HS 10.13.6 upgrade to mojave assistance (e7450 with discreet nvidia)

[roniez]

Okay found the issue although i have yet to do the SSDTPRGen.

I currently opted for the SSDT-XCPM how ever i still feel like i am not getting enough usage time when on battery (on WiFi

If i go by Activity monitor i will get roughly 2hrs of onscreen time and medium/heavy usage of the laptop (youtube, remote desktop connections, emails and etc) 

 

Questions.

1, Does anybody know what SMBIOS is the prefered one to use for our beloved Dell e7450 - i7-5600u with discreet Nividia?

     I am currently using the SMBIOS for MBP 12.1(i5-5257U)

 

2, Would there be any benefit from using the ssdtPRGen instead of the SSDT-XCPM from Rehabman? 

 

3, Using Karabiner-Elements and the json file provided in the sierra guide i am unable to get the onboard LCD brightness (F11-F12) controls to work.

    Do you have any suggestions? 

[Hervé]

Again, you do not appear to have a discrete nVidia GPU and you run on HD5500 iGPU. MBP12,1 SMBIOS is perfectly Ok. Alternatives Broadwell profiles would be MBA7,x. Consult the list available in Clover Configurator app.

 

If you do not call on generated CPU PM SSDT, you must set your Clover config for PluginType 1. You can Google for it or search the forum to find explanations.

 

Fn-Insert/Fn-F3 should control brightness. If you seek to control brightness through Fn-UP/Fn-DOWN, you'd have to identify the ACPI code returned by those keys and program your DSDT accordingly. This is also something you can Google for but but know that it's very advanced stuff.

 

[roniez]

1 hour ago, Hervé said:

Again, you do not appear to have a discrete nVidia GPU and you run on HD5500 iGPU. MBP12,1 SMBIOS is perfectly Ok. Alternatives Broadwell profiles would be MBA7,x. Consult the list available in Clover Configurator app.

 

If you do not call on generated CPU PM SSDT, you must set your Clover config for PluginType 1. You can Google for it or search the forum to find explanations.

 

Fn-Insert/Fn-F3 should control brightness. If you seek to control brightness through Fn-UP/Fn-DOWN, you'd have to identify the ACPI code returned by those keys and program your DSDT accordingly. This is also something you can Google for but but know that it's very advanced stuff.

 

The nvidia GPU is disabled thanks to the EFI files i got from viking. 

My question now was in regards to general power manegement as imo i should be able to get more than 2hrs of run time on battery.
Fn+Insert sends the laptop to sleep, Fn+F3 is volume increasement. (as per standard and as per guide) 

Clover Config is already set to PluginType 1

 

And Fn+F11 and Fn+12 with karabiner-elements worked just fined back in HighSierra. 

 

 

[Hervé]

I don't mean to teach your granny to suck eggs but your battery life clearly depends on system usage as well as size + current age and health of your battery. Knowing that you've already disabled the dGPU and you've got proper CPU power management in place, you may slightly extend battery life by installing the kext that disables CPU Turbo boost when running on battery; that would of course be to the detriment of performance. Replacing a mechanical HDD by an SSD would also increase battery life.

 

Generally speaking, battery drains quicker under OS X/macOS than under Windows due to heavier graphics demand. See how it compares between macOS and, say, Windows.

[viking1304]

@roniez Your laptop is almost identical to mine. Only differences are SSD and WiFi card. I used both MacBookPro12,1 and MacBookAir7,2. As @Hervé already pointed, both are good choice for this laptop. Actually, I have to apologize to you, since I gave you wrong version of USBPorts.kext because of this. I gave you MBA7,2 version of USBPorts with MBP12,1 config. You can find proper version in attachment. 

 

I never used SSDT-XCPM and I stopped using SSDT generated with ssdtPRGen in favor of PluginType 1. Always go native if possible.

Karabiner probably works fine, but brightness probably not working at all. Go to display settings and check if you have brightness slider or not.

 

 

I actually had same problem two days ago after I reinstalled everything from scratch (with same files I gave you). I noticed that my brightness shortcuts not working, so I check display settings and brightness slider was missing. In one of my attempts to fix this, I accidentally removed both AppleBacklightFixup.kext and AppleBacklightInjector.kext and I noticed that my brightness works (looks like it works natively somehow). I only have latest SSDT-PNLF.aml from AppleBacklightFixup repo (also in attachment).

 

@Jake Lo and @Hervé do you any idea what sorcery is this?!

