[SUCCESS] Gigabyte Designare Z390 (Thunderbolt 3) + i7-9700K + AMD RX 580

[CaseySJ]

Hello CaseySJ, thanks a lot for the great guide! I want to build my first Hackintosh and i plan to follow your guide and instruction (with a Sapphire Radeon RX VEGA 64 8 GB NITRO+)
I just have a few questions:
1. Will Corsair Vengeance LPX 4000Mhz 32GB (16GBx2) be compatible? The Gigabyte MB is, but does it work with Mac OS?
2. Both the Broadcom WiFi and Bluetooth Module -- BCM94360CS2 and PCIe x1 adapter card for WiFi/BT module are out of order in all the shop in my country. Do you maybe have an idea to replace it? I have found this one here but i can't tell if this gonna be compatible with your guide.
3. i plan to buy a Samsung NVMe SSD and also some Samsung SATA SSD. Does the brand matter for your build?

Thanks to anybody who can reply to me

Hello Mochimino,

• The Corsair Vengeance LPX 4000Mhz memory should work fine as long as it supports XMP. Any reason you want such a fast (and more expensive) memory? In BIOS, enabling XMP Profile 1 should be sufficient to run this memory at full speed.
• The Fenvi card in your link does *not* have Bluetooth. It's a WiFi-only card. A good alternative is the Fenvi T919. You should be able to find it on eBay. These cards ship from China so they will take some time to deliver. If you look at the Buyer's Guide in this website, you will find some USB Bluetooth and USB WiFi dongles that are compatible with Mojave. You can use those too, but I still recommend the Fenvi T919 over these USB devices.
• No problem to use Samsung M.2 PCIe SSDs or M.2 SATA SSDs. Brand does not matter; many owners are reporting excellent read/write speeds with Samsung EVO 970.

 

[CaseySJ]

@CaseySJ

As my system seems to work properly I just compared your recommended /L/E and /EFI/CLOVER/kexts/* folders with mine. Out of that I would like to understand

• Why do you install the following kexts in /EFI/CLOVER/kexts/* and not in /L/E?
  • XHCI-unsupported.kext
  • FakePCIID_Intel_GbX.kext
  • FakePCIID.kext
  • AppleALC.kext
  • SmallTreeIntel82576.kext
• Why do we need "XHCI-unsupported.kext" at all?

Thanks!

The only proper location for third party kernel extensions is /Library/Extensions, so your files are in the right place. Eventually I will also move my files there. Having these files in CLOVER/kexts has the advantage of facilitating experiments where different configurations can be tested quickly without having to rebuild kernel caches. Also, Clover Boot Menu allows us to disable individual kexts from the CLOVER/kexts folder to further aid in localizing problems.

The Designare Z390 does not require XHCI-Unsupported. Because people with different motherboards are also following this guide, I decided to include this extra kext. It does not hurt us, but it helps them.

 

[AlexD]

@TheAsocial @CaseySJ Thank you very much guys for letting me know. I'm very interested in knowing this and honestly a bit surprised to see this LG display working just OOB, without any issues. That's great achievement! Well, I think it's time for me to consider switching to some new displays this year, I suppose.

For now, I'm with my new Dell U2719D, but will be definitely adding something 5k/Retina, glossy, IPS as a main display later this year.

BTW, guys. My drama continues. Just got another response from Gigabyte support team in terms of Titan Ridge and Apple Thunderbolt Display issue. Their engineering/validation team confirmed to me that Titan Ridge in Z390 Designare, due to its limitations, doesn't support any Thunderbolt 2 devices through adapters, at all. I was like, seriously? You guys should be joking, right, because so many people I know running various TB2 devices through adapters with no problems. So they basically saying, that Titan Ridge only supports TB3 devices. They definitely doesn't know what they're doing. I have no power to continue the conversation with them. It's like talking to the walls.

 

[CaseySJ]

Sorry to disturb again. Is there a way to define HID USB ports? Are there some special options for a SSDTs usb file. Sometimes my mouse is not detected, I ve to replug it. And I still face these annoying long boot times. Would it make sense to add the ports I did not use for USB port assignment to the blacklist before booting ( -uia_exclude).

Yes, I would first try disabling any unused USB ports and also creating a custom USB SSDT. You can use Hackintool to create a custom USB kext (instead of SSDT) by following this guide:
https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/release-hackintool-v1-7-4.254559/

Or you can create a SSDT:
https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/guide-creating-a-custom-ssdt-for-usbinjectall-kext.211311/

 

[CaseySJ]

CaseySJ,

Thanks for your excellent post. After reading it over a few times I've gone ahead and ordered a "Gigabyte 390 Designware" and plan on migrating my rig over from an "GIGABYTE Z370 AORUS Gaming 7" w/ Alpine Ridge card.
The Alpine Ridge setup has been a big headache for me from the start and it also prevents me from doing a headless igpu
which I sorely need.

As I already have a stable bootable install of Mojave 10.14.2 from my current rig on a Samsung 960 EVO M.2, I'm hoping to forgo having to do a clean install.
Would it be possible for you to post a copy of your Config.plist (w/ serial # concealed) and a list of the kexts you are using? I suspect with a little work I'll be able to pop my M.2 card into the new Motherboard and boot right up. Unless of course you see anything wrong with my plan.

Thanks in Advance and keep up the good work!

So you want to build a new system in the most laziest of ways??!!

