The Ultimate Low Cost Big Sur Hackintosh - Core i5 Dell Optiplex 3020 SFF

[trs96]

Good guess! I've only tried iMac 14,2, works perfectly. Thanks a lot, you made my day!

Are you using this 3020 full time now ? I had thought you gave it to your Mom.

 

[Nodarkthings]

Yes, yes, it's my mom's, but in case my Z68 let me down, now I'm sure I could buy another 3020 to replace it — I might also organise this one as an emergency replacement (synching users and apps so I could switch to it immediately if needed).
I wouldn't mind making a new Z490 build or anything recent with Monterey, but as long as those old machines run... and most of all, I'm stuck with Pro Tools 10 and many obsolete plugins and I can't afford spending thousands of bucks to renew all that expensive audio software.
So, I'm very likely to do other experiments with the 3020!
(even Monterey.3 in a few months — on SSD, this time, of course)

 

[Ghettobodge83]

Anyone got their 3020 running on Monterey running ok?

Looking to update soon if all is good

 

[trs96]

Looking to update soon if all is good

Using iMac15,1 SMBIOS ? Support got dropped in Monterey.

If you rely on working BT, don't expect it to work well.

If you don't have to upgrade for any reason I'd stay with Big Sur.
Monterey doesn't offer much that's different. New purple wallpaper though.

 

[Ghettobodge83]

Thanks, ill stick on big sur for a bit, its only my spare experimental desktop

 

[Nodarkthings]

Using iMac15,1 SMBIOS ? Support got dropped in Monterey.

If you rely on working BT, don't expect it to work well.

If you don't have to upgrade for any reason I'd stay with Big Sur.
Monterey doesn't offer much that's different. New purple wallpaper though.

Hi!
In a few years, I guess it might be necessary to update to Monterey, when many apps (especially browsers) drop old OSes — a growing number already have 10.15 or 11.0 as a requirement...
From what I've read around, Macmini 7,1 should work, ain't it?

 

[trs96]

From what I've read around, Macmini 7,1 should work, ain't it?

That is the last Haswell based Mac that still has support so yes, it does work. It has HD 5000 graphics (GT3) which is very similar to HD 4600 (GT2). HD 5000 is lower power but has double the EUs of HD 4600.

Although the HD 5000 features 40 Execution Units, the graphics performance is still somewhat below the HD Graphics 4600 with only 20 EUs (HD 4000: 16 EUs). Overall, the HD 5000 is thus just behind the AMD Radeon HD 7660G and at the level of a dedicated Radeon HD 7650M.

 

[trs96]

Monterey EFI

Macmini 7,1 SMBIOS

Update: 4/9/2022​

If you downloaded the EFI folders before today, April 9th, redownload these new updated versions.

I had uploaded the wrong EFI for the GUI version and needed to make changes to the USB Ports kext. Thanks !

I've put together a new OC 0.8.0 EFI for the 3020 SFF. It's using Macmini7,1 SMBIOS so it can be used with Monterey 12.3.1. Please test this out on a spare drive and give me some feedback on how it goes. I have no time to install and test Monterey so I've only verified that this EFI works on a USB to boot to the installer for Big Sur and Monterey. I'm 99.9% certain that Monterey will be the last macOS version with native support for HD4600 graphics so there wil be no more new EFI folders for the 3020 when macOS 13 arrives this Fall. You do have a choice of 9 different macOS versions from Mavericks through Monterey so that should be more than enough.

*IMPORTANT you must generate or use your own SmUUID for your 3020 before you try booting from the USB. Enter it into the included config.plist by opening that with PlisteditPro or ProperTree. If you already have system and board serials for iMac15,1 don't add those to the .plist yet. You can make new serials (for Mac mini) post install once you've got Monterey working on your 3020.

The SmUUID should look something like this: C5868DBE-6DBD-412B-97AE-2824E4A54B40
Make sure to include the dashes.

One more important point. Since many will be using these in a home theater setup, the audio is set to enable DP/HDMI digital audio as well as the Realtek analog audio. You can easily disable this by editing the Graphics Device/Property. Change framebuffer-con1-enable from a value of all zeros to 01000000 to disable HDMI audio. Your onboard Realtek audio will still work.

Note that the USB ports kext doesn't include the internal USB 2.0 header (HS07/08) because it is not included in the 3020 SFF model. You can add that to the kext's info.plist yourself if you'd like to use it for BT. The 3020 MT does have that internal header. Make sure to set it to 255 (internal) to prevent sleep/wake problems.

