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[Updated] Stork's Thunderbolt Build: i5-3570K | GA-Z77X-UP5-TH | GTX 760

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@Stork me old mate - hope things are going well!

So on after a long hiatus - work has me using a cylinder Mac Pro these days, after handing down the edict that all work MUST be performed on a company machine. That, coupled with a daughter meant that the Yeti has sat unused for over a year now. It had been running like a champ on Mountain Lion, but finally dusted her off today to prep her for... sniff... sale. Figure if she's sitting idle here, it's a shame, and need to find her a new loving home.

Anyways, long story short - as USUAL, thanks a million for the detailed writeups. I haven't updated to Sierra on the work mac yet, so only plopped El Cap on the Yeti, and everything went to plan following the usual magnifico El Storko instructions.
 
Looks like 10.12.4 was installed automatically (or somehow by accident). I had no plans to update having just successfully upgraded to 10.12.3 from El Capitan without issues.

When I try and sign in under messages the message I get is Verification Failed unknown error.

I can't even sign out of iCloud

Been down this road many a time with this MB. Everything was great under 10.12.3.

What do I need to check (MB#, VRAM, etc) to make sure the numbers are screwed up and start the iMessage fix AGAIN.
Updated clover too

Anyone else having this issue?
 

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No luck. I forgot to mention in the original post that I had updated clover (thru installer). Just reinstalled. no change. It must be the serial number because the App store is saying it can't verify my computer
 
I gave Thunderball new life with adding a Samsung 950 Pro M.2 NVMe and a PCIe x4 adapter card. I updated the BIOS with modified BIOS to recognize M.2 NVMe SSDs (see Reference 1 below). I was somewhat skeptical about using a custom/modified BIOS, but, I decided to go ahead with replacing the BIOS so I could use an M.2 NVMe SSD on a PCIe card. I did this somewhat risky action for two reasons: first, the Z77X-UP5 TH motherboard was no longer getting BIOS updates, and, second, the great success I had with my Gene build using the Samsung 950 Pro M.2 NVMe SSD using RehabMan's guide (References 2 & 3).

Since the Samsung 950 Pro was out of production, I picked up a used 512GB one from eBay, and I got the PCIe M.2 NVMe adapter card from the link in Reference 1.

I had already updated Clover and installed the Sierra 10.12.4 update on the SATA SSD to ensure Sierra was running successfully. I then installed the Samsung M.2 NVMe SSD onto the PCIe adapter card and into the PCIe x4 slot (slot 7 or the last one near the edge) on the motherboard. I then installed the modified BIOS, checked that the BIOS saw the Samsung, then booted into the SATA SSD.

Once I got to the Desktop, macOS, of course, couldn't "see" the Samsung M.2 SSD. I had to be able to "see" the M.2 SSD since I was going to use Carbon Copy Cloner to move Sierra from the SATA SSD to the M.2 SSD. So, I downloaded Rehabman's patcher-nvme script (see Reference #2). I followed his instructions and created the HackrNVMeFamily-10_12_4.kext (non spoof version - we'll get to that later):
Code:
cd ./Downloads/patch-nvme-master/
./patch_nvme.sh 10_12_4
I moved the HackrNVMeFamily-10_12_4.kext from the /Downloads/patch-nvme-master/ folder to the Desktop and then ran KextBeast to install it in /L/E/ folder. Next, I moved the kext from the Desktop back to the /Downloads/patch-nvme-master/ folder and renamed it "HackrNVMeFamily-10_12_4.kext.NonSpoof". Finally, I opened the /S/L/E/ folder and renamed the "IONVMeFamily.kext" to 'IONVMeFamily.kext.bak", and I rebooted into the SATA SSD's Sierra.

Once back at the Desktop, I could see the the Samsung M.2 SSD. I opened Disk Utility, selected the Samsung M.2 SSD and formatted it with the GUID Journaled format. I then ran Carbon Copy Cloner to clone the Sierra installation on the SATA SSD to the Samsung M.2 SSD. When that was completed, I then copied the SATA SSD's EFI folder to the Samsung M.2 SSD's EFI folder after mounting both onto the Desktop using the Terminal "diskutil list" command to determine the EFI "diskxs1" location of each drive and EFI Mounter v3. Phew! Done!

Reboot into the BIOS and select the UEFI Samsung 950 Pro M.2 SSD as the boot drive. Save and boot into Sierra on the Samsung 950 ProM.2 SSD. Boy! Did that boot quickly! :thumbup:


Part 2 of this effort is to now get RehabMan's spoofing the IONVMeFamily.kext so that we don't have problems if Apple changes the IONVMeFamily.kext as part of the next update. Now, if you've never done this before, you are in for some studying and work. Read and become familiar with Rehabman's spoof guide (Reference 3), especially the section "Examples with incomplete ACPI identities" as we'll have to use this example. This effort to understand was time consuming for me as I was not knowledgeable of macOS' underpinnings. So, I asked RehabMan for some guidance and to confirm my findings; see Posts 355-359 in the spoof guide and, bless his heart, he helped me understand his guide! Note: his hint works, but only for a Samsung 950 Pro M.2 NVMe SSD in a PCIe M.2 adapter card in PCIe x4 slot 7 on only the GA-Z77X-UP5 TH motherboard.

