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[Success] iDell XPS 8300 *Yosemite 10.10.4*

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[Success] iDell XPS 8300 *Yosemite 10.10.5*

Hey guys, I'm finally able to make my guide on installing Yosemite on the Dell XPS 8300. I've been running Yosemite since its first Developer Preview and it runs flawlessly on the XPS system. I've been running OS X on the XPS system since Lion, following the tutelage of Gravewyrm and here's a link to his guide if you guys wanna run Lion: http://www.tonymacx86.com/lion-desk...ess-project-idell-xps-8300-lion-10-7-3-a.html. I made my own guide for ML and here's the link to that if you wish to install ML: http://www.tonymacx86.com/mountain-...ss-idell-xps-8300-mountain-lion-10-8-2-a.html, and one for Mavericks as well: http://www.tonymacx86.com/mavericks...-success-idell-xps-8300-mavericks-10-9-a.html. All three of these OSes run amazingly well, but I can say without a doubt Yosemite has solved every single issue.

I have been using the system since it released in its beta form, and its been running smoothly. I apologize for not posting a guide as soon as the system came out, but I've been quite busy.

Yosemite makes life really easy because there are two ways to go about installing the system, upgrade and a fresh install. The upgrade allows you to jump from Mavericks to Yosemite without sacrificing any of your files, while the fresh install treats the computer as a brand-new entity. You can choose which way you wish to progress, but I suggest the fresh install. Simply back-up your files from your old Hackintosh and transfer them over after the fresh install. I have not done the upgrade since the Beta version of Yosemite so I cannot guarantee the flawless results that I received. If anyone does upgrade from Mavericks, comment here so others can rest assured that the results have not changed since my time during the Beta.

On to the guide!

Method Number 1: (Upgrade from Mavericks)
If you have followed my old guide on installing ML or Mavericks all you have to do is use Unibeast to create a bootable USB stick. Follow Tony's guide if you want to know what exactly you have to do in order to create the bootable USB.

Once you have created the bootable USB enter your BIOS and hit the F12 key to get into the boot selection menu. Enter "Setup" and make sure your Hard Drive mode is set to AHCI. Save and exit. Now when booting up the PC again hit the F12 key, and boot from the USB stick and select your installer. Since you already have Mavericks installed (again remember to follow my old guide to the letter), all you have to do is continue, agree and select your target disk (the one you already have Mavericks on) and proceed with the installation.

One the installation is complete it will restart the computer and again you will have to hit the F12 key and boot into the USB. This time select the Yosemite Installed drive. Now all your files should be safe and you have updated to Yosemite without any hassle.

Now this is where stuff gets a little messy. Even though I used the Unibeast method to install the OS, I use the Clover bootloader. The Clover bootloader allows for on-the-go patching, and makes life a whole lot easier. Tony has a guide on how to install Clover. There shall be an attachment at the bottom of the post, and it shall show you what options to select in the Clover installer.

Once you installed the Clover installer, you'll need to navigate to the mounted EFI partition and go to the directory /EFI/Clover. If for some reason the EFI partition is not mounted, use the Clover Configurator program in the attached zip file, and click the "Tools" tab on the left bar. You'll see an option on the bottom right titled "Mount EFI Partition". It may prompt for your password, input it and you'll see the EFI Partition in Finder.

Once in the /EFI/Clover folder you'll see the config.plist. You don't have to go through the hassle of patching files, as I have attached my config.plist. Simply replace the current config.plist with the one found in the attachment zip. You're almost home free. Just one last step. In order to patch the audio, you'll need to run the "audio_realtekALC-100_v1.0.4c.command". It'll open up in Terminal and prompt for a password. It shall automatically detect the correct audio device, simply click "y" at every prompt.

After the script finishes, it shall tell you to reset the computer. Before doing so, open up Disk Utilities, navigate to the Yosemite partition and click "Repair Disk Permissions". When the permissions have been repaired, restart the computer.

I know you're hoping for another step, but that's all! Now you have the perfect Yosemite system running on your Dell XPS 8300. No need to buy any other hardware, you have everything you need!

Method 2: (Mavericks Clean Installation)
As I mentioned above, I've been running Yosemite since the first beta and it runs perfectly.

If you want to completely wipe the system and have a fresh installation of Yosemite the process is slightly different as you have to format the HDD before installing the OS. After that all the steps are the same as above.


The installation process is the same as an upgrade, once you have created the bootable USB enter your BIOS and hit the F12 key to get into the boot selection menu. Enter "Setup" and make sure your Hard Drive mode is set to AHCI. Save and exit. Now when booting up the PC again hit the F12 key, and boot from the USB stick and select your installer.

