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[Guide] Sierra on a ThinkPad T410 with nVidia Graphics

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February 13th 2017:

In this thread I am going to explain quickly how I did install macOS Sierra 10.12.3 on a ThinkPad T410 with nVidia Graphics. This machine has an Intel GPU, but it is hardware-disabled. If you have an Optimus model which has switchable Graphics, disable your Intel Graphics in the BIOS. If you have Intel Graphics and no ThinkPad T410, I do not recommend trying this. However, it could work on any laptop with nVidia graphics.

What you are going to need:

-ThinkPad T410 with nVidia GPU
-External USB-Drive with 16< GB
-External USB-Drive with 512< MB (might be required!)
-External USB-Keyboard
-External USB-Mouse

1. Reset your BIOS to the default settings by pressing F1 at the ThinkPad screen and by hitting F9 when you entered the BIOS. Under "Config" => "CPU" you would want to disable every function of the CPU except for the Multicore and Hyperthreading option. Exit to the main BIOS menu by pressing Escape and save the configuration with F10.

2. Now you will need to follow Tonys guide step by step. Open it in a new browser tab or window, drag it to your second screen if you have one. Here are some tips, read them:

*Plug in your USB-peripherals since the built in keyboard and trackpoint of the ThinkPad will not work yet!

*Skip step three of Tonys guide since you have already set your BIOS to the best settings.

*Whenever booting the ThinkPad with the Clover bootloader, choose the Clover option menu, go to boot args and boot with dart=0 -v . Do not use nv_disable=1, just delete this. After setting up macOS properly, the bootloader will do this automatically and you dont need to add this manually, you will not need this anymore.

*To select your USB-Flash-Drive in the boot menu, Press F12.

*If your USB-Drive with the macOS-Installer was properly installed and would still not boot when being plugged in to your ThinkPad, take a NEW USB-Drive, connect it to your windows computer and install the Clover bootloader using BootDiskUtility to that drive. It will take around 10 minutes, then connect your BootDiskUtility-USB-Drive AND the macOS-Sierra-Installation drive to your ThinkPad. Boot it. Then it should boot up the Clover-Bootloader properly.

*When you reach the macOS desk, launch the MultiBeast setup, install the Legacy Boot Mode. The only driver from the Drivers section you need is "Network" => "Intel" => "AppleIntelE1000e v.3.3.3". In customize, select "Graphics Configuration" "Inject nVidia" and "System Definitions" "MacBook Pro" => "MacBook Pro 6,2". Then you can build the Bootloader and reboot your Computer.

3. After you installed the macOS successfully, boot it. Disconnect all USB-Flash drives after reaching the desk. In your Finder, you will find a drive called "EFI". Open it, navigate to the folder "EFI" => "CLOVER" and open the config.plist file. Search for the boot arguments and remove "nv_disable=1". Keep "dart=0". You can add "-v" as well if you would like to see what your ThinkPad is doing while booting macOS. It is helpful but not required to boot with -v. Be sure to save the file properly. If you fail to save it, macOS will boot in 1024x768 pixels.

4. Download the Kext Utility and run it once. Reboot. Then run Kext Utility again and Leave it open. The next thing you would want to do is install the Voodoo PS2 driver. You will find a ZIP-archive with the folders Debug and Release. Drag the VoodooPS2Controller.kext from the Release folder to your Kext Utility. It will then process it. When it finishes, open the Terminal and type "sudo cp " - dont forget the space behind cp and dont press enter yet! Drag the org.rehabman.voodoo.driver.Daemon.plist to your terminal and add /Library/LaunchDaemons. Press Enter. Type in your password. Now you need to do the same thing again for the VoodooPS2Daemon. Type sudo cp into your terminal, leave a space, drag your VoodooPS2Daemon to your terminal, add /usr/bin and press Enter. It should look like this:

sudo cp /YOUR_DIRECTORY/org.rehabman.voodoo.driver.Daemon.plist /Library/LaunchDaemons
sudo cp /YOUR_DIRECTORY/VoodooPS2Daemon /usr/bin

Quit your terminal and let the Kext Utility run again, then reboot your computer. Now your Keyboard and Trackpad should work. The Trackpoint works as well but is moving weird. To disable the Trackpad, press Print Screen on your keyboard. To re-enable it, press Print Screen again. You should be able to scroll with an external mouse now and the Trackpad by moving two fingers up and down.

