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

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However, after a sleep/wake cycle there seems to be an issue. The frequency does not go below 1GHz (not even near) and the temp raises to more than 50°C... Shame...
Hmmm... that’s strange, I still got 800Hz at idle.

It also depends of what software/task/daemon is running in the background. For instance I had an issue with CleanMyMac that runned once in a while and was consuming lot of battery and CPU.

I will test if after sleep I have the same issue as you when I get home. Thanks for reporting.
 
Hey @mazakiss,

Thanks for the great work!

EDIT: One thing. It seems I can't place my lappy into sleep mode. Whilst USB devices are turned off, the power light seems to stay lit. Any idea why this would be?
 
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@Edd1024 So far I still get 800MHz at idle after boot and testing multiple wake after sleep... Nothing to worry about for me.

I hit 39°C at Boot - no fans.

1st wake after sleep still no fans, so CPU is heating more to 44°

2st, still heating to 46°, still no fans - pretty logically here and still 800MHz at idle.

Then after few minutes fans begin spinning when temps are close to 50°C then naturally drops to 44°C.

Honestly, that's exactly what I expected.

Don't forget we have Turbo Boost enabled and Speed Shift, which is reflected in Power Gadget hence the variation you see in the graph, that's perfectly normal.

What I'm more than interested now is to finally have more user's input about TB3 for those who have device to report here.
 

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Hey @mazakiss,

Thanks for the great work!

EDIT: One thing. It seems I can't place my lappy into sleep mode. Whilst USB devices are turned off, the power light seems to stay lit. Any idea why this would be?
Please see post#316 for you CPU. Or try to generate your own CpuDataProvider.kext.

Tell us how it goes.

Cheers.
 
@mazakiss Great work! I am smiling, lol. I took a look at your setup and I have some insight on some stuff.

The SSDT-FANS.aml is from KNNSpeed's work and there will be no way it will work with VirtualSMC. Which is why I never included it. Its methods and layout is meant to specifically work with FakeSMC and HWMonitor.

We may be able to adapt it but we would need to get the devs working on SuperIO to help support it our device ID which I don't know yet. Even then, we would likely only be able to read the temps, not even the rpms. So pretty useless. Here's an excerpt from the dsl:
Code:
//Let's just get Celsius temps since RPMs are evidently inaccesible
// This would get us the fan speed if Dell didnt have some proprietary monitor... But they do, so this fails.
//                  Return(\_SB.PCI0.LPCB.H_EC.ECRD (RefOf (\_SB.PCI0.LPCB.H_EC.CFSP)))

So I'm sorry to say but I don't think we'll ever have fan control.

I'd highly recommend not using SuperIO. I went through the whole VirtualSMC thread dev thread before and I remember reading that incompatible plugins can cause issues. While I don't think the SSDT-FANS.aml would cause any issues, they also don't do anything so for a cleaner setup I'd also remove that too. As in my guide, you know why I don't use SMCProcessor.kext either. Intel Power Gadget does the same thing without a kext and won't cause issues. With SMCProcessor you need the kext and "monitoring software" as well. Seems redundant. You could also probably find countless issues using sensors from FakeSMC and people having issues during updating. Just my two cents tho.

I noticed you're using AptioInputFix.efi, my understanding that was used for FileVault2, are you currently testing that? Last I researched, it was still not a very concrete solution with bugs and I'm not willing to lose my data and rip my hair out.

I'm glad we can remove AppleBacklightFix now. Will be testing that along with the new battery setup you made!

I've heard of VoltageShift but never needed it as I don't have high temps. I will link it in optional section later but I wouldn't include this for everyone.
After reboot, ensure the kext and the command tool files are in the same directory.
I read this at the GitHub repo, so you have to run this from your EFI? What settings are you using and has it made that much of a difference for you? I may have to get in on this.

Thanks for everything! Hopefully I can release a update soon.
 
Clover bootloader is too small it's barely readable. What's the best screen resolution for clover? It's currently set to 1920x1080.

Thanks
 
Clover bootloader is too small it's barely readable. What's the best screen resolution for clover? It's currently set to 1920x1080.

Thanks

I thought I removed the resolution from the config, just delete the entry entirely or change it to the native resolution of your screen probably 3840 x 2160.
 
@mazakiss Great work! I am smiling, lol. I took a look at your setup and I have some insight on some stuff.

The SSDT-FANS.aml is from KNNSpeed's work and there will be no way it will work with VirtualSMC. Which is why I never included it. Its methods and layout is meant to specifically work with FakeSMC and HWMonitor.

We may be able to adapt it but we would need to get the devs working on SuperIO to help support it our device ID which I don't know yet. Even then, we would likely only be able to read the temps, not even the rpms. So pretty useless. Here's an excerpt from the dsl:
Code:
//Let's just get Celsius temps since RPMs are evidently inaccesible
// This would get us the fan speed if Dell didnt have some proprietary monitor... But they do, so this fails.
//                  Return(\_SB.PCI0.LPCB.H_EC.ECRD (RefOf (\_SB.PCI0.LPCB.H_EC.CFSP)))

So I'm sorry to say but I don't think we'll ever have fan control.

