mnfesq Posted May 8, 2018 Share Posted May 8, 2018 (edited) Business has been good lately so I decided to indulge myself with a new laptop that will, hopefully, work much more quickly than my current laptop (which is in my signature.). It's the HP Envy 17-ae100 CTO. It is a certified refurbished model and here are the specs that it came with: Key Features 17.3-inch Diagonal 4K UHD IPS Anti-Glare WLED-Backlit Display (3840 x 2160) 8th Gen. Intel Quad Core i7-8550U Processor 1.8GHz, (4GHz Max Turbo) 12GB DDR4-2400 System Memory (2 Dimm) Ram 1TB 7200 RPM SATA + 128GB M.2 SSD Hard Drive Dedicated 2GB GDDR5 NVIDIA GForce MX150 Graphics SuperMulti DVDRW Drive Backlit Keyboard (F5 Key On/Off) Webcam With Integrated Digital Microphone HP imagepad with Multi Gesture BANG & OLUFSEN Sound with built-in Speakers 802.11 B/G/N/AC WLAN and Bluetooth 4.2 (2x2) 1 x USB 3.1 Type-C Gen1 / 3 x USB 3.1 Gen1 Ports Windows 10 Home - 64 Bit If you are like me, the first thing I do when I get a new laptop is take it apart. Unlike my current HP Envy 17, it does not lend itself to being opened up easily. It has some (but not all) screws that are like those on a MacBook Pro. They seem to be weak and might strip easily. There are 3 screws hidden beneath a rubber bumper that is held in place only with adhesive. However, once I opened it up, I was able to install some new parts to upgrade the specs it came with. First, I got rid of the 128 GB SSD and got a new 512 GB SSD. It is an M.2 form factor and I was amazed at how small it is. Next, I got rid of the 1 TB HDD and replaced it with a 2 TB Hybrid Drive. I knew I was taking a risk on speed using the hybrid rather than spending the extra money for a 7200 rpm HDD but I wanted to save my money for other goodies. It has an Intel WiFi/BT chip so, of course, I had to replace that with a Broadcom chipset chip. It is also in the M.2 form factor and also very tiny compared to a pci-e half mini chip. Surprisingly, this model does not have space for 2 hard drive bays (which explains the 2 TB HDD.). The laptop is significantly thinner than my current laptop and, considering how thin it is, it is surprising that it still has an optical drive. The last upgrade is still in the decision-phase. According to the service manual, the laptop only supports 16 GB of DDR4 2400 SDRAM. However, I have seen this model sold online with 32 GB of memory. I will definitely upgrade the 12 GB but the question is whether to replace the 4 GB chip with an 8 GB chip or whether to replace both chips with 2x16GB chips. I can't look my wife in the eye as long as I lust for the 32 GB of RAM. (BTW, I typically run at least one virtual machine of Windows 10 on my laptop when running macOS so the need for more memory isn't entirely an ego thing.) I was able to install macOS 10.13.4 using a tutorial by MaLdon (thanks) and a config.plist from someone else (sorry I forgot who) which had an incorrect ig-platform-id for my laptop. If I hadn't used it, video would load but I would get a black screen. When the video drivers didn't load, I was able to see the screen in 1920x1080 resolution but without QE/CI. I then found a post by RehabMan that informed me that, because I have a 4K display, I needed to use CoreDisplayFixup.kext along with others that MaLdon used. Then, I was able to boot up using the correct ig-platform-id and get full hardware acceleration. So many things don't work yet but so many things worked OOB. I haven't gotten my Broadcom wifi chip yet so I am using a TrendNet USB wifi adapter that is working just fine for now. I figure it will take a while before I have this running like my old one. In the meantime, I am trying to load Windows 10 natively on a 500 GB partition on the 2 TB Hybrid Drive and am having trouble getting my USB installer to boot in UEFI mode and, in Legacy mode, it won't install Windows on a GPT partition-it wants MBR. I also want to set up all of my work documents on a separate NTFS partition on my SSD that I can access via my Windows 10 virtual machine that I run through Parallels. Both the virtual machine and the work files will be on the SSD so I am hoping that it is speedy because that is definitely not the case with my setup now. I'm looking forward to starting a new thread for this model like the one I have for my current model. It's been a great way to connect with people that have the same laptop in the OSx86 community. More to follow. Edited May 8, 2018 by mnfesq 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Allan Posted May 16, 2018 Share Posted May 16, 2018 Wow man, this laptop are awesome! If you have time, post a guide with your files to we take a look into. And it's clearly that you are a HP fan, as I'm an Lenovo one. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mnfesq Posted May 16, 2018 Author Share Posted May 16, 2018 So I got the Broadcom wifi/bt chip and it's working just fine with FakePCIId.kext and the Broadcom wifi fix kext. I also went with the 32GB of SDRAM and it's working well too. The worst thing about this laptop is its audio. I am used to the Beats audio with separate subwoofer on my old laptop. This has dual speakers that sound really thin. It is disappointing but I am adjusting to using BT ear buds to listen to music/vids. The other disappointment is that the laptop is very warm on my lap due to the location of the SSD M.2 chip. But, speaking of heat, the system runs MUCH cooler than my old Ivy Bridge laptop and, when I select C6 and C7 in Clover, I have 18 speedsteps from 1300 MHz to 3900 MHz. My old laptop used to run in the mid 50's celsius and this laptop typically runs in the low 40's. My biggest problem now is disabling the discrete GPU and I opened a separate thread for that. Hopefully, MaLdon or other DSDT guru will be able to help me figure out where to put the _OFF patch. I was able to patch my DSDT to add a brightness slider and associate brightness up and down with my F2 and F3 keys. Also, the battery is displaying fine and adjusting the screen brightness as it should. There are no system preferences for power on battery but that may just be the result of using the MacbookPro14,3 SMBIOS. When I run "pmset -g" in Terminal, I do see separate settings for battery power. Once I have the discrete GPU issue resolved, I will share my config.plist, clover kexts, dsdt and my installation method in a separate post. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goldweb Posted June 28, 2018 Share Posted June 28, 2018 how much was it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mnfesq Posted June 28, 2018 Author Share Posted June 28, 2018 10 hours ago, goldweb said: how much was it? The laptop, with 12 GB ram, 1 TB hard drive and 128 GB SSD, cost $898.35 USD. I replaced the 12 GB ram with 32 GB ram for $287.99. I replaced the 128 GB SSD with a 512 NVMe SSD for $144.98. I replaced the 1 TB hard drive with a 2 TB SSHD for $94.99. I also bought a Broadcom wifi/bt chip for $15.00. I also bought a heatsink/thermal pad for the NVMe for $16.90. Total price: $1,458.21 P.S. - I sold my old laptop for $425 and intend to sell the parts I replaced for another $100-$200 on eBay. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ShandaPhelps Posted July 11, 2018 Share Posted July 11, 2018 yeah am using the same by the way! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mnfesq Posted July 12, 2018 Author Share Posted July 12, 2018 Good luck making it a hackintosh! One of these days, I intend to make a tutorial about it. In the meantime, if you have any issues getting yours to work, let me know. I was given a lot of help getting mine to run right and, on this forum, we all help one another. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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