pastrychef's Asus ROG Strix Z370-G Gaming (WI-FI AC) build w/ i9-9900K + AMD 6600 XT

[GideonBlack]

When I tested, using iMac18,3, stabilization froze the whole system. SSDT or WhateverGreen.kext made no difference.

It only worked when using iMacPro1,1.

Stabilization works for me on iMac 18,1 on very similar hardware through a combination of Lilu, Whatevergreen and Shiki (boot arg shikivga=60). It took a while to get FCPX stabilized with IGPU enabled but it finally worked.

 

[pastrychef]

Hi Pastry thanks so much for the quick reply!
- I have installed the drivers they suggest on their website and no luck. the card [and the two that i tried before which were supposed to be just for mac pro's, but recommended by tonymac forums] is not even detected in device manager on either os.
- Also the card claims to have support for the latest windows and mac OSes [which was why i ponied up the 100$ CDN for this one, the others were intended to work with OSX only.
- Although i can see there is power running to devices when plugged in, i will try another slot today

So just to clarify, you don't think any of the bios settings suggested by your tutorial should mess with the mobo's ability to detect a PCIE USB hub?

Your issue got me curious... So, I dug up my old Inatek KT4006 USB 3.0 card. This was the card I used in my old Mac Pro and is known to work OOB with macOS. I plugged it in to my PCI-e x1 slot and it worked right away.



I suggest checking your configuration. Also, keep in mind that there are a limited number of PCI lanes available. Check with your manual to see if any of your PCI-e slots can be affected by the PCI lanes limitations. Since you say that your card is not showing up in both macOS and Windows, my guess is that this may be your problem. You can try different PCI-e slots and/or disabling unused motherboard features.

 

[malm123]

Your issue got me curious... So, I dug up my old Inatek KT4006 USB 3.0 card. This was the card I used in my old Mac Pro and is known to work OOB with macOS. I plugged it in to my PCI-e x1 slot and it worked right away.

Hi pastry, So i had put the card in the smaller pci [1x?] slot. I popped it into a 16x slot today and everything works perfectly on both oses with no setup! still unsure if the 1x port is dead or if its some other issue. Probably still worth all the trouble in the end since it is doubtful that old innatek card would work on the latest windows..(?) + still not sure why one should have to drop ~100$ to get a card that boasts support for both the latest OSes.

Im curious now whether i have any pcie lane limitations in my build. i have 2 m.2 drives and a gtx 1080ti. this diagram seems to suggest that my 2nd M.2 drive is taking bandwith away from the video card.

Thanks for the help again

 

[pastrychef]

Hi pastry, So i had put the card in the smaller pci [1x?] slot. I popped it into a 16x slot today and everything works perfectly on both oses with no setup! still unsure if the 1x port is dead or if its some other issue. Probably still worth all the trouble in the end since it is doubtful that old innatek card would work on the latest windows..(?) + still not sure why one should have to drop ~100$ to get a card that boasts support for both the latest OSes.

Im curious now whether i have any pcie lane limitations in my build. i have 2 m.2 drives and a gtx 1080ti. this diagram seems to suggest that my 2nd M.2 drive is taking bandwith away from the video card.

Thanks for the help again

I think I got my Inatek card for about $30-40 a few years ago. I have no reason to believe it wouldn't work in in Windows today and I just confirmed that it works fine in macOS.

All Coffee Lake systems are limited to 40 PCI lanes, 16 from the CPU and 24 from the Z370 chipset. The 16 from the CPU is intended for GPU use and many motherboards with more than one x16 slot will make the first two drop to x8 if both slots are used. From everything that I've read, this is plenty for all current generation GPUs and will not affect performance.

The remaining 24 PCI lanes are used differently by all the different motherboard manufacturers. Built-in features such as ethernet, USB3.1, audio, etc will all use up some of those lanes. Some times motherboards with lots of PCI-e slots will have slots/features switched. A pretty common example would be cases where usage of an M.2 slot would disable two SATA ports as is shown in your attached photo.

This is why I never saw much logic to getting full sized ATX motherboard in Coffee Lake and older "consumer" level chipsets such as Z170, Z370, etc. There simply isn't enough lanes for all the extra PCI-e slots, at least without compromise. This also explains why on my Strix Z370-G Gaming motherboard, there are two x16 and two x1 slots rather than two x16 slots and one x4 slot. There just wasn't enough lanes.

Based on your attached image, the following two x1 slots should work for your card. If you use the other x1 slot, you may need to do something in BIOS to disable SATA #1 to enable that port.

