[Success] El Capitan on ASRock H61M-VS, Sandy Bridge i5, GTX 970

[tomf64]

Hey! Just wanted to share what worked for my install because it took me a while to figure out and I'd love to save others some time.


My specs:
Motherboard: ASRock H61M-VS (ethernet: Atheros AR8151, audio: VIA VT1705)
Processor: Intel i5-2300 (Sandy Bridge)
Graphics: NVIDIA GTX 970


Everything went smoothly with my previous Yosemite install because I had a different (more compatible) graphics card. Updating to El Capitan with the 970 was tricky though.


Installation

First disable Intel Speed Stepping in the BIOS under OC tweaks (fixes the P-state stepper error that happens on boot sometimes).

Follow the normal installation guide (http://www.tonymacx86.com/el-capita...-el-capitan-any-supported-intel-based-pc.html) to make a Unibeast install USB (choose clover legacy since it's recommended for Intel 6-series chips, which is Sandy Bridge).

To boot to the installer, use the following flags:

-v nv_disable=1 PCIRootUID=1 npci=0x2000 cpus=1

(all needed because of the 970). Install normally.

Post Installation
Follow the installation guide and use Multibeast to install Clover legacy edition and VoodooHDA 2.8.7 (2.8.8 didn't work for me). Using Multibeast Yosemite edition, install the Atheros L1C ethernet driver (it's not present in Multibeast El Capitan, only in the Yosemite edition). I also installed the iMac12,1 system definition.

Reboot and use the same flags as above to get it to boot. At this point, ethernet and audio should be working, but graphics acceleration won't be. Download and install the latest NVIDIA web driver. Then, before rebooting, use the clover configurator to set the nvda_drv=1 boot flag. Updating clover is a good idea too if there's an update available. Reboot again.

When it boots this time, it should boot fine without any extra flags. Now graphics acceleration, ethernet, and audio should all be working. The only issue I had after this point was with installing the OS X 10.11.1 update, when the computer rebooted the NVIDIA drivers wouldn't load because the installed version wasn't compatible with 10.11.1, causing it to get the p-state stepper error. I booted with cpus=1 to get around this, updated the NVIDIA driver, then rebooted and everything worked fine again. If you have any issues with sound not working, delete AppleHDA.kext from /System/Library/Extensions and reboot.

Hope this is helpful!

 

[sebasriostod]

Hey! Just wanted to share what worked for my install because it took me a while to figure out and I'd love to save others some time.


My specs:
Motherboard: ASRock H61M-VS (ethernet: Atheros AR8151, audio: VIA VT1705)
Processor: Intel i5-2300 (Sandy Bridge)
Graphics: NVIDIA GTX 970


Everything went smoothly with my previous Yosemite install because I had a different (more compatible) graphics card. Updating to El Capitan with the 970 was tricky though.


Installation

First disable Intel Speed Stepping in the BIOS under OC tweaks (fixes the P-state stepper error that happens on boot sometimes).

Follow the normal installation guide (http://www.tonymacx86.com/el-capita...-el-capitan-any-supported-intel-based-pc.html) to make a Unibeast install USB (choose clover legacy since it's recommended for Intel 6-series chips, which is Sandy Bridge).

To boot to the installer, use the following flags:

[COLOR=#000000]-v nv_disable=1 PCIRootUID=1 npci=0x2000 cpus=1[/COLOR]

(all needed because of the 970). Install normally.

Post Installation
Follow the installation guide and use Multibeast to install Clover legacy edition and VoodooHDA 2.8.7 (2.8.8 didn't work for me). Using Multibeast Yosemite edition, install the Atheros L1C ethernet driver (it's not present in Multibeast El Capitan, only in the Yosemite edition). I also installed the iMac12,1 system definition.

Reboot and use the same flags as above to get it to boot. At this point, ethernet and audio should be working, but graphics acceleration won't be. Download and install the latest NVIDIA web driver. Then, before rebooting, use the clover configurator to set the nvda_drv=1 boot flag. Updating clover is a good idea too if there's an update available. Reboot again.

When it boots this time, it should boot fine without any extra flags. Now graphics acceleration, ethernet, and audio should all be working. The only issue I had after this point was with installing the OS X 10.11.1 update, when the computer rebooted the NVIDIA drivers wouldn't load because the installed version wasn't compatible with 10.11.1, causing it to get the p-state stepper error. I booted with cpus=1 to get around this, updated the NVIDIA driver, then rebooted and everything worked fine again. If you have any issues with sound not working, delete AppleHDA.kext from /System/Library/Extensions and reboot.

Hope this is helpful!

I'll try it tomorrow, on my cousin's desktop... It has the same CPU but no NVIDIA Graphics card, I'm now creating UniBeast USB with Legacy as this guide demands ! Thank you

 

[thefaraway]

Hey tomf64 - hope you don't mind the question long since this thread has passed, but I just installed ElCap on my sandy bridge i7 rig and everything worked out great and it's up and running, but I was wondering if I would receive any benefit from adding the Multibeast Customize > SSDT Options > Sandy Bridge Core i7 setting/install to my rig still?

Would love to see more processor benefit if that's what this gives, but I know so little about all of this (first time hackintosher, and a super green hardware hacking guy at that) I figured I'd ask someone first (since everything is already working).

Thanks so much in advance!