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

[dmitry_matora]

any tb3 device to test thunderbolt i remember you mentioned it before?

not at the moment, still on the trip

 

[InsaneCultist]

Tried it for a couple of weeks and I still get daily crashes.
I keep loosing Word documents after writing them for a few hours.
It looks like kernel panic prevents saving filesystem cache to disk and makes autosave incapable of doing what it should.
Loosing few hours work drives me nuts. I'll have to give up on XPS if I won't find a solution.
Does everyone experience this with XPS or am I lucky?

I am not using MS office on this machine. Any particular panic being caused? Before I was using AptIOFix, I would get NVMe crashes due to my PM961, but no longer.

 

[blazinsmokey]

No kp/crashes with latest clover, my system is basically on 24-7 docked these days with USB-C to HDMI 2.0 connected. Using latest bios 1.14.3 and TB firmware.

I installed Windows yesterday to update my TB firmware. Been well over a year since Windows has been on this machine. I found my fans were running and louder than normal but not necessarily overwhelming. My system was running but not much load and temps ~44C.

This symptom has been discussed here but I never encountered it till now. I restarted a few times and fan noise still persisted. I'd like to blame Windows but I cracked open my laptop. I haven't opened it since I installed my DW1560 a couple years ago. Fans were really dusty, so I cleaned them. System has been running for about an hour and no fan noise.

Before


After


Last thing yes, I'm still researching to get TB3 and USB-c hot plug working. I've met a lot of dead ends but I'm still trying. Pardon me for not answering everyones questions all the time.

 

[killswitx]

I have the big 97Wh battery and 32 Go RAM and get 6 to 8 hours of battery.



Use Jettison app for this or this script from @arehep XPS 9360 guide here: https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/...smc-i2c-trackpad-clover-uefi-hotpatch.267161/ does exactly the same, preventing USB device to be hard mounted when sleeping.

@LeLunZ retested my 2 USB ports with Clover 3.3 and my iphone 6 is charging and launching itunes on both ports.

Cheers.

THanks for that script ill try that

and yeah also have 97wh batt and get only like 3hours...what could that be ? i am using your config

 

[mazakiss]

THanks for that script ill try that

and yeah also have 97wh batt and get only like 3hours...what could that be ? i am using your config

Hi. I need more info. Too many factors here.
How old is your battery?
Do you use your laptop mostly on battery?
After boot, in activity monitor, is there any app or daemon running in the background pumping energy?
What are your bios power setting? battery profile? Mine is adaptive.
Was it always like that or suddenly your battery capacity drastically decreased?
If you have windows, is the battery life the same?

1) If you have windows installed on another partition (or disk) do this to check your actual battery capacity:

How to calibrate your laptop's battery and fix inaccurate wear info

The issue I've been coming across recently seems to be mostly with Dell's XPS line of laptops, though it can certainly affect others: My new XPS 13 9370,

www.ultrabookreview.com

If your capacity is above 90Wh, don't proceed to full discharge. just do a cmos reset (see below).

Do this once maximum and read carefully. Respect the 3 to 5 hours necessary to cool down the battery after full discharge.

2) Once done before switching on your laptop, disconnect the battery and do a cmos reset by holding power button 1 to 2 min to fully discharge the mobo capacitors.

3) Do a full test at idle disabling sleep and report the time until nearly full discharge.

4) remove ADP1 ssdt in patched folder. reboot. clean nvram at clover screen. reboot. put back ssdt. reboot. clean nvram, reboot, shut down. Reboot.

This improved my battery life. In my case it was a new battery that needed just to be calibrated.

5) If all of this fails. Try a clean install.

 

[mazakiss]

Another stuff about battery: does anyone with a dual boot system (Mac/Win) can confirm this or not?

Do you feel that the left side palm rest is really hotter while charging on OSX vs charging on windows?

I know it sound completely bogus and didn't have the tools to monitor the temps or prove scientifically my assertion here, but it REALLY feels hotter.

To the point of wondering if such temps isn't dangerous for the mobo and components around the inductor near the battery.

EDIT: it happened a few charging cycles, now seems back to normal, maybe it could be related to my electrical home installation, really weird.

