BIOS Setup for Hackintosh Desktop and Laptop

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The BIOS (Basic Input/Output System) Setup of your PC for Hackintosh is very important and the first step of the installation process. BIOS controls all available hardware on your PC.

Hackintosh installation may show errors if the BIOS setting not set properly, macOS only made for Apple made computers, and Apple does not allow users to manually control BIOS in Mac Computers, but PC motherboards allow users to config BIOS according to needs.

BIOS setting for Desktop motherboards is almost same, but some Manufactors arranged vary, there are two types of BIOS mode.

  1. Legacy or EFI Boot -Minimal (Old MotherBoards
  2. UEFI Boot – Advanced (New Motherboards)

Don,t worry Hackintosh installation not need any detailed knowledge of BIOS. Just do these few steps

FIRST DO LOAD OPTIMAL DEFALT SETTING.

  1. SATA – AHCI
  2. SECURE BOOT-DISABLE
  3. GRAPHICS – IGPU OR DEDICATED GPU
  4. BOOT FROM USB INSTALLER
  5. SAVE AND EXIT.

If you don’t have any knowledge about BIOS then read the complete step by step post below.

Table of contents

Entering in BIOS to all step by step.

When you start your computer the first screen appears with the logo of the motherboard here you will see the key for entering BIOS, Commonly motherboards allow with DEL(Delete) key but some manufacturers may allow with F2, F10, or F12 key.

Del Key Showing in Imagae.

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BIOS Keys by Manufacturer DESKTOP AND LAPTOP

  1. ASRock: F2 or DEL.
  2. Samsung: F2
  3. ASUS: F2 for all PCs, F2 or DEL for Motherboards.
  4. Acer: F2 or DEL.
  5. Dell: F2 or F12.
  6. Toshiba: F2
  7. ECS: DEL.
  8. Gigabyte / Aorus: F2 or DEL.
  9. HP: F10.
  10. Lenovo (Consumer Laptops): F2 or Fn + F2.
  11. Mercury: DEL
  12. Microsoft Surface Tablets: Press and hold the volume up button.
  13. LG: F2 or DEL
Example: Gigabyte Motherboards used DEL key for BIOS Setup.

BIOS Setup for hackintosh or Ryzentosh(AMD)

First of all do reset all setting in BIOS by selecting this option.

LOAD OPTIMAL DEFAUTLS. its clears all previous values and setup defualt values.

Click or Select Load Optimized Defualts

and Save it.

Setup SATA Drive setting

Apple macOS only supports AHCI mode, macOS do not support IDE or any other disk drive reading method, therefore select AHCI in SATA configuration, this option is necessary otherwise macOS may hang on boot.

Commonly SATA Configuration is part of Peripheral Menu in BIOS

SATA Mode – AHCI

Disable SecureBoot.

Secure Boot is only supports very few Operating Systems Bootloaders like Windows or Linux, and its creates problems or Block custom BootLoaders like OpenCore, Clover, Chameleon etc.

So Disabling SecureBoot is only solution for Hackintosh or macOs, here.

Commonly SecureBoot only comes in Branded Motherboads and in almost all Laptops

BIOS Setup for Intel IGPU. (Intel Desktop only)

If you are using Intel Processor and you don’t have any Graphics card and want setup Hackintosh with Intel Inbuilt HD Graphics 1536 MB or Simply called it IGPU then you have to set up these two things in Bios.

IGFX
  1. Set Display Output – IGFX ( Integrated Graphics, Inbuilt Graphics)
DVMT Total Gfx Mem 128M, Disable VT -d.

2. Set Graphics memory to 128MB or higher. Disable VT -d.

BIOS Setup for Dedicated Graphics Card (Desktop Only).

If you are using a Supported Dedicated Graphics Card from macOS/Hackintosh, then use this setting.

Display Output – motherboard slot

Select Initial Display Output as PCIe 1 Slot.

Graphics Card (macOS supported, no need drivers)

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Select Boot-Boot from macOS USB installer

This is last step and here you need to select boot order proper.

Set first boot – Usb installer and Second boot – your SSD/HDD drive.

Boot Order.

Save and Exit Setup.

Select Save and Exit setup, it will restart the PC and you will see your macOS Bootable Installer screen, whatever you made OpenCore or Clover.

Thank you for reading. Please do comments for any quiery.

Credit. Hackintoshes.com, iMateen

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