Mavericks on Dell Precision 490

[rjjd]

Hi  After an successful installation of Mavericks on my Dell Latitude D830 I have another challenge.

I got my hands on an Dell Precision 490  with one Xenon CPU, 8 GB internal memory and an Nvidia graphics card inside and i was curious if OSX 10.9 can run on it and if there was an guide for this beautiful machine..???

I am aware that you need specification for this beautiful machine.

But the problem is: there is no OSX software  installed on this machine to give you information about the specs of this machine

Is there an tooling software  which I can use to provide you these specs?

if so, i can use  this software so i can get the information. 

Greetz..

[Hervé]

There are various ways to do that:

• boot a myHack USB installer that had the lspcidrv kext in /E/E -> should allow you to open up a Terminal window to type lspci -nn command
• If the PC still runs Windows, look at the various devices listed in Windows Device Manager
• use various Windows tools such as those listed by Dinesh in his R&D->DSDT/SSDT thread
• look up the published specs in the user manual (available off Dell's web site)
• etc, etc.

Generally speaking, the main things to look at include CPU model, chipset (HDD controller), amount of RAM, model of graphics card (whether built-in and/or PCIe add-on), HDD type, audio chip, LAN and/or wireless card model, BIOS version (the BIOS settings can be important too).

 

Have a look at the description I had made of my Precision 670 (a model much older than yours) in the EDP->Supported Models with Guides->Dell forum section.

 

By the way, didn't you ask the same questions about ML for that particular machine in that same section last summer?

[rosmaniac]

The 490 should be able to run at least Lion with no issue.

 

The very similar 690 runs Lion fine; I'm still at 10.6.8 on my 690, but that's due mostly to simple inertia and the different installer I used on it.  I keep thinking I'll take a 1TB drive and try to get Lion on it the myHack way.  There are some odd things about the 490 and the 690 that make it a bit difficult, mostly due to the mixed-mode ATA controller.  AHCI works, but if you're booting from CD you have to have a SATA CD drive, since the default AHCI support doesn't recognize the PATA optical drives.

 

But see http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/273540-anyone-with-lion-on-dell-precision-690-yes-me/page-2?do=findComment&comment=1911546 for someone who seems to have done ML on one, using myHack 3.2.

 

[EDIT]

 

The script I originally used for SL on the 690 has been updated, see:

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/185097-guide-scripted-retail-mavericksmountain-lion-install-on-gigabyte-mobos/

 

That's probably a bit off-topic here, though.  I used that script at the time because it does AppleRAID and I had a couple of 750GB drives in the box already, and AppleRAID works quite well (SATA drives, AHCI mode, not connected to the LSI SAS RAID controller).

[rosmaniac]

Here's the lspci output (from CentOS 6) on one of our 690's here:

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 5000X Chipset Memory Controller Hub (rev 12)
00:02.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 5000 Series Chipset PCI Express x4 Port 2 (rev 12)
00:03.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 5000 Series Chipset PCI Express x4 Port 3 (rev 12)
00:04.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 5000X Chipset PCI Express x16 Port 4-7 (rev 12)
00:05.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 5000 Series Chipset PCI Express x4 Port 5 (rev 12)
00:06.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 5000 Series Chipset PCI Express x4 Port 6 (rev 12)
00:07.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 5000 Series Chipset PCI Express x4 Port 7 (rev 12)
00:10.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 5000 Series Chipset FSB Registers (rev 12)
00:10.1 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 5000 Series Chipset FSB Registers (rev 12)
00:10.2 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 5000 Series Chipset FSB Registers (rev 12)
00:11.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 5000 Series Chipset Reserved Registers (rev 12)
00:13.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 5000 Series Chipset Reserved Registers (rev 12)
00:15.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 5000 Series Chipset FBD Registers (rev 12)
00:16.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 5000 Series Chipset FBD Registers (rev 12)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 631xESB/632xESB High Definition Audio Controller (rev 09)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 631xESB/632xESB/3100 Chipset PCI Express Root Port 1 (rev 09)
00:1d.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 631xESB/632xESB/3100 Chipset UHCI USB Controller #1 (rev 09)
00:1d.1 USB controller: Intel Corporation 631xESB/632xESB/3100 Chipset UHCI USB Controller #2 (rev 09)
00:1d.2 USB controller: Intel Corporation 631xESB/632xESB/3100 Chipset UHCI USB Controller #3 (rev 09)
00:1d.3 USB controller: Intel Corporation 631xESB/632xESB/3100 Chipset UHCI USB Controller #4 (rev 09)
00:1d.7 USB controller: Intel Corporation 631xESB/632xESB/3100 Chipset EHCI USB2 Controller (rev 09)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 PCI Bridge (rev d9)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 631xESB/632xESB/3100 Chipset LPC Interface Controller (rev 09)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 631xESB/632xESB IDE Controller (rev 09)
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation 631xESB/632xESB SATA AHCI Controller (rev 09)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 631xESB/632xESB/3100 Chipset SMBus Controller (rev 09)
01:00.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 6311ESB/6321ESB PCI Express Upstream Port (rev 01)
01:00.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 6311ESB/6321ESB PCI Express to PCI-X Bridge (rev 01)
02:00.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 6311ESB/6321ESB PCI Express Downstream Port E1 (rev 01)
02:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 6311ESB/6321ESB PCI Express Downstream Port E2 (rev 01)
04:00.0 USB controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. Device 3432 (rev 02)
05:0b.0 SCSI storage controller: LSI Logic / Symbios Logic SAS1068 PCI-X Fusion-MPT SAS (rev 01)
07:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation G92 [GeForce 8800 GTS 512] (rev a2)
0b:00.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme BCM5752 Gigabit Ethernet PCI Express (rev 02)
0c:0a.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Texas Instruments TSB43AB22A IEEE-1394a-2000 Controller (PHY/Link) [iOHCI-Lynx]

