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

[killadaninja2]

I built a Machine based on the guide from this thread, WHO and FOR WHAT needs CFG lock disabled?
I have a 9900k and a rx580 I seem to be having some troubles waking from sleep, If I remember well, everything used to work just fine, I have installed a good few apps lately so if they are responsible for the change, where should I start in recorrecting it, thank you.


Hey all, I am Running.
9900k
Z390 Designare
Rx 580
Fractal R6 Case

I had a great working install but I tried updating Clover and I have COMPLETELY MESSED EVERYTHING up,
would anyone with my config PLEASE (it will be MUCH appreciated) be so kind as to clone their complete EFI partition, and "/Library/Extensions" for me? Thank you soo much in advance.

 

[michaelvelasquez]

Oh man, what a sick twist of fate. I reassembled the entire system back in the case and I just booted five times in a row (into Windows) without issues from power off.

The only thing that is different now is the GPU is mounted in the top-most PCIe slot. Previously the Noctura cooler when mounted for front-to-back airflow blocks that port. I decided to try the alternate down-to-up airflow mounting method this time just to compare temperature differences. In my mind this really shouldn't be the culprit though, the issue was occuring repeatedly without any GPU installed at all. Nevertheless, I am trying to document everything here and it's worth noting.

EDIT: Actually just realized there is one other difference now, I only have one of the two fans on the CPU cooler installed or connected. (Connected to CPU_FAN, now nothing connected to CPU_OPT).

I'm still convinced something is screwed up somewhere. That issue was far to repeatable even when broken down to the sheer basic components.

I am going to start working through the process in this order:

1. Currently on F7_n BIOS, going to upgrade to F9
2. Re-apply BIOS settings from Post #1
3. Re-unlock MSR 0xE2

Hi @notthefirstryan Did you end up returning your Z390 Designare and i9-9900k or does the issue seem resolved for you? I have several components similar to yours (see below) and experienced the same issue you described (Option 1 where it powers on, then off, then on, then off). But for me it happened very soon after completing the build, well before I attempted installing 10.15.4. I couldn't get to the BIOS. I couldn't get to the grub> prompt to set MSR 0xE2 to 0x0 with my USB thumb drive.

So I don't bury the lead, I've had stability the last two days, even after sleep or shutdown, and the key seemed to be plugging both the PEG and AND ATX_12V_2x2 power connectors to the PSU. I'm wondering if what we were experiencing was the components not getting enough power to run stably?

Like you, once I got caught in the power on/off loop, I took everything out so only the mobo, CPU and PSU were connected but was still stuck in the loop. I was lamenting having to remove the CPU cooler and reseat the PSU. After re-reading @CaseySJ 's amazing original walkthrough with a fine tooth comb, the line "If your monitor is connected to a discrete GPU in a PCIe slot (not iGPU) and you don't see the BIOS splash screen, connect an HDMI-capable monitor to the HDMI port on the motherboard and reboot" jumped out at me.

My old monitor only has DVI and I was using an DVI to HDMI adapter. I figured, what the hell; borrowed and HDMI monitor from my neighbor, put the RAM back in and voilà, BIOS (I wonder if at this point, the RAM was the real culprit)? I unlock the MSR 0xE2 register, enter the recommended BIOS settings, plug in my GPU, confirm that's working, and using @CaseySJ 's 10.15.4 guide, get Catalina installed without a hitch.

Thinking I'm golden, I start putting in the rest of my components, powering down after installing each one and confirming I can still boot. At one point, it seems like it's powering on, immediately off, then back on and booting but I was really, really tired and figured as long as it's booting, I'll live. I get to the point where I have everything installed but my two regular spinning hard drives and it's still booting fine, so I power down, calling it a night.

The next day, I power on and get stuck in the power on/off loop, no BIOS. Over and over again. I'm about ready to quit and take everything apart and RMA the mobo, RAM and CPU. But it does seem like once I remove enough components, I get the BIOS again. And as I start putting them back one by one, I reach a point after installing the two SSD's where the whole setup powers off and on one time before booting completely.

After reading that the "boot loop" is a problem among GIGABYTE motherboards, I stumble upon your post describing an issue similar to what I'm experiencing. When I saw that you had plugged in your PEG power connector, I looked it up in the Z390 manual and figured, sure, "more power". With the PEG power connector attached to the PSU, I was able to boot and shut down/reboot consistently with everything except my two regular spinning hard drives. No "initial power off, back on, then boot" issue.

