Dell Precision Tower 5810 need help installing Sierra / High Sierra / Mojave / Catalina

[Matte82]

Hello. I'm here about trying to get MacOS Sierra running on a Dell Precision Tower 5810. I won't go into much detail, but this isn't my first hackintosh, but I've never really dived into making one 100% solid. Doing things like extracting SSDT tables and such. But I'm going to learn. Just point me in a direction. My goal is a completely Vanilla installation with any mods/kexts to be stored in the EFI. And to be as stable as anything else. It will mostly be used for music production.

 

First things first. Is the MacOS Sierra USB Installer stickied at the top of the page the recommended way to start?

 

Next some specs. E5-1620 V3 Quad core processor, Nvidia NVS 310 graphics card, 4x4GB of Ram, a 1TB HDD. I believe these use the C612 chipset. No extra cards or anything else attached. I realize the video card probably isn't ideal, but will hopefully work for now. I'll probably upgrade it in the future. I'm also eventually going to at least dual, if not triple, boot it. With MacOS, W10, and AVLinux. I will put each on their own hard drive, but for now am just interested in MacOS Sierra.

 

I know getting the BIOS right is the first step to a solid machine. I've downloaded and installed the newest version, and set it to defaults. Went through and made a change or two. My next post will be the settings as it is. But I'm out of time for lunch. So it may be tomorrow before I get it listed. Let me know if there's some reading I can do before hand, and I'm also going to start on a USB installer.

 

Thanks in advance.

[Matte82]

Okay. I'll get to posting my BIOS setting soon. I guess the USB Installer in the sticky isn't easy to come by. However I had seen CorpNewt's method on Reddit. So I followed it, and didn't make it far. Got the hang at osxaptio...... something. Just googled it and found this page right at the top.

 

https://nickwoodhams.com/x99-hackintosh-osxaptiofixdrv-allocaterelocblock-error-update/

 

Installed his driver and made it further. Still not to the installer. I'll post a pic asap and my BIOS settings. Again it may be tomorrow, but I'm feeling more confident this might work. If anyone has any ideas or comments I'm all ears.

[Matte82]

http://s671.photobucket.com/user/MustangMatte/library/HP%20T5810%20BIOS

 

Okay, I took pics of how the BIOS is currently configured. I had set it to defaults and then went through and changed a couple of setting. Figured it was easier than trying to write it out. I didn't take pics of a few settings like fan speed. I would think auto works under both OSX and Windows haha. Anyway if someone could look through and make sure I didn't miss something. There are a few setting I'm not sure of, so I left them alone.

 

And this is where it stopped last time. Not sure where to go from here, but going to see what I can find out.

[Matte82]

Okay. I did some searching, and found that both npci=0x2000 and 0x3000 get me further. To an apple logo with a progress bar. Yet it hangs there. Did some searching and it could be related to the VboxHFS.efi that was in clover. There are recommendations to use HFSPlus.efi, and seems like I changed that on previous hackintoshes, so I've downloaded it to try.

 

Didn't change anything. Still stops there. Two things I'm thinking. One I've read about needing to fake the CPUid, being as the MacPro's still use E5v3 cpus. Could that be it? Also I did the edits to my config.plist as mentioned in CorpNewt's guide on Reddit. I am not confident that I did them correctly. Anyone want to look at it and see if I (more than likely) did something wrong. I feel like I'm close. But I'm also out of time for today. I'll attach the plist if someone wants to check it out.

 

Thanks

 

edit: I was just looking at that and something isn't right. It was suppose to be set up for a Mac Pro 6.1. I'm going to try again and will repost what I come up with.

 

edit 2: I'm not sure what happened, but the zipped one I uploaded was right, but the one on my USB stick was wrong. I also edited the Haswell-e patch to true, as that's the CPU I have. We'll see if that makes a difference. Still would like someone to look at the plist and see what they think. Make sure I haven't totally botched something. I'll post back shortly.

2017-5-20 config.plist.zip

[Matte82]

No change. I get past all the verbose stuff. A black screen with the apple logo appears w/ a progress bar and cursor. I can move the cursor with the mouse for a second or two, then it just freenzes and won't go anywhere else. Any ideas? Anyone?

