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

[golimpio]

Just a note on Clover r5123: it will break the boot.

Before installing it, check the release notes first, you will need to add an additional configuration to your config.plist file. When you download this new version, open the new config-sample.plist that they provide as an example and copy the default values for Quirks (it's on the end of the file).

In my case it wasn't enough just to add the Quirks, I believe I've missed something. Anyway, I won't be able to test it right now, but I can confirm that it won't boot without fixing our config.plist file first.

[agrafuese]

@golimpio Search function is failing me right now... Did you once mention that you use an external monitor frequently? And did you say you had to do something to make it work after wake from sleep? So far the only thing I've been able to do is rapidly click the "Detect Displays" button in display prefs until it re-discovers it. It's a little annoying... !

[golimpio]

9 hours ago, agrafuese said:

@golimpio Search function is failing me right now... Did you once mention that you use an external monitor frequently? And did you say you had to do something to make it work after wake from sleep? So far the only thing I've been able to do is rapidly click the "Detect Displays" button in display prefs until it re-discovers it. It's a little annoying... !

I'm no longer using an external monitor at the moment, but my issue was with the resolution for an external 4k monitor, I couldn't get a decent retina display resolution (HiDPI) without forcing the ig-platform-id to Intel Iris Graphics 540.

I hadn't an issue with sleeping on the external monitor though, it was the internal monitor that was causing trouble and it was black after sleeping (when forcing the platform id to 540).

[agrafuese]

1 hour ago, golimpio said:

I'm no longer using an external monitor at the moment, but my issue was with the resolution for an external 4k monitor, I couldn't get a decent retina display resolution (HiDPI) without forcing the ig-platform-id to Intel Iris Graphics 540.

I hadn't an issue with sleeping on the external monitor though, it was the internal monitor that was causing trouble and it was black after sleeping (when forcing the platform id to 540).

 

Ah, I see. Thanks anyway. I think my issue could be related to the fact that it's an old monitor with a DVI port, so I'm using an DVI-to-HDMI adapter on the back. Or, maybe related to a UEFI driver that I took out at some point because I thought it wasn't needed.

[NOTNlCE]

Thanks everyone for all this info and hard work. My Precision 5510 (almost identical) works great with OC on 10.14.6 but required ig-platform-id 0x1916000 to remove the flicker after sleep. Hope this helps someone else. 

[golimpio]

 

After a week stuck on the "OCB: StartImage failed-Aborted" error, I finally was able to bypass it and install macOS Big Sur with the help of people from dortania on Discord and people from xxxzc that helped me with the tests to bypass the initial error.

Now I can start testing it and see how stable it is.

This work was done based on the xxxzc repository, but it doesn't matter, wmchris repository should work as well. Right now, I'm not sure if it's stable or not, since I've just started using it. It seems that everything that was working on Catalina is still working on Big Sur. If anything stopped to work I'll let you know.

OpenCore version is 0.6.3 (latest release) and kexts are also the latest releases. I'm on Big Sur 11.1 Beta, but people have installed 11.0.1 as well.

For a bit of background about the issue and how to work around it:
https://github.com/xxxzc/xps15-9550-macos/issues/74#issuecomment-732144560

 

[shane87]

On 11/24/2020 at 5:25 AM, golimpio said:

 

After a week stuck on the "OCB: StartImage failed-Aborted" error, I finally was able to bypass it and install macOS Big Sur with the help of people from dortania on Discord and people from xxxzc that helped me with the tests to bypass the initial error.

Now I can start testing it and see how stable it is.

This work was done based on the xxxzc repository, but it doesn't matter, wmchris repository should work as well. Right now, I'm not sure if it's stable or not, since I've just started using it. It seems that everything that was working on Catalina is still working on Big Sur. If anything stopped to work I'll let you know.

OpenCore version is 0.6.3 (latest release) and kexts are also the latest releases. I'm on Big Sur 11.1 Beta, but people have installed 11.0.1 as well.

