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

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I've pressed F2 to get into the bios and waited and still nothing. Powered on and off the monitor. Will try some other monitors. I know the bios settings quite well now and thank god for the reset RTC pins.
Did you replace the CMOS battery as recommended ? The CMOS battery in these is likely to have lost it's ability to hold a charge. These Dells are about 5 years old, or more and may have sat on a shelf for two years unplugged from power. My 9020 MT model had a battery like this. I kept getting a black screen at boot up. Was not able to even access the BIOS until I removed the battery for a minute and reseated it. Replaced the CMOS battery with a fresh new one and this quit happening for good. I've had this also happen in numerous 7010/9010 Optiplex models. It's why I made replacement of the battery for everyone a step in my Dell guides.

The old batteries may test close to 3.0V but are still not able to hold a charge in my experience. So trying to rule it out with multimeter testing is not the best approach.

It's always a good first troubleshooting step to just replace it and see if the problem goes away. I'm not sure why it happens so frequently with Dell brand Optiplex PCs but it's reported quite often.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0002DSVS8/?tag=tonymacx86com-20
 
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Yes, fresh battery (use by 2025), fresh heat sink compound as well. I've got a lot spare so I carry on investigating. When I had a quick play this morning it held its time and date.
 
Completed step 6 but having weird graphics issues. Have you seen anything like this? Using a 4K and 2k monitor. One monitor is plugged in and when it goes funny I plug in the other one to fix it.
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Seen stuff like this before on PC's - sync or resolution issue. If your monitor has a reset option in its menus - start with that but I suspect it might be more complicated. If your monitor can show what res it is currently connected at then on the same screen it may show its current refresh rate - note what that says, esp if you can see it change when you plug the other monitor in. Cables - what have you got? If you can change cables, try that and if not just swap the current cables round.
 
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Just a quick update. Took it to work today to try on a cheap old 1080p monitor and no issues. Even no issues on unchecked the legacy ROMs.

So my monitors which can do more than 1080p are not suitable.

Does anyone know where I can get the bluetooth/wifi cable from to fit in my mac? also how come these card have shot up in price and rare to find now? Everybody cant be hackintoshing surely?
 
@djashjones There is a framebuffer edit they may extend the resolution of 4600, Ive not done it but search the site or look here https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/no-4k-resolution-on-hd4600.270774/ and check yourt monitors settings - they can generally deal with resolutions that are smaller than their native res by up-scalling - yours didnt and this may be possible to change by a setting on the monitor itself.
There is also a chance you can get higher res by using a different sysdef - 15,1 looks promising.
 
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trs96 said:
AppleALC and Lilu Kexts + WhateverGreen
If you'd like to use the builtin ALC269 audio, install the AppleALC 1.3.6 and Lilu 1.3.5 kexts to /L/E.
Include Whatevergreen (WEG) as well to support your Intel graphics and/or AMD or Nvidia card.

Find all of these at the end of this post. Attached below
Use only these two versions of AppleALC and Lilu together and don't mix other release versions with these, it won't work.

I've just brought a dell monitor. My thinking is, in the future if I want to do another build I wont have this issue again. Also it will make VNC at 1080p less of a headache when what I've seen and read so far.

Next is to retrofit a wifi/BT card.
 
trs96 said:


I've just brought a dell monitor. My thinking is, in the future if I want to do another build I wont have this issue again. Also it will make VNC at 1080p less of a headache when what I've seen and read so far.

Next is to retrofit a wifi/BT card.
I have three builds using this card. It is not too expensive (US$27.24) and works perfectly with Continuity, Handoff, Airdrop.
Dual Band BCM94360CS2 PCI-E 867Mbps 802.11AC BT4.0 Wifi PCI-Express Adapter Card

Scratch that... I had too look back and see that you have the USFF? ??
Try AW-CE123H. Cheapest I see on eBay right now is US$18.89 free shipping. (EDIT, I see you are in UK... maybe the one available in Spain is cheaper?)

Add antenna if you need to... I picked up these from Amazon.... just make sure they are U.fl/IPEX and that the cables are long enough (35cm). 8dBi 2.4GHz 5.8GHz Dual Band Omni-Directional WiFi RP-SMA Antenna + 35cm U.fl/IPEX to RP-SMA Female Pigtail Cable for Mini PCIe Card Routers Repeater Desktop PC FPV UAV Drone PS4 Build

See my post on mounting antenna in USFF as one way to do it. Another is the way nicksoph did it ... here's his post.
 
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I brought a BCM94352HMB for about £23 in the UK from a UK seller so hopefully it wont be a dodgy Chinese clone. Also brought the pigtails and antenna's too.

Thanks for your mounting pics, its food for thought.
 
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