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Official CustoMac Mini 2011 Guide and Notes (in progress)

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I should have clarified.

I am able to install 10.9.2 and 10.9.4 FRESH onto a blank drive. And I am able to boot. Albeit, without audio drivers or HDMI audio working.

But what I'm more curious about is what steps I need to take to UPGRADE my smoothly running 10.7.5 install to 10.9.4.

That's the kind of guide and posts I'm looking for.

My thanks to anyone who can point me in the right direction.

Thanks!
 
Anyone still running this guy? i've got mine up and going fine on Sierra - thinking about performing some upgrades soon. I still have the lowest recommended CPU in it and 8mb ram, same old USB3 motherboard. It's basically stock as original post was, just added a gelid low profile cooler. Been running fine all these years.
 
Anyone still running this guy? i've got mine up and going fine on Sierra - thinking about performing some upgrades soon. I still have the lowest recommended CPU in it and 8mb ram, same old USB3 motherboard. It's basically stock as original post was, just added a gelid low profile cooler. Been running fine all these years.

Yes, here!
But on Sierra, I've never got HDMI audio to work, how did you get it to work?
Mine is used as an HTPC so this is absolutely crucial. Currently I'm still using 10.9.5.
 
Anyone still running this guy? i've got mine up and going fine on Sierra - thinking about performing some upgrades soon. I still have the lowest recommended CPU in it and 8mb ram, same old USB3 motherboard. It's basically stock as original post was, just added a gelid low profile cooler. Been running fine all these years.

... and here as well. Currently running Sierra & booting with Clover. The only problem (since Clover eliminated audio loss), is very randomly, the system will permanently freeze requiring a hard restart.
I've never gotten to the bottom of this, and it's very infrequent.

cheers
 
... and here as well. Currently running Sierra & booting with Clover. The only problem (since Clover eliminated audio loss), is very randomly, the system will permanently freeze requiring a hard restart.
I've never gotten to the bottom of this, and it's very infrequent.

cheers
Ha just checked back in randomly on this - Mine does this too. I think it's heat related, but I could be wrong. Otherwise works well. I might look at upgrading it here soon - I ordered some stuff to cut into the case, it's still just too hot inside I think, I end up running it open a lot now.
 
Ha just checked back in randomly on this - Mine does this too. I think it's heat related, but I could be wrong. Otherwise works well. I might look at upgrading it here soon - I ordered some stuff to cut into the case, it's still just too hot inside I think, I end up running it open a lot now.

I've tried upgrading to High Sierra now multiple times, using various methods and suggestions from these forums. So far without success. Usually halts 2/3 way thru' the install with the prohibited sign.
I'd be interested to see how you fare.

cheers,

JAv
 
I've tried upgrading to High Sierra now multiple times, using various methods and suggestions from these forums. So far without success. Usually halts 2/3 way thru' the install with the prohibited sign.
I'd be interested to see how you fare.

cheers,

JAv
Do you mean that it gets half-way through booting and gives you the prohibited sign?

I'm in the process of trying to get one of our two H67N-USB3-B3 boards running, and so far, I've got to the point where I can see the installer window. Sadly, the drives weren't recognized (new drive installation) but i've just put the third-party ACHI kext onto the USB installer, so I'll see what happens next...
 
Just as an update: I'm in the process of a fresh install using High Sierra, and a newly-purchased GT710 replacing the old graphics card I had in the system.

Seems to be working just fine: I'm going to report on this all when I've finished with the install.
 
Update time!

My daughter managed to break her 1TB Western Digital drive by dropping something heavy on the computer case, sending the read/write head into the disk at very high speed.

So, I headed down to Best Buy and managed to pick up an EVO Pro 250 GB SSD Drive and a GT 710 graphics card for $120. Opened up the beast, and gave it some open heart surgery, and now have High Sierra 10.13.1 running happily!

Steps:

1) Ensure you're using the latest BIOS -- F9 (For the H67N-USB3-B3)

2) Use Unibeast to create a new High Sierra installer as per the standard instructions.

3) Install new drive (or erase the existing one). Bear in mind the drive may not show up initially in Disk Utility, so you may need to tell Disk Utility to show all drives, exit, and then relaunch the utility to display the drive. Because I'm using an SSD, I formatted the drive as Apple's new AFPS format.

4) Install OS X, following prompts. It will reboot a couple of times, and if it's mid-install, you'll have to select the pre-boot drive that shows up in Clover.

5) Log in, and install Multibeast as per usual. You'll need to install legacy bootloader config, but for some reason you'll end up with a double Clover Boot loader (which I'd appreciate help with... more in a second).

6) Put the latest DSDT in your /EFI/Clover/ACPI/Patched/ folder. This will fix your sleep issues... (Well, not yours, the computes's).

7) In order to install the correct audio drivers, patch the DSDT for 889 -- you can find plenty of tutorials on here showing you how to do that. I cheated, by using the patch from Multibeast 6.1.0 -- and then creating /Extra/ before putting a copy of the DSDT.aml in /Extra/ for the patch to take place. Then I used EFI mounter to mount the EFI partition, and put the modified DSDT.aml into /EFI/Clover/ACPI/Patched.

And then, have a merry old time!

Now to the Clover Bootloader. I've updated to the latest version of Clover, and for some reason it (and the version that Multibeast installs in Legacy Mode) gives me TWO bootloaders.

On bootup, I'm given a blank Clover window, with no boot drives showing. If you EXIT that Clover, it gives a second instance of Clover where all my drives are visible.

I'm not sure why this is, but I'm okay to live with it for now as I'm out for the week for business and my daughter has a working computer. ;)

Will update when I can.

Nikki.
 
NICE, thanks so much for this. I'll give this a shot sometime, Sierra is working perfectly for me, so I don't want to mess it up right now.

As a sidenote, I just moved this build out of the Apex MI-008 into a Cooler Master Elite 130. I was having too many heat issues lately. Mainly my fault though, as I refuse to have a noisy build, so I run my fans at very low speeds. I'm sure letting them go full speed would be fine, but I like a silent build.

I also installed a liquid cooler, Corsair H55. MUCH MUCH better and no reboots. My CPU idles at 26-27C, peaks under 100% load at 40C. I'm not really sure why they still recommend the Apex on new builds, this case is much better in almost every way. Higher quality, thought out well, allows for liquid cooling, etc. Maybe its a size thing, cause it is a bit bigger. I have it running with a silent fan on resistors on the radiator, and nothing else, seems good. Might add a fan on resistors just to move air on the motherboard.

If you are looking to do the same, just note that the PSU from the Apex build is too small for the case, it still works fine but some kind of cover has to go over the space in the back (if you care). Also, the USB 3.0 ports on the front have a 19 pin plug, just need an adapter to plug them into the motherboard.

Otherwise, it's much much better. Love the liquid cooler, build is totally silent almost. I just was so frustrated with the heat and space issues all the time. Seemed to get worse over time, assuming it's because the OS and applications have gotten more intensive.

I will probably slowly upgrade it over time, but for now, it still seems to work great for me as is.

Update time!

My daughter managed to break her 1TB Western Digital drive by dropping something heavy on the computer case, sending the read/write head into the disk at very high speed.

So, I headed down to Best Buy and managed to pick up an EVO Pro 250 GB SSD Drive and a GT 710 graphics card for $120. Opened up the beast, and gave it some open heart surgery, and now have High Sierra 10.13.1 running happily!


Nikki.
 
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