Now if you want to wipe your existing OS go to the menu bar, and select Disk Utility. Erase the partition. If you already had Mavericks installed there is no need to set the table as GUID and format the partition as OS X Extended (Journaled), but if you are installing it on a new HDD make sure the set the table as GUID and format the partition as OS X Extended (Journaled). Once the drive is erased/formatted close Disk Utility and go through with the installation. Once the installation is complete it will reboot the system and hit F12 again, select the USB stick but this time boot into the drive you installed Yosemite onto.

So like I mentioned above, I use Clover as my bootloader even though I installed via Unibeast. It just seems like the most convenient method of installation, so I suggest you follow suit. Tony has a guide on how to install Clover as your bootloader, so follow that. The post Clover steps are the same as the ones above. So I just copied the above steps for you to follow:

Once you installed the Clover installer, you'll need to navigate to the mounted EFI partition and go to the directory /EFI/Clover. If for some reason the EFI partition is not mounted, use the Clover Configurator program in the attached zip file, and click the "Tools" tab on the left bar. You'll see an option on the bottom right titled "Mount EFI Partition". It may prompt for your password, input it and you'll see the EFI Partition in Finder.

Once in the /EFI/Clover folder you'll see the config.plist. You don't have to go through the hassle of patching files, as I have attached my config.plist. Simply replace the current config.plist with the one found in the attachment zip. You're almost home free. Just one last step. In order to patch the audio, you'll need to run the "audio_realtekALC-100_v1.0.4c.command". It'll open up in Terminal and prompt for a password. It shall automatically detect the correct audio device, simply click "y" at every prompt.

After the script finishes, it shall tell you to reset the computer. Before doing so, open up Disk Utilities, navigate to the Yosemite partition and click "Repair Disk Permissions". When the permissions have been repaired, restart the computer.

There you have it. Yosemite is really a great OS and it runs beautifully on our XPS 8300. Enjoy yourself on your Hackintosh, and look forward to a guide on how to jump to El Capitan when it comes out. Give it a try and you wont be disappointed. Reply to the thread if you're having any issues, or if any part of the guide is unclear and I'll update the guide accordingly. Enjoy your iDell!

*Update*
Updated to 10.10.5 and nothing has changed. You may need to run the Clover script again, and I have included the newer script to run. Same deal as last time, after the update, simply run the file and it'll detect the hardware and prompt you to proceed. Restart after it installs the kext and you should be golden.

*Notes 1*
I have included the "audio_cloverALC-110_v1.0c.command" script as well. I believe this file can be run to patch the audio as well. It detects and prompts the same as the other script provided, but I believe this one is immune to updates as it is patched via Clover. If any of you choose to use this script, please let us know if the results are the same!
 

Attachments

  • iDell XPS 8300 Yosemite.zip
    2.9 MB · Views: 756
Hello

Do you have sleep working on your XPS 8300? Any other outstanding issues you have encountered?

Thanks
 
I gave your process a try. After some trial and error it appears I have a working Yosemite XPS 8300 10.10.5. But I cannot get sleep to work. The PC shuts down, but I can't wake it. Any ideas? I noticed yesterday when I booted with the USB installer that my computer was sleeping and waking.
 
First of all thanks a bunch for your well written tutorial! This helped me a lot to set up Yosemite on my iDell. I did the normal Tony UniBeast/MultiBeast installation on a fresh SSD first but couldn't get the Ethernet Board to work so i tried your mixed Unibeast/Clover way and succeeded... almost at least :)

Ethernet didn't work as well but i've patched it with KextBeast and the old kext i had from my Lion installation a few years ago.

I have included the "audio_cloverALC-110_v1.0c.command" script as well. I believe this file can be run to patch the audio as well. It detects and prompts the same as the other script provided, but I believe this one is immune to updates as it is patched via Clover. If any of you choose to use this script, please let us know if the results are the same!

I did use your Clove ALC audio command on the Terminal but it said:
---
File: audio_cloverALC-110.command_v1.0c
EFI partition is mounted
Boot/Arguments = kext-dev-mode=1 found
Error: no IOReg/HDEF; BIOS/audio/disabled or ACPI problem
No system files were changed
---
So the sound doesn't work (strangely somehow i had it working with MultiBeast y'day...)
I did then run your other audio command but this only gives me the same error:
---
: line 266: [: ==: unary operator expected
Error: no IOReg/HDEF; BIOS/audio/disabled or ACPI problem
No system files were changed
---

Any idea how to get the soundcard working?

Thanks in advance!
 
Ethernet didn't work as well but i've patched it with KextBeast and the old kext i had from my Lion installation a few years ago.

Can you please post your process and/or files for stabilizing this?
 
I gave your process a try. After some trial and error it appears I have a working Yosemite XPS 8300 10.10.5. But I cannot get sleep to work. The PC shuts down, but I can't wake it. Any ideas? I noticed yesterday when I booted with the USB installer that my computer was sleeping and waking.

