OC running on this rig (not really motivated to do so, since I'm currently spending my hack time on my HackMini8,1 and Clover still works great), I would get Catalina booting with OC.  If I had unsolved OC problems, I'd revert to High Sierra (didn't require any DosDude patches) to eliminate the DosDude patches as a variable.

Edited August 16, 2020 by Hervé
Removed unnecessary quote of previous message

[1337ftw]

Thank you for all your suggestions! My long term goal is to eventually get Big Sur running on OC. But since BS is still much being discovered by the community, my main goal is to get Catalina working under OC. Why? There’s one main reason: boot time. My Catalina installation takes 5 minutes to fully boot up, and I want it to just be faster.

 

I’m also not so sure if it is the ACPI patches, but I first want to confirm my theory that there is sone difference between booting in Legacy or UEFI. To do this I’m going to try to boot OC under the same UEFI emulation as my current working Clover install to see if that boots.

 

I think diffing the original Legacy and UEFI dsdt’s is the best way to see what’s going on and what differs from the boot6 and Dell UEFI implementations.

Do you think this is a good approach?

Edited August 16, 2020 by Hervé
Removed contents duplication & unnecessary quote of previous message

[deeveedee]

Getting Catalina to boot with OC before getting BS to boot with OC sounds good to me.

 

Are you booting/running Catalina from an SSD?  If you have 5-min boot times, you have other issues to resolve that are not Clover/OC related.  My Catalina 10.15.6 boot times with Clover r5119 are as follows:

• Power button to Catalina 10.15.6 login prompt: 1:01
• Clover boot screen to Catalina 10.15.6 login prompt: 0:38

 

I was curious about High Sierra 10.13.6 boot times and they are much better as I suspected:

• Clover boot screen to High Sierra 10.13.6 login prompt: 0:19

Edited August 16, 2020 by Hervé
Removed unnecessary quote of previous message

[1337ftw]

I got OpenCore booting. This required using the same UEFI emulation as used in my Clover setup. So there is a difference between Legacy and UEFI booting, but it’s not ACPI because I diffed both and there were no differences at all. The only thing I can blame it on is Dell’s poor early implementations of UEFI. It can’t even boot Windows properly, let alone macOS.

 

The main reason why my boot times were so slow where the amount of unneeded kexts in my Clover setup, I had 26 kexts that were of no use to me. This made my Clover cold boot time 1:41 seconds, and OC time 1:05. This is again, probably due to some terrible mistake I made myself while configuring Clover. The biggest bottleneck is probably the boot0 taking 20 seconds to load completely. I might look into other (faster) UEFI emulations.

Edited August 16, 2020 by Hervé
Removed unnecessary quote of previous message

[deeveedee]

The two errors that occur during Catalina installation described here were reported to the Clover team.  I'm not sure if these problems have been addressed in Clover r512x, since I haven't yet tested.  I have seen reports in another forum that at least the "bless" error is resolved by changing the Clover Default Boot Volume to a Volume with a previous macOS version.  For example, if you have Mojave and Catalina volumes, set Clover's Default Boot Volume to Mojave while performing the Catalina installation/upgrade.  I have not yet tested this solution.

[deeveedee]

If you need to upgrade to Catalina 10.15.6 19G2021, follow the instructions here.

Edited August 14, 2020 by tonyx86

[deeveedee]

Application of the 10.15.6 19G2021 update proceeded without issues.  I'm not sure why, but the 10.15.6 19G2021 installer is version 15.6.00.

 

Screenshot: 10.15.6 19G2021 Supplemental Installer Version

Spoiler

 

Screenshot: About This Mac

Spoiler

 

[deeveedee]

Catalina 10.15.6 19G2021 is running perfectly on this Latitude E6410.  Amazing how responsive it is.  I've said this before and continue to be impressed with this old Dell laptop.  It really is a perfect MacBookPro6,2.

[Jgdin]

Thanks for the comprehensive instructions. Using them, I have managed to install High Sierra on my E6410 and it runs silky smooth.

 

My E6510 has an i7, however 'been scratching my head as to why I could install HS on my E6410 (i5) fine but not my E6510; 'came to the conclusion I must have a faulty motherboard as it always failed saying usb power problem. Fitted a new motherboard yesterday with the same result so moved to the conclusion it must be the I/O board rather than the motherboard! However before I spent more money I decided to drop the i5 onto the E6510 motherboard and macOS ran perfectly. Would anyone have an idea why, on the same motherboard, HS runs with an i5 works yet fails to run with an i7?

 

Thanks.

John

Edited November 8, 2020 by Hervé
Punctuation, grammar and typos...

[deeveedee]

You are welcome!  Glad this guide continues to be helpful.

What is the exact model i7?  i7-620m and i7-640m runs fine without issues.  Make sure you have BIOS version A17.  If you need more help, please include your problem reporting files with your help request as specified in Post #1.

 

[deeveedee]

IF Big Sur is able to run on this Latitude E6410 (it does seem like a long shot based on things I've read), we'll be relying even more heavily on the DosDude team for patching.  I don't plan to consider a Big Sur upgrade for the E6410 without a DosDude solution.

 

Also, I'm optimistic that CLOVER will eventually support Big Sur; however, if anyone has an OpenCore EFI working on their Latitude E6410, can you please share it?

 

Trusting Slice and his team

Edited August 27, 2020 by tonyx86
Removed mention of VirtualSMC. FakeSMC may still be viable for Big Sur.

