<< Solved >> A plea for Hackintosh - Big Sur help.

[TheQbanMamba]

Hello! I am a dreaded noob to this forum. I am in medical school and most of my school-related applications are all macOS. I have an older but still very effective PC (hardly used), and after a doomed attempt with using VMWare Workstation for awhile, I decided to try turning it into a Hackintosh. I have made a few purchases because I wanted to make it as vanilla as possible. I also wanted to dual boot Windows 10 and macOS Big Sur. There are a lot of guides all over the internet, which makes it extremely confusing on which to use. I stumbled upon the Hackintosh Shop guide with their provided Big Sur vanilla installer, and they also provided an EFI OpenCore folder specifically for Haswell. It worked, decently well, but I am experiencing a few issues.

I am unable to get any sound without using bluetooth or Airplay. It also doesn't recognize either of the Ethernet ports. I have tried updating the kexts but maybe I'm doing it wrong. The AtherosE2200Ethernet, AppleALC, Lilu have been uploaded to the bootloader. OpenCore Configurator doesn't seem to work or I don't know how to use it. I have tried Kext Extractor but when I go to /system/library/extensions, I don't see the atheros in there. I am also unable to update the OpenCore bootloader beyond the 0.6.4 that the folder was made with, even with updating the three files that every guide says to update. The bootloader will not boot into windows when selected, only Macintosh HD. When Windows is selected, it will just go to a black screen. I have to boot into it using F12 and use Windows Boot Manager instead of UEFI OS.

I've done a windows image backup using Macrium Reflect and a time machine backup so I have no problem starting over. I was considering switching to Clover for the following reasons: I read on a forum somewhere that OpenCore was having audio issues and Clover's audio works, maybe it will fix the dual boot issues, and Clover Configurator seems way better than OpenCore Configurator. However, I know conceptually I have a lot to learn.

If anyone has any advice on how to proceed from here, I'm starting to go in circles and just suffering from data overload. I have attached my EFI and my config.plist. Please be gentle, this is the first time I have ever tried this. I have to say I'm pretty excited to have gotten this far. I would appreciate any help I can get to go the rest of the way. It is pretty functional, minus the audio, ethernet, and dual boot issues. Thank you in advance for your advice/help!

Motherboard - GA-Z97X-UD5H-BK rev1.0
Audio - ALC1150
Ethernet ports on MOBO - Atheros Killer E2201 and Intel® GbE LAN phy
Chip - Haswell - i7-4790k
GPU - MSI NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 780 TI 3gb GDDR5
RAM - 32GB PNY DDR3 1866 MHz but running at 1600 MHz to avoid having to overclock
Wifi/Bluetooth PCI Card - BCM94360CD
9 Series Chipset
SSDs - NVMe Samsung Evo Plus 250gb (macOS), SATA EVO 500gb(win10), and ADATA 2gb (Storage Drive)

 

[trs96]

I'm starting to go in circles and just suffering from data overload. I have attached my EFI and my config.plist.

This is the usual result when people new to hackintoshing are in a hurry to get a working system and then they copy/paste an EFI folder that is supposed to work but doesn't. Since you're a student you know that if you don't study and prepare before the final examination, it's pretty likely you'll meet with failure. Copying another student's work is also a gamble that you'll most likely lose. Why not take some time to learn the basics first, create your own EFI folder and understand what is required before undertaking the install ? Here's three things to do to get going.

Step one: Get rid of the Hackintosh Shop EFI (We don't support guides from them anyway)

Step two: Study the basics that every beginner must understand. https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/learning-the-hackintosh-four-letter-words.273877/ (Like 101 course for medical terminology)

another good one for beginners to read: https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/...-things-i-wish-i-knew-before-starting.272699/

Step three: A few hints to help out. You'll want to use the iMac 15,1 SMBIOS or System Definition as it's called. This will give you the best results. Don't try to get a dual boot with Windows working until you have macOS fully working. Doing otherwise will only make it a lot more complicated. When you finally are ready to install Windows, have the macOS SSD disconnected from data and power when you do so.

 

[Yomiro]

This is the usual result when people new to hackintoshing are in a hurry to get a working system then they copy/paste an EFI folder that is supposed to work but doesn't.

100% agree.

My recommendation for you is to follow the opencore guide:

OpenCore Install Guide

Current supported version 0.9.1

dortania.github.io

A Z97 board is pretty compatible and should be easy.

 

[trs96]

Important Point that Dortania makes from the start:

• [CRUCIAL] Time and patience.
  • Don't start working on this if you have deadlines or important work. Hackintoshes are not something you should be relying on as a work machine.

Most people fail to understand that hackintoshing is a hobby. Things can and will go wrong. Buy a real Mac for business and school use or at least always have a bootable backup to revert to if your hack is used for either your profession or to prepare yourself (school) for a new profession. If you have deadlines to meet you don't want downtime to set you back.

