Tag Archives: problems

DIY

Hackintosh Mac OS High Sierra Upgrade Troubleshooting

Hackintosh Specifications:

  • Motherboard: GIGABYTE G1 Gaming GA-Z170MX-Gaming 5 (Intel HD 530 iGPU)
  • CPU: Intel Core i5-6600K Skylake Quad-Core
  • RAM: (4x8GB) 32 GB G.SKILL Ripjaws V DDR4 3000
  • GPU: EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti
  • HD: Samsung 840 120GB SSD
  • Audio: Creative Sound Blaster Omni Surround 5.1 USB
  • WiFi + Bluetooth: Fenvi FV-T919 PCI Adapter (native support - highly recommended)

macOS High Sierra 10.13.6 is quite the modern day Apple software upgrade: APFS, Airplay 2, Metal 2 for the full Apple ecosystem... on PC hardware.

I've been putting off this direct OS upgrade for quite some time since I've read about all of the horror stories on tonymacx86. They weren't kidding around. I ran into issues on every step of the upgrade, so I'm hoping this guide will help you. Most online guides do not cover the minor versions of High Sierra nor Nvidia systems.

Prerequisites: Mac OS Sierra, Clover r4630 (great stable version), Multibeast v9.2.1 for Sierra (apply Intel graphics fixes), High Sierra Installer (mine was 10.13.2), apfs.efi, a backup (Carbon Copy Cloner ftw).

  1. After following the prerequisites on tonymacx86, I ran the High Sierra installer (5.22 GB) from the /Applications directory. After a few minutes I was off to the races. After booting into the "install Mac OS" partition, the loader started for a bit and then the spinner completely stalled half way through. The issue is due to booting with the Nvidia card. To solve this issue, I completely removed my graphics card from my case and used my Intel iGPU to continue the installation.
  2. Well once I got back into the installer, it turns out the temp installation directories went missing.

    The path /System/Installation/Packages/OSInstall.mpkg appears to be missing or damaged

    To solve this issue, I reran the installation file (step 1) from my regular Mac OS partition.
  3. Phew, we made it pretty far now, and the installation actually ran to completion following many reboots (boot back into the "install Mac OS" partition everytime). Once I tried to boot into the real deal though, my computer showed the Apple logo and immediately started to reboot. It was stuck in a reboot loop, which immediately lead me to believe this was a kernel panic. I booted back into the mac OS partition with a few boot flags (right click the drive in Clover for options) verbose and do not reboot on kernel panic to diagnose the problem. I discovered I had an old Lilu.kext file. To solve this issue, I booted with the boot flag -liluoff.
  4. Finally, I had logged in successfully to High Sierra. To make sure I didn't have to boot with the -liluoff flag every time I started my computer, I updated Lilu.kext to the latest version in both /Library/Extensions and /EFI/CLOVER/kexts/Other/.
  5. Depending on the version of High Sierra you upgraded to, you may have to follow some additional setup steps to enable full functionality: 10.13.2, 10.13.3, 10.13.4, 10.13.5, 10.13.6. I ran through 10.13.2 and 10.13.6 guides to make sure my upgrades went as smooth as possible. At this time, I also installed the basic Multibeast v10.4 High Sierra configurations to enable full compatibility.
  6. Once I had every software thing in place, I reinstalled my Nvidia card and booted with the nv_disable=1 flag (some of the Nvidia drivers can crash on different versions of High Sierra). I updated my Nvidia drivers to the latest, compatible version, and then rebooted...

Voila. Finally, we did it. Nvidia GTX 1080 Ti and High Sierra on the Hackintosh. Drink a beer, you deserve it.

Standard
Thoughts

Less Money, a Shit-ton of Problems

"Mo money, mo problems" -- Pretty much everyone who is affluent has this as their life motto. It's almost as if they've achieved happiness through being broke as hell. If this is you, I really really do congratulate you. I'm still trying to find happiness in my life, but do whatever makes you happy. At the end of day, you're the only person who can make yourself happy.

But back to the point, I've got about a month's rent left in California, and I'm a recent UC Berkeley EECS graduate.. It should be easy to find a job.. right?? Having no money sucks, I can't do whatever I want, but on top of that, the world takes no mercy. The recent fender bender I got into -- if the victims file a claim against me, I could be filing bankruptcy real soon.. at the promising age of 21..

Classic me: one step forward, three steps back. The world shows no mercy, but life moves on. Only I can change what I want to, and being poor is one of the few things I can control.

"Stop bitching, and fucking adapt." - Richard Sherman. Time to grow up.

Standard