Lion Mac OS X 10.7 on Thinkpad X61

[Geraldo]

Hi Guys!

First of all I want to say thank you for all the work you did. I found this page an got myself a used X61 Tablet. A real bargain. To build the the most awsome Hackbook I also got myself a sierra 3G module, extra ram, an ssd and an atheros replacement wifi card (yes I made sure I got the right stupid FRU numbers). =) Once finished this thing will be AWESOME! Haha

So just to make sure for the start I got everything right. I got myself a Mac OS 10.6 install DVD and the Lion update. Ill start with creating a bootstick using the stated bootloader. Then I'll install 10.6. Right after that I will apply the Lion update and boot it again through the stick. Then i'll copy the bootloader to the harddrive and make sure all the kexts are in place and repair the permissions. (will read through all the post before I start again to make sure I dont miss something) Then I'll try to get everything else done. Does that sound like it could work? =)

All the best and thank you all! Ill share my experiences in return!

Geraldo

[Anastasius]

Hi Anastasius !

You make a great guide !
My x61T 7763 has an intel mobile 965 with 1400x1050 resolution, do you know if this resolution will work on Lion ?

greetings !

Thanks! I don't know, but it seems yes. I got myself an external monitor 1680x1050 and it works cool and fast.

Hi Guys!

Does that sound like it could work? =)

Geraldo

I don't recommend you starting from 10.6 if you want to have Lion in the end. Start from Lion 10.7 installation DVD copied to flash (along with Chameleon bootloader). Then install it to your X61, then put a bootloader and ... just follow my guide from the first post

[victor.vhv]

Hi Anastasius !

You make a great guide !
My x61T 7763 has an intel mobile 965 with 1400x1050 resolution, do you know if this resolution will work on Lion ?

greetings !

I do have an intel mobile 965@1400x1050 too, it works using the kexts posted in this thread (at least with 10.7.1, it worked flawlessly!) and I set chameleon to boot at 1400x1050

Code: Select all

cat /Extra/org.chameleon.Boot.plist :
(...)
<key>Graphics Mode</key>
<string>1400x1050x32</string>
(...)

The only problem I am having is random freezes (screen stays "locked", mouse moves, but clicking has no effect and if I have music it keeps on playing). I have 10.7.2 now, with Anastasius' kexts.

Is anyone experiencing random freezes? Is there a possible fix? (I think it's related to GMAX3100 kexts, I don't get any kernel panics, but I did get once a message in my screen about AppleIntelGMAX3100FB.kext)

By the way, Thank you so much Anastasius, your guide helped me a lot!

P.S. I had bluetooth working with the original intel wireless card (no WI-FI though). Replacing this card by an airport (AirPort Extreme (0x168C, 0x87), firmware: Atheros 5416: 4.0.58.4-P2P). Now it's impossible for me to get bluetooth (i patched my bios to recognize the card). Does someone out there have/had a similar problem?

[Anastasius]

The only problem I am having is random freezes (screen stays "locked", mouse moves, but clicking has no effect and if I have music it keeps on playing). I have 10.7.2 now, with Anastasius' kexts.

Yep, I had the same problem. Check first post's section "Additional steps I'm not sure of". You can download files I used in those steps:
http://www.mediafire.com/?93mfsfh19cn3e46

Try these steps and then try to wait - after two-three freezes and restarts my Lion works without any freeze for one week already.
Please write here if it helped you!

By the way, Thank you so much Anastasius, your guide helped me a lot!

You're welcome

P.S. I had bluetooth working with the original intel wireless card (no WI-FI though). Replacing this card by an airport (AirPort Extreme (0x168C, 0x87), firmware: Atheros 5416: 4.0.58.4-P2P). Now it's impossible for me to get bluetooth (i patched my bios to recognize the card). Does someone out there have/had a similar problem?

I patched my Dell Wi-Fi card instead of BIOS (taping the 20pth pin with adhesive tape), I have bluetooth and WiFi working. Maybe you may try it.

[victor.vhv]

Thank you so much! I am going to try it right now!

By the way... I should have read that section, I was just re-reading your post right now and saw the mentions to this problem. I'll see in the future what happens with my card's pin-20! (I am traveling right now, so I don't have all of my tools with me )

Thanks again!

[Geraldo]

Hey, why dont u write that trick with the 20th pin in your guide. I wouldnt have bought a card if i had known that before.

All the best!

