muranb

Nope, definitely Intel this one. I'm past the install stage now and am at the combo update stage - which also seems to be taking some time.

After some time and some success with Lion on my D630 I've decided to give ML a go. I'm running an Intel model, have created the MyHack installer and am at the installation stage. I've selected the media to install to and the install is progressing as I type but VERY slowly. Each minute on the countdown is taking more like 10 mins so you can imagine the overall install time and at the end of if I'm not hopeful for a good install. Before getting to this stage I had all sorta of issues as reported by others, failure to boot, slow mouse etc. now I've passed that I don't want to give up but this is driving me insane - especially as this is only a test and I'll have to do it all again after I followed the MyHack guide to created the installer and coped the Extra folder from the following post (Low res) and ran MyFix after replacing the existing Extra folder. https://osxlatitude.com/index.php?/topic/2464-dell-latitude-d630-intel-gma-x3100-ml-with-full-qeci/ What have I done wrong please? Thanks.

Hi, Wondering if anyone has successfully replaced a WXGA 1280 x 800 screen with a WXGA+ 1440 x 900 in a Dell D630? I've cracked mine and want to replace but while I'm at it I am thinking of dropping in a higher res screen if this is compatible. Mine is the Intel system. Thanks.

Thanks, I've set the brightness in bios and in OS X but still seems to be lacking. Wondered if it was a known thing.

Am I missing a tweak related to the brightness on a D630 running Lion on 10.7.5? Whilst brightness adjustment works perfectly along with the on-screen display I sometimes feel it's a little dim for the environment. Any pointers?

Thanks once again for a comprehensive reply I will stay away from the 7300 and will look towards the others you recommended if I decide to dabble further with the 755. In much the same way as the D630 is ageing I'm not sure spending on that would be the best option. As you might have seen in another thread of mine I am still battling with the idea of a replacement laptop - more use to me than a desktop anyway for my use and of the the models I'm considering, one I already know to be fully compatible with OSX and the other has the fairly modern nVidia Geforce GT-640M so I'm thinking that compatibility shouldn't be an issue there. As yet though ... still undecided!

Thank you, I will look into the nVidia cards. Can't help thinking that with the expense of the screen and the card / wifi I might as well think about a new laptop entirely! The D630 is my main machine at the moment so possibly long overdue an upgrade... just need to convince myself and the other half now

That's interesting. I always thought it was ok for windows at native resolution. I would obvious like higher res but it is certainly usable under windows. I'm not sure i can say the same for OSX though. I'm also undecided whether SL is better than Lion for 1280 x 800 - the jury is still out on the one! Having had a good play with OSX I'm actually seriously considering replacing my ageing D630 now. Can't decide whether to go all out on a MBP or pay a LOT less for a decent windows laptop that I can Hackintosh though as it is kinda fun

Having successfully installed Lion on my D630 laptop I have kind of caught the Hackintosh bug and am currently trying to configure a decommissioned Optiplex 755 destop for use with ML after giving up on my HP Compaq Pro 6200 SFF! I have Lion installed and booting using unifail / multifail but the resolution is stuck at 1024 x 768. I am assuming there is no way around that and that I will need to add a dedicated gfx card to achieve higher? If I can get 1440 x 900 using the on board graphics I'd love to know as that would suffice for now. I'm not too fussed about hardcore gaming so graphics performance does not have to be amazing but I would like to be able to run the latest O/S with all the bells and whistles of iCloud and notification centre etc. Having read many posts on here I am seeing the following gfx cards mentioned often: - ATI 5670 - nvidia 7300se - Radeon 6450 Anything I should be aware of with these and are they all capable cards? Anything else I should consider? I'm also going to need a compatible wifi card if I press on with this build so any recommendation there would be useful also Thanks.

Sure, tried adjusting the brightness and calibrating (both expert and standard) but although there is a slight improvement it's not a marked one. I visited an Apple store today just to check out the screen of a none retina MBP 13" and it didn't look too clear either. I'm beginning to think maybe Apple's choice of fonts are partly to blame! Trying to get Lion installed on my HP Compaq Pro 6200 desktop now for comparison at 1440 x 900 resolution but not having much success with that so can't comment yet

Yep, managed to get the partition cloned to (and bootable from) an external USB hdd. Thanks.

