Dell XPS 8940 Resource Extravaganza!!!1

[slave-zeo]

 

I picked up a XPS 8940 from Dell's Outlet store for a good price with the idea of a nice Hackintosh in mind. I didn't really do any research before buying, which I should have. I found next to zero information about the XPS 8940 in regards to to making a Hackintosh. I'll start out by giving a rundown of what's inside this computer. 

 

• 10th Gen Intel® Core™ i7-10700 processor(8-Core, 16M Cache, 2.9GHz to 4.8GHz)
• Intel H470 Chipset.
• AMD Radeon RX 57000 XT, 8GB.
• 16GB, 1x16GB, DDR4, 2933MHz.
• 512GB PCIe M.2 SSD.
• Realtek ALC3861 Audio.
• Rivet Networks (Killer) E2600 PCIe Gigabit Ethernet.
• Qualcomm QCA9377 (DW1810) Wifi.

 

The Service manual for this computer can be found here. 

 

I started out by looking over the individual hardware components and tried to figure out which would be my problem children. After looking about I learned the H470 chipset and the ALC3861 Audio would be my main problem. As of right now the audio does not work using any method I've been able to try, I'll try VooDooHDA when i get a chance. The WiFi is a lost cause so I ordered a BCM94360CS2 MacBook card and a M.2 adapter. It might work... maybe? Anyway, with the information I gathered I decided to go with a straight up Comet Lake configuration of OpenCore. Nothing special, Just follow the directions in the guide. I gathered up my kexts and and asl files and got OpenCore set up on a thumb drive. I tested booting from the thumb drive and was successful. Things were looking pretty good. I went through the install onto a separate SATA 500GB SSD so I didn't have to wipe the M.2 SSD just yet. The installer finished as normal and was very uneventful. Which is a good thing. 

 

After booting from the thumb drive over to the SSD I copied my OpenCore setup onto the SSD's EFI partition and rebooted. macOS booted right up. I was pleased thus far. I'm getting tired of typing so I'm going to get to what KEXTs I needed to use. 

 

 

Next these are the aml files I used.

 

 

My EFI folder can be downloaded form here, it's bigger than 10MB so I couldn't include it as an attachment.

 

Audio support is provided by VoodooHDA OC. The OpenCore build of VoodooHDA should work fine until AppleHDA gets straightened out. You can find it's github page here.

Audio is now working thanks to user Daniyo. See this post.

 

Network support for the Killer E2600 is provided by RealtekRTL8111.kext.

 

Remember if you use the above EFI folder you will need to plug in your config.plist > PlatformInfo > Generic information like serial number, SystemUUID, ROM and MLB numbers.

 

Stuff that doesn't work.
 

So far i've found a few things that do not work as you'd expect them to like on a real mac.

 

• Shutdown and restart are wonky. Normally when I try to shutdown or restart from macOS the system hangs shortly after the screen kicks off.
• Sleep does not work. If I wait long enough for the computer to go to sleep on it's own it will immediately wake back up. The same thing happens when I choose Sleep from the Apple menu.
• Audio and the stock WiFi does not work. The WiFi probably never will work so I'm looking into replacing the card with a compatible setup. Audio might eventually work depending on what kind of support developers can drum up.

 

So far this is all I've found that is obviously broken. Any insight into these problems would be great, if I figure out any fixes I'll document it here.

 

I'll flesh this out some more soon. Check back soon-ish.

Edited April 21, 2021 by slave-zeo
Added more information.

[slave-zeo]

On 1/20/2021 at 8:46 PM, slave-zeo said:

Stuff that doesn't work.
 

So far i've found a few things that do not work as you'd expect them to like on a real mac.

• Audio and the stock WiFi does not work. The WiFi probably never will work so I'm looking into replacing the card with a compatible setup. Audio might eventually work depending on what kind of support developers can drum up.

 

I got the part for my WiFi project in the post today. It is a little card attached to a flat ribbon cable and then to a bigger card which plugs in the m.2 WiFi card socket, an adapter you could say. The larger of the 2 cards lets you plug in a legit Apple WiFi module and use it instead of the WiFi card the computer came with. Below is a picture of the cable.