 

[fadis96]

hi, pastrychef,

Can I ask if your DSDT and SSDTs will apply to my new PC?
My motherboard is slightly different. My CPU is not overclocked.
ASUS Z370-PLUS Gaming
I7 8700K
GTX 1080 TI

What do I have to change from your EFI files?

Also how much performance difference do you get from Deliding the CPU ???

Thank you.

 

[pastrychef]

hi, pastrychef,

Can I ask if your DSDT and SSDTs will apply to my new PC?
My motherboard is slightly different. My CPU is not overclocked.
ASUS Z370-PLUS Gaming
I7 8700K
GTX 1080 TI

What do I have to change from your EFI files?

Also how much performance difference do you get from Deliding the CPU ???

Thank you.

My EFI folder should work fine for you. You will not be able to use my SSDT-USB files.

Delidding just helps the CPU run cooler. It doesn't directly help performance. However, since it runs cooler, it may allow for higher overclocks without fear of overheating.

 

[fadis96]

My EFI folder should work fine for you. You will not be able to use my SSDT-USB files.

Delidding just helps the CPU run cooler. It doesn't directly help performance. However, since it runs cooler, it may allow for higher overclocks without fear of overheating.

That’s great. I don’t think my mobo exceeds the 15port limit. In my old build, it did and I used rehab mans fakepcid kexts to “mux” the usb 2 away from the usb 3. Might be worth a look.
I wanted to ask you how you’ve managed the overclock and power management. I’m told not all power management generation methods works with oC. Did you OC using the mobo bios ?
Did you notice a difference in performance ?
I wouldn’t wana Delid my cpu because that voids warranty. Right ?

 

[JCMunsonII]

I think I got my Inatek card for about $30-40 a few years ago. I have no reason to believe it wouldn't work in in Windows today and I just confirmed that it works fine in macOS.

All Coffee Lake systems are limited to 40 PCI lanes, 16 from the CPU and 24 from the Z370 chipset. The 16 from the CPU is intended for GPU use and many motherboards with more than one x16 slot will make the first two drop to x8 if both slots are used. From everything that I've read, this is plenty for all current generation GPUs and will not affect performance.

The remaining 24 PCI lanes are used differently by all the different motherboard manufacturers. Built-in features such as ethernet, USB3.1, audio, etc will all use up some of those lanes. Some times motherboards with lots of PCI-e slots will have slots/features switched. A pretty common example would be cases where usage of an M.2 slot would disable two SATA ports as is shown in your attached photo.

This is why I never saw much logic to getting full sized ATX motherboard in Coffee Lake and older "consumer" level chipsets such as Z170, Z370, etc. There simply isn't enough lanes for all the extra PCI-e slots, at least without compromise. This also explains why on my Strix Z370-G Gaming motherboard, there are two x16 and two x1 slots rather than two x16 slots and one x4 slot. There just wasn't enough lanes.

Based on your attached image, the following two x1 slots should work for your card. If you use the other x1 slot, you may need to do something in BIOS to disable SATA #1 to enable that port.
View attachment 320548

Is that a generic map for all Z370 boards, or just particular to the AORUS Gaming 7?

 

[pastrychef]

That’s great. I don’t think my mobo exceeds the 15port limit. In my old build, it did and I used rehab mans fakepcid kexts to “mux” the usb 2 away from the usb 3. Might be worth a look.
I wanted to ask you how you’ve managed the overclock and power management. I’m told not all power management generation methods works with oC. Did you OC using the mobo bios ?
Did you notice a difference in performance ?
I wouldn’t wana Delid my cpu because that voids warranty. Right ?

All Skylake, Kaby Lake, and Coffee Lake have 26 ports. Most (all?) motherboards do not make use of all 26. That's why regardless of how many physical ports your motherboard has, you still have to use the 15 port limit KextsToPatch or SSDT.

In my experience, both PluginType=true and/or SSDT allow for power management on overclocked CPUs. I don't know of any other methods or how well they work.

Yes, delidding will void warranty. That being said, I delidded the second I pulled my CPU out of the box. I didn't even bother testing it in the motherboard first.

 

[pastrychef]

Is that a generic map for all Z370 boards, or just particular to the AORUS Gaming 7?

No, it is not generic. Each motherboard is different in how the PCI lanes are utilized. For example, the ROG Strix Z370-G Gaming without Wi-Fi AC will probably use less PCI lanes than my motherboard because mine has the M.2 slot for Wi-Fi/Bluetooth.