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[Guide] El Capitan on the Intel Broadwell NUC

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El Capitan on the Broadwell NUC 5i3, 5i5, or 5i7

Other NUC guides, in case you're not looking for Broadwell/El Capitan:

Mavericks Yosemite El Capitan
Skylake N/A N/A guide
Broadwell N/A 5i3/5i5 only you're here!
Haswell guide guide guide
Ivy Bridge guide guide guide


10.11.4 WARNING: make this change before upgrading to 10.11.4, or use the fix in that post if you've already updated to 10.11.4 and can't boot any more.

What Works and Doesn’t
Other than wireless, pretty much everything works:
  • Audio via headphone jack or HDMI
  • Video via mini-HDMI and mini-DisplayPort (including 4K output)
  • USB3
  • Ethernet networking
  • m.2 SSDs including SATA (tested on 850 Evo m.2), PCIe (tested on Kingston HyperX Predator), and NVMe (tested on Samsung 950 Pro)
  • Power saving, sleep, etc.
Built-in hardware that doesn’t work due to lack of OS X drivers:
  • Wireless and Bluetooth (except on the NUC5i3MYHE and NUC5i5MYHE where you can install your own compatible wireless m.2 card: one option is the Dell DW1560 (BCM94352Z chip) sold by Dell, Amazon, and occasionally others)
    • Bluetooth may work, particularly if you configure it in Windows and then reboot into OS X without unplugging the machine (as that should upload firmware to the card).
    • WiFi driver development underway but doesn't yet connect to networks.
  • NFC
  • IR

Installation Prerequisites
  • A Broadwell NUC, model starting with NUC5i3 or NUC5i5 or NUC5i7
    • If you only use one RAM chip, it should be installed in the bottom slot. Using two identical RAM chips is better.
  • A working Mac or Hackintosh
  • A USB stick or drive, 8 GB or larger

Get El Capitan
  1. Open Mac App Store
  2. Log in with your Apple ID
  3. Download OS X El Capitan
  4. When the download finishes and the setup screen appears, Quit the app from the menu bar. You should now see the application /Applications/Install OS X El Capitan.app

Other Things to Download

BIOS Versions

RYH and RYK models (download here):

  • 0353: Same shutdown issue as 352. May require "FixShutdown" to be selected in Clover Configurator (ACPI screen) as well as the BIOS settings at the link below.
  • 0352: When you shut down, the NUC turns off, but 5 seconds later it starts up again. Try these settings to fix shutdown.
  • 0348: Perhaps the best choice for now. The only noticeable fix in 0350 is the resolution of the Visual BIOS screens, but the shutdown behavior isn't worth it.
  • 0246: Worked OK, but on the 5i7RYH the graphics were improved by upgrading to 0348.
5i3MYHE (download here):
  • 0034: Same shutdown issue as 0032. NUC freezes on boot when connected to certain 4K monitors. Doesn't want to downgrade to 0032/0030 via F2/F7. Probably best to avoid this release.
  • 0032: When you shut down, the NUC turns off, but 5 seconds later it starts up again. Try these settings to fix shutdown.
  • 0030: Recommended; Reported to work better than 0032
  • 0017: Works well, but doesn't have certain BIOS options (such as the USB mode)

BIOS Settings on the NUC
  • Press F2 during boot to access BIOS
  • Most important: on Advanced / Boot / Boot Priority screen, set UEFI Boot to checked. (It may show no boot devices; that is OK.) To avoid confusion, it’s best to set Legacy Boot to unchecked.
  • On Boot / Boot Configuration, set Network Boot to Disable
  • On Boot / Secure Boot make sure Secure Boot is unchecked
  • On Power make sure Wake on LAN from S4/S5 is unchecked (or else when you shut down the NUC may restart instead)
  • Set Devices / USB / xHCI Mode to Smart Auto
  • In Devices / Video set IGD Minimum Memory to 64 MB (exception: use 128 MB for the 5i5 or if the NUC won't boot with your monitor) and IGD Aperture Size to 256 MB
  • In Devices / Onboard Devices you can uncheck WLAN, Bluetooth, Near Field Communication (NFC), and Enhanced Consumer IR (unless you will dual-boot with an OS that recognizes all this hardware).
  • If you like, you can compare many of the other BIOS settings to the screen photos in the attached View attachment BIOSimages.zip

