SUCCESS Dell Inspiron 530 Running El Capitan

[DaffyDuck]

Ironically, VT-d must be disabled for the install to work, so I'll be interested to see how much that affects my VM speeds (anyone know?)

You can turn VT-d on after the installation.

 

[VioletDragon]

Hi. I'm in a similar situation. Although, I have the chance to pick up a "refurbished" Skylake based XPS 15 (9550) for around 2/3 of new price, so this make the hardware around 65% less than the price of the similar spec refurbished MacBook Pro from Apple. My other big concern is RAM, as Apple are artificially limiting their hardware to 16GB, and I like my 32GB for additional VMs. That, combined with the 100% Adobe RGB 4K screen, means the Dell is MASSIVELY better value. The cheap price comes via auction, so if I win (I've set myself hard spend limits) then I'll let you know in around a week's time how I'm traveling.

Seems like most of the hardware works pretty well out of the box. Ironically, VT-d must be disabled for the install to work, so I'll be interested to see how much that affects my VM speeds (anyone know?)

VT-d can be left on providing you have dart=0 added to your boot arg. Sounds like you don't have dart=0 under boot args. Will cause Kernel Panics with out it.

 

[kramern]

currently running 10.6.8 on dell 530s & desperately trying to get newer os on it as it's finally starting to loose functionality/support with some apps/services i need to use. (chrome, dropbox, etc...). managed to create an el capitan uniboot with clover legacy & nvida for the GeForce 8400 GS, but when i go to install, all i see are external USB HDs, no internal HDs show up in installer or disk utility. i've tried IDE & RAID in the bios, both give me the same result (not seeing internal HDs) also, when booting the uniboot, USB keyboard is really intermittent (will only register every now & then when the bootloader refreshes)

i looked for the alternate BIOS figuring that might be part of the problem, but the link to the BIOS file on dropbox is broken (no longer there)

this box is extremely fickle in many ways....

any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[HitmanKB]

Anyone have a copy of the bios needed to enable ACHI? When I get to Disk Utility, I can't seen any of my SSD's that are currently in the system. I have motherboard DG33M03 running a q9300, 8GB or RAM, and a GTX 950.. Or is there another way around enabling AHCI?

 

[kramern]

if it's the default bios, just change "ata" to "raid" in the sata peripheral properties in the bios, when you reboot, you'll see an extra screen that says about ACHI/RAID info before the bootloader starts.

 

[HitmanKB]

if it's the default bios, just change "ata" to "raid" in the sata peripheral properties in the bios, when you reboot, you'll see an extra screen that says about ACHI/RAID info before the bootloader starts.

Thanks for the reply. If you're referring to the factory Dell bios, the only options I see are "IDE" and "RAID"... So you're saying that if we switch to raid, we will see an option for AHCI on the raid config screen??? I've switched modes to raid and still gotten the same results.. Is there anything specific that needs to be done?

Thanks, and all help is greatly appreciated!

 

[kramern]

enabling raid, enables ACHI. (even though it's not stated as such, at least on the factory dell bios 1.0.18 for the G33m02, only one i have to refrence)

 

[HitmanKB]

Oh ok, if I remember correctly, I'm still on BIOS 1.0.13.. When I get home I'll update, try again, and report back. I appreciate the info!

 

[HitmanKB]

Just tried it, and this is what I found out. I "Upgraded" my 530 with a DG33M03 I purchased off of ebay. My original 530 had a DG33M02 in it and a core 2 duo E6550. I guess the DG33M03 that I bought on ebay was from a Vostro 400 which only goes up to BIOS 1.0.15.. I found all of this out after I downloaded and tried to install 1.0.18 and got an error message that the BIOS wasn't for my system. I went into the BIOS and pulled the service tag and found out it was from a Vostro. I got the correct BIOS and updated it to 1.0.15. I then switched to RAID. I saw the message that you mentioned stating that AHCI was enabled however it still doesn't see any hard drives in the system. Maybe High Serria Requires something else??

Which OS are you currently Running Kramern?

 

[kramern]

it's been happily running 10.6.8 for a couple years now. i'm trying to upgrade to el capitan because some apps & services i use are starting to break functionality because of the now old/unsupported OS.

i have hit same wall you have with the upgrade. i created a unibeast installer with el capitan, but when i get it booted & ready to install el capitan, all i can see are external USB drives (even with RAID/AHCI enabled).

IF we can get el capitan installed, i believe this will be the newest OS that will run on this hardware as the processor lacks certain programming (SSE4.1) to run sierra, or high sierra.
see macnb's post about it here: https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/dell-inspiron-530-high-sierra.234221/#post-1672478