Acer Swift 3 SF315-51-518S

宏碁Acer 2021-02-15

macOS 10.15 Catalina on Acer Swift 3 SF315-51-518S

Specs

CPU : Intel Core i5-8250U (Kabylake-R)
Graphics : Intel UHD 620
RAM : 8 GB DDR4 2133 MHz (non-replaceable)
SSD : 256 GB Intel 600p series (SSDPEKKW256G7) (M.2 2280 NVMe, replaceable. PCIe x2 speeds (1500MBs\540MBs) )
Screen : 15-inch 1920 x 1080 glossy IPS
Ports : 1xUSB 3.1 Gen-1 Type-C, 2xUSB 3.0, 1xUSB 2.0, 1xHDMI (full-size), 1xAudio jack
Wifi/Bluetooth : Intel AC-7265, (M.2 NGFF)
Audio : ALC255 (ven id:10ec, dev id:0255)
SD Card Reader : Realtek USB2.0-CRW (ven id:0bda, dev id:0129)
Back-lit keyboard
I2C Trackpad + PS2 keyboard

What is working

Graphics
Intel UHD Graphics 620 1536 МB
- QE\CI, Final Cut X works just fine
Audio
- Speakers, headphones and internal mic
Keyboard
- Backlight is ACPI-managed so it works just fine too
Trackpad
- VoodooI2C makes it buttery-smooth, supports all the macOS gestures
USB
- Some injections has to be done and it may vary from model to model, more details below
Webcam
- PhotoBooth works fine, lol
Sleep/Wake
- Lid also working
- To my knowledge, no weird things after sleep/wake
  - If you disable the wifi with Acer’s keyboard shortcut (Fn+F3) and go to sleep, wifi won’t be able to be enable. You’ll have to reboot the laptop.
- At least 6 hours battery life
  - Tested with 10.13.4 (max brightness, 720p on safari, USB wifi dongle)

What is NOT working

Built-in Wifi
- Must be replaced
Built-in SD card reader
Fingerprint
- It’s detected but it is useless (can’t authenticate on lockscreen or in password manager), so I decided to disable that port (I got shitloads of BiometricKit errors)
SSD. I had kernel panics with Intel 660p, I don’t know if it works now, but 10.13.4 and lower certainly had problems with it.
- Replaced with Samsung EVO970 250GB

What was not tested

HDMI

What must be done

Replace Wi-Fi module
- I’ve installed DW1560 which is based on Broadcom BCM94352Z, all is working great
Replace SSD (stock one may or may not work fine, you should note that it can cause kernel panics)
- Replaced with EVO970 250GB
Follow my guide

1. Updating BIOS to the latest version and BIOS configuration

Install latest BIOS with fixes for your laptop, it can be found in “Support” tab on official Acer website (I have 1.05 at the moment)

Once the update is done, go in your BIOS setup. For my model, I must press F2 at boot. Press F9 to reset default settings. Enable “F12 Boot Menu” in Main tab. Set Supervisor Password in Security tab. Disable “Secure Boot” in Boot tab. Save changes.

2. OpenCore EFI bootloader installation

Install OpenCore (the easy way)

mount the EFI partition you need, for example on macOS it is sudo mkdir /Volumes/*mountpointname* (for example sudo mkdir /Volumes/EFI) and after that sudo mount -t msdos /dev/diskXsY /Volumes/*mountpointname* (in my case sudo mount -t msdos /dev/disk0s1 /Volumes/EFI if I want to mount SSD’s first partition)
Copy the EFI folder from latest releases archive to your drive
Done!

3. Installation guide

Create an installation USB drive with any convenient method (BDU\UniBeast\createinstallmedia\restore HFS file\etc.)
Install OpenCore on the USB drive (as shown above). In case of UniBeast or BDU you might want to delete everything on USB EFI partition before installing
Shutdown the laptop
You must press F12 for this Acer laptop at boot to select USB flash drive. (Check if boot menu is enabled in BIOS, you can go to bios by pressing F2 on boot)
Maybe you wouldn’t be able to use trackpad on installation and for several boot cycles, it’s normal, just get a USB mouse to use it. If the installed system wouldn’t have trackpad do this in terminal: sudo kextcache -i /
Boot from USB again, choose your SSD boot option now. System may reboot several times, it’s fine, always boot with USB until you’ll install OpenCore on your SSD.
That’s pretty much it! Install latest release of this repository on your laptop (feel free to DIY it, I’m just describing the easy way).

Allow apps downloaded from Anywhere and other useful configurations

In Terminal, type the following : sudo spctl --master-disable
In Finder > Preferences > General > Select to show hard disks on the desktop
In System Preferences > User and groups
- Click on the lock and type your password
- Click on Login Options and select your user in Automatic login

It just speeds up the configuration. You can put it back as it was after this guide.

Optimize

You may change boot entries, timeout and add additional boot options if you want.

Reboot

In System Preferences > Display, you should now see the Brightness slider. You may remap brightness change to F10-F11 as I did, stock keys require an SSDT patch.

Fn Keyboard Shortcuts (same as on Windows)

F3 : Disconnect from your wireless network. Pressing it again won’t connect you back. You’ll have to manually reselect your wireless network.
F4 : Put laptop to sleep
F5 : Switch between displays (when you have another monitor)
F6 : Disable/Enable main display
F7 (and also PrtSc) : Disable/Enable trackpad
F9 : Disable/Enable keyboard’s backlight
Up/Down: Volume

Messages and FaceTime fix

The simplest guide I found was the one here : https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/simple-imessage-guide-for-yosemite-and-el-capitan.186276/ , but I didn’t have any problems from start.

P.S Feel free to create issues to fix my guide or give me some suggestions, you’re welcome! Also, more comprehensive and descriptive guide can be found here

Credits:

Apple for macOS

Acer for laptop

RehabMan for great guides and useful files

alex.daoud for VoodooI2C kext and hints for making it work with the trackpad.

ioreknanou for making guide for older model, this one is edit of this

acidanthera for awesome kexts and first-class support for hackintosh enthusiasts

Other Useful Links

https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/faq-read-first-laptop-frequent-questions.164990/

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/312759-fix-macos-sierra-dp1-bcm94532z-wifi/

https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/guide-patching-dsdt-ssdt-for-laptop-backlight-control.152659/