Prepare Bootable USB Drive Installer
This whole section should be performed on the working Mac/Hackintosh

  1. Insert the USB drive
  2. Open /Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility
  3. Highlight the USB drive in left column
  4. On a Yosemite or older system:
    1. Click on the Partition tab
    2. Click Current and choose 1 Partition
    3. Click Options...
    4. Choose GUID Partition Table
    5. Under Name: type USB
    6. Under Format: choose Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
    7. Click Apply then Partition. When it finishes, close Disk Utility.
  5. On an El Capitan or newer system:
    1. Click on the Erase button in the toolbar
    2. For Name: enter USB
    3. Make sure Format is set to OS X Extended (Journaled)
    4. Make sure Scheme is set to GUID Partition Map
    5. Hit Erase. When it finishes, close Disk Utility.
  6. Run UniBeast
    1. Hit Continue on the main screen, Continue on the UniBeast+MultiBeast screen, Continue on the Clover Credits screen, Continue on the Software License Agreement screen, and agree to the license
    2. Select your newly formatted USB drive (so it turns blue) on the Select a Destination screen and hit Continue
    3. Select El Capitan (so it turns blue) and hit Continue
    4. Select UEFI Boot Mode (so it turns blue) and hit Continue
    5. Leave all the graphics options unchecked (for the integrated 5xxx graphics) and hit Continue
    6. On the Verify Installation Options screen, hit Continue
    7. Enter you password when prompted and wait
    8. When the install finishes, hit Quit
  7. Create an extra directory called postinstall on the USB drive to hold the files you’ll need on the NUC after installation. Copy these files you downloaded to the new directory:
    • MultiBeast
    • The Clover Configurator zip
    • config.plist
    • OsxAptioFixDrv-64.efi.zip
    • The SSDT zip for your model
    • If using the suggested wireless adapter, KextBeast.zip and the two RehabMan zips
  8. Finally, if using an NVMe drive, copy the NVMe driver kext to EFI/CLOVER/kexts/10.10 and EFI/CLOVER/kexts/10.11 on the EFI partition of your USB drive.
  9. Eject the USB drive and insert it into the NUC.

Install El Capitan
Note: the speed of this installation process is not a reflection on the speed or quality of your hardware. It’s just going to take a while.