[Jgdin]

Thanks for your help via PM Tonyx86, it's much appreciated. The CPU is an i7-740 so one of the quad core editions. I've tried going into bios and setting just 1 processor, 2 etc., hyperthreading on/off etc. but to no avail. It always fails on usb powergate which I am assuming is a red herring as the laptop runs macOS fine with an i5.

Edited November 8, 2020 by Hervé
Punctuation and typos...

[deeveedee]

I updated my acidanthera kexts as listed below.  

• Lilu.kext 1.4.5 -> 1.4.7
• AirportBrcmFixup.kext 2.0.7 -> 2.0.9
• BrcmPatchRAM3.kext 2.5.3 -> 2.5.4
• BrcmFirmwareData.kext 2.5.3 -> 2.5.4
• BrcmBluetoothInjector.kext 2.5.3 -> 2.5.4

Bluetooth and Wi-Fi appear to be working fine.  I needed to reboot twice to restore working Wi-Fi.  After installing new kexts and rebooting, Wi-Fi was not working.  I did not spend any time diagnosing/debugging Wi-Fi to figure out why.  Wi-Fi worked fine after a second reboot.

 

I have not yet added these kexts to the E6410.zip archive attached to Post #1.  Since these kexts were not required to fix any problems, I don't plan to update the E6410.zip archive until an update is required for a macOS upgrade.

 

NOTE: I am using the same EFI / kexts for High Sierra 10.13.6, Mojave 10.14.6 and Catalina 10.15.6.

Edited September 12, 2020 by tonyx86

[deeveedee]

For the first time in a long time, I needed to use an external VGA display with my Latitude E6410.  I'm pleased to report that the external VGA port still works perfectly with Catalina 10.15.6.

[deeveedee]

Catalina 10.15.7 installed without any issues.  To upgrade to 10.15.7, I followed the 10.15.6 steps here.

 

Screenshot: About This Mac

Spoiler

 

[1337ftw]

There is a new version of Clover out which shows Clover GUI and uses Clover settings layout, but uses OC under the hood. (link) So I will be attempting another Big Sur install.

[deeveedee]

Good luck!  Be sure to keep checking this thread and this repo to learn the latest Big Sur support for MacBookPro6,2.  You'll be the first to get Big Sur running on a HackBookPro6,2!

 

@1337ftw Be sure to read "Incompatible Mac Models" in this repo.  The 2010 15"/17" is equivalent to our HackBookPro6,2 and will likely have the same issues.

[deeveedee]

Good news: a patch has been created for Arrandale CPU running Big Sur.  See ReadMe here.

 

EDIT: Note that there is still no DosDude patcher so there is no graphics acceleration.  Without graphics acceleration, our HackBookPro6,2 performance will be pathetic (and not worth the BS upgrade in my opinion).  The Arrandale CPU patch is a good step in the right direction.

Edited November 3, 2020 by tonyx86
Added note about graphics acceleration

[deeveedee]

EDIT: Since the post below, the full 10.15.7.03 installer can be created with gibMacOS.  Create the full 10.15.7.03 installer with gibMacOS and then use the DosDude Catalina Patcher to create the patched installer.  Upgrade to 10.15.7.03 as with previous macOS updates.

--------------------------------------------------------------

The 10.15.7.03 supplemental update has been released, but it has only been released as an incremental update (a full installer is not available).  It includes security fixes to address vulnerabilities that were discovered outside of Apple.

 

Screenshot: About This Mac

Spoiler

 

Edited November 22, 2020 by tonyx86
Added note about using gibMacOS to create 10.15.7.03 installer

[deeveedee]

EDIT: While there won't be a DosDude patcher for BigSur, this patcher from @jackluke may be a good start for those who want to try installing BS on our HackBookPro6,2s.

------------------------------------------------

From MacRumors...

 

Q: Where/how can I download the @dosdude1 Big Sur patcher tool?
A: @dosdude1 commented recently directly on this topic. There will be no such patcher for Big Sur available. Please do not clutter the thread asking for it again and again.

 

It has been fun everyone.  We should be thrilled that we're running Catalina on a 2010 Dell Laptop.

Edited November 21, 2020 by tonyx86
Added link to jackluke BS patcher

[deeveedee]

The 10.15.7.03 supplemental update can now be applied to our unsupported HackBookPro6,2.  See instructions here.

 

EDIT: After applying the 10.15.7 (19H15) Supplemental Update, Safari may seem "broken." I noticed that login behavior and post editing behavior was different on Insanely Mac.  I ran 'kextcache -i /' and rebooted and the "normal" Safari behavior was restored. 

Edited November 22, 2020 by tonyx86

[unilock]

I no longer own a Latitude E6410, but this seems promising for at least migrating away from the slowly dying Clover: https://www.reddit.com/r/BigSurPatcher/comments/k4roj2/opencore_legacy_patcher_announcement/

GPU patches, which are required for the Nvidia GPU, are not yet included, but are planned to be added for Mojave and Catalina. (Big Sur support isn't very promising, but is a WIP)

Of course, the patcher will require some modifications to support the E6410 (i.e. added kexts, SSDT patches, config.plist changes), but it should provide a good starting point to gain the benefits of OpenCore and avoid the hacky (albeit impressive) patches included in dosdude1's patchers.

[deeveedee]

Thanks! May have to check it out.  The links I posted here and here are good, too.

[deeveedee]

I suspect that this will be necessary for anyone attempting to upgrade to BS on this Latitude E6410.

[deeveedee]

The Safari 14.0.2 update can be applied to our HackBookPro6,2 via the standard System Preferences > Software Update, since it does not affect any components modified by DosDude's Catalina Patcher.

Edited January 1, 2021 by tonyx86