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

[jkbuha]

I had success with Big Sur Beta 8 on the XPS 9360 Kaby Lake HD620 FHD 1920x1080. Used the EFI from Acer Swift 3 SF314 54 2018 MacOS Big Sur Guide. Updated the SMBios to MacBookPro 15.2, installed CPUfriend kexts and Usb wifi kexts.

Graphics,Sleep, brightness, Trackpad gestures, Bluetooth, battery, sound, andUsb C (Dock and Hdmi) all work. Not sure about power usage as Intel Power Gadget does not work with Big Sur.

Edit: Intel Power Gadget working on Big Sur Beta 9.

Ok, so after a few days migrating to OpenCore, I've fine-tuned @ebaymic60 's config and corrected a few things for the i7-8550U as well as some other elements (CPU optimisation, sleep/wake, brightness keys). Still need to figure out how to boot Windows natively, but macOS Big Sur B9 and Kali Linux work perfectly.

 

[Richylitschy]

Ok, so after a few days migrating to OpenCore, I've fine-tuned @ebaymic60 's config and corrected a few things for the i7-8550U as well as some other elements (CPU optimisation, sleep/wake, brightness keys). Still need to figure out how to boot Windows natively, but macOS Big Sur B9 and Kali Linux work perfectly.

If I want to use your configuration for my I5-7200u, are there any necessary steps besides switching to my CPUFriend kext? Cheers!

 

[jkbuha]

If I want to use your configuration for my I5-7200u, are there any necessary steps besides switching to my CPUFriend kext? Cheers!

No, there shouldn't be any additional steps, just swap out the CPUFriend and CPUFriendProvider kexts in OC/Kexts and you should be good to go.

Note to whoever's coming from Clover to OpenCore. You need to do the following first:

1) Remove all alien/injected kexts in L/E and S/L/E
2) Reset NVRAM on first boot

 

[Richylitschy]

No, there shouldn't be any additional steps, just swap out the CPUFriend and CPUFriendProvider kexts in OC/Kexts and you should be good to go.

Note to whoever's coming from Clover to OpenCore. You need to do the following first:

1) Remove all alien/injected kexts in L/E and S/L/E
2) Reset NVRAM on first boot

Tried the config and swapped also the kexts responsible for WIFI (as I run the DW1560) in the folder and the config.plist.
However, I can’t seem to get the WIFI working with the config. Any idea?
Further, the keyboard layout of the command key swapped hahah that took me a few seconds to realise.

 

[jkbuha]

Tried the config and swapped also the kexts responsible for WIFI (as I run the DW1560) in the folder and the config.plist.
However, I can’t seem to get the WIFI working with the config. Any idea?
Further, the keyboard layout of the command key swapped hahah that took me a few seconds to realise.

Yeah I map the Dell keyboard with the exact layout as my MacbookPro. So CMD/Alt are swapped...
Just put back your original Voodoo kexts and you should be fine.

With the DW1560 you'll need to change a few SSDT patches. I don't have the exact steps, but @the-darkvoid's repo should have the most updated patches for you.

 

[egore]

Ok, so after a few days migrating to OpenCore, I've fine-tuned @ebaymic60 's config and corrected a few things for the i7-8550U as well as some other elements (CPU optimisation, sleep/wake, brightness keys). Still need to figure out how to boot Windows natively, but macOS Big Sur B9 and Kali Linux work perfectly.

Great job! I've been using your setup (with a few tweaks) as of recent and am quite pleased with how the machine is performing. Please share any further advances/tweaks you've done since!

 

[jkbuha]

Great job! I've been using your setup (with a few tweaks) as of recent and am quite pleased with how the machine is performing. Please share any further advances/tweaks you've done since!

Need to optimise performance further - Geekbench scores have dropped from Clover. So something needs to be improved. That said, it works perfectly stable, just need to optimised.

 

[Mrgeque]

Need to optimise performance further - Geekbench scores have dropped from Clover. So something needs to be improved. That said, it works perfectly stable, just need to optimised.

how are you undervaluing/overclocking CPU? I recently migrated to OpenCore from clover and experienced some performance drops as you've mentioned. After some trial and error I've got the performance I once had in clover, in OpenCore Now. VoltageShift -90mv cpu -75mv Gpu -90mv cache. Also, does anyone know how to remove acidanthera from my motherboard and bios info?

 

[jkbuha]

Could you share your OC folder here? I'd like to take a look at your DSDT patches, as I'm missing a couple this end. My current GB scores are 4000/11000 respectively, so about 20-30% drop from yours, down from 5500/17500 on Clover.

With regards to undervolting - I use either setup_var in UEFI (which you can use from my zip above) or voltageshift kext (which works perfectly in Big Sur). I can undervolt CPU/GPU around -150mV and that produces additional performance gains. I've also modified the TDP threshold so the 8550u TDP limit increases from 15W to 28W, thereby increasing the performance ceiling.

Once I'll take a look at your OC.zip I can produce a new final build with the required kext(s) and/or setup_var parameters to modify.

 

[Mrgeque]

Could you share your OC folder here? I'd like to take a look at your DSDT patches, as I'm missing a couple this end. My current GB scores are 4000/11000 respectively, so about 20-30% drop from yours, down from 5500/17500 on Clover.

With regards to undervolting - I use either setup_var in UEFI (which you can use from my zip above) or voltageshift kext (which works perfectly in Big Sur). I can undervolt CPU/GPU around -150mV and that produces additional performance gains. I've also modified the TDP threshold so the 8550u TDP limit increases from 15W to 28W, thereby increasing the performance ceiling.

Once I'll take a look at your OC.zip I can produce a new final build with the required kext(s) and/or setup_var parameters to modify.

you were getting 5500/17500 in clover in MacOS? wow I only have seen those scores in linux. I will gladly share my OC folder as soon as I get back home. reminder, I'm using dell Inspiron and not XPS9360. also my power limit is set to 44w. not sure how you achieved 28w, but that could possibly be an issue. don't quote me on that since I really don't know.

@jkbuha could you tell me how to remove the acidanthera from motherboard and bios please?