  1. Start the NUC with the USB drive inserted. If you set the BIOS to boot USB first, you should see the Clover boot screen. If not, you may need to press F10 during boot and then select your USB drive as the boot device; then you should see the Clover boot screen.
  2. Select Boot Mac OS X from USB (use left/right arrow keys to select from multiple options and press enter when the correct one is selected)
  3. You should see the apple logo and a progress bar as the installer loads.
  4. About 3/4 of the way through the progress bar, the apple logo may go crazy or the screen may turn all white. Keep waiting. It should recover and start a new progress bar shortly. Then you should see the OS X Utilities screen or just an OS X screen..
  5. If you're at the OS X Utilities screen select Disk Utility and hit Continue, or if you're at the OS X screen select Utilities / Disk Utility... from the menu bar.
  6. Select the drive on the left where you want to install El Capitan
  7. Hit Erase
  8. From the dialog that pops up, put in whatever Name you want for the disk, select the Format OS X Extended (Journaled), and the Scheme GUID Partition Map
  9. Hit Erase
  10. When the erase finishes, hit Done then Quit Disk Utility from the menu
  11. If you're at the OS X Utilities screen select Install OS X then hit Continue and then on the OS X El Capitan screen hit Continue. If you're at the OS X screen just hit Continue.
  12. On the license screen hit Agree or Continue and the on the popup Agree again
  13. Select the disk you just created by name and hit Install or Continue
  14. This stage of the installation will take some time. It may stick on “About a second remaining” for 10 minutes or more, but it should eventually restart. (The installation is not yet complete, though; do not remove the USB drive.)
  15. After the reboot, the NUC should boot to the Clover menu again. If it lets you boot to the new drive, you are actually on step 18 -- so boot to the new drive and continue with step 19. Otherwise, it will not yet offer the option to boot to the new installation. Once again, select Boot Mac OS X from USB and hit enter.
  16. The apple logo should appear and a new progress bar should start. After a while the Apple logo may go crazy again, leading to another progress bar.
  17. Eventually a graphical Install OS X screen should appear, with another progress bar. The fan may spin up for a while during this stage of the install.
  18. It will reboot again. At the Clover boot screen, select Boot Mac OS X from YourDiskName and you should get to the Welcome screen. (If you get a prohibited sign on the first try, just reboot again.) There may be the occasional graphical artifacts until you complete the Post-Install Configuration.
  19. Select your country, keyboard, and complete the rest of the setup process. Tell it your computer does not connect to the Internet. Do not "Transfer Information to This Mac" yet either (you can run Migration Assistant later to do that).
  20. After the setup, you should end up at the desktop. Congratulations! But you must still perform the post-install setup next.

Post-Installation Configuration
Note: You must complete this or else your Hackintosh won’t be able to boot without the USB drive in place.

  1. Copy all the files from the postinstall directory of the USB stick to your NUC (e.g. to Downloads)
  2. Eject and remove the USB install drive
  3. Run the copy of MultiBeast you just copied to the new drive.
  4. Select Quick Start and then UEFI Boot Mode
  5. Select Drivers and then Audio and the Realtek ALCxxx and then ALC283
  6. Select Drivers/Network/Intel/IntelMausiEthernet (the AppleIntelE1000e v3.3.1 should also work, but causes problems with sleep/wake in some configurations, so the Mausi driver is preferred)
  7. Hit Save on the top right to save a copy of this configuration for future reference.
  8. Hit Build and then Install
  9. When it says "Install Succeeded" then quit MultiBeast
  10. The MultiBeast installation should have left the EFI partition of your system drive mounted (called EFI in Finder).
  11. If using an NVMe drive, copy the NVMe driver kext to the EFI/EFI/CLOVER/kexts/10.10 and EFI/EFI/CLOVER/kexts/10.11 directories on the EFI partition
  12. Navigate to EFI/EFI/CLOVER/ACPI/patched/
  13. Unzip the SSDT zip for your machine and copy SSDT-CPU.aml and SSDT-GPU.aml into that directory
  14. Navigate to EFI/EFI/CLOVER/driver64UEFI/
  15. Delete the file OsxAptioFix2Drv-64.efi and unzip and copy in the OsxAptioFixDrv-64.efi from the postinstall directory (this should prevent the occasional boot to the prohibited sign)
  16. Set up config.plist (the Clover configuration file):
    • Copy the config.plist you downloaded to EFI/EFI/CLOVER/ and replace the one that MultiBeast generated
    • Run the Clover Configurator app you downloaded.
    • Use File/Open to load the file EFI/EFI/CLOVER/config.plist
    • Select the Boot entry on the left and on the right replace MacSSD under Default Boot Volume with the name you gave your El Capitan system drive. This is required for it to boot into the OS after a few seconds without waiting indefinitely for your input.
    • Hit File/Save to update the config.plist
  17. If you want iCloud/iMessage/etc., then you must further customize config.plist. For more details on this process see How to Fix iMessage.
    1. Still in Clover Configurator, go to SMBIOS on the left
    2. Click the "magic wand" icon
    3. You have several choices for the machine configuration to use:
      • The closest match to an Apple machine with the same CPU is the MacBook Air 7,2, but Clover Configurator doesn't have that option. So if you want it: select the MacBook Air image (currently third from left) and then MacBook Air 6,2 and generate a serial number with the shake buttons as below. But don't hit OK from the magic wand window -- just write down the four middle characters of the serial number it generated, hit Close, and then replace the four zeroes in the middle of the Serial Number field with the four characters you wrote down.
      • If you don't want to bother with all that, another relatively modern system that generally works well is the iMac 14,1
      • The old standby is Mac Pro 3,1
    4. Select one of those and click shake next to Week of Manufacture a few times and shake next to Unit Number a few times
    5. Hit OK to copy the values into your config.plist
    6. Copy the value it put in the Serial Number field
    7. Go to the Rt Variables screen on the left
    8. Paste your serial number into the MLB field, and then add 5 random characters or digits to the end, to make 17 characters total (unless you picked Mac Pro 3,1, in which case you should add 2 characters to make 13 total).
    9. File/Save config.plist and Quit Clover Configurator.
  18. Eject and remove the USB drive and reboot the NUC
  19. You should get a Clover menu on restart, and you can select Boot Mac OS X from YourDriveName or let it do it automatically. During the boot you may temporarily get the messed-up apple logo, but it should quickly proceed to the login screen. Other than the splitting logo during startup, you should not see any more graphical artifacts.

