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

[bozma88]

Good morning everyone!
After a lot of fiddling, here's the much awaited news: I managed to enable native HDMI audio via the USB-C adapter.

All the details tomorrow (today's my birthday, no PC time).

EDIT: link with explanation here.

 

[bozma88]

10.12.5 HOTPATCH BETA RELEASE: Please test it!

Finally, I am putting together the much awaited 10.12.5 hotpatching guide.
I have to write a lot of credits and explanations, and meanwhile I ask some of you to beta-test it.

The file you find attached is my current EFI folder (stripped from personal iServices IDs, of course).

Just use this to boot (maybe via a USB-key), after implementing your cloud keys, clearing kext caches and completely power-cycling the computer twice. BIOS should be 1.3.5.
This beta release is aimed at users that are ALREADY following my #1 post LTS guide.

New features:
> Everything is now hotpatched. No need to patch DSDT anymore.
> No more power-cycle freeze that some users experienced. Hopefully...
> NVME 512b patches removed. You have to format your drive to 4k (guide here) or add the patches by yourself as per my #1 post guide.
> USB ports now patched correctly. I tweaked the power values. Left port provides 1A current to iOS devices. Right port provides 2A if USB Powershare is enabled in BIOS, 1A if disabled. So, use left port if powering an iPad as secondary screen (Duet.app, e.g.) and want to save battery, use right port if you need to quick charge your device. Moreover, USB keys and HDDs are now correctly reported as "external", showing up on the desktop when connected.
> HDMI (and presumably DP) Audio via USB-C connector is now working and hot-swappable. We now have internal speakers, headphones+jack sense, Bluetooth audio and HDMI audio working. Great!
> SATA M.2 SSDs should now work thanks to SATA-100-series-unsupported.kext.

What still does not work or can be improved:
> SD card reader: not workings, shut down in BIOS to preserve power (work in progress).
> HWP: deliberately chose not to enable. Huge reliability loss, power savings not proven, slight decrease in performances.
> NVME power savings (with Toshiba XG4 drives): controller does not go in low power states, always drawing 2W of power. SATA M.2 SSDs may prove to be a more efficient choice.
> Thunderbolt: not working, needs a different SMBIOS because Macbook9,1 does not have TB in USB-C. Will likely work OOB with Macbook 13,x SMBIOS, likely not hot-pluggable. May require a Thunderbolt firmware upgrade from DELL support page.
> Microphone in earphones (TRRS connector): not working / not sensed. PC microphones will continue to work, though.
> USB 3.1 through USB-C: still not hot-pluggable (work in progress).


Thank you in advance to all the beta testers that will contribute by reporting issues with this release.

 

[Feartech]

10.12.5 HOTPATCH BETA RELEASE: Please test it!

Finally, I am putting together the much awaited 10.12.5 hotpatching guide.
I have to write a lot of credits and explanations, and meanwhile I ask some of you to beta-test it.

The file you find attached is my current EFI folder (stripped from personal iServices IDs, of course).

Just use this to boot (maybe via a USB-key), after implementing your cloud keys, clearing kext caches and completely power-cycling the computer twice. BIOS should be 1.3.5.
This beta release is aimed at users that are ALREADY following my #1 post LTS guide.

New features:
> Everything is now hotpatched. No need to patch DSDT anymore.
> No more power-cycle freeze that some users experienced. Hopefully...
> NVME 512b patches removed. You have to format your drive to 4k or add the patches by yourself as per my #1 post guide.
> USB ports now patched correctly. I tweaked the power values. left port provides 1A charging speed to OS devices. Right port provides 2A if USB Powershare enabled in BIOS, 1A if disabled. So, use left port if powering an iPad as secondary screen (Duet.app, e.g.) and want to save battery, use right port if you need to quick charge your device.
> HDMI (and presumably DP) Audio via USB-C connector is now working and hot-swappable. We now have internal speakers, jack sense, Bluetooth audio and HDMI audio working. Great!
> SATA M.2 SSDs should now work thanks to SATA-100-series-unsupported.kext.

What still does not work:
> SD card reader: work in progress.
> HWP: deliberately chose not to enable. Huge reliability loss, power savings not proven, slight decrease in performances.
> NVME power savings (with Toshiba XG4 drives): controller does not go in low power states, always drawing 2W of power.
> Thunderbolt: not working, needs a different SMBIOS because Macbook9,1 does not have TB in USB-C. Will likely work OOB with Macbook 13,x, likely not hot-pluggable.
> Microphone in earphones (TRRS connector).
> USB 3.1 through USB-C is not hot-pluggable.


