Dell Optiplex 745 partially working

[dc]

Hi all, I've been following this group since it began but I haven't had much to say up till now.  My only "hack" was a Dell mini-9 netbook, and that one is so well supported by the mini-9 Forum that I have had it running 10.6.8 pretty easily.  I had been hoping to construct an i7 HackPro but I picked up an actual MacPro 1,1 fairly inexpensively because it "couldn't boot 64-bit"... it is now booting via Chameleon and running 64-bit 10.8.1 with a Radeon 6870 video card.  So I guess it's a Hackintosh in an odd sort of way.

Last week I picked up a discarded Dell Optiplex 745 and I used iBoot Legacy to install Snow Leopard.  It's running 10.6.6 OK right now, no sleep-restart-shutdown and still needs iBoot to startup.  Updating to 10.6.8 bricks it.  I'll be working on it over the next few weeks I'm sure, I plan on replacing the 1.86 Core2Dou with a 2.66 Quad, getting at least 4 GB RAM, and adding a low profile Radeon 6450.  Then it's on to Mountain Lion (hopefully).

I can't get the Broadcom ethernet working.  I installed AppleBCM5722D.kext which the notes say should support the 5754 "if the device ID is added".  I think the correct device ID is 167a and I used Text Edit to add this number to the Info plist.  Can someone let me know if this is the correct way to add the device ID?  I've never modded a kext before.

Thanks!

[Kris Tilford]

On Aug 25, 2012, at 11:37 AM, dc wrote:

> I used Text Edit to add this number to the Info plist. Can someone
> let me know if this is the correct way to add the device ID? I've
> never modded a kext before.

That'll work, but you must get the ownership & permissions right or
the kext won't load.

[mosslack]

A couple of things. First, here is a step-by-step guide to changing device ID's. 

http://www.computersnyou.com/2012/03/working-ati-5450-graphics-in-hackintosh.html

This is for a gfx card, but the principle is the same. Also be sure to run a program like Kext Utility after adding, removing or modifying any kext. This needs to be done so that the kext cache will be updated, which is very important, especially for SL. HTH

From the main system of mosslack...

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[pete...@cruzio.com]

I am completing testing of Rev. F of the hp/Compaq DC7900 CMT (and DC7900
SFF ?) DSDT.

Historically, the DSDT designer "overloaded" lots of variables, thereby
contributing to possible confusion.

The variable name CRES was invariably used for a number of data structures
which were local to a particular device.

In many cases, the CRES variable was updated on-the-fly and then the
result was RETURNed to the caller with the modified version.

With Rev. F, I am renaming such local CRESses, as described below, but I
am retaining the variable name CRES for the remaining few, very large data
structures, which are used elsewhere.

BUF0 - LNKA
BUF1 - LNKB
BUF2 - LNKC
BUF3 - LNKD
BUF4 - LNKE
BUF5 - LNKF
BUF6 - LNKG
BUF7 - LNKH
BUF8 - ECP0 (Bi-directional high-performance parallel port)
BUF9 - LPT0 (Uni-directional standard-performance parallel port)
BUFA - COM1 (Comm Port 1, the one which is "printed" and has a connector)
BUFB - COM2 (Comm Port 2, the one which is optional and requires a cable kit)
BUFC - FDC0 (Floppy disk port)
BUFD - APIC
BUFE - HPET

In the near future, I MAY go back and update the DC7800 to conform to the
above.

No schedule for releasing Rev. F as yet.

Rev. C and Rev. E of the DC7900 DSDT are still good.

[pete...@cruzio.com]

> In the near future, I MAY go back and update the DC7800 to conform to the
> above.
>
> No schedule for releasing Rev. F as yet.
>
> Rev. C and Rev. E of the DC7900 DSDT are still good.

I have completed he DC7800 DSDT mods, but I haven't tested them as yet.

The VERY SAME mods were required.

Leading one to speculate that the DC7800 mods are A-OK.

Of course, we already learned, through testing, that the DC7800 DSDT would
work on a DC7900.

The reverse is, alas, NOT necessarily true as the DC7900 support AHCI, but
the DC7800, WITH the special IOATAFamily kext only simulates it.

[dc]

I use Kext Drop or Kext Helper to install, Kext Utility to repair permissions and rebuild caches.  I'll be testing my edited kext tomorrow.