I'd highly recommend not using SuperIO. I went through the whole VirtualSMC thread dev thread before and I remember reading that incompatible plugins can cause issues. While I don't think the SSDT-FANS.aml would cause any issues, they also don't do anything so for a cleaner setup I'd also remove that too. As in my guide, you know why I don't use SMCProcessor.kext either. Intel Power Gadget does the same thing without a kext and won't cause issues. With SMCProcessor you need the kext and "monitoring software" as well. Seems redundant. You could also probably find countless issues using sensors from FakeSMC and people having issues during updating. Just my two cents tho.

I noticed you're using AptioInputFix.efi, my understanding that was used for FileVault2, are you currently testing that? Last I researched, it was still not a very concrete solution with bugs and I'm not willing to lose my data and rip my hair out.

I'm glad we can remove AppleBacklightFix now. Will be testing that along with the new battery setup you made!

I've heard of VoltageShift but never needed it as I don't have high temps. I will link it in optional section later but I wouldn't include this for everyone.

I read this at the GitHub repo, so you have to run this from your EFI? What settings are you using and has it made that much of a difference for you? I may have to get in on this.

Thanks for everything! Hopefully I can release a update soon.
Hi @blazinsmokey happy to see you!

You are totally right about SSDT-FANS.aml, it will only work with FakeSMC and only report temps instead of RPM.. so it's a lost cause, sadly.

For SMCProcessor I used it with HWMonitorSMC2 just to compare with Intel PowerGadget, the only benefit her is to see individual core temps. But I agree with you, it's totally useless only cosmetic, I just wanted to test it.

For AptioInputFix, I added because it was bundled with Atiomemoryfix in last AptioPKG update from Ancidanthera repo, just in case I might try Filevault2 in the future. But like you I'm too afraid to use it now and loose any data in the process, so we'll leave that to more adventurous mind, here lol Anyone wanting to do this, use it at your own risk.

And for Voltageshift I use it because since I use my laptop mostly on my lap, I wanted it to be as cool as possible.

Yes, my Voltageshift.kext is loaded directly from EFI/CLOVER/Kext/Other perfectly.

I didn't boot in recovery mode to use the script, since we already have sip disabled in our config.

After reboot, ensure the kext and the command tool files are in the same directory.

This is necessary to load the script placed in the same folder as VoltageShift.kext so you can generate your own kext with your own values depending on your usage (mine is -125mV (CPU) -90mV (iGPU) -125mv (Cache). Same for using voltageshiftInfo to know if your current undervolting is applied after kext is installed in EFI and be sure it is loaded. And same for VoltageshiftMon if you want to monitor your CPU with it.

Having kext and command tool files aren't necessary to load your custom kext afterwards once generated and placed in EFI/CLOVER/Kext/Others.

Here you can see that even on windows the values will stick and be applied to all os'es. I didn't change anything in XTU, it is just reflecting Voltageshift.kext being loaded applying the values after each boot.

There is no performance benefit doing so. But my two main purpose was to have a cooler laptop and most of all, have the noisy fans tackle as late as possible. Late at night this makes me nuts, maybe I too sensitive to noise or do a fixation on this, I don't know lol Cooler & quieter, it's a nice benefit. lol

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Finally, concerning the Battery, I did the modifications because few users including me reported a very quick battery drain with recent changes, I don't know if it comes from the bios 1.12.1 update, or last Os X 10.14.5 update or the config itself to be honest. Doing this allowed a slower drain like 1% each 4 minute (average 7 hours autonomy). Before theses changes using old configs battery was perfectly ok.

Also I noticed that the issue of sudden charge drop was because my battery wasn't calibrated. I recently replaced the OEM 56W one with a new non EOM 97W battery. Maybe the battery isn't very good quality, or hasn't been calibrated, I don't know. Doing a complete discharge and complete full charge improved a bit, nothing spectacular (see ultrabook forum for explanation, it's a know issue on many xps models).

So you are right, keep all the config lightweight as you did before it's perfect like this ;-)

For VoltageShift we can link separately @arehep thread here: https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/...smc-i2c-trackpad-clover-uefi-hotpatch.267161/

And for the battery, the process was explained in the main VirtualSMC on another well-known forum (I don't know if I'm allowed to link here). It's up to you to add battery hotpatch with ADP1 and BATC SSDT's or not in your config.

Cheers!
 
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Please see post#316 for you CPU. Or try to generate your own CpuDataProvider.kext.

Tell us how it goes.

Cheers.

Let me try that one! Am currently using one generated through the script, however that doesn't seem to place the laptop into sleep mode. Will report back.
 
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