[GUIDE] Dell XPS 15 (9550) Mojave 10.14 / 10.15 Quick Installation

[golimpio]

On 9/7/2019 at 10:56 PM, nabeelmoeen said:

upgraded from 10.14.3 to 10.15.... I think the WD15 dock connecting/disconnecting on a running system is better than before (though on the third attempt USB ports on the dock stopped working).

 

• Touch screen no longer works, and neither to the trackpad gestures.
• Unable to find the option for enabling 3-finger drag in 'Accessibility' Trackpad options
• tried following steps mentioned by kovasky1 in a post earlier to delete appleintellpssi2ccontroller.kext and appleintellpssi2c.kext, but could not perform the following step to recreate the kernel cache
• based on what I read it's because in 10.15 the system is on a separate read-only partition. I could not get it to work even from within recovery mode (which allows to disable SIP temporarily - resets on reboot).

 

So far everything else works as expected. 

(going to give the TB16 a try tomorrow).

Odd, gestures on 10.15 are working better than before for me (have you setup the gestures in System Preferences > Trackpad?). For the 3-fingers drag, in System Preferences, Accessibility > Pointer Control > Trackpad Options... (button), then you'll see the option to enable it. I didn't enable it because it seems to mess up with the 3 fingers gestures though (and 4 fingers gestures didn't work smoothly for me. I'm on beta 7 (19A546d).

Edited September 11, 2019 by golimpio
Add beta version.

[golimpio]

23 hours ago, golimpio said:

Odd, gestures on 10.15 are working better than before for me (have you setup the gestures in System Preferences > Trackpad?). For the 3-fingers drag, in System Preferences, Accessibility > Pointer Control > Trackpad Options... (button), then you'll see the option to enable it. I didn't enable it because it seems to mess up with the 3 fingers gestures though (and 4 fingers gestures didn't work smoothly for me. I'm on beta 7 (19A546d).

Sorry, I don't think I'm on beta 7 yet (the new update just popped up). So I might still have the same trackpad issue after updating it).

[nabeelmoeen]

16 hours ago, golimpio said:

Sorry, I don't think I'm on beta 7 yet (the new update just popped up). So I might still have the same trackpad issue after updating it).

 

can you check if you can rebuild the kernel?

for me it throws a 'read-only' drive error

[golimpio]

3 minutes ago, nabeelmoeen said:

 

can you check if you can rebuild the kernel?

for me it throws a 'read-only' drive error

10.15 creates 2 partitions now (one read only for system files and a bigger one for users files). `kextcache -u` should work, I guess (it doesn't show any errors for me), but other operations/commands, like `touch` will probably fail to work on system folders.

[nabeelmoeen]

39 minutes ago, nabeelmoeen said:

 

can you check if you can rebuild the kernel?

for me it throws a 'read-only' drive error

ok, found a solution on another forum.

Used a tool 'Hackintool' that has been updated to support Catalina, and was able to mount the partition as read-write.

Ran the the kernel rebuild and got touch screen and all gestures working again. 

 

YAY

 

[nabeelmoeen]

On 9/10/2019 at 5:08 PM, nabeelmoeen said:

No luck with usb ports on tb16

 

@wmchris... I went back and searched for WD15 updates and I think the behaviour on my side is different.

 

if plugged in at boot, everything works for me except audio over HDMI (my monitor has built in speakers that don't work .. and it is not detected as an audio device)

 

when I unplug and replug on a running system, my HDMI audio starts working, but the ports on WD15 (USB, audio) stop working 

(it no longer crashes though... when I was on 10.13 unplugging either the TB16 or WD15  on a running system would cause a crash)

 

(as an aside, I can't control the volume on the HdMI audio via the taskbar).

