Contribute
Register

Dell XPS 13 9380 installation story and issues

Status
Not open for further replies.
Joined
Sep 19, 2019
Messages
14
Motherboard
Dell XPS 13 9380
CPU
i7-8565U
Graphics
UHD 620
Mac
  1. MacBook Pro
Thanks to all of the awesome posts and guides on this site, after weeks of on and off attempts, I have my Dell XPS 9380 up and running Mojave.

Hardware:
  • Dell XPS 13 9380
  • Processor: i7-8565U
  • Graphics: Intel UHD 620
  • SSD - Samsung SSD 970 EVO 1TB, replaced stock nvme to try to resolve some issues during installation. not 100% sure this was required but from what i found online the PM981 was going to be trouble.
  • 16 GB RAM
What works:
  • Full graphics acceleration
  • External monitor work after putting the computer to sleep and waking back up
  • Audio - works with VoodooHDA after struggling with AppleALC for a bit. Speakers work, but headphone jack does not. I will come back to this when i have time as I'm sure i just need to do some more research
  • Sleep/Shutdown seems to work without issue. I usually just shutdown so haven't tested extensively.
    • Wake from sleep works via laptop lid.
    • Have not tried putting to sleep by closing laptop lid
  • Dual boot with windows 10 on the same SSD, haven't had any issues with this except for time sync. No biggie. And I believe I saw this is fixable with something in the bios or windows settings. Will come back to when I have time
  • Bluetooth seems to work. Have paired a bloothtooth keyboard
  • iMessage via nullethernet
  • I am using Parallels to virtualize Windows, running SQL server and some other heavy duty stuff in Windows for work. It's handling it all great.
What doesn't work:
  • Wifi - killer wifi card. So I am either using ethernet via USB-C hub or a wifi dongle. Kind of annoying but its liveable.
  • Headphone jack
  • External monitor without first putting computer to sleep
  • I'm sure there is more broken here that I just don't realize yet.
  • Trackpad gestures - I haven't even looked into this yet. All I know is its an I2C device. Will get to this later.
Struggles and fixes:
  • I struggled for weeks on getting graphics to work properly.
    • See attached files for config, but the key was defining platform/device in config as well as SSDT-PNLFCFL SSDT patch to get the internal laptop monitor working with brightness controls
    • Could only get my correct platform/device to work with the -igfxmlr boot flag
  • AppleALC - can't get it to work

Posting here to hopefully help others. I am also curious if anyone has a suggestion for the external monitor issue. I also see i have some kernel panics in my debug file but i have no idea what those mean. macOS has not crashed or shutdown on me once since getting to this final stage of my config.

Thanks for this awesome community!
 

Attachments

  • debug_4406.zip
    3 MB · Views: 215
Last edited:
So you used my config to get up and running? And now you are trying to run the Catalina upgrade? I haven’t tried yet. Was planning to install Catalina to a separate partition to see how it goes. Will let you know when I get to it. Please post back if you figure it out.
 
Thanks for the update! So the voodoohda that “worked” in Mojave doesn’t work in Catalina? Does Bluetooth still work? You figure out trackpad gestures?
 
All i did was install nullethernet kext in /L/E and ssdt-rmne in acpi/patched and that resolved my appstore/imessage issues in mojave. I haven't tried catalina yet.

I was asking you if you tried voodoohda for audio on catalina and if it works or not. It works in mojave except for headphone jack.

so you can pinch to zoom on your trackpad? multi-finger swipes, etc?

EDIT: nevermind. Got it working with VoodooI2c and VoodooId2CHID
 
Last edited:
i haven't upgraded to catalina. Still on mojave and I haven't had time to troubleshoot the headphone jack. Not that important to me.

As for trackpad, yes I just dropped those 2 kexts into clover/kexts/other. But I noticed that it caused the laptop to always think that it was unplugged. The battery was charging but my laptop would keep going to sleep if i didn't touch it for a few mins as it thought it was unplugged. Just removed them and back to normal, but no trackpad gestures.
 
I've been toying with my new 9380 and OpenCore for the last few days without much success, as I'm quite happy with Ubuntu 19.10 on it. I may end up trying Clover and actually taking it seriously now though. Thanks for making the thread, I'll give it a go.
 
No joy with clover either, can't get past gIOScreenLockState 3 even just running your EFI.
 
my dell xps 9380 can't use the speaker, audio not working, can you help me :D any update about the trackpad gestrure? thanks for your support!
 
No joy with clover either, can't get past gIOScreenLockState 3 even just running your EFI.
Maybe a bios setting isn’t right. I think I followed all the recommendations in the rehabman laptop guide.
 
my dell xps 9380 can't use the speaker, audio not working, can you help me :D any update about the trackpad gestrure? thanks for your support!
It always defaults to headphone jack when I boot which doesn’t work. But I can select the speakers for the output device and it works.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top