One last update for the past little while for those of you still kicking around on this motherboard --
I switched over to opencore last week by first doing a test run on a USB and then yesterday copying over the full EFI and replacing Clover/removing some old kexts that multibeast/unibeast had installed on L/E and S/L/E (there's a full guide out there).
My machine is working the best it has in years-- seemingly no local networking issues-- was able to transfer large files over whereas it would die about 4 gb in any other time. Sleep is also working great for the first time in about 4 years, and I'm not having weird issues like not being able to boot with USB's plugged into the front of the computer. My headphone ports are also working for the first time in ages.
My only issue that I've seen so far is that DRM is broken for iTunes movies (which it was also broken under Clover as well for the past few years). Not a huge deal as I don't do a lot of media consumption like that while sitting at my desk. Also, opencore won't let me boot into Windows from its bootloader because Windows is mbr and not GPT. Not a huge deal, and I should be able to update that soon to GPT. I can also simply load into the BIOS and pick the windows drive as well. Clover was getting so messed up that it wouldn't even get me to the BIOS screen at times.
Just wanted to give a shoutout to
@mickelsn for all the help over the past couple years trying to keep this machine afloat. It doesn't seem like it should need too many more changes because I believe Ivy Bridge lost support with Big Sur, so I'll be using this with opencore until I finally give in and get an apple silicon mac mini over the next few years. The machine still works great for now and can do light lifting type work no problem. I won't be video editing on it or using Logic Pro, but it's certainly serviceable for most home uses.