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

[DigitlTerror]

I'm a bit vague on what effect bios 2.5 has on the 9360 with 8th gen i5? Is it still possible to install/run osx normally? I recently upgraded to 2.5 and if this isn't possible I'd need to know before the return window expires.

 

[thethe]

Does anyone have a fix for the "Bluetooth: Not Availible" showing up spontaneously after wake from sleep

+1
I've been searching for a fix for a while

 

[nos1609]

2.5.0 patches loopholes one step further unfortunately. And you still won't be able to revert to 2.3.x or below. Unless you really need the CPU microcode update (which I'm not sure if applicable to 7th gen and/or what it fixes) then please stay on 2.3.1 for now.

Maybe this might help somehow?
At least I used this approach early to activate hidden features on 9350

Linux smbiostool that uses the same switches as in windows gui has these token switches

0x03c9    bool    true    Allow BIOS Downgrade    Enabled
0x0268   bool   false   Flash Restriction   ON
0x800d   bool   false   Signed Firmware Update   Disabled

 

[jkbuha]

If the entire BIOS structure is unchanged (Addresses & sizes for ME, BIOS, GbE etc) then potentially this could be a solution. I'm assuming you used this in the past to enable features like speedshift etc. I'm not on 2.5 so I'm not sure what the effects of forcing a <2.4.2 downgrade would be with this commandset. If (ii) below is true, then it will not work, and at best you could just restore BIOS to a >2.4.2 version.

The problem is twofold;
(i) Dell Verified Boot (in addition to Intel BootGuard) is always present and active, and there are only a handful of ways to disable one and the other simultaneously. The reason is that one protection mechanism belongs to Dell and the other to Intel, so the risks of not properly disabling either mechanism is relatively high. Additionally, 2.4.2 and 2.5.0 have successively removed more of these options to flash modified BIOSes, mostly for the right reasons due to increased security exploits at boot-time & POST. But such protective methods increase the risk of bricking the laptop during BIOS flash even on legit signed firmware, especially if there is no reliable way to enter recovery and flash a backup BIOS.

(ii) There's also the possibility of flash programmable fuses being set, which could be happening with 2.4.2. If this is the case, it will be highly unlikely that a former BIOS can be restored through flash programming, SPI flash or Dell Command. In fact some parameters are not possible to be set by commandline such as --biosdowngrade (they can only be set inside the BIOS setup or NVRAM if enabled).

Whichever version BIOS you are on, could you try this. Reflash with Dell Command with the following parameter:

• 
  --biossetupadvmode

 

[tamerlan4572]

@bozma88 @jkbuha - Hey guys. I was wondering if you guys tested High Sierra at all? I updated all the kexts and booted into installer - however my nvme drive didn't show up. I assume I need another patch for nvme - I have 4k formatted toshiba.

 

[ressetkk]

@bozma88 @jkbuha - Hey guys. I was wondering if you guys tested High Sierra at all? I updated all the kexts and booted into installer - however my nvme drive didn't show up. I assume I need another patch for nvme - I have 4k formatted toshiba.

Some of the NVMe drives like LiteOn, Plextor, Hynix need additional patch in order to be recognized. Refer here https://github.com/RehabMan/patch-nvme

However I don't think you need such kind of patch on Toshiba NVMe. It might be just not initialized. You should check Terminal output from diskutil list and eraseDisk from it if needed.

 

[R.MnTnA]

Has anyone tried to update their Sierra install with the latest Apple security update? Mine won’t update and the loading Apple screen starts to when you click restart, but then doesn’t complete the process and still shows up as you need to restart to apply the update.

 

[egore]

Has anyone tried to update their Sierra install with the latest Apple security update? Mine won’t update and the loading Apple screen starts to when you click restart, but then doesn’t complete the process and still shows up as you need to restart to apply the update.

I just updated my machine without incident.

 

[R.MnTnA]

I just updated my machine without incident.

Ok thanks @egore. So I think I may have tweaked my Apple agents and daemons too much which means I may have turned off something that I shouldn’t have. I’ll have to troubleshoot further. Thanks again.

 

[jkbuha]

Ok thanks @egore. So I think I may have tweaked my Apple agents and daemons too much which means I may have turned off something that I shouldn’t have. I’ll have to troubleshoot further. Thanks again.

Security update installed fine on my 10.12.6 installation. Here's hoping I have patched an (unlikely) kernel/CPU exploit without having to resort to a CPU microcode update and lose BIOS privileges.

Just tried Dell's Command Line utility on Kali with BIOS 2.3.1 and it allows some changes but not the important ones, such as advanced bios menus and verified boot disabled. So we're still left with just a few backdoors, but not many. Bios 2.5.0 implements the CPU patch for Spectre and an ME update, but not much else, so presumably Apple's update (and Windows) should cover this off as well.

As a side-note, can anyone who's updated to 2.5.0 run Geekbench? Interested to see what the before/after scores are with the CPU fix in place...