5. Download the VoodooHDA-2.8.8.pkg and just run the installer. Do not try the kext, in my case it ended up booting into a blackscreen! After installing, reboot your ThinkPad. Go to the Preferences App, open "Sound" and click on "Speaker (Analogue)" to adjust the sound. The built in speaker controls as well as the mute buttons should work.

6. Go to Preferences, Energy Saver and Set computer sleep for both Power adapter and Battery to never.

WHAT DOES NOT WORK:

*Setting the screen brightness when macOS has booted. To change your brightness, reboot and set the brightness at the ThinkPad startup screen with Fn + Pos1/End. To get some time, press a cursor button in the Clover Bootloader to stop the three-second-counter, set your brightness and boot to macOS by pressing Enter.

*The built-in SD-Card-reader. To solve this, be like an ordinary Mac Book Pro user and buy a 60€ adapter from Apple :))) (or a cheap one for 10€ from Amazon).

*The Battery percentage in the status bar. To tell if your battery needs to be charged, take a look at the LED in the lid. When it turns yellow, attach an AC-adapter. When your ThinkPad beeps like crazy, you have around 30 seconds left to attach and AC-adapter. In my case, the big battery back lasted for 2,5 h.

*The Intel 6300 WLAN. Use a third party USB-WLAN adapter instead. It is small, portable, not fast, but it works.

*Sleep mode and hibernation. (Whenever you accidently go to Sleep mode, press space bar in your Clover bootloader at the three-second-timer and select "Disable caches" in the menu plopping up, then scroll down and select boot.)

*The Fingerprint-reader. However, you can still use it to power on your ThinkPad. You can set your ThinkPad to deny booting without a valid fingerprint. I did not try this yet though.

WHAT DOES WORK DEFINITELY:

*Built-in Bluetooth
*GPU including the internal display and connecting an external display to the Displayport.
*Trackpad and the keyboard. (Disable and re-enable your Trackpad using the Print Screen key on your keyboard.)
*Trackpoint (However, it moves not like on windows machines...)
*Intel 1Gbit Ethernet
*USB-Ports
*DisplayPort
*3,5mm Headphone Jack
*SATA-HDD
*UltraBay-HDD (Hot-plugging works)
*UltraBay-DVD-drive (since Macbooks come with slotin drives, the eject button does not work, however, you can always eject a disk using the Finder like you would do on a standard MacBook Pro.) (Hot-plugging works as well.)
*ThinkPad dock
*WLAN/Bluetooth switch at the right side of the ThinkPad (for Bluetooth only!)
*Shutdown (BUT you must press the Power-button for five seconds after your LCD turned off to completely turn off your ThinkPad)
*Restart (works fine.)
*ThinkLight
*FireWire 400 (tested with an ESI QuataFire 610 audio interface, is a bit buggy but after rebooting the ThinkPad with the QuataFire being plugged in, it works fine. If it fails, try attaching a USB-device to the yellow USB-port. If you want to record with the QuataFire 610, you don't have many options. Set your Input to 4-channel in audacity, otherwise you won't hear any sound.)

THINGS I DID NOT TEST YET

*SATA-SSD (Should work though)
*eSATA (I think it should work)
*PCI-SLOT above the eSata port (I guess it does NOT work)
*VGA (should NOT work)
*56k-Modem (should NOT work)
*GSM/3G-Modem

Feel free to ask questions below!
 
