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

[Benni]

Native BCM Macbook Air Wifi Card and 6+2 adapter. It's actually necessary to cut the adapter as well

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You can see the screw post to which I refer, on the left side of the card.

 

[Benni]

Installing the 3rd Antenna:

1. I used a soldering iron to melt the thin strips of plastic to make space for the antenna. If you are not a barbarian, then a needle file will give a more beautiful appearance... But since it'll never be seen once closed... I went the barbarian route.

2. The antenna itself - it's like a piece of plastic tape and can be folded - which makes it easy to fit inside the recess that has been created. The antenna is just a generic antenna purchased from eBay - it costs 5€ (Free shipping to Germany) but I've seen lots of similar antennas on international eBay. Do yourself a favor and buy an antenna that already has the smaller connector to attach to the WiFi card or you will also need to buy a pigtail adapter cable.

3. The antenna folded into the recess. Be a bit careful with the antenna - the solder joint is not very strong. It stays in place just via compression and the plastic shroud can then be slid over the whole thing and covers up the shoddy, soldering-iron savagery.

4. The finished product (I actually found out the the DIY aerial works best on the middle socket - to give the WiFi the best possible signal... So my current cable layout, from left to right is: original white, DIY black, original black)

 

[blazinsmokey]

@Benni wow thanks for the share and information

Could you list all the files need for FileVault and I'll add it to the guide for those that need this functionality. Or if it's too much trouble, upload your Clover and I'll figure it out.

I actually meticulously check my WiFi speeds after wake b/c this was a problem for me like in Sierra. Option+click wifi icon and I look for my channel accessing at 5GHz, 80Mhz and Tx Rate of 876Mbps. I just woke my laptop not too long ago and all is in order. I'm not sure what the deal is for some people, have you tried disabling network/wake for wifi access in energy preferences? I actually have nothing checked in all energy preferences section for battery and AC.

iMessage and FaceTime, I've always followed these instructions. Logout of all iCloud, Appstore etc before proceeding. I've been following this since 10.10.x. I think the selfsolve site is now checkcoverage. Plus now you can show/hide hidden files with ( cmd+shift+. ) so no need for a couple of them terminal commands. I would try the below and if it doesn't work right away give it a few days. I've heard people having it just suddenly work after a day or two.

As for the instructions:

1. Open CloverConfigurator and mount your EFI
2. Open your config.plist
3. In the Rt Variables section, make sure everything is clear.
4. Go to the SMBIOS section and click on the magic wand. Match the specs options as best you can to your machine. On the two sections that say shake, click a few times to generate a random serial. Click ok.
5. Go to https://selfsolve.apple.com/ and search for that serial number that was generated. If you get an error message, that is good. It means you aren't using a serial number assigned to a real Mac. If you don't get an error, repeat step 4 and search for the new serial instead.
6. Open terminal and run "uuidgen".
7. Copy this UUID and paste it in the "SmUUID" field in the SMBIOS section.
8. In the "Board Serial Number" field, paste in your system serial number (the one generated by the magic wand) and add 5 random letters and numbers to the end to reach a total of 17 characters.The reason for step 7 and 8 is to keep your ROM (last 12 digits of the UUID that was generated) and MLB (Board Serial Number) values constant and unique on each boot of the OS. If the values change from boot to boot, iMessage will notice and fail to activate and there is potential that Apple will notice and blacklist your UUID, serial, or Apple ID. All Clover-generated ROM and MLB values are automatically blacklisted, as well.
9. Export config.plist
10. In terminal, run the commands:
11. defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE
12. killall Finder
13. Navigate to /Users/[Username]/Library/Chaches and delete all files or folders beginning with: (if there is nothing there with these file names, that is ok)
14. com.apple.Messages
15. com.apple.imfoundation.IMRemoteURLConnectionAgent
16. Navigate to /Users/[Username]/Library/Preferences and delete all files or folders beginning with: (if there is nothing there with these file names, that is ok)
17. com.apple.iChat.
18. com.apple.imagent.
19. com.apple.imessage.
20. com.apple.imservice.
21. Navigate to /Users/[Username]/Library and delete the folder "Messages"(if there is nothing there with that file name, that is ok).
22. Empty the trash. If it says files are still in use, reboot and empty it immediately upon startup.
23. Open up Disk Utility, select your OSX partition, and rebuild the permissions. Reboot when this is completed.
24. The moment of truth: open up iMessage and attempt to sign in. It worked for me on the first try.
25. If it worked, you can re-hide hidden files and folders with the terminal commands:
26. defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles FALSE
27. killall Finder

