Model : HP Omen 15 Laptop (ax-201)

CPU: i7-7700HQ (Kaby Lake)

Graphics: Intel HD630 (1920x1080), NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 (disabled)

Mainboard: HP8259

Drives: Plextor M8Pe(G) 256GB NVMe, Hitachi HGST Travelstar 1TB HDD

• macOS Big Sur 11.1; Catalina 10.15.x ; Mojave 10.14.x; High Sierra 10.13.6
• Using Clover as the bootloader
• Using OpenCore as the bootloader
• Intel HD Graphics 630
• Plextor M8Pe(G) 256GB NVMe drive*
• USB3 and USB2 ports
• Realtek ALC295 audio including speakers, headphones, internal mic, headset mic.
• Fix for ALC295 issue of static noise in left earphone
• Fix for ALC295 mic switching when plugging/unplugging a headset
• Fix for ALC295 when rebooting from Windows - no sound from speakers and no mic response.
• Volume function keys
• Realtek 8111 PCIe Ethernet
• Intel Wi-Fi including using the AirportItlwm to load IO80211Family
• USB tethering from Android phone for Wi-Fi service
• Synaptics Clickpad (with working Trackpad gestures)
• Realtek RTS522A PCIe Card Reader (a little buggy but works okay)
• Bluetooth including the Bluetooth switch
• HP Wide Vision webcam
• Start/Shutdown/Restart
• Sleep/Wake (including close/open on lid) [only works with Clover at the moment]
• Battery Meter
• Sensors for CPU, drives and battery including temperature monitoring.
• Brightness function keys
• High DPI settings for large text display
• Big Sur/Catalina/Mojave upgrades (all work fine so far)
• Booting from grub2 by chain loading Clover and/or OpenCore
• NTFS (Windows partitions) read/write access and automatic mounting (as read/write) using NTFS-3G.

* The Plextor NVMe drive is accessible with Clover and is supported by Mojave and above. High Sierra doesn’t have native support. There is a High Sierra patch for Plextor drives: I don’t know if it works with this model as I haven't tried it.

• Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 “switchable” graphics (currently not supported*)
• HDMI port (currently not supported*)
• Sleep/Wake when using OpenCore (I currently used Clover for normal operation)

* This machine uses a “switchable” dual GPU (Intel iGPU/Nvidia dGPU) which is supported in Windows and Linux. Unfortunately there is no support in macOS. Even with working NVidia Web drivers which are currently available for High Sierra 10.13.6 (not Mojave or Catalina), the NVidia dGPU still can’t be used due to the switching set up which is not supported. The HTML port is routed through the NVidia GPU (stated in the HP Omen 15 Maintenance manual and confirmed in Windows) which means this is also not supported. Following this guide will result in the dGPU being switched off in macOS, thus saving power and allowing sleep/wake. This won’t affect operation in Windows or Linux.

• Apple service software such as iMessage, iCloud, etc (I’m not an Apple user).

• Machine wakes from sleep when plugging/unplugging a USB device (including when lid is closed)
• Machine takes on about 20 to 30 seconds to sleep (apparently this is expected for a "Hackintosh")

Hi Folks, This is my first "Hackintosh" and my first time using macOS. I am a Linux user, but decided to install macOS on my laptop with the maximum capability possible out of curiosity and this is the result. As a beginner, I have gone into some detail in the hopes that this might help other beginners. Apologies to those experienced in all this, as this guide may seem overly verbose. All tips, suggestions, constructive criticism and other feedback are most welcome. Cheers.

If you don't know how to backup and restore images of your partitions, I strongly suggest you learn how to do this before playing around with macOS (or Linux or Windows for that matter) as this will save you a lot of hassle and worry. I have backups of all important partitions on external devices (including Linux, Windows and all my data). There is plenty of image backup software available online.

During this process, I made a new image of my EFI (boot partition) and APFS (macOS partition) upon every milestone I achieved. I restored to the last "clean" milestone after any experimenting and kept multiple copies of the Clover folder and OpenCore folder when trying out various bootloader configurations. At the very least you should:

• Backup and restore all important partitions to external media.
• Be able to boot from an external device (e.g. USB) to recover your system.
• Be able restore your entire system from external media if necessary.
• Maintain backups of your Clover/OC folders and your APFS partition(s) for every milestone achieved.
• Restore to the last milestone when needed or if your current installation is too "messed up".
• Make sure you have a backup before trying a macOS upgrade.
• Be able to create, delete, move and resize partitions when needed.

The macOS installation media consists of two parts. Firstly, a Clover or OpenCore installation which usually consists of Clover or OpenCore (boot manager software) being installed on an EFI partition such as one on a USB stick. Secondly, a separate HFS+ (macOS extended) partition which contains the native macOS installation files for the version of macOS required - this can also be put on the same USB stick.

