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

[cloverbay]

First and foremost a very BIG THANK YOU AND A HUG to KGP! I have finally got mine to work!

My steps went like this:

1) I open up the computer and did the pin reset thing.
2) BIOS and EFI with install High Sierra USB according to the guide posted on page 1. But CSM launch has to be enabled becos' the POST message says my graphics is not UEFI compatible. No idea why.
3) Boot up and it went all the way to apple logo and then hung.
4) Search around and put in a TSCAdjustReset kext into the 'Other' folder. I did change the info.plist IOCPUNumber to 15 according to my 7820x which is a 8C/16T cpu.
5) Boot up and the installation was a success!
6) LAN only one port is working. Not sure why.
7) Went to download the nvidia web drivers as I'm using the GTX970. Screen mow is beautiful.
8) UnSolid kext works wonder. My drive maintained HFS+ with High Sierra OS.



A few question:

1) How do I get the disk to boot up w/o using the USB disk? I use a Samsung 840 SSD. Totally lost when reading the Post Installation on page 1. The boot disk EFI shows apple and firmware:

2) Can I dual boot to Win10 on the NVMe drive using EFI? Or do I need to just use the drive selection from the BIOS? I got it plugged out when installing H.Sierra.

3) The about this mac info is not complete. Does it matter?


4) The SSD doesn't show TRIM enable. Can I use the sudo trim enable command in terminal to enable it? Or does it require a kext? Pic of controller and disk.

That's all from me folks. It was a great learning experience! Big thank you to everyone here for your help. KGP you are the man!!!

 

[kgp]

First and foremost a very BIG THANK YOU AND A HUG to KGP! I have finally got mine to work!

My steps went like this:

1) I open up the computer and did the pin reset thing.
2) BIOS and EFI with install High Sierra USB according to the guide posted on page 1. But CSM launch has to be enabled becos' the POST message says my graphics is not UEFI compatible. No idea why.
3) Boot up and it went all the way to apple logo and then hung.
4) Search around and put in a TSCAdjustReset kext into the 'Other' folder. I did change the info.plist IOCPUNumber to 15 according to my 7820x which is a 8C/16T cpu.
5) Boot up and the installation was a success!
6) LAN only one port is working. Not sure why.
7) Went to download the nvidia web drivers as I'm using the GTX970. Screen mow is beautiful.
8) UnSolid kext works wonder. My drive maintained HFS+ with High Sierra OS.



A few question:

1) How do I get the disk to boot up w/o using the USB disk? I use a Samsung 840 SSD. Totally lost when reading the Post Installation on page 1. The boot disk EFI shows apple and firmware:
View attachment 346132



2) Can I dual boot to Win10 on the NVMe drive using EFI? Or do I need to just use the drive selection from the BIOS? I got it plugged out when installing H.Sierra.

3) The about this mac info is not complete. Does it matter?


4) The SSD doesn't show TRIM enable. Can I use the sudo trim enable command in terminal to enable it? Or does it require a kext? Pic of controller and disk.
View attachment 346133

View attachment 346134



That's all from me folks. It was a great learning experience! Big thank you to everyone here for your help. KGP you are the man!!!

ad 1.) you need to copy the EFI-Folder also to the EFI-Partition of your macOS system disk
ad 2.) On an UEFI dual boot system, usually you boot the Windows UEFI disk or macOS system disk from Clover boot menu..
ad 3.) seems you are still missing to apply Section 10.) of my guide
ad 4.) Enable TRIM kext patch in config.plist under Section Kernel and Kext Patches of Clover Configurator. It is implemented by default when using my EFI-Folder distribution...

Good luck and thanks for the positive feedback,

KGP

BTW... Please provide your X299/Skylake-X system specs (mobo, CPU, GPU) in either your profile or signature in compliance with the board rules.

 

[cloverbay]

ad 1.) you need to copy the EFI-Folder also to the EFI-Partition of your macOS system disk
ad 2.) On an UEFI dual boot system, usually you boot the Windows UEFI disk or macOS system disk from Clover boot menu..
ad 3.) seems you are still missing to apply Section 10.) of my guide
ad 4.) Enable TRIM kext patch in config.plist under Section Kernel and Kext Patches of Clover Configurator. It is implemented by default when using my EFI-Folder distribution...

Good luck and thanks for the positive feedback,

KGP

BTW... Please provide your X299/Skylake-X system specs (mobo, CPU, GPU) in either your profile or signature in compliance with the board rules.

For 1) Do I replace the entire EFI folder? Erase the Apple folder?
ad 2) Will try with the clover boot menu later
ad 3) Can I just do the terminal command only? No idea what is clover configurator and I don't have it.
ad 4) I read through your guide regarding the TRIM kext but still no idea. Cannot find the plist you mentioned at the end of the post.

Sorry I'm still not very savvy with all these. Will update my system info soon

 

[fingers-crossed]

Thanks for all your answers.

