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Help With Video Drivers On Dell XPS M1710


ROB_DF_MX

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Hello Forum,

 

Here Roberto from Mexico City needing some help with my Dell Laptop Hackinstosh install.

 

I own a Dell XPS M1710 which has the following main components:

 

- CPU: Intel Core 2 T7200 @ 2.00GHz ( 2 Cores ).

- RAM: 4GB ( 2 DDR2 SDRAM Samsung Modules ).

- Chipset: Mobile Intel 945PM Express.

- GPU: NVidia GeForce Go 7950 GTX ( with 512MB, PCI Express x16 ).

- Display: 17 Inches.

- Resolution: Max and Native Resolution of 1920x1200x32.

 

I have been successful installing a copy of Mac OS X 10.10 ( Yosemite ) on the laptop following the tutorial at Hackintosh Zone.

 

All is working fine on the laptop ( Power Off and Reset from the OS X, The DVD-ROM, the Ethernet Port, The TrackPad, A Wireless USB Mouse, USB 2.0 Ports ) except the Video and the Wi-Fi.

 

The Chameleon Boot Loader shows the following string about the NVidia card:

"UnKnown 512MB NV49 [10de:0297]-[1028:019b] :: PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x1,0x0)/Pci(0x0,"

 

And always boot with a generic Video Driver which is VERY SLOW and set the video resolution to 1280x1024.

 

Yosemite using the "System Information" app shows the following at the Graphics Adapter Section:

 

- Chipset Model: Unknows

- Type: GPU

- Bus: PCIe

- Slot: Slot-1

- PCIe Lane Width: x16

- VRAM (total): 512MB

- Vendor: NVIDIA (0x10de)

- Device ID: 0x0297

- Revision ID: 0x00a1

- ROM Revision: 5.71.22.45.06

 

 

Do you know if a driver exists for my NVidia GPU on Yosemite ?

Or any other fix or hack I can use to have the full video speed and resolution I have on Windows ?

 

Please let me know and thanks a lot in advance.

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I'm afraid this nVidia GPU would only be supported up to Lion, not beyond. Starting with Mountain Lion, Apple dropped support for older GPUs such as Intel GMA 950/X3100, ATI 1xxx chips or nVidia 7xxx.

 

The best you could hope for would be to run a bastardised version of ML with the special MLPF hack which calls on ML DP1 kernel and ML DP1/Lion 10.7.5 kexts/frameworks to run ML in 32bit kernel mode.

 

But you can forget about Mavericks and Yosemite, I'm afraid. Both will sure install but you'll never be able to get graphics support so it's kinda worthless... There are no 64bit kexts for those old GPUs and no OpenGL support beyond 10.7.5 either. There are no workarounds or solutions to this matter. My advise is to stick to Lion 10.7.5 to have a fully working Hackintosh on this 8-9yrs old laptop.

 

For wifi, make sure you have a supported card, not an Intel one. There a non-exhaustive list of supported cards in R&D forum subsection.

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Hola amigo Hervé,

 

Thank you so much for your so fast, kind and detailed reply.

 

It is sad that a driver for my GPU is  not available for Yosemite.

I just bought a SSD drive for this laptop and is performing for my needs quite well and better than new.

 

Since finding a driver will be impossible there is another path I can take.

How about buying and installing a new nVidia GPU card module for the Laptop ?

 

Base on your experience is it feasible ?

Any nVidia GPU mobile card recommendation ?

 

I am sure this cards are modular, can be replaced and can be found on eBay.

Someone has gone this route ?

 

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

 

For the Wi-Fi part of my problem I have found one Wi-Fi USB Stick made by IOGEAR, model GWU625.

It is a USB adapter that has drivers at the manufacturer Web site for Mac OS X 10.10 ( Yosemite ):

 

http://www.iogear.com/support/dm/driver/GWU625

 

It has a nice price of about $18.00 USD plus shipping at the B&H web store:

 

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/751127-REG/Iogear_GWU625_GWU625_Wireless_N_USB_2_0.html

 

I will buy one on the weekend and give it a try.

 

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

 

Hope you can help me further with the Video Card problem and possible solutions.

 

Thanks a lot in advance.

Roberto.

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The trouble will be finding an MXM card/module that is compatible:

1) with the format and connectors (bottom for motherboard, top for LVDS LCD cable) required for the M1710

2) with recent OX versions such as ML, Mavericks or Yosemite.

 

The XPS M1710 was available with either a 256Mo GeForce Go 7900 GS or a 512Mo GeForce Go 7950 GTX card. I think the Inspiron 9400 had similar cards.

 

I have previously installed OS X on a HP EliteBook 8560w that had such type of MXM graphics card but different manufacturers seem to use different card size and different connectors. As such, it could be a kind of "Mission Impossible" to find what you seek. In the HP workstation, the card was based on nVidia Quadro 1000M GPU and a card based on nVidia Quadro 2000M also exists. The Quadro 1000M was fully supported under Mavericks and presumably also under Mavericks (but I never verified this). I guess the same would extend to the Quadro 2000M.

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Amigo Hervé,

 

Thank you so much for still being with me on this thread.

 

After some hours of intense online research I found a couple of cards fully compatible with my Laptop.

I also found a great video tutorial on youtube showing how to open and replace the video card securely and easy:

 

 

- How to Replace the GPU in a Dell XPS M1710

 

- NEW DELL XPS M1710 or DELL PRECISION M90 512MB FX3500M VIDEO CARD

http://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-DELL-XPS-M1710-PRECISION-M90-512MB-FX3500M-VIDEO-CARD-PR004-YF209-02879y-/121575525864

 

 

* Now, asking for advice and experience on NVidia video drivers for Hackintosh,

 

Do you know if this NVidia FX3500M will work on Mac OS X 10.10 ?

Are there drivers for it ?

 

Please let me know.

Gracias.

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For physical replacement, Dell's support web site provides a service manual showing and explaining all details to remove/replace the various parts and/or elements of the laptop, including the graphics card.

 

Don't bother with the FX 3500M, it's based on the same chip (G7x) as the GeForce Go 7950 GTX. So no difference. You may also find FX 1500M or FX 2500M cards fitted to other Dell laptops/mobile workstations of that generation. Sometimes, these also had optional ATI X1300 or X1400. All of those are not supported by OS X beyond Lion.

 

You'd need graphics cards fitted with nVidia chips G8x or G9x to be able to enjoy ML, Mavericks or Yosemite (eg: nVidia Quadro FX 1600M/1700M, FX 2700M/2800M, FX 3700M/3800M) but I don't think you'll find any MXM modules fitting your XPS M1710.

 

It's probably a lost cause to go beyond Lion (or bastardised ML) to a full 64bit-mode OS X version on that old laptop I'm afraid...

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Gracias amigo Hervé.

 

It looks like only NVidia could save me.

 

Yesterday I installed Windows 10 Technical Preview on this Dell laptop and works so fine with this hardware.

So sad I can not do the same installing Yosemite.

 

Thanks a lot.

Roberto.

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