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Author Topic: Chameleon on Dell Mini 9  (Read 11133 times)

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bmaltais

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Chameleon on Dell Mini 9
« on: April 07, 2009, 02:26:20 AM »
Just wanted to report that Chameleon appear to work fine on the Dell Mini 9 as long as one turn off the smbios handling.  For some reason when smbios from Chameleon is used the Atom CPU frequency stay at it's  lowest resulting in poor performance.

Beside this all is going pretty well!  Great job guys!

stuart

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Re: Chameleon on Dell Mini 9
« Reply #1 on: April 08, 2009, 01:49:23 AM »

Interesting... I have a Samsung NC10 netbook, and although I thought that it was much slower under Chameleon, I assumed that this was just me!

Did you just not include an 'smbios.plist', or did you do something else to prevent the slowdown?

Gringo Vermelho

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Re: Chameleon on Dell Mini 9
« Reply #2 on: April 08, 2009, 05:16:33 PM »
You need to edit smbios.plist and insert the correct bus and max clock speeds for the CPU.

Here's the syntax

Code: [Select]
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>SMbiosversion</key>
    <string>boot.rom.string.goes.here</string>
    <key>SMmanufacter</key>
    <string>Apple Inc. or Apple Computer, Inc depending on mac model</string>
    <key>SMproductname</key>
    <string>mac,model goes here</string>
    <key>SMsystemversion</key>
    <string>1.0</string>
    <key>SMserial</key>
    <string>serial.goes.here.doh</string>
    <key>SMboardmanufacter</key>
    <string>Apple Computer, Inc.</string>
    <key>SMboardproduct</key>
    <string>Apple.motherboard.model.goes.here</string>
    <key>SMexternalclock</key>
    <string>Your CPU FSB in MHz, non-multiplied/</string>
    <key>SMmaximalclock</key>
    <string>Your CPU max speed in MHz</string>
    <key>SMmemtype</key>
    <string>put 19 for DDR2, 18 for DDR and 24 for DDR3 RAM</string>
    <key>SMmemspeed</key>
    <string>Memory speed in MHz</string>
    <key>SMmemmanufacter_1</key>
    <string>For example Kingston Technologies</string>
    <key>SMmemmanufacter_3</key>
    <string>Or OCZ or whatever you have</string>
</dict>
</plist>

_1 and _3 are the memory slots. You can also set the serial and partnumber.

Appropriate model information, boot rom and serial can be found with google.
« Last Edit: May 29, 2009, 03:11:39 AM by Beerkexd »
10.9.5 - ASUS P8Z77-V Pro - i5 3570K - GTX 660 - Chameleon 2.3 svn-r2xxx
How to...
Install Chameleon: http://forum.voodooprojects.org/index.php/topic,649
Make your own Chameleon boot CD: http://forum.voodooprojects.org/index.php/topic,484.msg2131.html#msg2131

stuart

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Re: Chameleon on Dell Mini 9
« Reply #3 on: April 08, 2009, 06:17:47 PM »
You need to edit smbios.plist and insert the correct bus and max clock speeds for the CPU.

I hadn't set these, assuming that probed/default values would be safer than anything I hard-code in.

I tried again with no smbios.plist, and immediately after boot an Xcode project on which I'm working took 20 seconds to build and run after having performed a "Clean All Targets".

I then used the smbios.plist below and ran the same test, and it this time took 30 seconds.  These results are repeatable, and I'm pretty sure that the values are right... can anyone advise?

Code: [Select]
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
        <key>SMbiosversion</key>
        <string>MBA11.88Z.00BB.B00.0712201139</string>
        <key>SMmanufacturer</key>
        <string>Apple Inc.</string>
        <key>SMproductname</key>
        <string>MacBookAir1,1</string>
        <key>SMexternalclock</key>
        <string>133</string>
        <key>SMmaximalclock</key>
        <string>1596</string>
        <key>SMsystemversion</key>
        <string>1.0</string>
        <key>SMserial</key>
        <string>W881101T12G</string>
        <key>SMboardmanufacter</key>
        <string>Apple Computer, Inc.</string>
        <key>SMmemtype</key>
        <string>19</string>
        <key>SMmemspeed</key>
        <string>667</string>
        <key>SMmemmanufacter_1</key>
        <string>Micron</string>
        <key>SMmemmanufacturer_1</key>
        <string>Micron</string>
        <key>SMmempart_1</key>
        <string>CT25664AC667</string>
        <key>SMmembankloc_1</key>
        <string>BANK 0</string>
        <key>SMmemdevloc_1</key>
        <string>DIMM0</string>
</dict>
</plist>

stuart

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Re: Chameleon on Dell Mini 9
« Reply #4 on: April 08, 2009, 07:08:42 PM »