At this point your Ethernet networking should work. If you look in System Preferences / Network, you should see an Ethernet entry and it should be green if the network is hooked up properly. Audio should work, either over HDMI or the headphone jack. In System Preferences / Sound you can turn on the volume control in the menu bar. If you have headphones handy, try playing a song in iTunes to be sure.


Optional Network Setup
If you have the suggested wireless card, it will not yet work. To fix this:
  1. Unzip RehabMan-FakePCIID.zip and copy FakePCIID.kext and FakePCIID_Broadcom_WiFi.kext from the Release/ directory to the Desktop
  2. Unzip RehabMan-BrcmPatchRam.zip and copy BcrmPatchRAM2.kext and BrcmFirmwareRepo.kext from the Release/ directory to the Desktop
  3. Unzip the KextBeast application you copied from the postinstall directory of the USB stick earlier. Run the resulting application.
  4. Select /Library/Extensions to install to.
  5. After KextBeast completes, delete the kext files from the Desktop
  6. Restart the NUC
  7. After the restart, your wireless and Bluetooth should be working.

An alternative wireless option is to install a USB wireless dongle inside the machine, using the internal USB2 header (for RYH or MYHE models; not enough space in the RYK models). This doesn't get as good reception as plugging into a USB port outside the case, but it may still be sufficient -- and it leaves the machine more streamlined and doesn't take up an external USB port. Note that sleep may not work while the wireless is active:




That’s it! Other than the driver issues listed at the very top, your NUC should be working in El Capitan. Enjoy.




Credits: tonymacx86 (original Clover installation procedure), MacMan (UniBeast, MultiBeast), reader123 (original NUC5i5 with Yosemite install procedure), RehabMan and toleda (extensive Q&A, troubleshooting, driver assistance)
CPU SSDTs from ssdtPRgen.sh
GPU SSDTs from toleda
MYHE wireless kexts from RehabMan (wireless and bluetooth), Bluetooth handoff enabler from lisai9093

Appendix A: El Capitan Releases
10.11.0: clean install OK
10.11.1: clean install OK, update from 10.11.0 via the App Store OK
10.11.2: update from 10.11.1 via the App Store OK, except Ethernet stopped working after sleep/wake (remove the old driver and use MultiBeast 8.1 or higher and install Drivers / Network / Intel / IntelMausiEthernet to fix)
10.11.3: clean install OK, update from 10.11.2 via the App Store OK
10.11.4: clean install OK, see this post before updating from earlier versions!