• You can create a post-installation config.plist entirely on your existing system. You just need Clover Configurator and the illustrated guide in the Post-Installation section of the build guide. It will take you maybe 30 minutes.
• You can copy and modify the CLOVER folder from your existing Gigabyte Z370 system, then replace the kexts and drivers.
• I really don't know if you can just move your current Mojave SSD from the Z370 system to the Z390 system! But I think you should try it and let us know! I'm very interested. But you still have to modify config.plist, kexts folder, and driversUefi64 folder.
• If this does not work, you can clone the Samsung 960 EVO to a low-cost SATA SSD ($20-$35 for 120-240 GB), then install a fresh copy of Mojave on the 960 EVO, and use Migration Assistant to move your applications and documents from the clone back to the 960 EVO.

 

[ummario]

@ummario,

In the last day or so I've found out from other users that all though the Sapphire Nitro + card has a Zero Fan mode, it can still use the SoftPowerPlayMethod ... I have since updated the note in the guide to reflect this and it seems the issue is more prominent on some non-Sapphire cards that use a custom VBIOS.

Have you tried using HWMonitorSMC2 to monitor the Vega ?... its detailed in the same guide ... I think it's currently the only Monitoring app that works well with Vega GPU's. You must remove the old Monitoring App, FakeSMC and sensor plugins and use the ones that come with HWMonitorSMC2.

Cheers
Jay

Dear @jaymonkey

Note:

I edited this post, since I did a mistake, and some of the questions I was making does not apply anymore

Still did not found time to aply SoftPowerPlayMethot... but went directly to the part of using HWMonitorSMC2. I followed exactly what your guide and here is my questions and Result:

1. When you say:

'Finally you also need to install a plugin for monitoring your motherboard sensors. My Z97 system uses a Winboard chip so I installed the W836x.kext. See the Readme pdf file in the "Extensions" folder of the dmg for descriptions of the other plugins.'

Since my motherboard is Gigabyte Z390 Aorus Xtreme, i added 'ITEI87x.kext' is this ok?


I Can see now my GPU with normal temperatures as it should.

I performed Benchmark stress test (Unigine Heaven), and after the temperature of GPU raised, the fans started to spin. So this means they worked as it should.

The thing is that several minutes later after the test was finished, and after the temperatures went really low, the fans kept spinning. Shouldn't they stop spinning when temperature goes down?

Thank you again for the help.

 

[TheAsocial]

@TheAsocial @CaseySJ Thank you very much guys for letting me know. I'm very interested in knowing this and honestly a bit surprised to see this LG display working just OOB, without any issues. That's great achievement! Well, I think it's time for me to consider switching to some new displays this year, I suppose.

For now, I'm with my new Dell U2719D, but will be definitely adding something 5k/Retina, glossy, IPS as a main display later this year.

Btw, guys. My drama continues. Just got another response from Gigabyte support team in terms of Titan Ridge and Apple Thunderbolt Display issue. Their engineering/validation team confirmed to me that Titan Ridge in Z390 Designare, due to its limitations doesn't support any Thunderbolt 2 devices through adapters, at all. I was like, seriously? You guys should be joking, right, because so many people I know running various TB2 devices through adapters with no problems. So they basically saying, that Titan Ridge only supports TB3 devices. They definitely doesn't know what they're doing. I have no power to continue the conversation with them. It's like talking to the walls.

What TB2 device are you trying to use?

We have a Apple 27” Thunderbolt Display (and TB3 to TB2 adapter) at work I can try when I’m next in the office?

 

[Lensjocky]

So you want to build a new system in the most laziest of ways??!!

• You can create a post-installation config.plist entirely on your existing system. You just need Clover Configurator and the illustrated guide in the Post-Installation section of the build guide. It will take you maybe 30 minutes.
• You can copy and modify the CLOVER folder from your existing Gigabyte Z370 system, then replace the kexts and drivers.
• I really don't know if you can just move your current Mojave SSD from the Z370 system to the Z390 system! But I think you should try it and let us know! I'm very interested. But you still have to modify config.plist, kexts folder, and driversUefi64 folder.
• If this does not work, you can clone the Samsung 960 EVO to a low-cost SATA SSD ($20-$35 for 120-240 GB), then install a fresh copy of Mojave on the 960 EVO, and use Migration Assistant to move your applications and documents from the clone back to the 960 EVO.

Thanks for the speedy reply. I'll keep you posted, but it could be a while as I had to order the Z390 Designware from Germany (I'm in NYC) as they're completely out of stock on Amazon/Egghead/Ebay etc...
I've actually moved the Samsung 960 EVO from another motherboard (Gigabyte) previously without much drama. As
long as the Config.plist and Kexts are good it should work just fine. Trust me I already have a cheap MSATA backup of my current install.

Cheers!

 

[ummario]

It is on HS14 — same as Designare. IT is easy to disable it by adding boot argument:

-uia_exclude=HS14

But you will have to disable several more ports until the total HSxx and SSxx is 15 or less. Then Bluetooth will work. You also have to connect PCIe USB cable to F_USB1 or F_USB2 (and hope system still boots).

So maybe it’s better to do this tomorrow...nearly bedtime for me!

Hey @CaseySJ back to this little problem...

I added -uia_exclude=HS14, but I don't see any difference on the behaviour of the bluetooth, and when I open IORegistryExplorer I still see HS14, is this normal?

 

[CaseySJ]

Thanks for the speedy reply. I'll keep you posted, but it could be a while as I had to order the Z390 Designware from Germany (I'm in NYC) as they're completely out of stock on Amazon/Egghead/Ebay etc...
I've actually moved the Samsung 960 EVO from another motherboard (Gigabyte) previously without much drama. As
long as the Config.plist and Kexts are good it should work just fine. Trust me I already have a cheap MSATA backup of my current install.

Cheers!

If you follow the screenshot-by-screenshot guide under Post-Installation, it will take just a few minutes to create the config.plist and CLOVER folders. You can do that even now while you wait for delivery! And if you have any questions or would like for me to audit your files, feel free to ask.