 

 

I got so hyped on installing the little bugger that I forgot to take pictures to document the installation. In the end it worked perfectly, the card showed up in the network preference pane as Airport. Bluetooth also worked without the need of an external USB cable. Another nice touch was the original M.2 card's antenna nubs fit on the AirPort card correctly so I didn't have to run new antennas inside the case. All in all it was a worthy endeavor.

 

This is the original Dell DW1810 WiFi/BT card

 

Here is the location of the WiFi module. To get at it you need to remove the graphics card.

 

Here is what the WiFi adapter and module looks like when installed. This is with the GPU removed from the system.

 

This is a close up of the WiFi adapter's m.2 card with ribbon attached.

 

And at the other end of the ribbon cable is the adapter card with the Apple WiFi module attached. Luckily the two antennas were the same sized connector as the card.

Edited February 5, 2021 by slave-zeo

[slave-zeo]

This XPS 8940 updated to macOS 11.2 without any problems. That's a good thing.

[slave-zeo]

As noted before here are some internal pictures outlining the hardware of the XPS 8940 Tower. There are quite a few pictures so be patient.

 

This is the inside of the system as a whole. Power supply on the bottom, drive cages on the top and front and motherboard in the middle.

 

Here are the two 2.5" drive bays. My system came with one drive sled and SATA cable, although there are room for another of each. There are 2 power leads.

 

Here are the top and front 3.5" drive cages. They are both removable and do not require a sled to mount a drive. Only the front cage has a SATA cable and power plug.

 

My particular system has four total RAM slots and came populated with one 16GB 2933MHz DDR4 module. Notice the Stick is installed in the slot with the white clip. According to the service manual you want to use the white slots first then the black.

 

There are three PCI-e slots available, the blue 16x slot for the GPU, a 1x on top and finally a 4x on the bottom.

 

Unsurprisingly the XPS 8940 comes with a half sized 500watt power supply. As a nice touch the PCI-e GPU rails are 80 PLUS PLATINUM rated. I was kind of surprised by the nicer power rating.

 

The exhaust fan is a puny 80mm size. Despite it's smaller size it's not terribly loud. From the extra mount holes you might be able to replace the original with a 92mm fan.

 

The XPS 8940 has a average array of back ports with 4 USB3.1, 2 USB 2.0, full sized HDMI/Display ports, an Ethernet jack for the gigabit Ethernet and 3 typical audio jacks.

 

I believe this is all the photos I have for now. Hopefully this helps out someone thinking about getting one of these systems for a Hackintosh. Software wise I'm still looking into ways to fix hanging when you try to reboot the system. Shut down works fine at least.

Edited February 5, 2021 by slave-zeo

[daniyo]

Any fixes for the reboot issue? If you ever run into kernel panic, you will be stuck there forever until you can boot it in another system...

Shutdown seems to be fine.

 

Audio still not working with AppleALC -- I suspect it may be a DSDT issue.

 

 

[daniyo]

@slave-zeo @Wiseguy7645

 

After countless trial-error runs, I can report that shutdown/reboot is fixed through generated USBMap.kext

 

Will upload my OC folder when I have the chance. 

 

Audio -- ALC3861 shows as ALC898 on Windows. I will do more investigating on the audio part as VoodooHDA has crappy sound quality

[daniyo]

3 hours ago, daniyo said:

@slave-zeo @Wiseguy7645

 

After countless trial-error runs, I can report that shutdown/reboot is fixed through generated USBMap.kext

 

Will upload my OC folder when I have the chance. 

 

Audio -- ALC3861 shows as ALC898 on Windows. I will do more investigating on the audio part as VoodooHDA has crappy sound quality

Please see my EFI from my Github 

 

https://github.com/daniyo27/XPS8940-OpenCore

[daniyo]

Guys, I managed to get ALC3861 working NATIVELY (ALC899) without VoodooHDA.

