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Setup Hackintosh High Sierra on Kaby Lake + 9xx Nvidia

  • Aman.K
  • Sep 20, 2018
  • 6 min read

Updated: Feb 2

This is a guide on how to fully install and setup High Sierra on a Kaby Lake system with a 900 series NVidia GPU. This will work on other builds but as I have only done it this way on my system, I can't say for sure if it will work properly on other systems.

Any downloads listed in this guide can be found on the downloads page on my website.

Before we begin, remove the graphics card(s) you have in your system completely and in the BIOS, make your primary display use the internal graphics.

Format the USB to become a MacOS USB Installer

  1. Insert Flash Drive

  2. Open Disk Utility

  3. Select the Flash Drive on the left column

  4. Click Erase

  5. Set the following settings:

- Name: Untitled

- Format: Mac OS Extended (Journaled)

- Scheme: GUID Partition Map

  1. Click Erase

  2. Click Done once it is finished

Now we need to load the image onto the USB we just formatted. Open up Terminal and copy/paste this into it:

sudo /Applications/Install\ macOS\ High\Sierra.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --applicationpath /Applications/Install\ macOS\ High\ Sierra.app  --volume /Volumes/Untitled/

After pasting this into the terminal it should prompt you to enter in your password. Once you've done this, it can take up to 25 - 40 mins before the USB is ready to boot.

Configure the EFI

  1. Download Clover Configurator

  2. Open Clover Configurator

  3. Select Mount EFI under TOOLS

  4. Click Mount Partition for Install macOS….

  5. Click Open Partition (This is your EFI Folder

  6. Delete the folder called EFI in the partition you mounted

  7. Download Hackintosher-High-Sierra-10.13-EFI.zip

  8. Unzip Hackintosher-High-Sierra-10.13-EFI.zip

  9. Copy the unzipped EFI folder

  10. Paste the copied EFI into your mounted EFI partition or /Volumes/EFI

Configure the Motherboard

Depending on the type of motherboard you have, follow the steps below;

MSI

  1. Download OsxAptioFix2Drv-free2000.efi.zip

  2. Unzip OsxAptioFix2Drv-free2000.efi

  3. Navigate to location /Volumes/EFI/EFI/CLOVER/drivers64UEFI/ of your mounted EFI partition

  4. Paste OsxAptioFix2Drv-free2000.efi here

  5. Delete OsxAptioFix3Drv.efi while in this folder

Gigabyte/Asus

  1. Open config.plist with Clover Configurator

  2. Highlight Acpi on left column

  3. Under fixes check FixShutdown

  4. Save config.plist

Asus/Asrock/MSI

  1. Open config.plist with Clover Configurator

  2. Highlight Boot on left column

  3. Under Arguments click the drop-down arrow next to darkwake

- Select darkwake = 1 if using an ASUS motherboard​

- Select darkwake = 8 if using an ASROCK or MSI motherboard

  1. Save config.plist

Recommended BIOS settings

It's fine if your motherboard does not have all of these features.

  1. Virtualization: Enabled

  2. VT-d: Disabled

  3. XHCI Hand-Off: Enabled

  4. Legacy USB Support: Auto/Enabled

  5. IO SerialPort: Disabled

  6. Network Stack: Disabled

  7. XMP Profile: Auto / Profile 1/Enabled

  8. UEFI Booting set to Enabled and set Priority over Legacy

  9. Secure Boot: Disabled

  10. Fast Boot: Disabled

  11. OS Type: Other OS

  12. Wake on LAN: Disabled

  13. CSM: Disabled

Intel iGPU:

  1. Integrated Graphics : Enabled

  2. Graphics: IGD/Integrated/iGPU/CPU Graphics

  3. DVMT Pre-Allocated : 128M

Once you've made these changes, save your changes, plug in your USB.

Booting from the USB Installer

Boot into the UEFI of the macOS USB flash drive installer to load the Clover Boot Menu.

If the USB drive isn’t set as the default boot volume, change the temporary boot device when the boot screen appears, the button that needs to be pressed to do this is usually F10, F11, or F12. When the temporary selection screen appears Select UEFI : (USB Device Name).

  1. You should now see the Clover Menu. Use the arrow keys to verify Boot OS X Install from Install macOS High Sierra is selected

  2. Press Enter

  3. The High Sierra Installer will now load

Format and Install Mac OS

When the installer loads we will want to properly format the disk as GUID for Hackintosh usability before beginning the install.