[victor.vhv]

It's a pitty, I'm still getting freezes pitty... thanks anyway By the way, Anastasius, did you tape pin 20 and place your card in the second PCIE slot? or did you replace the original card? Do you have both connected?

Cheers!

[Anastasius]

Geraldo, victor.vhv


Taping 20th pin is quite simple. But the basic steps are - you have to take the card which works with Mac OS X (I took Dell BRCM 4311), then find 20th pin (see the image) and tape it with a very thin adhesive tape. Then you have to replace your own card with the new taped one, as the native cards are usually not supported by Mac OS X anyway. I put it to the same PCIE slot where my original card was located. You won't have card status on Windows after that and WiFi LED won't function, but the card will. You have to be very accurate, the piece of tape is very small

victor.vhv
Did you try to wait for several freezes and then restart? I had freezes after my steps but they disappeared now.
And did you change smbios.plist changing SMproductname=MacBook3,1 and SMfamily=MacBook? This step is crucial.

[victor.vhv]

I removed my smbios.plist fixes, as I rolled back to a backup Reapplying the changes right now!
Quick question: is the 20th pin located on the top row or the one under (in the picture)?

Thanks!

[Geraldo]

Ahhhha =) Thank you! Btw... how hot does your cpu get under load. Mine reaches temperatures in Win up to 90° Celsius unter full load. I know that the Core2duo l7500 is certified up to 100° but its still quite hot for my taste. Also the fan is a bit noisi. Do you think it would make sense to replace the fan. I had a look into the HMM and it seems doable.

Also I would like to know how long your batterys 8c last under mac os? In win7 I get about 4 hours out of it.

Thanks alot!

Geraldo

[Anastasius]

Quick question: is the 20th pin located on the top row or the one under (in the picture)?

Thanks!

top

Ahhhha =) Mine reaches temperatures in Win up to 90° Celsius unter full load.

Also I would like to know how long your batterys 8c last under mac os? In win7 I get about 4 hours out of it.

You have to use special DSDT instructions and iStat menus 2 to control your fan and CPU load. And you have to enable C-States and P-States for CPU to get cooler. It is all written in my first post. With a DSDT already patched and provided there. My normal CPU temperature is 59° Celsius (on Lion), and when I watch 1080p movies and run various programs at the same time - about 81° Celsius max. I never tested battery, though I have an extended one.

[33!mport]

Hello everybody !

I'm new in osx68 world, and have some issues !


When I boot from the install usb stick on my X61T, i have a kernel panic :
panic(cpu 0 caller 0x672901): "Unable to find driver for this platform: \"ACPI\".\n"@/SourceCache/xnu/xnu-1699.22.73/iokit/Kernel/IOPlatformExpert.cpp:1504

Update: i haven't restored the correct .dmg on my usb stick, now it's ok.


@Anastasius : in step 2 you say "Install Chameleon 2.0 RC5 r1496", but on the web i found only the Chameleon-2.1svn-r1496.pkg : http://builds.voodooprojects.org/builds/Xcode4.1/

Thanks you all for your knowledge sharing !

[jzhang18]

I try to test FireWire with my Canon miniDV (ZR700) and external hard drive. and find out --
hot-plug is not working under Lion.
I connect my miniDV to my thinkpad X61, choose to restart Lion.
Then I see ZR700 is mounted under FireWire (Link Speed 400 MB/sec)
I can use iMovie or Final Cut Pro to capture the video from the tape.

Connecting to FireWire Hard-Drive, it will take a long booting time, ( it seems mounted under FireWire link), But Finder is dead. (Maybe this is because of my NTFS Firewire Hard drive). disconnect my external Hard drive, Finder becomes active (unlocked) immediately. I think if I re-format my FireWire Hard-Drive to HFS+, I will see it appearing on the desktop.

Summarize it , plug&play feature of FireWire is not working on Lion with Thinkpad X61 (but working with my GA-P55-USB3 desktop, Lion 10.7.2) , Need rebooting Thinkpad to mount external FireWire device.

Hope this information is helpful to others.

[Geraldo]

Hi all,

just wanted to share some experiances with my x61 T8100. I added extra ram, an sierra mc8775 and a samsung ssd. Creating a working boot stick for Lion gave me a hard time. In the end I just went with tonymacs foolproof unibeat boot stick. After that i used multibeast to install chimera 1.6. So easy, and it worked like a charme.