 

Had to patch IRQ conflicts for AppleALC to actually patch the codec natively.

 

Check my GitHub page! https://github.com/daniyo27/XPS8940-OpenCore/

[slave-zeo]

On 3/12/2021 at 1:46 AM, daniyo said:

Guys, I managed to get ALC3861 working NATIVELY (ALC899) without VoodooHDA.

 

Had to patch IRQ conflicts for AppleALC to actually patch the codec natively.

 

Check my GitHub page! https://github.com/daniyo27/XPS8940-OpenCore/

Kick ass. I'm heading your way to look into this. thanks for putting in the work.

 

 

[slave-zeo]

Using Daniyo's patches I also have working audio via AppleALC. I'm also using the USBMap.kext for shutdown/reboot issues.

 

I've also added a heatsink to the VRMs near the CPU. The heatsink was 25$ off Amazon. If you can catch them in stock through DELL parts you can order it for about 6$. Sadly they've never had them in stock when I've called. Here are a couple of photos.

 

 

 

[slave-zeo]

A note on the RAM this computer uses. I was looking for DDR4 to either replace or add to the existing 16GB of RAM while retaining the same supported clock speed of 2933MHz. I tried all the DDR4 sticks I had access to but all would clock down to 2166MHz. I've done some research and found it's very picky about the RAM it uses (surprise!). I was able to pull the RAMs information from CPU-Z in Windows. The timings look a little like this...

 

Quote

DIMM #                1
    SMBus address        0x51
    Memory type        DDR4
    Module format        UDIMM
    Module Manufacturer(ID)    SK Hynix (AD000000000000000000000000)
    SDRAM Manufacturer (ID)    SK Hynix (AD000000000000000000000000)
    Size            16384 MBytes
    Max bandwidth        DDR4-3200 (1600 MHz)
    Part number        HMA82GU6DJR8N-XN    
    Serial number        940402D1
    Manufacturing date    Week 23/Year 20
    Nominal Voltage        1.20 Volts
    EPP            no
    XMP            no
    AMP            no
JEDEC timings table        CL-tRCD-tRP-tRAS-tRC @ frequency
    JEDEC #1        10.0-10-10-24-34 @ 727 MHz
    JEDEC #2        11.0-11-11-26-37 @ 800 MHz
    JEDEC #3        12.0-12-12-28-40 @ 872 MHz
    JEDEC #4        13.0-14-14-31-44 @ 945 MHz
    JEDEC #5        14.0-14-14-33-47 @ 1018 MHz
    JEDEC #6        15.0-15-15-35-50 @ 1090 MHz
    JEDEC #7        16.0-16-16-38-54 @ 1163 MHz
    JEDEC #8        17.0-17-17-40-57 @ 1236 MHz
    JEDEC #9        18.0-18-18-42-60 @ 1309 MHz
    JEDEC #10        19.0-19-19-45-64 @ 1381 MHz
    JEDEC #11        20.0-20-20-47-67 @ 1454 MHz
    JEDEC #12        21.0-21-21-49-70 @ 1527 MHz
    JEDEC #13        22.0-22-22-52-74 @ 1600 MHz
    JEDEC #14        24.0-22-22-52-74 @ 1600 MHz

 

The XPS 8940 is shipped with 3200MHz memory. However, with Intel Core i7/i9 processors, it is limited to 2933MHz. There is no XMP speeds for automatic timing settings. According to DELL the RAM has to be C5N22 16GB DDR4, 3200MHz, 2Gx64, Unbuffered, 288 pin, Dual Rank, 1.2V, Non-ECC, Non-Encrypted to run at the rated 2933MHz. 

 

For reference here is the CPU-Z screen grab of the DDR4 DIMM.

 

 

 

[slave-zeo]

Has anyone got the internal Intel UHD 630 video working via the HDMI port? Mine seems to work fine via the Display port but no so much form the HDMI.

 

EDIT: I even tried patching the "display connector" to 00080000 with no luck on the HDMI port. Again though, the Display port works fine.