I created the SSDT-NVMe-Pcc.aml per RehabMan's instruction in his spoof guide, which I won't reproduce here. I then created another, spoof HackrNVMeFamily-10_12_4.kext:
Code:
cd ./Downloads/patch-nvme-master/
./patch_nvme.sh --spoof 10_12_4
I moved the resulting HackrNVMeFamily-10_12_4.kext from the /Downloads/patch-nvme-master/ folder to the Desktop, (important) deleted the non-spoof HackrNVMeFamily-10_12_4.kext in /L/E/ folder and then ran KextBeast to install the spoof kext in /L/E/ folder. Next, I moved the kext from the Desktop back to the /Downloads/patch-nvme-master/ folder and renamed it "HackrNVMeFamily-10_12_4.kext.Spoof". Finally, I mounted the EFI partition and copied the SSDT-NVMe-Pcc.aml to the /EFI/EFI/CLOVER/ACPI/patches/ folder. Upon rebooting to Sierra on the Samsung 950 Pro M.2 SSD, the macOS is working fine, and, most importantly, the spoof works to make updates go easier. :clap:

Reference:
1. [SUCCESS] Booting 950 Pro NVMe on GA‑Z77X‑UP5 TH
2. https://github.com/RehabMan/patch-nvme
3. [Guide] HackrNVMeFamily co-existence with IONVMeFamily using class-code spoof
 

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Hi All, Stork,

Firstly, thank you for all the information you have provided over the years - Thunderbolt was my first hackintosh build many years ago and has served me very well. However, I've recently had some issues and made some updates that have caused some issues:

I've been running a GTX980Ti and a GTX780 happily in the machine, along with a Startech M.2 PCI adapter card which provides me with 2 more sata connectors plus houses 2x1TB Samsung 850 M.2 SSDs - this has worked perfectly. However, i wanted to take the 780 which is showing its age out of the machine and have just splashed out on a ASUS GTX1080Ti - a beast of a card. I've updated to Sierra without too much hassle and successfully got the 1080Ti card working.

However, for some reason the 1080Ti and the Startech M.2 adapter PCI card won't place nicely together - when there are M.2 SSDs installed on the Startech PCIE card, the computer powers up and after a few seconds cycles and restarts... without the M.2 card installed the machine will boot. If I take the 1080ti out and just run the 980Ti - the computer boots happily with the M.2 cards on the adapter card. I cannot fathom why having the M.2 cards on the PCIe adapter and having the GTX1080 installed at the same time is causing such issue - I've had the GPU in the 16X slot, the 8X slot, and tried the M.2 adapter card in both the 4X and the 8X to no avail

Im no expert and I'm pulling my hair out - any advice would be very gratefully received.
 
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Hi All, Stork,

Firstly, thank you for all the information you have provided over the years - Thunderbolt was my first hackintosh build many years ago and has served me very well. However, I've recently had some issues and made some updates that have caused some issues:

I've been running a GTX980Ti and a GTX780 happily in the machine, along with a Startech M.2 PCI adapter card which provides me with 2 more sata connectors plus houses 2x1TB Samsung 850 M.2 SSDs - this has worked perfectly. However, i wanted to take the 780 which is showing its age out of the machine and have just splashed out on a ASUS GTX1080Ti - a beast of a card. I've updated to Sierra without too much hassle and successfully got the 1080Ti card working.

However, for some reason the 1080Ti and the Startech M.2 adapter PCI card won't place nicely together - when there are M.2 SSDs installed on the Startech PCIE card, the computer powers up and after a few seconds cycles and restarts... without the M.2 card installed the machine will boot. If I take the 1080ti out and just run the 980Ti - the computer boots happily with the M.2 cards on the adapter card. I cannot fathom why having the M.2 cards on the PCIe adapter and having the GTX1080 installed at the same time is causing such issue - I've had the GPU in the 16X slot, the 8X slot, and tried the M.2 adapter card in both the 4X and the 8X to no avail

Im no expert and I'm pulling my hair out - any advice would be very gratefully received.

Check the motherboard's User Manual. I seem to remember reading about PCIe lane management, and do's and don'ts when researching what PCIe slot to put my M.2 NVMe PCIE into. Unfortunately, I can't provide any more help than that as I've never had a PCIe lane conflict before. ("When all else fails, read the manual," my old Tech Sargent would say back in the day.)
 
Ah yes, Alas as a last resort, I did turn to the Manual but couldn't find enlightenment. What I can't get my head around is that it's happy to boot without the M.2 drives on the adapter card (but with two drives attached to the SATA ports), but won't with the M.2 drives attached! (unless i switch the GPUs round)
I'll keep hunting... at the moment it's the painful toss up between having scratch disks to more GPU oomph... the GPU won!!
 
I am using the MultiBeast for Sierra default SMBIOS, iMac14,2. Works well.

I'll update to 10.12.5 later today and report back here with an update post; I'll also update Post #1.
 
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