How to fix PM981 in 10.13.3 (17D47).

[fleaplus]

Hey man! Amazing work! Please tell us how you did it! I would love to make my Lenovo T480 to work with the PM981!!

You could try running this utility to update your PM981 firmware:

https://pcsupport.lenovo.com/us/en/downloads/ds119265

You have to have one of the Lenovo computers listed on the supported models list for it to work. mhafeez is using EXA73L2Q firmware according to the screenshot which appears to be an updated version. Unfortunately I cannot tell you if this helps or not because my PM981 came with my MSI laptop and MSI has not published any firmware updates for its drives. I ended up purchasing a 970 EVO which instantly worked out of the box.

 

[Ranguvar]

You could try running this utility to update your PM981 firmware:

https://pcsupport.lenovo.com/us/en/downloads/ds119265

You have to have one of the Lenovo computers listed on the supported models list for it to work. mhafeez is using EXA73L2Q firmware according to the screenshot which appears to be an updated version. Unfortunately I cannot tell you if this helps or not because my PM981 came with my MSI laptop and MSI has not published any firmware updates for its drives. I ended up purchasing a 970 EVO which instantly worked out of the box.

X1 Carbon 6th with 1TB PM981 - firmware update says I have the latest already (4L2QEXA7).
If he is truly using EXA73L2Q, he has a different drive, that firmware string isn't in the Readme.txt for the update.

 

[Rikoshet]

I think he's just mistyped: EXA73L2Q=EXA7 3L2Q=3L2QEXA7, so he's using old firmware. But again, all we have same problems, he is not, strange. He doesn't answer anymore...

Update: yep, take a look at his screenshot, I'm right about firmware. Also, I think he's booting from another ssd, sata and he named this ssd Mojave PM981 nvme. But in system profiler the partition name of nvme drive is disk0s2. He's trolling us.

 

[fleaplus]

I think he's just mistyped: EXA73L2Q=EXA7 3L2Q=3L2QEXA7, so he's using old firmware. But again, all we have same problems, he is not, strange. He doesn't answer anymore...

Update: yep, take a look at his screenshot, I'm right about firmware. Also, I think he's booting from another ssd, sata and he named this ssd Mojave PM981 nvme. But in system profiler the partition name of nvme drive is disk0s2. He's trolling us.

Yep, good catch. I was actually able to upgrade the firmware on my PM981 to 301Q EXA7, and restored a 10.13.6 clone from a 970 Evo, but it was still unstable booting up or trying to do any kind of intensive reads or writes. My MSI laptop has a Nvidia GPU so for now I have only tried High Sierra until the web drivers are updated for Mojave.

 

[kapre-korn]

I installed 13.3 in my SATA SSD ADATA SP550.And it works well.But when I read the files in PM981, the system will restart suddenly.So I have to disable PM981. But I found patch IONVMeFamily like this , my PM981 worked when I used 13.2.

Comment: IONVMeFamily Preferred Block Size 0x10 -> 0x01 (c) Pike R. Alpha implemented by syscl adapted for 10.13.x by Ricky
Name: IONVMeFamily
find: <f6c1100f 85410100 00>
replace: <f6c1010f 85410100 00>

But after I update to 13.3 , it doesn't work.Now I have to disable PM981 again. So how to fix it ? Anyone can help me?

Do you remember how you disabled PM981? Thanks.

 

[sliveroz]

I just got an X1 G6 Carbon with the PM981, updated the disk to November's firmware and I'm not able to install Mojave on that drive. I will swap with 970 Evo.

 

[PorcoRosso]

Has there been any progress on the PM981? The 970s have been out for a long time. Has anybody tried spoofing the PM981 as an EVO 970?

I'm willing to try if anyone can point me in the right direction.

 

[downsyndrome]

Thought I'd chime in because I just tried to install a PM981 in my T460s hackintosh. Clone was done with rsync for APFS container and dd for EFI. Appeared to work fine through boot until stalling and ultimately a kernel panic that was occurring while complaining about AppleNVMeRequestTimer error. The Googles turned up NVMeGeneric.kext and IONVMeFamily.kext as possible culprits - attempts to block through Clover were fruitless.

I thought the problem may have been the backup at first, but there doesn't seem to be any reason logically why they wouldn't work, so I'm cloning a Windows LTSC image off my 970 EVO to the PM981 so I can use the 970 EVO for Macos (and use the original PM961 as a backup).

I will upgrade the firmware on the PM981 since I'm putting Windows on it (vendors really should make universal firmware updaters, like efi shells or freedos images or something rather than Windows only - grr).

Shame because I really wanted to use the PM981 for MacOS, has great write benchmarks. Maybe a fix will come eventually. I'll be ready.

 

[sliveroz]

Shame because I really wanted to use the PM981 for MacOS, has great write benchmarks. Maybe a fix will come eventually. I'll be ready.

I updated the latest firmware on my PM981 and tried again with MacOS.

I was hopeful as the latest firmware fixed the 970 Evo Plus which wasn't previously compatible.
However no luck, MacOS booted up but the disk speed was very slow. On further tests and reboots I got a couple of kernel panics, and went back to 970 Evo.

Hopefully it will be fixed eventually.

 

[veterantroller]

@downsyndrome hey man did you have any luck with it? Wondering if there were any additional compatibility of PM981 with 10.14