[Guide] Dell XPS 13 9360 on MacOS Sierra 10.12.x - LTS (Long-Term Support) Guide

[jkbuha]

Thanks for the tip. I have also noticed that I found two variables for overclock variables "Overclocking Lock" and "Overclocking Feature". Currently I have enabled "Overclocking Feature" and undervolting is working, what about the "Overclocking Lock"? What does it do specifically?

Thanks,
twsps

I had actually written all the necessary parameters up in the first post, which are still applicable and working.

For ease of reference:

UEFI IFR

TESTED & WORKING
=======
*Undervolt CPU
(0x653) -> 32 (-0.05V)
(0x655) -> 01

*Undervolt GPU
(0x85A) -> 32 (-0.05V)
(0x85C) -> 01

*Overclock, CFG lock disable, WDT & XTU enable
(0x4DE) -> 00
(0x64D) -> 01
(0x64E) -> 01

*DVMT patch
(0x785) -> 06
(0x786) -> 03

*Ring Max OC Ratio
(0x659) -> 0x24

FLASH/REGISTER PROTECTION DISABLE
========

BIOS Guard Support 0xF56 -> 00 (disabled)
OC Lock 0x58d -> 00 (disabled)
Unlock PCH P2SB, Variable: 0xE8E -> 01 (enabled)
Flash Protection Range Registers (FPRR), Variable: 0xE8F -> 00 (disabled)
PMC READ DISABLE, Variable: 0x884 -> 00 (disabled)

MEMORY OVERCLOCK ENABLE
==========

SPD Write Disable, Variable: 0xE8D -> 00 (FALSE)


NEEDS MORE RESEARCH
=========

Max GT frequency,
(0x6EF) -> 0x18 (1200MHz). Still locks to 1050Mhz

1-Core Ratio Limit Override
0x588 ->0x25 (x37). Still locks to 35
2-Core Ratio Limit Override
0x589 -> 0x24 (x36). Still locks to 35

 

[Coletz]

Hi guys, I upgraded from Mojave to Catalina and nearly everything seems to work. I am having only 2/3 issue:
- screen brightness is at 100% and I can't change it at all (not even visible in the system pref pane), while it was working (even with fn buttons) with mojave
- audio jack not working (not sure if was working on mojave, but I don't use it at all so I don't really care about this)
- audio from speaker is low, and was low with mojave too, but this one is weird: I have layout 11 (flag injected with clover at boot) and I tried using combojack "fix" from the-darkvoid repo and it fixed everything (both jack was working and volume was high and clear), but after a reboot it's broken again. Running combojack fix again does nothing.

Am I the only one encountering these issue? I don't care about audio issues to be honest, but 100% brightness is killing my battery

 

[Richylitschy]

Hi guys, I upgraded from Mojave to Catalina and nearly everything seems to work. I am having only 2/3 issue:
- screen brightness is at 100% and I can't change it at all (not even visible in the system pref pane), while it was working (even with fn buttons) with mojave
- audio jack not working (not sure if was working on mojave, but I don't use it at all so I don't really care about this)
- audio from speaker is low, and was low with mojave too, but this one is weird: I have layout 11 (flag injected with clover at boot) and I tried using combojack "fix" from the-darkvoid repo and it fixed everything (both jack was working and volume was high and clear), but after a reboot it's broken again. Running combojack fix again does nothing.

Am I the only one encountering these issue? I don't care about audio issues to be honest, but 100% brightness is killing my battery

I would check and update all kexts. Brightness issue could be because of outdated WhateverGreen.kext.
Audio could be fixed with new AppleALC kext, I use layout id 13 since Catalina, seems to work better.

 

[Coletz]

I would check and update all kexts. Brightness issue could be because of outdated WhateverGreen.kext.
Audio could be fixed with new AppleALC kext, I use layout id 13 since Catalina, seems to work better.

I have WhateverGreen 1.4.0 and AppleALC 1.5.0.
Those should be latest versions, but right now github is down so I can't check.
I will try using layout id 13, thanks! Are you using only kext + layout id 13 or you're using also ComboJack?

PS: I have added AppleBacklightFixup.kext and now brightness works, but no one uses this kext on this machine so I don't like a lot this solution :/

 

[Richylitschy]

Just transitioned to OpenCore! Took me a few hours, but now everything is working super stable, even faster than with clover. Updating MacOS is a breeze as well. Find my OC EFI attached to this post. Two things to notice:

- this is for i5-7200u only!
- I deleted my serial number, board ID etc. from the config.plist. You have to edit it with your own

 

[jkbuha]

Hello 9360 community. Some very good news - I've made what appears to be a (significant) performance breakthrough on this laptop. Long story short - I've managed to mod the PCIe throughput from GT2 to GT4. But until the technique can be improved, right now it can only be done with a hardware programmer, and nerves (and fingers) of steel...