I didnt have problems with icloud or anything else after having installed anastasious kexts via kext utility and the extra folder. I didnt install the x3100 kext since after having installed 10.7.2 it worked right out of the box. Speedstepping also seems to work finde.

Only thing im facing is those freezes. Ill have a look on that tomorrow and will try to get rid of those. Another thing is sleep. I donst work. The thinkpad reboots when waking up. Tried sleepenabler.kext with no luck. Any ideas here?

Thanks alot for the great help!

[Anastasius]

Please read my first post, there's a part "Additional steps I'm not sure of" where I describe steps to deal with freezes.

Sleep works for me with the native Lion 10.7.2 kexts - it seems you replaced some kext during installation. Or maybe our system configurations differ a lot.

BTW, take in mind that sleep and freezes depend on many factors, including your smbios.plist (Lion now takes Mac model number from serial, so your SMserial has to be correct), FakeSMC and IOPLatformPluginFamily.

[Geraldo]

Hey,

yes I read the things about the freezes. The questions pointed more in the direction of the sleept problem. In the System Info it says I got a 17" Macbook pro. Is there anyway I can change that serial, and if, what would be the correct model to go with.

Thank you very much!

Geraldo

[Anastasius]

Hey,

yes I read the things about the freezes. The questions pointed more in the direction of the sleept problem. In the System Info it says I got a 17" Macbook pro. Is there anyway I can change that serial, and if, what would be the correct model to go with.

Thank you very much!

Geraldo

Basically you have to find the MacBook/MacBookPro/MacBookAir model that better suits your hardware.
1) Check these lists on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacBook, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacBook_Air, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacBook_Pro.
For my X61t it seems the best is MacBook3,1.
2) Then you have to edit your smbios.plist, setting SMfamily, SMproductname, SMserial and SMbiosversion. Note that all four values must match your chosen MacBook model, as Lion checks all of them. The SMbiosversion must look like MB31.XXX.XXXX.XXX.XXXXXXXXXX for MacBook3,1 etc. And you can find the serial for SMserial for your model across the Internet and then check it here: http://www.everymac.com/ultimate-mac-lookup/ by entering its last three digits it will tell you if it's right model.
3) Finally go to Apple -> About This Mac -> More Info and check if your Mac is identified correctly. If not you will have various system freezes and sleep problems.

It wasn't very important in 10.6.X, but Lion now checks all four values when it finds drivers for your model. So if you set SMserial for one model and set SMproductname to the other one, it will be confused and will choose model by serial number

Note also that if you choose a slow Mac like MacBookAir you will have a slow computer and your processor speed won't rise high as MacBookAir (and MacBook as well) have rather weak cooling system and Apple limits high processor states in that case. So if you find your Hackintosh is too slow comparing to Windows you can try to find a model that is not very close to yours, but faster (like MacBookPro). But it can result in freezes as well, especially if you graphics adapter won't match the corresponding MacBook model.

P.S. In my example I found that MacBook3,1 is very close to my X61, and there are no freezes with this profile, but it's very slow. So now I'm trying to use MacBookPro2,1 profile which is very fast (I can watch BlueRay video), but it results in random freezes, so I'm now trying to patch IOPlatformPluginFamily and will post later how it worked.

[Geraldo]

Wow Anastasius, you opened a whole new door for me here. Great post. Thank you. Never really understood how Mac OS is handling the hardware. Now its much more clear to me. As I see its Macbook 4,1 is the most suiting one for my X61 with T8100. I managed so create myself a working smbios.plist. Thank you very much for that. The system is running very stable since I made that change. No more choppy courser etc. etc.

But its still not runnig perfect. Sleep won't do it and strangely blueooth is not working anymore since I made a fresh install. Stupid. I don't get it. Anyway. The results are quite good. Who needs bluetooth anyway since iCloud.

So all im worrying about is the sleep thing and that I'm never sure, if i really pull the most out of my hardware.

Ill keep you guys updated!

Thank you!

[Anastasius]

Wow Anastasius, you opened a whole new door for me here. Great post. Thank you. ....

Great to hear it! You're welcome!
Can you please share here your smbios.plist, dsdt.aml (from /Extra) and FakeSMC.kext (wherever you hold it)? Thanks!

[Geraldo]

Hm okay, now I'm confused. This Hackpad is giving me a hard time.

I created to smbios.plists. One for a MB 4,1 one for MBP 4,1 and ran for each one a geekbench. Almost no difference in performance. I don't get that.

