Contribute
Register

Dell XPS 18 - Is it possible?

Status
Not open for further replies.
Joined
Dec 29, 2012
Messages
354
Motherboard
Dell XPS 18
CPU
Intel Core i3-3227U CPU @ 1.90GHz
Graphics
Intel HD Graphics 4000
Mac
  1. 0
Classic Mac
  1. 0
Mobile Phone
  1. 0
I've searched for any information on someone installing OS X this device with no luck. I purchased it a few months ago, and am interested in dual booting (or rather running Mac on this device from an external hard drive. I attempted to run both Mavericks (OS X 10.9) and Snow Leopard (OS X 10.6) and both times, when the apple installation began to load, the screen when completely black, as it does when the monitor gets turned off.

I can tell you the following information:
Intel Core i3 processor (Specifically Intel Core i3-3227U CPU @ 1.90 gHz)
Intel HD Graphics 4000
Realtek HD Audio
4 GB RAM

I've looked to try and see what motherboard I have, but I can only get ahold of the PPID. The back of the device has the weird screws in the shape of a star/asterisk. If you know of a thread that has already been started for this device, please let me know, and I apologize for the duplication if it is so.
 
I've searched for any information on someone installing OS X this device with no luck. I purchased it a few months ago, and am interested in dual booting (or rather running Mac on this device from an external hard drive. I attempted to run both Mavericks (OS X 10.9) and Snow Leopard (OS X 10.6) and both times, when the apple installation began to load, the screen when completely black, as it does when the monitor gets turned off.

I can tell you the following information:
Intel Core i3 processor (Specifically Intel Core i3-3227U CPU @ 1.90 gHz)
Intel HD Graphics 4000
Realtek HD Audio
4 GB RAM

I've looked to try and see what motherboard I have, but I can only get ahold of the PPID. The back of the device has the weird screws in the shape of a star/asterisk. If you know of a thread that has already been started for this device, please let me know, and I apologize for the duplication if it is so.

It should be possible. You probably just need to throw a few boot flags at it (depends on screen resolution).

No need to look at motherboard. On a laptop, you pretty much have to custom patch DSDT anyway...

FYI: Snow Leopard is a no-go on Ivy CPUs...
 
Is it safer to try Mountain Lion? Or should I try Mavericks first?
 
Is it safer to try Mountain Lion? Or should I try Mavericks first?

I would just do Mavericks. It is free. Mountain Lion isn't.
 
Ok. Thanks! Now I just have to get past the first hurdle of getting past the completely black screen that appears immediately after the apple logo with the spinning wheel... I've only done one "hackintosh" on my Dell Inspiron 1545 with 10.6, and it was so easy that I cannot say that I've got any experience. Should be interesting!
 
Ok. Thanks! Now I just have to get past the first hurdle of getting past the completely black screen that appears immediately after the apple logo with the spinning wheel... I've only done one "hackintosh" on my Dell Inspiron 1545 with 10.6, and it was so easy that I cannot say that I've got any experience. Should be interesting!

What are your system specs? Please fill out your profile with detailed information. Also, screen resolution plays a role.
 
I input my information in the fields to the left under my username and at the signature. The resolution is currently set to 1920 x 1080 which is recommended (It's an 18.5" screen). The computer that I have is here:

http://www.dell.com/us/p/xps-18-1810/pd

Mine is the version selling for $999. I know I wont hold my breath on having the touch screen work in Mac. I can create a dual boot for that. If installing Mac OS X 10.9 works out on the external HD I may eventually venture into installing it on the internal hard drive, possibly dual boot from that. I think the only other things not in the signature are:

Screen resolution (1920x1080)
hard drive (it is listing 451 GB, but I think it's a 500GB HHD)M
emory (4GB Single Channel DDR3 1600MHz (4GBx1))
Wifi (Intel® Centrino® Wireless-N 2230 + Bluetooth 4.0)

If there's anything else that I'm missing, please let me know.
 
Loaded 10.9 to a usb via unibeast. Got through chimera and ran with boot flags "-v IGPEnabler=yes" and it ended up giving me some kind of error about power management may not be supported then the screen when black again. I did notice in my bios that it had settings for "Intel Hyper Threading" and "Intel Speedstep" and something else intel related to the CPU. Do I need to disable these?
 
If I need to be posting these updates somewhere else, please let me know. I think that since I cannot find any other postings of someone working with this machine, I feel it might be helpful to others wanting to work with this device if I were to log my progress/issues in loading OS X on this machine.

I worked a bit last night and this morning (although, I forgot the keyboard/mouse that is connected to this device through an internal usb at home... stupid me!) I used the following bootflags when trying to load the Mavericks installation USB through chimera:

-v GraphicsEnabler=no PCIRootUID=0 npci=3000

With these, I got farther along in the process before it stopped, this time due to a kernel panic! I dont know whether to feel glad or upset that I did not get the black screen. There were alot of letters/numbers on the screen after saying "Backtrace (cpu 0)"

I tried again, only this time using PCIRootUID=1, and got the same. When I get more time (Like during lunch today;.) I can type out the entire thing from the first panic through to the end.
 
If I need to be posting these updates somewhere else, please let me know. I think that since I cannot find any other postings of someone working with this machine, I feel it might be helpful to others wanting to work with this device if I were to log my progress/issues in loading OS X on this machine.

I worked a bit last night and this morning (although, I forgot the keyboard/mouse that is connected to this device through an internal usb at home... stupid me!) I used the following bootflags when trying to load the Mavericks installation USB through chimera:

-v GraphicsEnabler=no PCIRootUID=0 npci=3000

With these, I got farther along in the process before it stopped, this time due to a kernel panic! I dont know whether to feel glad or upset that I did not get the black screen. There were alot of letters/numbers on the screen after saying "Backtrace (cpu 0)"

I tried again, only this time using PCIRootUID=1, and got the same. When I get more time (Like during lunch today;.) I can type out the entire thing from the first panic through to the end.

Try just:
IGPEnabler=No -v
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top