[Guide] Install High Sierra or Mojave on the Dell Optiplex 7010 / 9010 Desktop PC - Revision II

[trs96]

What's the lowest price Dell Hackintosh you could possibly build ?
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I kind of miss the old, "How low can you go" "Building a Budget Hackintosh" thread that used to be very popular here about 4 years ago. So after learning today that you could get a Celeron G465 to work with High Sierra I went to Ebay to see what kind of a Dell build one could do for the least amount of money. If you already have a micro ATX or larger case, you could build one for only 77 US dollars. The old thread I mentioned previously had budget CustoMacs coming in at about $250 to $300. So this would cost much less than that. Here's how it breaks down from what I found on Ebay.com today. You can get 4GB of dual channel ram, dedicated graphics and a 250GB hard disk drive too. Amazing. You can't buy a used iPhone for that amount of money. 77 dollars is often less than what most new Asus or Gigabyte mATX motherboards cost.

NOTE: Do not try this at home. This is for demonstration purposes only.





And if you need a case, Newegg has one for sale on Ebay for $19.99 right now.



That brings the total to $96.99 shipped. You'd spend 1 Ben Franklin and still get $3.01 back !
The only extras you might need are a little thermal paste, TIM, and a philips #2 screwdriver for the build.

I don't actually suggest you build this system but it was fun to see how little one could spend to have a working HS budget CustoMac. With the limited graphics in this build and low end CPU it couldn't even run macOS Mojave. To do that you'd need at least an i3-3225 CPU with HD4000 graphics. The Celeron CPU is much too slow for anything more than media consumption. Forget about gaming, video or photo editing with a Celeron G465 CPU.

 

[nicksoph]

What's the lowest price Dell Hackintosh you could possibly build ?

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My entry arrived yesterday - £58 ~= $75.50

 

[trs96]

What's the lowest price Dell Hackintosh you could possibly build ?
​

My entry arrived yesterday - £58 ~= $75.50

Nice find
I like that SFF size too. It lets you install up to 32GB of ram and use a 2 slot low profile dedicated graphics card. All in about a 11 x 12 inch case. It's small and portable enough that you can take it with you when travelling. With an i7-3770 and 32GB of ram you could have a portable Logic Pro or Final Cut Pro machine with one of these.

If you find deals like this you can often spend less than buying all the parts separately as you've shown here. The refurb prices on complete 7010s don't come in anywhere near that low in the USA. Just the Win10 Pro license alone is worth the $75.50 asking price. If you use Windows anyway.

Here's a similar model from Ebay.com. It doesn't have the 3245 with HD4000 and they also charge over 21 USD postage. Then the total cost ends up at about $125.

 

[nicksoph]

Just the Win10 Pro license alone is worth the $75.50 asking price. If you use Windows anyway.

FYI there are sites that will send you a licence key for not a lot of money eg.- https://london-computers-online.co....m1oqFB4P3H3PzNw9PByQpJWnxfr64BZgaAmPZEALw_wcB
Ive used other sites (which I cant find now) but they do seem to work and ebay uk seems to have them for a bit more with good reviews

 

[trs96]

FYI there are sites that will send you a licence key for not a lot of money eg.- https://london-computers-online.co....m1oqFB4P3H3PzNw9PByQpJWnxfr64BZgaAmPZEALw_wcB
Ive used other sites (which I cant find now) but they do seem to work and ebay uk seems to have them for a bit more with good reviews

What I do is simply enter the Win7 Pro COA key I get on the sticker on a refurb business machine to activate Win10 Pro. That way you know the key for Win10 will be genuine. Many of those online keys sold that cheap are not legally obtained.

 

[nicksoph]

USFF - wifi card users might be interested in this - these ariels have a two part socket on the arial end such that you can unscrew them and then the inner part can be pushed thru the back of the case thru one of the small squares in the grid and then screwing the outer bit back on gives you a mount without cutting the case.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2x-6dBi-RP-SMA-Dual-Band-Wifi-Antennas-2-x-U-fl-Cables-For-D-Link-DIR-645-UK/223102651041?ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT&_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649

and from HK on ebay US site
https://www.ebay.com/itm/2x-6dBi-2-...X-Cable-J3M4/173285457179?hash=item28589e3d1b

 

[trs96]

View attachment 352904
USFF - wifi card users might be interested in this - these ariels have a two part socket on the arial end such that you can unscrew them and then the inner part can be pushed thru the back of the case thru one of the small squares in the grid and then screwing the outer bit back on gives you a mount without cutting the case.

There is also an option to route the cable through the opening just above the Ethernet port. Simply pop out the plastic cover there and there is a cutout for the OEM dell antenna to go. Not sure if those Dell wifi antennas are even for sale. I've not seen any on Ebay.

EDIT: Looks like the Dell OEM antenna kit is actually available on Ebay.com. A new one is only 7 USD !
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-CN-0W...664868&hash=item4b4c9510fa:g:IyUAAOSwkNZbb5-J

Here's another option with the conventional round connector type:
https://www.ebay.com/p/Dell-Universal-External-WiFi-Antenna-Boost-0gjrh7-Dual-Rp-sma-Connectors-Kit/26022265764?iid=132733985901&_trkparms=aid=888007&algo=DISC.MBE&ao=1&asc=20131227121020&meid=2d222ccc47db40cbb678c874ef59dd17&pid=100009&rk=1&rkt=1&sd=323407384826&itm=132733985901&_trksid=p2047675.c100009.m1982

 

[nicksoph]

T
Looks like the Dell OEM antenna kit is actually available on Ebay.com. A new one is only 7 USD !

Not sure if this is a good option unless you already have a wifi card and output port that would have come with the machine- this needs the mini-pci to case cables as well.

 

[trs96]

Not sure if this is a good option unless you already have a wifi card and output port that would have come with the machine- this needs the mini-pci to case cables as well.

That's how it looks. You'd need your 7010/9010 USFF to come with the internal OEM Wifi parts from Dell already in the case when you buy it.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-Optip...353678?hash=item33ec92768e:g:IzkAAOSwaOpbivKG

 

[trs96]

Legacy Option ROMs
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A discovery made by accident

I was experiencing very long boot times, over a minute, sometimes two, when normal is about 14 seconds to boot to the desktop. Eventually my Dell 7010 stopped booting at all. Just a black screen and no BIOS either. Hmmm, it can't be the CMOS battery again as I just replaced it a few weeks ago. I did have to remove the battery for a minute to reset the BIOS. The battery was still good so I kept it. I then went into the BIOS and found that there were two legacy MacOSX drive entries first and second in the boot order. The EFI SSD Crucial MX200 was last in the boot order. Somehow I must have enabled Legacy Option ROMs when testing something and forgot to set it back to disabled. I'm using HD4000 graphics and booting UEFI so it's best to leave Legacy ORs disabled for the fastest boot times. So after resetting everything in the BIOS to what I wanted, boot times were back to normal. I then re-patched my DSDT due to the changed BIOS settings. Everything works smoothly again. So, if you get a black screen at boot and F2 doesn't get you into the BIOS you'll likely need to pull the CMOS battery to restore factory defaults, of which Legacy booting is the main setting. Then you can boot into and correct your BIOS. Moral of the story... only enable LORs if you have an older non-UEFI capable graphics card as your primary graphics.

Advanced Boot Options > LORs set to disabled

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Here's my UEFI boot drive entry now: Crucial MX200 is first in line. You can also disable Onboard NIC (IPV4) if you will never use that to boot your system remotely.