Contribute
Register

[Guide] Dell XPS 9560 Mojave VirtualSMC, I2C Trackpad, Clover UEFI Hotpatch

Status
Not open for further replies.
@blazinsmokey I have a Lenovo V330-15IKB and I ordered a Samsung PM961 500GB NVME drive for a very cheap price (60 Euro), It should arrive Monday or Tuesday.
I previously had a 250gb model and ended up returning because I wasn't able to make it work and didn't have time to experiment much at that time.

Now I'm curious to know if it works fine as I remember that Rehabman used to tell me that PM961 has some incompatibility issues.

As I understand your guide, you are using it only with that KextToPatch from Piker Alpha on Mojave right ?.
If that's the case that would be awesome.
We still don't have NVME Power Management on Hackintosh/3rd party nvme drives (non-Apple) on Apple Devices.
It would be nice if someone does have a macbook/macbookair/macbookpro with nvme drive (genuine from Apple) to upload ioreg and ACPI tables so I can analyze and maybe figure out how to implement power management on Non Apple nvme drives for macOS.

Read the guide again, we are not using any patches. I put the patches there if others have nvme drives that don't have matching device ids. The only thing I figured out with the PM961 is to use VirtualSMC and AptioMemFix. I can't remember. There was a post I made a long time ago here search PM961 panic or something.
 
It does, and I just did it. However, it keeps re-adding ****ing windows back automatically on boot on top of Clover in the boot menu. It's pissing me off. Have you run into this?

You have to go into BIOS and set the path for the boot entry on the USB drive. Bios->General->Boot Sequence. Add boot option, give it a name, select the right file system from the list, and select EFI/Clover/CLOVERX64.efi

I just added that to the guide, I commented this for someone else before that was having issues booting. Do the same but for your NVME drive.
 
Read the guide again, we are not using any patches. I put the patches there if others have nvme drives that don't have matching device ids. The only thing I figured out with the PM961 is to use VirtualSMC and AptioMemFix. I can't remember. There was a post I made a long time ago here search PM961 panic or something.
I read the guide but I wasn't sure wether you put the patch for PM961 or others that don't have same NVME/Matching IDs.
Well, excellent news then, can't wait to get my hands on it.

I found that topic then directed to your guide there, luckily VirtualSMC and AptioMemoryFix is the setup I use, previously when I tried, VirtualSMC was on it's early stages therefore wasn't working with my Laptop, now it does very well.
Thanks for that topic, It cleared my doubts about this NVME drive.
 
You have to go into BIOS and set the path for the boot entry on the USB drive. Bios->General->Boot Sequence. Add boot option, give it a name, select the right file system from the list, and select EFI/Clover/CLOVERX64.efi

I just added that to the guide, I commented this for someone else before that was having issues booting. Do the same but for your NVME drive.

Appreciate the reply, question what's the difference between booting clover from the boot folder and the clover folder? Doesn't the boot folder redirect to the cloverx64.efi or am I completely off here?

Also, this is what I was trying to do but for some reason it kept adding Windows above it over and over. Deleting everything again and then re-adding for a third time finally seems to have resolved it. It was very odd.

On the drive note, so far I have been completely stable with the HP drive for both Windows and OSX. So either Pike's patch was ****ing up OSX or that drive is bad despite Crystal Disk and Dell Diagnostics saying that it was fine. Annoyed that I had to pay for another drive despite an extended warranty, but performance is much better anyway. So that's nice.

Thank you @mazakiss!
 
I read the guide but I wasn't sure wether you put the patch for PM961 or others that don't have same NVME/Matching IDs.
Well, excellent news then, can't wait to get my hands on it.

I found that topic then directed to your guide there, luckily VirtualSMC and AptioMemoryFix is the setup I use, previously when I tried, VirtualSMC was on it's early stages therefore wasn't working with my Laptop, now it does very well.
Thanks for that topic, It cleared my doubts about this NVME drive.

I too have a PM961 in my system and can report that with the latest AptioMemoryFix my panics from IONVMeFamily are gone. Uptime on my system is now over a week - previously unheard of before blazinsmokey posted this fix. I'd agree you are safe with this drive.
 
I too have a PM961 in my system and can report that with the latest AptioMemoryFix my panics from IONVMeFamily are gone. Uptime on my system is now over a week - previously unheard of before blazinsmokey posted this fix. I'd agree you are safe with this drive.

I have as well PM961 samsung 1tb and since OP post i have used kext2patch and never had issue also had it used without (using mazakis config and havent got issues but i think the battery was bad) without issues as well.
 
I have as well PM961 samsung 1tb and since OP post i have used kext2patch and never had issue also had it used without (using mazakis config and havent got issues but i think the battery was bad) without issues as well.
That’s interesting, since I only installed Mojave and knew now they had the correct drivers I never used kext2patch/IONVMeFamily on my install.
While things are working great, I wonder If changing file sector has an implication as far as battery life is concerned.

