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[Guide] El Capitan on the Skylake H170N-WIFI

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Sep 1, 2014
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Motherboard
GA-H87N-WIFI
CPU
i7-4790S
Graphics
GT 740
Mac
  1. MacBook Pro
  2. Mac mini
Mobile Phone
  1. iOS
El Capitan on the GA-H170N-WIFI
This guide assumes you are installing from scratch.

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My Configuration
  • BIOS F4c (initially tested with F3)
  • Core i7-6700
  • 2x 8 GB DDR4-2133
  • Either integrated HD530 graphics (with OS X 10.11.4 or higher) or GeForce GT 730/740/960
  • Either Kingston HyperX Predator m.2 PCIe x4 SSD or Samsung 850 Evo m.2 SATA SSD
  • Dell DW1560 (BCM94352Z chip) m.2 WiFi/Bluetooth card (replacing the Intel wireless card it shipped with)

What Works
  • SATA and PCIe x4 m.2 system drives
  • Audio (tested with case and rear headphone outputs -- HDMI audio working only on an Nvidia card)
  • USB, including USB3 (speed confirmed 409 MB/s write and 418 MB/s read with external SSD) and the USB3.0 Type C port
  • Wireless networking via m.2 DW1560 card (get it from Dell, Amazon, or others)
  • Straight 4K or 1080P Retina when using integrated graphics with a 4K monitor
  • iTunes radio, including Beats One
  • Sleep/wake
  • Intel i219 Ethernet port (the port next to the audio jacks)
  • When using an Nvidia graphics card:
    • All high-resolution modes when using a 4K monitor
    • Audio over HDMI
    • GT 740 benchmarks using OS X native drivers: Heaven: 15.6 FPS @ 1920x1080, Cinebench 55.5 FPS, Luxmark 1028
    • GT 740 benchmarks using Nvidia Web driver: Heaven: 15.9 FPS @ 1920x1080, Cinebench 58 FPS, Luxmark 1007

What Doesn't Work At All
  • With HD 530 integrated graphics only:
    • Retina resolutions above 1080p Retina when using a 4K monitor
    • Two simultaneous 4K monitors
    • Audio over HDMI
  • Intel i211 Ethernet port (the port above the USB3 type C connector) -- reasonably often gets a kernel panic during startup or regular operation
  • The Intel WiFi that the board ships with
  • HD movie previews in iTunes, suggesting that any rented or purchased movies may not work.

Installation Prerequisites

  • A GA-H170N-WIFI build
  • A working Mac or Hackintosh
  • A USB stick or drive, 16 GB or larger

Get El Capitan

  1. Open Mac App Store
  2. Log in with your Apple ID
  3. Download OS X El Capitan (10.11.4 or higher)
  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 Settings

  • Press DEL during boot to access BIOS
  • In BIOS Features:
    • Fast Boot: Disabled
    • VT-d: Disabled
    • Windows 8/10 Features: Other OS
    • LAN PXE Boot Option ROM: Disabled
    • Storage Boot Option Contro: UEFI Only
    • Network Stack: Disabled
  • In Peripherals:
    • Initial Display Output: PCIe 1 Slot (if graphics card installed) or IGFX (otherwise)
    • XHCI Hand-off: Enabled
  • In Chipset:
    • VT-d: Disabled




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 Installer
    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 Installer
    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. Select appropriate graphics options (nothing checked for the GT740 or onboard HD530 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. Customize the USB install drive so all USB ports on the machine are recognized for the installer. UniBeast should have left a drive mounted that appears as "EFI" in Finder. Go to that drive and:
    • Go to EFI/CLOVER/kexts/ and copy the USBInjectall.kext you downloaded (get it from the "Release" directory of the ZIP) into 10.11/ AND 10.10/ (must be in both!)
    • Copy the config.plist you downloaded over the default one at EFI/CLOVER/config.plist
  8. Create an extra directory called postinstall on the USB drive to hold the files you’ll need on the machine after installation. Copy these files you downloaded to the new directory:
    • MultiBeast
    • KextBeast
    • Clover Configurator
    • USBInjectAll.kext
    • SSDT(s)
    • config.plist
    • If using recommended wireless above: The two RehabMan zips
  9. Eject the USB drive and insert it into the new machine.

