How to build your own iMac Pro [Successful Build/Extended Guide]

[RuleBreaker01]

Curious if anyone on here has experienced their hackintosh freezing upon unplugging an ejected thunderbolt drive?

I'm thinking it may have something to do with the thunderbolt chain out of my Areca 8050 Raid?

If you haven't done anything related to TB ssdt and enabling hotplug, then it will always do that : freeze your machine.
Once hotplug is enabled, it can still happen from time to time, it's rather random

 

[RuleBreaker01]

Seems that you missed that @nmano and myself are working already on a new approach without BR1x and with new SSDTs (see post #9034).

I am not using @maleorderbride 's approach anyway... So also in this we totally defer...

Cheers,

KGP

The SSDT I posted above is identical to the one you posted on your first page with two exceptions :
It's for br2a and not br1a
I used the ASRock DSDT definition rather than the Asus one, it's 98% identical except for two methods.

I'll check the other posts you mentioned thanks.

 

[izo1]

Damn, I had contacted Fractal Design, who told me that my ATX graphic card wouldn't fit in there (with the AIO radiator+fans mounted).. That's why I went with the Define C

Hmm, that was the first case I bought, but I returned it because it was huge... but it's an aluminum front. It's actually super well designed.
The PC shop that did my custom cooling provided me with a Thermaltake Suppressor F51, it's a Define R6 rip-off. I had no real choice on the case because I was visiting Paris for just 3 days and that's what they had in stock...

The Define R6 front filters actually serve some purpose. On the Thermaltake, they put the filter mesh on in front of the air vents: that is it doesn't filter anything, air can come in from the side vents and go in, never going through the filter. Totally idiotic design...

Today, I really regret that I didn't keep the R6, was a great case, and super silent.


Well, may go this way in the future, at least I'll be able to reuse the 2x4TB Toshiba disks.

It is cheap indeed, but having said that, if all you want is JBOD, the most affordable TB3 4 disks enclosures are:

The Caldigit T4
OWC ThunderBay 4
The Akito Thunder 3 quad (almost identical to the OWC one)

The nice thing about the Caldigit is that it can feed 85W over the TB3, so if working with an Apple macbook pro, you won't need to worry about splitting power.

I like the OWC best, and really hesitated in going with that.

I do love the internal RAID 1, it makes my PC dead quiet, the Pegasus2 was rather loud, much more than the PC.

Yeah Fractal Design makes nice and well thought out cases, no doubt. Just the front bezel borders are all plasticky which I hate. The plastic erodes over time, unlike anodized aluminum cases. The top dust filter also feels so cheap and slapped on. I don't know, maybe my expectations are too high for a $79 case.

I don't know if all of the Define R6's front is metal, I haven't seen it in person.

I really like the Meshify C (great airflow, front is completely open with a dust filter) and it's so small it fits inside the A-legs of my Ikea table, and it's pretty quiet. Vega FE fits without a problem with room to spare. The blacked out side panel window is also a plus (I just hate Windows in general and all lights are turned off) I even went to the great extent of removing the Vega FE shroud and unplugging the LED light.

My current 2 HDD bays are used in this way:
Bay 1: Time Machine 2TB for macOS
Bay 2: Random stuff for the NTFS/Windows side

I mostly use external drives but I'm getting sick and tired of them. My 1GbE 12TB server is pretty fast but it's full and it doesn't have USB3.0 support (but I can expand via SAS enclosure if necessary). It's an aging HP MicroServer. I can add a 10GbE card I think, but it's such a tight fit inside, it might get too hot. And the CPU is old AMD ones.

I stay away from the Dell PowerEdge servers as I'm mostly on the graphics side of things and don't want to access those big arrays.

I like CalDigit as a company, but like Promise, they don't have diskless drive bays. I called them up and asked them to send me a diskless version and they wouldn't budge due to "not having the ability to give proper customer support" etc.

Anyway, I'm gonna spend some time thinking about this. I need at least 18+TB of storage via RAID5/6. I could definitely get 2x10TB and RAID 1 them but 10TB is not enough for me. A lot of the external drives I have laying around here are 8-10TB already.

 

[kgp]

The SSDT I posted above is identical to the one you posted on your first page with two exceptions :
It's for br2a and not br1a
I used the ASRock DSDT definition rather than the Asus one, it's 98% identical except for two methods.

I'll check the other posts you mentioned thanks.

The SSDT you attached to post #9045 is indeed the one from post #1 of this thread for ASUS mainboards. The SSDT you posted in post #9035 was however the one of @maleorderbride ...I did not even inspect your attachments to post #9045, as you again mentioned that it was a bit of a hit and miss with the original @maleorderbride 's SSDT, which definitely is not the one implemented in post #1 of this thread. Sorry for the confusion at my side.

Let me emphasise once more that the SSDT implemented in post #1 is for ASUS mainboards only. Thus, it might not necessarily work with your ASRock mainboard.

The new approach is still under construction... I am currently very limited in time due to the the Nvidia -> Vega changes.

Cheers,

KGP

 

[nmano]

TRY this
Hi KJP

You did good job.

Now BR1A no need this _L69 but need HPME look SSDT-TB3-BR1A -XHC5-HPME.aml

I just add this data under XHC5

Method (_PRW, 0, NotSerialized)  // _PRW: Power Resources for Wake
                    {
                        Return (Package (0x02)
                        {
                            0x6D,
                            Zero
                        })
                    }

 

[flmmkr]

That worked!!! No more crashes or freezing! Thanks man. Phew. I though I was going to be in crash hell forever.

