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Direct clean install 10.14.4 on NUC8i7BEH with minimal tweaks [10.14.5 Success]

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@chroniq could you post you plist config, also could you confirm openCL score around 55.000 im all time getting around 33.000 :(
 

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check the first post, switching GPU ID by @konsti to MacBook Pro gave him 55.000 but sometime by other whatevergreen version he got 33.000 and by switching to Mac mini. So I just want to find best solution to rich that score
 
Hello and many thanks to the good people in this excellent forum which have enabled me to successfully install (my first Hackintosh) and run MacOS 10.14.5 on my NUC8i7BEH with the v71 BIOS (which was already on the NUC).

I've been running it for about 3 weeks now and apart from the couple of issues listed below, I am very happy with it, so wanted to share my experience. Please forgive me if I should have posted elsewhere, but this thread seemed the most recent on the topic.

Here is a quick run-down of the hardware components installed inside my NUC8i7BEH:

1 x Samsung MZ-V7S500BW 970 EVO Plus 500 GB M.2 SSD (updated firmware to 2B2QEXM7) with MacOS 10.14.5 (HFS+)
1 x Crucial CT525MX300 525GB SATA SSD for data
2 x Crucial CT16G4SFD824A 16 GB (DDR4, 2400 MT/s, PC4-19200, Dual Rank x8, SODIMM, 260-Pin) Memory

Install

I used the famous EFI folder from post 430 (thank you LeesureOne) with UniBeast 9.2.0 and MultiBeast 11.3:

BIOS

The NUC was shipped with v71. I disabled onboard Ethernet, Bluetooth, WiFi, MicroSD slot and the sound output. I also tweaked the fan setting in the BIOS to the "Quiet" setting and it's now a little calmer... You can still hear it under load, but not as much.

Clover configurator

I checked FixRegions as suggested, then in the SMBIOS I am using "Mac mini 8,1" as the product model with a newly generated System serial as recommended in the post 430, and can now access the Apple store without issues. Elsewhere I've read that changing this to "MacBookPro15,2" might be more compatible, but not sure what the benefits are. BTW: don't log in to the store before updating the SMBIOS (like I did), as it won't allow you to download or purchase anything and you have to clear the preferences cache to reset the store (not sure if this 100% the reason but it worked for me).

SSD
I originally installed MacOS 10.14.5 on an old 525GB Crucial CT525MX300 SSD I had, then once I got everything working as best as I could, I invested in a 500GB Samsung MZ-V7S500BW 970 EVO Plus. Because of the different size, I used SuperDuper 3.2.5 to create an image which I then restored to the HFS+ formatted EVO. I am very pleased with the speed, but I seem to have lost the sleep function (it goes to sleep but wakes up immediately) which was working fine on the Crucial SSD. Not a big deal for me at least, but if anybody has any ideas please drop me a line.

Display

I have the NUC connected to a Dell P2715Q 4K monitor via HDMI (I couldn't get it to work via the Lightning port), this works fine aside that I occasionally get green flashes during the login sequence but these disappear after about 10 seconds.

Sound
I use an external USB audio interface, the excellent Focusrite Scarlett 6i6, connected to one of the USB 3.1 ports and this works as expected.

General connectivity

Onboard Ethernet, BT and WiFi are NOT working as described elsewhere. I have a QacQoc USB C adapter with and Ethernet interface built in and it works very well. I am using a wireless keyboard and mouse both with their own USB 2.4kHz dongle which work fine.

Buggy WiFi

I am using a Realtek RTL8811AU WiFi dongle, which installed fine with the supplied driver, however it randomly drops the connection speed to 0 and slowly picks up again. Not sure why that is, probably to do with the age of the drivers (latest driver was for MacOS 10.12). I could not find any more up-to-date drivers. Any ideas would be very welcome as I will need to move to another room shortly where I don't have Ethernet.

App Store

To date I've only received one update notification from the Store (get them almost daily on my Macbook Pro), wondering if this is a coincidence or something I need to look at. If anybody has any ideas please let me know.

Many thanks again to everyone here and hope this helps someone.
 
WiFi update
Since I moved my home office, which is closer to the router, the Realtek RTL8811AU WiFi dongle is now stable without dropout. I can only conclude that this dongle isn't as powerful as other ones I've used in the past, as I never had an issue at the old location, though admittedly quite far from the router. So in summary, it works fine.

App Store
I am still on MacOS 10.4.5, and still no system (or even app) update requests from the store which I find odd, anybody else experiencing this?

Thanks
 
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this thread might be dormant by now, but..

are there any tricks to getting thunderbolt to work? specific bios settings etc?