 

[Andersso]

Hello fellow 9560 users

First off, great post. I got my 9560 up and running Mojave in no-time

However, I have issues with running an external display in extended mode (HDMI). For now, only duplicating the built-in display works.
I have tried with different resolutions on both ends, but it won't budge.
I also cannot close the laptop screen when the external display is plugged in (with power), as far as I understood the computer should stay on during these conditions.

Has anyone else the same issues?

Thanks

 

[mazakiss]

Hello fellow 9560 users

First off, great post. I got my 9560 up and running Mojave in no-time

However, I have issues with running an external display in extended mode (HDMI). For now, only duplicating the built-in display works.
I have tried with different resolutions on both ends, but it won't budge.
I also cannot close the laptop screen when the external display is plugged in (with power), as far as I understood the computer should stay on during these conditions.

Has anyone else the same issues?

Thanks

Hi. Happy to hear you got it working. I tested dual screen in extended mode back when using 3.2 and had no issues.

I may be wrong but so far even on real macs, you can't close the lid without going to sleep contrary to windows (valid on this laptop too).

EDIT: You are right sorry, in the case of connecting an external display via HDMI, closing the lid should prevent the mac/hack from sleeping. Have you tried connecting a mouse too? Connect hdmi, when your desktop appears on the external monitor, close the lid and use the mouse. I just tested mirroring or extending screen, both works without any 3rd party apps. Just leant something here. So I confirm it works for me with last 3.3 config.

EDIT2: after further tests, extended screen/closed lid only worked once, when the lid is not opened and at the first attemp to connect the external screen via HDMI then closing the lid. After that, only mirroring is available when I open then close the lid, the extended screen option disappears in sys/prefs. Also I sometimes have to reopen the lid twice to get back on my laptop screen and then extended screen reappears. But everytime it's connected on external screen, it prevents the laptop from sleeping as intended. All in all no big deal.

Note: Did the test directly on onboard hdmi port on a 1080p FJD TV Screen, not my USB-C 4K 60Hz adapter yet.

For this I use a third party app, "Antisleep" I bought from the mac appstore. Works great in these situations.

Have you the 4K screen version or the FHD like me and Blazinsmokey?

 

[blazinsmokey]

For now, only duplicating the built-in display works.
I have tried with different resolutions on both ends, but it won't budge.
I also cannot close the laptop screen when the external display is plugged in (with power), as far as I understood the computer should stay on during these conditions.

You seem to maybe have some basic settings issues for extending your second display. So I haven't used extended or dual in a while and I just checked. Works fine. Under Sys/Pref/Display/Arrangement uncheck mirror displays. Mine switched right away. I even took the courtesy of using HDMI port directly instead of my usual USB-C to HDMI 2.0 adapter. Both ways work fine.

I use my laptop in clamshell mode almost exclusively for the past few months but through USB-C adapter to get 4K 60Hz instead of 4K 30Hz through the HDMI port. So apparently it doesn't work in clamshell mode this way. Odd. I'm not sure when this changed but I remember it used to work through HDMI port before I got my USB-C adapter. I'll have to do some tests and get back to you.

Try checking the Prevent computer from sleeping automatically when the display is off in SysPref/Energy Saver.

 

[Andersso]

Hi, super quick response!

I'll get back to you guys once I can test again, but in the meanwhile I can answer some of your questions

I have the FHD version and I'm using the latest version (3.3)
While I was testing I was using a wireless USB keyboard/mouse.
I have also been testing with "Prevent computer from sleeping automatically when display is off" checked.

The screen I am trying to connect to is a 4K display, I have tried lowering the refresh rate/lowering the resolution, but nope.
I can also try with a different 1440p display and see if I still have the same issues.

EDIT: Alright, I tested on my 1440p display and it works fine. However, similar to mazakiss, I had to remove the HDMI cable and put it back in, or open and close the laptop a second time in order to restore the output to the laptop display.

Anyway, back to my first issue. It seems like the laptop is trying to output 4k@60hz to my 4k display, which is the default setting. This clearly doesn't work with the HDMI output. I'm guessing that I need to somehow disable these resolution options for the display in order to get it to work properly, I'll look around and see if I can figure it out.

Thanks!