Devices 04:00.0 and 07:00.0 are addons: a USB 3.0 PCIe card, and the GeForce 8800GTS 512 video.

 

The CPU type you have is also important.  This one has two E5335's in it, for a total of 8 cores.  The one I have at home has one E5345 2.33GHz quad core in it, running 10.6.8.  However, the 690 (and the 490) support all the way back to the Dempsey dual-core NetBurst-based processors, which are older than the minimum Core architecture needed.  However, Herve has a 670 with Irwindale Xeon's running; see his post on that subject.

 

To get this info, you can boot a Linux boot CD/ boot USB; something like the CentOS liveCD or a Ubuntu CD or Knoppix or whatever.  You need to get a command line shell, and issue three commands as root:

lspci -v
cat /proc/cpuinfo
dmidecode

Attach the output as a text file; the dmidecode output, in particular, is large.  You may want to sanitize the service tag number and/or the serial number in the output of dmidecode.

 

I can get a working DSDT for SL easily, since I have a running 690 on SL, but I have no idea whatsoever if that will work with Mav.  I do, however, have another 690 available to test on.....

 

The 490/690 is a bit long in the tooth; the current generation is the T7600, one gen removed is the T7500, two gens removed is the T7400, and the 490/690 is three generations older than current at this point in time.  But it is still quite a powerful machine, particularly loaded with 16GB or more of RAM and eight cores.

[Hervé]

One critical point for Mavericks (somehow ML too) is the graphics card fitted to these workstations. Dell tended to fit nVidia Quadro FX card and they're hardly supported under Mac OS. So be prepared to swap your graphics card for ML and/or Mavericks.

[rosmaniac]

Herve,

 

Is there a good list somewhere that shows which cards?  I'm thinking anything 8000-series and newer is probably at least somewhat supported, and I know there's a thread out there that lists by PCI ID and such, but I'm talking a human-readable list.

 

I have an 8400GS in the 690 at home, running the nVidia drivers, not the native SL drivers (in order to get full resolution on my 1680x1050 monitor).

[Hervé]

No such list here, although I had tried to start one up. The best place to look at for this kind of things is the wiki on IM. I personally contribute there.

[rjjd]

Hi all first thanks for all tips.. And Herve you are right . I started a couple of months ago an topic about the 490 of mine. Because i could not produce an suitable list of specs and mavericks on my d830 was more important I used an low profile.. But since my d830 works fine now , I have an new challenge this desktop running on mavericks!! Next week I will come up with the specs list

Greets...

[rjjd]

Hello i just created an list of the specs of my Precision 490. I hope there is enough information for you guys.  If needed, I can swap the video card for an ATI 5770 that will work 100%. I hope the machine will work also under Mavericks.

Dell-Precision-490.txt

Screenshots-490.zip

[Hervé]

Big "?" for your Quadro FX 4600 graphics card, but the rest should be Ok. Hopefully, these Xeon dual core will be better supported than some quad core that gave trouble to some users. Make sure to use one of the the latest Chameleon boot loaders. I've seen strange CPU things with r2266, but r2263 was Ok.