- Joined
- Jul 26, 2012
- Messages
- 26
- Motherboard
- GA-Z68XP-UD3
- CPU
- i7-2600K
- Graphics
- GTX 980
- Mac
- Classic Mac
- Mobile Phone
This is eventually going to be a guide for installing and it's going to say "Success" up there. It doesn't say that yet, and this will be a document of my progress with this hardware with the specific side-steps and caveats that I encounter as I go.
Update: I got my audio working with MaciASL! See detailed instructions below.
Update: I got my EVGA GTX 980 working (easily!)
"Don't fix it it if it ain't broke." No, but how broke is it? Because I had a happy little system that booted ML just fine, supported dual monitors, booted into windows when I asked it to and everything was groovy. But if you're at all like me you can't leave well enough alone. Plus I bought new hardware.
I mostly followed the excellent guide here: http://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/u...orted-intel-based-pc.172672/#alt_post_install
So I'm going to follow that outline here but with a few additions and other bits:
Before You Begin
One thing that's different from when I did my initial Hackintosh for this system is Clover. We're now using the Clover bootloader and it's very different. I like it, but it's different. There is an incredibly useful tool that's pretty well documented called Clover Configurator that seems to take the place of Multibeast. Im not 100% certain on that, but I think we use it in a similar way. This video introduction was handy even though the dude is running Yosemite:
OK, so start downloading the installer because that takes forever, but this is towards making that fateful decision (step 15) in building your USB installer drive. It seems like it might be no-brainer, but, again, I would urge caution here. I did not and as a result had a rocky time getting my system back.
About upgrading your BIOS to UEFI
Let's talk a bit about BIOS. I wish that I had taken more time to look at my options about UEFI, because if I had I think I probably could have saved myself a lot of trouble making this work. And all I had to do was choose clover legacy. My advice would be to very seriously weigh this option before you jump in. Upgrading your motherboard to UEFI may unlock some cool stuff, but it is a fundamental change to your hardware and there will be serious consequences. But if you should go that route I'll tell you what I did.
I went here and searched for my motherboard to see whether UEFI was even an option. You need to be sure you are searching for the correct hardware version and everything here. I keep a list of my hardware in a separate document and copy/paste to be certain I don't mess up. Close enough isn't going to work here. Mine was a GA-Z68XP-UD3 (rev 1.3)
http://www.gigabyte.us/support-downloads/support-downloads.aspx
It was and I downloaded the U1G bios and set about making a USB stick to update it. I followed this video guide with the (still functional) Win 7 install on that system:
It worked and my system now uses (irrevocably) the new UEFI.
Recommended BIOS/UEFI Settings
So if you did upgrade to UEFI, I have some recommendations there. Do what the guide says about Loading the optimized defaults. You do indeed need to set your SATA Mode Selection to AHCI, but I found the other settings (including deactivating USB 3) were not necessary.
Booting off your El Capitan Install USB
So you've gone through and used Unibeast to prepare your USB install disk and made fateful decisions, etc. Now the easy part? Nope. This was my first big snag. Boot, F12, Choose USB-HDD, Clover, Enter to boot from the USB-- kernel panic.
So this looks dire, but what you are trying to do is very complicated. There are going to be problems. I took this snap with my iPhone so I could do some hunting and figure out what went wrong. I searched for "AppleIntelCPUPowerManagement" and eventually found this godsend of a thread:
http://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/big-list-of-solutions-for-el-capitan-install-problems.173991/
You need to tell Clover to add the boot argument "cpus=1". Don't know how to do that? I didn't. This will help: http://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/clover-basics-and-switching-advice.171680/
With that single flag (that took me several hours to find) I was able to boot into the installer, format the drive and install El Capitan.
Using El Capitan
Which is great, only... So are you going to have to set that damned boot flag every time? No. So post-install you've got Clover Configurator going mostly to build you a fake SMBIOS so that the decidedly non-apple hardware in your make makes sense to the OS. That is helpful. Awesome. At this point, my machine believes it is an iMac 12,2 which had the Sandy Bridge processor like this one so thing should be comparatively smooth there. But it still doesn't really understand your processor and that's where you're going to need to create and install an SSDT. I don't really know what that is, but as far as I know it's what tells your hardware about your processor which is useful for power management (that thing that was causing kernel panic earlier.)
http://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/quick-guide-to-generate-a-ssdt-for-cpu-power-management.177456/
After I did that, my system boots from Clover without me having to set any boot args or anything.
