[Guide] Dell XPS 9560 Mojave VirtualSMC, I2C Trackpad, Clover UEFI Hotpatch

[dmitry_matora]

That is interesting, I do not have this problem. Do you have 7700HQ? You should add your XPS specs to your signature

Right, sorry, just received it, spent two sleepless days setting it up, still fighting some issues.
It's 7300HQ, signature added. I'm going to try replacing VirtualSMC with FakeSMC with sensors and control fan with Macs Fan Control
Other issues I am having are

• Sometimes trackpad won't work until I make a cold boot
• Handoff / Instant Hotspot / Shared clipboard pretty much never work (unlike Continuity, which works fine) - fails at 'Opening Webpage from Handoff' / 'Failed to enabled Personal Hotspot on iPhone' / When you copy text to clipboard, it doesn't make any transfer

I was using BCM943224PCIEBT2 in my Dell laptops until I dropped Dell Inspiron 5379 (2nd time) and killed wifi slot
I really don't want to kill wifi slot on my XPS so today I've received DW1560 and replaced BCM94360CS2 with it.
I've been hackintoshing for years, done many boxes, and I have never seen Instant Hotspot working unless you use original wifi/bt card from apple via adapter, like BCM94360CS2. Today I saw shared clipboard working for about 20 minutes on non apple wifi/bt card for the first time in my life. I really wonder if there is a way to make it working at least most of the time.

Btw, isn't PM961 supposed to give macOS crashes?
I've been using it without any crash for a couple of days, thinking about buying 1Tb version

 

[blazinsmokey]

It's 7300HQ, signature added. I'm going to try replacing VirtualSMC with FakeSMC with sensors and control fan with Macs Fan Control
Other issues I am having are

• Sometimes trackpad won't work until I make a cold boot
• Handoff / Instant Hotspot / Shared clipboard pretty much never work (unlike Continuity, which works fine) - fails at 'Opening Webpage from Handoff' / 'Failed to enabled Personal Hotspot on iPhone' / When you copy text to clipboard, it doesn't make any transfer

Btw, isn't PM961 supposed to give macOS crashes?

Had a hunch you had the i5 version. VirtualSMC's battery implementation was crucial to the success of using VoodooI2C for the trackpad which IMO turns our laptops from an ok hackbook to a great hackbook. If you are using my exact files and nothing extra(clean install preferably), try clearing nvram. Suggest removing CPUFriend and CPUFriendDataProvider kexts. Uncheck HWPEnabler in the CPU section and add SSDT-XCP.aml which I attached. Please try this before moving on as this may be the simple fix.

I've been mulling over using native macOS power management versus the method currently included as I'm not sure about compatibility with other CPUs. Difference idle at .8GHz vs 1.3GHz. Only difference I saw at least with the 7700HQ.

Handoff, worked for me for a bit but I don't really use the feature or pay attention, so I can make a note of that in the guide.

The trackpad not working sometimes, try fix permissions and rebuild kextcache.

 

[dmitry_matora]

Please try this before moving on as this may be the simple fix.

I probably should have mentioned that I have same fan problem on windows.

Had a hunch you had the i5 version. VirtualSMC's battery implementation was crucial to the success of using VoodooI2C for the trackpad which IMO turns our laptops from an ok hackbook to a great hackbook

Well if having to force sleep is price to pay for MacBook like trackpad, I'll gladly pay it.
Except when I am using it as a desktop with original Apple Trackpad

 

[blazinsmokey]

Thought some of you might want to know that I just updated a bunch of kexts as there were updates. Currently use this nifty tool called Kext Updater to check for kext updates. https://bitbucket.org/profdrluigi/kextupdater/downloads/

Plus I updated to 10.14.1 without any issues. Just had to repair permissions and rebuild kextcache to get i2c working again.

I probably should have mentioned that I have same fan problem on windows.

Well if having to force sleep is price to pay for MacBook like trackpad, I'll gladly pay it.
Except when I am using it as a desktop with original Apple Trackpad

Ahh well if it happens in Windows then definitely not just the hackintosh setup. 2 possible solutions. Sometimes BIOS and fan controls get messed up, I'm using 1.11.0 if that matters. Plus thermal issue? Our laptops are pretty notorious for the thermal problems. Plenty of folks repasting the processor and adding thermal strips all over. Another while not a solution may just be an actual problem with the hardware sensor.

 

[dmitry_matora]

Currently use this nifty tool called Kext Updater to check for kext updates. https://bitbucket.org/profdrluigi/kextupdater/downloads/

Thanks, nice app. I'm surprised it doesn't actually update kexts, just downloads them. Still useful.

