@davidahn I've lost entire weekends to dying CR2032 cells. I feel your pain. Also, do network boot roms really have a point besides providing an excellent location to install a rootkit?
. (I'm kidding. Mostly.)
Anyway, I'm running 10.13.4 like a champ! Fortunately, there aren't too many differences, the main thing is that all the kernel patches are different, and you need a patch to get the 10.13 installer to run at all. Oh, and we can now use Above 4G encoding (which would be particularly important to people using all of their 16X PCIE slots - like if you had an SLI setup, which is half the reason for even getting an X10DAx vs. X10DAi).
Quick and dirty:
1. Flash patched BIOS.
Download the latest bios version from Supermicro's site, then get your hands on
UEFIPatch, copy the bios image (X10DAx8.223 in your case) into the UEFIPatch folder. Then, from the command line, cd to the UEFIPatch folder and simply run
It will patch the bios so those pesky MSR registers macOS likes to play with will not be locked. The resulting file will be named X10DAx8.223.patched. This is the file you want to flash to your BIOS. Follow Supermicro's directions, just copy the .patched bios file and rename it X10DAx8.223 instead of X10DAx8.223.patched, but otherwise the flashing procedure is no different.
2. Configure your BIOS correctly.
So, the important things are to make sure VT-d is off, and that in CPU->Power Management, you change the power management settings to custom, turn on EIST, Turbo, Throttle/T-States, PM Coordination to SW_ALL. It's not super important, you can use your judgement but try to turn as much stuff on and always favor the OS rather than the BIOS setting power management stuff (this will be noted in the BIOS help text on the far right).
The other important thing is to turn on 'Above 4G Decoding'. It's somewhere in the North Bridge area, under maybe PCIE settings? I am not sure of the exact menu layout of the X10DAx, and its been a while sense I accessed my own for that matter. Doing this from memory, sorry. It's somewhere, you'll find it
. Oh, and make sure everything is in UEFI/EFI mode, like PCIE slots and for booting ofc.
This page has a very complete and comprehensive list of what you need to configure BIOS-wise, and should explain why you need the patch in step 1.
3. Everything involved with generating SSDTs is completely unchanged. If upgrading from 10.12, you don't even need to do anything here, the SSDTs do not need any changes and you can keep using them just as before.
4. You need some love in your EFI/CLOVER folder.
First off, download and install the latest version of Clover released on the sourceforge page onto your flash drive or hard disk or whatever you want to do. And referencing
https://github.com/vit9696/AptioFixPkg again, when you install clover, you'll need to check the AptioMemoryFix UEFI driver, and possibly the AptioInputFix. Do not use any other aptio fixes or osxfreemem fixes, or you won't be able to boot. If these are already in your clover folder, remove them. AFAIK, the more recent clover installers will already have the correct UEFI drivers selected by default, so if in doubt, just leave all the defaults checked or unchecked.
5. Move kexts to EFI/CLOVER/kexts/other.
And the only kexts you need, at least to start, are a recent version of FakeSMC,
Lilu (as in multipass),
AppleALC which works perfectly for getting audio fully working on our super micro mobos. This won't be an issue until you install the web drivers, but if you have a recent Nvidia card (or 3), you'll need to use some sort of fix for the black screen issue. There is nothing special or unique that is different with our mobos, so just look on these forums for how to deal with that. The procedure is the same for us. Lilu is required for this. You'll also want to look into Rehabman's XHCI-x99 injector, and general X99 USB fixes IF YOU HAVE USB ISSUES. Don't fix what isn't broken though, you may not have any issues or you might not care if all bajillion USB ports work. Again, there is nothing special about the C612 vs. X99 when it comes to USB fixes, thank god.
6. Y'all need dem kernel patches
OK, final bit thats changed... you need these patches, and only these patches, for PM to work. Note, all of these are from other people/sources, I do not claim credit for any of them. I am simply putting them all in the same spot for convenience
. Sorry if I fail to credit someone or got it wrong, I welcome corrections. I am grabbing this from my clover config plist. Like I said, quick and dirty.
Code:
* = optional/use as needed. Everything else is required.
Kext patches:
Name Find Replace Comment
IOPCIFamily 4881FB00 000040 4881FB00 000080 X99/C610 Chipset Patch by baumbear (i think)
*AppleUSBXHCI 837D940F 0F839704 0000 837D940F 90909090 9090 change port limit to 24 ports
*IOAHCIBlockStorage 4150504C 45205353 4400 00000000 00000000 0000 SSD Trim Enabler
Kernel Patches:
Find Replace Comment (leave matchos/ match build blank/empty)
07000000 31D2E88F FCFFFF 07000000 31D29090 909090 10.13 Installer/Updater install patch
723CD077 500FB6C0 6A3CD077 500FB6C0 _cpuid_set_info_1013_broadwell by Piker Alpha
89D804C4 3C227722 89D804C3 3C227722 _xcpm_bootstrap_1013_broad by Piker Alpha
BE070000 0031D2E8 8FFCFFFF BE070000 0031D290 90909090 _xcpm_pkg_scope_msrs by Piker Alpha
BE0B0000 005DE908 000000 BE0B0000 005DC390 909090 _xcpm_SMT_scope_msrs by Piker Alpha
You'll note that several patches mentioned in my first post are gone, this is intended. Those patches were needed when we weren't using a patched bios, but now that a patched bios is required anyway, may as well not bother with patches we don't need anymore.
Also, I highly recommend applying PMHeart's wonderful performance patch. It will disable macOS's handling of certain energy efficiency MSRs entirely which are not really relevant to us since we aren't using an actual MacPro and we (probably) don't care too much about heat etc. This shouldn't hurt idle power usage or anything. And it is sweet having all 28 of my cores turboing to their all-core turbo frequency
.
Code:
xcpm performance fix by PMHeart:
Find
C1E30848 63D389D0 48C1EA20 B9990100 000F3048 FF05C99E 6B004883 C4085B5D C3662E0F 1F840000 000000
Replace
BB00FF00 004863D3 89D048C1 EA20B999 0100000F 3048FF05 C99E6B00 4883C408 5B5DC390 90909090 909090
Finally, make sure your FakeCPUID is 0x040674, and you have all built in clover pm flags like KernelCPU, KernelPm, KernelXCPM, etc. turned off.
As for boot flags, you'll still want -npci=0x3000 and -xcpm_ipi . Though, if you just use -xcpm, the performance impact is measurable, but not nearly as big a deal as it was in 10.12. In fact, it seems to only make a 5% difference. But I want my 5%
.