[Kris Tilford]

I've mentioned this before. Kext Utility seems to set the ownership &
permissions to a much less secure state, and you would need to run
Disk Utility>Repair Permissions to "lock down" all those ownerships &
permissions that Kext Utility "opens up".

[David & Bernadette Culpepper]

Will do, thanks Kris! 

dc
David Culpepper

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[dc]

On Saturday, August 25, 2012 12:37:53 PM UTC-4, dc wrote:

I can't get the Broadcom ethernet working.  I installed AppleBCM5722D.kext which the notes say should support the 5754 "if the device ID is added".  I think the correct device ID is 167a and I used Text Edit to add this number to the Info plist.

 

Well that didn't work, I added the device ID and edited the machine OS build code but still no ethernet.  So I put in a TP-Link PCI gigabit network card, it was recognized OOB and connected right away. Same with the Radeon 6450 except that Snow Leopard doesn't have a native 6xxx driver so my resolution is limited to 1280 x 768.  The new quad core processor and 8 GB RAM are going in later this week.  Should I then go from 10.6 to 10.7 to 10.8 or jump right from 10.6.6 to 10.8.1, anyone want to weigh in on that?

[dc]

Mountain Lion installer has been running about 20 minutes and is almost done.  If this works, would anyone be interested in a detailed guide for running 10.8 on this specific machine?

[faithie999]

yes. a detailed guide would be good.

[mosslack]

On Aug 31, 2012, at 7:21 AM, dc wrote:

Mountain Lion installer has been running about 20 minutes and is almost done.  If this works, would anyone be interested in a detailed guide for running 10.8 on this specific machine?

Any and all guides are very much appreciated, 

[dc]

The week ended on a high note with the little old dell 745 running 10.8.1 (I couldn't find that 19.8.1 update anywhere...) and next week I will do the hardware upgrades.  My software pathway was iBoot Legacy to install retail 10.6, software update (manually downloaded and installed) 10.6.7 combo, then the tricky part was using Pacifist to install most of the 10.6.8 v1.1 update, leaving out most extensions.  Then I used UniBeast + MultiBeast to install 10.8 and software update to 10.8.1.  I got a lot of help from a guide on tonymac's site but it didn't work for me as written, I had to do a lot of improvising with BIOS settings and kexts.  After I finish the hardware upgrades next week I will write up my notes in more detail.  There are probably a lot of these machines coming onto the market right now as they hit the end of Dell's 5 year lease cycle.  I got mine free, I already had a Snow Leopard DVD and I had already paid for 10.8 for my "hacked-MacPro" 1,1 so as of now I have a HackPro 3,1 that hasn't cost me anything.

[faithie999]

great job--looking forward to seeing your guide. 

[phubai]

Nice job DC...love these affordable projects.

[dc]

Well the hardware upgrades took a lot longer than I expected!  How do you guys find the time to do this stuff?  I'm lucky, my boss doesn't usually check up on me and my wife trusts that I'm not having an affair when I come dragging home several hours late!  Anyway the 745 is running 10.8.1, booting from a 750 GB Seagate SATA hard drive.  The 8 GB RAM made a nice improvement but the Radeon 6450 caused all kinds of problems, the machine kept freezing up halfway into the startup process.  I finally figured out that there was a conflict between the ATI3000 set of extensions and the AppleIntelHD graphics drivers.  I trashed the four ATI3000.kexts and now it works, Mountain Lion starts up nicely my 24" monitor looks good at 1910x1200.  I will try to find time to swap out the 1.8 core2duo for my new 2.66 quad core processor tomorrow.

On Friday, August 31, 2012 6:19:40 PM UTC-4, dc wrote:

[pete...@cruzio.com]

>> (I couldn't find that 19.8.1 update anywhere...)

Fortunately, I have a pretty thick skin.

[David Culpepper]

I sincerely hope you weren't offended, I know my offbeat sense of humor sometimes isn't always appreciated. Actually the good camaraderie of this group is why I've kept following it for so long.

On Sep 6, 2012, at 10:23 PM, pete...@cruzio.com wrote:

>
>>> (I couldn't find that 19.8.1 update anywhere...)
>
> Fortunately, I have a pretty thick skin.
>
>
>

[pete...@cruzio.com]

> I sincerely hope you weren't offended, I know my offbeat sense of humor
> sometimes isn't always appreciated. Actually the good camaraderie of this
> group is why I've kept following it for so long.

