Mac on D830

[tallmantim]

Hi - I want to create a Mac machine for my Dad for his birthday (his old one died and can't afford to replace it) - and have bought a D830 (Nvidia chipset, high res screen).

 

I got that one as it seems like it may be one of the more compatible devices - and came across this site in the search!

 

Does anyone know if it is possible to grab the D830 files from somewhere else - the boot packs listed here: http://www.osxlatitude.com/edp/compatibility/ all seem to get 404'ed?

 

Many thanks!

 

Tim

[tallmantim]

Oh - I realised I downloaded this a couple of days ago before they disappeared - all setup and going now!

 

Had to set "pciroot=1" in the bootloader otherwise I got a blank screen. Annoyingly the installer won't delete an NTFS volume so I had to remove it - after trying an SSD that the system did not recognise!

 

I think I have it going now... we'll see.

 

***

 

Ah no- my bad. It doesn't have the ability to work with a blank disk at all, so I put the SSD in the USB caddy, connected it to my VirtualBox instance of OSX and formatted it there - happily installing on the SSD now!

 

 

Thanks for a great site.

[iMick]

We have fixed the bootpacks . It was a bug in our migration process. Nice that it works. Just let us know if something doesn't work as it should.

[tallmantim]

The laptop had an intel wifi card - so have bought a broadcom card to replace it with. Unfortunately my DWA160 adaptor is not compatible with ML. Perhaps I will try moving back to Lion?

 

So, current issues:

 

1. Wireless adaptor does not work under ML - but should be possible to load under Lion (reading through, need to boot into 32 bit mode to load the driver, it then works)

2. Looks like suspend works - it's just waking from suspend that doesn't! Machine needs to be reset.

3. Booting takes a very long time - even though it is on an SSD. May load onto normal drive as SSD does not seem to be helping - boot time takes 5 minutes or so.

4. Trackpad is intermittently jerky. Will see if an external mouse works better as may be a hardware issue?

5. Not sure about sound - don't think it's working right now.

 

Hmm - thinking moving to Lion or Snow Leopard would assist with these issues - is there any advantage in ML over Lion over SL?

 

Many thanks!

[Hervé]

Having done a few ML installations on D830s with nVidia NVS 135M chip, I've never experienced what you report for your particular model. Are you using our installation procedure or a distro?

 

Regarding SSD, it's true that on the D Series, it does not make that much of an improvement at boot time (Win7 boots in seconds in comparison), but it does a bit nevertheless. Make sure you enable Trim. Booting ML should take about 1min.

 

Trackpad, audio and everything else is taken care of by the EDP system build after initial ML installation. If you follow that process, you'll be running ML within 1hr. Only the wifi is not 100% covered at this time, but that either works OOB or needs adding 1 kext. You just need a compatible card. There's a list of compatible cards in Research -> Networking, use it!

 

Which CPU do you have and how much RAM?

 

Check your BIOS settings against those published and adjust if/where necessary; running the latest BIOS is recommended.

 

Your D830 specs will be listed in the BIOS info pages, don't hesitate to post them so that we have a better idea of your hardware: BIOS version, CPU, RAM, nVidia chip, screen resolution, bluetooth, wireless...

[tallmantim]

Hi - BIOS is .4 which may be causing some of my problems (way behind the tested BIOS releases - need a windows build though now to update - downloading Hiren's boot CD). Trying that now!

 

Core 2 Duo 2GHz, high res screen, 2GB RAM (may have an upgrade around here somewhere - will try it out!)

[Hervé]

You do not need Windows to change/update BIOS: a simple USB key with the .hdr file will do (i.e. recovery procedure) or a USB key with Unetbootin DOS + Dell BIOS exec (.exe) program will do perfectly. Do a search on the forum on that matter, there are several posts with details and instructions.

 

When you say high res, what is it exactly? 1680x1050 or 1920x1200? It should not make a difference with the nVidia GPU (again, which chip do you have?) but users reported issues on X3100@1680x1050.

[tallmantim]

Yeah - Nvidia with 1920x1200. Great screen and looks lovely with ML!

 

Will try the other BIOS options...

 

Thanks!

[Leon]

Question: Have you installed EDP or are you just using the bootpack ? - if booting takes a long time i can image its because your kernel cache havent been generated

[tallmantim]

Hi - I'm not entirely sure! Followed the instructions to create a boot USB to install with the ML image and loaded on extras option that was provided from this site for the D830 - is that EDP or bootblack?

 

Anyway - received my mini-PCI wireless card today and installed - wireless now works a treat! Nice to be able to use an internal card.

 

Some things I would like to change to get fully functional:

 

1. I have to enter pciroot=0 on bootup to ensure it does't boot into a black screen - how do you set it so that it boots automatically with that option?

2. I think part of the delay in bootup is the verbose loading - how do you turn on/off verbose?

3. Would like to try the debug or different kext for the trackpad and trackstick - where do you find and load the different kexts? I think it is under extras somewhere? Where do I find the different kexts? Are they all in the d830 download image?

4. Sleep wasn't working so have disabled it - but I understand it's possible. Is that another kext change?

 

Sorry to ask what are likely newbie questions - last time I used a Mac a lot was on System 7 and  PowerPC - things have changed a lot since then!

 

(edit - oh and my daughter will be happy - my logitech webcam works with Photo Booth perfectly!)