[Guide] HP 6300 Pro / HP 8300 Elite - A 100 percent Working and Easily Affordable CustoMac

[yllapilate]

So @trs96 I've got a really weird issue here. My son is really happy with the system, except I discovered something that's driving me insane. When I set the computer up initially with 1 monitor on my workbench, everything was great, but then when I plugged in 2 additional monitors, for a total of 3 the system video would not fire up; the system would not initialize the window manager. Essentially the same thing happened with 2 heads as well. I also then found that only with 1 monitor plugged into the HDMI port could I reliably get the system to start up.

Now it takes another strange twist: When I start the system up all the way and we're at the macOS desktop, I can proceed to plug in the two additional monitors and they work great.

Starting the system up in this fashion is a bit burdensome, so I have to figure out what may be going on here. Have you seen this before with a (ZOTAC) GeForce GTX 1050 Ti 4GB card? I'm suspecting there's something in the config.plist that will need some attention, but I'm at a loss so far...

@P1LGRIM yes, thanks, I knew about this, but while the guide noted there gives 12800 as the defined speed, Crucial is giving the higher speed of 14900... It may be possible that the BIOS update facilitates higher rates now, but I'm not finding anything about this specifically, thus my question. :\

 

[trs96]

Starting the system up in this fashion is a bit burdensome, so I have to figure out what may be going on here. Have you seen this before with a (ZOTAC) GeForce GTX 1050 Ti 4GB card? I'm suspecting there's something in the config.plist that will need some attention, but I'm at a loss so far...

I have heard of this problem over the past year but have not investigated a solution as I only use one monitor. Not only with your Zotac but other brands and models. Have you tried simply sleeping it with three monitors connected ? Then when you wake it up are all 3 monitors working ? If you do figure this out I'm sure that many others with this build will be glad to hear your solution.

 

[yllapilate]

Hmm. All 3 monitors are working when it wakes from sleep, yes. I'll have to dig in here and see what I can find.

One thing I did notice that's odd is that while the system woke up from the sleep last night, I don't have a Sleep option from Apple menu (it's greyed out). I suppose something's wrong somewhere in the ACPI config, even though I had followed the steps.

BTW, I've never seen the prompt for updating Thunderbolt firmware before. I assume that will just plug it into the Apple EFI folder and not actually cause any boot problems for the system, right?

 

[P1LGRIM]

I've never seen the prompt for updating Thunderbolt firmware before. I assume that will just plug it into the Apple EFI folder and not actually cause any boot problems for the system, right?

Obviously you cannot update the firmware because you don't have that device so the prompt will keep appearing until you deal with it.
You can update the firmware information in your SMBIOS (with Clover Configurator) or you can use the Terminal (softwareupdate --ignore) to ignore the update.

 

[trs96]

BTW, I've never seen the prompt for updating Thunderbolt firmware before. I assume that will just plug it into the Apple EFI folder and not actually cause any boot problems for the system, right?

You could just right click on the update itself and then "hide update" to completely ignore it.

 

[yllapilate]

You could just right click on the update itself and then "hide update" to completely ignore it.
View attachment 332931

Ah ha! I've never handled it this way before, but I see why I missed it. When I right clicked the actual update title "Thunderbolt Firmware Update 1.2", the "Hide Update" option doesn't appear, HOWEVER when I click the body of text (description) of the update under the title, I do get the "Hide Update" option:

FYI, I'm going to continue to investigate the GTX 1050 issue over here for anyone interested in following along.

 

[trs96]

Starting the system up in this fashion is a bit burdensome, so I have to figure out what may be going on here. Have you seen this before with a (ZOTAC) GeForce GTX 1050 Ti 4GB card? I'm suspecting there's something in the config.plist that will need some attention, but I'm at a loss so far...

I think this problem is related the fact that you have to mange your expectations for what this CustoMac is supposed to do. The late 2012 iMac only has a single monitor. macOS and the 13,2 SMBIOS are designed to boot up with that single monitor. To expect booting with 3 monitors connected is fine for a PC running Windows. It does work fine in that scenario.

As I often say, Mac is Mac, PC is PC and never the twain shall meet. It may be possible to boot macOS with 3 monitors connected using a different SMBIOS, but I prefer to use 13,2 for the better CPU PM. Good luck with your search for a solution, I hope that you can find one and share it with the community.

 

[yllapilate]

Interesting thought there @trs96. I'm curious, what are the repercussions of different models than 13,2 aside from power management (and by that, I assume you're not talking about anything related to performance, but only lower CPU power usage and sleep management)?

I also find your remark interesting in that I have an iMac12,1 sitting beside me that has had 3 monitors (1 27" integrated; 2 external) connected to it for ~3 years and they all start up with the system (active when the window manager / full graphics starts). (Only problem I'm having now on this POS is that the GPU is having the dreaded "pull out the blowtorch" issue.)

I certainly don't mind using a little more power in exchange for the convenience of having the monitors connected, but if stability and such are affected, then I'd prefer to work through this with the current 13,2 definition...

 

[trs96]

I also find your remark interesting in that I have an iMac12,1 sitting beside me that has had 3 monitors (1 27" integrated; 2 external) connected to it for ~3 years and they all start up with the system (active when the window manager / full graphics starts)

And you're not connecting these external monitors to your iMac via HDMI or DVI as you are with the 8300 and 1050 Ti. Those type of video connections are not supported in a multi monitor setup. It is just Thunderbolt and DP that are supported in that 12,1 system or an iMac 13,2.

When using the onboard dual DP outputs on the 8300 USDT version, 2 monitors work with no issues. One thing you could try is enabling the HD4000 and running one of your monitors off of that if they are 1440p or lower resolution anyway.

 

[yllapilate]

That's interesting, so the HD4000 can run simultaneously with the 1050 on this via Intel injection?