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My First Hackintosh — [WIP] The Build: HP ZBook 17 G6

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I have read on other forums that the 17 G3 works fine with the gtx 980m and the 1060m as well. I think those wont work with catalina, thought...

I have a 17 G3 and for some time I had mojave running fine with the quadro disabled...That way the system was really stable
 
Bought the heat sink! I've noted this in the OP by updating my part list. I also made a few other, minor tweaks to other parts of it; see the changelog for details.
 
I still have a few more parts to order, but, hooray: the laptop arrived today! It even came earlier than tracking suggested, too!
 
Just bought the '12+6'-pin–to–m.2 2230 Type E adapter; I've updated my OP with a link to where I purchased it.

I've also bought the spare antenna now; details on where I got that have also been added to my OP.

Hmm, I wonder what thickness of thermal pad I should buy to replace the one that goes between the RAM and the system board. Amazon shows that Arctic offers theirs in thicknesses of 0.5, 1.0, and 1.5 mm. A cursory search around the Web seems to indicate that 1.0 mm should be fine, but can I get another opinion?
 
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Just bought my SSD, a 4-TB, 2.5" SATA-Ⅲ Samsung 860 Pro. I also went ahead and just bought the 1.0-mm thickness of Arctic's thermal pad offering; after a bit more consideration, I decided that should probably be thick enough. In any case, I've updated my OP to reflect this.
 
I noticed today that HP added a RX 5500M 4GB option to the Zbook 17 G6 configurator. It is even slightly cheaper than the lowest end Quadro. That is certainly a far better option than the WX7130 available on the Dell Precision 7740. I don't know how the WX4170 turned out working but this new option should be great once the spare parts come available.
 
I noticed today that HP added a RX 5500M 4GB option to the Zbook 17 G6 configurator. It is even slightly cheaper than the lowest end Quadro. That is certainly a far better option than the WX7130 available on the Dell Precision 7740. I don't know how the WX4170 turned out working but this new option should be great once the spare parts come available.

Neat; thanks! I'm still waiting on the last of the parts I need for the build (the '12+6'-pin–to–m.2 2230 Type E adapter,) so I haven't swapped anything out yet and thus wouldn't know any end results from doing that. I also don't have any more money set aside for hardware at the moment, but I'll keep the RX 5500M in mind as a possible near-future upgrade option.

(Though perhaps it might be prudent to wait for a mobile workstation equivalent to the Radeon Pro W5700…?)
 
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Per the update I just made to my OP, I received the WiFi card adapter in the mail today. That's the last part! Hopefully I can assemble everything over the weekend, or at least within the next week or so. I'll report back on how things went when I'm done.
 
Welp, guess who's bad at making time estimates… (Insert relevant computing progress bar joke here.) Unintended slippage aside, I should have an update here relatively soon.
 
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After some more delay, I finally started working on this again over the weekend with some help from my dad. We're maybe about half-way through installing most of my replacement parts. We've hit a snag, though:
  • The internal Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX200 Wi-Fi/Bluetooth card did turn out to be soldered down directly to the board, not to an exposed m.2 port. Looking back at the HP ZBook 17 G6's maintenance and service guide again, it was clearer on this than I remembered when I took a second, closer look: 'm.2 12 ✕ 16 soldered down PCIe/USB' likely, after thinking it through a bit more, means that the internal wiring follows the m.2 spec, but, again, this isn't exposed. I still have yet to power the machine on, but its online 'Interactive BIOS Simulator' (actually just a PDF with internal links, but, hey, it works) reinforces my suspicion that I should be able to disable this component in my laptop's UEFI firmware. (Click 'BIOS Utility Menus,' then the picture labeled 'Advanced,' then 'Built-In Device Options,' and there's a checkbox to enable and disable your 'Wireless Network Device (WLAN.)')
  • The unused WWAN card m.2 slot I meant to use for my replacement WLAN card as a backup plan…isn't the same size/type I thought it would be and bought its adapter for given how m.2 wireless cards are typically type E. The HP module with an Intel XMM 7360 LTE-Advance on it that would go in that slot is an m.2 3042-S3 B key; my adapter is to m.2 2230 Type E. (I got this size since, again, earlier research indicated that the non-integrated version of Intel's Wi-Fi 6 AX200 card uses this form factor, and so that's the kind of slot I would've been able to plug into if the card wasn't its soldered-down variant and I'd been able to replace it directly.)
I believe I can still make this work, though:
  • The m.2 end of my '12+6'-pin–to–m.2 2230 type E adapter is secured to the embedded ribbon cable by some kind of ZIF connector, so I may be able to replace just this piece. I have yet to identify said ribbon cable's layout and interface pinning, though, and I'd obviously have to figure that out to know what kind of end plug to get.
  • Barring that, I expect there'd be an m.2 2230 Type E–to–m.2 3042-S3 type B adapter I could order.
In the meantime, I can just run off of Ethernet. Everything else is working out well. I'm documenting the entire process locally so I can add it in my OP when I'm done, as expected. It's…getting a bit long, though, so I may either have to split it into multiple posts (though I'd personally prefer not to) or move it to, say, a GitHub or GitLab repository and link to it from this thread.
 
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