[Guide] Razer Blade 15 (2018) Detailed Install Guide High Sierra 10.13.6 (17G2208-17G5019)

[vettz500]

Thank you for the quick reply! Any reason that you and everyone else is moving to using OpenCore? Just trying to gauge if I should invest time into looking to move back to a higher MacOS version and also probably move away from Clover. Having an external 4k display working for me is priority so I will be holding off for a bit.

I wouldn't recommend upgrading to any version past High Sierra if you want to retain 4K. The 4K output comes from the Nvidia card, no version of OSX past High Sierra supports the GTX 1060. You're kind of stuck if you need the 4K output display.

As far as OpenCore goes, pretty much what Feartech said. Plus I wanted to get a good grasp on it. I'll be posting a guide with OpenCore on this laptop as soon as I get the last few things figured out.

 

[Mr.Crab]

@vettz500 I am wondering if you or anyone else here running Catalina get stable frame rate and resolution output working with external Monitors? the performance for me was so bad I moved to High Sierra just to have the NVidia graphics running. For reference I have a 4k Monitor.

Performance is ****, compared to windows, usb-c to DP, WQHD.

 

[takki]

Here, this is latest CLOVER version I had developed before finally booted OC, and list of improvements:

1. correct smbios, macbookpro 15,1 which has exact same processor model, and not the 15,2 which has some low tpd mobile version
2. no unnecessary framebuffer patches, moreover, I deleted a lot of options from config.plist while was improving on Clover, there are only one's that absolutely needed
3. No need for any trackpad-related static patches, just ssdt-xosi + gpio pinning
4. no SIP disalbed, which is kind of crazy risk if we look at this https://support.google.com/chrome/thread/15235262?hl=en
5. SSDT-PMC and removed emuvariable uefi, which grants native nvram support
6. SSDT-PNLFCFL instead of PNLF, which is made for coffee lake processors
7. OcQuirks can be used instead of legacy aptiomemoryfix
8. nvmefix kext for power management control
9. jackfix to reenable audio jack after sleep
   
   Note on battery: I have it working in OC, and trackpad too, I just have them working trough static dsdt.aml patches, and that's not ideal.

Just updated all my kexts and now using your clover config on my early 2019 blade. Can confirm it works. Only thing is that -wegnoegpu doesn't seem to be enough to disable the dGPU. It's still detected in About this Mac -> Graphics. Using latest Clover and all the latest kexts. I was hoping this would fix my issue of the dGPU going crazy after sleep but no luck. I do now have all my kexts in clover which is a plus, I couldn't get that to work before. Thanks for all the effort!

 

[Mr.Crab]

Just updated all my kexts and now using your clover config on my early 2019 blade. Can confirm it works. Only thing is that -wegnoegpu doesn't seem to be enough to disable the dGPU. It's still detected in About this Mac -> Graphics. Using latest Clover and all the latest kexts. I was hoping this would fix my issue of the dGPU going crazy after sleep but no luck. I do now have all my kexts in clover which is a plus, I couldn't get that to work before. Thanks for all the effort!

You're welcome, but there is more stuff to do, e.g. https://dortania.github.io/Getting-Started-With-ACPI/Universal/smbus.html.
As for dGPU, here's the proper way to disable it, read it trough - https://dortania.github.io/Getting-Started-With-ACPI/Laptops/laptop-disable.html

 

[takki]

You're welcome, but there is more stuff to do, e.g. https://dortania.github.io/Getting-Started-With-ACPI/Universal/smbus.html.
As for dGPU, here's the proper way to disable it, read it trough - https://dortania.github.io/Getting-Started-With-ACPI/Laptops/laptop-disable.html

Just followed the guides you posted. I managed to disable the dGPU but I've got the same issue as you guys on OC, no video output through USB-C. So I went back to the old method (SSDT-12-OptTabl.aml). I might check again and see if my sleep problem goes away using this method.

Also did the SMBus thing, but I didn't notice anything different so far but I'm sure it cant hurt to have that in order

Edit: After removing SSDT-dGPU-Off.aml and removing the -wegnoegpu flag, I added my regular DSDT patch back in to disable the dgpu. But for some reason I just can't disable it now. Do I have to specify .aml files in my clover config now? I'm confused..