I see the issue. I have been unable to get sleep to work which is odd because it worked flawlessly in the previous version. If I do find a way to get it to work I shall update you as soon as possible.
 
First of all thanks a bunch for your well written tutorial! This helped me a lot to set up Yosemite on my iDell. I did the normal Tony UniBeast/MultiBeast installation on a fresh SSD first but couldn't get the Ethernet Board to work so i tried your mixed Unibeast/Clover way and succeeded... almost at least :)

Ethernet didn't work as well but i've patched it with KextBeast and the old kext i had from my Lion installation a few years ago.



I did use your Clove ALC audio command on the Terminal but it said:
---
File: audio_cloverALC-110.command_v1.0c
EFI partition is mounted
Boot/Arguments = kext-dev-mode=1 found
Error: no IOReg/HDEF; BIOS/audio/disabled or ACPI problem
No system files were changed
---
So the sound doesn't work (strangely somehow i had it working with MultiBeast y'day...)
I did then run your other audio command but this only gives me the same error:
---
: line 266: [: ==: unary operator expected
Error: no IOReg/HDEF; BIOS/audio/disabled or ACPI problem
No system files were changed
---

Any idea how to get the soundcard working?

Thanks in advance!

I am not sure, but since the error refers to the BIOS, go into the BIOS and check out your audio settings. Perhaps you accidentally disabled something. Regardless get to your BIOS and take a picture of your current settings and upload it here. I'll see if it differs from mine in any way and I'll post on what to do if there needs to be some changes. Best of luck.
 
I tried installing Yosemite and the install fails. I am able to boot into the installer and get to the point where the install begins. It shows 22 minutes remaining and never moves. My install log is attached. Can anyone provide some help?
 

Attachments

  • Installer Log 10-23-15.txt.zip
    19.1 KB · Views: 215
Thank you for such a detailed and simple guide. After a few years of break from the scene, having cut my teeth on the Dell 1525 Inspiron with Snow Leopard, I decided to mess around here again. I have the XPS 8300 with the NVidia GTX 560Ti card and everything else pretty much stock as the system came from the factory(I did get a SSD HDD for Win 7).

Been trying to install El Capitan on external USB drive to test. Don't have Yosemite to try that out. I have SL and ML but guess those are ageing now. Anyway, I have installed the OS with Tony Macs Unibeast USB install thumb drive and now trying to boot the OS (still on WB 1 TB USB) after booting TonyMac's Unibeast with clover USB drive. Sometimes it goes through and I can even install Clover on the USB drive (and after I installed the Ethernet kext you had uploaded in another post even internet works!) but it seemed to shut down unexpectedly and then would not reboot and so I reinstalled. But after that when I try to boot the OS it keeps giving stepping errors related to P state etc which gets fixed only with CPUS=1 flag and that too only intermittently) but now I cannot even boot back into the OS drive after a fresh clean install in spite of trying various usual flags at boot.

Then I discovered the config.plist for the Yosemite you put here and am planning to see if I can use that for the El Capitan install. My question was whether you have managed to boot El Capitan on XPS 8300 yet? If yes, I would be very keen on knowing the outcome. I would gladly just use the Yosemite that I have on my MacBook Pro but it did not come with an install disk, and so I am now stuck with El Capitan because that's the only one available on the app store now. Any input is deeply appreciated. Cheers mate!

Dan:)
 
Finally got the XPS 8300 into good books with the El Capitan! I used (besides the stock ones which come with Clover) 3 boot arguments and no need to inject NVidia etc. : nvda_drv=1, rootless=0 and kext-dev-mode=1 and SMBIOS set to iMac 13,2. Inter net works and I used the shake 12 times to generate a s. number and after verification with the apple website that it was a valid but not in database serial number, set up iMessage and it works without doing anything else. For the onboard Realtek 887 sound, I used Toleda's excellent instructions with his patching script (https://github.com/toleda/audio_RealtekALC) and it works great (set HDA=2 on Clover configurator config.plist). My only issue is that sometimes when starting it up, it will reboot without any KP just when the verbose boot says "Bluetooth manager not found" or something like that. Then I reboot and it works. Maybe the native NVidia driver of the OS has something to do with it. I have the Dell Ultrasharp monitor connected via DVI-D and a Displayport cable and initially the logon screen was blank because it was actually showing the extended desktop coming via DVI-D and the log on was on the screen coming via the displayport (the OS was seeing my single monitor as two separate monitors as I had two connections). Once I switched the input to Displayport, I logged on and went into the Display preferences and "mirrored" the display then I have it boot right on to the logon screen with auto-detect on the monitor now turned back on.

Many thanks to tonymac!

Dell XPS8300_iMac13,2_Desktop.jpg
 
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