[GUIDE] Catalina, Big Sur, Monterey, Ventura, Sonoma on HP EliteDesk 800 G4/G5 Mini - The perfect MacMini8,1 Hackintosh

[deeveedee]

Upgrade to Big Sur 11.6.5 was smooth.

 

About This Mac: 

Spoiler

 

[rafale77]

And so was the upgrade to 12.3

[deeveedee]

In response to a discussion in "the forum that is not to be mentioned," I extracted the HP EliteDesk 800 G5 Mini 65W CPU PL1 and PL2 values (programmed by HP).  I extracted these values using PikeRAlpha's AppleIntelInfo.kext and Hackintool v3.8.4.  The results are posted below.  Note that HP is limiting PL2 to 95W.

 

HP's programmed PL1 and PL2 for EliteDesk 800 G5 Mini 65W

Spoiler

 

 

EDIT: I'm not certain, but there may be a way to coax more performance out of these little HP Minis (albeit, with risk).  I started a new thread here.

Edited March 19, 2022 by deeveedee

[deeveedee]

I will be discontinuing my maintenance of this same thread in the "other forum that shall not be mentioned."  My contributions to this EliteDesk 800 G4/G5 Mini discussion/solution will inevitably diminish over time, but what little I do contribute will be added to this thread only.

[deeveedee]

According to this commit, MacMini8,1 "AirPlay to Mac" support has been added to Acidanthera's FeatureUnlock.kext.  I didn't know that it wasn't in there before (I'm fairly certain that it was supposed to be), but it would seem to me that prior to this commit, FeatureUnlock.kext wasn't unlocking the "AirPlay to Mac" feature for MacMini8,1.  Since our SMBIOS MacModel for this HackMini is MacMini8,1, this FeatureUnlock.kext change applies to our rigs, so you'll need FeatureUnlock.kext v1.0.8.

 

EDIT: See history of this here.

Edited March 29, 2022 by deeveedee

[rafale77]

Without you in the other place I too will be redirecting my discussions here. I will quickly move over to hacking the Lenovo P340 which is more promising anyway… 

I have been using the FeatureUnlock.kext for some time now. I am not nearly as good as you are at recording my changes…

[deeveedee]

@mamomamo has determined that Bluetooth connectivity issues with the BCM94360NG may be resolved by resetting Bluetooth with "Shift + Option + Click on the Bluetooth icon" to reveal an extended Bluetooth menu.  From the extended menu, select "Reset the bluetooth module."  Thank you @mamomamo for this discovery!

[rafale77]

Upgraded to 12.3.1 today... no issues.

[deeveedee]

EDIT: I am no longer recommending the use of Carbon Copy Cloner to make bootable backups starting with Monterey.   You can read more about CCC's backup limitations on the Bombich website.  Use DiskUtility's 'Restore' function or perform a clean macOS installation and migration.

 

In preparation for an upgrade to XCode 13.3x, I needed to upgrade from Big Sur to Monterey.  After cloning my Big Sur SSD, the Monterey upgrade was uneventful.  For the upgrade from Big Sur to Monterey, I'm using OC 0.7.9 with my OC 0.7.9 EFI attached to Post #1.  

 

About This Mac: Monterey 12.3.1

Spoiler

 

My Big Sur cloning and Monterey installation steps were as follows (I have two 512GB NVMe SSDs in my rig - one is my primary and one is my backup):

1. Erase Backup SSD
2. Clone Primary SSD (Big Sur) to Backup SSD using DiskUtility 'Restore' or a clean macOS installation and migration
3. Mount Backup SSD's Preboot
4. Edit the Backup volume's Preboot .disk_label.contentDetails, changing 'Big Sur' to 'Monterey', so that the Volume appears as 'Monterey' in OC's boot picker.  Without this edit, there would be two 'Big Sur' volumes in OC's boot picker.
5. Reboot and choose Monterey from OC's boot picker.  The 'Monterey' volume is still Big Sur (we haven't upgraded yet).
6. Login to Big Sur (on the Monterey volume).  Disable Time Machine (we don't want Time Machine making any changes to our backup until we're certain that the upgrade completes successfully).
7. Depending on installed software, different software packages will need to verify following the clone.  Allow the software verification to complete (e.g. XCode and Microsoft Outlook may need to verify on the cloned volume)
8. While still logged into to Big Sur on the Monterey volume, upgrade Big Sur to Monterey.  I allowed this upgrade to proceed unattended, because I was busy with other things.  The unattended upgrade was flawless.
9. Login to Monterey
10. Confirm that everything is working as desired.  In my case, I performed this verification over multiple boot cycles.
11. Reboot and select Big Sur to boot from 'old' Primary volume.
12. Disable Time Machine on the Big Sur volume
13. Reboot and select Monterey (Press Ctrl-Enter to make Monterey the default selection in OC's boot picker)
14. Enable Time Machine for Monterey
15. The 'Big Sur' volume (formerly the Primary volume) is now the Backup SSD and the 'Monterey' volume is now the Primary SSD

Edited June 19, 2022 by deeveedee
Added clone/upgrade steps

[deeveedee]

The upgrade from Big Sur to Monterey has gone very well.  I upgraded my OS (Big Sur 11.6.5 to Monterey 12.3..1), XCode (13.2 to 13.3.1, Visual Studio 2019 / Xamarin IDE and packages and supporting developer apps.  My development environment continues to work flawlessly following the upgrade.  This is the first time that I can recall where I upgraded the OS and XCode without having XCode build issues.  Either Apple is getting better at this, or there weren't many changes for Intel platforms.  Either way, I'm very happy with the upgrade.

