Mountain Lion GUIDE - 2012 Sony VAIO S Series (SVS)

[akuarezz]

dude..can u boot ML without using dvd or usb drive that have bootloader after installations complete and your vaio using UEFI or legacy..

 

[akuarezz]

but that ml 10.8 DP dude..10.8 retail hard to work on vaio s 2012 UEFI..

 

[nightalon]

Well, the first SVS 13P I ordered had an extremely loud fan, so I sent it back. They didn't tell me that an RMA didn't mean an exchange...so I re-ordered the same model from the Vaio store with an educational discount, about a week later. Should arrive tomorrow, but I have exams all this week, so I won't get to play with my new toy until Friday.

In the meantime, I visited the Sony store here in NY, armed with two USB sticks: one Ubuntu 12.10, and the other was the latest version of 10.8.2, modified by the latest version of Unibeast.

Here are the steps I followed on the SVS 13:

1. Go into the BIOS and disable "Secure Boot" (The EFI security key isn't compatible with the Ubuntu bootloader, or with Chimera/Chameleon, so you'll have to give that feature up. I don't recall if this renders your Windows installation useless... but I don't care since I have an SSD ready, so I'll have to create recovery disks anyway. I'll just need to remember to install Windows with EFI enabled, but Secure Boot disabled.)
2. Leave EFI present to boot and install Linux. That way when the Linux bootloader is installed, it can be installed to partition and not to disk, so that you can use EasyBCD via Windows to launch Linux and Mac.
3. Switch to legacy mode, and enter the BIOS with F2 this time (instead of "Sony Assist") and switch to "Integrated Graphics" instead of "Switchable Graphics" (just like on my Acer 3830TG...note this option is NOT available on non-Windows-8 variants of this machine. Then reboot and mash F11 to boot from USB. You have to be really quick, otherwise you get the normal boot sequence. Also, the keys for entering the BIOS change, depending on whether you're in EFI mode (use "Sony Assist") or in BIOS mode (use F2). I hope you are visualizing me trying all of this out in a Sony corporate store. The salesman was actually helpful, because he said "he hates his job." Well that's to bad, but I got to benefit from his lack of corporate loyalty testing out his laptops.
4. I think since I didn't specify a device type, I got a 1024x768 unaccelerated resolution. I forgot to add boot flags: the installer just loaded, and in not a lot of time! I think the first step you should do with this laptop is replace the WIFI card with a half-height Atheros/Broadcom-based model, assuming there's no BIOS lock (you will likely lose Bluetooth functionality). There's also a MiniPCI-E slot for a 3G modem, but no antennae available, so that will be tricky. Only the European version has a SIM card slot, but there are ways around that available on eBay.
5. I imagine the ClickPad will misbehave in MacOS. The system uses Realtek audio, so a DSDT fix may be possible, although I wouldn't hold my breath.
6. Since I've heard that EFI systems have better hardware support than BIOS based systems, I'm going to try to get rEFInd/CloverEFI to boot my system instead of Chameleon/Chimera. However, it seems there is no way to install a system (although I've never tried) with rEFInd or Clover, so Unibeast is the way to go when you're starting out.
7. EasyBCD is the most untested part of my plan: I've used it for several years on BIOS/MBR based systems, but I have yet to test it with EFI. (Another benefit of EFI is the ability to have a virtually unlimited number of partitions on your drive, since your drive will have a GPT bootsector instead of an MBR one (limit of 4.).

Lastly, I know the screen on the 13-incher kind of sucks in terms of quality, but I've been looking for 1600x900 (or higher) resolution on a lappy with Optimus for a long time. This seems to be my only option. If it's really good, maybe I'll also get the 15-incher at 1920x1080, but I already have a 2010 MBP with 1680x1050, and a 2011 ThinkPad W520 with 1920x1080, both of which I love. The SVS 15 may be thinner and lighter at 15", but I can't justify another laptop for sheer heft/thickness. (After all, I am an electrical engineer.)

Of course there's also the following issue: the more systems you own, the more you have to maintain/update/synchronize them if you want to use them (usually).

 

[nightalon]

I'm sorry about your installation issues; I had no trouble installing Unibeast and the latest 10.8.2; only I don't get native resolution QI/CE by default.

Is there a separate DSDT for 1600x900x32 resolutions? (EDID injection, I imagine)

I get kernel panics with this one; system reboots too quickly to figure out what the KP is.

