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

[Gymnae]

Have you read the guide? It's as simple as two commands in the terminal. 

[Mr.C]

Hi al!

I'm back!

HS 10.13.5 installed successfully (XPS 9550, i7, 16GB, 4k IPS etc.) thanks to You Guys! Long time ago I had an SSD problem, replaced it with a Samsung PM961 512GB nvme drive. No kext needed nor 4k sector modification, it is working as it supposed to be. 

From now, I will check the forum regurarly and I am here to help (if I can).

Thanks again! 

[Diwad]

On 6/19/2018 at 10:43 AM, Gymnae said:

Have you read the guide? It's as simple as two commands in the terminal. 

You mean in Mojave? 

[abn6x]

@wmchris how much energy impact (in the energy tab from activity monitor) you get from watching a youtube video in safari ? today I had a real macbook pro 15 with kabylake cpu and max energy impact it got was 9% from the youtube process, while my xps 9560 4k is getting something like 40-50% energy impact while watching the same youtube video.

[Krim404]

3 hours ago, abn6x said:

@wmchris how much energy impact (in the energy tab from activity monitor) you get from watching a youtube video in safari ? today I had a real macbook pro 15 with kabylake cpu and max energy impact it got was 9% from the youtube process, while my xps 9560 4k is getting something like 40-50% energy impact while watching the same youtube video.

15. but this value is not really informative

[abn6x]

2 hours ago, wmchris said:

15. but this value is not really informative

you have the fHD or 4k screen ?

[Diwad]

Anyone tried Mojave public beta and got this error? Tried searching for a fix but can't find a solution even if there are plenty of posts with this problem.

 

Xpc service exitet with abnormal code : 1

[Krim404]

On 6/26/2018 at 10:12 PM, abn6x said:

you have the fHD or 4k screen ?

4k

[zlominus]

As I saw on github that others are  having troubles with strange memory maps and are forced to use "OsxLowMemFixDrv" and "-free200" driver I am happy to announce that I managed to boot with normal prelinked kernel (bigger in size) only with the help of "AptioMemoryFix.drv" (new one being developed in other thread).

 

What I did was take the laptop apart and pull the cmos battery for 10s (probably a bit more). For me that was the only way to fully "reset" NVRAM as none of other techniques worked.

 

Now I can enjoy native nvram support without random KPs (free2000).

 

I hope this will help others with similar problem.

[Valoric]

On 4/9/2018 at 12:41 AM, serg992313 said:

For HDMI require FakeHDMI.kext, AppleGraphicsControl.kext patch and HDMI intel audio enable in clover config. I am using macbook 13.3 and everything working perfect. 

Hi Serg, you refer to a FakeHDMI.kext. Can you tell me where to get it from? Already searched in @wmchris git repo and asked google ;)
I'm using MacBook 13.3, 10.13.3 and added board id to AppleGraphicsDevicePolicy. But always when I plug in my Dell XPS 15 9560 my laptop reboots

[autinm]

I tried installing Mojave on my 4k 9550, and I can confirm that as of now, everything works! I updated CoreDisplayFixup, Lilu, AppleALC, IntelGraphicsFixup, apfs.efi, and clover. AppleALC needs to be compiled by you, as the current release does not support Mojave but the source code does (and you may have to do the same for Lilu, I forgot). You also have to boot with -lilubetaall. Apart from that, the procedures are the same as 10.13, and the install even survives through updates (updating from DP1 to DP2 was perfect). If anybody wants me to upload my EFI, I would be more than glad to.

[Krim404]

7 hours ago, autinm said:

I tried installing Mojave on my 4k 9550, and I can confirm that as of now, everything works! I updated CoreDisplayFixup, Lilu, AppleALC, IntelGraphicsFixup, apfs.efi, and clover. AppleALC needs to be compiled by you, as the current release does not support Mojave but the source code does (and you may have to do the same for Lilu, I forgot). You also have to boot with -lilubetaall. Apart from that, the procedures are the same as 10.13, and the install even survives through updates (updating from DP1 to DP2 was perfect). If anybody wants me to upload my EFI, I would be more than glad to.

i think it would benefit a lot of people if you could upload your setup. some people reported a very short battery time with mojave. does power management work with your build? if yes: whats your battery life?

Edited July 1, 2018 by wmchris

[autinm]

1 hour ago, wmchris said:

i think it would benefit a lot of people if you could upload your setup. some people reported a very short battery time with mojave. does power management work with your build? if yes: whats your battery life?

I'm getting pretty decent battery life from around 5-6 hours of SOT (4 if the workload is a bit heavy), and I don't seem to have any power management issues. I've been using the computer with my monitor and charger for most of the time, but from the time away from the charger everything seems good! My Clover folder (without themes) should be attached below.

CLOVER.zip

[Diwad]

You created an USB installer or updated from 10.13 through app store?

[autinm]

4 hours ago, Diwad said:

You created an USB installer or updated from 10.13 through app store?

I created a new USB, but it should be fine updating straight from 10.13 if you use the provided Clover (unless you are using HFS+, it may convert to APFS and break the FS).

[Diwad]

Ok. With your files I managed to get into installer, but it reboots after giving such error. Any clue why? 

 

Edit: I disconnected USB mouse and it went through. Strange. I'm not sure if it was a cause but now I'm finishing installing.