 

UPDATE: correction to the above description. the HDMI audio doesn't work if I boot the laptop in Clamshell mode. if I boot it with the lid open (and laptop display active) the HDMI audio works normally

Edited September 16, 2019 by nabeelmoeen

[agrafuese]

On 9/1/2019 at 2:53 AM, jwijesundra said:

2. Wifi sometimes gets throttled to an unusable 10Mbps or so (through fast.com). Restart fixes it.

Happened to see your post while I was searching for a fix for this problem as well. So far what has worked for me is to go into System Preferences > Energy Saver > turn off "Wake for WiFi network access" under the Power Adapter tab. I am keeping an eye on this problem, though, as I've only had a limited amount of time to see if it works 100%. One thing that came to mind is, this setting only exists for the Power Adapter state, not the Battery state. So, I take that to mean this problem never came up when the laptop was running on battery power...? I have the laptop plugged into power almost all of the time, so I never noticed whether or not it was an issue the few times I've had it unplugged up to this point. But I will be more aware now, and will report back if the WiFi still has issues in either case.

[jwijesundra]

On 9/26/2019 at 12:54 AM, agrafuese said:

Happened to see your post while I was searching for a fix for this problem as well. So far what has worked for me is to go into System Preferences > Energy Saver > turn off "Wake for WiFi network access" under the Power Adapter tab. I am keeping an eye on this problem, though, as I've only had a limited amount of time to see if it works 100%. One thing that came to mind is, this setting only exists for the Power Adapter state, not the Battery state. So, I take that to mean this problem never came up when the laptop was running on battery power...? I have the laptop plugged into power almost all of the time, so I never noticed whether or not it was an issue the few times I've had it unplugged up to this point. But I will be more aware now, and will report back if the WiFi still has issues in either case.

Thanks for the tip! I'm trying this. Will also report if the throttling happens again.

[agrafuese]

I see you have the intermittent keyboard problem as well. That is currently the biggest annoyance for me. I tried putting voodoops2controller into /L/E instead of the EFI folder because that is supposedly the best way to load in kexts, but that didn't work for me (and I did properly follow kext installation procedures). Side note: voodoops2controller seems to affect the touchpad mostly, so I'm not sure if I am looking at the wrong kext or if there is another answer to this problem. The randomness is just so odd and frustrating. Anyone else know more about this?

 

I have the "couldn't allocate runtime area" issue as well,  but I haven't attempted the slide fix just yet, been a bit too preoccupied to pursue it. This issue randomly comes up less than the keyboard issue, so it hasn't irked me nearly as much. If you end up trying it, let us know how it goes for you.

[hitman478]

Does anyone also has the problem, that the Fans are always running? My CPU temperature is around 40 degrees and the Fans are still running? Is there any fix for this? The VoodooI2CHID.kext also uses much CPU on my System. If I delete this Kext, then the CPU usage is normal. I think I have read that this should be fixed.

[golimpio]

FIY: Updated to 10.15.1 without any issues so far. Also updated to the latest BIOS (1.11.2), but it doesn't make any difference for this specific MacOS update, I've done it just to keep the system updated and also for testing it.

[Gymnae]

If anybody is in need of this wonderful device, I'm now selling my XPS 9550:

https://www.reddit.com/r/hardwareswap/comments/dq6ztl/gerh_dell_xps_15_9550_notebook_i76700hq_gtx_960m/

[golimpio]

On 10/28/2019 at 4:20 AM, hitman478 said:

Does anyone also has the problem, that the Fans are always running? My CPU temperature is around 40 degrees and the Fans are still running? Is there any fix for this? The VoodooI2CHID.kext also uses much CPU on my System. If I delete this Kext, then the CPU usage is normal. I think I have read that this should be fixed.

I haven't noticed it when the CPU temperature is below 50, but I've noticed that the computer always boot with the "turbo" frequency of 3.5 GHz, and in this situation I can notice the fans going on more frequently. I normally use the turbo boost switcher app, and it's set to disable turbo boost automatically on login, this might be the reason I don't notice the fans so often.

[hitman478]

 

@golimpio Thanks, I have tested the Turbo Boost Switcher and my CPU is according to this 36 degrees but the Fan is still running on high RPM. The Tool also doesn't recognise my Fan RPM. Do you have maybe another hint for me?

[golimpio]

8 hours ago, hitman478 said:

 

@golimpio Thanks, I have tested the Turbo Boost Switcher and my CPU is according to this 36 degrees but the Fan is still running on high RPM. The Tool also doesn't recognise my Fan RPM. Do you have maybe another hint for me?