Appendix B: Windows 10 Dual Boot (same drive)
If you'd like to install Windows 10 in a dual boot configuration on the same drive as El Capitan, follow these additional steps. There are many ways to do the installation, this is just one that is known to work.

Requirements
  • Your El Capitan install USB drive (if you wipe this out to use for Windows, you will have to recreate it later)
  • A USB drive to use for the Windows installer
  • A Windows 10 ISO
  • An existing Windows computer to prepare the ISO
    • If you don't have a Windows computer, skip the next section and see n3oNLit3's instructions in this post to prepare a bootable USB Windows installer

Prepare Windows 10 USB on a Windows computer
  1. Download the Windows USB/DVD Download Tool
  2. Insert your USB stick or drive
  3. Run the tool
  4. Select your Windows 10 ISO
  5. Select the USB install type
  6. Select your USB drive
  7. Wait for it to finish and move the USB drive to the NUC

Install Windows 10
Start from the working El Capitan install above, and:
  1. Open Disk Utility
  2. Select your El Capitan drive (not the partition underneath it)
  3. Select Partition
  4. Hit the + to add a new partition for Windows, and drag the pie chart slider until the two partitions are sized appropriately
  5. Leave the format of the new partition as OS X Extended (Journaled).
  6. Hit Apply
  7. With the Windows USB drive attached, restart the NUC
  8. If the BIOS is not set to boot USB devices first, hit F10 and select the USB drive
  9. Install Windows. When you get to the pick a disk partition screen, select the partition you created for Windows above (easiest to identify by size, usually). Delete the partition, then format it. When it prompts you that Windows may create extra partitions, that's OK. Then select the new big partition it created to install to.
  10. After the first reboot during the Windows install, if the NUC is still set to boot USB devices first, you will need to remove the USB drive. If you missed it and you're back at the "choose a language" installer screen, remove the USB and reboot to boot to the new install and continue the process.
  11. After the Windows install completes and leaves you at the desktop, go to Settings / Update & security / Windows Update and install all available updates. (You can skip this, but you'll probably have more work later if you do because the updates may break the boot loader.)

Fix Dual Booting

  1. At this point, the NUC is booting only to Windows. Insert your El Capitan install USB drive and restart. Use F10 if needed to boot to the USB.
  2. You should see a Clover menu. Select Boot Mac OS X from YourDriveName.
  3. Once in OS X, mount your EFI partition. You may need to use diskutil list to identify the correct partition, but the typical command is:
    Code:
    mkdir /Volumes/EFI && sudo mount_msdos /dev/disk0s1 /Volumes/EFI
  4. Go to the EFI partition
  5. Go to EFI/Microsoft/Boot/ and rename bootmgfw.efi to bootmgfw-orig.efi
  6. Copy EFI/CLOVER/CLOVERX64.efi to EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi
  7. Eject the El Capitan install USB drive
  8. Reboot
  9. You should get a Clover menu, with the usual settings to boot to OS X and also new Windows options. To start Windows, select Boot Microsoft EFI boot menu from EFI​.
  10. After future Windows updates, Windows may reset the EFI partition to boot only to Windows again. You'll need to repeat the steps in this section.
You should now be able to boot to both Windows and OS X!

Appendix C: 4K Monitors
Some results of my testing and your reports:

Working:

Mostly Working:
  • Seiki SE39UY04 via HDMI: need a current BIOS release (0348 is good for an RYK/RYH; 0350 is not good). On some configurations you might need to wiggle the HDMI adapter after it gets to the login screen to eliminate some colored artifacts.
  • Seiki SE39UY04 via DisplayPort-to-HDMI: some adapters have a max resolution of 1920x1080. Best case is an "active" adapter, preferably one that states it has 4K support.
  • Dell P2715Q 4k@60Hz via DisplayPort: Boot into OS X, monitor goes to power save mode, but when you power it off and back on again, it works.

Not Working:
  • Dell UP2414Q via DisplayPort: monitor goes to power save mode and never wakes up.
 