To run in "Sync All Cores" mode, anyone know if the Corsair Hydro H100i v2 is good enough to keep a 7940x cool? Any suggestions for a better cooling system that might run $200-$250? @kgp, your cooling system looks awesome, but maybe more involved and more expensive than I want to go.

It won’t. I have a 7900X with a H115i Pro. Before I delidded I felt the temps were too high. It never froze or restarted or anything, but temps were high enough that I wasn’t comfortable with it. 7940X would probably run even hotter.

 

[kgp]

TRY this
Hi KJP

You did good job.

Now BR1A no need this _L69 but need HPME look SSDT-TB3-BR1A -XHC5-HPME.aml

I just add this data under XHC5

Method (_PRW, 0, NotSerialized)  // _PRW: Power Resources for Wake
                    {
                        Return (Package (0x02)
                        {
                            0x6D,
                            Zero
                        })
                    }

Tomorrow .. 3 am here.. Thanks !!!

 

[RuleBreaker01]

The SSDT you attached to post #9045 is indeed the one from post #1 of this thread for ASUS mainboards. The SSDT you posted in post #9035 was however the one of @maleorderbride ...I did not even inspect your attachments to post #9045, as you again mentioned that it was a bit of a hit and miss with the original @maleorderbride 's SSDT, which definitely is not the one implemented in post #1 of this thread. Sorry for the confusion at my side.

Let me emphasise once more that the SSDT implemented in post #1 is for ASUS mainboards only. Thus, it might not necessarily work with your ASRock mainboard.

As I wrote in post #9045, while I did start from your Asus SSDT, I had rewritten it for the ASRock, extracting the BR2A DSDT from the original asrock dsdt.
As I understood by comparing the original Asus DSDT and your TB3 DSDT, what you did is rename the BR1A device into BR1X, and remove the PWR method

The XHC5 device now do appear properly all the time, which is better than before, but it is non functional.

Will get there one day hopefully.
What's left for you to do with the AMD other than change the plate for watercooling?
I have no issues with the fan speed on mine. I'm using the simple SSDT @apfelnico provided..

 

[kgp]

As I wrote in post #9045, while I did start from your Asus SSDT, I had rewritten it for the ASRock, extracting the BR2A DSDT from the original asrock dsdt.
As I understood by comparing the original Asus DSDT and your TB3 DSDT, what you did is rename the BR1A device into BR1X, and remove the PWR method

The XHC5 device now do appear properly all the time, which is better than before, but it is non functional.

Will get there one day hopefully.
What's left for you to do with the AMD other than change the plate for watercooling?
I have no issues with the fan speed on mine. I'm using the simple SSDT @apfelnico provided..

Well, apparently the Gigabyte Radeon RX Vega 64 Gaming OC 8GB behaves anything then straight.

1.) @apfelnico 's Vega SSDT did not work at all, not even after careful adaptation. I had to come up with a new SSDT (see attachment) to properly implement all 6 ports (3x DP, 3x HDMI).

2.) Yet I was not able to successfully implement a "PP_PhmSoftPowerPlayTable" or "MyRadeonVegaLowFansSpeed.kext" to dominate the fan speed issue (fan always at max. rotation) or to further increase it's performance. In both cases the fans stopped working.

3.) Last but not least, your new VegaGraphicsfixup.kext for 10.14 did not improve the HDMI black screen issue when returning from a powered-off display under PB1. There is also a HDMI and DP black screen issue when returning from system sleep at least under 10.13.6 PB5 and 10.14 PB1 . Also Whatevergreen.kext did no bring any solution..

4.) Finally, also this card has a DP 1.4 3860x1600 pix boot screen resolution problem (VGA only) when connecting to my LG 38UC99-W (DP 1.2 only). Via HDMI, the LG 38UC99-W runs @30 HZ under 10.13. However, 10.14 seems the remove the latter issue (again 60 Hz).

I spent nearly 5 days in trying to fix the individual issues with more or less success.

I finally decided to return the Gigabyte Radeon RX Vega 64 Gaming OC 8GB and go for Sapphire Nitro+ RX Vega 64 implementations on both my X99 and X299 systems. While on X99, the Nitro+ will remain unmodified with it's airflow implementation (3-slot solution), I will water block the Nitro+ for my X299 system (Bykski Water block from AliExpress).

Now to wait until newly purchased hardware arrives. The Bykski Water block will come from China (7-15 days shipment). The Nitros will arrive within 3-5 days..

 

[RuleBreaker01]

Guess I did most of the work already.

Quick questions:
Where does this definition of HPME method coming from? (the one added to PC01.BR1A.UPSB.DSB2)

                Method (HPME, 0, Serialized)
                {
                    If (PMEX)
                    {
                        Store (0xC8, Local0)
                        While (Local0)
                        {
                            Store (One, PMEX)
                            If (PMEX)
                            {
                                Decrement (Local0)
                            }
                            Else
                            {
                                Store (Zero, Local0)
                            }
                        }

                        Store (One, PMCS)
                    }
                }

and the PRT method?

                Method (_PRT, 0, NotSerialized)  // _PRT: PCI Routing Table
                {
                    If (PICM ())
                    {
                        Return (AG16 ())
                    }

                    Return (PG16 ())
                }

I wonder why AG16 and PG16 refer to, they aren't in the original Asus DSDT