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

[dpassmor]

AFAIK someone already managed to make USB-C hotplug work. Search on Google.

And Yes, please, we are looking forward to your contributions on hwp, share what you learn and we'll do the same

For example, a topic of interest could be GUC microcode upload, although on 9360 it may not be possible because Apple machines are all Iris Graphics (thus no Apple GUC available for Hd 520 / HD 620): https://pikeralpha.wordpress.com/2017/01/14/does-apple-load-microcode-for-the-igpu/

This could lead to further battery savings. Let me know what do you all think.

The folks doing USB-C hot plug are likely using the SSDT-TB I created. I haven't seen anything else that remotely works. If you can point me in that direction, I'd like to see an alternative. And actually, it looks like hotplug with SSDT-TB works after sleep in 10.12.3!

I'll type up the power management stuff and post it tomorrow.

 

[R.MnTnA]

@syscl do you think Pike's or your modification of the iGPU tuned frequency vectors should work on this 9360 w/Iris 640?

 

[bozma88]

@bozma88 I completed installation last night and followed your guide with ACPI patching, however can't boot without USB, i get this KP. Sorry for the poor quality, KP disappears after ~2secs

Sorry, no idea. My archive provides all the files to boot without doing anything else.
If you are trying to start from scratch and doing every patch by yourself (good thing, means you want to learn and understand), make sure you are doing it the proper way by following the generic guides and asking help in the generic forum.

Small tip: in my archive, if you look carefully at the boot args, you see that the basic EFI boot has different boot args compared to the full EFI boot folder. This parameter prevents KP automatic reboot: debug=0x100

 

[Jiojimbo]

HI bozma88 wanted to thank you for this wonderfull guide. I had been thinking on the xps13 as good everyday computer for me. In my country the i7 is only aviable with qhd display, do yo think its possible to run it at a lower res than 3200x1800 to relieve some stress on the cpu without quality loss/artifacts? as per your thread it looks doable...
Thanks

 

[R.MnTnA]

HI bozma88 wanted to thank you for this wonderfull guide. I had been thinking on the xps13 as good everyday computer for me. In my country the i7 is only aviable with qhd display, do yo think its possible to run it at a lower res than 3200x1800 to relieve some stress on the cpu without quality loss/artifacts? as per your thread it looks doable...
Thanks

I have the QHD screen and I can confirm that this is possible. Looks great in all resolutions. Although I have not tested to see if it puts less stress on gpu or cpu or uses less power.

 

[Jiojimbo]

Hey R.MnTnA ! that's some good news , I'm trying to "future proof" by getting the fastest chip and biggest RAM and the HQD its the only choice. I will order it and hopefully in two weeks I'll report back to this thread for the installation.
Thanks!

 

[Friso]

Sorry, no idea. My archive provides all the files to boot without doing anything else.
If you are trying to start from scratch and doing every patch by yourself (good thing, means you want to learn and understand), make sure you are doing it the proper way by following the generic guides and asking help in the generic forum.

Small tip: in my archive, if you look carefully at the boot args, you see that the basic EFI boot has different boot args compared to the full EFI boot folder. This parameter prevents KP automatic reboot: debug=0x100

OK, thank you, I am manually patching everything and learning I repatched the ACPI from scratch, I got rid of the earlier KP but now I have a garbled screen with a stop sign and a line that says still waiting for root device.. I'm gonna try to inject the code I used for the USB config.plist to get Disk Utility to see my LiteOn drive.. EDIT: no luck

On a side note - what you are saying is that even the ACPI you attached would work for my machine? I thought DSDT/SSDT where different for every machine, so that wouldn't work right?

 

[bozma88]

OK, thank you, I am manually patching everything and learning I repatched the ACPI from scratch, I got rid of the earlier KP but now I have a garbled screen with a stop sign and a line that says still waiting for root device.. I'm gonna try to inject the code I used for the USB config.plist to get Disk Utility to see my LiteOn drive.. EDIT: no luck

On a side note - what you are saying that even the ACPI you attached would work for my machine? I thought DSDT/SSDT where different for every machine, so that would work right?

In case of exactly same machine with exactly same bios version it should be the same.
But I support your approach.
Just use my files as a reference.

 

[bozma88]

Hey R.MnTnA ! that's some good news , I'm trying to "future proof" by getting the fastest chip and biggest RAM and the HQD its the only choice. I will order it and hopefully in two weeks I'll report back to this thread for the installation.
Thanks!

Remember that the power hit of a hi-res screen is mainly due to lower backlight permeability caused by higher in-plane transistor density, so lowering the resolution will decrease processor rendering load but not backlight power requirements.

So don't expect to have the same 10/12h of battery life of the FHD version.

I'd wait a few weeks, if the revisions we spotted are correct there will be a i7-7600U in FHD flavour, and that will be really, really great.

 

[cnekol]

Hey, bozma88.
Really appreciate that you've got a good guide about 9360.
I'm thinking about to get one the same build as you, I've checked much info then I found
BCM943602BAED (DW1830) is a good one, speeder and BT4.1.
After searching much info I still got no idea if there's enough space for BCM943602BAED (DW1830). This one is a little bigger than BCM94352Z (DW1560) (The one you choose).

Have you ever thought about DW1830? Or it won't work on XPS 9360?
Thanks