Thank you in advance to all the beta testers that will contribute by reporting issues with this release.

well done on the hotpatch method, went that route on my machine

also did this as well:

https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/ssdt-cleanup.225984/

if you wanted to combine all to one file

 

[bozma88]

well done on the hotpatch method, went that route on my machine

also did this as well:

https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/ssdt-cleanup.225984/

if you wanted to combine all to one file

Thank you but most of the credits for hotpatching go to RehabMan and Jkbuha!
Will think about making a single SSDT (like the old TinySSDT concept by Revogirl and Pikeralpha).

 

[jkbuha]

Awesome work bozma88 - and happy birthday!!

Your config works perfectly. One point to note; with my configuration of UHD+touchscreen I had to modify ig-platform-id (in config & ssdt) to 0x19160000 not 0002 as when the screen blacked out or slept it did not turn on again. Otherwise everything else works fine, and more importantly as reported earlier - no freeze on power plug/unplug!

Another interesting note is that now with plugging in the USB-C charger I get a prompt saying the USB accessory is disabled. This is due to the limits kusbwakeportpowerlimit now set to 0x3e8 (before it was 0x0834). Will test it on battery to see if there are any increases!

Final point - with my setup I still need to drop DMAR and #MCFG tables otherwise I can't boot. How did you manage to boot without dropping these tables?

 

[bozma88]

Awesome work bozma88 - and happy birthday!!

Your config works perfectly. One point to note; with my configuration of UHD+touchscreen I had to modify ig-platform-id (in config & ssdt) to 0x19160000 not 0002 as when the screen blacked out or slept it did not turn on again. Otherwise everything else works fine, and more importantly as reported earlier - no freeze on power plug/unplug!

Interesting note is that now with plugging in the USB-C charger I get a prompt saying the USB accessory is disabled. This is due to the limits kusbwakeportpowerlimit now set to 0x3e8 (before it was 0x0834). Will test it on battery to see if there are any increases!

Could you please elaborate more on the USB-C charger warning issue?
Mine does not exhibit that behaviour.
How can a charger trigger that "power draw exceeded" warning? A charger should provide power, not draw it.

 

[jkbuha]

It's not really an issue (because we're drawing less power so better battery life), but I get that error now because we are using reduced USB values. Even if you supply a charger, you are power limited by portcurrentlimit as shown below:

Here is my original USB dsl (pinching the values from iMac17,1)

// these values from iMac17,1
"kUSBSleepPortCurrentLimit", 0x0834,
"kUSBSleepPowerSupply", 0x0A28,
"kUSBWakePortCurrentLimit", 0x0834,
"kUSBWakePowerSupply", 0x0C80

And now we're using these from your dsl:

// new bozma88 values
"kUSBSleepPortCurrentLimit", 0x03E8,
"kUSBSleepPowerSupply", 0x0834,
"kUSBWakePortCurrentLimit", 0x03E8,
"kUSBWakePowerSupply", 0x0834

 

[bozma88]

It's not really an issue (because we're drawing less power so better battery life), but I get that error now because we are using reduced USB values. Even if you supply a charger, you are power limited by portcurrentlimit as shown below:

Here is my original USB dsl (pinching the values from iMac17,1)

// these values from iMac17,1
"kUSBSleepPortCurrentLimit", 0x0834,
"kUSBSleepPowerSupply", 0x0A28,
"kUSBWakePortCurrentLimit", 0x0834,
"kUSBWakePowerSupply", 0x0C80

And now we're using these from your dsl:

// new bozma88 values
"kUSBSleepPortCurrentLimit", 0x03E8,
"kUSBSleepPowerSupply", 0x0834,
"kUSBWakePortCurrentLimit", 0x03E8,
"kUSBWakePowerSupply", 0x0834

Yes, but my question is: when does that warning pop up? When you connect too many devices? Or when you connect the USB-c charger? May I know the brand of your charger?

 

[jkbuha]

I get the error when I connect the USB-C charger.

I had posted the link to this a few pages back, but here it is again:
https://www.anker.com/products/A2052111

 

[bozma88]

I get the error when I connect the USB-C charger.

I had posted the link to this a few pages back, but here it is again:
https://www.anker.com/products/A2052111

I don't see how that charger can actually charhe our laptop, since it's not a 20v charger... The only way it could charge a 9360 would be an error on the charger's online specs.