 

edit: I also attached my efi folder from my usb stick. Let me know if anything else needs to be changed.

2017-5-21 EFI.zip

[MaLd0n]

what ur GPU

try it

CLOVER.zip

[Matte82]

Awesome thanks. I will give it a go. I also thought I had my video card posted, but don't, I'll get that fixed asap. It's an nvidia nvs 310. Hoping it will work to make sure I can get this thing working. And then I'll get something better.

 

Thanks again

Okay so that looked a little better at first. Seemed like there were fewer errors while loading stuff, but it still slows down at one part. I'll try and get some pics. This time I got a gray screen with cursor. No apple logo, but it still hung after just a second or two.

[MaLd0n]

use -v and post a photo

[Matte82]

So I grabbed 3 pics. The first is the part where it has slowed down. The second it what it shows just before the gray screen (there might have been another line or two but it goes by fast at that point, and the gray screen is where it is stopping.

 

 

 

[MaLd0n]

config.plist.zip

[Matte82]

Well that got me to the same place. Basically not sure what the difference is, but I have a black screen with an apple and a progress bar. But it hangs there. Any ideas what I could search for? I don't have much more time to try today. But will tomorrow. I'm willing to do as much google searching as I can. But not sure what to even begin with here. :-/

[MaLd0n]

try install with safe mode, -x

[Matte82]

That got me a pretty quick reboot. I'll try and grab a screen pic. I've also noticed in the boot args section it has dart=0 along with npci=0x2000. I've had to use the last one to get anywhere. But is the dart one needed?

 

Also it tried booting again by itself after the quick reboot. Not sure it even went to the clover screen.

 

And it hung again at a gray screen with a cursor.

 

I believe the second one is the one I got right before the reboot. And it goes straight into trying to boot again. It mentions something about ntfs. The hard drive I have in it, has windows installed. I was planning on using disk utility to reformat it. Should I do that first outside of trying to install OS X?

[MaLd0n]

-x fail, i think is a Clover problem 

[Matte82]

I truly appreciate the help. I'm determined to get it working. And you've helped me get a bit further down that road.

 

Thanks.

[MaLd0n]

Welcome.

Let me know!

[Matte82]

I haven't had much time to get any further with this, but hopefully will tomorrow. So if anyone has any ideas let me know.

 

Thanks

[Matte82]

Good timing. I was just trying to see what I could do again. I found this link (removed)

 

I had done all the steps it mentioned, and actually got to a dark gray screen before it hung. Like it got to the gray screen I had shown before. And then I believe the black screen with an apple and a progress bar. Once it was 100% it went to the dark gray screen of the installer. The mouse cursor still moved, but nothing ever popped up. So I tried to adjust some stuff, and went backwards. Like I couldn't even get through the verbose part. So luckily I had saved an earlier plist, and am now back to a gray screen. I'll start again with those patches and see where I can get. I will definitely try the PCIRootID also. I appreciate it.

[Matte82]

Yeah I was recently banned from there for mentioning using a VM. I only linked to it, as it's a fairly comprehensive guide to patching clover for Haswell-E cpus. As far as I know it doesn't use any of his recommended software or anything. Just something I found when trying to google this and get it working. If I need to remove the link please let me know. I gladly will.

Removed the link for safety sake. Also I've finally been able to get back to the dark gray screen. I have to use nv_disable=1. I just tried with safe mode also and it rebooted quite soon into the process.

I feel like I'm getting closer, but still not quite there.

Also I've noticed a warning about an unknown cpu. It pops up just before the verbose section ends. And then it goes to a gray screen and then an apple screen with a progress bar.

I also tried the PCIRoot=4 and it didn't seem to change anything.


There's where it's stopping now. Which I also need to do for the day. Let me know what other ideas I can try.