  1. Press Continue when the installer appears

  2. Select your language

  3. Select Disk Utility from the install menu

  4. Select Show All Devices from the drop down menu by pressing the View button at the top left top left corner

  5. Select the disk you will be installing macOS and erase it with the following settings:

  6. Name: (It can be named anything you want) *It’s important to remember the name you choose for the drive if you plan to opt out of the APFS conversion*

  7. Format: Mac OS Extended (Journaled)

  8. Scheme: GUID Partition Map

  9. Press Erase

  10. Close Disk Utility

  11. Install macOS High Sierra

Note: While macOS is being installed, screen may go black the display is just sleeping you can press a key on your keyboard or wiggle a mouse to wake the screen

After the installer is finished the computer will restart and you’ll want to get back into the Clover Menu.

Disable APFS Conversion

There is now a second option in Clover, which under normal circumstances we would select, however before that we must disable the APFS conversion from taking place. If you plan to use APFS and have the necessary apfs.efi in your EFI folder you can skip this step.

  1. Select Boot OS X Install from Install macOS High Sierra again like you did in Step 1.

  2. Open Terminal through Utilities at the Top Menu Bar once installer finishes loading.

  3. Type the following into Terminal and press enter after each line is entered: 

ls -1 /Volumes

ls -1 /Volumes will list the available volumes. You want the name of the partition you named earlier. 

cd /Volumes/Hackintosh

Replace “Hackintosh” in the line above if you named your drive something else when you formatted it as GUID.

cd "macOS Install Data"
vi minstallconfig.xml

minstallconfig.xml will populate in terminal…

  1. Use the arrow keys to highlight to the ‘t’ in true

  2. Press the DELETE key on your keyboard 4 times to carefully removing t, r, u, e

  3. Type i on your keyboard to enter insert mode

  4. Type in false

  5. Press Esc key

  6. Once done type :wq to save the changes

  7. Close the Terminal

  8. Restart the computer by clicking on the Apple logo in the top left hand corner and selecting restart

  9. Go back into the Clover Menu

  10. Select Boot macOS Install from “Hackintosh”

  11. Setup will finish the High Sierra install…

First boot:

  1. Select Boot macOS from “Hackintosh”

  2. Select Language

  3. Select Keyboard

  4. Select My computer does not connect to the Internet

  5. Select Don’t transfer any information

  6. Agree to the Terms and Conditions

  7. Fill out Login information

  8. Choose Customize Settings at Express Set Up if you don’t want to be tracked.

  9. macOS High Sierra will boot for the first time

Configuring the EFI Partition

Now that we’re in macOS we want to be able to load macOS without the USB flash drive plugged in. To be able to boot macOS from the drive it’s installed on, the folder in the EFI partition of the flash drive needs to be copied over to the EFI partition of the boot drive.

  1. Open Clover Configurator

  2. Mount the EFI of the Flash Drive

  3. Press Open EFI or navigate to the EFI location in finder

  4. Copy the EFI Folder onto your desktop

  5. Open Finder and Eject the Flash Drive

  6. Using Clover Configurator Mount the EFI of the Disk you just installed Mac OS on

  7. Press Open EFI or navigate to the EFI location in finder

  8. Paste the EFI over the existing EFI on the disk

  9. Select Merge when it prompts you with a menu saying that the folder EFI already exists

You can now boot into the OS without a USB.

Setting up Nvidia Graphics

  1. Open Config.Plist using Clover Configurator

  2. In Clover Select Boot under SECTIONS

  3. Uncheck nv_disable=1

  4. Select Graphics under SECTIONS

  5. Uncheck Inject Intel

  6. Select System Parameters under SECTIONS

  7. Check Inject NvidiaWeb

  8. Navigate to RT Variables > CsrActivateConfig

  9. Change CsrActivateConfig to 0x00

  10. Click Install Drivers on left column of Clover Configurator

  11. Click EmuVariableUefi in bottom left box.

  12. Verify EmuVariableUefi-64.efi exists in /Volumes/EFI/EFI/Clover/Drivers64UEFI/

  13. Save config.plist

  14. Exit Clover Configurator

  15. Restart Hackintosh

With the changes made in Clover Configurator, a few files need to be placed in the EFI folder before you can put your graphics card(s) back in. The following kexts need to be placed in EFI folder EFI/Clover/kexts/Other.

- Lilu.kext

- NvidiaGraphicsFixup.kext

Installing Nvidia Drivers

In order to get Web Drivers working for your graphics card, you need to know what version of High Sierra you are running. If you are not sure which build you are using then open About this Mac and click on the text “Version: 10.13” to reveal the number. When you've found that, download the drivers for that card.

With the drivers installed now, Shutdown your computer and put your graphics card back in. Now, It’s important to set your dedicated graphics card as the primary GPU in the BIOS

Now that you can boot with your graphics card, open the config.plist in Clover Configurator and change CsrActivateConfig to 0x67 again.

With that, you should now have a fully working Hackintosh High Sierra!

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