[Guide] HP 6200 Pro / 8200 Elite SFF Desktop - macOS Sierra / High Sierra Install Guide

[kyle-a-m]

I'll grab a pic of the verbose output this evening when I'm back at home.

For now, the monitor is this one: http://www.benq.ca/product/monitor/BL2400PU/specifications/

Out of curiosity, is there any significant difference in BRANDS of GPUs? Could the problem be that I'm using an Asus GT 710 rather than, say, MSI?

 

[trs96]

For now, the monitor is this one: http://www.benq.ca/product/monitor/BL2400PU/specifications/

Out of curiosity, is there any significant difference in BRANDS of GPUs? Could the problem be that I'm using an Asus GT 710 rather than, say, MSI?

The monitor should not be presenting any problems as it's 1080p. No, there should be no difference between brands of the GT 710 as they all use the same port layout.

 

[kyle-a-m]

I grabbed a few images as things were pausing. Apologies for any repeats.

 

[trs96]

I would go back through the guide step by step and do a clean install. Do not add anything that isn't mentioned in the guide. See if that will get you past the black screen issue.

 

[kyle-a-m]

I was afraid you’d say that. Thanks. Here’s hoping round two is a bit smoother.

 

[trs96]

High Sierra 10.13.2 on the HP 8200 Elite
​

I've just clean installed High Sierra today with Unibeast and Multibeast post install and can report that it works perfectly on the HP 8200 with Core i3-2100. The install process is exactly the same as for Sierra when you use a mechanical HDD and an EN210 or GT710 graphics card. The only difference is that when you are installing you have to wait through 3 reboots to complete the install. The VoodooHDA and AppleHDADisabler kext still work for the audio and HDMI audio. So, if you want to start with HS instead of Sierra you've got the green light to do that.

 

[postjosh]

INSTALL TIPS FOR HP8200 AND SNOW LEOPARD​

hi. i recently used this excellent guide to install snow leopard on an hp8200. there were a few issues that i didn't see spelled out by trs96 that i thought it might be helpful to post.

first off, these apply to my hp8200 equipped with an i3-2120, 4gb of ram and a low profile evga geforce 210 video card. this was connected to my sony dvi monitor.

i recommend getting a display port to dvi adapter, too. i found the amazon basics adapter works just fine. this is very helpful for installation as i will explain below.

i would also recommend a usb to 3.5mm audio adapter. the audio coming out of the motherboard works but is very noisy and not acceptable for music or movies through good speakers. the usb adapter provides a very high quality output at a low price. i bought one made by sabrent because tony had recommended that brand in an earlier post.

here's the thing that tripped me up the most on this install: the graphics settings. as far as i can tell, apple never released a computer that used the i3 or the hd2000 graphics chipset on that cpu. so, snow leopard really wasn't set up with this hardware in mind. i found that while doing the install from the snow leopard dvd, i had a lot of issues with the geforce card installed. once i removed the card and used the display port adapter instead, the install was much smoother without the freezes and slowdowns i had been experiencing with the geforce card.

i was considering not using the geforce card at all but after i installed chimera via multibeast, the system again became unstable. i read in someone's post that turning external graphics off and internal graphics on in the boot flags is the best option. so, i adjusted my org.chameleon.Boot settings to the following:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>EthernetBuiltIn</key>
<string>Yes</string>
<key>GraphicsEnabler</key>
<string>No</string>
<key>IGPEnabler</key>
<string>Yes</string>
<key>Graphics Mode</key>
<string>1280x1024x32</string>
<key>dart</key>
<string>0</string>
<key>Kernel</key>
<string>mach_kernel</string>
<key>Kernel Flags</key>
<string>arch=i386 npci=0x2000</string>
<key>Legacy Logo</key>
<string>Yes</string>
<key>Timeout</key>
<string>2</string>
</dict>
</plist>​

OSX 10.6.8 now appears to be stable. I would have thought the graphicsenabler=no flag would have turned off the geforce card but it doesn't work that way. this is what "about this mac" reports:

Display:
Type: GPU
Bus: PCIe
PCIe Lane Width: x16
VRAM (Total): 5 MB
Vendor: NVIDIA (0x10de)​

I think what happens is that snow leopard now uses the geforce card as if it were the nividia chipset that was supplied by apple on the core 2 duo macs.

i wasn't really sure what setting to install using multibeast so i opted for the easybeast install. that seems to work well but i did end up having problems with my ethernet connection. i found that i needed to remove AHCI_3rdParty_SATA.kext from the extras folder and install the network drivers with multibeast.

the last tip is that most hard drives need this procedure by macman in order to be bootable:
https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/boot0-error-the-official-guide.65706/

hat's off to trs96b for pulling off this guide. it may seem crazy to be running snow leopard in 2017 but it's a tried and true home server os that works great for ccc backups and itunes. i am very impressed with this machine. it's much faster than old the core2duo mac mini that it replaced and not really much bigger when you factor in that there is no power brick or need for external storage. it's super easy to work on. it's small, quiet and cheap. really a fantastic little box!

 

[trs96]

Glad to hear the guide was helpful. Too bad that the 610 didn't work well for you. The GT 210 that I wrote the Snow Leopard guide with worked well using HDMI. Didn't present any problems for me. Probably because the 210 came out in 2010 about 6 months after Snow Leopard was released and the 610 is a 2 year newer card from 2012. In early 2012, OS X was already updated to 10.7 Lion and Mt. Lion was in the works. The best graphics option in your situation would be to buy a used I3-2125 replace your current I3 with that, and then use your DP to DVI cable to utilize the HD3000 graphics which have support starting with 10.6.8.

The reason I wrote the Snow Leopard part of this guide was for those without access to a Mac for the Sierra download. So it's written with that purpose in mind not for a long term install of Snow Leopard on the 8200. If you are still running SL for a home server, that's fine too, it's still a favorite version of OS X for many people. If you do want to try an Asus silent EN210 let me know and I'll give you a link to one for your server build. It's not the greatest graphics in the world but should be better than HD2000 which isn't supported by OS X. The i3-2125 can be found on Ebay for not a lot of money too.

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_sacat=0&_nkw=i3-2125&rt=nc&LH_PrefLoc=1

 

[postjosh]

The best graphics option in your situation would be to buy a used I3-2125 replace your current I3 with that, and then use your DP to DVI cable to utilize the HD3000 graphics which have support starting with 10.6.8.

no worries, your guide is fine! just to clarify, i wrote up the wrong info last night, i'll edit the post now to fix it. i do have a geforce 210 not the 610. the graphics aren't an issue now that everything is installed. i am able to utilize the nvidea chips in the 210. during the install, i got schooled which was painful but worthwhile. i had instability issues with both dvi and hdmi. the main takeaway for me is that not all i3's are the same. if i were to do this again, i would get an i3-2125 but the i3-2120 works fine with the geforce 210 card as long as i have IGPEnabler on and GraphicsEnabler off.

 

[rysenko]

I've followed this guide and now have a perfectly working build. The only problem I've faced was a reboot that happened from time to time before login screen (probably on video init or close to that). This was fixed by using iMac 14,2 system definition instead of recommended iMac 12,2.