[Guide] Install High Sierra or Mojave on the Dell Optiplex 7010 / 9010 Desktop PC - Revision II

[trs96]

Both machines seem to be rock solid, thanks for the guide.

It was fun testing this and trying the 7010 USFF out with High Sierra. At first, it didn't look to be a good hackintosh machine but once I got it figured out it appears to be even more compatible than the 8300 by HP. Don't know why more people aren't viewing this thread and trying one out. They are dirt cheap on Ebay and once macOS HS is installed they work as well as a real Mac. DP audio and onboard ALC 269 work with just AppleALC and Lilu installed, that's it, no other tweaking necessary. Has an Intel LAN, great cooling system and you can replace the PSU in the MT version with almost any ATX power supply. What more could anyone ask for ? All for $200 or less !

 

[nicksoph]

They are dirt cheap on Ebay and once macOS HS is installed they work as well as a real Mac.

You are spot on there - I got a USFF 7010 with 3220 and 8GB of ram, 160GB HDrive for £75 delivered,
sold the 3220 for £20 and bought 3475s for £32 and
spent £45 for 240GB ssd.
Total including fees and postage ~ £140
for a solid, fast and quiet mac that would compare well against any Apple made machine in the < £1000 category.

Thanks

 

[nicksoph]

Hi trs - just looked at the plist that you have on page 1 for Nvidia and noticed it has a sata0 to sata rename which is not mentioned elsewhere. Decided to reinstall on the 3475 and used that to build with a slight modification - injected intel and had no issues with usb throughout the process.
Why the sata rename? and Might be worth thinking about the plist being a piece of the standard install?

 

[trs96]

Hi trs - just looked at the plist that you have on page 1 for Nvidia and noticed it has a sata0 to sata rename which is not mentioned elsewhere. Decided to reinstall on the 3475 and used that to build with a slight modification - injected intel and had no issues with usb throughout the process.
Why the sata rename? and Might be worth thinking about the plist being a piece of the standard install?

I'm not completely sure that the SATA rename has anything to do with the USB function when installing. It's primarily the EHC1 and EHC2 renames that do. I added that Sata0 to Sata rename in there as something that might help but certainly couldn't hurt anything if it's not needed.

There is also the option to Fix SATA from the Clover Boot options (DSDT fix mask). Maybe you could simply test booting with that and Fix USB and see if the ports (2.0) work better for the install. If you want to test more to figure out the perfect HD4000 config.plist I will add that as an option for those that can't boot the installer and get working USB with the one Unibeast creates.

 

[msrx386_64]

Hi trs96,

Currently installed and running Macos High Sierra 10.13.6 on Dell OptiPlex 3010 DT. Need to buy a Dedicated Graphics card what are the options you suggest to buy for this mobo, ready for PSU upgrade as it comes with 275 Watts PSU only.

Dell OptiPlex 3010
CPU - i3 3220
Graphics - Intel HD Graphics 2500 (No QE/CI)

I wish to put Gigabyte gtx1050ti Low profile or Geforce GT 1030. Suggest me Please.

 

[trs96]

Hi trs96,

Currently installed and running Macos High Sierra 10.13.6 on Dell OptiPlex 3010 DT. Need to buy a Dedicated Graphics card what are the options you suggest to buy for this mobo, ready for PSU upgrade as it comes with 275 Watts PSU only.

Dell OptiPlex 3010
CPU - i3 3220
Graphics - Intel HD Graphics 2500 (No QE/CI)

I wish to put Gigabyte gtx1050ti Low profile or Geforce GT 1030. Suggest me Please.

I Don't think you need to upgrade the PSU to run either of those graphics cards, certainly not the GT 1030. If you want to game on high settings or better get the 1050 Ti. If you want to save some money, go with the 1030. Remember that my guide is for the 7010 or 9010 models only. The 3010 you have is an H61 chipset motherboard paired with an Ivy bridge CPU so some parts of this guide will not apply. It may be best for you to install and boot Legacy instead of UEFI. I don't think the Conexant CX20641 audio chip is supported either so you will likely have to use VoodooHDA for audio instead of AppleALC.

 

[nicksoph]

I'm not completely sure that the SATA rename has anything to do with the USB function when installing.

During at least one of the numerous installs Ive tried I noticed it seemed to hang when it seemed to be working on the hard drive and wondered if it was related but mostly I was just wanting to know why it was there in the plist but not mentioned elsewhere?

If you want to test more to figure out the perfect HD4000 config.plist

Your one is the one that went straight thru, twice - never a hicccup, Ive only amended it very slightly to inject intel graphics. The only variation to the build process with this plist was to disable; Legacy BIOS, Virtualization, Sound and Wifi in BIOS. It worked perfectly for a i5 3475s in a 7010 USFF.

Edit: changed attachment to correct one

 

[trs96]

@karoli9 I know that you are using the MT version of the 7010. Did you keep the stock Dell fans or replace them ? I know that the CPU fan (80mm) is quite noisy. You are gaming with it, how loud does it get ? How high are the temps going up to ?

 

[trs96]

Your one is the one that went straight thru, twice - never a hicccup, Ive only amended it very slightly to inject intel graphics.

I've attached a working HD4000 plist to the end of Post #2 so anyone can just copy and paste that to their Unibeast USB's Clover folder on the EFI partition and easily reach the installer. Note : Remember that this will not work for Nvidia graphics, just if you are using HD4000 to install macOS High Sierra.

 

[nicksoph]

Just put HS on a 7010 SFF (Ebay bargain - £27 for SFF 7010, with a Pentium G630, 2GB of RAM, no HD) built with an i3 3225 and a spinning disk using your plist from post 2. Straight thru with one exception - needed two boots after MultiB finished.

Will be rebuilding later in the week with an ssd and hope to have a USB 3 device to test speeds with - read somewhere that sys def 14,2 is more likely to bring usb3 speeds, so might have a try with that then.

EDIT: Just tried a USB3 Spinning Disk in this and it seems the USB3's are working at full speed, with read/writes touching 110MB/sec and steady at about 85MB/sec copying videos. Tried this with 13,1 and 13,3 sys defs, both give full speed USB3's.

@trs96 Thanks again, your guides have been easy to follow and because of that, provided a great base to learn about this stuff.