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

[trs96]

If you look at the lowest cost Kaby Lake I5 (7400) it sells for an average of $184 USD. You can buy one of these 8300s with an I5-3470 and add in an 8GB ram kit for about $193 total cost right now. Really an incredible value for such a powerful macOS compatible system. Just add a GTX 1050 or 1050 Ti and you've got a superb budget gaming system in the $300 to $350 range. If you don't game you can get a 30-40 dollar GT710 for basic graphics support.

Current best deal on a Refurbished 8300 Elite SFF:

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?item=9SIAAJ26KC2658

This seller on Newegg has over 200 of these available as of today. That's why the prices are so low. A large inventory that needs to be moved will result in prices this low. Revive IT is one of the biggest refurbishers in the USA. They ship from AZ and TN so if you live in those States you will also pay the sales tax for each one. Has a 1 year warranty and they sell only Grade A HP desktops. It ships with just 4 GB of ram so you'll need to add your own 8 or 16 GB Kit. Here's one option for that. A G.Skill 2 x 4GB kit at 1600 MHz.

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231428&cm_re=g.skill_ripjaws-_-20-231-428-_-Product

I've tested this and it's fully compatible with the 8300.

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[jmn1982]

High Sierra work well in HP 6300 Pro / HP 8300 Elite ?

 

[trs96]

High Sierra work well in HP 6300 Pro / HP 8300 Elite ?

As of today it's best to install Sierra first. Follow the guide and get everything working. Once we get Multibeast 10.0 and at least 10.13.2 from Apple then you should consider a clean install of High Sierra. Even then you only need to go with HS if there is some feature you must have in it that Sierra does not provide. Sierra works perfectly with the 6300/8300. Why mess with success ? There are still going to be problems with High Sierra as it's a work in progress (WIP). In the longer term I expect High Sierra to work just as well as Sierra on these HP desktops.

If you look at Rehabman's post on High Sierra problems with laptops you'll be glad you've got an HP desktop instead.

https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/readme-common-problems-in-10-13-high-sierra.233582/

 

[Highsider]

Hi,

i cloned my ssd to a hdd and tried to update to HighSierra (via USB-Stick generated by UniBeast 8). I used this High Sierra 1/2 day on my HP8300 with HD4000 graphics. Everything seems to work fine. But i will stay on Sierra, until MultiBeast is released.

I am very happy with my HP8300 and Sierra. Thanks to trs96 for this guide!

Greetings
Dennis

 

[trs96]

Hi,

i cloned my ssd to a hdd and tried to update to HighSierra (via USB-Stick generated by UniBeast 8). I used this High Sierra 1/2 day on my HP8300 with HD4000 graphics. Everything seems to work fine. But i will stay on Sierra, until MultiBeast is released.

I am very happy with my HP8300 and Sierra. Thanks to trs96 for this guide!
Greetings
Dennis

It will probably be easier to upgrade when using integrated HD4000 graphics as opposed to Nvidia Web drivers for a Pascal card. There are a few changes to the method of installing web drivers in HS. I'm hoping that the Nvidia web drivers will get better with future point updates of High Sierra. I've also seen many have problems with the new iTunes crashing and a host of other minor annoyances.

So my general HS upgrade advice for anyone with an 8300 or 6300 Pro is to backup first to be able to revert to Sierra if it doesn't work out. If you use igfx, HD4000 or have a natively supported graphics card it's ok to make the leap to HS. Just make sure to not convert to APFS if your boot drive is an HDD or even an SSD. Stay with the tried and true HFS+ for now. If you have a Pascal card like the GTX 1050 (Ti) that requires web drivers, stay with Sierra until further notice. I have a GTX 1050 in my 6300 Pro.

So I'm in no hurry to go with High Sierra yet. It will likely require a supplemental guide for either upgrading or clean installing HS. I'd like to keep this guide focused on just Sierra 10.12.6. Glad to hear that you like your 8300 ! It's really one of the better choices for those new to hackintoshing.

 

[sdrose]

Hello!
I just received my Gigabyte GTX 1050 2gb low-profile card. Fit in the machine just fine. I went into the BIOS and changed the option for Video to UEFI from Legacy.

However, when I boot into Mac Sierra 10.12.6, I am receiving an error message when trying to install the webdriver.

Graphic attached for the error, also the exact driver version. Can anyone point to me why the install fails, and what can I chanage to successfully load the driver?

Thanks!
-dave

 

[sdrose]

I think this RAM is relevant to the problem ....

 

[sdrose]

Ok. So I guess I missed the step in the guide which states to go back and install, via MultiBeast, the HW Plugins and HW Monitor part of FakeSMC.

After installing that, I was able to successfully complete the WebDriver install.... 76 pages of people successfully installing, somehow I missed it ....

I will say, however, I am very happy with the i7 8300 SFF machine I now have. I have basically abandon a Gigabyte z77n-wifi based Hack for this one. And, I'm really happy I did, to be honest!!

I'll update my signature soon, but, I have a 250gb SSD for boot, and a 3tb rotational drive to store my photographs (And other data).

I've removed the DVD drive, and replaced it with a 5.25 swappable drive bay (not hot-swap though) holding a 4gb 3.5 SATA hard drive (for Time Machine backups ..)

And now I have a GTX 1050. I'm hoping Blender will use this for speedier CUDA rendering ... although it basically is a budget card, and I'm happy with it for dual monitors ...

Thanks!
-dave

 

[sdrose]

Good to hear you are getting a fully working Ivy Bridge system. These are about as close as you can get to Mac like compatibility on a PC desktop. Seems like HP designed these to run macOS. Let us know how the monitors work at 1200p.

So, what I'm seeing is, as was written, the 2nd HDMI port itself looks like it isn't being activated by the driver. I was thinking you were saying that when an HDMI port was active, the next HDMI port wouldn't come online. But it seems even if in HDMI Port #2 is only used, it is still showing on the monitor as 'No Signal'.

I have ordered a DisplayPort to HDMI cable -- will write back with info.

Currently using 1 monitor with Display Port and the other with HDMI.

One oddity I've been seeing is, if I have both monitors plugged-in and turned-on when I start the system, it begins to load but then goes all-black and doesn't go further.

If, however, I turn-off the DisplayPort monitor (only the single, HDMI monitor is powered), and I turn on the computer, it will boot thru the Clover bootloader, past the Apple logo, to the user-login. Then I can turn-on the 2nd monitor, they both turn on and get displays, and then I can go on from there.

-dave

 

[mlai]

So, what I'm seeing is, as was written, the 2nd HDMI port itself looks like it isn't being activated by the driver. I was thinking you were saying that when an HDMI port was active, the next HDMI port wouldn't come online. But it seems even if in HDMI Port #2 is only used, it is still showing on the monitor as 'No Signal'.

I have ordered a DisplayPort to HDMI cable -- will write back with info.

Currently using 1 monitor with Display Port and the other with HDMI.

One oddity I've been seeing is, if I have both monitors plugged-in and turned-on when I start the system, it begins to load but then goes all-black and doesn't go further.

If, however, I turn-off the DisplayPort monitor (only the single, HDMI monitor is powered), and I turn on the computer, it will boot thru the Clover bootloader, past the Apple logo, to the user-login. Then I can turn-on the 2nd monitor, they both turn on and get displays, and then I can go on from there.

-dave

Revert back to Legacy mode in your BIOS video mode.