 

[TheQbanMamba]

This is the usual result when people new to hackintoshing are in a hurry to get a working system and then they copy/paste an EFI folder that is supposed to work but doesn't. Since you're a student you know that if you don't study and prepare before the final examination, it's pretty likely you'll meet with failure. Copying another student's work is also a gamble that you'll most likely lose. Why not take some time to learn the basics first, create your own EFI folder and understand what is required before undertaking the install ? Here's three things to do to get going.

Step one: Get rid of the Hackintosh Shop EFI (We don't support guides from them anyway)

Step two: Study the basics that every beginner must understand. https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/learning-the-hackintosh-four-letter-words.273877/ (Like 101 course for medical terminology)

another good one for beginners to read: https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/...-things-i-wish-i-knew-before-starting.272699/

Step three: A few hints to help out. You'll want to use the iMac 15,1 SMBIOS or System Definition as it's called. This will give you the best results. Don't try to get a dual boot with Windows working until you have macOS fully working. Doing otherwise will only make it a lot more complicated. When you finally are ready to install Windows, have the macOS SSD disconnected from data and power when you do so.

Thank you for the start. I've googled a ton, I just didn't have any direction. I will get started on these and work on the hints you advised. Do you have a preference for Clover vs OpenCore?

Important Point that Dortania makes from the start:

• [CRUCIAL] Time and patience.
  • Don't start working on this if you have deadlines or important work. Hackintoshes are not something you should be relying on as a work machine.

Most people fail to understand that hackintoshing is a hobby. Things can and will go wrong. Buy a real Mac for business and school use or at least always have a bootable backup to revert to if your hack is used for either your profession or to prepare yourself (school) for a new profession. If you have deadlines to meet you don't want downtime to set you back.

I have a 2015 Macbook Pro 12,1 that I use for school with a Henge dock to connect to my dual monitors. It only has an Intel Iris Graphics 6100 and 8GB of RAM, so it has really struggled during this distance learning. We will still continue to be hybrid for at least another 6 months and maybe beyond, which is why i first tried VMWare Workstation and now Hackintosh. This is a nice-to-have, not a have-to-have. It would make things a lot easier for school and I'm not really in a position to go buy an iMac or mac mini.

 

[TheQbanMamba]

100% agree.

My recommendation for you is to follow the opencore guide:

OpenCore Install Guide

Current supported version 0.9.1

dortania.github.io

A Z97 board is pretty compatible and should be easy.

I found Dortania's guide on supported video cards and wifi cards which is why I have the ones I do now, I just didn't find this guide. Thank you.

 

[trs96]

Do you have a preference for Clover vs OpenCore?

Using Unibeast/Multibeast and Clover is the best route for beginners. If you can use Catalina instead of Big Sur that is the best to start with. If you have to use Big Sur for some reason then follow the Dortania Opencore guide. It will take more time but you'll also learn OC which is going to take over as the primary bootloader eventually.

 

[jaymonkey]

@TheQbanMamba,

I second @trs96 advice above, if your new to Hackintosh then the Clover / Catalina route is a simpler start to getting your PC running MacOS. If you do decide to go this route then your can also choose to not to use the latest version of Clover which has recently become a hybrid boot loader using elements of OpenCore.

Clover r5107 is a sold and reliable boot loader for Catalina on the hardware that you have and you don't have to worry about the OpenCore elements such as the 'Quirks''which can be initaly a bit confusing for a novice.

The guide for Lilu and its plugins is a also good read for novices and was written for Clover support :-

An iDiot's Guide To Lilu and its Plug-ins

An iDiot's Guide To Lilu and its Plug-in's Last Update: 22nd Jan 2021 (Add note about OpenCore config.plist modifications) About this Guide Note: This guide was written when Clover was the boot loader of choice as such the config.plist examples in this guide are mostley Clover specific ... if...

www.tonymacx86.com

Once you have a working build and have a bit more experience under your belt you can use that knloweadge and start to experiment with OpenCore, then once you have the system booting reliably with OpenCore you can then update directly to Big Sur.

Use Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper to make regular clone copies of your system, that way if any thing goes wrong you can easily restore the system.

Good luck on your mission.

Cheers
Jay

 

[TheQbanMamba]

I appreciate the advice. This is what I worked on last night and a little bit this morning. You guys were right, it does work a lot better. I have attached my personally compiled config.plist file. Audio and ethernet issues resolved, and seems to boot a lot quicker. Let me know if you have any further advice. So far so good. Just have to figure out how to get the dual boot working with windows 10. Thanks to everyone!

 

[trs96]

I appreciate the advice. This is what I worked on last night and a little bit this morning. You guys were right, it does work a lot better. I have attached my personally compiled config.plist file. Audio and ethernet issues resolved, and seems to boot a lot quicker. Let me know if you have any further advice. So far so good. Just have to figure out how to get the dual boot working with windows 10. Thanks to everyone!

Good work ! The .plist looks a lot better. One tip though, when you post it here for review remove your SMUUID and serial numbers first if those are the ones you'll use longer term. Also you need to look up your Ethernet MAC address and enter that where it says ROM. Don't enter the Colons : though. It will look something like this 70:e5:49:b4:56:5c

You find the MAC address by going to System Preferences -> Network -> Advanced and then the Hardware tab.