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

[bozma88]

Here you go. Headphone detection works correctly on mine now after sleep/resume

1) Where do these kext have to be placed? Are they OK in Clover/kexts?
2) Does this solve your audio noise issues?
3) Can you also share your clover plist?

Thank you!

 

[skydrops]

Here you go. Headphone detection works correctly on mine now after sleep/resume

Awesome! It's working great on my machine too. Headphones work without any noises and with hot plug after sleep
Will test it for the next days.

@bozma88 I've just put kexts in /S/L/E
You can check my last error reporting files for clover.plist (though it doesn't have major differences from the pack).

 

[jkbuha]

Apologies @bozma88 - those files were just meant for testing, hence no instructions

If anyone wants to use them:

1) Kexts go into S/L/E
2) SSDTs go into patched
3) In terms of config.plist:

<dict>
                <key>Comment</key>
                <string>CloverHDA HD256v2 - Zeroing 210 codec</string>
                <key>Find</key>
                <data>
                YQLsEA==
                </data>
                <key>Name</key>
                <string>AppleHDA</string>
                <key>Replace</key>
                <data>
                AAAAAA==
                </data>
            </dict>
            <dict>
                <key>Comment</key>
                <string>CloverHDA HD256v2 - Zeroing 1983 codec</string>
                <key>Find</key>
                <data>
                gxnUEQ==
                </data>
                <key>Name</key>
                <string>AppleHDA</string>
                <key>Replace</key>
                <data>
                AAAAAA==
                </data>
            </dict>
            <dict>
                <key>Comment</key>
                <string>CloverHDA HD256v2 - Patching 1984 with 10ec0256 codec</string>
                <key>Find</key>
                <data>
                hBnUEQ==
                </data>
                <key>Name</key>
                <string>AppleHDA</string>
                <key>Replace</key>
                <data>
                VgLsEA==
                </data>
            </dict>
            <dict>
                <key>Comment</key>
                <string>CloverHDA HD256v2 - Zeroing 885 codec</string>
                <key>Find</key>
                <data>
                hQjsEA==
                </data>
                <key>Name</key>
                <string>AppleHDA</string>
                <key>Replace</key>
                <data>
                AAAAAA==
                </data>
            </dict>
            <dict>
                <key>Comment</key>
                <string>CloverHDA HD256v2 - Zeroing 262 codec</string>
                <key>Find</key>
                <data>
                YgLsEA==
                </data>
                <key>Name</key>
                <string>AppleHDA</string>
                <key>Replace</key>
                <data>
                AAAAAA==
                </data>
            </dict>

If anyone tests these please can they report back, just like @skydrops did.

Thanks!

 

[jkbuha]

Hi all - I need some help from some of the more experienced users on this forum.

After disabling HWP and KernelPM, using @bozma88's settings and 10.12.6 native drivers for KBL I now get the following score (attached) on an XPS 9360 with i7-7500U, 16GB, QHD and HD620. This is the fastest I've ever seen on this machine, but it's still around 2-5% slower than @bozma88. I suspect it's because the 16GB (8x2) DDR is slightly slower than an 8GB (4x2) DDR config. Thus I have the following questions:

1) Has anyone ever experimented with XMP on the 9360? Is it even possible?
2) The fastest current configuration excludes the use of OS-powered management, as I've disabled HWP and Speedshift, and I was wondering if this is just because HWP is not properly optimised on our machines. Previously @syscl had worked on this to some degree of success but he hasn't been around for a while. Has anyone reported better performance or battery life with this enabled?

And lastly... a more generic request

3) I've just received my 850 EVO to test performance and power consumption, and thus would like to restore all the partitions (Windows, OSX, Dell Recovery etc) onto the new stick without having to reinstall everything or lose some Dell-related OS recovery software. Has anyone ever attempted to do this?

 

[bozma88]

Hi all - I need some help from some of the more experienced users on this forum.

After disabling HWP and KernelPM, using @bozma88's settings and 10.12.6 native drivers for KBL I now get the following score (attached) on an XPS 9360 with i7-7500U, 16GB, QHD and HD620. This is the fastest I've ever seen on this machine, but it's still around 2-5% slower than @bozma88. I suspect it's because the 16GB (8x2) DDR is slightly slower than an 8GB (4x2) DDR config. Thus I have the following questions:

1) Has anyone ever experimented with XMP on the 9360? Is it even possible?
2) The fastest current configuration excludes the use of OS-powered management, as I've disabled HWP and Speedshift, and I was wondering if this is just because HWP is not properly optimised on our machines. Previously @syscl had worked on this to some degree of success but he hasn't been around for a while. Has anyone reported better performance or battery life with this enabled?

And lastly... a more generic request

3) I've just received my 850 EVO to test performance and power consumption, and thus would like to restore all the partitions (Windows, OSX, Dell Recovery etc) onto the new stick without having to reinstall everything or lose some Dell-related OS recovery software. Has anyone ever attempted to do this?

1) Don't know, let's wait for some feedback. On windows, you can overclock, underclock, undervolt our 9360 with Intel XTU tool. Changes are not persistent upon cold boot, so no known way to change clocks on MacOS. Correct me if I'm wrong.
2) XPCM is the fastest because it's like an EPP of 255 (or 0, I don't remember which is faster), so it scales frequency as soon as it can. HWP with ~128 is naturally a tad slower. Since with XPCM the laptop still gets 10hours of actual battery life, I don't want to make it slower to gain a fraction more of battery life. Also, scorse greatly depends on system temp, background daemons running and many other things. I won't be worried by a 5% slower benchmark.
3) Dell recovery partition is useless since Dell allows you to download the recovery image from 9360 Support page. So, do a full time machine backup, swap hdd, restore time machine into SATA drive. Has worked great for me.

 

[jkbuha]

Thanks @bozma88.

And another thing - has anyone experienced a very annoying screen flicker on 10.12.6 when the display turns on after screensaver or resume? I suspect it only occurs on QHD displays, but if anyone could shed any light on thus it would be much appreciated...

 

[afg32]

There is an updated 9360 BIOS version 2.1.0 with changelog: "Updated Computrace BIOS persistence module".

I find it strange that BIOS 1.3.7 is still listed alongside the new one, and the new one is called: "Version 99.50.16"

maybe only people who use computrace will need to update?

Please, can someone with the technical knowledge, do some comparison between them to see what have changed?

 

[bozma88]

1.3.7 is confirmed to update the CPU microcode to fix kaby lake HT bug, so it's an advised upgrade.
But it also introduces some issues with Dell docks. Google it.
This new BIOS, and any other new one, are not an advised upgrade.

 

[jkbuha]

I'd stick with 1.3.7 now until we run a full test.

2.1.0 upgrades Computrace, EC and also the ME modules, and a quick comparison shows quite a few other modules have also been changed. Also it's rare that Dell marks a BIOS release as major (i.e.: 2.x) so there may be quite a few other differences under the hood.

 

[skydrops]

@jkbuha if you want to backup MacOs partition, I've used Carbon Copy Cloner before and it worked fine.
If you want to backup and restore whole drive, boot with any linux distro from USB and 'dd' the whole disk to a file.
Dell recovery is useless, you can download Win10 iso from MS and make a clean install. It will activate it since serial is on the BIOS.