The easiest way to set up installation media is to use a USB 2.0 stick (USB 3.0 may not be initially recognized in macOS on your target machine). You need to access a machine with a working macOS* and do the following:

1. Make sure the USB is formatted with a GPT partition table (not MBR).

2. For Clover download the app https://github.com/CloverHackyColor/CloverBootloader/releases . This app will install Clover to a USB stick (use default UEFI settings).

   OR

   For OpenCore, follow the guide to create a bootable USB stick.

   https://dortania.github.io/OpenCore-Install-Guide/

3. Use Clover Configurator to adjust any config.plist settings in the USB stick's EFI CLOVER folder in order to allow your machine to run a macOS installation (see below for my initial Clover Configuration).

   OR

   Use a plist editor such as ProperTree to adjust any config.plist settings in the USB stick's EFI OC in order to allow your machine to run a macOS installation (see below for my initial Clover Configuration).

4. Download all needed kexts and drivers and copy to the USB stick's EFI CLOVER or OC folders (see below).

5. Add a partition to the USB stick with the desired macOS installation.

As I didn't initially have access to macOS, I actually downloaded and installed a non-vanilla "Hackintosh" installation image which ran successfully. It was not a good set up, but at least I could use it to create a proper USB stick for installation. After that I ditched it. If you have access to a running macOS installation*, I recommend using this instead as it will be a lot less hassle and less prone to problems.

On the target machine, I recommend creating a labelled NTFS partition for macOS which can be reformatted into an APFS partition at the start of the macOS installation. I recommend 40+ GB as a minimum.

You need to be able to boot the target machine from the USB stick to run the macOS installation. The installation will reboot the machine multiple times so you can either set you machine's BIOS to boot from the stick by default or manually choose the USB stick on each reboot.

On the target machine I already had secure boot disabled in the BIOS. I didn't need to change any other BIOS settings.

There are plenty of online resources that cover setting up a USB installation in much more detail.

* Any macOS installation can be used including a "Hackintosh" or virtual machine running macOS. I've even heard of machines called "Macs" that actually run macOS as well (I'm not sure if people actually use these or if it's just a myth).

If using CLOVER as the bootloader, the default Clover configuration for UEFI installation doesn't work without extra settings that needs to be added with Clover Configurator otherwise the macOS installer hangs. Make sure your USB EFI partition is mounted and open your Clover config file: /EFI/Clover/config.plist in Clover Configurator. Add the following settings:

ACPI > Patches (for DSDT): add the patch change EC0 to EC (click on the List of Patches button and choose it)

ACPI > SSDT > Plugin Type checkbox: checked

ACPI > AutoMerge and Fix Headers checkboxes: enabled (for SSDT patching)

Boot Graphics > UIScale textbook: 2 (keeps startup Apple logo large on startup which looks consistent when using HiDPI text)

Devices > USB > Inject checkbox: checked (required to stop macOS startup hang)

Devices > Audio > Inject combolist: No (not needed as audio patching will be used - see below).

Devices > Properties button > Devices (with properties): I have two devices set up (audio and video), but you should leave this all blank as it will be filled in later by Hackintool when setting up video and audio patching (see below).

Boot > Arguments > add the boot argument -v from the right-click menu (verbose mode to view output for troubleshooting). You can turn this off when set up is finished.

Boot > Arguments > add the boot argument alcdelay=2000

GUI > Screen Resolution: 1920x1080 (or your desired screen resolution in Clover)

GUI > Mouse > Speed: 8 (in Clover***,*** the USB mouse has a very slow pointer speed without this setting)

Gui > Scan > Custom button: selected (I want to control the menu options in Clover)

Gui > Scan > Entries checkbox: checked (to see the macOS/Windows partitions)

Gui > Hide Volume List: Win10Pro, bootmgfw.efi (I don't Clover to show my Windows partitions as I use grub2, you can also add Preboot and/or Recovery if you want to hide these menu options).

I don't use the Clover graphics settings for my video and CPU as WhateverGreen auto detects this (later I will use video patching anyway - see below). If you have trouble booting into the macOS installer, you can add these two Clover settings to see if it fixes the problem. You need to look up the correct values for your CPU and video device before adding them using Clover Configurator. My values are:

Devices > intelGFX textbox: 0x59168086 (for Kaby Lake with Intel HD) - I don't need this as it is auto detected.

Graphics > ig-platform-id textbox: 0x591b0000 (for Kaby Lake laptops with Intel HD 610 - 650) - I don't need this as it is auto detected.