No I wasn't.

It was a clerical error on my part, and I admitted it.

Fortunately, I make far fewer clerical mistakes in the DSDTs which I produce.

[dc]

2.66 Quad went in with no trouble at all.  I took a screenshot of the desktop, all tricked out with custom transparent dock, icons and desktop- it can be viewed at

 

http://s1051.photobucket.com/albums/s425/dbculp/?action=view&current=36c1a6f2.png

[pete...@cruzio.com]

> 2.66 Quad went in with no trouble at all. I took a screenshot of the
> desktop, all tricked out with custom transparent dock, icons and desktop-
> it can be viewed at
>
> http://s1051.photobucket.com/albums/s425/dbculp/?action=view&current=36c1a6f2.png

Nice photo of a Puma Concolor ("mountain lion") behind a rock.

Cougar's are "stalk and ambush" predators, and usually attack from a
highly elevated position, with respect to their prey.

More closely related to a domesticated cat (house cat) than to a large cat
(lion, tiger, etceteta).

[David Culpepper]

A.K.A. "cougar", I considered this as a desktop picture

http://s1051.photobucket.com/albums/s425/dbculp/?action=view&current=87fbd446.jpg

but rejected it in favor of the Nat Geo wallpaper.

[dc]

Almost 100%, the only issue is that "Sleep" does not work.  The Dell goes to sleep but it's the "Big Sleep", there's no waking up from it.  Maybe a better rendition of SleepEnabler.kext will come along soon.

The key steps are 1) updating to the latest BIOS and 2) setting drive status to "Legacy" with SMART reporting OFF.

I've gone through several different installs on different hard drives: 10.6.8 (everything worked including sleep but it always needed the iBoot legacy CD to boot, I couldn't get it to start up from the internal hard drive)  10.8.1 using UniBeast/MultiBeast and also, easiest of all for me, 10.8.1 by cloning from my MacPro and then running MultiBeast.  For 10.8.1 Extra folder I removed 3rd Party SATA extension and added the latest BCM5722D extension.  Multibeast put these extensions into S\L\E so it was important to make sure the contents of S\L\E matched what was in Extra\E.

[dc]

Note: Software Update worked but to get the App Store fully working I had to insert the ethernet EFI into org.chameleon.Boot.plist using EFI Editor. Clear directions for this are all over the internet, including TonyMac's site.

[dc]

GeekBench scored a nice 6458.  Just for fun I installed Windows 7 Pro virtual machine (VirtualBox app) and it runs well with CPU limited to "1" and RAM set at 4048 mb.  I've really put it through its paces and "Sleep" is still the only thing that doesn't work.

[David Culpepper]

What OS are you trying to install?

The first thing is to double check all the BIOS settings, especially setting SATA to Legacy mode.  If iBoot still gives you trouble check TonyMac's forum, I never had any issues with Snow Leopard and iBoot.

On Oct 22, 2012, at 9:25 PM, "H@ckntosh" <reckl...@gmail.com> wrote:

DC, im curious if you could give me some pointers on installing to a Dell Optiplex 745 SFF. All my attempts thus far have been unsuccessful. Booting with Iboot legacy just causes the machine to reboot.Ive tried all different kinds of flags to get it to start -v,-x,GraphicsEnabler=Yes/No, etc and yet still nothing! It has a core2duo E8400, 2gb of ram, WS 250gb hd and a MSI Nvidia 210 graphics card. Taking the graphics card out the machine still causes the same issue

[David & Bernadette Culpepper]

What version of Snow Leopard are you using?  It should be OEM retail, no higher than 10.6.6 with iBoot Legacy 2.7.2; the CPU needs to be a C2D not a Pentium D.  You can try putting  IOATAFamily.kext (version 2.51) in /Extra/Extension on your USB installer.  Try searching the TonyMac forum for "iboot legacy endless reboot" and you'll see you're not alone, I guess it's just dumb luck that it didn't give me any trouble.

 

dc
David Culpepper

 

On 10/25/12, H@ckntosh<reckl...@gmail.com> wrote:

 

I have been trying to follow your post in this thread with no luck. Using Iboot legacy + Snow leopard on a usb drives causes the system to go into a endless reboot cycle. I have removed my installed graphics card and it still does the same thing. Sata mode is in Legacy