Also, there are now two distinct Win8 BIOSes for the 13-inch model. Is the DSDT compatible with both?

 

[nightalon]

Some new notes:

* I started a new install from scratch. I used the SonyVaio.dsl file and Chameleon Wizard to compile a proper DSDT.aml. Works like a charm with my 1600x900 panel, but brightness is somewhat reduced from the non-accelerated state. I used the "HD4000PlatformId=4" boot flag. Using the value '3' did not work for me.

(+) Interestingly, I was also able to boot with the GenerateCStates, GeneratePStates, and DropSSDT boot.Chameleon.plist entries.

(-) However, upgrading my version of Chameleon via Chameleon Wizard to a version newer than build 2013 broke my install. To fix, I booted from UniBeast with GraphicsEnabler=No, then reinstalling the HD4000 version of Chameleon.

* Interestingly, trackpad support off of UniBeast doesn't have two-finger scroll or tap-to-click, but it does have "physical" click and side-scrolling. I think the optimal solution is some combination of the two; perhaps a different VoodooPS2 configuration file is needed.

(-) Clicking on "About this Mac" with either the 8,1 or 9,1 MacBook Pro SMBIOS.plist files results in a crashed Finder and a login screen

(+) Upgrading the half-height MiniPCI-E WIFI card to an AR9280/AR5B91/Dell Wireless 1515 works like a charm in all 3 OSes! You just lose Bluetooth support...

(+) MultiBeast's TRIM Enabler seems to work nicely


What I may try to work on next:

* DSDT edits for Realtek audio (I have to look up in Windows or Linux which chipset is being used)
* Fingerprint reader support (should be easy)
* SMBIOS trickery
* Investigation of other Chameleon versions
* Investigation of rEFInd/CloverEFI EFI-mode booting (I think this may solve at least a couple hardware incompatibility issues, or maybe cause a few others)
* Investigation of better "ClickPad" support

 

[nightalon]

OK, so this isn't going to be the cleanest procedure, but I can confirm that I don't need to boot in Safe Mode.

1. First off, download and update your copy of Chameleon Wizard. It has all of the DSDT tools you'll need baked in.
2. There should be a tab that allows you to extract your DSDT from within MacOS...save it on the desktop. (It will not let you do this if you already have another DSDT.aml loaded via Chameleon.)
3. Go to the OP of this thread and download the attachment. (Or the attachment here: http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/283613-sony-vaio-s-2012-ml-success-ivy-i5-hd-4000/; I can't remember, and I can't check since I'm booted into Windows right now.) You want a .dsl file, not the .aml file. The .aml file may have a BIOS version or a memory amount baked in that is not compatible with your config. Once you have the Vaio.dsl file, add it via the Chameleon Wizard tab...it should be the only option that accepts a .dsl file. Compile it, and then save it to DSDT.aml. This will need to be in your /Volumes/MacHD/ or /Volumes/MacHD/Extra/ directory to be loaded by Chameleon. Please note that I cannot confirm what the resulting DSDT.aml file actually fixes. (Often a problem with DSDT files.)

Update: I have now located instructions on how to install Clover EFI for InsydeH2O EFI types. I'm not sure how the HD4000 will behave...I'm a bit skeptical.

 

[nightalon]

Hopefully big news:

Over the past 24 hours I succeeded in getting a Z77 Micro-ATX motherboard with hybrid UEFI to boot 10.8.2. It's a pretty involved process, but thankfully we have a fairly functional DSDT at the moment, so that should help. Also, Clover has special considerations for InsydeH2O BIOSes built in.