Quirks > AvoidRuntimeDefrag: on

Quirks > : EnableSafeModeSlideon

Quirks > : EnableWritwUnprotectoron

Quirks > ProvideCustomSlide: on

Quirks > SetupVirtualMap: on

Quirks > FuzzyMatch: on

Quirks > DisableIOMapper: on

Quirks > : DisableLinkeditjettison: on

Quirks > PowerTimeoutKernelPanic: on

Quirks > XhciPortLimit: on

Kernel and Kext Patches > Kernal LAPTIC: on (required for HP laptops. (In OpenCore this is called KernelLapic)

Kernel and Kext Patches > PanicNoKextDump: on

RT Variables > CSRActiveConfig: 0x67 (disables SIP - this can be set to 0x00 to enable SIP when all set up is finished, but most users leave it disabled as it may interfere with upgrades and kext updates.

Note that some quirks in Clover Configurator have alternative names in OpenCore as follows:

I set this to MacBookPro 14,3 (mobile should be checked) as this closely resembles the specs of this machine - particularly the CPU.

Follow the OpenCore installation guide for a Kaby Lake Laptop (not Desktop).

https://dortania.github.io/OpenCore-Install-Guide/

The settings will be the same as in the guide. The video is 0x59168086. Use the specific HP Settings for LapicKernelPanic (set to on) and UnblockFsConnect (set to off).

In the boot-args, use -v for verbose mode. You can turn this off when setup is finished.

In the boot-args, use alcid=13 alcdelay=2000 to make sure the audio activates in macOS.

I set the SMBIOS to MacBookPro 14,3as this closely resembles the specs of this machine - particularly the CPU.

The following Kext Files (latest versions recommended) need to be downloaded and copied to

Clover in the USB EFI Clover folder /EFI/CLOVER/Kexts/Other

​ OR

OpenCore in the USB EFI OC folder /EFI/OC/Kexts

The essential kexts (to boot) are:

• VirtualSMC.kext (to fake a Mac)
• Lilu.kext (patcher)
• USBInjectAll.kext (USB)
• VoodooPS2Controller.kext (mouse and touchpad)
• WhateverGreen.kext (video)

The nonessential kexts are:

• ACPIBatteryManager.kext (for battery status and touchpad)

• AppleALC.kext (audio)

• RealtekRTL8111.kext (ethernet network)

• AirportItlwm.kext (wifi network)

• CodecCommander.kext (for Realtek ACL295 audio plug and static fix)

• HoRNDIS.kext (for USB tethering)

• IntelBluetoothFirmware.kext (for bluetooth functions)

• IntelBluetoothInjector.kext (for bluetooth functions)

• Sinetek-rtsx.kext (for card reader)

• SMCBatteryManager.kext (part of VirtualSMC for sensors)

• SMCDellSensors.kext (part of VirtualSMC for sensors)

• SMCSuperIO.kext (part of VirtualSMC for sensors)

The file SSDT-PNLF.aml from the WhateverGreen.kext repository/download should be copied into the USB EFI Clover folder /EFI/CLOVER/ACPI/patched or OpenCore USB folder /EFI/OC/ACPI .

For Clover, check that all the drivers are present in the USB EFI Clover folder /EFI/CLOVER/drivers/UEFI:

• APFSDriverLoader.efi (to read Apple’s APFS partitions)
• OpenRuntime.efi (to use OpenCore features)
• HFSPlus.efi (to read Apple’s HFS+ partitions)
• VirtualSmc.efi (using VirtualSMC.kext)

For OpenCore, check that all the drivers are present in the USB EFI OpenCore folder /EFI/OC/Drivers:

• OpenRuntime.efi
• HFSPlus.efi (to read Apple’s HFS+ partitions)

The ACPI files from this repository can be used in Clover or OpenCore. See the "ACPI and DSDT Patches" folder in this repository for relevant files.

For Clover, copy the files to Clover USB folder /EFI/CLOVER/ACPI/patched.

For OpenCore, copy the files to OpenCore USB folder /EFI/OC/ACPI.

The files are:

• SSDT-EC.aml
• SSDT-PNLF.aml (this comes from WhateverGreen.kext)
• SSDT-UIAC.aml (for USB mappings)

Note I have also patched my DSDT with two patches: brightness keys and battery patch. The patch coding is in "DSDT-Battery-Patch.txt" and "DSDT-Brightness-Keys-Patch.txt" . My DSDT.aml file for my patched DSDT is also in the folder. It is recommended that you generate your own machine's DSDT file and patch it to compile your own DSDT.aml rather than use one from my machine, so I don't recommend you use mine. You can run Clover and OpenCore without the DSDT patched file.