For a bit of background about the issue and how to work around it:
https://github.com/xxxzc/xps15-9550-macos/issues/74#issuecomment-732144560

 

 

Hey golimpio,

 

which Version of Clover are you using or did you switch to opencore. In fact, i'm trying to update my clover (currently on 5122) to a newer version to install big sur.

I'm using basically the setup of wmchris, just a few minor changes. With Clover 5127, the boot won't even start :-D

 

Is it possible to share your EFI, so that i can develop a working solution for my system (XPS 9550, i7, 16 GB, FHD, SM951)?

 

Greetz

[golimpio]

1 hour ago, shane87 said:

 

Hey golimpio,

 

which Version of Clover are you using or did you switch to opencore. In fact, i'm trying to update my clover (currently on 5122) to a newer version to install big sur.

I'm using basically the setup of wmchris, just a few minor changes. With Clover 5127, the boot won't even start :-D

 

Is it possible to share your EFI, so that i can develop a working solution for my system (XPS 9550, i7, 16 GB, FHD, SM951)?

 

Greetz

I'm using opencore for big sur... I'm away from my hackintosh, but you can find the efi here:

https://github.com/wmchris/DellXPS15-9550-OSX/issues/137#issuecomment-733372183

[shane87]

2 hours ago, golimpio said:

I'm using opencore for big sur... I'm away from my hackintosh, but you can find the efi here:

https://github.com/wmchris/DellXPS15-9550-OSX/issues/137#issuecomment-733372183

 

Thank you very much. At least, I was able to boot  so i will look further into it.

You described a problem with your graphical performance, since i use a lot of Photoshop, has it become better??

 

Update1:

I recognized, that my temps are way worse with opencore 0.6.3 compared to clover 5122. Its about 8-10 degrees (Idle: 31 Clover, 39-41 OC).

Tried to include the deep-idle.aml from wmchris afterwards, but it isn't working fine just yet.

 

Anyone else recognize these changes?

Edited December 2, 2020 by shane87
Update

[golimpio]

7 hours ago, shane87 said:

 

Thank you very much. At least, I was able to boot  so i will look further into it.

You described a problem with your graphical performance, since i use a lot of Photoshop, has it become better??

 

Update1:

I recognized, that my temps are way worse with opencore 0.6.3 compared to clover 5122. Its about 8-10 degrees (Idle: 31 Clover, 39-41 OC).

Tried to include the deep-idle.aml from wmchris afterwards, but it isn't working fine just yet.

 

Anyone else recognize these changes?

 

I haven't monitored the temp yet, but I remember that wmchris efi was better in keeping the temp down.

About the graphics performance, most of the time it's the same as Catalina, but I noticed that for Lightroom, it's worst. I guess it should be related to softwares that use GPU or not.

[shane87]

Ok, thanks for your info :)

 

Im currently on 11.0.1 with OC 0.6.3 - everything is working just fine!! Even usb-c hot-plug, only problem are temps compared to clover config, but maybe when @wmchris releases his OC EFI there will be a change. 

 

Or do you know how to implement the old deep-idle.aml to OC? At the moment I'm using VoltageShift for undervolting.

 

By the way, for 11.0.1 - Combojack install.sh is not working anymore because of new safety feature of Mac OS (Read-only on two partitions) and "sudo mount -uw /" isn't working anymore. Therefore we need to use another version of Combojack.

 

I found a working one in this repo:

https://github.com/jaromeyer/XPS9570-Catalina

[golimpio]

On 12/4/2020 at 8:45 PM, shane87 said:

Ok, thanks for your info

 

Im currently on 11.0.1 with OC 0.6.3 - everything is working just fine!! Even usb-c hot-plug, only problem are temps compared to clover config, but maybe when @wmchris releases his OC EFI there will be a change. 

 

Or do you know how to implement the old deep-idle.aml to OC? At the moment I'm using VoltageShift for undervolting.

 

By the way, for 11.0.1 - Combojack install.sh is not working anymore because of new safety feature of Mac OS (Read-only on two partitions) and "sudo mount -uw /" isn't working anymore. Therefore we need to use another version of Combojack.