[deeveedee]

EDIT: I believe I have confirmed that this RemoteDesktop issue is unique to my DP->DVI display configuration.  I do not experience this problem on other Monterey hacks that do not use DP->DVI adapters.

 

Since upgrading to Monterey from Big Sur, I have encountered one problem with Microsoft Remote Desktop (Version 10.7.6 (1972) at the time of this post).  When remotely connecting to Windows 10 and Server 2016 desktops (not a problem when connecting to Win7), the monitor displaying the remote desktop would 'lose sync' (screen went to static).  This never happened with previous versions of macOS before Monterey.  I'm not sure if this is because I am using DP->DVI adapters (recall that I need to use framebuffer type HDMI and not type DVI to get my DP->DVI adapters to work with Monterey).  The fix for this problem was to configure Remote Desktop Preferences as follows:

• Uncheck "Use system proxy configuration"
• Set Graphics interpolation level to None
• Uncheck "Use hardware acceleration when possible"

I'm not sure that all of these preference changes were necessary, but it solved the problem and I don't notice any performance difference in Remote Desktop.

 

Screenshot: Remote Desktop Preferences

Spoiler

 

Edited April 26, 2022 by deeveedee

[deeveedee]

Has anyone tested the HP Thunderbolt 3.0 Port Flex IO expansion card with the EliteDesk 800 G4 / G5 Mini running macOS?  HP Part Number is 3TK77AA.

 

HP Thunderbolt 3.0 Port Flex IO; Part Number 3TK77AA

Spoiler

 

EDIT: Here is a thread that includes required ACPI mods for working TB3.  Not sure how much these mods apply to this hack, but the author does appear to know what they're doing.

 

Edited May 8, 2022 by deeveedee

[rafale77]

I have upgraded to OC 0.8.0. The only modifications I have had to make was to delete the SerialInit Entry under Misc/Debug and add the ForceAquatiaEthernet key under kernel/quirks with a False value.

 

 

Edit: The above was only the minimum required. For the sake of completeness, optional things one would need to do:

1. Add "Serial" key Misc with two options: "Override" and "Init" under it both set as "false" by default.

2. Add "CustomPciSerialDevice" key under kernel/quirks. Set as false.

 

 

 

Also upgraded Feature Unlock to 1.0.8

 

There is a new BIOS 02.12.10 on these machines which fail to upgrade from HP... Not the first time this happens but quite annoying.

Edited April 18, 2022 by rafale77
Adding info

[deeveedee]

@rafale77 I haven't upgraded OC from 0.7.9 to 0.8.0 yet, so thank you for your upgrade status.  After looking at acidanthera's github repo, it looks like AppleALC.kext is updated to version 1.7.1.

 

EDIT: Following @rafale77 's lead I completed the OC 0.8.0 upgrade from OC 0.7.9.  The changes from OC 0.7.9 to OC 0.8.0 are as follows.  Add FeatureUnlock.kext 1.0.8 if you use it.  The new OC 0.8.0 EFI is now attached to Post #1.

 

Update EFI from OC 0.7.9 to OC 0.8.0

• EFI/BOOT: Update BOOTx64.efi
• EFI/OC: Update OpenCore.efi
• EFI/OC/Drivers: Update OpenRuntime.efi, AudioDxe.efi
• EFI/OC/Kexts:
  • Update AppleALC.kext 1.7.0 -> 1.7.1
• EFI/OC/Tools: Update tools
• EFI/OC/config.plist:
  • Add Kernel > Quirks > CustomPciSerialDevice (bool, false)
  • Add Kernel > Quirks > ForceAquantiaEthernet (bool, false)
  • Remove Misc > Debug > SerialInit
  • Add Misc > Serial

Edited April 19, 2022 by deeveedee

[miliuco]

@deeveedee

As always, I like your summary even more than mine.

[deeveedee]

@miliuco Not nearly as thorough as your monthly OC summaries.  My list is limited to changes for this hack and not the general overview that you provide.   I'll definitely be taking a look at your monthly update to see if there is anything I missed.

[rafale77]

@deeveedee, Thank you as always. I did end up upgrading the applealc.kext which I missed.

 

As I am almost done with my new mac mini/tiny, with the lenovo equivalent, I will be jumping ship soon to start a new thread. Pretty amazing what these mini/micro/tiny form factor can do.

A couple of things you potentially could be interested in knowing:

1. CFG Lock is defeatable on the lenovo unlike the HP

2. The lenovo is capable of detecting the capability of the power brick and therefore adjust the CPU PL2 accordingly

3. Expansion capability is much greater with the ability to add a PCIe card through a riser.

4. Cooling capability also appears to be a little better from the lenovo HSF Vs. the HP one as the BIOS reacts much faster to CPU temperature by adjusting fan speed. 