To patch your DSDT file to allow the brightness keys and battery patch, you can dump (generate) your own DSDT file and patch it using the txt files for the brightness keys and battery patch (see the DSDT patching section below).

macOS installation doesn't need Internet access during installation. To have network access on the target machine, you can do one of the following:

• Use the Intel Wi-Fi with the AirportItlwm.kext. This allows macOS to use Wi-Fi simulating native Apple Wi-Fi services. You can rename the service to "Intel Wi-Fi" in System Preferences > Network as it might appear as eth2 or eth3). The HeliPort app is not required (see next option).

• Use the Intel Wi-Fi with the itlwm.kext. This allows macOS to use Wi-Fi simulating an ethernet card. The macOS application https://github.com/OpenIntelWireless/HeliPort can be used to connect to a Wi-Fi service. Install and run this program. Set it to run at login to have it available with automatic connection (System Preferences > Users & Groups > Login Items). You can rename the service to "Intel Wi-Fi" in System Preferences > Network as it might appear as eth2 or eth3)

• Use ethernet. The RealtekRTL8111.kext (see above) allows ethernet network during and after macOS installation. This will work during macOS installation if needed.

• Use USB Wi-Fi tethering. The HoRNDIS app allows USB tethering from an Android phone for WiFi access, so you can download this app and have it ready to install on the target machine after installation. https://joshuawise.com/horndis#available_versions . If you need Internet access during macOS installation, you can even copy the HoRNDIS.kext file to the Clover folder /EFI/Clover/Kexts/Other and turn on USB tethering on the Android phone before starting the installation. In Catalina, the install script doesn't work, but has been modified to run. I have included it in this repository. You can rename the service to "USB Tethering" in System Preferences > Network as it might appear as eth2 or eth3). This will work during macOS installation if needed.

To install macOS, boot up Clover or OpenCore from the USB stick and select the macOS installer partition in the Clover menu. Be aware the installation may appear to hang during parts of the installation but give each such occurrence at least a few minutes before concluding it has hung. If you arrive at the initial GUI installation wizard/menu, then this usually indicates that your Clover set up is good enough for a successful installation. This is the place to run Disk Utility and reformat your prepared NTFS partition into APFS format. If you get errors here, you may have a bad macOS installer. Try a different version, or try creating an EFI partition on your partition's device if one is not present. Once you have successfully reformatted to APFS, close Disk Utility and you should be able to select your new partition as the target for installation within the install wizard. The installation will continue on with a number of reboots. The machine needs to boot from your USB stick upon each reboot.

On each reboot (using the USB stick), Clover or OC should run and pick the correct partition to continue the installation, but if you end up back at the initial GUI installation wizard, then reboot into Clover/OpenCore and manually select your new APFS partition from the menu. Alongside (actually just before) your new partition, the menu should also display extra partitions: Preboot for macOS** and Recovery. The preboot partition can be used instead of booting directly into your partition as desired. Later, if you encrypt your partition using FileVault, you must use this preboot partition to enter your password.

Now that you have a working macOS installation (booted from the USB stick), you can install Clover or OpenCore into your internal drive that you wish to boot from.

If your machine boots directly into Windows, you are probably using the Window's boot manager. Microsoft doesn't allow non-Microsoft systems to be booted from it, so you will need to use Clover /OpenCore or a third party boot manager such as grub* to boot both macOS and any other system(s) such a Windows or Linux.

If your internal drive doesn't use a GPT partition table, it needs to be converted to GPT. If the EFI partition is less than 200 MB, you need to resize/move your adjacent partition(s) to make room and increase the EFI partition to 200 MB or more (I use 1 GB for my EFI partition). If you don't know what software to use, you can download GParted and create a USB boot drive to run it. This will do partition resizing, moving, etc (make sure you have image backups of your partitions first). If you need to create a new EFI partition on a drive, you can create a FAT32 partition with the bootflags boot and esp enabled. You can label it "EFI" for easy identification.

If you wish to use Clover or OpenCore as your primary boot manager on your internal drive, do the following:

1. Make sure your internal drive uses a GPT partition table.
2. Make sure your internal drive has an EFI partition of 200 MB or more (see above).
3. Test that you can boot into your other operating system(s) (e.g. Windows) using the Clover or OpenCore menu (from your USB stick).
4. Boot into macOS using your USB stick.
5. For Clover, run the installer app and choose your internal drive to install to (i.e. choose a partition on this drive) and then install Clover.
6. Mount both your internal drive's EFI partition and your USB EFI partition (you can use Clover Configurator to mount these EFI partitions).
7. Use Finder to delete the /EFI/CLOVER or /EC/OC folder from your internal drive's EFI and replace it by copying the /EFI/CLOVER or /EC/OC folder from the USB stick to this place. This means all the Clover/OpenCore settings from the USB stick will be copied over.
8. Check that you can boot into Clover/OpenCore on the internal drive (i.e. without the USB stick). You may need to set this up in your BIOS settings.