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A while ago I had El Capitan installed on my T520 (dropped it for Linux, recently decided to triple-boot MacOS with Linux and Windows). I did some fiddling with AML (or whatever it is called. Ill edit this later if it isn't) and got the battery percentage working to a point. Only even battery percentages were shown - meaning that the battery optimisation was turned off on odd percentages leaving a rather annoying flicker between brightnesses every time the percentage changed. I believe that it is possible, with some fiddling, to get the battery percentage and the brightness settings to work within MacOS.

I just thought I'd leave my experience as hope for people who can get the things that don't work to work.

If anyone has then it'd be nice to share the settings etc. that were used.
 
A while ago I had El Capitan installed on my T520 (dropped it for Linux, recently decided to triple-boot MacOS with Linux and Windows). I did some fiddling with AML (or whatever it is called. Ill edit this later if it isn't) and got the battery percentage working to a point. Only even battery percentages were shown - meaning that the battery optimisation was turned off on odd percentages leaving a rather annoying flicker between brightnesses every time the percentage changed. I believe that it is possible, with some fiddling, to get the battery percentage and the brightness settings to work within MacOS.

I just thought I'd leave my experience as hope for people who can get the things that don't work to work.

If anyone has then it'd be nice to share the settings etc. that were used.

Battery patching/ACPI patching guides are linked from the FAQ.
https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/faq-read-first-laptop-frequent-questions.164990/
 
Hi, I have tried to install Sierra on my Lenovo T410 but get no further than a flashing cursor, what am I doing wrong please? I followed the instructions to the letter on making a boot up usb stick.
 
Hi, I have tried to install Sierra on my Lenovo T410 but get no further than a flashing cursor, what am I doing wrong please? I followed the instructions to the letter on making a boot up usb stick.

Follow the Clover guide linked from the FAQ.
http://www.tonymacx86.com/el-capita...faq-read-first-laptop-frequent-questions.html

Although you should read the FAQ for an overview of issues, the Clover guide is linked from the first question: "Q. Where do I start?", just after the bold face "Clover Guide".
Here is a direct link, just to be clear:
https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/guide-booting-the-os-x-installer-on-laptops-with-clover.148093/

Also, your profile must be filled out with complete details as requested in the FAQ, again under "Q. Where do I start?". All seven details requested are equally important.

And if you have an issue (after following the guide), or on any other problem, you must provide a detailed description of the problem including information that helps us understand what you're doing. Always attach "Problem Reporting" files as per FAQ.
http://www.tonymacx86.com/el-capita...faq-read-first-laptop-frequent-questions.html
The required files and data are fully detailed in the last question in the FAQ:
"Q. What are typical "Problem Reporting" files?"
 
Thank you for the reply RehabMan, its the first time I have attempted anything like this, and probably my last as I think its really above my pay grade to perform the install, I have only ever updated this Lenovo ThinkPad T410 with a new hard drive and a secondary on where the cd drive was and upped the ram to 8GB, really simple stuff to do.

The bios settings baffle me immensely, even though I tried again and again to sort them as described in the log, but I still get a flashing cursor. Oh well !! just have to stick with W10 on the T410 :confused:

*Update* I decided to try again one last time and start from the very beginning, used a new 16GB USB stick, the Unibeast install, stalled half way and stayed like that for over two hours before I pulled it ! went back to the old stick and tried with that and that did the same, so I suspect I never had a proper install anyway when I tried on the T410 :O

Many thanks anyway.

Keech
 
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Thx Downloaderx great info. Installing to SSD took less than an hour and with some googling for the bios whitelist fix I was able to plug in an airport for wifi.

*install tip, a ssd in a usb adapter is WAY faster than a thumb drive, really speeds up install ;-)

edit: working efi files for Sierra on a Lenovo t410 with Nvidia 3100
 

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Has anybody managed to get High Sierra working on the T410?
 
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