 

I found a working one in this repo:

https://github.com/jaromeyer/XPS9570-Catalina

Yes, there are a few comments about the ComboJack and some fixes attached in previous msgs, I've changed the folder where ComboJack is installed a while ago, so I didn't have issues upgrading to Catalina and then Big Sur.

I don't know about the deep-idle solution, but I think it's possible to have the same settings as our previous Clover EFI, but I'm not 100% sure. Are you using the same CpuFriendDataProvider from your previous version/Clover?

Also, HWPEnable is not set for the OC version, but I think it's possible to do it, if you haven't done it yet:
https://dortania.github.io/OpenCore-Install-Guide/clover-conversion/Clover-config.html#cpu
 

[golimpio]

I'm testing the last OC EFI release from wmchris repository and it's working great for Mac OS 11.1.

[Krim404]

i did a few modifications, but not too much. tested it with my peripherial and tweaked a lil bit on the battery/power consumption side. same compatibility as with the old clover approach so far. so i'm positive its stable now for everyday use.

Edited December 18, 2020 by wmchris

[golimpio]

On 12/18/2020 at 12:50 PM, golimpio said:

I'm testing the last OC EFI release from wmchris repository and it's working great for Mac OS 11.1.

I'm testing the last dev version of WhateverGreen and no need for the 48Hz hack, display is working as before now.
See: https://github.com/xxxzc/xps15-9570-macos/issues/55

Edited December 19, 2020 by golimpio

[Krim404]

6 hours ago, golimpio said:

I'm testing the last dev version of WhateverGreen and no need for the 48Hz hack, display is working as before now.
See: https://github.com/xxxzc/xps15-9570-macos/issues/55

yea i know, but i have problems with this as well. seems like whatevergreen has to be recompiled again on my setup. broke my installation yesterday, i'm currently working on a fix.

 

Edit: self compiled version is in repo. fix included. working as intended

Edited December 19, 2020 by wmchris

[golimpio]

9 hours ago, wmchris said:

yea i know, but i have problems with this as well. seems like whatevergreen has to be recompiled again on my setup. broke my installation yesterday, i'm currently working on a fix.

 

Edit: self compiled version is in repo. fix included. working as intended

 

Thanks for updating the repo, I was using my own recompiled version and now I've switched back to the repo, so at least I can help testing it. 
I'm on MacOS 11.1, and it's all working fine to me.

I don't have TB3 devices to test and I'm currently without an external monitor, so my setup is very limited right now and I can't give much feedback on external devices compatibility, other than common USB devices that won't be an issue to anyone I think.

A while ago I've applied the CFG Lock fixing, which shouldn't make any difference, it's just a couple of quirks that I've set differently in addition to the fix:
https://dortania.github.io/OpenCore-Post-Install/misc/msr-lock.html

I don't really know if this will bring any benefit to anyone, besides, it's the sort of thing that can't be on the repo anyway, so people would have to do it by themselves if they find it useful.

I've also replaced my SSD, I'm now using a WD Blue SN550 1TB NVMe M.2 SSD WDS100T2B0C, and I've reconfigured it to use 4k sectors.
 

Edited December 20, 2020 by golimpio

[Krim404]

9 hours ago, golimpio said:

 

Thanks for updating the repo, I was using my own recompiled version and now I've switched back to the repo, so at least I can help testing it. 
I'm on MacOS 11.1, and it's all working fine to me.

I don't have TB3 devices to test and I'm currently without an external monitor, so my setup is very limited right now and I can't give much feedback on external devices compatibility, other than common USB devices that won't be an issue to anyone I think.

A while ago I've applied the CFG Lock fixing, which shouldn't make any difference, it's just a couple of quirks that I've set differently in addition to the fix:
https://dortania.github.io/OpenCore-Post-Install/misc/msr-lock.html

I don't really know if this will bring any benefit to anyone, besides, it's the sort of thing that can't be on the repo anyway, so people would have to do it by themselves if they find it useful.