I have a thunderbolt 1 seagate HDD dock connected via an apple TB3 to TB2 adapter. this setup works on a gigabyte Z390 board with alpine ridge add-in card, so I expect that it should work with the nuc since I believe it uses the alpine ridge controller.
thanks
 
thx for the hint with gigabit issues: "disable "PCIe ASPM Support" in BIOS "Secondary Power Settings" section, this improves Gigabit stability". I had big issues with very high latency and packet loss.


tested using iperf3 (over wifi):
1570694711056.png


Another issue I'm facing: the NUC8i7BEH freezes after some time (hours/over night?) when the display turned off..
. Anyone else with freeze issues?
 
this thread might be dormant by now, but..

are there any tricks to getting thunderbolt to work? specific bios settings etc?
yes:
- set thunderbolt mode to legacy in BIOS
- connect the device before booting (no hot plug)
 
NUC8i7BEH macOS 10.14.6 (18G103) update and HFS+ workaround

I’ve been running macOS 10.14.5 since Aug 12, 2019 on the NUC8i7BEH without any major issues. Install notes and full spec in earlier post #64. The only change is that I no longer use the Realtek RTL8811AU WiFi dongle as it worked intermittently, and I just use the wire Ethernet port on my QacQoc USB C adapter.

I decided to update to macOS 10.14.6 since I wanted to use the new version of Logic Pro X which only works on macOS 10.14.6+. My internal drive is a Samsung 970 EVO Plus 500GB M.2 SSD, which whilst fast is apparently unreliable when formatted APFS (happy to hear if this has changed for anyone), so it is formatted HFS+ instead. Since Mojave won’t install directly on HFS+ drives I’ve used the following workaround:
  1. Backed up my system drive with macOS Mojave 10.14.5
  2. Downloaded the macOS Mojave 10.14.6 Combo Update
  3. Left my Clover version Clover 2.4k r4961 as it was, but replaced the following Kexts as described here: Lilu, WhatEverGreen and AppleALC. For this part I mounted the EFI drive using Clover Configurator and manually replaced them in the ../Clover/kexts/other/ folder
  4. Used SuperDuper! 3.3.1 to image current macOS Mojave 10.14.5 on the internal Samsung 970 EVO Plus (HFS+) to an external USB SSD (same size), but formatted with APFS (as mentioned earlier Mojave won’t install on HFS+)
  5. Booted to the external SSD drive via Clover and launched “macOSUpdCombo10.14.6.dmg”
  6. MacOS 10.14.6 installed without issues (2 reboots, appx 30 minutes install)
  7. Ran new install for a day from the external SSD to check for any issues (there were none)
  8. Used SuperDuper! again to image new install (10.14.6) back to the internal Samsung 970 EVO plus (HFS+).
  9. Running stable now for a week. Only advisory is to perhaps (I haven't tried this) log out of your cloud services before doing step 4, as mine became disconnected from their respective local folders. In theory this won't happen if you log back in once you have completed step 8, as you will be back on the same physical drive.
 
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NUC8i7BEH macOS 10.14.6 (18G103) update and HFS+ workaround

I’ve been running macOS 10.14.5 since Aug 12, 2019 on the NUC8i7BEH without any major issues. Install notes and full spec in earlier post #64. The only change is that I no longer use the Realtek RTL8811AU WiFi dongle as it worked intermittently, and I just use the wire Ethernet port on my QacQoc USB C adapter.

I decided to update to macOS 10.14.6 since I wanted to use the new version of Logic Pro X which only works on macOS 10.14.6+. My internal drive is a Samsung 970 EVO Plus 500GB M.2 SSD, which whilst fast is apparently unreliable when formatted APFS (happy to hear if this has changed for anyone), so it is formatted HFS+ instead. Since Mojave won’t install directly on HFS+ drives I’ve used the following workaround:
  1. Backed up my system drive with macOS Mojave 10.14.5
  2. Downloaded the macOS Mojave 10.14.6 Combo Update
  3. Left my Clover version Clover 2.4k r4961 as it was, but replaced the following Kexts as described here: Lilu, WhatEverGreen and AppleALC. For this part I mounted the EFI drive using Clover Configurator and manually replaced them in the ../Clover/kexts/other/ folder
  4. Used SuperDuper! 3.3.1 to image current macOS Mojave 10.14.5 on the internal Samsung 970 EVO Plus (HFS+) to an external USB SSD (same size), but formatted with APFS (as mentioned earlier Mojave won’t install on HFS+)
  5. Booted to the external SSD drive via Clover and launched “macOSUpdCombo10.14.6.dmg”
  6. MacOS 10.14.6 installed without issues (2 reboots, appx 30 minutes install)
  7. Ran new install for a day from the external SSD to check for any issues (there were none)
  8. Used SuperDuper! again to image new install (10.14.6) back to the internal Samsung 970 EVO plus (HFS+).
  9. Running stable now for a week. Only advisory is to perhaps (I haven't tried this) log out of your cloud services before doing step 4, as mine became disconnected from their respective local folders. In theory this won't happen if you log back in once you have completed step 8, as you will be back on the same physical drive.
Just a heads up that I've got a couple of systems running Catalina 15.4 with APFS formatting using EVO Plus NVMe Drives. Updated the firmware and that was it, typing this post on one right now. No glitches or performance issues ever.
 
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