10.8.5 on Z9X Mobo, Geforce GT 640. . .Lost Cause?

[JingleDjango]

I mainly run macOS Sierra on this machine:

Gigabyte GA-Z97X-UD3H-BK
Intel® Core™ i5-4690K Processor
EVGA GT 740 SC
Corsair RM 650 Watt PSU
Crucial Ballistix Tactical 16GB (2x8GB)
2x Samsung 850 EVO 250GB
1x Seagate Desktop HDD ST2000DM001 2TB
TP-Link PCI Express Wifi Adapter (N)
Focusrite Saffire Pro40 Audio Interface

This works well for me except there's some software I need to run which won't work on any version of OSX beyond 10.8.5. I've been trying everything I can think of the past couple days to get this going but without much luck. Is my hardware configuration strictly incompatible with Mountain Lion?

I would appreciate any hints in the right direction here.

Thanks.

 

[BreBo]

II would appreciate any hints in the right direction here.

See Build Recommendations for older versions of OS X using older Chipsets

 

[Adrian B]

I tried Mountain Lion 10.8.5 on an H87 board with an i5-4440 CPU back in December 2013, it did work but it didn't feel as good as it did on my older Ivy Bridge build.

Can I suggest that you attempt to install using Chimera and 10.8.5 using the Integrated graphics as I am sure that the GT740 does not like Mountain Lion. When installing Mountain Lion, make sure that there are no other drives connected to your motherboard. Clover UEFI and Chimera bootloaders don't mix.

 

[JingleDjango]

Thanks for taking the time to read and respond.

I learned that the legacy software I need to run (Pro Tools 10.3 HD) will run on Mavericks, though unsupported. Getting the 10.9.5 installer to boot and execute properly was still a headache. I should have taken better notes because now I forget the steps I took to get it happening. And once the installer had copied the system files over I still couldn't boot into that disk. The answer there was to run MultiBeast 6.5.1 from my stable system (macOS 10.12.6) and install the necessary drivers/kexts to the Mavericks disk from there.

Everything in Mavericks is working great except for the onboard gigabit ethernet. I installed the relevant driver via multibeast but no luck so far. I guess that's a topic for another sub-forum though, and fortunately my PCI-e WiFi works with no further intervention.

 

[Adrian B]

You can try removing the offending Intel Kext to the trash. Try installing InelMausiEthernet from the Kexts section of the downloads section and use a kext installer like kext Wizard or kextBeast to install from your desktop to SLE. I assume that you didn't use Clover for the Mavericks install.

 

[JingleDjango]

I am using Clover, actually. I have to load an alternate config.plist from the Clover options menu because the same boot arguments don't work between Sierra and Mavericks, but otherwise Clover has been working well for me. I started by manually installing clover to the Mavericks system drive with my other boot disks disconnected. Then I copied my config.plist from there to the EFI partition on my Sierra drive when things were working well for me.

I'll give your suggestion a try with regards to MausiEthernet. Thanks.

 

[Adrian B]

Here is the original Clover guide;
https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/how-to-install-os-x-mavericks-using-clover.125632/

Clover has changed a great deal and is now simpler to use than back in 2014.

 

[JingleDjango]

I believe that's the guide I followed when setting up this 10.9.5 system drive.

I resolved my ethernet problem by:
-Downloading AppleIntelE1000e from the TonyMacx86 downloads page
-booting into Safe Mode
-removing AppleIntelE1000e from S/L/E/IONetworkFamily
-re-installing AppleIntelE1000e to S/L/E using Kext Wizard

Thanks for your advice, Adrian B.