Details on how (and what else can be done) shortly, but in the meantime, these are the benchmarks:

Pre-mod (GT2):

And post-mod (GT4):

Stay tuned

 

[xavier194152]

Hello ... 9360 community.
I had been trying (very hard) to install MacOS on the 9360 hardware.
So far, though, Clover is not the biggest enemy. I had mine working almost without kexts.
Does anyone know where to get a disk image (bootable installer)?

TL;DR
I had obtained various clover from various sources. Almost all of them boot (from USB), and it will be able to list the disks attached to the machine.
Unfortunately, out of maybe 10 images I tried, ZERO of them worked.
My dad owns a Mac. Good story ...
So I went ahead and used the unibeast and this and that ...
Actually, the unibeast thing didn't work.
My father's mac is a 2016 mbp 13. running some high sierra.
I can't install the "install high sierra" app because it IS high sierra, and the "install mojave" doesn't work because it's a online version.
So apparently I had a "working" image ... nope.
The only image that booted went through the "selecting disk" page, then ir reported "this copy of install mac os sierra is damaged, and cannot be used to install mac os sierra."
I need a bootable image.
______
All the unbootable image (and corrupt image) issues aside, which drive should I use?
I have four drives. Three of them are NVMe, one of them is the SATA m.2 Samsung EVO 860, the other two are samsung ... MZVLB256 --- one of them ended with HCHP and another HBHQ.
The other one is a Toshiba .. KXG60ZNY256G.
All four drives have 256GB as capacity.
I want as much things natively supported as possible, so that might leave me with toshiba or the EVO. But the toshiba had a record of corruption (been unrecognized by disk management for a month), and EVO is currently my windows drive.
Let me know if you had any thoughts.

 

[Richylitschy]

Hello ... 9360 community.
I had been trying (very hard) to install MacOS on the 9360 hardware.
So far, though, Clover is not the biggest enemy. I had mine working almost without kexts.
Does anyone know where to get a disk image (bootable installer)?

TL;DR
I had obtained various clover from various sources. Almost all of them boot (from USB), and it will be able to list the disks attached to the machine.
Unfortunately, out of maybe 10 images I tried, ZERO of them worked.
My dad owns a Mac. Good story ...
So I went ahead and used the unibeast and this and that ...
Actually, the unibeast thing didn't work.
My father's mac is a 2016 mbp 13. running some high sierra.
I can't install the "install high sierra" app because it IS high sierra, and the "install mojave" doesn't work because it's a online version.
So apparently I had a "working" image ... nope.
The only image that booted went through the "selecting disk" page, then ir reported "this copy of install mac os sierra is damaged, and cannot be used to install mac os sierra."
I need a bootable image.
______
All the unbootable image (and corrupt image) issues aside, which drive should I use?
I have four drives. Three of them are NVMe, one of them is the SATA m.2 Samsung EVO 860, the other two are samsung ... MZVLB256 --- one of them ended with HCHP and another HBHQ.
The other one is a Toshiba .. KXG60ZNY256G.
All four drives have 256GB as capacity.
I want as much things natively supported as possible, so that might leave me with toshiba or the EVO. But the toshiba had a record of corruption (been unrecognized by disk management for a month), and EVO is currently my windows drive.
Let me know if you had any thoughts.

You can use gibMacOS to get a working image of MacOS. Even works on Windows!

GitHub - corpnewt/gibMacOS: Py2/py3 script that can download macOS components direct from Apple

Py2/py3 script that can download macOS components direct from Apple - corpnewt/gibMacOS

github.com

Dunno about the drives, I have a SATA and works fine.

 

[xavier194152]

You can use gibMacOS to get a working image of MacOS.

But ... but I said goodbye to Python 3 years ago ...
Fine. I'll just install python (again) on my backup system.
So my windows will be running on ... ?
I gotta grab another samsung. Costy ...

 

[jkbuha]

Hello 9360 community. Some very good news - I've made what appears to be a (significant) performance breakthrough on this laptop. Long story short - I've managed to mod the PCIe throughput from GT2 to GT4. But until the technique can be improved, right now it can only be done with a hardware programmer, and nerves (and fingers) of steel...

Details on how (and what else can be done) shortly, but in the meantime, these are the benchmarks:

Pre-mod (GT2):

View attachment 480990
And post-mod (GT4):


View attachment 480991

Stay tuned

Here's a link to the full guide to enable this. Seeing as it's not really macOS-centric (and a bit hardware intensive) I've published it on the most relevant forum.

You can find the guide here.