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

[ben9923]

I've mounted the EFI-Partition, installed Clover, and then replaced the "Clover" Folder on the EFI partition with the Clover Folder from the GitHub Repo from the dark void, I've also installed all Kexts from the Folder with the Kext-Utility to the system drive. Maybe not the best solution but it works for me and at the moment I don't have the time to completely understand these clover magic, the last hackintosh that I build before this Dell-Project was 10.6 or 10.7 and the bootloaders at this time were not so powerful


Also I've found a safer way to under-volt my CPU/GPU on the MacOS Level and not on the bios level:
This guide works pretty good on my XPS 13 8th Gen, also the risk of bricking the system is greatly reduced

https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/331775-guide-how-to-undervolt-your-haswell-and-above-cpu/
(This method could also used to find the stable parameters for the bios method)

I think the power Management on the 8th Gen chips does not work perfectly now. The idle frequency in Mac OS is always 1.3 GHz and the CPU consumes around 1.5-2 Watt of energy, under windows and linux the idle frequency is 0.8 GHz and the CPU with a power consumption around 0.8 Watt. With better powermanagement it should be possible to save one more watt in idle...


I've followed the general laptop guide to enable Bluetooth, it mostly works, but luckily I don't need it

1.3 GHz minimum frequency is per Apple's design. That is the same on Skylake/Kaby Lake MacBook Pros, might be like that on older/other platforms too.
You may have a look at X86PlatformPluginInjector.kext, which is a safer alternative to freqVectorsEdit.sh (No need to patch X86PlatformPlugin.kext)
You can go 0.8 GHz, even lower I guess. LFM here is set on 0.4 GHz. From a short test I get to ~0.45 GHz. May go to solid 0.4 if I give it some more time to idle...

@RehabMan might be worth mentioning this injector in the Power Management guide, after looking at it closely of course.
As I've said, no need to patch X86PlatformPlugin.kext with it

 

[wmrussell]

Yay, that was it. Removed AppleALC.kext and we are looking good! Just have to get audio back now....

Glad that worked! Just dont know where to go from here lol. let me know if you make progress.

 

[markmark2]

Glad that worked! Just dont know where to go from here lol. let me know if you make progress.

Thanks, maybe it's possible to use CloverHDA? But I'm not sure what I need to do to try it out. Can anyone help me out with instruction?

 

[torvaldz]

Thanks, maybe it's possible to use CloverHDA? But I'm not sure what I need to do to try it out. Can anyone help me out with instruction?

Try this:

I solved the audio issue, now it works using AppleHDA , @the-darkvoid ALC256 patch and editing the info plist, before I had bootloop after patching, this is what I did:

- Restore AppleHDA.kext from High sierra install disk in S/L/E
- Remove any AppleALC, CloverHDA, VoodooHDA,CodecCommander in S/L/E or L/E
- Run alc256 patch
- Move L/E AppleHDA_ALC256.kext on desktop
- Open it and edit Info.plist set LayoutID 13

sudo kextcache - i /

And try rebooting 2 times

 

[jkbuha]

1.3 GHz minimum frequency is per Apple's design. That is the same on Skylake/Kaby Lake MacBook Pros, might be like that on older/other platforms too.
You may have a look at X86PlatformPluginInjector.kext, which is a safer alternative to freqVectorsEdit.sh (No need to patch X86PlatformPlugin.kext)
You can go 0.8 GHz, even lower I guess. LFM here is set on 0.4 GHz. From a short test I get to ~0.45 GHz. May go to solid 0.4 if I give it some more time to idle...

@RehabMan might be worth mentioning this injector in the Power Management guide, after looking at it closely of course.
As I've said, no need to patch X86PlatformPlugin.kext with it

X86PP+HWP is a bit of a mixed bag with the Dell 9360/9560. Personally (and thanks to @bozma88 's persistent testing), I've found that over-aggressive use of this method produces a processing lag on the 2-core i7, and the minimal delta in battery saving is not worth it especially when compared to native XNU power handling. Note that this is for the i7-7500U, so YMMV on other CPUs...

 

[markmark2]

Try this:

Thanks! I'll give it a go!

 

[markmark2]

Try this:

Ok, so I've got this far:

-Found the original kext in the in the install image, deleted the one from /S/L/E and installed (via terminal) the original install image one.
-Ran the script to generate the AppleHDA_ALC256.kext
-Copied AppleHDA_ALC256.kext to the desktop and edited the .plist with xcode.

I'm assuming that I'm editing the LayoutID for the newly created entry in the patched kext info.plist , as there are three LayoutID entries now, the original has two??

Then where do I go with the Info.plist edited kext? Do I rename it to AppleHDA.kext and replace the vanilla in /S/L/E or do I replace the AppleHDA_ALC256.kext in /L/E?

 

[RehabMan]

Ok, so I've got this far:

-Found the original kext in the in the install image, deleted the one from /S/L/E and installed (via terminal) the original install image one.
-Ran the script to generate the AppleHDA_ALC256.kext
-Copied AppleHDA_ALC256.kext to the desktop and edited the .plist with xcode.

I'm assuming that I'm editing the LayoutID for the newly created entry in the patched kext info.plist , as there are three LayoutID entries now, the original has two??

Then where do I go with the Info.plist edited kext? Do I rename it to AppleHDA.kext and replace the vanilla in /S/L/E or do I replace the AppleHDA_ALC256.kext in /L/E?

AppleHDA_ALC256.kext is likely an AppleHDA injector, therefore should be installed to /L/E.
AppleHDA.kext should remain untouched (original as installed by the macOS installer).

 

[torvaldz]

Ok, so I've got this far:

-Found the original kext in the in the install image, deleted the one from /S/L/E and installed (via terminal) the original install image one.
-Ran the script to generate the AppleHDA_ALC256.kext
-Copied AppleHDA_ALC256.kext to the desktop and edited the .plist with xcode.

I'm assuming that I'm editing the LayoutID for the newly created entry in the patched kext info.plist , as there are three LayoutID entries now, the original has two??

Then where do I go with the Info.plist edited kext? Do I rename it to AppleHDA.kext and replace the vanilla in /S/L/E or do I replace the AppleHDA_ALC256.kext in /L/E?

It seems that @the-darkvoid has added the new layout id in the patch, try moving the patched AppleHDA_ALC256.kext in L/E without editing the .plist. Update kext cache and reboot twice.

 

[markmark2]

AppleHDA_ALC256.kext is likely an AppleHDA injector, therefore should be installed to /L/E.
AppleHDA.kext should remain untouched (original as installed by the macOS installer).

Thanks, restored my backup of the originally installed kext.