I plug in my two regular spinning hard drives and while it still boots, it only does so after that initial power off then immediately back on. I read through all the guides again for inspiration. The initial build guide at the start of this thread mentions you can plug in the ATX_12V_2x2 power connector if you plan on overclocking (which I don't), but I attach that as well and the power off/on before booting has disappeared again.

It's only been a couple days of stability so hopefully this isn't all a false sense of security. But what do you think of the idea that our issue was caused by not having enough power to all the components? Does connecting hard drives to a motherboard necessarily draw enough extra power to make a system unstable?

If you're build is still going strong with the Z390 DESIGNARE, i9-9900k and G.SKILL RAM, I'll feel a little better. But still keeping my eye on the return window.

I'm also concerned my system is too slow for what's in it. It doesn't feel laggy at all in use but @MacMarshall reported a 6408 single-core Geekbench (v4) score and a 33401 multi-core score on an i7-9700K CPU whereas I'm pulling a comparatively anemic 1284 single-core Geekbench (v5) score and a 9257 multi-core score on an i9-9900K CPU.

What are your Geekbench scores?

EDIT: Nevermind about the Geekbench scores. I see from the "What Works" section of the original build guide that Geekbench 4 and 5 score systems very differently.

Thank you for reading.

GIGABYTE Z390 DESIGNARE (version F8)
Intel Core i9-9900K
Sapphire RX 580 Pulse 8Gb (topmost PCIe slot)
G.SKILL Ripjaws V Series 64GB (4 x 16GB) DDR4 3200 (PC4 25600)
Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO
EVGA 850 GQ Gold Semi Modular
addlink S70 512GB SSD NVMe (bottom M.2 slot)
Crucial MX500 2.5" 500GB SATA III
Crucial BX500 1TB 3D NAND SATA 2.5
Seagate Desktop SSHD ST4000DX001 4TB
Seagate Desktop HDD ST2000DM001 2TB
Fractal Design Define R6 USB-C Case
Syba Low Profile PCI-Express 1394b/1394a (2B1A) Card

 

[losinka]

That is amazing...now that the board is going out of production!

Casey, a new CPU is not supported yet and change the cpu id will not help you. It'll have to wait about six months

 

[Ploddles]

That is amazing...now that the board is going out of production! Let's see if Z490 Vision D comes with this option. Nevertheless, F9g could be a huge blessing for all existing Z390 Designare owners. No longer will we need to run the special grub shell. Instead, we could just save this setting along with all others in a single "Profile" and reload the profile whenever needed.

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View attachment 470889

Well my new motherboard arrived and fired up straight away .

One thing I did discover though whilst setting up the BIOS is that as long as you save your profile AFTER unlocking MSR (and save a copy to your emergency USB boot thumb drive), even though the option isn't in the BIOS it is still saved and loaded again when/if you reapply it after a reset.

A number of people in this thread reported that MSR remained locked after a bios reset yet others found it to be unlocked again. I am willing to bet that the difference between the two groups of people is that those who saved a profile with it locked and reloaded that profile after a bios reset are the ones who found it to still be locked. This was my case on the 2 occasions I reset (it remained locked) but I didn't link the two together at the time.

It may be worth a quick check your end, on the Designare MB, just to verify and add the info to your Micro-Guide. It is bios specific so if you update to another bios version you have to relock and resave the profile.

I only have to redo my SSDTs for the different USB ports etc on the new MB and I'm ready to go. Are you aware if any of your SSDTs for the Designare are suitable to carry over to the Aorus Master? Thanks.

 

[Ponkass]

CMMChris removed Vega support because the fan noise complaints were unacceptable. He could not apply the 'boost' to Vega GPUs and lower fan speed.

Fan noise is not an issue with one Vega 64 I have, as it is water-cooled, so I added it back for this computer. (I do have a Vega 56 that I'll test out this weekend.)

I'll upload the modified v1.4 here, but if anyone uses it without water-cooling, fan noise will most likely be a problem. This modified version works for both Vega 56 and 64.

Since this kext auto-selects SMBIOS and GPU, it is fully usable, and will function the same, as the standard v1.4 with other supported GPUs.

