Dell Inspiron 530 - High Sierra

[macnb]

I have tried the HDMI and DVI ports, my monitor doesn't have a VGA input.

I copied and pasted your EFI folder and renamed my current one. Unfortunately, the result was the black screen at the exact same spot.

Sorry I'm dried up with ideas.

I seem to recall @BreBo used to have a system with HD 5670. May be he can give some ideas how he got High Sierra to work with that GPU

 

[oneof4]

Sorry I'm dried up with ideas.

I seem to recall @BreBo used to have a system with HD 5670. May be he can give some ideas how he got High Sierra to work with that GPU

Well, if the vid card is the problem, I'm not above changing to something else. I searched out the card that you mentioned (Zotac GeForce GT730 2B ZT-71101-10L), but it doesn't appear available anywhere. Does it have to be that specific model or would another GT730 work?

 

[macnb]

Well, if the vid card is the problem, I'm not above changing to something else. I searched out the card that you mentioned (Zotac GeForce GT730 2B ZT-71101-10L), but it doesn't appear available anywhere. Does it have to be that specific model or would another GT730 work?

No it does not have to be that specific model but it needs to have the GK208 variant chip. That chip is supported up to Catalina. The reason I mention that specific chip is that some manufacturers are a little disingenuous about the calling the card GT730 but do not use the GK208 but an older chip Fermi GF108 chip which is not compatible.

You can use this site to search a specific model which will tell you which chip the card uses.

 

[oneof4]

No it does not have to be that specific model but it needs to have the GK208 variant chip. That chip is supported up to Catalina. The reason I mention that specific chip is that some manufacturers are a little disingenuous about the calling the card GT730 but do not use the GK208 but an older chip Fermi GF108 chip which is not compatible.

You can use this site to search a specific model which will tell you which chip the card uses.

Thanks for the info macnb, does this one look like a possibility? I can get it off eBay for 30 bucks.

 

[macnb]

Thanks for the info macnb, does this one look like a possibility? I can get it off eBay for 30 bucks.

yes I believe that one should work.
Just be aware that this Zotac card card is NOT single-slot as the heatsink is wider and will "sit" over the adjacent PCI-e X1 slot so if you have anything plugged into that slot then you will need to remove it.

 

[oneof4]

yes I believe that one should work.
Just be aware that this Zotac card card is NOT single-slot as the heatsink is wider and will "sit" over the adjacent PCI-e X1 slot so if you have anything plugged into that slot then you will need to remove it.

Not a problem, the Saphire 5670 I currently have does the same thing. I had to return my PCIe NIC for a PCI version due to that. Okay, I've ordered it and it should be here Monday the 26th. What changes will I need to make in Clover?

 

[macnb]

Not a problem, the Saphire 5670 I currently have does the same thing. I had to return my PCIe NIC for a PCI version due to that. Okay, I've ordered it and it should be here Monday the 26th. What changes will I need to make in Clover?

In your config.plist do the following:

- delete Graphics/FBName
- change Graphics/Inject/ATI=NO
- change Graphics/Inject/Nvidia=YES

That should be enough to enable your graphics card.

 

[oneof4]

In your config.plist do the following:

- delete Graphics/FBName
- change Graphics/Inject/ATI=NO
- change Graphics/Inject/Nvidia=YES

That should be enough to enable your graphics card.

Good deal! I'll let you know once I get the card installed and boot the system.

 

[tofuslacks]

Getting better thanks.

Your Clover is not installed properly.
You should be able to follow the Unibeast guide to create a bootable macOS.
You have to install Clover Legacy as Dell 530 does NOT have UEFI in BIOS.
On the Dell 530, you will be limited to High Sierra with the graphics card you have.

I recently moved to OpenCore 0.6.1 and replaced by Zotac GeForce GT240 with a Zotac GeForce GT730 2B (model ZT-71101-10L) as that GPU is supported by Catalina and installed Catalina 10.15.7.
Since Xeon E5450 does not include SSE 4.2 instructions set, a Telemetrytrap kext is needed to be able run 10.15 on Xeon E5450 CPU.

Hello MacNB,

Good to hear you are still rocking the Inspiron 530, it gives me hope. I had to put my Hackintosh on back burner for a while, but recently dusted it off and looking to install Catalina. I never got around to getting my EFI installed on my SSD, had to boot from USB.

Would you recommend trying the Vanilla Opencore installation method, or going the Clover method? I just installed a GT635 (GK208 Kepler) and been trying to follow the vanilla guides. Or is it easier to follow the same steps as Oneof4?

 

[macnb]

Hello MacNB,

Good to hear you are still rocking the Inspiron 530, it gives me hope. I had to put my Hackintosh on back burner for a while, but recently dusted it off and looking to install Catalina. I never got around to getting my EFI installed on my SSD, had to boot from USB.

Would you recommend trying the Vanilla Opencore installation method, or going the Clover method? I just installed a GT635 (GK208 Kepler) and been trying to follow the vanilla guides. Or is it easier to follow the same steps as Oneof4?

If you are familiar with Clover - stick with it.
If you willing to learn and put the effort in then it is worth moving to OpenCore - so much quicker to boot.

I have moved to OpenCore on both my desktops. On my Z77 system with working NVRAM, with OC it behaves just like a real Mac. Updates just happen - no need to to ever drop into the boot menus to select the macOS Installer boot disk, etc, etc. It's totally transparent which was not always the case with Clover on my system. So on newer systems it's definitely worth moving to OpenCore. On legacy systems (like the 530) without UEFI and without NVRAM, it's more work but worth the effort - you can even boot macOS Tiger !

On the Dell 530, I had to modify my DSDT.aml so that I could boot Windows 10 as well. Without these mods, Windows boot would fail - with ACPI_BIOS_ERROR blue screen. The DSDT.aml I posted in this thread has those mods.
Also, in my DSDT.aml (not the one I posted) I had ACPI code to enable the Nvidia GT 730 GPU - this is required for OpenCore since OpenCore does NOT have the Clover equivalent of Graphics/Inject/nvidia=YES in the config.plist.

Apart from those two changes, it's a vanilla OpenCore Legacy Install.
There's good guide here - it's long but detailed.
In that guide there's a section on converting from Clover to OpenCore.

So, the choice is yours - you want to learn to hack or just want an easy life