Does any other people using kext2patch/IONVMeFamily has noticed an increasing battery life when switching?

From reading all over the internet, even on windows most xps owners equiped with the 97Wh battery also report an average 7 to 9 hours of autonomy so considering this our hack has great battery life. I mean it’s a 45W CPU so battery life is closer to most gaming laptop.

@blazinsmokey like you I managed to find a 14,1 smbios mbp dump done with Darwin Dumper. The issue is except looking at the ACPI tables I don’t know if it could help solving type-c and tb implementation since these dumps haven’t been done with a type-c/tb adapter plugged in.

I have a co-worker who own a mbp 13,3 will it help if I managed to get its IOReg with my adapter and dell TB16 plugged in?
 
Last edited:
Also for those interested, I did the last 1.14.3 bios update last week and everything runs smoothly. Looking at the changelog, it's mostly security fixes.

Also as OP suggested, I did enable SpeedShift doing bios mod, and the CPU is much more snappy using HWP, the Core Watt consumption really decreases faster while monitoring with Power Gadget.

As clearly stated, please don't do it if you are not confortable with it and don't blame anyone if you brick your laptop doing so. You have been warned.

EDIT: if the mod is well done and you doesn’t bricked your bios, normally you should see a new entry enabling speedtest in your bios like in the attached pic below.
 

Attachments

  • C34F03A8-DC24-4864-B37F-EDF087136E85.jpeg
    C34F03A8-DC24-4864-B37F-EDF087136E85.jpeg
    2 MB · Views: 97
Last edited:
I too have a PM961 in my system and can report that with the latest AptioMemoryFix my panics from IONVMeFamily are gone. Uptime on my system is now over a week - previously unheard of before blazinsmokey posted this fix. I'd agree you are safe with this drive.
Thanks a lot for confirming this.
I have as well PM961 samsung 1tb and since OP post i have used kext2patch and never had issue also had it used without (using mazakis config and havent got issues but i think the battery was bad) without issues as well.
So can you clarify your statement more in depth:
1. Do you mean that you are still using that KextToPatch on you PM961 using macOS Mojave and have better battery life
compared to:
2. When you used it without a single patch but you had just bad battery life and no other issues, can you tell on which post was his config.plist ?
That’s interesting, since I only installed Mojave and knew now they had the correct drivers I never used kext2patch/IONVMeFamily on my install.
While things are working great, I wonder If changing file sector has an implication as far as battery life is concerned.

Does any other people using kext2patch/IONVMeFamily has noticed an increasing battery life when switching?
I would like to have the same answer for myself as well, well since RehabMan hasn't shown up for quite some time, I guess I may be the only left for now, to continue his work for macOS Catalina.
like you I managed to find a 14,1 smbios mbp dump done with Darwin Dumper. The issue is except looking at the ACPI tables I don’t know if it could help solving type-c and tb implementation since these dumps haven’t been done with a type-c/tb adapter plugged in.
I would really appreciate if you could upload a dump here and preferably an IOReg as well, for the sake of not bloating @blazinsmokey guide, just quote me on another thread or just a short answer with the dump here.
I have a co-worker who own a mbp 13,3 will it help if I managed to get its IOReg with my adapter and dell TB16 plugged in?
Make sure to keep IOReg open before plugging the USBC/TB and save the copy after the TB has been plugged in, so that way we can have a clear look, capture what does happen/change there.
I did enable SpeedShift doing bios mod, and the CPU is much more snappy using HWP, the Core Watt consumption really decreases faster while monitoring with Power Gadget.
I want to do some digging into this, do you mean you have to mod bios to have HWP on macOS or it was just something not enabled on this Laptop ?
 
I would really appreciate if you could upload a dump here and preferably an IOReg as well, for the sake of not bloating @blazinsmokey guide, just quote me on another thread or just a short answer with the dump here.

check your pm, I don't think I can do that publicly.

I want to do some digging into this, do you mean you have to mod bios to have HWP on macOS or it was just something not enabled on this Laptop ?

See post #1 from OP, here's the thread:http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/dell-xps-speed-shift.796891/page-14#post-10454342 Obviously, this is only valid for dell xps 9560 and you'll have to find the correct procedure for your own laptop. Some Bios have hidden menu you can unlock depending vendor/manufacturer but you have to extract and modify bios to achieve this.

Make sure to keep IOReg open before plugging the USBC/TB and save the copy after the TB has been plugged in, so that way we can have a clear look, capture what does happen/change there.

I'll manage to have it at the end of the week. I'll have to use all my charms to convince her it won't install a virus or something on her laptop lol Noted.
 
Last edited:
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top