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GuidetoDebuggingYourHackintosh
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GUIDE TO DEBUGGING YOUR HACKINTOSH

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Boot Flags
The downside of having a Hackintosh is that when things go horribly wrong, you must fix it
yourself. In this guide I will attempt to go through the basic process to go through when your
hackintosh isnt functioning as it should.
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Your bootloader, be it Clover, Chameleon or Chimera, will have certain flags or special
instructions that tell it how to properly boot the machine. In this section, Ill go over some
common boot flags and their uses.
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-v Verbose Mode
This flag will cause your machine to boot in verbose mode. It will print information to the
screen as it boots up, rather than displaying the apple logo. This is the go to method for
determining why your machine hangs at the apple logo, and many advanced users prefer to
boot this way normally.
If your machine hangs on a specific line of the verbose output, you can Google that line for
more information about it. If you are asking for help because your machine will not boot, it is
good practice to take a picture of your verbose output and post it along with your question.
-x Safe Mode
If you have experience with Windows, then youll already know more or less what safe mode is.
It boots your machine with only the essential drivers (kexts) required for the machine to work.
This is useful for 2 main reasons. First, if your machine does not boot up in verbose mode and
you cannot figure out why, safe mode can deduce whether or not it is an issue with your
machines core functions. Secondly, safe mode can be useful for recovery purposes. If you
install a kext that breaks your system, you can boot into safe mode and remove it.

Hackintosh
BIOS Settings
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Intel or AMD

Next

If you are having issues booting your machine, you should generally try safe mode just to see if
it works, and because debugging a running machine is a lot easier.
UseKernelCache=No / Yes (10.8+)
The kernel cache is disabled by default, but can be used to speed up boot times by loading your
kexts from a cache. If this doesnt work properly, OS X can boot extremely slowly.
Note: for before 10.8 (lion) use -f
darkwake=0

TAGS

This flag disables an advanced power management feature of OS X, which allows some parts
of the machine to wake from sleep, but this can mess up sleep on hackintoshes. Try this flag if
your machine cannot sleep, or cannot wake from sleep. Alternatively darkwake=1 can enable
the feature.
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Note: your machine must be able to sleep through a DSDT or native means before this will
make any difference.
PCIRootUID=1/ PCIRootUID=0
This flag can help fix hangs at boot. PCIRootUID=0 generally is needed if youre using an AMD
graphics card.

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Download Mac OS X From

Windows

Note: this flag solves issues related to graphics cards so you may have to use it upon initial
installation or after changing GPUs.

Easiest Way to Install

Hackintosh Mavericks

npci=0x3000 / npci=0x2000

EL Capitan Bootable USB

If your machine hangs around the line [PCI Configuration Begin], try both of these flags.
0x3000 is the standard fix, but 0x2000 can be tried if the first option fails to solve the issue.

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dart=0

EL Capitan Clover Guide

This disables some older visualization technology, VT-d. This can fix some motherboard issues,
and will not inhibit applications like Virtualbox or Parallels as these applications use VT-x
instead.

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cpus=1

EL Capitan Standalone
Installer

This flag can be used to boot with only a single core of your processor. It can be useful for
getting some unsupported cpus to boot the installer. you may need this in a HP laptop with
insyde Bios.

EL Capitan USB Maker

Mac
EL Capitan Vanilla
Hackinosh

arch=i386 / x86_64
These flags boot your machine into 32-bit mode (i386) and 64-bit (x86-64), the default for
10.6+ This mode may help with compatibility on some older machines.

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Clover Specific Boot Flags

The following boot flags should only be used in the Clover bootloader. They are fairly
advanced.

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MountEFI=yes/diskX
If your system cannot find your EFI partition, this flag can be used to denote which disk it is
on. X refers to the disk number which I believe starts at 0 in the order that the bootloader sees
the disks.

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LogLineCount=0

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This specifies the number of lines of log that clover will save before deleting them. 0 means it
will save the log forever and is useful if your debugging your machine.

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LogEveryBoot=Yes / No
This command will save Clovers logs every time the machine boots. I recommend you just
leave this on so youll have some point of reference if something breaks.

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LogLocation=PATH

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Mavericks

Set the location of the Clover logs. The default location should be in the root of your EFI
directory.

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Chameleon/Chimera Specific Boot Flags

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on OS X EL Capitan
iMessage

These flags are meant only for Chameleon/Chimera. Some of them might work in Clover, as its
documentation isnt exactly complete; however, most will not.
GraphicsEnabler=Yes / No

Is Hackintosh Cheap

This kext enables many partially supported graphics cards through injection. It is not needed
for 7xx and 6xx Nvidia graphics cards, but most others will need it. [Clover handles this issue
through the config file]

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IGPEnabler=Yes / No

iMessage Fix

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This is an alternative to Graphics enabler. It can be used if you wish to use integrated graphics
in conjunction with an Nvidia 6xx or 7xx card.

Ozmosis

Kernel Panics

Repair Permissions 10.11

Kernel panics are terrifying errors where the kernel doesnt hang at boot, it panics. This
results in a rather frighting screen shown below.

Repair Permissions EL
Capitan
WiFi

If this happens, then you have a very serious problem. However, it may be fixable. The main
reasons for this happening are incompatible CPUs and Bios settings, incompatible graphics or
DSDT/config.plist errors. In this case, youd want to double check all your components and
settings. Googling [part name] hackintosh is generally a good start.
If you narrow it down to graphics card issues, you may want to do the initial installation on
integrated graphics. You can then add and debug the graphics card later.

Read also
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GuidetoDebuggingYourHackintosh

Should your machine kernel panic after booting for a while, you may have an issue with a
higher function. If this is the case, you should see some grey text output behind the kernel
panic dialogue. This is like a verbose output. You can use it to figure out what went wrong. If
you cannot make heads or tails of the output or do not have the experience to understand it,
Googling each line could provide you with an answer if it is a common problem.
Asking The Right Questions
A lot of times, especially if you are new to hackintoshing you may need to ask for help.
Regardless of the site, there are a few things you can do to make it easier and more likely for
people to help you.
Post your specs. Nearly every problem in hackintoshing relates to the hardware, so specs are
necessary for anyone to help you.
Try basic boot flags. The generic ones listed above -v, -x and npci should all be tried in general
situations, and if you see one that relates to your problem, give it a shot.
Post verbose or kernel panic output. If your machine panicked or hung, no one can really help
without this.
Another simple thing to do when faced with these issues is to educate yourself. You can
google most hackintosh related things, read all posts from this blog, all of my hackintoshing
knowledge has come from internet research.

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