TinyTosh - Lenovo M93p Tiny Hackintosh - Success!

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https://i.redd.it/0mj6w99fuuc31.jpg

I couldn’t find a lot of information about Hackintoshing the M93p Tiny, so I thought this post might be helpful.

Specs:

• Lenovo M93p Tiny with:
• Intel Core i5 4570T 2.9 GHz
• 8GB RAM (1x4GB Kingston and 1x4GB SK Hynix)
• 120 GB Western Digital SSD
• Intel HD Graphics 4600 2048 MB (Built In)
• MacOS 10.14.5 (Mojave)

About this Mac Screengrab: https://imgur.com/a/D2dhrum

The install was remarkably easy and I’ve ended up with a pretty much fully functioning setup (with external USB Wifi and Bluetooth). Benchmarks are great, especially considering the M93p only cost me £120 secondhand - it runs faster than my 12” Retina MacBook. I’ve installed my usual suite of software and, although I need to test it more for stability it’s been fine so far - I suspect I’d be happy to use this Hackintosh as my daily driver.

Setup guides

I followed these two guides to get it up and running:

https://github.com/macfanatic77/hackintosh

https://github.com/mingcheng/lenovo-thinkcentre-m93p-hackintosh

Macfanatic’s guide was invaluable in talking me through the standard vanilla install and setting up the EFI Partition with basic kexts.

Mingcheng’s guide (with the help of Google translate) gave me confidence that I could install Hackintosh on the M93p Tiny and provided the kexts and other plist files I needed - just copied these manually across to the EFI Partition. Mingcheng also has a section on BIOS settings - maybe I was reading it wrong, but I could only make one of the changes he recommended on my BIOS (the one disabling VT-d). Not making the other changes doesn’t seem to have caused any problems, though…

About the only problems I came across during the installation were:

• The MacOS install hung at the very end when it was trying to reboot. After 20 minutes I turned the computer off and on again and it booted into MacOS for the first time as if there had never been a problem.
• Somehow I ended up without Clover installed on the EFI Partition on my internal SSD, so initially I could only boot with the USB installer plugged in. Not sure if this was an error in Clover or my error. Probably mine! I used Clover to mount the EFI partitions and then copy files across from the USB. This worked really easily.

What’s working:

Most everything, really. Some observations about things that are working and how I got them working.

• Ethernet is fine. Worked as soon as I plugged in the cable.
• There was no wifi or bluetooth in the box (some Tiny’s have them, some - mine included - don’t), so I’ve had to use USB dongles for this.
• Wifi is fine with a USB dongle. I’m using an Edimax N150 combined Wifi & Bluetooth adapter. Stability is fine but, in retrospect this wasn’t the best choice - it only picks up the slower 2.4Ghz and the range isn’t great. Not a massive problem, as I mostly use ethernet, but annoying. The Bluetooth on this dongle doesn’t work with Hackintosh
• Bluetooth - also fine. I’m using the Gmyle 3340 Dongle, which worked right out of the box in MacOS. It doesn’t work outside of MacOS, though, which means I need to use a wired keyboard to use Clover's boot menu. I think the BIOS needs to be updated to enable it to recognise Bluetooth immediately, but that’s a project for another day. For now I’ve just set Clover to auto boot to my Hackintosh volume and changed the BIOS Startup settings to enable keyboardless operation.
• Apple magic keyboard and trackpad work well. Most function keys are working, including volume and brightness once I'd setup Monitor Control (see below). Trackpad seems to work perfectly, including all the gestures I’ve thrown at it so far.
• I also use an Anker Wireless Vertical Mouse (arthritis is great!) with a wireless dongle. This worked as soon as I plugged it in.
• The USB ports all work fine. Which is just as well, really, since I need them for wifi and bluetooth.
• Sound works through my monitor (once I’d remembered to select the monitor as the output device!). Volume and brightness control from the keyboard have been achieved by installing MonitorControl: https://github.com/the0neyouseek/MonitorControl/releases
• iCloud is working. Messages and FaceTime both work. (FaceTime in the sense that I get notifications of calls - I haven't actually tested the video as I don't have a webcam.)
• Sleep/Wake works
• Monitor output is fine and stable, although tops out at 1080p (see below).
• Airplay works fine.

What’s not working:

Nothing significant from my perspective, although others’ mileage may vary. Things I’ve noticed are:

• Bluetooth not working in Clover boot menu (yet..)
• Monitor tops out at 1080p. My monitor (Acer H277HU) can display a higher resolution using my MacBook, and the GPU (Intel 4600) should be capable of more, so I’m not sure why. Any thoughts or tips appreciated.

I haven't tried using Continuity, Handoff or Airdrop.