[Guide] El Capitan on the GA-H87N-WIFI with GT 740

El Capitan on the GA-H87N-WIFI with GT 740
This guide assumes you are installing from scratch. If you have an existing Yosemite install with UniBeast, see this guide instead.

My Configuration

• BIOS F5 (old, but works)
• Haswell refresh Core i7-4790S
• 2x 8 GB DDR3-1600
• GeForce GT 740
• Samsung 830 SSD
• BCM94352HMB half mini PCI-E (replacing the one it shipped with)

What Works
Pretty much everything works:

• Audio via motherboard outputs
• Video via HDMI (including 4K output)
• USB3 (speed confirmed 300 MB/s write and 400 MB/s read with external SSD)
• Ethernet networking
• Wireless and Bluetooth on my replacement PCI-E half mini card
• Power saving, sleep, etc.

The WiFi on the card they ship doesn't have OS X drivers, though reportedly the Bluetooth works. Still, I replaced it with a BCM94352HMB.

Installation Prerequisites

• A GA-H87N-WIFI build
• A working Mac or Hackintosh
• A USB stick or drive, 8 GB or larger

Get El Capitan

1. Open Mac App Store
2. Log in with your Apple ID
3. Download OS X El Capitan
4. When the download finishes and the setup screen appears, Quit the app from the menu bar. You should now see the application /Applications/Install OS X El Capitan.app

Other Things to Download

• UniBeast 6.0.x
• Clover
• Clover Configurator (only needed if you want to run iCloud/iMessage/etc.)
• View attachment config.plist
• FakeSMC.kext
• AppleIntelE1000e.kext
• ALXEthernet.kext
• audio_cloverALC-110.command (hit "View Raw" to download)
• KextBeast
• EFI Mounter v3
• Only if using the suggested wireless card above:
  • Wireless: RehabMan-FakePCIID (get the latest version listed)
  • Bluetooth: RehabMan-BcrmPatchRAM (get the latest version listed)
• Later you will install ssdtPRGen.sh (don't do it yet; we need it on the new machine once El Capitan is running)

BIOS Settings

• Press DEL during boot to access BIOS
• In BIOS Features:
  • Fast Boot: Disabled
  • Intel TXT(LT) Support: Disabled
  • VT-d: Disabled
  • Windows 8 Features: Other OS
  • Boot Mode Selection: UEFI Only
  • LAN PXE Boot Option ROM: Disabled
• In Peripherals:
  • Initial Display Output: PCIe 1 Slot (if graphics card installed)
  • XHCI Mode: Smart Auto
  • XHCI Hand-off: Enabled
  • EHCI Hand-off: Enabled

Prepare Bootable USB Drive Installer
This whole section should be performed on the working Mac/Hackintosh

1. Insert the USB drive
2. Open /Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility
3. Highlight the USB drive in left column
4. On a Yosemite or older system:
   1. Click on the Partition tab
   2. Click Current and choose 1 Partition
   3. Click Options...
   4. Choose GUID Partition Table
   5. Under Name: type USB
   6. Under Format: choose Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
   7. Click Apply then Partition. When it finishes, close Disk Utility.
5. On an El Capitan or newer system:
   1. Click on the Erase button in the toolbar
   2. For Name: enter USB
   3. Make sure Format is set to OS X Extended (Journaled)
   4. Make sure Scheme is set to GUID Partition Map
   5. Hit Erase. When it finishes, close Disk Utility.
6. Run UniBeast
   1. Hit Continue on the main screen, Continue on the UniBeast+MultiBeast screen, Continue on the Clover Credits screen, Continue on the Software License Agreement screen, and agree to the license
   2. Select your newly formatted USB drive (so it turns blue) on the Select a Destination screen and hit Continue
   3. Select El Capitan (so it turns blue) and hit Continue
   4. Select UEFI Boot Mode (so it turns blue) and hit Continue
   5. Select appropriate graphics options (nothing checked for the GT740 or onboard HD4600 graphics) and hit Continue
   6. On the Verify Installation Options screen, hit Continue
   7. Enter you password when prompted and wait
   8. When the install finishes, hit Quit
7. Create an extra directory called postinstall on the USB drive to hold the files you’ll need on the machine after installation. Copy these files you downloaded to the new directory:
   • ALXEthernet.kext.zip
   • AppleIntelE1000e.kext.zip
   • audio_cloverALC-110.command.zip
   • The Clover installer zip
   • The Clover Configurator zip
   • config.plist
   • EFI-Mounter-v3.zip
   • FakeSMC.zip
   • KextBeast.zip
   • If using recommended wireless above: the two RehabMan zips
8. Eject the USB drive and insert it into the new machine.

Install El Capitan
Note: the speed of this installation process is not a reflection on the speed or quality of your hardware. It’s just going to take a while.

