Dell G3 3579 Audio and Black screen on boot

[Macguy12]

Hi, my audio and brightness controls are not at all working on Mojave 10.14.1. Also, the brightness seems to go to zero (black screen) half-way during boot and only comes back to full brightness after about 2 minutes or so. This seems to be a common issue on UHD 630 and I could not find a viable solution yet. The system actually boots to login screen within 10 seconds, but I can't see anything on screen before brightness automatically goes from 0 to full again.

I've tried many audio layout-ids but none of them worked out. The latest Lilu and WhateverGreen are installed on both L\E as well as Clover EFI.

This laptop uses ALC 236, which with AppleALC has layout IDs 3,11,13 and 15 available. I've tried setting each of them in config.plist layout-id property. I have vanilla AppleHDA installed and AppleALC installed to L/E as well as Clover EFI. Rebuilding caches. Nothing has worked yet.

I admit I haven't yet tried patching any DSDT or SSDT, but only because according to guides for brightness control and audio codec, clover config patches and kexts should suffice.

I've attached all problem reporting files here.

Please help.

 

[RehabMan]

Hi, my audio and brightness controls are not at all working on Mojave 10.14.1. Also, the brightness seems to go to zero (black screen) half-way during boot and only comes back to full brightness after about 2 minutes or so. This seems to be a common issue on UHD 630 and I could not find a viable solution yet. The system actually boots to login screen within 10 seconds, but I can't see anything on screen before brightness automatically goes from 0 to full again.

I've tried many audio layout-ids but none of them worked out. The latest Lilu and WhateverGreen are installed on both L\E as well as Clover EFI.

This laptop uses ALC 236, which with AppleALC has layout IDs 3,11,13 and 15 available. I've tried setting each of them in config.plist layout-id property. I have vanilla AppleHDA installed and AppleALC installed to L/E as well as Clover EFI. Rebuilding caches. Nothing has worked yet.

I admit I haven't yet tried patching any DSDT or SSDT, but only because according to guides for brightness control and audio codec, clover config patches and kexts should suffice.

I've attached all problem reporting files here.

Please help.

For your audio, you need to inject a different (fake) device-id to prevent AppleHDAGFX from loading.

 

[Macguy12]

For your audio, you need to inject a different (fake) device-id to prevent AppleHDAGFX from loading.

Where do I perform this injection? Do you mean for config.plist? Also what bogus ID should I use?

Sorry for noob questions

 

[RehabMan]

Where do I perform this injection? Do you mean for config.plist? Also what bogus ID should I use?

Sorry for noob questions

You can do it in config.plist/Devices/Properties (same place you're injecting layout-id).
Typical id to try would be: 0xa170 <70a10000>

 

[Macguy12]

You can do it in config.plist/Devices/Properties (same place you're injecting layout-id).
Typical id to try would be: 0xa170 <70a10000>

Fixed! Thankyou.

Now is there any way to fix the color banding on screen for the UHD 630? In system reports,
Framebuffer Depth: 30-Bit Colour (ARGB2101010)

To my knowledge, it should be 32-bit to remove color banding and show smooth blurs and shadows. Is this an EDID issue?

EDIT: I've read posts about spoofing Skylake graphics on Kaby Lake systems to remove banding. I attempted the spoofing while WhateverGreen being already installed to /L/E/ and using lilucpu=8, but it doesn't seem to do anything on Coffee Lake.

 

[MarconiGRF]

Fixed! Thankyou.

Now is there any way to fix the color banding on screen for the UHD 630? In system reports,
Framebuffer Depth: 30-Bit Colour (ARGB2101010)

To my knowledge, it should be 32-bit to remove color banding and show smooth blurs and shadows. Is this an EDID issue?

EDIT: I've read posts about spoofing Skylake graphics on Kaby Lake systems to remove banding. I attempted the spoofing while WhateverGreen being already installed to /L/E/ and using lilucpu=8, but it doesn't seem to do anything on Coffee Lake.

Hey, what layout-id did you used to soof audio? I've tried using device-id just like RehabMan said, but none of my layout-id had worked... I've injected the device-id into clover properties of device, and layout-id as well.

I also have the 30bit colour issue (it seems very weird transparency effects and all on my system lol).

 

[Macguy12]

You can do it in config.plist/Devices/Properties (same place you're injecting layout-id).
Typical id to try would be: 0xa170 <70a10000>

Okay, I spoke too soon. My audio stopped working again.

After my last post, I noticed that after each time I rebuilt kext caches, system booted fine only once with working audio next time, failing all other consecutive times until I reboot with my backup Clover USB drive and rebuild kext caches. After rebuilding caches, system boots fine once with audio, then again starts getting stuck at about 60% apple logo with bar. I couldn't even try verbose and look at the error due to UHD 630 zero brightness bug. It's impossible to debug during boot now.

This time I don't know what the problem is as I've done everything as outlined. The audio icon on taskbar is greyed out now, no matter how many times I rebuild caches.

I've tried deleting AppleALC from Clover/kexts/Other/ as I thought it might conflict with AppleALC at /L/E/ but nothing changed.

I've attached all problem reporting files.

@MarconiGRF I'm using layout id 15. But my audio has stopped working again. Trying 3,11,13 now.

 

[RehabMan]

Okay, I spoke too soon. My audio stopped working again.

After my last post, I noticed that after each time I rebuilt kext caches, system booted fine only once with working audio next time, failing all other consecutive times until I reboot with my backup Clover USB drive and rebuild kext caches. After rebuilding caches, system boots fine once with audio, then again starts getting stuck at about 60% apple logo with bar. I couldn't even try verbose and look at the error due to UHD 630 zero brightness bug. It's impossible to debug during boot now.

This time I don't know what the problem is as I've done everything as outlined. The audio icon on taskbar is greyed out now, no matter how many times I rebuild caches.

I've tried deleting AppleALC from Clover/kexts/Other/ as I thought it might conflict with AppleALC at /L/E/ but nothing changed.

I've attached all problem reporting files.

@MarconiGRF I'm using layout id 15. But my audio has stopped working again. Trying 3,11,13 now.

You have a problem with SMBIOS truncation (it is crazy obvious looking at your ioreg).
You need config.plist/SMBIOS/DellSMBIOSPatch=true.

As the SMBIOS problem is a major mistake, I didn't check anything else.

 

[Macguy12]

You have a problem with SMBIOS truncation (it is crazy obvious looking at your ioreg).
You need config.plist/SMBIOS/DellSMBIOSPatch=true.

As the SMBIOS problem is a major mistake, I didn't check anything else.

I just set config.plist/KernelAndKextPatches/DellSMBIOSPatch=YES, rebuilt caches just in case and rebooted. Still no audio. I've attached updated IOReg.

 

[RehabMan]

I just set config.plist/KernelAndKextPatches/DellSMBIOSPatch=YES, rebuilt caches just in case and rebooted. Still no audio. I've attached updated IOReg.

"Problem Reporting" files are incomplete.
Read FAQ, "Problem Reporting" again. Carefully. Attach all requested files/output.
https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/faq-read-first-laptop-frequent-questions.164990/
Use the gen_debug.sh tool mentioned in the FAQ, that way it is less likely you'll omit something.