ThinkPad P50 Big Sur OpenCore

Hello everyone,

After a successful install with Clover which I reported here, and subsequent switch to OpenCore which I've reported here, I recently decided to go ahead and update to Big Sur. I didn't do a full system reinstall, I just updated to latest OpenCore (0.6.7 specifically) and did a regular system update from Catalina to Big Sur. No issues to report, nothing broke after the update.

Important: If you have a 4k model you were probably using Whatevergreen's -cdfon boot argument and/or enable-hdmi20 property and you'll want to switch to the new enable-max-pixel-clock-override property, because you will not be able to boot Big Sur with old -cdfon and/or enable-hdmi20 due to Lilu's userspace patching (which Whatevergreen relies on) being broken under Big Sur. Catalina is fine with either solution.

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https://preview.redd.it/nor9ps5e6kp61.png?width=1396&format=png&auto=webp&s=1899c8f26e46a713447582f5fa0304db291a8063

My specs are the following:

• 2.7GHz i7 6820HQ with Intel HD530
• 16GB RAM
• nVidia Quadro M1000M
• Intel 256GB M.2 SATA SSD (Mac OS)
• ADATA 512GB M.2 nVME (Windows)
• Seagate 2TB HDD (Backups & Storage; Yes, you can fit 3 disks in this thing)
• 4k non-touch display with calibrator

What works:

Pretty much everything that is expected to work. Boots & sleeps fine, CPU does its power management stuff, LAN, USB ports, keyboard and FN keys, LED on the lid, trackpad and trackpoint work, speakers and mic work, webcam works...

I've updated from Catalina 10.15.7 to Big Sur 11.2.3 using the regular system update. Of course, I've updated OpenCore (0.6.7 specifically) and kexts to the latest available versions before starting the update.

What doesn't work:

• Quadro M1000M, HDMI & DP out as well since they're tied to nVidia. I think no hope on that front.
• SD Card reader (I've read about some halfbaked drivers, but haven't tried them)
• Calibrator
• ExpressCard
• Fingerprint reader
• No idea about USB-C/Thunderbolt since I don't use it

Currently using following drivers:

• OpenRuntime.efi
• HfsPlus.efi
• OpenCanopy.efi

And the following kexts:

• Airportitlwm
• AppleALC
• BrightnessKeys
• CPUFriend
• CPUFriendDataProvider
• IntelBluetoothFirmware
• IntelBluetoothInjector
• IntelMausi
• Lilu
• NoTouchID
• NVMeFix
• SMCBatteryManager
• SMCProcessor
• SMCSuperIO
• USBMap (from the guide by /u/midi1996)
• VirtualSMC
• VoodooPS2Controller
• VoodooRMI
• VoodooSMBus
• WhateverGreen

VoodooRMI is optional since VoodooPS2Controller alone from acidanthera works as well, but I've found VoodooRMI to work a bit more smoothly and reliably with multiple finger gestures, taps and drags. If you decide to use it you need to disable VoodooInput, VoodooPS2Mouse and VoodooPS2Trackapd that come with VoodooPS2Controller and keep only VoodooPS2Controller and VoodooPS2Keyboard enabled.

I've also applied the full set of SSDT patches provided by by /u/midi1996 in the guide except for the following:

• I've had to add two instant wake ACPI patches that were not mentioned in the guide since my laptop wakes instantly without them. I'll provide them if anyone is interested.
• I added an SSDT to disable the SD card reader since I need it in Windows and don't want to disable it in the BIOS.
• I've had to use a different IGPU device properties from the one advised in the guide since I got stuck on gIOScreenLockState3 if I followed the guide. Contrary to what the guide says, it seems that 4k P50 configurations have a large enough DVMT that doesn't require patching. It does, however require the enable-max-pixel-clock-override to boot. I used only the following parameters:
  • AAPL,ig-platform-id: 00001B19;
  • enable-max-pixel-clock-override: 01000000;
• I also used CPUFriendFriend to generate the kext for power savings according to my liking. The idle power usage is <1W.
• I removed ACPI patches for keyboard FN keys since I'm using acidanthera's BrightnessKeys kext.
• I removed trackpad SSDT since I edited the VoodooRMI kext directly to my liking.

Thanks everyone who helped along the journey, I'll continue to post if anything noteworthy comes up since the P50 seems to be relatively rare and not well explored in the hackintosh community.