In fact, booting with 'SMBIOSdefaults=No' and the minimal smbios.plist required to make OS X think that it's running on a MacBook Air still causes a massive slow-down.

This must be a bug, surely?

bmaltais

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  • Posts: 2
Re: Chameleon on Dell Mini 9
« Reply #5 on: April 09, 2009, 01:46:52 AM »
On the mini9 I have set the boot.plist option to turn off SMBios handling and than deleted the smbios.plist file.  I re-introduced the SMBIOSResolver.kext and speed seem acceptable... althrough some have reported that coolbook does not show voltage variation as it used to under the version 1 of chameleon.

Gringo Vermelho

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Re: Chameleon on Dell Mini 9
« Reply #6 on: April 09, 2009, 05:30:15 AM »
I don't know why the other stuff isn't working for you but I noticed a few typos in your plist.

You have to spell it "manufacter", not "manufacturer". It's wrong in two places.

Your PC only has a single stick of memory? The _1 denotes the first available slot.

You are declaring memmanufacter_1 twice, once correctly and once wrong.

1596 sounds wrong. Is that really the speed of your CPU? Put the speed it's advertised as running at, if it's 1.6GHz, put 1600.
10.9.5 - ASUS P8Z77-V Pro - i5 3570K - GTX 660 - Chameleon 2.3 svn-r2xxx
How to...
Install Chameleon: http://forum.voodooprojects.org/index.php/topic,649
Make your own Chameleon boot CD: http://forum.voodooprojects.org/index.php/topic,484.msg2131.html#msg2131

stuart

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  • Posts: 14
Re: Chameleon on Dell Mini 9
« Reply #7 on: April 09, 2009, 12:11:19 PM »
You have to spell it "manufacter", not "manufacturer". It's wrong in two places.

Yeah, I wasn't sure about this.  I assumed that if I put it both ways, then the correct one would be picked-up and the other would be ignored.

Your PC only has a single stick of memory? The _1 denotes the first available slot.

Yup - it's a Samsung NC10 Atom-based netbook.  I assume that the 945GSE chipset supports 2 DIMMs because the System Profiler tool shows two slots with the second empty and all the data zeroed.  Physically, there is only one SODIMM socket present, and no memory soldered to the mainboard.

1596 sounds wrong. Is that really the speed of your CPU? Put the speed it's advertised as running at, if it's 1.6GHz, put 1600.

I was wondering about this... although 1.6GHz is the "marketing" speed, it's not actually the chip's maximum frequency (which is 133.xMHz bus x 4 = 532.xMHz effective FSB x 3 = 1596MHz CPU clock, or 133.xMHz bus x 12 multiplier = 1596MHz CPU clock).  It's like a car with an 1996cc engine being sold as 2l...

So what does Chameleon expect?  The fabricated byt nice-round number of 1600?, or the *actual* clock frequency of 1596MHz?

(Of course, it may well take the former and then munge it to get the latter...)

Personally, I'm looking forwards to the source code being released so that we can stop guessing for these sorts of issues ;)

Gringo Vermelho

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Re: Chameleon on Dell Mini 9
« Reply #8 on: April 11, 2009, 01:44:40 AM »
Yeah your maths are better than Intel's marketing drones. Put the accurate frequency.
« Last Edit: June 25, 2009, 05:56:49 AM by Beerkexd »
10.9.5 - ASUS P8Z77-V Pro - i5 3570K - GTX 660 - Chameleon 2.3 svn-r2xxx
How to...
Install Chameleon: http://forum.voodooprojects.org/index.php/topic,649
Make your own Chameleon boot CD: http://forum.voodooprojects.org/index.php/topic,484.msg2131.html#msg2131