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

[sonik13]

Noticed something weird - @bozma88 maybe you can explain this.

I'm using the MacBookPro13,1 profile, which works perfectly with everything (except hotswapping USB-C). But I tried 13,3 (touchbar) and USB-C-to-HDMI wasn't recognized. Any reason why that would be?

 

[landmarker]

No need to align as all the stack is now operating at 4K sector size.
Look:

$ diskutil info / | grep Block
   Device Block Size:        4096 Bytes
   Allocation Block Size:    4096 Bytes

Steps:
0) Do a full Time-Machine backup. SSD will be formatted, all data will be lost.
1) Boot Ubuntu 16.10 Live USB
2) Enable Wifi by allowing third-party drivers through the "Additional Drivers" application
3) Enable Universe repo and reload repo database
4) sudo apt install smartmontools
5) sudo apt install nvme-cli
6) sudo smartctl -a /dev/nvme0

If the output is:

Supported LBA Sizes (NSID 0x1)
Id Fmt  Data  Metadt  Rel_Perf
 0 +     512       0         2
 1 -    4096       0         1

Your drive supports both 512B and 4KB sector sizes.
[+] setting is the active one.
You can then switch [0] setting (512B LBA) to [1] setting [4KB LBA] by typing:

7) nvme format -l 1 /dev/nvme0
8) Remove SSDT-NVME, HACKRNVMEFAMILY.kext and/or Clover storage hotpatches from your EFI bootloader.
8) Do a time machine restore after formatting the SSD
9) After booting, disable again hibernatemode:

sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 0
sudo rm /private/var/vm/sleepimage
sudo touch /private/var/vm/sleepimage
sudo chflags uchg /private/var/vm/sleepimage

10) You are now running 100% vanilla storage drivers. Trim is enabled by default.

The source and credits for this mini-guide go to Nos1609, link here: http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/to...er-macos-sierra-is-ready/page-50#entry2377304

I've done this and it works perfectly on the 512GB Toshiba SSD (THNSN 5512 NVMe)

BUT, somewhere along the process I have killed my WiFi, OS X says no hardware is installed.

Here are the steps I took:
- Backup the SSD as described in the guide, to an external USB drive (including EFI partition with Clover)
- Boot up from the USB and check everything is working. WiFi worked at this stage
- Boot Ubuntu as described in the guide and perform nvme format. Wifi worked at this stage
- Boot OS X again from the USB, removed only SSDT-NVME, HACKRNVMEFAMILY.kext from the Clover partition to make SSD visible
-> Wifi was NOT working at this stage (first boot into OS X after actions in Ubuntu)
- Reboot again from USB, restore to NVME etc etc

I've checked Clover and S/L/E and everything looks just as before. I'm really stumped! I've tried booting Ubuntu again and sure enough, Wifi works once the proprietary driver is loaded...

 

[pspracers]

Sometimes when I scroll, for example the guide(as it's a very long text), a scroll swipe gets recognised as a right click. Is there a solution for that? Maybe to set right clicks less exact.

 

[mashny]

I've checked Clover and S/L/E and everything looks just as before. I'm really stumped! I've tried booting Ubuntu again and sure enough, Wifi works once the proprietary driver is loaded..

Try installing the wifi kexts @ system/library/extensions and updating your kernel cache?

 

[RehabMan]

I've done this and it works perfectly on the 512GB Toshiba SSD (THNSN 5512 NVMe)

BUT, somewhere along the process I have killed my WiFi, OS X says no hardware is installed.

Here are the steps I took:
- Backup the SSD as described in the guide, to an external USB drive (including EFI partition with Clover)
- Boot up from the USB and check everything is working. WiFi worked at this stage
- Boot Ubuntu as described in the guide and perform nvme format. Wifi worked at this stage
- Boot OS X again from the USB, removed only SSDT-NVME, HACKRNVMEFAMILY.kext from the Clover partition to make SSD visible
-> Wifi was NOT working at this stage (first boot into OS X after actions in Ubuntu)
- Reboot again from USB, restore to NVME etc etc

I've checked Clover and S/L/E and everything looks just as before. I'm really stumped! I've tried booting Ubuntu again and sure enough, Wifi works once the proprietary driver is loaded...

If you expect analysis, you must provide data...