Since I use Linux and Windows, I use grub2 as my primary boot manager. If this is the case you don't need to install Clover on the drive. Just do the following:

1. Check that your internal drive's EFI partition is 200 MB or more. If not, resize it (see previous section).

2. Mount both your internal drive's EFI partition and your USB EFI partition (use Linux, macOS, Windows, whatever).

3. Copy the /EFI/Clover folder from the USB's EFI partition to your internal drive's EFI partition.

4. Add a grub2 menu entry with the following script:

echo "Starting macOS using Clover ..." savedefault search --fs-uuid --no-floppy --set=root [UUID] chainloader /EFI/clover/CLOVERX64.efi

OR

echo "Starting macOS using OpenCore ..." savedefault search --fs-uuid --no-floppy --set=root [UUID] chainloader /EFI/OC/Bootstrap/Bootstrap.efi

Replace the [UUID] with the actual UUID number for the macOS partition.

See section above concerning network access.

Make sure VirtualSMC and the bundled sensor kexts are installed in Clover or OpenCore.

Install the HWMonitor app to view and monitor sensors. In the app's preferences you can set it to be started at login.

For displays with Hi DPI, such as 1920x1080 (full HD) and higher, the screen fonts, icons and windows may look too small. This can be fixed using Hi DPI settings. See the folder Hi DPI in this reposory and read the readme.txt file to set up Hi DPI display in macOS.

Before patching, you need to know/look up your CPU Intel generation (Skylake, Kaby Lake, Coffee Lake, etc) and GPU Platform ID (aka ig-platform-id). For my machine's specs, it is Kaby Lake and 0x591b0000 respectively. You also need to know/look up the audio card's Layout ID. For the Realtek ALC295 audio device, any of the standard values 1, 3 or 13 work on my machine.

You should also run the Hackintool app and make sure the following menu items are checked (these checks should stick when rerunning this app):

• Framebuffer > macOS 10.14 (I have had no problems in Catalina 10.15.1 with this setting)
• Patch > Apply current patches

I suggest patching video first, then audio.

To patch video, do the following:

1. Make sure the WhateverGreen.kext is installed in macOS (see above for installing kexts with Hackintool).
2. Make sure the file SSDT-PNLF.aml from the WhateverGreen Kext repository/download has been copied into the Clover folder /EFI/Clover/ACPI/patched .
3. Mount your EFI Partition (can be done with the Clover Configurator app)
4. Open the Hackintool app and click the tool button Patch.
5. Set the Intel generation and Platform ID to the correct values.
6. Click the Patch button at the bottom.
7. Under Patch options, click on the Advanced button.
8. Set Disable eGPU and Spoof Device ID to checked.
9. Make sure the combo box to the right of Spoof Device ID is set to your correct graphics card. For my machine it is 0x591B: Intel Graphics HD 630 .
10. Click the Generate Patch button.
11. Select the menu File > Export > Bootloader config.plist .
12. Make sure the file location is your EFI partition, in the folder /EFI/Clover and click Save
13. Reboot

To check that the integrated GPU is recognised and the dedicated GPU has been disabled, do the following:

1. Go to Apple menu > About this Mac > System Report button.
2. Select Graphic/Displays (left side)
3. Make sure that only the Intel graphics card is shown (and not your dedicated graphics such as Nvidia or AMD).

To patch the audio, do the following:

1. Make sure AppleALC.kext is installed in macOS (see above for installing kexts with Hackintool).
2. Mount your EFI Partition (can be done with Clover Configurator)
3. Open the Hackintool app and click the tool button Audio.
4. Select your audio device which should be shown in Audio Devices.
5. Set the Layout ID for your audio device. For my Realtek ALC295: 1, 3 and 13 all work.
6. Click the tool button Patch.
7. Make sure the Intel generation and Platform ID are still set to the correct values.
8. Click the Patch button at the bottom.
9. Click the Generate Patch button.
10. Select the menu: File > Export > Bootloader config.plist .
11. Make sure the file location is your EFI partition, and folder /EFI/Clover and click Save
12. Reboot

To check that the audio device is recognised, do the following:

1. Go to Apple menu > About this Mac > System Report button.
2. Select left side Audio and make sure that an audio device is present.

If Hackintool, doesn't show your device, first make sure your dGPU is turned off (see Video patching above). Also try opening your Clover config.plist using Clover Configurator and adding the layout ID in:

Devices > Audio > Inject. Save and reboot. Then try to patch again using Hackintool. If successful, you should reset the Devices > Audio > Inject value back to blank.

