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

[trs96]

When did it do this during the installation?

Yes, in HS any SSD drive gets auto converted to APFS. In Mojave all drives get converted to APFS and you can't really prevent it from happening during the install. Even if you use a workaround to change back to HFS+ you can't get updates from the App store.

 

[trs96]

Is there any middle road, Mojave-supported GPU you would recommand ? Any idea if the 730 LP would fit and run Mojave well ? I feel like it would be sufficient for light taskes and old games on decent graphic options, and it's almost the same price on eBay etc.

IMPORTANT: You'll need to check with the seller to be sure it's a K600 not just a Quadro 600.
The Quadro 600 is Fermi based and will not work with Mojave.
If they have an actual pic of the back of the card you should see K600 on the label.



Here's an Ebay seller with the K versions. It will output 4K at 60Hz unlike the GT 710 which can only do 4K @ 30Hz. It's compatible with Mojave as it's GK107 Kepler based. Price is ultra low with free shipping. (if you're in the USA) Note that this does come with a full height bracket, not LP.

Dell 0V5WK5 QUADRO K600 1gb Graphics Card for sale online | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Dell 0V5WK5 QUADRO K600 1gb Graphics Card at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many products!

www.ebay.com

It has DP 1.2 output instead of HDMI. So you'd need a DP to HDMI adapter if your monitor doesn't have DP. Nearly all 4K monitors today have DP input so it's the way to go if you want 60 Hz refresh rates. With a 4K tv you'd need a DP 1.2 to HDMI 2.0 active adapter like the one on Amazon from Club 3D.

For any Mini-Tower Dell 7010/9010 owners you can buy the Quadro K420 for under 30 USD. Has the full height bracket you'll need already attached. Just install it and connect your DP cable. That's it. No need for web drivers.

DELL NVIDIA QUADRO 600 1GB DDR3 128-BIT DVI-I DISPLAYPORT PCI-E VIDEO CARD 4J2NX 705595705988 | eBay

Graphics Video Card 4J2NX 04J2NX. Dell Part Number: 4J2NX 04J2NX CN-04J2NX. Dell Nvidia Quadro 600 1GB DDR3. Nvidia Model Number: Quadro 600. GPU: Quadro 600. 1x DisplayPort. Form Factor: 2.731” H x 6.6” L Single Slot.

www.ebay.com

This is Dell branded and is basically the same performance as the K600 card mentioned above.

 

[bobtheflyingsquirrel]

Hi @bobtheflyingsquirrel,
i7 2600 - May need some work to get it working here and note the difference in memory speeds available between Sandy and Ivy bridge chips - not sure why you need additional fan? I thought the 2600 ran quite cool.
Trim - Im not certain but thought the current thinking was that it wasnt needed? Did the Quadro card work without any additional config? Prices for the cards seem much more expensive this side of the pond.Ebay - Quadro 420
Would you mind keeping us posted on the 2600.

I happened to have the i7-2600 already (found in a PC being recycled). I also have 12GB of 1333MHz DDR3 that came with it, so I think that will be alright.
As @trs96 mentioned, I may need to look into the system definitions more to see whether this will work properly; I may try reverting to MacMini5,1.
The fan adapter is because I am hoping for quieter cooling than stock with a CNPS 8900 cooler. I recognize that I may need to modify the case to make it fit.
I will definitely post my progress here.

TRIM - I believe that you can either use the "sudo trimforce enable" command or the patch. My Crucial SSD showed that TRIM wasn't supported when I looked in System Profiler, so I applied the patch.

Quadro - It was literally plug-and-play. It was unaccelerated in the installer but was fully recognized once I booted Mojave. macOS seems to see the 1GB of VRAM correctly, too.

EDIT: Disregard the following link; it leads to an incompatible Fermi card, as per @trs96.
I searched the K600 on ebay.co.uk and it looks like your best bet is international sellers with free shipping: Link to Quadro K600

 

[trs96]

I searched the K600 on ebay.uk and it looks like your best bet is international sellers with free shipping: Link to Quadro K600

Do not buy that card as it's a Fermi based Quadro 600. The seller mislabeled it. That will not work with Mojave at all. I talked with him via email to confirm this. Which seller on Ebay did you buy from ?