 

[Benni]

No worries blazinsmokey - glad to help.

The extra Clover 'drivers64UEFI' drivers are:

AppleUISupport-64.efi
FSInject-64.efi
AppleKeyFeeder-64.efi

Edited because not all of the EFI files I previously wrote are actually needed now. They didn't conflict but they also don't seem to be required either. The ones above added to the EFI in the first page boot fine.

 

[Benni]

The dual boot solution... It's ok but the USB drive does stick out quite a lot.

 

[max.dillinger]

The battery life is amazing with 3.4. Thank you!

But I got one problem though. How can I check if my laptop is sleeping properly? bc it gets pretty warm while sleeping. I think there is a process that prevents the laptop from actual sleeping, but Im not shure.

 

[blazinsmokey]

No worries blazinsmokey - glad to help.

The extra Clover 'drivers64UEFI' drivers are:

AppleUISupport-64.efi
AppleUITheme-64.efi
AudioDxe-64.efi
FirmwareVolume-64.efi
FSInject-64.efi
PartitionDxe-64.efi
UsbKbDxe.efi
AppleKeyFeeder-64.efi

Hmmm looks like you're still using an older version of Clover. There was a change recently that moved the drivers around and organized them into folders. They no longer append -64 to them. When and if you decide to update Clover take some precautions and review the changes to make sure you don't get screwed.

I would have thought maybe it's just all the files in the FileVault 2 UEFI drivers section?

 

[blazinsmokey]

The battery life is amazing with 3.4. Thank you!

But I got one problem though. How can I check if my laptop is sleeping properly? bc it gets pretty warm while sleeping. I think there is a process that prevents the laptop from actual sleeping, but Im not shure.

Well if you have power nap enabled it'll wake up and do tasks even though it's asleep.
Check assertions

pmset -g assertions

And this will get Sleep, Wake and DarkWake times and info from your logs

pmset -g log|grep -e " Sleep " -e " Wake " -e " DarkWake "

 

[loghound]

Thanks @blazinsmokey for the great guide -- I've gotten my laptop running mac OSX pretty happily.

The one problem I have is wake from sleep -- I've got a bit of a weird configuration (I boot off an external USB SSD) and while it sleeps fine, when it wakes up it seems to eventually hang (meaning the screen comes on, I can see the log in screen but then I get the spinning cursor.

I've run the disablehiberante script and the laptop otherwise works really well -- I sort of suspect it's my use of an External USB ssd that is the cause but I'm wondering if anyone has any experience getting that to work?

-Johnm

 

[blazinsmokey]

Thanks @blazinsmokey for the great guide -- I've gotten my laptop running mac OSX pretty happily.

The one problem I have is wake from sleep -- I've got a bit of a weird configuration (I boot off an external USB SSD) and while it sleeps fine, when it wakes up it seems to eventually hang (meaning the screen comes on, I can see the log in screen but then I get the spinning cursor.

I've run the disablehiberante script and the laptop otherwise works really well -- I sort of suspect it's my use of an External USB ssd that is the cause but I'm wondering if anyone has any experience getting that to work?

-Johnm

My guess is that the USB port you're booting off of, MacOS actually turns it off during sleep. Possible reason you still get the login screen is that particular screen and stuff is loaded into memory so that can show but then the spinning disk showing could then be the drive not being powered back up in time or something. Not sure. Never ran the OS off a USB external like that. Let us know if you figure something out.