Lenovo S41 on 10.11 El Capitan

[kylec]

Another nice little detail about this laptop. The case design is quite similar to the previous generation, u430. But, they've managed to put all the screws on the bottom side, plus they are all the same length now, and Lenovo has started using a #0 countersunk screw (#1 driver works okay) instead of those dreaded #00 pan-head screws. There are, however, a lot more snaps now, so use one of those plastic pryers starting at the USB 3 port.

Physically, this design seems very good. Also the hinge goes to 180 degrees now.

Two m.2 slots would have been awesome, though. It's too bad they left out WWAN from this design, because I love to take that extra slot for an M.2 SSD instead of WWAN, in order to put in a 2.5" 1TB hybrid for a data drive. Note that these are 7mm drives. Seagate supposedly has a 2TB 7mm drive coming! But in the S41 it seems better to try to get at least 500GB as SSD.

 

[cxywn]

Many thanks for the guide, kylec! My U41-70 is running El Capitan now, without any problem except for the wifi. A few observations:

• Sleep is working properly through the Apple menu. Power button still does not invoke it though. And if I accidentally close the lid without choosing the Sleep menu the baby won't wake up.
• Sound works with VoodooHDA, not as loud as it does in Windows or Linux but acceptable I guess. The proper keystrokes (Fn+F1/F2,F3) work fine, too.
• Trackpad: I haven't been able to disable the trackpad with a mouse attached. Need to read more on VoodooPS/2 configuration.
• Brightness: I wanted to patch it with Rehabman's backlight control but it may not help much since I heard this particular product line has especially bad displays. Even in Windows it looks gloomy, with a yellowish tinge like that when we woke up from some illness. Perhaps I just need a suitable color profile with a cooler white point.

 

[kylec]

I'm glad there's another user now!

Many thanks for the guide, kylec! My U41-70 is running El Capitan now, without any problem except for the wifi. A few observations:

[*]Sleep is working properly through the Apple menu. Power button still does not invoke it though. And if I accidentally close the lid without choosing the Sleep menu the baby won't wake up.

I don't have that problem. Lid sleep is the same as any for me. Did you go through the various DSDT edits? I can provide more detail on that part if you want.

[*]Sound works with VoodooHDA, not as loud as it does in Windows or Linux but acceptable I guess. The proper keystrokes (Fn+F1/F2,F3) work fine, too.

Better to keep AppleHDA. For 10.11.2, I found that AppleHDA Patcher v1.1 works fine.

[*]Trackpad: I haven't been able to disable the trackpad with a mouse attached. Need to read more on VoodooPS/2 configuration.
[*]Brightness: I wanted to patch it with Rehabman's backlight control but it may not help much since I heard this particular product line has especially bad displays. Even in Windows it looks gloomy, with a yellowish tinge like that when we woke up from some illness. Perhaps I just need a suitable color profile with a cooler white point.

Why wouldn't you want backlight control? Rehabman's guide on the PNLF patch, etc. - worked for me.

 

[RehabMan]

Many thanks for the guide, kylec! My U41-70 is running El Capitan now, without any problem except for the wifi. A few observations:

• Sleep is working properly through the Apple menu. Power button still does not invoke it though. And if I accidentally close the lid without choosing the Sleep menu the baby won't wake up.
• Sound works with VoodooHDA, not as loud as it does in Windows or Linux but acceptable I guess. The proper keystrokes (Fn+F1/F2,F3) work fine, too.
• Trackpad: I haven't been able to disable the trackpad with a mouse attached. Need to read more on VoodooPS/2 configuration.
• Brightness: I wanted to patch it with Rehabman's backlight control but it may not help much since I heard this particular product line has especially bad displays. Even in Windows it looks gloomy, with a yellowish tinge like that when we woke up from some illness. Perhaps I just need a suitable color profile with a cooler white point.

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[cxywn]

I don't have that problem. Lid sleep is the same as any for me. Did you go through the various DSDT edits? I can provide more detail on that part if you want.

Thanks, much appreciated. I have only done the native power management part and just installed the ACPIBatteryManager kext. No patching yet, me being a complete novice in that field

Why wouldn't you want backlight control? Rehabman's guide on the PNLF patch, etc. - worked for me.

I do want it but I'm not sure if the results would be worth the time. Most reviews of the U41 call the display too dim. And I use it primarily for Excel with Sharepoint so color fidelity is less important than screen real estate.

I probably would learn about VoodooPS/2 keyboard mapping first, to get the Fn+F6 (trackpad on/off) working.

 

[kylec]

Okay, follow this guide:

http://www.tonymacx86.com/el-capitan-laptop-support/152573-guide-patching-laptop-dsdt-ssdts.html

And when you're done with "Disassembling ACPI files" (refs.txt is not needed) then post here. You should end up with a DSDT.dsl and about 10 SSDT dsls.

Also, install MaciASL and set it to iasl v5 in the preferences. Set up the RehabMan laptop patch repo as described here.

Once you've done all that, I'll post about the sequence of patches I used. There were a lot of them! So I'll need to go back and look at my old files and stuff. In the meantime, I will mention that the ADBG patch, in the syntax section, should be enough to get the DSDT to compile without errors.

 

[cxywn]

Okay, follow this guide:

http://www.tonymacx86.com/el-capitan-laptop-support/152573-guide-patching-laptop-dsdt-ssdts.html

And when you're done with "Disassembling ACPI files" (refs.txt is not needed) then post here. You should end up with a DSDT.dsl and about 10 SSDT dsls.

Also, install MaciASL and set it to iasl v5 in the preferences. Set up the RehabMan laptop patch repo as described here.

Once you've done all that, I'll post about the sequence of patches I used. There were a lot of them! So I'll need to go back and look at my old files and stuff. In the meantime, I will mention that the ADBG patch, in the syntax section, should be enough to get the DSDT to compile without errors.

Thanks again! I tried the Haswell/Broadwell patch with ACPIBacklight.kext and now my screen looks much brighter Better yet, closing the lid now sends the laptop to sleep properly — it wakes up without fuss on opening. You guys are amazing!

At present the brightness slider seems to have no effect. The screen remains very bright no matter where I put the sliding head. I'll try to read more on the brightness setting thread.

 

[RehabMan]

At present the brightness slider seems to have no effect. The screen remains very bright no matter where I put the sliding head. I'll try to read more on the brightness setting thread.

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Also, post EFI/Clover folder as ZIP (press F4 at main Clover screen before collecting). Please eliminate 'themes' directory, especially if you have an overabundance of themes installed.

 

[cxywn]

Post ioreg as ZIP: http://www.tonymacx86.com/audio/58368-guide-how-make-copy-ioreg.html. Please, use the IORegistryExplorer v2.1 attached to the post! DO NOT reply with an ioreg from any other version of IORegistryExplorer.app.Also, post EFI/Clover folder as ZIP (press F4 at main Clover screen before collecting). Please eliminate 'themes' directory, especially if you have an overabundance of themes installed.

Thank you. Here they are.... The patched/SSDT.aml was from an earlier native power management patch.

 

[RehabMan]

Thank you. Here they are.... The patched/SSDT.aml was from an earlier native power management patch.

It is likely your laptop does not use the IGPU PWM registers for backlight control. But you should try with LMAX=0 (it is an option in the brightness patch).

Also, you should patch ACPI correctly. See guide: http://www.tonymacx86.com/el-capitan-laptop-support/152573-guide-patching-laptop-dsdt-ssdts.html. For example, you have not used one of the "OS Check Fix" patches.

You could also try "Brightness Fix (ACPI 100)".