 

[Mr.Crab]

Just followed the guides you posted. I managed to disable the dGPU but I've got the same issue as you guys on OC, no video output through USB-C. So I went back to the old method (SSDT-12-OptTabl.aml). I might check again and see if my sleep problem goes away using this method.

Also did the SMBus thing, but I didn't notice anything different so far but I'm sure it cant hurt to have that in order

Edit: After removing SSDT-dGPU-Off.aml and removing the -wegnoegpu flag, I added my regular DSDT patch back in to disable the dgpu. But for some reason I just can't disable it now. Do I have to specify .aml files in my clover config now? I'm confused..

Hm, you don’t have to specify aml, no. But are you sure it did work after you switched to my config? It uses different eufi drivers as I remember, maybe that is the issue?

 

[takki]

Hm, you don’t have to specify aml, no. But are you sure it did work after you switched to my config? It uses different eufi drivers as I remember, maybe that is the issue?

That's what I was thinking.

Going through efi drivers I noticed some things:
- FwRuntimeServices.efi as far as I can tell is only for OC, so I removed it
- OpenRuntime.efi was missing

So after that my system still boots but there are notices/errors when clover loads:

OCS: No schema for ProtectCsmResion at 7 index!
OCS: No schema for ShrinkMemoryMap at 9 index!

I couldn't find out if that is important or how to fix it. It might be because OcQuirks is still work in progress but I don't know. So I reverted back to aptiomemoryfix but no change.

Next thing was going back to EmuVariableUefi and removing SSDT-PMC. That also worked and I didn't notice anything different and the gpu is still running.

Also tried nv_disable=1 which didn't seem to do anything.

So I looked through clover config and found NvidiaSingle. There almost no documentation on it other than this thread and it doesn't sound like it's needed, so I removed it.

Just as a sanity check I reverted back to my old clover folder and my dgpu was indeed disabled. At this point my guess is that there is something in your clover config that prevents the gpu from being disabled or there is something in my old config that allows it to be. Can't tell which it is. I'll continue looking through my config but I'll post this now and attach my old (working) config.

Edit: So the thing that was missing was AutoMerge in clover. Now the gpu is disabled but no more video through usb-c for some reason. At least there is progress haha.

Edit2: Okay so I got it working. What did the trick was going back to the 15,2 smbios. Now disabling my dgpu also works with -wegnoegpu and SSDT-dGPU-Off. Using the 15,2 definition fixes the usb-c video issue so that might be worth a try for you OC guys. Now I don't know if the issue was that I didn't regenerate my serial number and even using your 15,1 definition it was still showing up as a 13" laptop. I might try to regenerate serial numbers and give 15,1 another go but so far things seem to be working as is.

The errors I mentioned before regarding OCQuirks were there because I used the latest version with your plist file and those keys seem to be deprecated.

Edit3: Also had to add slide=0 back in because I was getting the "Couldn't allocate runtime area" error. I'll post my clover folder when I finish testing.

Edit4: I think the framebuffer patches are needed after all. If you don't use them the igpu shows up with about 1,5gb of vram and with the framebuffer patches it's got 2560mb. Not sure what else is different but I'd imagine it's got better support in things like final cut. So it is indeed doing something to correctly identify the igpu and should be included in the config.

 

[Mr.Crab]

That's what I was thinking.

Going through efi drivers I noticed some things:
- FwRuntimeServices.efi as far as I can tell is only for OC, so I removed it
- OpenRuntime.efi was missing

So after that my system still boots but there are notices/errors when clover loads:

OCS: No schema for ProtectCsmResion at 7 index!
OCS: No schema for ShrinkMemoryMap at 9 index!

I couldn't find out if that is important or how to fix it. It might be because OcQuirks is still work in progress but I don't know. So I reverted back to aptiomemoryfix but no change.

Next thing was going back to EmuVariableUefi and removing SSDT-PMC. That also worked and I didn't notice anything different and the gpu is still running.

Also tried nv_disable=1 which didn't seem to do anything.