Read FAQ, "Problem Reporting"
https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/faq-read-first-laptop-frequent-questions.164990/

 

[Vygr10565]

You are not following my guide and my files setup at all.
Please download v8b files, patch your own DSDT and make your Clover folder look exactly as mine, without all the extra drivers, folders, plists, kexts, then we can troubleshoot.

Working clean and lean and conforming to the standard guide is the best way to troubleshoot!

I deleted my SSDT files, put yours in, after that I realised, I didn't add (.aml) in Clover config, thats why it didn't work.

Thanks for your awesome guide!

 

[landmarker]

If you expect analysis, you must provide data...

Read FAQ, "Problem Reporting"
https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/faq-read-first-laptop-frequent-questions.164990/

Thanks for the kind reminder - all problem reporting files attached.

Problem summary: Wifi not working after boot into Ubuntu, clone/restore of SSD with 4K blocks.

Many, many thanks

 

[bozma88]

Understood, thanks a lot. I guess I need some more guidance here for the config.plist.

I found only this patches for 'KextsToPatch' section - credit to @dpassmor:

<dict>
<key>Comment</key>
<string>SMBios</string>
<key>Disabled</key>
<false/>
<key>Find</key>
<data>
RUI5RDJEMzE=
</data>
<key>Name</key>
<string>AppleACPIPlatform</string>
<key>Replace</key>
<data>
RUI5RDJEMzU=
</data>
</dict>
<dict>
<key>Comment</key>
<string>SMBios</string>
<key>Disabled</key>
<false/>
<key>Find</key>
<data>
RUI5RDJEMzE=
</data>
<key>Name</key>
<string>AppleSMBIOS</string>
<key>Replace</key>
<data>
RUI5RDJEMzU=
</data>
</dict>

This works in combination with a modified CLOVERX64.efi, but my understanding is that latest CLOVER has this issue fixed?!

Here: http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/304530-clover-change-explanations/?p=2363687
Here: http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/306156-clover-bugissue-report-and-patch/?p=2362901

<key>KernelAndKextPatches</key>
<dict>
   <key>DellSMBIOSPatch</key>
   <false/>
</dict>

I've done this and it works perfectly on the 512GB Toshiba SSD (THNSN 5512 NVMe)

BUT, somewhere along the process I have killed my WiFi, OS X says no hardware is installed.

Here are the steps I took:
- Backup the SSD as described in the guide, to an external USB drive (including EFI partition with Clover)
- Boot up from the USB and check everything is working. WiFi worked at this stage
- Boot Ubuntu as described in the guide and perform nvme format. Wifi worked at this stage
- Boot OS X again from the USB, removed only SSDT-NVME, HACKRNVMEFAMILY.kext from the Clover partition to make SSD visible
-> Wifi was NOT working at this stage (first boot into OS X after actions in Ubuntu)
- Reboot again from USB, restore to NVME etc etc

I've checked Clover and S/L/E and everything looks just as before. I'm really stumped! I've tried booting Ubuntu again and sure enough, Wifi works once the proprietary driver is loaded...

Check you removed all nvme related patches (hotpatch in minimal/install clover, or hacknvme in full clover setup) + nvme ssdt class spoof. Clear cache. Reboot twice.

Sometimes when I scroll, for example the guide(as it's a very long text), a scroll swipe gets recognised as a right click. Is there a solution for that? Maybe to set right clicks less exact.

No fix but this is the tuned kext, fork it, fix it by yourself, recompile, test and share with kext and the tuned source code.
https://github.com/syscl/OS-X-Voodoo-PS2-Controller

 

[jkbuha]

I encountered that battery issue one month ago while experimenting with DSDT patches.
If I remember correctly, it went away after resetting BIOS settings to default (remember to re-patch DVMT and re-set everything as per the guide), deleting nvram.plist from root device and/or root EFI partition, loading an improved DSDT, and rebooting a few times.
What I want to know is whether the charger freeze got fixed or not.

Ok so the Fn+F11/F12 freeze and no battery issue has cropped up on my laptop as well. I thought it was due to my specific config so I reverted to @bozma88 vanilla config; but no result. I can't find nvram.plist so I did a nvram -c command, but still no joy. Is this a(nother) EC-related issue, if so we most likely need to fix this in DSDT...

 

[bozma88]

The issue appeared when I did not patch DSDT correctly and/or forgot to apply some patches.
I have no issues here since long time.
Re-dump your DSDT, re-patch everything, start from scratch.