Some preliminary notes:
* Although it was reported otherwise, elsewhere, Ubuntu can absolutely install GRUB2 via EFI to the EFI partition and the SVS will boot it. I cannot confirm if the SVS prefers the hard-coded location of the Microsoft boot.efi file; if this is the case, it just needs to be renamed/relinked
* My Z77 build has an Nvidia GT 650 GPU. This has little to do with the SVS, since Nvidia graphics won't ever work on it in MacOS, BUT, I did learn that the HD4000 series of GPUs does have UEFI/GOP Video-BIOS support. Unfortunately most add-in cards do not at the moment, save a very few with a manufacturer VBIOS update.
* Bumblebee allows Optimus to work not only on the SVS 13 under Ubuntu, but also any system with an Nvidia GPU and Intel HD graphics, so long as Intel HD is the primary/display card.
* Clover EFI really is still about trial and error. Basically the only "efficient" way to proceed is to replace Chameleon with Clover and do a BIOS/MBR boot on a USB stick. Once you have that properly working, then you can add the UEFI drivers and files. There will likely be other issues at boot with different error messages than you got with MBR. Once you get UEFI booting MacOS off of a USB stick, you can proceed to mount the EFI paritition and install it to that. It will not kill your Windows or Linux bootloaders, I believe (though I haven't verified).
* Installing MacOS on GPT via You-Knee-Bheest actually kills the Ubuntu and Windows bootloaders, so install MacOS first.
I think the best install order is Mac -> Windows -> Linux, although I haven't been able to confirm that Windows will ever create recovery partitions if it isn't the first OS installed. I'm not too concerned about that, though. The more concerning item is that Windows is a low-enough partition number that even in BIOS mode, it should be bootable. I think the new Windows 8 bootloader can boot from GPT disks, even in BIOS mode. (I've switched many times in the past 24 hours because as I mentioned above, my video card requires a "legacy" option ROM since it does not support a UEFI one (like MacOS cards do).)
* Don't mess with EasyBCD...while it will see your EFI boot options, even merely re-ordering them will kill the entries. EasyBCD only has beta support for UEFI, and it shows. Just let your hardware manage your boot list for you. You can use the UEFI shell to manually update (accessible via Clover) your boot entries/bless the disk you want to boot.
* I had a very strange issue reinstalling the UEFI bootloader in Ubuntu. It seems that the installer won't recognize the EFI partition on its own; you must indicate that's what it is.

Now, hopefully I'll be able to recreate some of this on the SVS 13 in the next couple days! Does anyone know of a good ClickPad driver? I'll try to get audio and brightness working for you in return.

 

[nightalon]

New Update:

I got this lappie booting MacOS with Clover EFI. The trick is to eliminate the Aptio fix, but keep the LowMem fix. An HFS driver is necessary, as always. I also used the DSDT we've been using. I deleted the "CSM" driver, since I got graphics corruption. That seemed to fix things.

But now I'm stuck at the age-old problem that comes when you don't use the HD4000-customized bootloader: no graphics on the built-in screen. I did manage to connect an external monitor via HDMI, but all I get is graphics almost corrupt enough not to be able to do anything useful on the laptop.

I have tried booting with and without the HD4000PlatformId=4 flag...the built-in screen is dead either way, much like if you use a more recent version of Chameleon. Does anyone know how we can request that Clover EFI integrate some kind of HD4000 injection/recognition?

 

[jl4c]

Very good guide. thanks

 

[nightalon]

Remaining Problems:
1. The current dsdt_VAIO.dsl is based on the older BIOS version dated 5/2012, whereas my "extracted" DSL shows the date of 9/2012. I am worried that inconsistencies between BIOS version and DSDT version will cause problems in the future. I'm not sure how exactly I can reproduce the EDID edits for the new BIOS version, since I can't diff the original DSL with the EDID-modded DSL, since I can't revert my BIOS...or at least I haven't tried.
2. Adding ig_platformid in DSDT or via GFX strings does not work. I have tried both.

DSDT Guide Link: http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/to...kblack-screen-info-needed-from-working-setup/
GFX Guide Link: http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/282631-hd3000-other-card-solution-by-efi-string-creation/
-plus the following to make it work for HD4000 instead of HD3000-
http://blog.stuffedcow.net/2012/07/intel-hd4000-qeci-acceleration/

3. Therefore GPU acceleration (QE/CI) still requires Chimera or a patched Chameleon. Clover EFI does not seem to have the requisite patches yet.
4. I still have a LoginWindow crash when I visit "About This Mac"...I think it has something to do with an unrecognized CPU type. I have tried the MBP smbios versions 8,1 and 9,1; the same problem exists for both.

Can someone with more expertise than myself take a look at the files I'm about to attach? I modified the DSDT in multiple areas, replacing "snb" graphics with "ig"...assuming that this is an IVB CPU, so the "snb" bit must have been wrong. I also added the platform-id of 4 in several places, but nothing is really improved. Will report back if I can get non-GPU or GPU-based boot via Clover EFI, as that is my end goal. I have also included the old files for comparison.