[Success] Dell Optiplex 990 MT 10.9.2

Anyone got Sierra up and working? Did the direct update with clover work?

 

Got Sierra running and basic things like Ethernet, etc work.
Just have to look into audio and powermanagement later today. will upload some guidelines afterwards.

 

Hi@all,

another update regarding Sierra on Optiplex990:
Since using VGA would not work (couldn't even get to the installer), I used an old Nvidia GT430 card. With the card everything worked like a charm using the official install guidelines with UniBeast and MultiBeast.
For MultiBeast I used the following settings:

• Legacy Boot mode
• Fake SMC + Plugins+HWMonitor
• AppleIntelE1000e
• Clover
• iMac 14,2
• Inject NVIDIA

For Audio I had to download Voodoohda (2.88) manually and install it from the package. The MultiBeast-version did not work. Afterwards I applied headbang666's patch for it to set igain to 0 and avoid any static.
Finally I reenabled Speedstepping in the bios which seems to be working out of the box with at least some levels/multipliers.
Will look into this soon.

 

Hi!

Could someone who has working Sierra share config.plist from CLOVER.
I have everything working on El Capitan, but can not lunch Sierra-installer with my old config.plist.
Computer got frozen after grey background drown.

Thanks.

 

Hi Radion-vk,

you can find my config.plist attached (using a nvidia graphics card). Hope it works for you.
BTW. If I understand you correctly you don't even get to boot the usb-installer for sierra. For this I did not need any custom config.plist. Worked out of the box from unibeast. Thus I would guess that either some bios setting is wrong or there is some problem with your graphic card... Read that the support for several nvidia cards was dropped... Still, in safe mode, you should be able to boot.

Keep us posted of you progress and problems you were able to identify!

 

Hi guys,


Something not good happened with my Optiplex 990.

From AppStore I pressed “Install“ button for Sierra (I wanted to have it downloaded in Application folder, and exit from installation and make USB flash). So I pressed Install button and went for smoking. When I back (maybe 5 mins) I sow that PC was rebooting. After that I can not load any version MAC OS. I have on my HDD installed 10.9, 10.10 and 10.11 (and 3 installation for all versions. I put HHD to rack, created 7 partitions first for clover, three partition with installations of 10.9, 10.10, 10.11 and tree partitions where each MAC OS was installed. And everything worked perfectly. I was able to load any version of MAC OS). How ever after last restart that I mentioned I can not load any MOC OX installed, and can not load any installation. The same when I try to load installation from USB (I have 2 that I used before. Also I created new. Result is the same). I’ve load default BIOS setting – it did not help. Then I fleshed BIOS (I already had A19 and flash A19 again) – it did not help. I have UEFI mode in BIOS.

When I load 10.9 or 10.10 I can see on the screen:
OsxAptioFixDrv: Starting overrides for .IABootFiles\boot.efi
Using reloc block: yes, hibernate wake: no
Efiboot loaded from device: Acpi(PNP0A03,0)/Pci(1D10)/VenMedia (<UUID here>)
/HD(Part2,Sig00000000)
boot file path: .IABootFiles\boot.efi
…………………
root device uuid is ‘<UUID here>‘

When I load 10.11 I can see on the screen
OsxAptioFixDrv: Starting overrides for .IABootFiles\boot.efi
Using reloc block: yes, hibernate wake: no

However from another HDD I can Windows 7 without any problems.
Looks like something broken inside BIOS wich is MAC OS specific.
Will dig in deep this weekend.

P.S. During these experiments used 3 versions of CLOVER.
P.S.S. i5-2400, 1x8GB, 2xHD6350 (interval video is disabled in BIOS).

 

Hi Radion-vk,

can you boot into clover using a USB-Stick and get to the MacOS/ OS X installer? If so I would check the harddisk and its partitions using the disk utility of the installer. Most likely something is broken there.
The Sierra installer (that you accidentally seem to have used) can't chance something in the BIOS. So nothing should have changed there and I would leave all settings as they are.

Good luck!

P.S. If there is no important data, I would consider a clean reinstall.

 

No, as I mentioned, I can not boot any MAC OS X that are installed on my HDD (10.9, 10.10 and 10.11), and I can not boot any MAC OS X installation from my HDD (also have 3 installers 10.9, 10.10 and 10.11). Also can not boot from two USB sticks with MAC OS X installers 10.10 and 10.11 (I used them when was installing MAC OS X on other computers). I even tried to boot without HDD and without video cards. Result is the same. On this weekend will make a new installation 10.10 and 10.11 with new version of clover and with almost default clover config and only with one(FakeSMC) kext.
I also do not think that installer of Sierra could change something in BIOS, I just described what append.
However, something effeminately append (probably hardware problem, because of reboot that I observed. As result probably UEFI engine is broken, or something not right in BIOS settings. However as I mentioned, I did load default settings from BIOS, did clean BIOS by removing battery and switching jumper on mother board, and also did flash with the same latest version of BIOS).

Will keep you posted.

 

Hi Radion-vk,
wow, that sounds tough. From your last post I did not get, that also the installer did not work. You've been talking about "installation" from USB and I though you just used your USB Clover to boot from the already installed OS X.
Since you mention that something with the UEFI engine might be broken: Have you tried using the legacy version in unibeast without UEFI? That might be a way to go...

 

UEFI engine works fine (I've created USB flash with MemTest. And I'm able to lunch it).

P.S. When PC stops with message "root device uuid id '<UUID here>'" all digital indicators 1,2,3,4 are ON, and power button is blue. Was not able to find this combination in service manual for optiplex 990.
What is your optiplex indicates when MAC OS is loaded? Any difference in indications after sleep mode? I'me not 100% sure what I had, when MAC OS loaded after restart or power off 1 and 2 are ON. After sleep mode all are OFF.