Also my X61 is never getting really heated. I remember that it could get really warm using windows xp. No such sign under mac os. So I guess the system as I set it up is not even close to getting the most possible out of the hardware.

Right now I'm using the Unibeast bootstick for install an a chimera boot loader. Is it possible thats that the reason for not being able to put it to sleep. Also it might be that the kexts provided are meant for an x61T with T7500 processor. Im using a X61 with T8100. Is it possible thats that the reason for the sleep problem and the low performance? Cant play 1080p video in flash and it should be possible with that hardware. Ansatasius, what do you think? Any suggestions what to try next?

Thank you!

Geraldo

[Geraldo]

Just saw your other post now:

here is what I did.

smbios.plist: googling around for the four values you stated, insetting in plist file. Copy to Extra folder and rebooting. then checking in "about this mac" what mac is shown. Then running a benchmark.
Ill post the content of these files below.

Dsdt.aml: Tcone posted on the first page of this section a link to a different forum where he took his dsdt for a x61 stating it would work well. Since Im experimenting I just took the dsdt.dsl provided there, compiled it with DSDTSE and replaced it with the one I used before. I was just looking for a way to transform the .dsl file to .aml and found a tutorial somewhere stating thats this was the way to do it. Again, I'm really inexperienced in this.

FakeSMC.kext: Is in the Extra folder. Why is this important? Its the one you provided.

Content of my smbios.plists:

For MBP 4,1:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>SMbiosvendor</key>
<string>Apple Inc.</string>
<key>SMbiosversion</key>
<string>MBP41.88Z.00C1.B03.0802271651</string>
<key>SMboardmanufacturer</key>
<string>Apple Computer, Inc.</string>
<key>SMboardproduct</key>
<string>Mac-F22788A9</string>
<key>SMfamily</key>
<string>MacBookPro</string>
<key>SMmanufacturer</key>
<string>Apple Inc.</string>
<key>SMproductname</key>
<string>MacBookPro4,1</string>
<key>SMserial</key>
<string>W88261E7YP4</string>
<key>SMsystemversion</key>
<string>1.0</string>
<key>SMexternalclock</key>
<string>200</string>
</dict>
</plist>

For MacBook 4,1:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>SMbiosvendor</key>
<string>Apple Inc.</string>
<key>SMbiosversion</key>
<string>MB41.88Z.00C1.B00.0802091535</string>
<key>SMboardmanufacturer</key>
<string>Apple Computer, Inc.</string>
<key>SMboardproduct</key>
<string>Mac-F22788A9</string>
<key>SMfamily</key>
<string>MacBook</string>
<key>SMmanufacturer</key>
<string>Apple Inc.</string>
<key>SMproductname</key>
<string>MacBook4,1</string>
<key>SMserial</key>
<string>W8813MMN0P2</string>
<key>SMsystemversion</key>
<string>1.0</string>
<key>SMexternalclock</key>
<string>200</string>
</dict>
</plist>

Im alway happy for any hints.

Thanks a lot!

Edit: It would be also helpful to share some quality links were to start reading.

[Anastasius]

Thanks! Right now I'm trying to solve the problem you're facing - speeding up original Apple MacBook model on Lion. I was able to do it (will post later how I did it) but I get mixed results. Sometimes my X61 gets frozen, I'm trying to resolve it with FakeSMC and dsdt. Can you please post here (on mediafire.com for example) your dsdt in any format (aml or dsl - it's not important)? It can bring me closer to the victory!

[Geraldo]

Okay,

here you are. By saying .dsl or .aml dosnt make a difference I guess you meant for your purpose, I guess? .dsl files need to be compiled to .aml in order to use them in Extra Folder, right? It would be cool if you could provide some ideas how to get speed up my X61.

Another experience I made is, that when I do Install Lion from the stick on this device, and do not change the smbios.plist, mac os thinks that the X61 is a MacPro Computer. When thats the case Im able to watch 1080p in flash without any problems. Perhaps ill just go with that configuration. Ill give that a shot again.

http://www.mediafire.com/?kjl2yb6w2y5zgtb

Enjoy,

Geraldo

[Anastasius]

Thank you, Geraldo!

Yep, .dsl is the source and .aml is the binary

When you don't use smbios.plist, the Mac doesn't know your exact C-States/P-States/Power management scheme and fan management won't work. And as well you may get freezes when extensively using some OpenGL software like games, Photoshop, graphics editing, Flash11 video/3D features, Safari hardware CSS acceleration etc. That's why your computer is faster - it just doesn't use Intel SpeedStep so you won't have a long battery life as well and your fan speed will be very high for all the time. On Mac OS X 10.6.X it was much much easier. Now it needs some more work.