Sorry, I don't think I have any other hint. About the Fan RPM, it's the same for me, the tool doesn't recognise it, I don't think it ever did it.

 

I think it might be related to the VirtualSMC and the lack of support for fan controls perhaps? There are projects like smcFanControl but I don't think it works, at least it doesn't seem to work for macOS 10.15.

 

Even HWMonitor doesn't give me the fan information. I don't have HWSensors installed though, it might be something worth a try, if the project is still active. Also, I remember reading in another forum that HWMonitor only works correctly with FakeSMC (I have VirtualSMC installed), I'm not sure if this is still the case.

[Krim404]

i tested the fan control a while ago - i was able to read the rpm, but it required a patched version of hwsensors and it was not worth it.

there seems to be a problem with the power management, which would also explain the high fan speed. see https://github.com/wmchris/DellXPS15-9550-OSX/issues/122

maybe someone with more time than i can take a look into it? should be possible to fix using SSDTs

[Regi Yassin]

On 11/5/2019 at 12:21 AM, wmchris said:

i tested the fan control a while ago - i was able to read the rpm, but it required a patched version of hwsensors and it was not worth it.

there seems to be a problem with the power management, which would also explain the high fan speed. see https://github.com/wmchris/DellXPS15-9550-OSX/issues/122

maybe someone with more time than i can take a look into it? should be possible to fix using SSDTs

in my 9550, i had to disable i2c0 or delete device id a160 from voodooi2c, if i2c0 loaded by voodooi2c, when plugged in, cpu freq range is 3 - 3.4ghz,

i just need i2c1 tpd1 to be loaded by voodooi2c for trackpad.

this happened only when plugged in to ac adaptor, if only battery, all normal.

[golimpio]

Is there any particular reason for using VboxExt2 + VboxExt4 + VboxHfs instead of HFSPlus EFI? I only have HFSPlus on my setup and I never had any issue, but I'm wondering if there is a scenario where Vbox EFIs are prefered. Thanks.

[golimpio]

I've just tested the new updates to the Github repository and after I updated my Clover to reflect these changes, my computer no longer booted.
Basically I had an issue with 2 (or one of them) EFIs: UsbKbDxe.efi and UsbMouseDxe.efi

 

After removing these files, it came back to normal.

[joevt]

4 hours ago, golimpio said:

Is there any particular reason for using VboxExt2 + VboxExt4 + VboxHfs instead of HFSPlus EFI? I only have HFSPlus on my setup and I never had any issue, but I'm wondering if there is a scenario where Vbox EFIs are prefered. Thanks.

Ext2 and Ext4 are Linux file systems. You don't need those if you're not using Linux.

 

Doesn't VboxHFS have bless extensions? Does Clover use those? If not, then HFSPlus is sufficient. I guess Bless extensions would be useful to find the currently blessed efi boot program on an HFS+ partition. Then they could be included in the boot menu. But if Clover doesn't check for blessed files, then it doesn't matter. I think you can specify these files in the config.plist but it would be nice if that weren't necessary.

 

If one of HFSPlus or VboxHFS supported write access then that would be useful. I don't think either of them do though. Write access is necessary for saving screenshots and logs in Clover. Clover is usually installed on a FAT formatted partition (the EFI partition) which does have write access.

 

[Krim404]

They can be removed if you dont need linux. same for the NTFS one for Windows.

i was unable to check the upstream, because i'm still on 10.14 on my machines (because of mandatory 32bit apps). That's why the repo for 10.15 is marked as beta and i'm dependent on external testing.

 

Thank you for your report. :-) i fixed it (hopefully). There is another patch pushed to upstream today, which should fix the high cpu load using I2C (and therefore reduce fan speed). This is untested so far. May i ask you to test it and report in https://github.com/wmchris/DellXPS15-9550-OSX/issues/122 ?

 

Be aware, this also includes a change in the config.plist.

Edited November 7, 2019 by wmchris

[golimpio]

18 hours ago, joevt said:

Ext2 and Ext4 are Linux file systems. You don't need those if you're not using Linux.

