nobodynose's Intel NUC HTPC Build: Intel NUC DC3217BY - i3-3217U - 8GB RAM - Intel HD 4000 - Clover

Components

Intel NUC DC3217BY Barebones PC
http://www.amazon.com/Intel-Next-Computing-Thunderbolt-i3-3217UDC3217BY/dp/B0093LINT2

• Core i3-3217U processor w/HD 4000 graphics
• QS77 Express chipset
• SO-DIMM RAM slots (2) - support 1.35V, 1333/1600 MHz notebook RAM
• Mini PCIe (half-size) slot
• mSATA slot
• USB 2.0 ports (3)
• HDMI 1.4a port
• Thunderbolt port supporting Mini DisplayPort 1.1a
• Intel HD Audio via HDMI or Mini DisplayPort

Crucial 8GB 1600MHz DDR3 1.35/1.50V SO-DIMM (CT102464BF160B)
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B006YG8X9Y

Crucial M500 120GB mSATA Internal Solid State Drive (CT120M500SSD3)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA6DH2420305

Broadcom BCM94322HMS 801.11a/b/g/n Mini PCIe Wifi Card (half-size)
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008S8DQRA

No-name USB Ethernet adapter
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00M2GG7TI
I don't even know off the top of my head what chipset it has, but it works OOB.

Logitech wireless keyboard and mouse (too lazy to check the model number at the moment)

Cables Unlimited 6-ft "Mickey Mouse" Power Cord
http://www.amazon.com/Cables-Unlimted-6-feet-Mickey-Mouse/dp/B000234TYI
That is correct, the NUC ships with a power brick but not an electrical cord.

Comments

This is attached via HDMI to a Sharp Aquos 42" 1080p television in my living room. We use it mostly to watch YouTube videos, but also movies and TV show episodes from a NAS drive. I originally installed Mountain Lion on this with Chimera, but a couple of days ago I updated it to Yosemite with Clover. I switched to Clover because I found it easier to get certain components working (particularly HDMI audio).

This is an amazingly compact and quiet machine, and performs its designated task (streaming video) quite well.

The only thing that doesn't seem to work is the Thunderbolt port, though I don't have any Thunderbolt peripherals with which to test it. System Information says "No Thunderbolt hardware found." I'd love to get it working (just so I can say everything works, not because I really need it), so if anyone has any ideas about how to make it work, please let me know!

Any thoughts on upgrading to El Capitan?

anvil14 said:

Any thoughts on upgrading to El Capitan?

Click to expand...

I just made my first attempt at doing so, which failed; the system panics and reboots before starting up the El Capitan installer. I'll work on it some more over the weekend and post my findings.

UPDATE: So far El Capitan is a no-go on the NUC DC3217BY. It simply will not boot from El Capitan (neither the Unibeast 6.0 installer I made nor the Installation partition it made on my boot disk). The behavior is very consistent; it starts to boot, clears the screen, flashes something at the top left of the screen (which goes away so fast I still haven't gotten a look at what it says), and reboots. Lather, Rinse, Repeat.

I'm open to suggestions.

UPDATE #2: I finally have El Capitan running on this system, HDMI audio and all! It requires Unibeast 6.0.1 (some unknown fix from 6.0). I did a clean install (something on my system was preventing me from successfully upgrading), then got HDMI audio working with toleda's help - see http://www.tonymacx86.com/el-capita...c-dc3217by-clover-el-capitan.html#post1134093 for the steps I took.

I was able to upgrade following the guide at http://www.tonymacx86.com/el-capita...-el-capitan-any-supported-intel-based-pc.html I did not customizations, and everything worked out of the box for me. Even the belkin mac dock and all it's various ports.

anvil14 said:

I was able to upgrade following the guide at http://www.tonymacx86.com/el-capita...-el-capitan-any-supported-intel-based-pc.html I did not customizations, and everything worked out of the box for me. Even the belkin mac dock and all it's various ports.

Click to expand...

Hi. Are you using the onboatd HD4000 HDMI Audio. If so, what steps did you go through to enable this as I'm struggling to understand the guides that are already posted.

anvil14 said:

Any thoughts on upgrading to El Capitan?

Click to expand...

It seems likely that this is the end of the road for the i3 NUC's. My 3217IYE won't boot anymore on El-Capitan. The issues I've had are:

• Installation will only work if you disable the InjectIntel.
• Changing all the various permutations of GraphicsEnabler, IGP, etc with and without the intel driver injection won't work.
• Can get to native resolution on setup phase 1/2, but then can't boot the system with native resolution. Drops back to assuming 3MB graphics ram and 1024x768.
• No love for the Mini-PCIe Wifi card.

The annoying part is I have another NUC with the same motherboard, the i5, which *also* has a HD4000, and that works perfectly. It's my current rig. I've decided that the i3 will become a headless build slave for Mac compiles now, so at least its lacking resolution isn't a problem.

I've added the build details at:

http://www.tonymacx86.com/user-builds/175956-success-intel-nuc-dc53427hye-i5-16-gb-ram-1tb-ssd.html

I have a fresh Sierra install working with a Thunderbolt Apple ethernet.
Bios settings from https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/success-scqs-intel-nuc-dc3217by-clover-el-capitan.176058/
I used Basic Clover install.
Then just post install change in clover configurator to mac mini.
Everything is working, 1080p. sound not tested i use it as a headless Plex server.