- Joined
- Mar 29, 2011
- Messages
- 844
- Motherboard
- ASRock X99 Extreme6
- CPU
- E5-2690 v4
- Graphics
- Radeon VII
This guide is applicable, at a minimum, to the Precision 7540 with i5 or i7 processors (I haven't looked at whether the Xeon can be used). The advantage of a Precision 7540 is that it can be ordered with an AMD WX 3200 discrete GPU (very few PC laptops combine an Intel CPU with a compatible AMD GPU). If your discrete GPU is a different model, use the boot argument "-wegnoegpu" to disable it.
Much of this should also be applicable to the Precision 7740, the 17" model.
You can follow the regular OpenCore guide at https://dortania.github.io/OpenCore-Install-Guide/
In my case, I began by modifying the BIOS for CFG Lock (the guide has this step at the end). I've attached the IFR export for Setup as bodyIFR.txt, but note that it is for BIOS version 1.9.0. As of today, there's now a newer BIOS. For 1.9.0, the CFG Lock option is at 0x6ED. I used modGrubShell.efi to change this with
I also checked the DVMT variables, but they were set to compatible values already.
In following the guide, you can skip the "gathering files" section as they're all attached to this post. (I didn't upload Drivers. You need HfsPlus.efi and OpenRuntime.efi, only.)
Go through the config.plist sections of the guide. When you get to the platform-specific steps in the "Configs" part, use laptop "Coffee Lake Plus." You can skip ACPI -> Add and Kernel -> Add, since ProperTree will set these for us based on the files provided. Resist the urge to simply copy the config.plist I've uploaded to this post. It's there for you to refer to during the post-installation phase, since there's a need for some custom patches, and so it'll save you the work of reimplementing them from scratch.
For the post-installation steps, go through and check what is or isn't working. In some cases you'll need to repeat the steps, but for others you have the files already in your EFI. One step that's not mentioned, is that for audio we need ALCPlugFix to be installed, with a slight patch to the hda-verb invocation code. You can use the attached ALCPlugFix.zip and run its install.sh.
If you have a WX 3200, you'll want to copy over the "PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x1,0x0)/Pci(0x0,0x0)" key from DeviceProperties -> Add. It contains the device-id Fake ID referenced in my post here: https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/new-radeon-pro-wx-3200.279988/page-3#post-2159138
One other wrinkle is keyboard control of the screen brightness. There's a patch to the SMEE method in the config.plist that's disabled. It was intended to be used with an SSDT (not included), but I couldn't get that approach to work. Instead, the VoodooPS2Keyboard kext that I've provided has an edited Info.plist to use F5 as keyboard brightness up (I found I already had F6 working as brightness down).
Remaining issues, for my installation:
Much of this should also be applicable to the Precision 7740, the 17" model.
You can follow the regular OpenCore guide at https://dortania.github.io/OpenCore-Install-Guide/
In my case, I began by modifying the BIOS for CFG Lock (the guide has this step at the end). I've attached the IFR export for Setup as bodyIFR.txt, but note that it is for BIOS version 1.9.0. As of today, there's now a newer BIOS. For 1.9.0, the CFG Lock option is at 0x6ED. I used modGrubShell.efi to change this with
Code:
setup_var2 0x6ED 0In following the guide, you can skip the "gathering files" section as they're all attached to this post. (I didn't upload Drivers. You need HfsPlus.efi and OpenRuntime.efi, only.)
Go through the config.plist sections of the guide. When you get to the platform-specific steps in the "Configs" part, use laptop "Coffee Lake Plus." You can skip ACPI -> Add and Kernel -> Add, since ProperTree will set these for us based on the files provided. Resist the urge to simply copy the config.plist I've uploaded to this post. It's there for you to refer to during the post-installation phase, since there's a need for some custom patches, and so it'll save you the work of reimplementing them from scratch.
For the post-installation steps, go through and check what is or isn't working. In some cases you'll need to repeat the steps, but for others you have the files already in your EFI. One step that's not mentioned, is that for audio we need ALCPlugFix to be installed, with a slight patch to the hda-verb invocation code. You can use the attached ALCPlugFix.zip and run its install.sh.
If you have a WX 3200, you'll want to copy over the "PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x1,0x0)/Pci(0x0,0x0)" key from DeviceProperties -> Add. It contains the device-id Fake ID referenced in my post here: https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/new-radeon-pro-wx-3200.279988/page-3#post-2159138
One other wrinkle is keyboard control of the screen brightness. There's a patch to the SMEE method in the config.plist that's disabled. It was intended to be used with an SSDT (not included), but I couldn't get that approach to work. Instead, the VoodooPS2Keyboard kext that I've provided has an edited Info.plist to use F5 as keyboard brightness up (I found I already had F6 working as brightness down).
Remaining issues, for my installation:
- trackpad buttons don't work - tap to click only
- occasional panic caused by IONVMeController: I have 2 SSDs, an SN720 and an SN730. Not yet sure which one is causing it.
- thunderbolt hotplug - [updated] see 2nd post
- Apple TV DRM (Fairplay 4) doesn't play
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