Thanks again

[Matte82]

Okay I'm back already. I'm so close I can taste it haha. So upon some more googling I found I can hit ctrl+F2 and get the installer to open. So I used disk utility and formatted the HDD, then told the installer to install there. But it doesn't seem to even start. Progress bar goes no where, and all it says is "about 7 minutes remaining". Upon some more research you can press (apple)+L and get a log screen. Sweet. However it has 25 lines. The last one says

 

Mac-Pro osinstallersetupd[610] :  No native mechanism to verify InstallInfo.plist

 

So not sure at all what the means. But obviously I still have something off. Also I've been thinking. I have a mac mini I could probably borrow. Would it be easier to use it to install Sierra, and then try to tweak my clover USB stick to boot it? and once I get the right combo down, move that to the actual hard drive?

 

Or does anyone have any idea why it's stopping at this point? FWIW I'm about to leave for work, but I'm going to zip my EFI folder, for backup sake, and post it here also. Maybe someone can see in there something I can change.

 

Thanks

[Matte82]

Must be my lucky day. I have some more time to play. So here's my EFI that get's me to the installer. Let me know if you see anything. Muchos Gracias.

EFI that gets me to installer.zip

[Matte82]

Okay. So I figured out I didn't have clover configured to insert my chosen system info. So I added that flag and I'm back to it hanging at the first gray screen. :-/

 

edit:

 

So I don't remember exactly which options I changed, but I know I added the VoodooTSCSync kext. Modified it for 4/8 cores. The one I found was for 10/20. Don't think that was really it. Maybe I didn't have nv_disable set. And maybe another option. Anyway I got to the install screen. Formatted my HDD, told it to install. Said the same 7 minutes thing. Gave the same thing in the log. However I let it set while I was googling away. I looked over and the progress bar was at 15-20%.

 

I left it unattanded and when I came back it was at the beginning install screen. Thought no big deal it just booted back through the usb installer. So I rebooted and chose the HDD instead of the USB. This time it took me back to the same screen and gave me an option to reinstall. :-/ So I cancelled and now rebooted into the USB installer. I'll format and install again and this time try to keep an eye on it.

 

edit 2:

 

So I kept an eye on it this time. Had the log view on. There were some messages right as it finished, but I couldn't get my camera out in time to see what it said. So I let it reboot via usb, but selected the HDD this time. Looks like it has moved on to installing MacOS.

[Matte82]

Success!!!! ish..... So MacOS is installed and booting. However I was getting random freezes. Like have to reboot freeze. I noticed it was when I would open clover configurator and a notification about a new web address would pop up. So I turned off notifications for the moment. I've also gone back to using nv_disable=1. It doesn't look pretty, but it also doesn't freeze. So I've got some work to do there.

 

Right now I'm trying to use Pike R Alpha's tools to produce a SSDT for my CPU. So that it's working like it should. I have an SSDT.aml in my EFI now, but for the life of me I can't seem to comprehend how freqVectorsEdit.sh is suppose to work. I downloaded the folder, and if I drop the script into terminal it asks

 

First run detected, select editor:

 

1 Xcode

2 nano

3 vi

 

That confuses me. If I try to run the command mentioned in other posts, that doesn't work either. So I'm doing something terribly wrong. Any clues? I've been googling for a while and am having trouble wrapping my head around what to do. Even on his github I try to follow the instructions and nothing happens.

 

Once I get that sorted, I'll try and get my Video better sorted. And then see what else is/isnt' working.

 

Thanks

[Matte82]

Okay I think I figured out the freq vector script. Nano is the correct setting I believe. But how do I check to make sure I've got that all working? I've read about an Intel power app, but it won't install. Says something about it's not designed for my processors. However geekbench shows it correctly as in E5 1620 V3.

 

Next is video. I've been booting with the nv_disable flag. Or I can't consistently boot. I also was getting hangs. Right now it's fighting me to boot. Not sure why. When I get back in I'll post my settings.

 

Also in verbose I'm still seeing unsychcronized tsc errors. I've tried the VoodooSyncTSC kext, but it doesn't seem to change anything. Other than that it now makes it through the verbose part quite well. I can't see any obvious errors and it goes by pretty fast.

 

Checked yesterday and audio doesn't show up, but I haven't even tried to mess with that yet. And it does show usb ports and the ones I tried seem to work. Haven't seen if usb 3 is working or not. But need to get it to boot first.

[MaLd0n]

Intel® Power Gadget SIERRA.zip