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Dell E6430 - upgrading parts


khronnuz

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Hi guys,

 

Thanks to the material found here, I got my Dell Latitude E6430 i5-3230 running Mountain Lion 10.8.5 (yay!).

 

1- So far I got working:

 

a - trackpad ( no multitouch)

b - usb 2.0

c - ethernet

d - Video seems ok ( 1366x768)

e - bluetooth ( however, after installing installing/enabling it, the mac keeps asking for a attaching a bluetooth keyboard because there is no keyboard attached)

f - audio

g - battery

h - shutdown / restart

 

2 - Not working:

 

a - HDMI video output ( did not test vga or audio)

b - Wifi  ( PCI Cards on System Information says I have 'Broadcom Corporation BCM4322 802.11a/b/g/n Wireless LAN Controller' but device id is 0x4727

c - USB 3.0 ports ( It worked at some time, then stopped working, probably after installing another kext)

 

Here are my questions regarding this model:

 

- that wifi device id ( 0x4727) means I have unsupported wifi card, even the description saying I have BCM4322, which seems to supported?

- If my wifi card is unsupported, how to look for a replacement card? In other words, I live in Brazil and those cards I see people using on this forum to replace on E6430 might not be available here, so I am looking for a more generic way to find one that works. e.g. Look for a pci mini card. Note: I've read somewhere that all half mini cards will not work but not sure which models will fit.

- Since I am already opening the notebook to change parts, I thinking on doing other upgrades: put more RAM, SSD and I am wondering if I could buy another mobile processor and put it there e.g. a quad-core i7. Since I have seem those models with i7, I might not be talking nonsense here :). Is that possible?

 

Jhonny

--

Asus Sabertooth z77, i7 3770, 32Gb DDR3, Samsung Pro 840 SSD, GTX 650 / Mountain Lion 10.8.5

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Hi guys,

 

Thanks to the material found here, I got my Dell Latitude E6430 i5-3230 running Mountain Lion 10.8.5 (yay!).

 

1- So far I got working:

 

a - trackpad ( no multitouch)

b - usb 2.0

c - ethernet

d - Video seems ok ( 1366x768)

e - bluetooth ( however, after installing installing/enabling it, the mac keeps asking for a attaching a bluetooth keyboard because there is no keyboard attached)

f - audio

g - battery

h - shutdown / restart

 

2 - Not working:

 

a - HDMI video output ( did not test vga or audio)

b - Wifi  ( PCI Cards on System Information says I have 'Broadcom Corporation BCM4322 802.11a/b/g/n Wireless LAN Controller' but device id is 0x4727

c - USB 3.0 ports ( It worked at some time, then stopped working, probably after installing another kext)

 

Here are my questions regarding this model:

 

- that wifi device id ( 0x4727) means I have unsupported wifi card, even the description saying I have BCM4322, which seems to supported?

- If my wifi card is unsupported, how to look for a replacement card? In other words, I live in Brazil and those cards I see people using on this forum to replace on E6430 might not be available here, so I am looking for a more generic way to find one that works. e.g. Look for a pci mini card. Note: I've read somewhere that all half mini cards will not work but not sure which models will fit.

- Since I am already opening the notebook to change parts, I thinking on doing other upgrades: put more RAM, SSD and I am wondering if I could buy another mobile processor and put it there e.g. a quad-core i7. Since I have seem those models with i7, I might not be talking nonsense here :). Is that possible?

 

Jhonny

--

Asus Sabertooth z77, i7 3770, 32Gb DDR3, Samsung Pro 840 SSD, GTX 650 / Mountain Lion 10.8.5

Take a look at my guide here. USB3 and HDMI/HDMI audio works perfectly. Your wireless card chipset is not supported, try looking at alternative here. I have DW1510, works OOB perfectly without any extra kext. 

You can upgrade your processor to i7, but not quad-core i7. I might be wrong, but all the i7 quad core models I've seen comes with a discrete Nvidia card, so perhaps your motherboard might not support it. You can upgrade RAM up to 16gb, 8gb/ module and SSD drive too. That speeds up the boot time a lot.

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Hey Jake, thanks!

 

Yes, I based my installation mostly off your tutorial.

 

>> USB3 and HDMI/HDMI audio works perfectly.

 

USB3 is currently working and HDMI is fine now, thanks!

 

>> You can upgrade RAM up to 16gb, 8gb/ module and SSD drive too. That speeds up the boot time a lot.

 

Yes, I am putting a SSD and 16Gb of RAM. However, boot time is not a concern, I will use it to develop large Scala projects and quad core processors would came handy :). I have seen reviews of E6430 with i7 quad core, but not sure if all E6430 should be the same. e.g. if that one with i7 quad core has better cooling or something like that.

 

>>  Your wireless card chipset is not supported, try luck at alternative here

 

Luckly, just found someone here selling a DW1510

 

Also not working:

- Multitouch - I tried the link you posted for multitouch, but no looking getting it to work :/, I may have done something wrong. Will try again later.

- Optical Disk Drive - no big issue, since I will probably replace it with a caddy + another HD

 

Overall, I am excited because the performance is pretty good. It exceed my expectations :). Again, thanks for the tutorial, the download page and for your attention.

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Hey Jake, thanks!

 

Yes, I based my installation mostly off your tutorial.

 

>> USB3 and HDMI/HDMI audio works perfectly.

 

USB3 is currently working and HDMI is fine now, thanks!

 

>> You can upgrade RAM up to 16gb, 8gb/ module and SSD drive too. That speeds up the boot time a lot.

 

Yes, I am putting a SSD and 16Gb of RAM. However, boot time is not a concern, I will use it to develop large Scala projects and quad core processors would came handy :). I have seen reviews of E6430 with i7 quad core, but not sure if all E6430 should be the same. e.g. if that one with i7 quad core has better cooling or something like that.

 

>>  Your wireless card chipset is not supported, try luck at alternative here

 

Luckly, just found someone here selling a DW1510

 

Also not working:

- Multitouch - I tried the link you posted for multitouch, but no looking getting it to work :/, I may have done something wrong. Will try again later.

- Optical Disk Drive - no big issue, since I will probably replace it with a caddy + another HD

 

Overall, I am excited because the performance is pretty good. It exceed my expectations :). Again, thanks for the tutorial, the download page and for your attention.

Glad to hear it's working for you, I can't take any credit but only to put the tutorial together.

For the Optical Disk Drive, is this the error you are seeing? I don't ever use it until you mention it so I tried it. 

Screen Shot 2013-10-01 at 9.05.29 AM.png

 

For that, you can just replace the DVDPlayback.framework in System/Library/Frameworks. I'll add this to my tutorial, you can get it there. Multitouch is still work in process. The latest version will get you side scrolling and 2 figure scrolling with some tweaking, but loses some features in the trackpoint (nub) that I use a lot of. The settings won't save after you reboot, but someone created an applescript to set the Z finger value at logon. You could find it in the thread here.

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Now I am a weird behaviour, please let me know if it hangs any bell to you:

 

Looking at the BIOS, the processor is actually a i5 3210M @ 2.5GHz, On the Mac, it shows up as 2.49GHz ( I guess that's OK) but I am also seeing 2.09GHz some times, in fact frequently.

 

Jhonny

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Me again :). No luck getting the DVD drive to work. I've attached the screenshot of what I get. No error message.

 

Just a note to anyone thinking on upgrading your e6430. I got a pair of 8Gb DDR3 1333Hz Corsair and they are incompatible.  Failed all memory tests and system was very unstable. guess it must be 1600Hz.

 

 

post-14914-0-39780600-1381364299_thumb.png

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