Sorry, I'm not quite sure what you mean in this post. The +vega kext is for Vega cards, but if you don't have water cooling, you will still have loud fans - is that what you mean?

I have an air cooled Vega 64 Sapphire. I get crazy good score improvements (+15-20k) but fans are pretty loud and annoying. I also installed the appropriate DSDT.

Thanks!

@rj510 @CaseySJ

 

[gandem]

Well my new motherboard arrived and fired up straight away .

One thing I did discover though whilst setting up the BIOS is that as long as you save your profile AFTER unlocking MSR (and save a copy to your emergency USB boot thumb drive), even though the option isn't in the BIOS it is still saved and loaded again when/if you reapply it after a reset.

A number of people in this thread reported that MSR remained locked after a bios reset yet others found it to be unlocked again. I am willing to bet that the difference between the two groups of people is that those who saved a profile with it locked and reloaded that profile after a bios reset are the ones who found it to still be locked. This was my case on the 2 occasions I reset (it remained locked) but I didn't link the two together at the time.

It may be worth a quick check your end, on the Designare MB, just to verify and add the info to your Micro-Guide. It is bios specific so if you update to another bios version you have to relock and resave the profile.

I only have to redo my SSDTs for the different USB ports etc on the new MB and I'm ready to go. Are you aware if any of your SSDTs for the Designare are suitable to carry over to the Aorus Master? Thanks.

Hi @Ploddles.
Welcome to the Aorus Master club. There's a few of us around.
I shared my EFI a week or two ago, if you're interested. I used the mini-guides from @CaseySJ and guidance from many in this discussion. My build has been rock solid, with the exception of my display experiments. When I bought this MB my decision process came down to a choice between built-in TB or a 3rd M.2 slot. So, I bought the TR AIC to go along with it.

 

[Ploddles]

Hi @Ploddles.
Welcome to the Aorus Master club. There's a few of us around.
I shared my EFI a week or two ago, if you're interested. I used the mini-guides from @CaseySJ and guidance from many in this discussion. My build has been rock solid, with the exception of my display experiments. When I bought this MB my decision process came down to a choice between built-in TB or a 3rd M.2 slot. So, I bought the TR AIC to go along with it.

Thanks. I found it and will have a look this evening.

 

[CaseySJ]

@michaelvelasquez,

Welcome to the forum! It can be tedious and time consuming to do controlled experiments, so thank you for the detailed writeup. If your system remains stable for another few days please let us know. Normally the PEG connector is needed when two or more GPUs are installed, and ATX_12V_2x2 is needed when overclocking, but if controlled tests show that these connections might also be necessary on some boards regardless of extra GPUs or overclocks, then that's a very good, but somewhat troubling finding.

 

[CaseySJ]

Casey, a new CPU is not supported yet and change the cpu id will not help you. It'll have to wait about six months

Can you explain what you mean? Do you mean that beta BIOS F9g does not support certain Coffee Lake CPUs?

 

[CaseySJ]

I built a Machine based on the guide from this thread, WHO and FOR WHAT needs CFG lock disabled?

This allows us to enable native NVRAM. On Mojave it's optional, but on Catalina 10.15.4 and newer it's strongly recommended for easier installation.

I have a 9900k and a rx580 I seem to be having some troubles waking from sleep, If I remember well, everything used to work just fine, I have installed a good few apps lately so if they are responsible for the change, where should I start in recorrecting it, thank you.

Hey all, I am Running.
9900k
Z390 Designare
Rx 580
Fractal R6 Case

I had a great working install but I tried updating Clover and I have COMPLETELY MESSED EVERYTHING up,
would anyone with my config PLEASE (it will be MUCH appreciated) be so kind as to clone their complete EFI partition, and "/Library/Extensions" for me? Thank you soo much in advance.

Are you running Mojave?

If you made a bootable backup you can boot from that and fix the EFI and /L/E folders. But I suspect a backup was not made. In that case you can boot from the original USB install disk or create a new USB install boot disk (which is the same as a USB install disk, but without macOS installer). Creating a new one is pretty easy...

Try steps 6 through 16 located here. Steps 12 and 13 ask you to copy SMBIOS and RtVariables from existing config.plist to new config.plist, but if you don't have access to the existing config.plist you may skip those steps, in which case new serial numbers will be used -- but once you've logged in to macOS, you can go back and perform Steps 12 and 13 to activate the old serial numbers.