It even uses both monitors.
And my USB3 ports work (I have not tested rigorously, so they may only be working at USB 2.0 speeds, but at least they work and don't crash the OS like they used to.)
But audio still is not working. And I haven't really addressed the Windows install I want to do. More to come...
Update: I got my audio working with MaciASL! See detailed instructions below.
Update: I got my EVGA GTX 980 working (easily!)
"Don't fix it it if it ain't broke." No, but how broke is it? Because I had a happy little system that booted ML just fine, supported dual monitors, booted into windows when I asked it to and everything was groovy. But if you're at all like me you can't leave well enough alone. Plus I bought new hardware.
I mostly followed the excellent guide here: http://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/u...orted-intel-based-pc.172672/#alt_post_install
So I'm going to follow that outline here but with a few additions and other bits:
Before You Begin
One thing that's different from when I did my initial Hackintosh for this system is Clover. We're now using the Clover bootloader and it's very different. I like it, but it's different. There is an incredibly useful tool that's pretty well documented called Clover Configurator that seems to take the place of Multibeast. Im not 100% certain on that, but I think we use it in a similar way. This video introduction was handy even though the dude is running Yosemite:
OK, so start downloading the installer because that takes forever, but this is towards making that fateful decision (step 15) in building your USB installer drive. It seems like it might be no-brainer, but, again, I would urge caution here. I did not and as a result had a rocky time getting my system back.
About upgrading your BIOS to UEFI
Let's talk a bit about BIOS. I wish that I had taken more time to look at my options about UEFI, because if I had I think I probably could have saved myself a lot of trouble making this work. And all I had to do was choose clover legacy. My advice would be to very seriously weigh this option before you jump in. Upgrading your motherboard to UEFI may unlock some cool stuff, but it is a fundamental change to your hardware and there will be serious consequences. But if you should go that route I'll tell you what I did.
I went here and searched for my motherboard to see whether UEFI was even an option. You need to be sure you are searching for the correct hardware version and everything here. I keep a list of my hardware in a separate document and copy/paste to be certain I don't mess up. Close enough isn't going to work here. Mine was a GA-Z68XP-UD3 (rev 1.3)
http://www.gigabyte.us/support-downloads/support-downloads.aspx
It was and I downloaded the U1G bios and set about making a USB stick to update it. I followed this video guide with the (still functional) Win 7 install on that system:
It worked and my system now uses (irrevocably) the new UEFI.
Recommended BIOS/UEFI Settings
So if you did upgrade to UEFI, I have some recommendations there. Do what the guide says about Loading the optimized defaults. You do indeed need to set your SATA Mode Selection to AHCI, but I found the other settings (including deactivating USB 3) were not necessary.
Booting off your El Capitan Install USB
So you've gone through and used Unibeast to prepare your USB install disk and made fateful decisions, etc. Now the easy part? Nope. This was my first big snag. Boot, F12, Choose USB-HDD, Clover, Enter to boot from the USB-- kernel panic.
So this looks dire, but what you are trying to do is very complicated. There are going to be problems. I took this snap with my iPhone so I could do some hunting and figure out what went wrong. I searched for "AppleIntelCPUPowerManagement" and eventually found this godsend of a thread:
http://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/big-list-of-solutions-for-el-capitan-install-problems.173991/
You need to tell Clover to add the boot argument "cpus=1". Don't know how to do that? I didn't. This will help: http://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/clover-basics-and-switching-advice.171680/
With that single flag (that took me several hours to find) I was able to boot into the installer, format the drive and install El Capitan.
Using El Capitan
Which is great, only... So are you going to have to set that damned boot flag every time? No. So post-install you've got Clover Configurator going mostly to build you a fake SMBIOS so that the decidedly non-apple hardware in your make makes sense to the OS. That is helpful. Awesome. At this point, my machine believes it is an iMac 12,2 which had the Sandy Bridge processor like this one so thing should be comparatively smooth there. But it still doesn't really understand your processor and that's where you're going to need to create and install an SSDT. I don't really know what that is, but as far as I know it's what tells your hardware about your processor which is useful for power management (that thing that was causing kernel panic earlier.)
http://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/quick-guide-to-generate-a-ssdt-for-cpu-power-management.177456/
After I did that, my system boots from Clover without me having to set any boot args or anything.
It even uses both monitors.
And my USB3 ports work (I have not tested rigorously, so they may only be working at USB 2.0 speeds, but at least they work and don't crash the OS like they used to.)
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