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 GA-H170N-WIFI machine with the USB drive inserted. If you don't see the Clover boot screen, restart and hit F12 at the BIOS splash screen to get a list of boot devices, and select the UEFI entry for your USB drive.
  2. Select Boot Mac OS X from Installer (it should have a picture labeled "EXTERNAL"; 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. After a couple of progress bars (one of which takes a long time with little apparent progress), you should be prompted to select a language. Then you should see the OS X screen.
  5. 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. Back at the OS X screen hit Continue.
  12. On the license screen hit Continue
  13. Select the disk you just created by name and hit Continue
  14. This stage of the installation will take some time. It may stick for up to 5 minutes at different points, but it should eventually restart. (The installation is not yet complete, though; do not remove the USB drive.)
  15. After the reboot, the machine should boot to the Clover menu again. If it says there's no boot device or boots to the wrong thing, reboot and hit F12 from the BIOS splash screen and select the USB drive. At that point you should get the Clover menu. At the Clover menu, select Boot Mac OS X from YourDiskName and you should get to the Welcome screen.
  16. 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).
  17. 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. If you are using integrated graphics, you should expect some graphical glitches, particularly in the menu bar and window title bars.

  1. Copy all the files from the postinstall directory of the USB stick to your new El Capitan install (e.g. to Downloads)
  2. Run the copy of MultiBeast you just copied to the new drive.
  3. Select Quick Start and then UEFI Boot Mode
  4. Select Drivers and then Audio and then Realtek ALCxxx and then ALC1150
  5. Select Drivers and then Network then Intel then IntelMausiEthernet (while the latest AppleIntelE1000e driver also works for this Ethernet chip, it breaks sleep/wake in some configurations so the Mausi driver is preferred)
  6. If you want to enable the i211 Ethernet port above the USB Type C port (not recommended), select Drivers/Network/Intel/AppleIGB
  7. Go to Customize then System Definitions:
    • If using an Nvidia card, select Mac Pro / Mac Pro 3,1. This will avoid needed to manually edit files after every system update.
    • If using integrated graphics, select iMac / iMac 17,1. At present, this is the only Apple model with a Skylake chip.
  8. Hit Save on the top right to save a copy of this configuration for future reference.
  9. Hit Build and then Install
  10. When it says "Install Succeeded" then quit MultiBeast
  11. Record the serial number that MultiBeast generated. To do this:
    1. Run the Clover Configurator app from your postinstall directory (may be in "CCV.zip")
    2. Select the file EFI/EFI/CLOVER/config.plist to open (it should be listed on the bottom of the main window).
    3. Go to SMBIOS on the left and copy the value out of the Serial Number field.
    4. Quit Clover Configurator so you can overwrite the config file.
  12. The MultiBeast installation should have left the EFI partition of your system drive mounted (called EFI in Finder).
  13. Copy the following files from your postinstall directory to the EFI partition:
    • Any SSDTs to EFI/CLOVER/ACPI/patched/
    • config.plist to EFI/CLOVER/config.plist -- this file has a grab bag of fixes in it, including an audio fix, HDMI fixes, a Bluetooth fix, an integrated graphics fix, and a USB tweak.
  14. Copy USBInjectAll.kext from your postinstall directory to the Desktop.
  15. If using the suggested wireless card above, extract these four kexts:
    • Unzip RehabMan-FakePCIID.zip and copy FakePCIID.kext and FakePCIID_Broadcom_WiFi.kext from the Release/ directory to the Desktop
    • Unzip RehabMan-BrcmPatchRam.zip and copy BcrmPatchRAM2.kext and BrcmFirmwareRepo.kext from the Release/ directory to the Desktop
  16. Unzip the KextBeast application you copied from the postinstall directory of the USB stick earlier. Run the resulting application, and select /Library/Extensions as the install location when prompted.
  17. After KextBeast finishes, delete the kext(s) from the Desktop
  18. Open Clover Configurator again and open the file EFI/EFI/CLOVER/config.plist again.
  19. Go to the Boot screen on the left. Enter your system drive name (e.g. "Macintosh HD" or whatever you named it) under Default Boot Volume.
  20. Go to the SMBIOS screen on the left and overwrite the Serial Number with the one you saved before.
  21. Set the Size and Frequency for each of the two memory entries to match your installed RAM. If you know the vendor, part, and serial for your memory you can edit those fields too (if not, just leave them as is). Leave the two memory entries set for slots 0 and 2 and the slot count set for 4 even though the board only has two slots (Clover wants to see slots 0 and 2 configured to treat the memory as dual-channel).
  22. If you don’t care about iCloud/iMessage/etc. then hit File/Save to save config.plist and Quit Clover Configurator.
  23. Otherwise if you do want iCloud/iMessage/etc., then you must further customize config.plist. For more details on this process see How to Fix iMessage.
    1. Leave Clover Configurator on the SMBIOS screen. Open Terminal.app and run "uuidgen". Paste the output in the SmUUID field in Clover Configurator (next to the Serial Number).
    2. Copy the value in the Serial Number field
    3. Go to the RtVariables screen on the left
    4. Paste your serial number into the MLB field, and then:
      • For an Nvidia graphics / MacPro3,1 configuration, add 2 random characters or digits to the end, to make 13 characters total.
      • For an integrated graphics / iMac17,1 configuration, add 5 random characters or digits to the end, to make 17 characters total.
    5. Enter a value for the ROM field. If you will use an Ethernet port on the machine, you can select "UseMacAddr0" from the drop-down. Otherwise, enter 12 random hexadecimal digits.
    6. File/Save config.plist and Quit Clover Configurator.
  24. Eject and remove the USB install drive
  25. Restart your system. It may take some time to restart.
  26. You should get a Clover menu on restart, and you can select Boot Mac OS X from YourDriveName or let it do it automatically. It should quickly proceed to the login screen.
  27. After the restart, your audio jacks should be working. In System Preferences / Sound you can turn on the volume control in the menu bar. If you have speakers or headphones handy, try playing a song in iTunes to be sure.
    • To get headphone output, try the output called "Internal Speakers". It should work if you plug headphones into the green audio out on the back, or the audio out on your case. If you use the one on your case, the name may change to "Headphones".
  28. If using an Nvidia card that's not supported out of the box, install the Nvidia Web drivers. While that installation runs (before restarting at the end):
    • Open Clover Configurator, mount your EFI partition, and select EFI/CLOVER/config.plist.
    • Go to the Boot screen and uncheck the box for nv_disable=1 on the Boot screen and then check the box for nvda_drv=1
    • File / Save and then Quit Clover Configurator
    • After the Nvidia Web drivers installer finishes, restart. After that you should get full graphics acceleration.
_
Final Power Saving Setup
At this point CPU power saving is not fully configured, which may cause problems with heating and/or sleep mode. To fix this:

  1. If you have one of the following CPUs, mount your system drive EFI partition again and select the one correct SSDT and copy it to EFI/CLOVER/ACPI/patched/ (future versions of this guide will use ssdtPRGen.sh but the version with Skylake support is not yet ready). Your system will still run OK without the SSDT, but may not reach full turbo speeds or maintain turbo speeds for as long.
  2. Reboot one last time
  3. If you want to confirm that your CPU is using the correct speeds and power states with the SSDT above, there are tools and techniques at http://www.tonymacx86.com/mavericks...vericks-native-cpu-igpu-power-management.html
  4. If you have sleep/wake problems but only after your machine has been sleeping for a long time ("standby" mode), try running the following terminal command to restrict it to regular "sleep" instead of allowing standby:
    Code:
    sudo pmset -a standby 0 && sudo pmset -a autopoweroff 0



That’s it! Your hackintosh should be working in El Capitan. Enjoy.




Credits: tonymacx86 (original Clover installation procedure)
UniBeast and MultiBeast from MacMan, with audio install based on Audio script by toleda
USB fix procedure from RehabMan
Wireless kexts from RehabMan (wireless and bluetooth), Bluetooth handoff enabler from lisai9093


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Appendix: 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.

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 hackintosh

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 hackintosh
  8. If the BIOS does not boot the USB drive first, hit F12 and select the USB drive (you want the UEFI entry in order to be able to install to a GPT 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 your hackintosh is 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 machine will be booting only to Windows. Insert your El Capitan install USB drive and restart. Use F12 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 with EFI Mounter v3
  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!
 
Last edited:
Awesome! Ill try this on my Gigabyte z170 HD3 board soon. :D
 
Awesome! Ill try this on my Gigabyte z170 HD3 board soon. :D

OK -- just be aware you probably won't want to use the FixUSB kext I put in the guide, because your USB port arrangement is probably different. You may end up with only USB2 devices working until you configure a port injector kext for your board.
 
I have a 4790K system running at 4GHZ that gets 17k in Geekbench3, it could be your SSD lowering your scores.
 
Very nice guide, lucky are those who have the same hardware.. I have different hardware but even tho I could get the benefits from the last Fix Dual Boot guide, unfortunately as I mounted the EFI partition I see no Microsoft folder inside :think: . For now dual boot works for me from the BIOS which is also not that bad when someone get used to it.. ;)
 
I have a 4790K system running at 4GHZ that gets 17k in Geekbench3, it could be your SSD lowering your scores.

It's normal for the i7 4790k to benchmark a little higher than the i7 6700k.
 
can PLEASE you test and post screenshots of this benchmarks running in HD530?

That's sort of pointless -- the HD530 support is terrible right now. I mean, you can navigate the desktop if you don't mind your menu bar and title bars flashing black and yellow, but there's no way you'd use it for any typical graphics stuff until the drivers improve.

When last I tried on the 530, Luxmark scored worse than an HD 5500, and Heaven would run the "tour" but if you clicked "Benchmark" the app just quit.

At this point, I think an Nvidia card is the way to go. We'll see if a couple more OS X builds can turn it around. :)
 
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