High Sierra works great on old Dell T5400, 2xXeon x5460's & XFX GTX 280!

[roto31]

I sure will.. but I'm moving the bedroom where I have the two boxes around right now and I'll have the High Sierra one hooked up later today.

I use legacy as on the T5400's as there is no UEFI... however I am still using an older version of Clover, you're certainly using a newer one. I THINK I have 4279 on it.. there's always a possibility a fix in a newer one for Mojave or something broke this chain of rig-jobs to make it work.

Wait... just re-read your post - do you want A) the EFI folder off the USB stick I install it from B) the EFI folder off the working Hack or both? (I'll default to both if I don't hear from you..) And what hardware are you using exactly? If it's a T5400 I can almost certainly get it to work for you.. I've got lots of experience on hacking this up on other older hardware too, so let me know in case I've dealt with something similar and maybe it's something I've run into. I've seen that stop before, maybe it'll jog my memory.

Edit: I just scrolled up a realized you're the one who said clearly it's a 690.. let me look up the hardware specs on that as I don't remember. You might be better off with a different system def, have you tried any others? In anycase, I'll drop another line later today with anything I came up with and attach the EFI folder goodies.

I have a Precision 690, used the iMac 13,1 SMBIOS definition, after following your instructions. I’ll try looking for that version of Clover and running it as a Legacy install. I have dual quad Xeons 35xx processors.
It’s running well on El Capitan. Logic says with a more current version of Clover Legacy and High Sierra it “should work”. Biggest difference are the processor in each.

 

[burnindaylight]

I have a Precision 690, used the iMac 13,1 SMBIOS definition, after following your instructions. I’ll try looking for that version of Clover and running it as a Legacy install. I have dual quad Xeons 35xx processors.
It’s running well on El Capitan. Logic says with a more current version of Clover Legacy and High Sierra it “should work”. Biggest difference are the processor in each.

Cool... that sounds like it should work no problem with my EFI folder and a diff ser #, maybe a couple tweaks. I will get the EFI's posted in a couple hours. I had to take care of some stuff and just went to check out where I want to set that box up and realized I took the video cards out.. I'm kinda gonna need to find at least one of them but they're in one of a few boxes so it shouldn't take long. I don't have a 690 but there is NO reason whatsoever it shouldn't work in my mind, especially considering some of the stuff I have eventually gotten it up and running that is way further from legit-Mac specs - Dells in my experience are just a matter of undoing some of it's Dellish-ness as far as what the macOS sees.

 

[roto31]

No worries, I’m in no rush to get it updated. I’ve troubleshot it with every combination I could think of. I’m either overthinking it or it’s something totally obvious I’m not seeing. It specs out to a MacPro 3,1 with the dual quads and enterprising folks have gotten that machine to run High Sierra (sticking with High Sierra being my GPU is only supported). My next attempt will be to build a USB installer with that patcher, use a current or the version you used and keep the same SMBIOS as a 3,1 being the patcher allows for a 3,1 and 4,1 MacPro to boot High Sierra.

 

[burnindaylight]

Hello, finally, I managed to make everything work perfectly. The fans are no longer turning. To fix the problem, I used unibeast for High Sierra, I copied the dsdt of the Clover Dell 690 and the different Kext files needed. I have a Nvidia GT 710 graphics card from KFA2 and it is natively recognized by MacOS high Sierra with the injection into the clover. The use of the webdriver did not work with this card. I connected two screens on my graphics card, because I used to use two screens, to work. One of the screens is in HDMI and the other in VGA. I had understood that MacOS no longer support VGA connectors, but strangely, my VGA display works.

Hey I Just noticed that end of the reply.. wanted to try & explain the VGA - to my best ability at least based on experience seeing this pan out a number of ways.. I've seen it on a few laptops too, some work some don't. It seems that if the VGA output is internally derived from a digital display (as the macOS sees it) then the OS doesn't know it's VGA and it's happy. I've seen it happen on a few laptops I've gotten rigged up to work - rigged up to work period, not rigged up for this problem; this was OOTH go/no-go in all cases - Dells and Lenovos mostly. HP seems to present the VGA output as VGA and expect the OS to drive that output as VGA so the OS and the Mac don't know what the hell to do with it as there never was one so it just gets ignored.

One laptop I put together for a family member had a mini displayport and he wanted to hook up an external monitor v/HDMI, DVI, and VGA inputs. I said no problem we just need a DP->HDMI adapter.. "I got one." Well it was DP->VGA but it worked fine, and surprisingly I'm pretty sure it's a dumb cable and it's actually inside the laptop something doing the conversion, and the OS doesn't know it's analog and couldn't care. Plus the picture looks fine too which surprises the hell outta me

 

[burnindaylight]

No worries, I’m in no rush to get it updated. I’ve troubleshot it with every combination I could think of. I’m either overthinking it or it’s something totally obvious I’m not seeing. It specs out to a MacPro 3,1 with the dual quads and enterprising folks have gotten that machine to run High Sierra (sticking with High Sierra being my GPU is only supported). My next attempt will be to build a USB installer with that patcher, use a current or the version you used and keep the same SMBIOS as a 3,1 being the patcher allows for a 3,1 and 4,1 MacPro to boot High Sierra.