 

Doesn't VboxHFS have bless extensions? Does Clover use those? If not, then HFSPlus is sufficient. I guess Bless extensions would be useful to find the currently blessed efi boot program on an HFS+ partition. Then they could be included in the boot menu. But if Clover doesn't check for blessed files, then it doesn't matter. I think you can specify these files in the config.plist but it would be nice if that weren't necessary.

 

If one of HFSPlus or VboxHFS supported write access then that would be useful. I don't think either of them do though. Write access is necessary for saving screenshots and logs in Clover. Clover is usually installed on a FAT formatted partition (the EFI partition) which does have write access.

 

Thanks for clarifying it, I should know better about ext2/ext4. It seems that HFSPlus is faster in some situations (like booting Recovery), but since it's proprietary, I think that it might be illegal to distribute it with a 3rd party software like CLOVER.

8 hours ago, wmchris said:

They can be removed if you dont need linux. same for the NTFS one for Windows.

i was unable to check the upstream, because i'm still on 10.14 on my machines (because of mandatory 32bit apps). That's why the repo for 10.15 is marked as beta and i'm dependent on external testing.

 

Thank you for your report. :-) i fixed it (hopefully). There is another patch pushed to upstream today, which should fix the high cpu load using I2C (and therefore reduce fan speed). This is untested so far. May i ask you to test it and report in https://github.com/wmchris/DellXPS15-9550-OSX/issues/122 ?

 

Be aware, this also includes a change in the config.plist.

Thanks again for fixing it. It worked for me (I'm on 10.15.1).

[hitman478]

@wmchris I don't have the VoodooI2C Kexts installed, because of the High CPU Usage, but the Fans also get very loud, when there is a little bit load on the CPU. It seems that OS X doesn't lower the Fan Speed, when the CPU has no more load in it. Maybe because it can't read properly the Fan RPMs-

[jwijesundra]

On 10/26/2019 at 12:28 AM, agrafuese said:

I see you have the intermittent keyboard problem as well. That is currently the biggest annoyance for me. I tried putting voodoops2controller into /L/E instead of the EFI folder because that is supposedly the best way to load in kexts, but that didn't work for me (and I did properly follow kext installation procedures). Side note: voodoops2controller seems to affect the touchpad mostly, so I'm not sure if I am looking at the wrong kext or if there is another answer to this problem. The randomness is just so odd and frustrating. Anyone else know more about this?

 

Hmm, I get this problem intermittently for both keyboard and touchpad (so far only one stops working, for me it's usually the touchpad) and restart fixes it. I suspect for keyboard at least it may be a hardware problem because I have dual boot with windows and I've had the keyboard stop working on windows as well.

Also I haven't had the wifi issue since making the change you suggested.

[agrafuese]

On 11/9/2019 at 8:20 PM, jwijesundra said:

 

Hmm, I get this problem intermittently for both keyboard and touchpad (so far only one stops working, for me it's usually the touchpad) and restart fixes it. I suspect for keyboard at least it may be a hardware problem because I have dual boot with windows and I've had the keyboard stop working on windows as well.

Also I haven't had the wifi issue since making the change you suggested.

Glad to hear about the wifi continuing to work well for you!  

 

Regarding the keyboard/touchpad: I just updated my Clover folder with the newest changes from the repo, and I'm hoping I will see an improvement in the keyboard/touch pad since the Voodoo kexts are the ones that were updated. So far, the touchpad seems to feel better when I use it (the cursor used to jump a few pixels when I would click, and now it doesn't seem to do that as badly). And the keyboard hasn't failed on boot up yet (although I haven't rebooted a lot since updating the kexts, so it could still be an issue).

 

I should note, I decided to update from the repo in the first place because the latest Apple security update for Mojave completely wiped out my touchpad. It came back to life when I implemented the repo updates. So, I'm not sure if that is just a coincidence or intentional, but in either case, if anyone notices touchpad issues after installing the Apple security update, be sure to try the new repo files. And if you do, WARNING: since the config.plist has also been updated, you will definitely want to make sure to add in your custom serial number/ID/etc for making iCloud services functional. To make this easy, I used a file comparison app to find/replace my custom entries and move them over to the newest config.plist.