I also know that there some issues with WD drives during similar situations. Have you tested your configuration under a regular Mac? Lastly, there's an app called Mountain developed by appgineers that deals with these particular issues. It works very well. They have a free trial.

With my real Mac (MBP) I never had this issue so I can't test it there.
The USB hard drives were from Seagate, also tested pen drives by SanDisk and others. So far all behave the same.
Will have a look into Mountain, thanks.

What USB injection method are you using?
For me, I am NOT using the port limit patch.
I have a custom USB .kext where I individually went and checked each port and assigned them proper USB variables.
I also DO NOT use USBInjectAll.
I have uploaded my USB kext and energy saving settings.
Also I am NOT using any SSDT's (besides NVMe external icon patch)

Note that the Designare EX has much less USB3.0 and USB2.0 ports than other mainboards.. Not everybody can skip the port limit patch that easily...

Thanks for your kext and uploads, @izo1

I will have a look into it.

As I have the ASUS Prime Deluxe mobo I followed kgp's guide and use his SSDTs (the EFI contribution with three SSDTs) as well as USB kext, without USBInjectAll, but with port limit patch.
I deactivated the patch as well as the kext, but the eject problem was still there (not trying the Spotlight workaround though).

As I don't use all my USB ports anyway, I will have a look in stripping down kgp's kext and deactivate some USB 2 functions to stay under the amount of 15 ports and after that deactivate the port limit patch.
This would also make future system updates maybe a bit smoother.

There has to be some other workaround, I'll do some digging this week.

I also tried disabling XMP (found somewhere) -> but made no difference

In one forum someone solved it by disabling BIOS setting 'Internal CPU PLL Overvoltage'.
It looks like it was a Gigabyte mobo (GA-Z77X-UP5 TH). Is this setting also available in the Designare?

 

[kgp]

For 1) Do I replace the entire EFI folder? Erase the Apple folder?
ad 2) Will try with the clover boot menu later
ad 3) Can I just do the terminal command only? No idea what is clover configurator and I don't have it.
ad 4) I read through your guide regarding the TRIM kext but still no idea. Cannot find the plist you mentioned at the end of the post.

Sorry I'm still not very savvy with all these. Will update my system info soon

ad.1) yes, replace the entire EFI-Folder... But on your macOS system disk EFI-partition of course! Don't confuse with the Windows Drive!
ad.3) no idea what the terminal command is for..
ad.4) the config.plist is part of my EFi-Folder distribution

You should urgently learn about Clover Configurator! It is the base for many implementations discussed in my guide!

 

[cloverbay]

ad.1) yes, replace the entire EFI-Folder... But on your macOS system disk EFI-partition of course! Don't confuse with the Windows Drive!
ad.3) no idea what the terminal command is for..
ad.4) the config.plist is part of my EFi-Folder distribution

You should urgently learn about Clover Configurator! It is the base for many implementations discussed in my guide!

Thank you!!

I got a little mixed up. Regarding the TRIM, at E7 you mentioned about the config.plist at the end of the but I can't find it.

Also the changing of the unknown CPU thing at E10, can I just use the Terminal command lines w/o Clover Configurator?

Where's a good place to learn about the Clover Configurator? I'm noob so something easy to understand is best.

 

[panos-s]

For more details on the boot problem I mentioned earlier, I attached a photo.
The error is: Could not allocate run time area.

Can you pls help? It's happened again 2 times in a row.

 

[kgp]

For more details on the boot problem I mentioned earlier, I attached a photo.
The error is: Could not allocate run time area.

Can you pls help? It's happened again 2 times in a row.

Use latest Clover distribution (>/=Clover_v2.4k_r4644) with lates AptioMemoryFix-64.efi..

If no change, re-flash BIOS..

 

[kgp]

Thank you!!

I got a little mixed up. Regarding the TRIM, at E7 you mentioned about the config.plist at the end of the but I can't find it.
View attachment 346141

Also the changing of the unknown cpu thing at E10, can I just use the terminal command lines w/o the configurator?

Where's a good place to learn about the clover configurator? I'm noob so something easy to understand is best.

Terminal commands are terminal commands and have nothing to do with Clover Configurator...

I don't know any tutorials for Clover Configurator.. Learn by doing..

 

[thenightflyer]

What USB injection method are you using?

For me, I am NOT using the port limit patch.

I have a custom USB .kext where I individually went and checked each port and assigned them proper USB variables.

I also DO NOT use USBInjectAll.

I have uploaded my USB kext and energy saving settings.

Also I am NOT using any SSDT's (besides NVMe external icon patch)

For example, I have had a USB3.0 drive connected to my system for over a month (I do not shut down my system or make it go to sleep -- ever) and I come back to the system and the drive wakes up without a problem. It takes a few seconds for the beachball to go away). This has always been the case with macOS.

I see you have a Designarex x299...I've the same mobo but sleep doesn't work properly. How do you have working sleep? Please can you share your EFI and if you changed bios parameters? It would be appreciated...it's the only issue I cannot solve with my conf.