1. Start the GA-H87N-WIFI machine with the USB drive inserted. If you don't see the Clover boot screen, restart and hit F12 at the BIOS splash screen to get a list of boot devices, and select your USB drive.
2. Select Boot Mac OS X from USB (it should have a picture labeled "EXTERNAL"; use left/right arrow keys to select from multiple options and press enter when the correct one is selected)
3. You should see the apple logo and a progress bar as the installer loads.
4. After a couple of progress bars, you should be prompted to select a language. Then you should see the OS X Utilities screen or just an OS X screen..
5. If you're at the OS X Utilities screen select Disk Utility and hit Continue, or if you're at the OS X screen select Utilities / Disk Utility... from the menu bar.
6. Select the drive on the left where you want to install El Capitan
7. Hit Erase
8. From the dialog that pops up, put in whatever Name you want for the disk, select the Format OS X Extended (Journaled), and the Scheme GUID Partition Map
9. Hit Erase
10. When the erase finishes, hit Done then Quit Disk Utility from the menu
11. If you're at the OS X Utilities screen select Install OS X then hit Continue and then on the OS X El Capitan screen hit Continue. If you're at the OS X screen just hit Continue.
12. On the license screen hit Agree or Continue and the on the popup Agree again
13. Select the disk you just created by name and hit Install or Continue
14. This stage of the installation will take some time. It may stick on "About a second remaining" for 10 minutes or more, but it should eventually restart. (The installation is not yet complete, though; do not remove the USB drive.)
15. After the reboot, the machine should boot to the Clover menu again. If it says there's no boot device or boots to the wrong thing, hit F12 from the BIOS splash screen and select the USB drive. At that point you should get the Clover menu. If the Clover menu lets you boot to the new drive, you are actually on step 18 -- so boot to the new drive and continue with step 19. Otherwise, it will not yet offer the option to boot to the new installation. Once again, select Boot Mac OS X from USB and hit enter.
16. The apple logo should appear and a new progress bar should start.
17. Eventually a graphical Install OS X screen should appear, with another progress bar.
18. It will reboot again. At the Clover boot screen, select Boot Mac OS X from YourDiskName and you should get to the Welcome screen.
19. Select your country, keyboard, and complete the rest of the setup process. You may not want to sign in with an Apple ID yet, since you have not configured a serial number and etc. Do not "Transfer Information to This Mac" yet either (you can run Migration Assistant later to do that).
20. After the setup, you should end up at the desktop. Congratulations! But you must still perform the post-install setup next.

Post-Installation Configuration
Note: You must complete this or else your Hackintosh won’t be able to boot without the USB drive in place.

1. Copy all the files from the postinstall directory of the USB stick to your new El Capitan install (e.g. to Downloads)
2. Unzip and run the Clover package you copied from the USB stick.
3. Hit Continue on the version/credits screen
4. Hit Continue on the Important Information screen
5. Select your system drive to install to and hit Continue
6. Hit Customize
7. Select Install for UEFI booting only (and make sure Install Clover in the ESP is also selected)
8. Under Driver64UEFI, select OsxAptioFixDrv-64 and PartitionDxe-64
9. Select Install RC scripts on target volume
10. Hit Install, enter your password if prompted, and let the installation complete
11. The Clover installation should have left a new drive mounted on your system called EFI. You may need to change your Finder preferences to display your computer or hard drives in the sidebar or desktop to see it.
12. Navigate to EFI/EFI/CLOVER/kexts/
13. Delete all the numbered directories, leaving only Other
14. Unzip (if needed) and copy the FakeSMC.kext from your postinstall directory into Other/
    • Similarly, if you want working Ethernet on your first boot, copy either or both of AppleIntelE1000e.kext (the Ethernet port closest to audio jacks on the GA-H87N-WIFI) and ALXEthernet.kext (the Ethernet port closest to the built-in video jacks on the GA-H87N-WIFI) to Other/
    • Even if you see it mentioned in other guides, do not copy NullCPUPowerManagement.kext onto the drive (instead we will set up functional CPU power management)
15. Set up config.plist (the Clover configuration file)
    • Run the Clover Configurator app that you downloaded (may be in "CCV.zip").
    • Use File/Open to open the config.plist you copied from the postinstall directory of your USB drive
    • Select the Boot entry on the left and on the right replace MacHDD under Default Boot Volume with the name you gave your El Capitan system drive.
    • Hit File/Save to update the config.plist
    • If you don’t care about iCloud/iMessage/etc. then copy config.plist to EFI/EFI/CLOVER/ now, replacing the default config.plist generated by Clover.
    • Otherwise if you do want iCloud/iMessage/etc., then you must further customize config.plist. For more details on this process see How to Fix iMessage.
      1. Still in Clover Configurator, go to SMBIOS on the left
      2. Click the "magic wand" icon
      3. Select the iMac image (currently leftmost)
      4. Select iMac (14,1)
      5. Click shake next to Week of Manufacture a few times and shake next to Unit Number a few times
      6. Hit OK to copy the values into your config.plist
      7. Copy the value in the Serial Number field
      8. Go to the RtVariables screen on the left
      9. Paste your serial number into the MLB field, and then add 5 random characters or digits to the end, to make 17 characters total.
      10. File/Save config.plist and Quit Clover Configurator.
      11. Copy your modified config.plist to EFI/EFI/CLOVER/, overwriting the default one that’s in there.
16. Eject and remove the USB stick and restart your system
17. You should get a Clover menu on restart, and you can select Boot Mac OS X from YourDriveName or let it do it automatically. It should quickly proceed to the login screen.