Sometimes the audio layout-id selection doesn't stick in Hackintool. If so, try Hackintool again. If it still doesn't stick, try adding the layout id using Clover Configurator as described just above.

If the audio layout ID is still resetting in Hackintool, you can manually adjust the layout ID as follows:

1. Open your Clover config.plist using Clover Configurator.
2. Go to Devices and click on the Properties button.
3. In the Devices list on the left, select the audio device which should be something like PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x1f,0x3) .
4. In the Properties key list on the right, find the layout-id and change the value by changing the first two digits to the layout-id value in hexadecimal. e.g. layout-id of 1: 01000000, layout-id of 13: 0D000000, etc.
5. Save and Reboot.

Once your audio is shown in the system report, you should get sound. Your volume keys should also work.

I needed to patch my DSDT to add the following features:

• Fix battery status
• Allow trackpad gestures (needs battery status working).
• Allow brightness keys.

I applied two patches:

1. DSDT-Battery-Patch.txt*
2. DSDT-Brightness-Keys-Patch.txt

These patches are in my configuration available for download.

To patch your DSDT, do the following:

1. If patching for your battery, make sure ACPIBatterManager.kext is installed in macOS.
2. Install the MACiASL app if not installed.
3. Reboot and in the Clover menu, press F4. Clover doesn't give any feedback.
4. Mount your EFI Partition and check that the folder /EFI/Clover/ACPI/origin is full of .aml files which should be new. If you want to verify that this is working, you can check the file dates, or delete all the files in this folder and do the previous step again.
5. Copy the file /EFI/Clover/ACPI/origin/DSDT.asl to the folder /EFI/Clover/ACPI/patched . If there is already a DSDT.asl file present, you can replace it as you shouldn't need it, but you may wish to copy it first for safe keeping (just in case).
6. Open the /EFI/Clover/ACPI/patched/DSDT.asl file in MACiASL (this app should be the default for .asl files)**.
7. Click the tool button Compile to make sure there are no errors (warnings are fine). The compile summary window can then be closed.
8. For each patch do the following:
   1. Click the tool button Patch to bring down the patching window.
   2. Open the patch .txt file in a seperate app.
   3. Copy/Paste the text from the patch .txt file to the patch text window in the MACiASL app
   4. Click the Apply button.
   5. Click the Close button.
   6. Click the tool button Compile to make sure there are no errors (warnings are fine). The compile summary window can then be closed.
9. After all patches have been applied and there are no compile errors, use the menu File > Save to save the DSDT.asl file.
10. Reboot for changes to take effect.

You can check that your battery meter is working by displaying it using System Preferences > Energy Saver > Show battery status in menu bar : checked. The battery meter symbol should appear and stay (if it disappears almost instantly, it isn't patched correctly). Once the battery meter is working, you should be able to see/adjust trackpad gestures using System Preferences > Trackpad.

You can test your brightness keys F2 and F3. If they don't work, check that you can adjust the brightness control in System Preferences > Displays > Brightness dial. If the brightness control is missing, check your video patching and make sure the dGPU is switched off. If the brightness control works, but the brightness keys don't work, check the brightness patch.

If you need to redo any patching or want to remove any patches, you should do all the steps above again (i.e. copy the the original DSDT.asl file again and patch with MACiASL).

If you want to add a patch (leaving the existing patches as is), you can just add the patch to the existing /EFI/Clover/ACPI/patched/DSDT.asl file, compile and save.

If your BIOS changes due to hardware changes or BIOS firmware updates, you need to redo all these steps (i.e. use F4 and repatch from the original DSDT.asl file). There is a more dynamic "hot patching" method available for DSDT patching, but it is recommended not to try this out until you know the basics as described here.

* The DSDT-Battery-Patch.txt contains the same patch as the one in the patch repositories within MACiASL under _RehabMan Laptop/[bat] HP Paviliion n012tx .

** I know the recommended procedure is not to open .asl files with MACiASL directly , but rather to compile them into .dsl files first using iasl and then open the .dsl files, patch and then compile back to .asl. I tried this and kept getting endless errors (I used refs.txt and error-line commenting). When I do it as described above, I get no errors and everything works perfectly. Right now I am unrepentant. If I change my mind, I will confess the error of my ways and amend this guide while wearing sackcloth and ashes.

macOS handles ports through a pool of port names such HS01, HS02, HS03, SS01, SS02, USR1, etc. Each of your machine's USB ports will be assigned to one or more of these port names. The problem is macOS has a limit to how many such port names from the pool can be used at any one time. This is known as the "USB Port Limit". This means that if you haven't manually included or excluded any port names from the pool, then some port names will be left out. For example, your USB 3 port names (SS port names) are probably left out right now, which means USB 3 devices won't work. To fix this problem, you can work out which port names are needed and which are not, and then manually exclude port names not needed, allowing "left out" port names to be let back in. Once enough port names have been excluded, all other port names from the pool will be "let in" and seen. SSDT can then be patched for the exact port names needed. If this is confusing, don't worry. Just work through the stages below.