OK.. I have attached the EFI folder off my working no problems what-so-ever Sierra box that I'm using right now (HW wise identical to the HS box except 8x2gb vs 4x4gb and different vid cards.) I pulled HW Monitor (version 6.25.1426 as shown in Get Info) out of kexts/Other 'cuz it was friggen 14.x MB!! (I don't know if it's such a hot idea to upload stuff bigger than necessary here.. if you need it I'll get it to you or Google is prob your friend no problem ) I thought I had switched video cards & HD's to make this the HS box but I guess I only got as far as taking out the video cards and putting one of three back in

It's identical except the SN (Oh yeah, I pulled that too, you need a diff one for sure as this is used - a lot, the rest of the SMBIOS is straight, just stick in a new iMac13,1 ser #) to my High Sierra box IIRC - I don't think I had to change anything at all. That's gonna take a couple mins 'cuz I have the video card but I'm not sure what HD had high sierra on it. (I've got like 5 stuck in there and usually run El Cap as a HTPC but I wanna upgrade that to HS and see if Mojave will work too eventually.) I hope it wasn't the HD that had HS on it I accidentally installed Ubuntu to but I don't think it was. I do definitely have the USB stick that installs HS no problem, just gotta find that too. (This has all come up at a time where I am completely re-arranging the bedroom I have all this stuff in.. but I'm finding some other stuff I was looking for along the way too it's all good!!)

The MacPro3,1 definition and hacking up the installer MIGHT just be the way to go.. I've never done it with these boxes but I did do it on a few laptops - some with more success than others though. One works f'ing great, I'm kinda surprised although it took an entire baseball game to do the initial install 'cuz I could only get USB 1.1 ports to work.. that kinda sucked! MacPro3,1 is definitely a LOT closer to the hardware we're screwing with - like I said in the original I'm sort of surprised iMac13,1 works at all but I guess maybe subsystem identification is separated enough that the top-layer of the OS doesn't know nor care that my processors, chipsets, and everything else never came in this version of the Mac as long as the API's it needs work OK and the code for the Macs this stuff came in is still there

 

[burnindaylight]

No worries, I’m in no rush to get it updated. I’ve troubleshot it with every combination I could think of. I’m either overthinking it or it’s something totally obvious I’m not seeing. It specs out to a MacPro 3,1 with the dual quads and enterprising folks have gotten that machine to run High Sierra (sticking with High Sierra being my GPU is only supported). My next attempt will be to build a USB installer with that patcher, use a current or the version you used and keep the same SMBIOS as a 3,1 being the patcher allows for a 3,1 and 4,1 MacPro to boot High Sierra.

SMH... I just wanted to throw you an update. I got the drive with High Sierra on it and the machine is running. However I screwed the actual install up enough trying to get a counterfeit GT550 working that it won't even boot to the desktop unless I put that card in it.. which makes it basically unusable 'cuz I just can't get the card to work higher than Sierra. I'm going to do two things.. one is boot it up with that card and IF (the framebuffers are all screwed up.. I can't even explain the video but reading anything is a challenge let alone even turning on screen sharing..) I can remote into it I'll grab the EFI folder off it, or maybe I'll copy it over in single-user mode to a USB stick or something. (I was playing with Webdrivers, patches, etc on this thing, and just looking at S/L/E I can tell whatever all I did I'm not figuring out and undoing in less time than it will take to just re-install...)

Either way, I'm upgrading (read: re-installing from scratch) the Sierra box w/High Sierra and the El Capitan (ex-HS) box with Sierra. When I get HS up on one of the boxes I'll drop that EFI folder up too. I'll attach them to this post if I can (not sure if I can with an edit) but wanted to throw out an update... I need to dig up the bag I keep all my USB install drives in or grab another one but I don't know if I have any big enough that aren't in that bag. I'm gonna see if I can stream-line this process and just take what I need out of the installer package and be done with that too over the next few days. Maybe Mojave will be tried if I have a video card that it will deal with, I'm not sure.

Edit: OK.. I re-installed High Sierra and it's up & running. I'm typing on it now. I screwed up the last one pretty good...

But the good news is in all the playing around I upgraded my boot USB to Clover 4441 so that works too. That is what is included.. I just do the install, install Clover to the HD (GUID HD, not for UEFI, not in the EFI partition) and then rename that one and copy this EFI folder over off the boot drive.