Final Hardware Setup
At this point, if you installed network kexts to the EFI partition, at least one of your Ethernet ports should work. If you look in System Preferences / Network, you should see an Ethernet entry and it should be green if the network is hooked up properly.

The sound card outputs will not work, and one or both of your Ethernet ports may not work if you didn't install the kexts to the EFI partition. Finally, CPU power saving is not fully configured, which may cause problems with heating and/or sleep mode. To fix this:

1. Unzip the following kexts you copied from the postinstall directory of the USB stick earlier, and move the resulting files to the Desktop: AppleIntelE1000e.kext and ALXEthernet.kext
2. If using the suggested wireless card above, also extract four more kexts:
   • Unzip RehabMan-FakePCIID.zip and copy FakePCIID.kext and FakePCIID_Broadcom_WiFi.kext from the Release/ directory to the Desktop
   • Unzip RehabMan-BrcmPatchRam.zip and copy BcrmPatchRAM2.kext and BrcmFirmwareRepo.kext from the Release/ directory to the Desktop
3. Unzip the KextBeast application you copied from the postinstall directory of the USB stick earlier. Run the resulting application. When it finishes, restart.
4. Both Ethernet ports should be working now. If you have the recommended wireless card installed, wireless should be working too. Make sure you have Internet access before proceeding.
5. Delete all the .kext files remaining on the Desktop.
6. Unzip the audio_cloverALC-110.command.zip you copied from the postinstall directory of the USB stick
7. Unzip and run the EFI Mounter v3 tool that you copied from the postinstall directory to mount your system disk EFI partition (typically /dev/disk0s1 if you're installing to the first disk but you can use diskutil list in terminal to confirm the correct identifier if needed)
8. Double-click the audio_cloverALC-110.command file in Finder. When prompted, answer:
   • Confirm Realtek ALC892 (y/n): y
   • Enable HD4600 HDMI audio (y/n): n (I'm not using the built-in HD4600 GPU)
   • Clover Audio ID Injection (y/n): y
   • Use Audio ID: 1 (y/n): y
9. The script will then download and install audio drivers.
10. Now restart. After the restart, your audio jacks should be working. In System Preferences / Sound you can turn on the volume control in the menu bar. If you have speakers or headphones handy, try playing a song in iTunes to be sure.
11. Open Terminal. Go to the ssdtPRGen.sh page and run the "curl" and "chmod" commands at the top of the instructions on that page. This will install the ssdtPRGen.sh script.
12. Run the script using the following command. Answer n to both prompts when it runs.
    Code (Text):

    ~/ssdtPRGen.sh
13. Mount your EFI partition, again with EFI Mounter v3
14. Still in terminal, run
    Code (Text):

    open ~/Library/ssdtPRGen
15. Copy the SSDT.aml file in the Finder window that just opened to EFI/EFI/CLOVER/ACPI/patched/
16. GA-H87N-WIFI ONLY: Copy this View attachment DSDT.aml file to EFI/EFI/CLOVER/ACPI/patched/ It includes a few fixes, such as increasing the power available to the USB ports for charging devices, and enabling USB3 on rear USB ports. (Other boards would need a different DSDT file.)
17. Reboot one last time
18. If you have any problems after your machine has been sleeping for a long time ("standby" mode), try running the following terminal command to restrict it to regular "sleep" instead of allowing standby:
    Code (Text):

    sudo pmset -a standby 0 && sudo pmset -a autopoweroff 0

That’s it! Your hackintosh should be working in El Capitan. Enjoy.




Credits: tonymacx86 (original Clover installation procedure)
Audio script from toleda
Wireless kexts from RehabMan (wireless and bluetooth), Bluetooth handoff enabler from lisai9093



Appendix: Windows 10 Dual Boot (same drive)
If you'd like to install Windows 10 in a dual boot configuration on the same drive as El Capitan, follow these additional steps. There are many ways to do the installation, this is just one that is known to work.

