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[GUIDE] Install macOS 10.15 on P55-USB3 board

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Dec 10, 2010
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Motherboard
Gigabyte Z390 Aorus Elite
CPU
i9-9900K
Graphics
RX 6600 XT
Mobile Phone
  1. iOS
Install macOS 10.15 Catalina on Gigabyte P55-USB3 with Radeon RX 580 graphics card using a USB device created with the createinstallmedia command and Clover as bootloader. Instructions to install macOS 10.14 Mojave on this computer are almost identical, replacing Catalina app with Mojave, so this article is suitable for both versions of macOS. The Gigabyte P55-USB3 motherboard (and some others from the same brand with the P55 / H55 chipset) have made it easy to build a hackintosh and install macOS since 10 years ago. Although it is an old motherboard, the behavior with Mojave or Catalina is very good after changing the classic hard drive (HDD) for a solid state drive (SSD).

Components of the hackintosh

  • Gigabyte GA-P55-USB3 motherboard: P55 chipset, 1156 socket, ALC892 audio, Gigabit RTL8111D network, DDR3 RAM
  • Intel Core i5-750 processor for socket 1156: 4 cores, 8MB cache, clock rate 2.66 GHz
  • Fenvi FV-T919 wireless + Bluetooth card: PCI-Express, wifi is ac type, detected by macOS as Airport and Apple Bluetooth
  • Radeon RX 580 8 GB graphics card: works OOB but with a few details to be considered, it has its own article.
Previous requirements
  • Install macOS Catalina app in /Applications folder
  • USB flash drive with at least 16GB prepared from Disk Utility with MBR partition scheme and formatted as Mac Os Plus (on older Gigabyte boards like mine, USB sticks partitioned with GUID scheme instead of MBR usually hang the system when booting)
  • Recent version of Clover (I have used r5117)
  • Recent versions of Lilu (at least 1.4.4) and WhateverGreen (at least 1.3.9) to fine-tune the behavior of the graphics card
  • Recent version of RealtekRTL8111 (I have used 2.2.2)
  • FaceSMC version 6.26-322 (newer versions disable automatic mounting of USB devices on my system).
Create install USB

Run this command from Terminal (assuming the target device is called USB):
Bash:
sudo /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Catalina.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/USB /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Catalina.app


Clover must be installed on the USB memory, I choose the following options:
  • Install Clover on ESP partition
  • Bootloader > Install boot0af on the MBR
  • CloverEFi > CloverEFI 64-bit SATA
  • BIOS Drivers, 64 bit > Recommended drivers > FSInject + SMCHelper + XhciDxe
  • BIOS Drivers, 64 bit > File System drivers > ApfsDriverLoader
  • Install RC scripts on selected volume
  • Optional RC scripts > Disable sleep proxy client.
You have to copy 4 kexts to the EFI/CLOVER/kexts/Other folder of the USB device: FaceSMC 6.26-322, Lilu 1.4.4, WhateverGreen 1.3.9 and RealtekRTL8111 2.2.2. Regarding the config.plist file, the most significant is:
  • Boot > kext-dev-mode = 1 in Boot arguments
  • GUI > Theme embedded, EmbeddedThemeType Dark, Screen Resolution 1920x1080, Preboot in Hide Volume
  • Graphics > blank, nothing is checked except if foxbox solution is used to have more than 2 connectors enabled
  • RT Variables > 0x28 in BooterConfig and 0x67 in CsrActiveConfig
  • SMBios > iMac14,2
  • Sytem Parameters> Yes in Inject Kexts and check Inject System ID.
Install macOS Catalina

Boot from the USB device and choose Install macOS from Install macOS Catalina. The installation program runs until the PC restarts. Here choose Install macOS from HDD (the name of the volume you are installing macOS on). With RX 580 graphics card, the screen goes black in this second phase of the installation, it is a phase in which the user has nothing to do until the PC is restarted so you can let it work until the Clover menu again. You have to choose Boot macOS from HDD to boot the installed system from the hard disk, the screen is recovered and you can configure the account and the initial options. From this moment the screen works fine.

In summary:
  • Boot from USB > Clover menu > Install macOS from Install macOS Catalina > screen works fine
  • Boot from USB > Clover menu > Install macOS from HDD > black screen
  • Boot from USB > Clover menu > Boot macOS from HDD > screen works fine.
Install Clover and kexts on the hard drive

Clover needs to be installed on the disk where we just installed macOS. Options are the same as when installing it on the USB memory. You also have to copy the 4 kexts (FaceSMC 6.26-322, Lilu 1.4.4, WhateverGreen 1.3.9 and RealtekRTL8111 2.2.2) into the EFI/CLOVER/kexts/Other folder on the EFI partition of the disk. And review the config.plist file remembering the comments for the USB.