Those with a PCIe Wifi/BT card can connect the BT cable to the internal header on their MT board. SFF owners must use one of the back panel USB 2.0 ports or repurpose the USB 2.0 header for the front panel USB ports.

The back panel line out will not show up till you plug in an audio cable. If you don't use that, the internal speaker is an option. You could possibly use that if you want a chime sound at boot up.

I"ve also attached an OC GUI version of the EFI if you prefer that. See the attached png file of the options you have when using the OC GUI for your boot menu. Credit: CaseySJ

The GUI EFI attached below is not setup to capture screenshots via F10 and it doesn't hide any icons either. See the Dortania Github website if you want to add those features.

With either one, you may experience a few seconds of mouse pointer stutter once reaching the desktop. Changing con1-enable back to 01000000 may improve that if it bothers you. Some have reported that this even happens on "real" Apple Mac minis (7,1) from 2014.

 

[benkc04]

I've put together a new OC 0.8.0 EFI for the 3020 SFF. It's using Macmini7,1 SMBIOS so it can be used with Monterey 12.3.1. Please test this out on a spare drive and give me some feedback on how it goes. I have no time to install and test Monterey so I've only verified that this EFI works on a USB to boot to the installer for Big Sur and Monterey. I'm 99.9% certain that Monterey will be the last macOS version with native support for HD4600 graphics so there wil be no more new EFI folders for the 3020 when macOS 13 arrives this Fall. You do have a choice of 9 different macOS versions from Mavericks through Monterey so that should be more than enough.

*IMPORTANT you must generate or use your own SmUUID for your 3020 before you try booting from the USB. Enter it into the included config.plist by opening that with PlisteditPro or ProperTree. If you already have system and board serials for iMac15,1 don't add those to the .plist yet. You can make new serials (for Mac mini) post install once you've got Monterey working on your 3020.

View attachment 545495
The SmUUID should look something like this: C5868DBE-6DBD-412B-97AE-2824E4A54B40
Make sure to include the dashes.

One more important point. Since many will be using these in a home theater setup, the audio is set to enable DP/HDMI digital audio as well as the Realtek analog audio. You can easily disable this by editing the Graphics Device/Property. Change framebuffer-con1-enable from a value of all zeros to 01000000 to disable HDMI audio. Your onboard Realtek audio will still work.

The back panel line out will not show up till you plug in an audio cable. If you won't use that, the internal speaker is an option. You could possibly use that if you want a chime sound at boot up.

View attachment 545494

I"ve also attached an OC GUI version of the EFI if you prefer that. With either one, you may experience a few seconds of mouse pointer stutter once reaching the desktop. Changing con1-enable back to 01000000 may improve that if it bothers you.

Hi @trs96

First I wanted to thank you for this Hackintosh guide, I'm new to hackintosh. This is my first build and I consider it a success, although I had a couple problems.

My Build:
-PC: Optiplex 3020MT, i5-4590, HD4600, 8GB ram
-HDMI Cable with DP converter
-Monterey USB with OC 0.8.0 sff EFI, nothing has change beside: SmUUID, MLB, ROM

My Problems:
-Cannot see model year on system (See Attachments)
*This might be something I did wrong.

-Audio/Video output through HDMI is not smooth.
However I found a solution using Hackintool on config.plist(See Attachment)

-Black screen when booting
Turn on from Shut Down, PC fans/lights are running, but screen is black. I had to force shutdown(Hold Power Button) then turn on again only the display show the apple logo. Sometimes I need to repeat few times before it work. Could this be the HDMI Cable problem?
P/S: Restart/Reboot has no problem.

 

[trs96]

Cannot see model year on system

This usually happens when the system serial is missing or it's not a match with the SMBIOS in this case, Macmini7,1.

Go to this site and enter the SystemSerial you are using.

Mac Serial Number Info - Lookup your Apple Serial Number

Apple serial number lookup tool. Find all the specs on your Mac with our serial number checker.

www.powerbookmedic.com

It should tell you whether it qualifies to be a Mac mini 7,1 model year 2014.

Audio/Video output through HDMI is not smooth

What is the make and model of the DP to HDMI adapter you are using ? Did you complete the section of the guide where you increase the DVMT pre-allocation to 64MB ?

This Graphics section of your config.plist isn't complete. All the framebuffer patches are not completed. The device-id is missing too.