I was able to modify IOPlatformPluginFamily's MacBook3,1 plist so I have a temperature about 59C when browsing Internet and 81C when watching video. So my processor starts working on its full only when needed, but I need more tests. And I will definitely put here story about my experience when I fight random freezes.

[Geraldo]

=) welcome

Its funny. I don't have any problems with these freezes at all. Perhaps due to the faster processor. Who know. I finally found a way to put everything in place that it works well for me. I have a stable running mac os 10.7.2 and will start with the fine tuning now. My next goals are to get bluetooth to work (it doenst right now). Also I have a sierra MC8775 in may X61. I installed mc8775.kext but it does not appear that the system recognizes the card. Its not displayed in Network section. Also sleep is not working at all. Had the same problem with a mini 311 I used to have. But it just solved itself after sometime. Installing snow leopard on that laptop was way easier for me, since there was a well going community. So lets see how this goes here. Would be cool to have a cheap reliable macbook. =)

So much for now!

[jzhang18]

This is my smbois.plist for X61 T8300 (2.4Ghz)

Code: Select all

	<key>SMbiosvendor</key>
	<string>Apple Inc.</string>
	<key>SMbiosversion</key>
	<string>MBP11.0055.B08</string>
	<key>SMboardmanufacturer</key>
	<string>Apple Computer, Inc.</string>
	<key>SMboardproduct</key>
	<string>Mac-F42189C8</string>
	<key>SMfamily</key>
	<string>MacBookPro</string>
	<key>SMmanufacturer</key>
	<string>Apple Inc.</string>
	<key>SMproductname</key>
	<string>MacBookPro2,3</string>
	<key>SMserial</key>
	<string>W88033AKY51</string>
	<key>SMsystemversion</key>
	<string>1.0</string>
	<key>SMmaximalclock</key>
	<string>2400</string>
	<key>SMmemspeed</key>
	<string>667</string>
	<key>SMexternalclock</key>
	<string>200</string>
   <key>SMmemtype</key>
   <string>19</string>
<key>SMmemmanufacturer</key>  
<string>Apple</string>  
<key>SMmempart</key> 
<string>MB-SOD-667-4G</string>  
<key>SMmemserial</key>  
<string>ASMM16C0180</string>  

Geekbench 32bit benchmark: 3361
Geekbench 64bit benchmark: 3701

[Geraldo]

This is my smbois.plist for X61 T8300 (2.4Ghz)

Awseome. Tested your smbios.plist and I gained another 300 Geekbench points. Seems to improve performance. Do you have BT build in your machine? Cant get mine to work. Could you please share your dsdt, /extra and S/L/E? That would be awesome.

Thank you very much!

[jzhang18]

Do you have BT build in your machine?

my X61 T8300 has no BT, but I use ASUS BT dongler attached to USB port
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... %20dongler
Lion recognize it automatically, hot-plug in/out.
my X61T L7500 has internal BT, I never got it working since Leopard, give it up.
I guess if BT goes through USB, it is recognized by MAC OSX easily, else (it goes through Internal Bus) it needs some patched code.

[jzhang18]

I use Anastasius's package from the first post, in the kernel log, I always saw this error.

Code: Select all

com.apple.kextd: /System/Library/Extensions/SMCITEController.kext - no compatible dependency found for org.netkas.FakeSMC.

I am not sure anyone has the same issue, or it is just related to my installation.
If this error is common, is there any fix for it?
I know for sure, iStat Menu needs SMCITEController.kext. so I cannot simply remove it.
Any fix for it? really appreciated!

[Great Gatsby]

Thanks for the hint! I included your info into manual and I wonder if new Chameleon supports FileVault 2

No, not to my knowledge, and I honestly doubt that it will be possible to achieve this in the future.

I've already done a lengthy research on that, but it seems that nobody actually has been able to use FileVault 2 in its standard 'Full Disk Encryption-mode' on a Hackintosh. You'll find a bit about it here and here, but nothing that would suggest anyone has made it to work on a Hackintosh yet. - Which is a real pity, because IMHO FileVault 2 is the killer feature of Lion (all the others are rather not features I've been deeply missing in Snow Leopard so far ).