I'm gonna try to streamline this a little when I do the other box.. as in "install Clover x with these options" and "copy these files" and reboot. I hope.

Note: I DID need to install the El Cap/early Sierra NVDAStartup.kext in place of the High Sierra one 'cuz it panic'd with the original. I Have a XFX 280 in this box, if you've got a similar old card you may need the same. Other than that it was plug & play. I also had to disable the NVidia injection & disable NV drivers completely (nv_disable=1 flag under options) to get it to boot at all before I could replace the kext.

Oh PS - that last EFI folder was (I think) functionally the same but included a lot of crap.. I'm not sure what all I was playing around with on that box. This is a completely different one off a fresh install - the only thing I've touched is to install Firefox so far.

PPS - This is High Sierra 10.13.1 (17B48). I've upgraded it to higher versions on some boxes but that's what the installer was made with so that's what I'm using now.

 

[roto31]

SMH... I just wanted to throw you an update. I got the drive with High Sierra on it and the machine is running. However I screwed the actual install up enough trying to get a counterfeit GT550 working that it won't even boot to the desktop unless I put that card in it.. which makes it basically unusable 'cuz I just can't get the card to work higher than Sierra. I'm going to do two things.. one is boot it up with that card and IF (the framebuffers are all screwed up.. I can't even explain the video but reading anything is a challenge let alone even turning on screen sharing..) I can remote into it I'll grab the EFI folder off it, or maybe I'll copy it over in single-user mode to a USB stick or something. (I was playing with Webdrivers, patches, etc on this thing, and just looking at S/L/E I can tell whatever all I did I'm not figuring out and undoing in less time than it will take to just re-install...)

Either way, I'm upgrading (read: re-installing from scratch) the Sierra box w/High Sierra and the El Capitan (ex-HS) box with Sierra. When I get HS up on one of the boxes I'll drop that EFI folder up too. I'll attach them to this post if I can (not sure if I can with an edit) but wanted to throw out an update... I need to dig up the bag I keep all my USB install drives in or grab another one but I don't know if I have any big enough that aren't in that bag. I'm gonna see if I can stream-line this process and just take what I need out of the installer package and be done with that too over the next few days. Maybe Mojave will be tried if I have a video card that it will deal with, I'm not sure.

Edit: OK.. I re-installed High Sierra and it's up & running. I'm typing on it now. I screwed up the last one pretty good...

But the good news is in all the playing around I upgraded my boot USB to Clover 4441 so that works too. That is what is included.. I just do the install, install Clover to the HD (GUID HD, not for UEFI, not in the EFI partition) and then rename that one and copy this EFI folder over off the boot drive.

I'm gonna try to streamline this a little when I do the other box.. as in "install Clover x with these options" and "copy these files" and reboot. I hope.

Note: I DID need to install the El Cap/early Sierra NVDAStartup.kext in place of the High Sierra one 'cuz it panic'd with the original. I Have a XFX 280 in this box, if you've got a similar old card you may need the same. Other than that it was plug & play. I also had to disable the NVidia injection & disable NV drivers completely (nv_disable=1 flag under options) to get it to boot at all before I could replace the kext.

Oh PS - that last EFI folder was (I think) functionally the same but included a lot of crap.. I'm not sure what all I was playing around with on that box. This is a completely different one off a fresh install - the only thing I've touched is to install Firefox so far.

PPS - This is High Sierra 10.13.1 (17B48). I've upgraded it to higher versions on some boxes but that's what the installer was made with so that's what I'm using now.

I just got back to this. I'm out of town till next weekend but I can make another attempt with the EFI you attached. My apologies for the late reply. Work has kept me fairly busy.

 

[LeongKY]

Hi, i can boot to the installer but when I try to use disk utility to format my drive, the drive does not appear on the list even when I selected show all device? is there something I missed out?

I used the EFI from burnindaylight on post #26.
In BIOS was even selected AHCI/RAID On.

Thanks.

 

[macSteve83]

Hi, i can boot to the installer but when I try to use disk utility to format my drive, the drive does not appear on the list even when I selected show all device? is there something I missed out?

I used the EFI from burnindaylight on post #26.
In BIOS was even selected AHCI/RAID On.

Thanks.

Are u on sata disk or on the sas card with raid? On my t5400 i throw it away and put an ssd and a 2tb hd

 

[LeongKY]

Are u on sata disk or on the sas card with raid? On my t5400 i throw it away and put an ssd and a 2tb hd

My machine is direct sata to the motherboard, anyways will keep researching on how to resolve this, so far i tried High Sierra and Mojave, on HS it failed to boot but on Mojave it managed to get into installer but unable to see the ssd i installed.