I've also replaced my SSD, I'm now using a WD Blue SN550 1TB NVMe M.2 SSD WDS100T2B0C, and I've reconfigured it to use 4k sectors.
 

dont forget - you have full write access to the repo, too. so you can just push whatever you think fits. if you need help with debugging, just write me a PM - i have several devices here.

i can confirm most of my peripherals work right now, except TB3 (which didnt work before either).

i never did the cfg lock fixing. does the modification really give a huge benefit?

Edited December 20, 2020 by wmchris

[golimpio]

On 12/20/2020 at 9:22 PM, wmchris said:

i never did the cfg lock fixing. does the modification really give a huge benefit?

 

Honestly, I didn't notice any difference. The main reason for this is that patching "creates instability and unnecessary patching for many" (according with the OC guide), so the benefit would be less patches applied.

Since the patches seems to be stable for our system, I don't think anyone would notice any real difference, only if there is a bug in OpenCore specific for these patches.

Also, now that I have this fix, every time that I want to update the BIOS, I'd have to apply the patches again before doing it, which isn't a big deal, but an extra step that anyone can forget.

I guess it will benefit people that prefer running the system with the minimal amount of patches possible.

Edited December 22, 2020 by golimpio

[golimpio]

Updated to macOS Big Sur version 11.2 without issues so far.
Using the latest stable kexts and OpenCore 0.6.5 (I will test 0.6.6 soon).

 

Edit:

 

(1) Updated OpenCore to 0.6.6, a small change was necessary and I'll add it to a new comment. This update is not necessary for Big Sur 11.2 though.

(2) There were new kexts updates released today, they are not mandatory for 11.2, but I've updated them so I can keep testing the latest stable kexts.

Edited February 3, 2021 by golimpio

[golimpio]

For anyone updating to OpenCore 0.6.6, if you have an updated BrcmBluetoothInjector.kext, it won't work without changing the config.plist.

 

For more background information, look for the notes at the official repository: https://github.com/acidanthera/BrcmPatchRAM#brcmbluetoothinjectorkext

 

But basically, "the BrcmBluetoothInjector.kext is a codeless kernel extension which injects the BT hardware data using a plist", this means that we have to remove the path to the non-existing BrcmBluetoothInjector executable in our config.plist, otherwise it will fail.

This is the code to be removed:

<key>ExecutablePath</key>
<string>Contents/MacOS/BrcmBluetoothInjector</string> 

I won't change this on the git repository myself because we still have the old BrcmBluetoothInjector.kext in there, and it seems to be working fine. We need more tests in order to confirm that the new BrcmBluetoothInjector.kext is working for most of us.

Edited February 4, 2021 by golimpio
Make it clear about the issue with the non-existing executable file

[kennylauer]

 I was unable to get open core to boot last time I tried. Admittedly, I have not read the guide. Feeling brave today, will attempt upgrade and switch to open core in just a bit, after reading.

 

Your continued progress on this project is appreciated. 

[golimpio]

I've upgraded it to MacOS 11.3 successfully, so far no new issue found (OpenCore 0.6.8 + latest kexts). I'm not sure if I should credit OpenCore for this, but so far Big Sur is one of the easiest to upgrade.

Edited April 27, 2021 by golimpio

[golimpio]

On 4/27/2021 at 5:50 PM, golimpio said:

I've upgraded it to MacOS 11.3 successfully, so far no new issue found (OpenCore 0.6.8 + latest kexts). I'm not sure if I should credit OpenCore for this, but so far Big Sur is one of the easiest to upgrade.

 

macOS 11.3.1 updated successfully via Software Update (OpenCore 0.6.8, same kexts from 11.3).

 

*Edit:* I've updated OpenCore to 0.6.9 and I've also updated all the kexts to their latest versions. So far, everything is working as expected.

Edited May 5, 2021 by golimpio

[golimpio]

I've upgraded it to MacOS 11.4, no issues so far!
Using same kexts from the repository (OC 0.6.9).