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[Guide] 10.11 on Intel Broadwell NUC 2.0

oh my God, Thank you very mach...:thumbup:
 
[Guide] 10.11 on Intel Broadwell NUC 2.0

It looks like some serious work went into this. Nice job :thumbup: :clap:
 
[Guide] 10.11 on Intel Broadwell NUC 2.0

Thank you! :clap:
 
[Guide] 10.11 on Intel Broadwell NUC 2.0

You are a star!!


el capitan on the broadwell nuc 5i3, 5i5, or 5i7

(for yosemite on the nuc5i5, see the nuc thread post #185. The nuc5i7 has some graphics issues with yosemite and i don't recommend it.)
...


you just simple super star!!!

Bw
 
[Guide] 10.11 on Intel Broadwell NUC 2.0

Awesome work - thank you so much.
 
[Guide] 10.11 on Intel Broadwell NUC 2.0

Ammulder, amazing work, things are working great, the only thing I'm running into is graphic glitching when connected to a 4K display, even if I change the display to be 1920x1080 it still glitches out, but moving it down to 1600x900 fixes the problem, could this be something to do with the graphics clock not running fast enough to support desktop redraw in UHD sampled size? (Referring to the retina redraw in Mac where 1920x1080 is actually a resampled 3840x2160)

Thanks!
 
[Guide] 10.11 on Intel Broadwell NUC 2.0

Thanks all!

On the 4K display:

Three tips:
  • For RYK/RYH models: Get on a BIOS release newer than 0246. 0348 seems to be working well. There are some issues with 0350.
  • In you BIOS under Devices/Video:
    • Set IGD Minimum Memory to 64 MB (for the NUC5i7) or 128 MB (for the NUC5i5)
    • Set IGD Aperture Size to 256 MB
  • For Mini DisplayPort output, make sure you have an active adapter that says it supports 4K
 
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[Guide] 10.11 on Intel Broadwell NUC 2.0

Here are some 4K testing results with the GM release. I will add to this post as I test more configurations. The SE39UY04 I have to test with only does 4K at 30Hz, FWIW.

With a basic Mini-DP to HDMI adapter, the resolution is limited to 1920x1080. With an "active" adapter, 4K works.

My early issues were with BIOS 0246. Fixed in 0348 (though 0350 has some issues). Also issues with IGD Aperture Size set to 128 MB. Fixed with 256 MB. 5i5 also needs IGD Minimum Memory set to 128 MB. Now things look pretty good.

NUC5i3MYHE (BIOS 0017) on Seiki SE39UY04, installed as above:
  • Mini-DP to HDMI adapter + HDMI cable (right port looking at the back): 4K works perfectly with an active adapter.
  • Mini-DP to HDMI adapter + HDMI cable (left port looking at the back): A little trouble getting it working, perhaps due to various experiments done with an older non-active adapter. But once working, 4K works perfectly with an active adapter.

NUC5i5RYK (BIOS 0348) on Seiki SE39UY04:
  • Mini-HDMI to HDMI cable: Works well at 4K (native or scaled) with IGD Minimum Memory set to 128 MB. Some strange flashing when the login screen is first coming up, but no problems after that.
  • Mini-DP to HDMI active adapter + HDMI cable: Works great at 4K with IGD Minimum Memory set to 128 MB. No apparent artifacts.

NUC5i7RYH (BIOS 0348) on Seiki SE39UY04:
  • Mini-HDMI to HDMI cable: Works great at 4K (native or scaled) with IGD Aperture Size set to 256 MB. No apparent artifacts.
  • Mini-DP to HDMI active adapter + HDMI cable: Same as above.
 
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[Guide] 10.11 on Intel Broadwell NUC 2.0

Hi,

I just installed Mac OS X on my i3 NUC with your guide. Thanks a lot for that. It looks like all is working fine.
I use the NUC with a 4k Asus PB287Q monitor over DisplayPort and it looks like all resolution and scaling options are working.
 
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