torrent99

Hi, I'm currently running Snow Leopard 10.6.8 on my d630 3GB X3100, and I'm getting total lockups (i.e. mouse moves but no other signs of life requiring full power off to get back) with the Preview app when editing photos. Anyone come across this before? Any fixes? Cheers Steve

Anyone else having really bad performance with Intel x3100 & 10.7.4 on YouTube? (on a d630) Safari (via HTML5) is really awful about 2fps Chrome (via Flash) is 100% CPU and a bit jerky...

As any lover of the trackpoing/pointing stick/nipple mouse will tell you, the best version of it is the Thinkpad one.....and the Dell one STINKS!!!! (YMMV) I've done a handy mod to make mine a bit more like the Thinkpad version I'm used to. Theory: Basically the stick on the Dell trackpoint is a bit shorter than the Thinkpad one (2mm vs 3mm), so it has less leverage. This makes it harder to move the thing! I tried using a Thinkpad nipple to get more leverage, but unfortunately the hole for the Thinkpad nipples is slightly too big for the "stick" bit of the Dell. So the idea with this mod is to modify a Thinkpad nipple to fit onto a Dell trackpoint. Parts Needed: 1) Thinkpad trackpoint nipple (pennies from ebay) 2) Some Polymorph plastic (about 10 grains) (numerous places) 3) Some form of oil (I used olive oil) + a small brush (probably optional but used for safety) 4) Matchstick Polymorph is a fantastic type of plastic that melts (well softens) at about 60C, when it sets though it's very similar to the Nylon plastic used to make gears in cameras etc. Steps: 1) Melt some polymorph in a small amount of water. (I do this in the microwave, but the official instructions say to use hot water & measure the temperature). If you use a microwave, be very careful as very hot Polymorph burns and sticks like hot glue! 2) Stuff the inside of the Thinkpad nipple with polymorph, & use the end of the matchstick to begin a hole to take the "stick" bit from the trackpoint. 3) Trim off the excess Polymorph. 4) (OPTIONAL) Paint the trackpoint stick with a very small bit of oil, this is to prevent the polymorph sticking to it! 5) Pop the polymorph stuffed nipple in some hot water to make sure the polymorph is nice an soft. 6) Once the polymorph is soft (clear), remove the matchstick, dry the nipple and press fit it onto the trackpoint. 7) Wait for the polymorph to cool (a few mins), remove the nipple, wipe off the oil & reinstall. 8) Enjoy.

Yes I had that suspicion too! Seems wierd putting out a new BIOS 2 years after the last one, and for a discontinued product. I'm leaving well alone!!!

The bios (on the BIOS setup screen) says the battery doesn't exist (no battery connected)! (But it happily charges it and lights the battery light above the keyboard) I've a nasty feeling the power control circuitry has failed in a wierd way.

I've got a bit of a weird problem on my D630. (not OSX related..) The battery itself seems pretty good, it will power my laptop for up to 2 hours, without blanking the screen. However, bios and hence the OS doesn't think the laptop exists! It charges, and the LED glows green & orange as expected. Also in OSX when I do a Software Update, it claims that I have no power connected (even though I'm running off the mains!).... Anyone seen this before?

Anyone using the new A18 BIOS on the D630? Any real reason to update? The changes seems to be mainly lockdowns of some sort...DRM?

Here you go. Extra.tar.gz

FINALLY SUCCESS!!! I've got 10.7.3 installed, and so far wake from sleep is working fine. The problem? Quite a few bad sectors on the disc, which the Lion install was OK with but the 10.7.3 update hit halfway through. Several passes of HDD Regenerator 2011 couldn't fix them, so I ended up moving the partitions about to make sure the area isn't used. Onwards and upwards.... now to try various mouse drivers to see if I can get a satisfactory experience. (Oh and create a franken keyboard hybrid of a Thinkpad & D630, the Dell keyboard is <fill in expletive here>)

So how did you install it?

Total fail with the 10.7.3 update. Totally non bootable. Even the time machine restore failed. Reinstalling now. Will do a proper dd backup next time

Yea sleep was pretty easy. mine seems to sleep no matter if I use sleepenabler or the apple power management (1st two questions in EDP) or not, AND I DON"T EVEN NEED TO USE A BIOS PASSWORD!!!!! ( In snow leopard I had to use normal default apple power managment or it wouldn't sleep at all) In /Extra/Extensions is: AppleACPIPS2Nub.kext BCM5722D.kext IntelCPUMonitor.kext VoodooBattery.kext VoodooTSCSync.kext AppleHDADisabler.kext FakeSMC.kext NullCPUPowerManagement.kext VoodooHDA.kext ApplePS2Controller.kext IOAudioFamily.kext OSvKernDSPLib.kext VoodooPS2Trackpad.kext ApplePS2Keyboard.kext IONetworkingFamily.kext SleepEnabler.kext VoodooPState.kext I'm currently experimenting with the SlicePS2 controller (not sure on that one). I'm using the "stock" DSTS for a D630 x3100 (1280x800) that comes with EDP 2.2 (no fiddling required). My Wifi card in a Dell 1390 bought off the bay, I didn't do any rebranding. It was picked up automatically during the Lion install. It reports as BCM4311 in the graphical lspci. The only things I did "off piste" from the wiki were: 1) Always booting with "-v -x" during the install process. 2) Had to use a USB keyboard & mouse otherwise the Lion install kept looking for a bluetooth keyboard. It still even now keeps trying to find a bluetooth kb and mouse...so I've disabled bluetooth for the moment in the bios. hope this helps....

Ahhh just seen an entry in the change log for the 10.7.3 update: * Resolve a Wi-Fi connection issue when waking from sleep time to update (after a time machine backup....)

Just as I thought I'd got Lion licked. I've a bit of a niggle with the Wifi on my D630 X3100 with Dell 1390 WiFi. It's fine 90% of the time, but after returning from SLEEP the Internet connection doesn't work.. Well I say it doesn't work, actually I can ping various sites, but internet browsers Chrome, Safari etc don't believe the network is up. Bringing the wifi down and up again fixes everything, but that's pretty damn annoying. Anyone seen this before? Cheers Steve

Can I caveat the NVIDIA choice? Pretty much all NVIDIA laptops of the d6x0 era (even some apples) had issues with GPUs failing. Many of these motherboards may have been reflowed in an oven to get them working....for a month or two. So if you are shelling out real money be careful. How do I know? Experience. Hence why I replaced the nvidia board with an Intel. (i reflowed the NVIDIA board and am planning to turn it into a desktop with mega cooling on the gpu)