Here's a direct quote from the seller in CA:

Hi there, I just notice that big mistake, the title is wrong, Just go with the pictures, the pictures are from the actual item.

I happened to have the i7-2600 already (found in a PC being recycled).

It will probably work alright. Can't beat that kind of price for an i7, Free !

 

[bobtheflyingsquirrel]

Do not buy that card as it's a Fermi based Quadro 600. The seller mislabeled it. That will not work with Mojave at all. I talked with him via email to confirm this. Which seller on Ebay did you buy from ?

Here's a direct quote from the seller in CA:

View attachment 391091


It will probably work alright. Can't beat that kind of price for an i7, Free !

My bad! That link was from my search results on ebay.co.uk for "Quadro K600". There were other options in the search results, but I have not done my due diligence and confirmed their model version, and so I will refrain from linking.
I bought my Quadro from cisl_company, but their listing appears to have ended now: Link
Note that eBay's "We found something similar" option is another incompatible Fermi card.

 

[trs96]

I bought my Quadro from cisl_company

Sounds like you're happy with it. How is the noise level on a 1-10 scale with 10 being jet engine loud and 1 barely audible ? Does the Display Port audio work with just AppleALC and Lilu installed ?

 

[trs96]

Feartech,

Yes - I did that. I had already installed HS per the guide. But these files are new and appear to be machine specific (and CPU). I was just curious what (if anything) needed to be done with that file, as the .ZIP file appears to be different.
Grizz

There have been problems making custom CPU PM SSDTs on Mojave. That's why I've attached those. You can use the one for the i5-3475S if you'd like to. Just place it in /EFI/Clover/ACPI/Patched. Will help with CPU power management and smoother operation of your system. It is optional though.

 

[bobtheflyingsquirrel]

Sounds like you're happy with it. How is the noise level on a 1-10 scale with 10 being jet engine loud and 1 barely audible ? Does the Display Port audio work with just AppleALC and Lilu installed ?

My front case fan is currently a 3-pin model and is stuck on full speed as a result (I transplanted this 7010 motherboard into a 3010 housing, with liberal Dremel usage...). I have an 80mm PWM fan and an adapter cable in the mail, but I've unplugged the front fan for this test since it would otherwise drown out everything else.

• With the card idling while pushing 4K, it's around a 2 or 3, primarily due to some rattle in the fan itself rather than as a result of the RPM. It's louder than the CPU fan, but this is due to its different frequency content; a 3.5" hard drive that is actively seeking would be about as loud. It easily blends into the background HVAC noise here.
• While that represents the typical use case for me, I also tried spinning up Cinebench R15 as a GPU stress test, getting around 31FPS. While the fan only got about twice as loud as at idle, HWMonitor says the GPU die got up to 85C, which is not especially friendly. Ambient seems to be around 28C.
• I am fortunate enough never to have had a jet-engine-style GPU, but the K600 seems quite well-behaved in terms of volume, though the cooling performance is obviously sub-optimal. I think that the wind noise from the front fan has a good chance of drowning it out.

DisplayPort Audio seems to work just fine with only AppleALC, Lilu, and the provided config.plist. My monitor's built-in speakers aren't too great, but that's a different concern (I typically use headphones anyway).

 

[nicksoph]

Tried to find a definitive answer about Trim on Mojave there seem to be 2 attitudes to this;
Using trim slows down boot and therefore shouldnt be used, and
Although it slows down boot it speeds up writing to ssd and therefore should be used.

Not come across any answers that seem definitive but I went with Trim.

 

[craighazan]

Tried to find a definitive answer about Trim on Mojave there seem to be 2 attitudes to this;
Using trim slows down boot and therefore shouldnt be used, and
Although it slows down boot it speeds up writing to ssd and therefore should be used.

Not come across any answers that seem definitive but I went with Trim.

Good choice sir. Can’t say I’ve noticed slow booting with trim enabled. I have a dual boot system with SSD. And macOS boots as quickly as Windows 10 Pro. Both boot under 12 seconds.