M4400 Install problems and DSDT hunt

[Digiscales]

Hi i have had several dell laptops and had much success with running them. I had M4300 which has finally died. One m4400 quad m770m which i had Lion (Full QC QI) and VGA out which just worked OBB. My flat was robbed and M4400 stolen big nightmare since. I bought a cheap m4400 dual core but it had 1700m nvidia card which from reading forum and experience i could not QC QI working. When the m4300 died i gave that laptop to my girlfriend because she is happy with windows.

 

I now bought from USA exactly same machine i.e. M4400 quad core 770m but using new bootpacks(updated ones) could not get mavericks booted with these used archived boot packs from my dropbox and it works with QI QC. However i can install lion with using DSDT from m4300 (strangely) now it reports in sys info i have Quattro FX360M and no QI QC or VGA out.

 

Can DSDT be used across all OS versions ??? because i have tried m4400 ones from ML and Mavericks to boot lion and it hasnt worked.

 

Has anyone got a perfect DSDT for M4400 quad 770m bios A27/?? can i use this on my lion or even snow leopard 10.6.8 which i also got working with QI QC with no DSDT and just used generic extra but no VGA OUT.

 

I VJ with my hackitosh which is why i need vga out and i defo worked on machine that was stolen but not sure how it was OBB but cant recreate setup. Think there are problem with new bootpacks anyone else had issues??

[iindigo]

First off, which system version do you want to run on your M4400? It sounds like you want 10.6 or 10.7 but it's not really clear.

 

If you want to run 10.9, DaFOB's E6400/E6500/M4400 Guide works pretty universally for 770M-equipped M4400 (DSDT and kexts are provided in the thread). If you like, you can also give my updated pack a spin, though it hasn't had anywhere near the level of testing that DaFOB's pack has had. For me, both setups give me full QE/QI, audio, native speedstep, etc. Only thing that doesn't work is sleep and SDHC… haven't tried VGA but reportedly that works fine as long as you hit "Detect Displays" in System Preferences after hooking the monitor up. BIOS version doesn't seem to matter; I previously ran A26 which worked and nothing changed after updating to A29.

 

For 10.7 or 10.6 I can't really help you. I bought my M4400 right around the release of 10.8 and have never needed 10.6. TBH, I don't recommend running 10.6 because developers are dropping support for it like crazy and 10.7 is a buggy beta of 10.8. You could run 10.8 and be ok, but even then 10.9 is generally more cooperative on E6400/E6500/M4400.

[Digiscales]

Thanks for pack dont think dsdt works with lion will try. I use vj software that only runs on 10.6 and 10.7 ideally i want lion as you say support is dropping but i have a mavericks partition that works great. I just need help getting DSDT that is gonna boot 10.7 because it doesnt boot with any of the packs for M4400 (ML or Mavericks kexts and dsdts) accept and old 4300 one i got from bootpacks before DELL update recently strangely it boots lion unlike m4400 pack. I think it is dsdt issue between lion and other os versions.

 

I had lion work OBB with VGA out somehow on my previous identical stolen laptop so i know its possible.

 

Can you help with M4400 dsdt for me to try boot lion with please

[iindigo]

I'm sure there's an old Lion pack with DSDT and kexts sitting around somewhere. Not sure where that might be at this point, but this thread might be a good place to look.

 

Another possibility which may be an option for you is running Lion in a VMWare Fusion virtual machine under Mavericks if the performance impact isn't too great. Running an OS X guest VM under an OS X host is pretty simple.

[Digiscales]

Your dsdt worked with lion and so did the VGA sorted can i ask do you have vga working in mavericks? because it doesnt work in snow leo or my mavericks i think

[iindigo]

I'm glad the DSDT worked, but I didn't make it… it's an E6400 DSDT that someone else made. I just tweaked it to use the right graphics card name for the M4400.

 

As far VGA functionality, I haven't tested it and would have to dig through the shed out back to pull out a VGA monitor to test with. I might get around to testing, but no guarantee.

 

Do you mind posting the kext pack you're using for Lion for anybody else who might happen to need it?

[Digiscales]

i will share very soon prob tomorrow bit late now ....like your movement in bettering kext packs because yes with lion vga works but with dsdt magic perhaps we can as community provide similar vga out and or display port on mavericks? For that would be sweet

[Digiscales]

Hi i think ive put a good extra pack together for lion where and how shall i post it? to be add to site bootpacks? btw i used voodoobattery.kext for 10.7 seems to do job and bluetooth from your pack works also.

[Digiscales]

i used voodoohda btw i tried using applehda you shared on mavericks but could not get it to work whats the advantage? and can you advise how i can get it working?

[iindigo]

Generally, patched AppleHDA is more stable and provides better audio quality than VoodooHDA. Admittedly, the patched E6400/E6500/M4400-patched VoodooHDA seems to perform well, but it's always nice to have options.

 

In order for the AppleHDA from my pack to work, you need a DSDT with its audio layout ID set to 0 (the DSDT from my pack has this modification) and it has to be installed in /System/Library/Extensions/ with proper permissions, etc (Kext Drop does a good job of this).