I have just connected up a 1440 x 900 external monitor to the D630 to see if upgrading the screen would be worthwhile and I have to say I am still not finding the output at all clear. Not even an improvement on the D630's 1280 x 800 native resolution. This MIGHT be down to the fact it's a 19" monitor and therefore the display is stretched somewhat in comparison to the D630 but I would have expected some improvement at least. Are there specific .kext files required to drive the higher resolution under either Lion or SL? I see the 1440 x 900 resolution option for the second monitor under display settings so I am guessing not? Really not sure what to do now!

Going to try SL first I think to satisfy my own curiosity That WXGA under Lion is damn hard work on the eyes... Just can't do with it.

Thanks, having a go with SuperDuper now. I'm not entirely sure once I have the backup how I would go about restoring it to be honest but I guess I'll find out. I assume I would need to install a basic OSX to be able to run SuperDuper to restore to another partition on the drive? Or maybe I should have cloned the partition using windows and that way I can restore the whole thing - OSX as backed up and then boot straight into my fully configured OSX?

Thank you so much for confirming that my eyesight isn't necessarily on its way out! I had the other half have a look at the screen and she said it was perfect, nothing wrong with it... Maybe it's Her eyes that are dodgy eh? So you have the same screen and also have the WXGA+ for a direct comparison - Replacement would cost me around £50 here so can I ask is there a marked improvement under Lion or should I perhaps revert to SL and stick with the WXGA if indeed SL is better for text readability etc? Nvidia replacement isn't really an option because if I I was going to replace hardware to that extent I would probably want to upgrade substantially beyond the Dxxx range.

Thanks, looks like I will be re-installing AGAIN then as I didn't use GUID :-/ That's *IF* my eyes can take this screen much longer but that's covered in my other thread ...

Having messed about with Lion on my standard intel D630 based D630 with a resolution of 1280 x 800 I am now at a point of deciding whether I can use this as a regular machine ... however, there is something stopping me. Images / text and graphics look pretty crisp on my Win 8 install on this laptop but the same cannot be said of the Lion install. Text is particularly hard to read and the off-white (creamy) colour of the screen is quite off-putting. I can get round the colour to a certain extent with calibration but the resolution is a sticking point. Reading this forum for instance looks almost blurred in Safari compared to viewing on my Win 8 install. As far as I am aware there is no way to adjust the system font in mac - shame as I am sure that taking a little weight off would help immensely. I have tried Tinker Tool and also the font smoothing option within OSX but the results are not good. Now, seems my only option might be to up the resolution of the screen to the 1440 x 900 model. Wondering how feasible this is and if it's worth doing? Having gained a feel for OSX through this hackintosh (something I have never tinkered with before) I am sorely tempted to splash out on a macbook but I really don't want to resort to that if I can avoid it just yet. Any experiences / tips for improving existing graphics and particularly text readability would be most welcome.

Do you mean the .kext referred to in the first post of that thread? If so, I'm pretty sure that's the one I am using already ...

Thanks, I will check those out... Just to clarify, as SuperDuper is a mac app - are you saying I can clone the working partition from within the hackintosh environment? I kinda assumed I would need to remove the HDD and drop it in another machine, boot from chosen cloning media to carry out the process. Can it really be as simple as running the program from within the hackintosh environment?

Maybe that's not far off would I would get from the in-built battery if I let it run a full cycle - maybe I expect too much. I just thought with the fan activity (pretty much continual unless laptop idle) that something must be caning it? Your bios settings posted here are what I have used in my set-up. I don't think the recommendation here refers to graphics. You're right, I tried ML on my setup and anything remotely graphics hungry was pretty much impossible. Shame but I see the recommendation by most is to use Lion on the Intel based machines so will stick with that.

I thought that right after I posted ... cheers, I will experiment.

Yup, bios all set as per wiki Using BCM5722D.kext

Battery all good and healthy in bios. I do have a spare somewhere so will drop that in and see if there is any difference. Think I have taken care of everything that could effect it s/w wise. Am I right to run 'on demand' btw or is 'conservative' recommended?

Thanks, I'm thinking the same. Any s/w recommendations? I use Acronis / Ghost for Windows. Not sure either will support mac filesystem?

As title really, my D630 Intel running 10.7.5 seems to be eating battery, noticeably moreso than when in Windows 8 (dual booting). My question is what kind of battery drain can I expect, should it be a lot worse on a hackintosh? Meter doesn't drop in 1% increments either - seems more like 3-4% but varies. Typically I would say I am losing roughly 10% for under 10 mins use. Normal? Fan also seems to be on a lot and I have cleaned it up and checked similar threads recommending hardware acceleration be turned off - which it is. I have speedstep installed from EDP and am running on-demand as per default. Any other pointers please? Thanks.