 

I am currently using those kexts (in attachment):

 

 

and this ACPI files:

 

 

DisableTurboBoostBattery.kext not working for me after this last reinstall. I tested it before and it worked perfectly. CPU was around 1.3 to 1.5GHz on battery. Now it jumps to 3GHz if I open PhotoShop. As soon as I figure out why it's not working I will let you know.

 

@Hervé E7450 have different native keyboard shortcuts then those you are referring (which exists on other Dell models). Brightness is controlled with Fn+F11 and Fn+F12.

 

 

Jake made karabiner config that maps all those special keys (brightness, sound and others) to appropriate function keys to match those in Windows (except there is no need to press Fn).

 

 

7450.zip

[Jake Lo]

@viking1304

Without AppleBacklightFixup.kext, brightness slider might still work but you don't get the full range as you would with AppleBacklightFixup.kext.

[viking1304]

I have 16 different brightness levels (I counted changes with F12 from complete black). From complete black to fully 100% bright. I do not see any difference compared to AppleBacklightInjector.kext + F%uT%04x ->  F%uTxxxx. Based on everything I read, this should not work, but somehow it does.

 

To complete this mystery AppleBacklightFixup doesn't work at all.

 

EDIT:

 

I am sure that I do not have active AppleBacklightFixup.kext nor AppleBacklightInjector.kext with patch

rebuilding //System/Library/PrelinkedKernels/prelinkedkernel
kext file:///Library/Extensions/DisableTurboBoostBattery.kext/ is in hash exception list, allowing to load
Kext with invalid signatured (-67062) allowed: <OSKext 0x7f9038713630 [0x7fffa841b8f0]> { URL = "vkgLegacySierraQMI.kext/ -- file:///Library/Extensions/", ID = "com.apple.driver.vkgLegacySierraQMI" }
KernelCache ID: 5FD429B0B475017C20F69DA3F5CCC0B2
kextcache updated critical boot files, requesting launchd reboot

 

ioreg

 

 

 

 

[roniez]

@viking1304 You are correct i never thought of checking if i had brightness slider, and yes it is no present with the files you gave me initaly.

Removed AppleBacklightFixup  and it works and karabiner works just fine now. also get 16 steps just like you.

 

For powermgmt i removed disableturboboost and i am currently looking in to another way of disabling turboboost.

and i came across this forum thread on notebook reviews

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/undervolt-disable-turbo-boost-for-increasing-battery-life-of-macbook-and-hackintosh.821361/

 

I have yet to attempt this.

[viking1304]

Turbo Boost Switcher use same approach (with almost identical code) to enable/disable Turbo Boost as DisableTurboBoostBattery.kext, but for some reason this one works and DisableTurboBoostBattery do not. Unfortunately, Turbo Boost Switcher can't detect power source change, so you need to manually enable/disable Turbo Boost if you want to disable it only when you are on battery power. You can also permanently disable Turbo Boost if you do not need it and do not want to play with enable/disable every time. Just extract DisableTurboBoost.64bits.kext from Turbo Boost Switcher.app.

 

Since code that enables/disables Turbo Boost works in Turbo Boost Switcher and DisableTurboBoostBattery.kext is properly loaded I can only assume that there is a problem with detecting power source change for some reason. Looks like that there is also an issue if you boot your laptop on battery. It is possible that similar problem occurs if you use VirtualSMC.

 

I will test this with FakeSMC.kext and ACPIBatteryManager.kext right away, while booting on charger.

 

EDIT:

 

As I suspected DisableTurboBoostBatery.kext works fine if you are using FakeSMC.kext and ACPIBatteryManager.kext, but it doesn't work if you are using VirtualSMC.kext and SMCBatteryManager.kext. I didn't notice mentioned issue. It works fine even if I boot on battery.

 

I will try to figure out why it doesn't work with SMCBatteryManager.kext

 

EDIT 2:

 

I found the reason why it doesn't work.

 

[roniez]

@viking1304
Thanks for all the work you have done to get this up and running for me and for the fix for the DisableTurboBoost.kext

With your fix and using VirtualSMC and SMCBattery.kext i can get up to 5hrs if not more of moderate use of the laptop on battery which is not to bad for an hackintosh.

 

In my opinion i only have 1 ongoing issue and that is the dang headphone/mic combo, what ever headphone i use it refuses to pick up the mic part for example using iphone headphones.

So i have resorted to use bluetooth headphones for now, 

 

Is there anyway and benefit to increase the vram for our graphics? my is currently listed with only 2GB from the notes i have seen and recoletion from my previous install i had it at 15360mb i belive.

 

 

Current battery usage with new disableturboboost kext with virtualSMC and smcbattery.kext and screenbrightness at 2-3 tick.