[Guide] El Capitan on the Intel Broadwell NUC

[ammulder]

[Guide] 10.11 on Intel Broadwell NUC 2.0

What BIOS are you on? The release notes for 0350 said there was an audio issue in Windows 7 that was introduced in 0348 and fixed in 0350.

I didn't terribly like 0350 because it rebooted instead of shutting down, but I'd be interested to hear whether you're on the release where they said there was a Windows 7 problem.

 

[Sezdec]

[Guide] 10.11 on Intel Broadwell NUC 2.0

I'll check on the BIOS version tomorrow and let you know. Thanks for the tip!

 

[ammulder]

[Guide] 10.11 on Intel Broadwell NUC 2.0

So I am definitely interested in your BIOS version, because I'd like to know whether that issue they noted affects OS X. (It didn't seem like it to me, but I've only listened long enough to test that sound is working.)

That said, toleda came up with an alternative to get audio working, which also worked for me. So if you're not on BIOS 0348, then you can try that method and see if it avoids the dropout problem.

I'll leave iTunes running into my headphones today and see if I'm still getting sound this afternoon.

 

[Sezdec]

[Guide] 10.11 on Intel Broadwell NUC 2.0

Ok, I may have resolved the audio dropout issue.

I've been running the 0350 BIOS, which I installed via a flash update. Just as an experiment, I downloaded the Express 0350 exe this morning and installed it via Windows 10. I then spent about 30 mins of testing in El Capitan, and I can't replicate the audio dropouts. The sound seems to be working fine now with no popping or distortion (e.g. only one stereo channel playing out of both left and right headphones), but I'll keep testing it today and see if I can trigger the issue again.

Perhaps this was just a bad BIOS install?

 

[ammulder]

[Guide] 10.11 on Intel Broadwell NUC 2.0

Curious. I did have a problem with an earlier El Capitan beta where it sounded like I wasn't getting all the channels through my headphones, though it appeared that was fixed when I upgraded to beta 6 (and I did not notice total dropouts in any case, though I didn't use audio that much). I hadn't changed the BIOS in between. Maybe these were different problems?

I had an issue with BIOS 0350 where when I picked apple menu / shutdown then it would shut down fully... and five seconds later start up again. I reverted back to 0348 and that didn't happen any more. So if you see the shutdown problem and it bothers you, you may want to consider downgrading to 0348.

Anyway, I left iTunes running a playlist on headphones all day, and it was still going after 7 or 8 hours when I finally shut it down. Hopefully yours will be solid now too.

 

[Sezdec]

[Guide] 10.11 on Intel Broadwell NUC 2.0

After a few more hours of testing, I haven't been able to trigger the audio dropouts so that's great. I still randomly get the problem where not all of the channels are playing through headphones though, so perhaps these are indeed separate issues.

I thought I was running Public Beta 6, but I think I'm actually on 5. My current version number is 15A262e. Beta 6 is 15A278b, right? If that's the case I'll update over the weekend, do some more testing and report back.

 

[TG12]

[Guide] 10.11 on Intel Broadwell NUC 2.0

I got a picture of the error I am getting booting El Cap on the NUC, seems its a kernel cache issue or something like......

Anyone have any clues?

 

[ammulder]

[Guide] 10.11 on Intel Broadwell NUC 2.0

That's a new one for me. You might want to post a new "I got a kernel panic" type thread to get the attention of people who aren't reading about the NUC. Can you also say where in the process you are (installing from USB, booting to hard drive after install, etc.)? And have you been following this guide or doing the install a different way?

 

[ammulder]

[Guide] 10.11 on Intel Broadwell NUC 2.0

I see toleda has posted a new cloverALC.command, which should work for enabling audio (instead of manually copying the kext). I won't be able to test this for a few days, but anyone doing a new install or having audio issues may want to.

Instead of downloading the AppleHDA.kext linked in the first post, download the script (hit View Raw).

When the times comes for audio setup on the new installation:

1. Mount the EFI partition

   mkdir /Volumes/EFI && sudo mount_msdos /dev/disk0s1 /Volumes/EFI

2. Unzip and run the script
3. Answer "y" to ALC283, "y" to Clover injection, and "y" to audio ID 1
4. After the script finishes, confirm that a new Realtek kext was written to the appropriate EFI/CLOVER/kexts subdirectory. (It will also have updated config.plist)
5. Reboot

 

[Sezdec]

[Guide] 10.11 on Intel Broadwell NUC 2.0

Interesting update to my audio issue.

Unfortunately, upgrading from Public Beta 5 to 6 made the problem much worse. I tried ammulder's original kext and toleda's new one, but no luck with either. I even downgraded BIOS to 0348 but this made no difference.

What I eventually noticed is that opening the Sound system preferences and selecting the Input tab restores the audio to normal. If I leave that window open with the Input tab selected (or minimised in the dock) I have no audio issues (i.e. I can listed to whole albums in iTunes with no problems). If I close the Sound system preference window, the audio will eventually drop out (maybe within 10 seconds, maybe within 5 minutes). As soon as I open the Sound system preference again and click on Input, audio returns to normal. If I leave the Input tab selected and close the Sound control panel, then re-open it when audio drops out, the audio will return to normal.

I appreciate this seems a little bizarre, but I have been testing this for the past hour and the Sound Input tab will return the audio to normal without fail and keep it there. Seems like leaving the Sound system preference minimised in the dock is a simple workaround for now. I guess if anyone else has a similar problem they could give this a try in the short term.