Plus thermal issue? Our laptops are pretty notorious for the thermal problems.

Well it's not silent at 41 celsius.

Just had to repair permissions and rebuild kextcache to get i2c working again

Does it need to be run from L/E?

Just tried Mojave 10.14.1 (I am using 10.13.6 as primary system) and

• Handoff pretty much always work (Tada!)
• Instant Hotspot still pretty much never works
• Shared clipboard sometimes works 9/10, and sometimes works if you spend about 5 minutes hammering it (hammering handoff and instant hotspot might have helped it). High Sierra had nice interface showing progress of transferring shared clipboard over devices (on both XPS and iPhone). On Mojave I don't see it

 

[dmitry_matora]

just updated a bunch of kexts as there were updates

Btw, I can see you're still having BrcmFirmwareRepo.kext in your clover folder.
This is wrong, I could NOT pair XPS with my iPhone until I replaced it with BrcmFirmwareData.kext
BrcmFirmwareRepo.kext is for L/E or S/L/E ONLY

 

[blazinsmokey]

This is wrong, I could NOT pair XPS with my iPhone until I replaced it with BrcmFirmwareData.kext
BrcmFirmwareRepo.kext is for L/E or S/L/E ONLY

Thanks for catching that. I just reread the GitHub page and I must have misread the first time round. Will make changes to my system later and test then change the guide and files.

I'm not installing anything but VoodooPS2 into L/E. Everything else is injected by Clover.
Reason for that as the solutions for I2C to work again was this https://github.com/alexandred/VoodooI2C/issues/128

 

[dmitry_matora]

I've just realized that 1440p HiDPI over HDMI doesn't work in Mojave (but works in High Sierra)
Ordered USB-C -> DP adapter, hoping it will fix the issue
My USB-C -> TB2 -> DP adapters chain - doesn't

 

[fabiofabio]

I've installed Mojave on a new Evo 960 Sata drive following this guide and so far it appears to be working fine, excellent job!

FILEVAULT 2 - DANGER ZONE, YOU MIGHT LOSE YOUR DATA!!!
Ensure to have a backup before even reading the following information.

To enable Filevault 2 I have:

- updated Clover to the latest release;
- rebooted;
- mounted the EFI partition with EFI Mounter;
- copied AppleUISupport.efi and VirtualSmc.efi to EFI/CLOVER/drivers64uefi per instructions at https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/317290-filevault-2/;
- copied AppleKeyFeeder.efi to EFI/CLOVER/drivers64uefi from the attachment in the post https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/guide-filevault2-on-dell-xps-9550.254668
- removed the following lines from config.plist:

        <key>Hide</key>
        <array>
            <string>Preboot</string>
            <string>Recovery</string>
        </array>

- Enabled Filevault for the drive in System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Filevault ; I did not wait for encryption to complete, in fact it was paused as I was on battery power;
- rebooted and selected to boot from FileVault Prebooter;
- connected to a power source and let the system finish the encryption;
- rebooted.

It appears to be working fine, I will report back in a couple weeks after restoring my data and doing day to day work; my GeekBench score with a pristine system is inline with @blazinsmokey .

Now downloading the .1 update ...

 

[fabiofabio]

The update to .1 from System Preferences went fine; FWIW, the XPS was rebooted twice through the Install prebooter during the upgrade installation without requiring a password to unlock the system volume as expected. I wonder where the key is stored on a hackintosh during this process, if I recall correctly on a real Mac it is stored temporarily in the SMC.

Bluetooth

I was able to see Bluetooth devices but not pair with a Bluetooth Logitech MX Master.

In order to fix this I checked the Bluetooth instructions at https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/broadcom-wifi-bluetooth-guide.242423/ and:

- Mounted the EFI partition;
- Removed BrcmFirmwareRepo.kext and BrcmPatchRAM2.kext from /Volumes/EFI/Clover/kexts/Other;
- Downloaded the latest version of RehabMan's BrcmPatchRam archive from https://bitbucket.org/RehabMan/os-x-brcmpatchram/downloads/;
- Copied BrcmFirmwareRepo.kext and BrcmPatchRAM2.kext from the release folder in the archive to /Library/Extensions;
- Rebuilt caches
- Rebooted

I also had to add dart=0 to my boot parameters as I've got VT-D enabled , otherwise the system would not complete the boot sequence when loading the bcrm kexts; this should not be required if you have VT-D disabled.

After this I was able to pair the mouse.