Edited July 2, 2018 by Diwad

[golimpio]

On 7/2/2018 at 12:36 AM, autinm said:

I tried installing Mojave on my 4k 9550, and I can confirm that as of now, everything works! I updated CoreDisplayFixup, Lilu, AppleALC, IntelGraphicsFixup, apfs.efi, and clover. AppleALC needs to be compiled by you, as the current release does not support Mojave but the source code does (and you may have to do the same for Lilu, I forgot). You also have to boot with -lilubetaall. Apart from that, the procedures are the same as 10.13, and the install even survives through updates (updating from DP1 to DP2 was perfect). If anybody wants me to upload my EFI, I would be more than glad to.

Thanks for uploading your clover files (they were very helpful).
Almost everything worked well for me, but I can't get the display backlight control to work (I already run the patch script and created a new AppleBacklightInjector.kext, but it didn't change anything).
@autinm Did you have any issue with the backlight control?
Also, I have a black screen after sleep.
Sound is working, but the headphone is not recognised.
The upgrade process was smooth (updated from 10.13), except for the issues above.

Edited July 3, 2018 by golimpio

[autinm]

3 hours ago, golimpio said:

Thanks for uploading your clover files (they were very helpful).
Almost everything worked well for me, but I can't get the display backlight control to work (I already run the patch script and created a new AppleBacklightInjector.kext, but it didn't change anything).
@autinm Did you have any issue with the backlight control?
Also, I have a black screen after sleep.
Sound is working, but the headphone is not recognised.
The upgrade process was smooth (updated from 10.13), except for the issues above.

For me, I already had working backlight control, and wake from sleep worked (the screen would be black, but a click on the trackpad turned the screen back on). I have no idea about headphones, I don't own any wired earbuds or headphones (I live with bluetooth), but maybe you can try the KNNspeed audio patch that's included in the github: Audio. I'm no hackintosh expert, but I hope the best of luck for you!

[autinm]

After a while of using Mojave, my system froze up on me and I had to force shut down. By doing this, I must have done something to the BIOS as it stopped detecting my SSD. For anyone who somehow gets this problem, to do the same mistake as I did and wipe, but just restore the BIOS to factory defaults.

[golimpio]

11 hours ago, autinm said:

For me, I already had working backlight control, and wake from sleep worked (the screen would be black, but a click on the trackpad turned the screen back on). I have no idea about headphones, I don't own any wired earbuds or headphones (I live with bluetooth), but maybe you can try the KNNspeed audio patch that's included in the github: Audio. I'm no hackintosh expert, but I hope the best of luck for you!

 

Thanks for the audio tip, I was using KNNspeed before, and I totally forgot to reapply it.

As for the backlight control, it's working fine now, I just had to restore the original kexts from ".../Post-Install/LE-Kexts/" (I probably changed something in AppleBacklightInjector.kext before, and it might have caused the issue).

Now I just have to figure it out why I have the black screen after the computer wakes from sleep.

Edited July 4, 2018 by golimpio

[golimpio]

Update:

The issue with the black screen after wake up from sleep was caused by a different settings in my clover's config.plist file.

I have the ig-platform-id set to 0x19260004 (Iris Graphics 540), which causes the issue.

The default 0x19160000 (HD Graphics 520) works without issue. Unfortunately, 0x19160000 doesn't support HiDPI mode for my external 4k monitor at the resolution 2560x1440, on the other hand, 0x19260004 supports it nicely.

 

So, if you are using the original wmchris's git kexts/config + autinm's clover files, you should be able to automatically update from 10.13 to 10.14 without issues. I'll keep trying to make ig-platform-id 0x19260004 work with my setup.

 

[Diwad]

Im using this laptop since 1.5 years. Is there anything that can be improved other than SD card reader? I assume nothing changed about 960m dGPU?

 

Recently I updated to Mojave and it works flawlessly. Thanks for your work once again @wmchris !

[nabeelmoeen]

I too would like to thank the community for one of the most comprehensive guides for any laptop model I have owned :D, one of the reasons I bought the 9550.

 

still, I had to switch back to windows after a couple of months since 80% of the time I am working docked via TB16, and it wasn't the most robust experience.

i have recently gotten a dock for my wife's macbook pro and thinking of switching since she exclusively uses Windows on her machine  -

before I do, i just wanted to check once more if anyone here had any success with the thunderbolt dock - i know a couple of members were investigating it a while back, but not sure if it led to any breakthroughs.

 

I guess if it's not working yet, probably it's no longer on anyone's priority list and is not going to happen.

[serg992313]

On 7/6/2018 at 2:39 AM, Diwad said:

Im using this laptop since 1.5 years. Is there anything that can be improved other than SD card reader? I assume nothing changed about 960m dGPU?

 

Recently I updated to Mojave and it works flawlessly. Thanks for your work once again @wmchris !

Nothing to change about dGPU, OSX doesn't support Optimus for switching video and I guess never will do it. SD reader driver probably will be worked, I am trying to complete it, still without positive results (seems like power initialisation problem, but for fix I need more info  about RTS525a). 

Edited July 10, 2018 by serg992313

[autinm]

On 10.14, I noticed that my thunderbolt connector did not detect any of my USBs via dongle (which worked on a real MBP). I didn't notice until now as I was using the port for DP output (which it did fine), but I haven't got to test this in high sierra. If anyone knows a solution or a reason why, I would be really grateful!