So I looked through clover config and found NvidiaSingle. There almost no documentation on it other than this thread and it doesn't sound like it's needed, so I removed it.

Just as a sanity check I reverted back to my old clover folder and my dgpu was indeed disabled. At this point my guess is that there is something in your clover config that prevents the gpu from being disabled or there is something in my old config that allows it to be. Can't tell which it is. I'll continue looking through my config but I'll post this now and attach my old (working) config.

Edit: So the thing that was missing was AutoMerge in clover. Now the gpu is disabled but no more video through usb-c for some reason. At least there is progress haha.

Edit2: Okay so I got it working. What did the trick was going back to the 15,2 smbios. Now disabling my dgpu also works with -wegnoegpu and SSDT-dGPU-Off. Using the 15,2 definition fixes the usb-c video issue so that might be worth a try for you OC guys. Now I don't know if the issue was that I didn't regenerate my serial number and even using your 15,1 definition it was still showing up as a 13" laptop. I might try to regenerate serial numbers and give 15,1 another go but so far things seem to be working as is.

The errors I mentioned before regarding OCQuirks were there because I used the latest version with your plist file and those keys seem to be deprecated.

Edit3: Also had to add slide=0 back in because I was getting the "Couldn't allocate runtime area" error. I'll post my clover folder when I finish testing.

Edit4: I think the framebuffer patches are needed after all. If you don't use them the igpu shows up with about 1,5gb of vram and with the framebuffer patches it's got 2560mb. Not sure what else is different but I'd imagine it's got better support in things like final cut. So it is indeed doing something to correctly identify the igpu and should be included in the config.

FwRuntimeServices(or OpenRuntime) are a part of OpenCore set-up, yes, BUT, if you use OcQuirks instead of AptioMemoryFix, you have to have those.

That is indeed a nice find with that usb-c 15,2 workaround!!! I'd still better use 15,1 though because the CPUS between 15,1 and 15,2 are very different in terms of power, 15 vs 45.

You need slide thing if you're using AptioMemoryFix, if you're using OcQuirks(with FwRuntimeServices/OpenRuntime obviously) you don't need slide.

Framebuffer patches are absolutely useless, they will not add any more memory than iGPU has, only change that line in aboutmac

 

[takki]

FwRuntimeServices(or OpenRuntime) are a part of OpenCore set-up, yes, BUT, if you use OcQuirks instead of AptioMemoryFix, you have to have those.

Oh okay, I got confused because the OcQuirks repo only mentions OpenRuntime

That is indeed a nice find with that usb-c 15,2 workaround!!! I'd still better use 15,1 though because the CPUS between 15,1 and 15,2 are very different in terms of power, 15 vs 45.

Yeah it would definitely be better, but 15,2 might be worth a try for you guys. I can't tell if there is any drawback to using 15,1 because performance seems fine for me.

You need slide thing if you're using AptioMemoryFix, if you're using OcQuirks(with FwRuntimeServices/OpenRuntime obviously) you don't need slide.

Hmm, thing is I still get the "Couldn't allocate runtime area" error with OcQuirks and it only goes away if I use slide=0.

Framebuffer patches are absolutely useless, they will not add any more memory than iGPU has, only change that line in aboutmac

Needed for that perfect screenshot then

Unfortunately while I was able to get everything working again, my dgpu problem still persists. It's disabled on a fresh boot and gets reactivated when it wakes from sleep. I tried SSDT-dGPU-Off, SSDT-NoHybGfx and SSDT-DDGPU + SSDT-PTSWAK + SSDT-RMCF, nothing helps.

I made a seperate post about it a while ago here:

<< Solved >> - Battery draining fast after wake from sleep

My laptop battery is draining fast when I close the lid and open it again (sleep and wake). On a fresh boot I'm getting around 4 hours of battery life, once I wake it up from sleep it's about 1:20 and the battery percentage is draining fast. My guess is that on wake my dGPU is activated again...

www.tonymacx86.com

 

[vettz500]

@Mr.Crab @takki

Switching to the 15,2 Identifier does solve the USB-C Display Out issue with DGPU disabled.

Now is the challenge to see if we can edit Identifier properties so we can still run 15,1 or 15,3 and have USB-C Display Out