Requirements

• Your El Capitan install USB drive (if you wipe this out to use for Windows, you will have to recreate it later)
• A USB drive to use for the Windows installer
• A Windows 10 ISO
• An existing Windows computer to prepare the ISO
  • If you don't have a Windows computer, skip the next section and see n3oNLit3's instructions in Post #11.

Prepare Windows 10 USB on a Windows computer

1. Download the Windows USB/DVD Download Tool
2. Insert your USB stick or drive
3. Run the tool
4. Select your Windows 10 ISO
5. Select the USB install type
6. Select your USB drive
7. Wait for it to finish and move the USB drive to the hackintosh

Install Windows 10
Start from the working El Capitan install above, and:

1. Open Disk Utility
2. Select your El Capitan drive (not the partition underneath it)
3. Select Partition
4. Hit the + to add a new partition for Windows, and drag the pie chart slider until the two partitions are sized appropriately
5. Leave the format of the new partition as OS X Extended (Journaled).
6. Hit Apply
7. With the Windows USB drive attached, restart the hackintosh
8. If the BIOS does now boot the USB drive first, hit F12 and select the USB drive
9. Install Windows. When you get to the pick a disk partition screen, select the partition you created for Windows above (easiest to identify by size, usually). Delete the partition, then format it. When it prompts you that Windows may create extra partitions, that's OK. Then select the new big partition it created to install to.
10. After the first reboot during the Windows install, if your hackintosh is set to boot USB devices first, you will need to remove the USB drive. If you missed it and you're back at the "choose a language" installer screen, remove the USB and reboot to boot to the new install and continue the process.
11. After the Windows install completes and leaves you at the desktop, go to Settings / Update & security / Windows Update and install all available updates. (You can skip this, but you'll probably have more work later if you do because the updates may break the boot loader.)

Fix Dual Booting

1. At this point, the machine will be booting only to Windows. Insert your El Capitan install USB drive and restart. Use F12 if needed to boot to the USB.
2. You should see a Clover menu. Select Boot Mac OS X from YourDriveName.
3. Once in OS X, mount your EFI partition with EFI Mounter v3
4. Go to the EFI partition
5. Go to EFI/Microsoft/Boot/ and rename bootmgfw.efi to bootmgfw-orig.efi
6. Copy EFI/CLOVER/CLOVERX64.efi to EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi
7. Eject the El Capitan install USB drive
8. Reboot
9. You should get a Clover menu, with the usual settings to boot to OS X and also new Windows options. To start Windows, select Boot Microsoft EFI boot menu from EFI.
10. After future Windows updates, Windows may reset the EFI partition to boot only to Windows again. You'll need to repeat the steps in this section.

You should now be able to boot to both Windows and OS X!

 

Good and very well written guide!

This will be usefull for more people, i did almost the same steps on my board (see signature), excluding a few kext i did not need because i did not have that hardware part..

 

Nice write up I considered writing a guide for my board GA-Z77X-UD5H, but seeing as its a few years old, I didnt know how relevant people would find it... What do you think?

Do you write these directly here, or do you write them in Word/Pages and them paste them in?

 

Well, this board isn't current any more either, but it was in the Buyer's Guide for a while, so I'm imagining a few people have it. Granted, they might be more interested in an upgrade than a full install, but at least this brings together the config.plist and kexts that are needed. Plus, I would have written up the upgrade, but I really borked it, and ended up doing a full install and using Migration Assistant to slurp the data from my backup drive. Maybe now I can swap in the backup drive and try the upgrade routine.

When I first wrote the NUC guide I did it in Pages, but then there was a decent amount of tidying up needed after I put it in here (some of which one of the mods did -- thanks!). This time I wrote it here, and along the way periodically switched to the "source mode" editor and copied and pasted my work-in-progress to an e-mail as a form of backup. It's really too bad you can't save a draft.

 

Great guide.
Typo in file name; difficult to keep kexts in attachment current, suggest links to download repos.

 

Thanks for the review. I fixed the file name.

As for the kexts -- it's the two FakePCIID kexts to enable Airport, and the Bluetooth firmware uploader kext. Do you think those are likely to change in a way that causes them to need updates? I figured the versions I included would probably work until the next major OS release, but I don't have a lot of experience with it so I'll take your guidance.

 

Unknown, use links as you did for all other kext downloads.

 

You have in your guide Prepare Windows 10 USB on a Windows computer..

But what if you dont have access to a windows computer, as I didnt? I did it via terminal, and could provide you with the steps, if you would like to add it to your guide. I imagine there has to be an app to use to do this, but I was fine doing it via terminal..
Let me know

 

If you post the steps I'll put a pointer to that in the Windows section. Thanks!