- Joined
- Jan 5, 2014
- Messages
- 36
- Motherboard
- GA-Z97X-Gaming GT
- CPU
- i7 4790K
- Graphics
- Nvidia GTX 980
- Mobile Phone
Corsair H110i GT in a Hackintosh
I recently bought and installed a Corsair H110i GT liquid CPU cooler into my Hackintosh. In this post, I will be talking about a few issues this cooler has with Mac OS and their workarounds. Please read through it before deciding to buy the H110i GT. This thread may be also applicable to other Hydro coolers.
The pump connects to a USB2.0 internal port for Corsair Link features such as LED light color adjustment. This connection becomes useless in Mac OS since we don't have Corsair Link support. This causes 2 problems:
The solution to both problems (a new 110i GT Hackintosh installation should also follow these steps after following Corsair's installation guide):
I recently bought and installed a Corsair H110i GT liquid CPU cooler into my Hackintosh. In this post, I will be talking about a few issues this cooler has with Mac OS and their workarounds. Please read through it before deciding to buy the H110i GT. This thread may be also applicable to other Hydro coolers.
The pump connects to a USB2.0 internal port for Corsair Link features such as LED light color adjustment. This connection becomes useless in Mac OS since we don't have Corsair Link support. This causes 2 problems:
- The automatic fan speeds and custom RPM curves don't seem to work in Mac OS, so the fans don't speed up automatically when the CPU temperature rises.
- The Link always tries to maintain connection with the software (which is not present when the system is currently running OS X). This completely messes up sleep. The moment the Hackintosh goes to sleep, it is instantly and automatically awakened by a some kind of refresh signal from the pump. The console shows something like this:
Code:
Wake reason: XHC
The USB device HubDevice (Port 4 of Hub at 0x14000000) may have caused a wake by issuing a remote wakeup (2)
- Boot into Windows. (Yes, if you don't have Windows installed you will have a hard time with your H110i GT.)
- Finalize your pump speed and LED color settings in the Corsair Link software. I recommend putting the pump in performance mode, to prevent having to change it from quiet mode a some point, which will be cumbersome as you will see in the next step.
- Shut down Windows.
- Remove the cable running from the pump to the internal USB2.0 port. This means unplugging it and taking it out of the case. As a Hackintosher, you will no longer need it unless when you need to change the pump speed or lighting color. Removing the Link cable is necessary for sleep to work in OS X.
- Unplug the 3-pin fan connector cable going from the pump to the CPU_FAN port.
- Unplug the 4-pin fan headers, of the 2 radiator fans, from splitter going from the pump. Plug the 4-pin fan headers directly into the CPU_FAN and CPU_OPT ports so that the radiator fans' RPM can be directly controlled by the BIOS instead of Corsair's software solution (crucial for using Mac OS).
- Boot into the BIOS and set your RPM curves for CPU_FAN and CPU_OPT.
- Boot into Mac OS and do a CPU stress test to make sure the workaround the working well for you.