If everything goes well, the computer starts from the hard disk with a running copy of macOS Catalina.
neofetch.10.15.png

Note: I do not comment about the sound because I use an external USB sound device that works OOB. This motherboard has the Realtek ALC892 sound chip that I have deactivated, if you want to use it there are options to activate it, if you look for ALC892 Catalina or ALC892 Mojave you will find valid solutions.
 
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Thanks for your guide. We've used it on the same motherboard with the same processor but with a Mojave-compatible Nvidia card.

We're booting Mojave on it now…however, performance is extremely laggy. Something is amiss.

I've seen other P55 guides for Mojave/Catalina mention relying on a DSDT file but your guide gave us hope that we could avoid that.

Any idea as to what is going wrong?
 
Hi @johnnytucats. I don't use DSDT since High Sierra and everything seems to work fine except sleep that works in S1 mode but this was happening before High Sierra with DSDT.
What graphics card do you use compatible with Mojave? Have you checked if you have graphical acceleration? Because if the Nvidia is not supported, Mojave works without graphical acceleration and the system works with a very low performance. Here's an article about compatible cards.
I can't think what else could go wrong. With the same motherboard and processor, everything except the graphics should work the same as in my case.
 
Sorry @johnnytucats, I hadn't noticed your signature. The card is GTX 650 Ti, right? I believe that the GTX 650 is compatible with Mojave and Catalina but GTX 650 Ti not because it does not support Metal but I am not sure. Tell me something about this.
 
The build I'm referencing is not the one in my signature. The graphics card for the GA-P55-USB3 we're working on is a Nvidia GT 710 so it ought to be working and not causing any issues. However, I should mention that the card has an HDMI port and a DVI-I port and we've connected a VGA-only monitor to it via a DVI-I to VGA adapter. This connection worked with Sierra and a previous, older graphics card.

I've posted a question in a Mojave/Nvidia thread about this setup. Depending on the answer he may be getting a new monitor with HDMI.
 
I've posted a question in a Mojave/Nvidia thread about this setup. Depending on the answer he may be getting a new monitor with HDMI.

Ok, I’ll see there.
 
Update to our situation. We've got a new HDMI monitor connected to the Nvidia GT 710. It boots but runs painfully slow like before…clicks take many seconds to register, beachballing and so on. I've read elsewhere that changing the model to MacPro5,1 in SMBIOS settings might take care of this but after doing that and rebooting we see no change. No other drives are connected at this time.

Again, it's a GA-P55-USB3 and we have no wireless card…it's on ethernet. 8GB of RAM. The SSD (SanDisk) we're using has been checked on another system and I haven't heard of any conflicts that may exist between it and the motherboard.

The install was actually done via connecting the SSD via USB to a 2015 MacBook Pro. We booted the MBP from it and it ran as well as it should. Then, we installed Clover to the drive and did everything in the first post to set it up.

Also, we still have an SSD with the working install of Sierra. When we swap the Mojave SSD out for the Sierra one it still boots up and runs fine on the same machine.

Is it possible there's a BIOS setting on the motherboard that needs to be different for Mojave? This is a Rev. 1 version GA-P55-USB3 board. We started with BIOS version F4 but updated to F9 and still have lag.

Hoping someone can help.
 
Update to our situation. We've got a new HDMI monitor connected to the Nvidia GT 710. It boots but runs painfully slow like before...

My motherboard is rev. 2. This may influence in some way although the components are practically the same.
I installed Catalina on a SanDisk SSD Plus and the system was very slow to the point that it was barely usable. Then I installed it on a Samsung EVO 860 as I read on various sites that it was compatible with macOS. In the Samsung the system worked very well and quickly from the beginning.
Another point to consider is Trim. Have you activated it? In this article, at the end of the text, I comment on Trim and SSDs.
 
Thanks for your quick response. We're going to start over with a Western Digital Blue SSD that currently has the Sierra installation (that runs great) to confirm whether or not the SanDisk is the issue. If so, it's a particular incompatiblity between the motherboard and the SSD. I'm aware of a few other similar complaints up here on the forums.

Do you mind sharing your BIOS settings…the ones that are different than the defaults?
 
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