1. Check that USBInjectAll.kext is installed in /EFI/Clover/kexts/other and in macOS.
2. Get a USB 2.0 device to use for testing (such as a USB 2.0 mouse or USB 2.0 stick). A USB 3 hub will also work as it registers as both a USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 device, but don't use an ordinary USB 3.0 device such as a USB 3.0 drive.
3. Mount your EFI Partition and check that there is no file SSDT-UIAC.aml in the Clover folder /EFI/Clover/ACPI/patched . If the file exists, you can delete it, but you may wish to copy it first for safe keeping (just in case).
4. Run the Hackintool app
5. Click on the tool button USB
6. Click on the buttons (at bottom) Clear All and then Refresh.
7. You should see a list of port names (mainly HS port names from HS01 to HS14 and possibly some others). These HS port names are for USB 2 devices including internal devices such as an internal hub, webcam and bluetooth. The ones highlighted in green are currently being used.
8. Use your USB 2.0 testing device to plug and unplug into every possible USB port. When a port name is used, it will be highlighted in green. Don't forget to also test USB 3.0 ports with your USB 2.0 device. I recommend testing ports that are currently being used such as for a USB mouse or keyboard. These ports should have port names that are already highlighted, but it's good to double check.
9. After testing thoroughly, some HS port names will not be highlighted in green. These port names are NOT needed: note these port names.
10. Make sure your EFI partition is mounted and open your Clover config file: /EFI/Clover/config.plist in Clover Configurator.
11. In Boot > Arguments, add the following boot argument: uia_exclude= but also add the port names for those that are NOT needed (separated by commas). e.g. uia_exclude=HS05,HS06,HS08,HS09,HS10,HS11,HS12,HS13,HS14 (this will exclude all HS port names except HS01 to HS04 and HS07). Note that if your machine needs many HS port names, feel free to temporarily exclude the ones that you are not using right now (eg. port names for empty USB ports, webcam, etc) in order to allow maximum room for currently "left out" port names to be seen. But before you patch, you need to remove these port names from the exclude list to allow them back in for patching.
12. Save the file and reboot.
13. Run the Hackintool app
14. Click on the tool button USB
15. Click on the buttons (at bottom) Clear All and then Refresh.
16. Check that the list still contains the same HS port names that you didn't exclude, but doesn't include the HS port names that you did exclude. If there are now additional HS port names that weren't present before, repeat this stage (testing with a USB 2.0 device), checking to see if they become highlighted in green, thus indicating that they being used. Exclude the new HS port names that are not needed by adding them to the uia_exclude=... list as described above and then reboot. You should reach the place where you know all the HS port names that you need and all the ones you don't need. You should also notice that a whole bunch of SS ports are now present.

1. Get a USB 3.0 device to use for testing (such as a USB 3.0 drive). A USB 3 hub will also work as it registers as both a USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 device, but don't use a USB 2.0 device.
2. Run the Hackintool app
3. Click on the tool button USB
4. Click on the buttons (at bottom) Clear All and then Refresh.
5. You should see the list of HS port names that you didn't exclude. You should also see SS port names and possibly some others. These SS port names are for USB 3 devices. Note the SS port names that are highlighted in green are currently being used.
6. Use your USB 3.0 testing device to plug and unplug into every possible USB port. When a port name is used, it will be highlighted in green. If a HS port name (and not SS port name) becomes highlighted, it indicates that this port is USB 2 only. Don't forget to also test all ports that you are currently using such as the ones for your USB mouse and USB keyboard as these ports also need to be tested for USB 3.
7. After testing thoroughly, some SS ports will not be highlighted in green. These ports are NOT needed: note these ports.
8. Make sure your EFI partition is mounted and open your Clover config file: /EFI/Clover/config.plist in Clover Configurator.
9. In Boot > Arguments, edit the existing uia_exclude=... boot argument and add on the SS port names that are NOT needed (separated by commas).
10. Save the file and reboot.
11. Run the Hackintool app
12. Click on the tool button USB
13. Click on the buttons (at bottom) Clear All and then Refresh.
14. Check that the list still contains the same HS and SS port names that were previously highlighted in green before, but doesn't include the HS and SS port names that were excluded in Clover Configurator. If there are now additional SS port names that weren't present before, repeat this stage (testing with a USB 3.0 device), making sure that these new SS port names are not needed. Exclude the new SS port names that are not needed by adding them to the uia_exclude=... list as described above. If you need a lot of port names, feel free to also exclude SS port names that need but aren't using now, but remember to remove them from the exclude list before patching. You should reach the place where you know all the SS port names that you need and all the ones you don't need (just like with the HS port names from the last stage).