Edited April 27, 2021 by slave-zeo

[daniyo]

On 4/26/2021 at 11:41 AM, slave-zeo said:

Has anyone got the internal Intel UHD 630 video working via the HDMI port? Mine seems to work fine via the Display port but no so much form the HDMI.

 

EDIT: I even tried patching the "display connector" to 00080000 with no luck on the HDMI port. Again though, the Display port works fine.

I did notice HDMI was black screen indeed.

 

In Hackintool, under Patch > Connectors, it needs to be patched. I believe Index 1 with Bus ID 0x05 is DP port and Index 0 or Index 2 is HDMI. Feel free to play around these parameters -- if it works please add an issue on GitHub with the patches you've applied and I will streamline it to the GitHub folder.

 

I have yet to do this investigation as I am on a dGPU. 

 

 

On 4/21/2021 at 7:41 AM, slave-zeo said:

A note on the RAM this computer uses. I was looking for DDR4 to either replace or add to the existing 16GB of RAM while retaining the same supported clock speed of 2933MHz. I tried all the DDR4 sticks I had access to but all would clock down to 2166MHz. I've done some research and found it's very picky about the RAM it uses (surprise!). I was able to pull the RAMs information from CPU-Z in Windows. The timings look a little like this...

 

 

The XPS 8940 is shipped with 3200MHz memory. However, with Intel Core i7/i9 processors, it is limited to 2933MHz. There is no XMP speeds for automatic timing settings. According to DELL the RAM has to be C5N22 16GB DDR4, 3200MHz, 2Gx64, Unbuffered, 288 pin, Dual Rank, 1.2V, Non-ECC, Non-Encrypted to run at the rated 2933MHz. 

 

For reference here is the CPU-Z screen grab of the DDR4 DIMM.

 

 

 

I briefly investigated this too... It seems to be a limitation on H470 boards. i3 variants are further limited in ram speed than i7/i9 variants on the H470 board.

 

 

On 4/20/2021 at 4:19 PM, slave-zeo said:

Using Daniyo's patches I also have working audio via AppleALC. I'm also using the USBMap.kext for shutdown/reboot issues.

 

I've also added a heatsink to the VRMs near the CPU. The heatsink was 25$ off Amazon. If you can catch them in stock through DELL parts you can order it for about 6$. Sadly they've never had them in stock when I've called. Here are a couple of photos.

 

 

 

Got a part number to share? Would help immensely! I noticed that the VRM heatsink comes default in Dell G5's.

Edited May 5, 2021 by daniyo

[daniyo]

@slave-zeo I got built-in HDMI working along with HDMI 2.0 confirmed working. Please check my Github for the changes. I also updated to OC 0.6.9 & macOS 11.3.1

[kcmok]

I use your EFI but it doesn't go through and get the following: it seems the integrated display doesn't work. Any suggestions?

[daniyo]

Looks like your display is working properly.

 

What do you think the symbols is telling you? It hasn't detected a mouse peripheral...

[kcmok]

I have a mouse connected! It also asks to turn on the computer!

[kcmok]

Find out that it is my bad in using the hdmi output instead of the display port.

[namio]

On 3/7/2021 at 8:13 PM, daniyo said:

@slave-zeo @Wiseguy7645

 

After countless trial-error runs, I can report that shutdown/reboot is fixed through generated USBMap.kext

 

Will upload my OC folder when I have the chance. 

 

Audio -- ALC3861 shows as ALC898 on Windows. I will do more investigating on the audio part as VoodooHDA has crappy sound quality

Hi daniyo

 

I have tried using your EFi from github and i am still not able to get internal audio working (using alcid=1)

 

you mention this on github - Audio: ALC3861 (actually ALC899) and  "NATIVE AppleALC patch with layout-id 1 working! Needed to add IRQ conflict fixes."

 

is this something i need to do myself, even with your EFI?  and can you explain how?

 

I currently have sonoma running on the XPS8940 with OC 10.95, everything seems to work except the internal audio

 

I am not sure what else to do