 

At the moment I am still fighting DRM issues in spite of the discrete GPU... Which is the last frontier of getting it as functional as a real mac.

 

Attached some GB5 comparisons:

 

 

 

 

[deeveedee]

On 4/18/2022 at 11:25 AM, rafale77 said:

There is a new BIOS 02.12.10 on these machines which fail to upgrade from HP... Not the first time this happens but quite annoying.

 

I just visited HP's website to look for the 02.12.10 BIOS update and don't see it.  Is it possible that HP pulled the new update because of the problems you observed?  Are others seeing that the BIOS update is no longer available, or is this just my own user error?

 

EDIT: The 02.12.10 BIOS update is detected as available via the built-in BIOS update mechanism, but it no longer appears on HP's website.  Interesting.

Edited April 20, 2022 by deeveedee

[rafale77]

55 minutes ago, deeveedee said:

 

I just visited HP's website to look for the 02.12.10 BIOS update and don't see it.  Is it possible that HP pulled the new update because of the problems you observed?  Are others seeing that the BIOS update is no longer available, or is this just my own user error?

 

Seems like they indeed to took it down. I am not seeing it either anymore.

[deeveedee]

I contacted HP support to notify them about the disappearing 02.12.10 download.  The BIOS update has been restored to the Drivers/Software download page for the HP EliteDesk 800 G5 Desktop Mini PC.

[_doyle_]

On 4/20/2022 at 12:22 AM, deeveedee said:

@rafale77 I haven't upgraded OC from 0.7.9 to 0.8.0 yet, so thank you for your upgrade status.  After looking at acidanthera's github repo, it looks like AppleALC.kext is updated to version 1.7.1.

 

EDIT: Following @rafale77 's lead I completed the OC 0.8.0 upgrade from OC 0.7.9.  The changes from OC 0.7.9 to OC 0.8.0 are as follows.  Add FeatureUnlock.kext 1.0.8 if you use it.  The new OC 0.8.0 EFI is now attached to Post #1.

 

Update EFI from OC 0.7.9 to OC 0.8.0

• EFI/BOOT: Update BOOTx64.efi
• EFI/OC: Update OpenCore.efi
• EFI/OC/Drivers: Update OpenRuntime.efi, AudioDxe.efi
• EFI/OC/Kexts:
  • Update AppleALC.kext 1.7.0 -> 1.7.1
• EFI/OC/Tools: Update tools
• EFI/OC/config.plist:
  • Add Kernel > Quirks > CustomPciSerialDevice (bool, false)
  • Add Kernel > Quirks > ForceAquantiaEthernet (bool, false)
  • Remove Misc > Debug > SerialInit
  • Add Misc > Serial

Thanks a lot to @deeveedee.

 

I have tried on my HP EliteDesk 800 G6, but no luck up to now. What I have done is: 

 

- Use EFI 0.7.9 & 0.8.0 with config.plist modified (attached).

- Follow the BIOS instruction.

- Create the installer in both Windows and Mac

- Try with both Big Sur and Monterey.

 

But for both installers, the PC gets rebooted at about 29 (Windows installer) or 16 minutes (Mac installer).

 

I wonder if @deeveedee and other folks can give a hand. Cheers.

 

UPDATE: For your convenience, here is my PC's basic info: HP EliteDesk 800 G6 Mini: Q470 Chipset, i7-10700, UHD 630 Graphics, 16GB DDR4 Memory

config.plist

Edited April 23, 2022 by _doyle_

[deeveedee]

@_doyle_ Congratulations on your G6 Mini purchase.  This thread doesn't support the G6 Mini - only G4 and G5 Minis.  You should be able to get hints from @rafale77 's hack here, but his thread is dedicated to the Lenovo P340tiny / M90Q, so don't polute his thread with questions about your HP EliteDesk G6 Mini.  You can ask your G6 Mini hacking questions in a general questions forum or start your own thread for hacking the G6 Mini.  Good luck!

[_doyle_]

@deeveedee

Many thanks. G6 Mini certainly is a headache. I have spent a few days on it. I'll try to look for a way out.

[deeveedee]

@_doyle_ Your G6 Mini has a Q470 chipset, Comet Lake CPU and UHD630 graphics.  @rafale77 's thread should give you lots of hints, since the architectures are the same.  Follow the Dortania Guide and you'll have it working in no time.

[rafale77]

59 minutes ago, _doyle_ said:

@deeveedee

Many thanks. G6 Mini certainly is a headache. I have spent a few days on it. I'll try to look for a way out.

 

Things I would do if I were you:

1. Disable the USBPorts.kext, enable the XHCIPortLimit patch and USBInjectAll.kext

2. Change the SMBIOS from MacMini8,1 to IMac20,1 and regenerate serials

 

I would suspect that the G6 would boot. My next step if it still fails would be to look into the iGPU connector patches which may need to be different. Sorry I don’t have a G6 to test but my Lenovo should indeed be very similar.

Also highly suggest starting a new thread for the G6 as it is off topic for this thread.

Edited April 23, 2022 by rafale77