You may find that you have some other port names such as USR1 and USR2. As long as these port names didn't ever get highlighted in green, they can also be excluded in Clover Configurator as detailed above.

To create the patch, do the following:

1. If you excluded needed port names temporarily in previous steps, remove them from the uia_exclude=... list to allow them to be seen again. Make sure all port names that are NOT needed, are in the exclude list. Save and reboot.
2. Run the Hackintool app
3. Click on the tool button USB
4. Click on the buttons (at bottom) Clear All and then Refresh.
5. You should check that all the port names listed are the ones that are needed and there are no ones that are not needed.
6. For each port name, choose the connector from the combolist. Use the following rules:
   • If the port name is linked to a USB-C port, click the Info button (at the bottom) to read and check whether to choose TypeC or TypeC+Sw
   • If the port name is for an internal device such as an internal hub or webcam and not for a physical USB port, choose Internal.
   • If the port name is an SS and linked to a physical USB 3 port, choose USB 3.
   • If the port name is an HS and linked to a physical USB 3 port (i.e. the physical port also has an asscociated SS port name), choose USB 3 (don't choose USB2 even though it is an HH port name).
   • If the port name is an HS and linked to a physical USB 2 port (i.e. the physical port doesn't have an SS port name because it isn't a USB 3 port), choose USB 2.
7. Click the Export button (at the bottom). Some new files should be created on the desktop: SSDT-UIAC.aml, SSDT-EC.aml and USBPorts.kext.
8. If you wish to double check the patch, you can open the desktop SSDT-UIAC.aml file in the MACiASL app to check that all the port names are present.

To apply the patch:

1. Mount the EFI partition and copy the desktop SSDT-UIAC.aml* and SSDT-EC.aml files to the Clover folder /EFI/Clover/ACPI/patched .
2. Open your Clover config file: /EFI/Clover/config.plist in Clover Configurator and in Boot > Arguments, remove the uia_exclude=... boot argument.
3. Save the file and reboot.
4. Run the Hackintool app
5. Click on the tool button USB
6. Click on the buttons (at bottom) Clear All and then Refresh.
7. Check that the list contains all port names needed and no others. The connectors should be set as per the previous stage.

* Instead of using SSDT-UIAC.aml, you can replace USBInjectAll.kext with the desktop USBPorts.kext (do this in both Clover and macOS).

To allow sleeping and waking up, do the following:

1. Patch the video as described above. Make sure the dGPU has been disabled as described in that section.
2. Patch the DSDT as described above.
3. Patch the USB ports as described above.
4. In System Preferences > Energy Saver, make sure "Wake for Ethernet network access" and "Enable Power Nap while plugged into a power adapter" are unchecked.
5. Run the Hackintool app
6. Click on the tool button Power
7. Click on the buttons (at bottom) Fix Sleeping Image (password needed) and then Refresh. Once done, you should see some green highlighted rows, but no red highlighted rows.
8. Reboot and test sleeping/wake up including close/open on lid (see notes below).

My machine takes 20 seconds to sleep on the first sleep and 20 to 40 seconds on subsequent sleeps: this is normal for a "Hackintosh". It sleeps on lid close and wakes on lid open. The machine doesn't wake on USB mouse movement, only clicking.

Unfortunately, the machine wakes if there is any plugging/unplugging of a USB device including on lid closed. I have tried to disable this by patching the DSDT, but haven't found a way (yet). Plugging/unplugging AC power doesn't wake it up. If you wish to sleep and carry, you need to unplug all necessary USB devices first before sleeping. I personally wouldn't put my precious machine in a backpack/bag on sleep using macOS, but to be fair, I wouldn't do this with Windows or Linux either. I always shutdown before transporting.

For issues and fixes, go to the Realtek ALC295 Fixes repository.

There is a card reader kext called Sinetek-rtsx.kext which is in early development. At the moment the latest version is 2.3 which works with the internal Realtek RTS522A PCIe Card Reader.

If you have issues, you can use a USB card reader. I have tested one, and it works without any problems.

If you don't want to use commercial software to write to NTFS volumes, you can use the free open source package NTFS-3G. See the folder "NTFS-3G Setup" in this repository. The readme.txt file contains instructions.

This can be used to mount NTFS as read/write and have this automount on start up.