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Gigabyte Z390 M Gaming build with working NVRAM

Ok, I'm incredibly happy I went with your guide.
I did an installation for my dad using a different board and it wasn't so smooth and easy :).

Do you know if there is an option to disable m.2 port in this motherboard bios?
For now I'm on sata III SSD, but I plan on switching to nvme for mac boot drive, and doing windows on sata III. I heard it's a good practice to disable/disconnect mac drive when booting into windows, and if I can't disable m.2 I would go with sata for mac :).

Thanks again!

I don't remember if there's a BIOS option to disable the NVMe slot(s)... But you shouldn't have to disable drives with macOS when booting Windows. I never do.

The only time you may want to disable or unplug the macOS drive is when installing Windows or Linux.
 
Ok. I heard that windows update tends to mess with other drives.
But it is good to hear that :).

Windows updates are only a problem if you install macOS and Windows on the same drive. If they are on separate drives, it's not a problem.
 
Looks like my uptime marathon will have to come to an end at just shy of 7 weeks... Need to restart to install macOS 10.15.6...

Screen Shot 2020-07-15 at 4.26.48 PM.png
 
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macOS Catalina 10.15.6 updated fine. Took ~19 minutes and two restarts.

Screen Shot 2020-07-15 at 4.50.42 PM.png

Btw, don't try this with Big Sur Public Beta yet. The bootloaders need updating unless you want to go through some convoluted installation.
 
For the brave and the adventurous...

Attached is the latest beta BIOS F9k for the Gigabyte Z390 M Gaming.

Biggest changes that I can see are:
1. CFG Lock can be enabled or disabled directly from BIOS. We no longer need to do it from Grub shell!!
2. The return of the ability to enable or disable Serial Port.
3. The French BIOS issue seems to be gone.

I also tested the CNVi slot. Unfortunately, the whitelist is still there and we still can't use the slot for a macOS compatible Wi-Fi/Bluetooth card.

Note that, after flashing, trying to get in to BIOS with my monitor resulted in just a black screen. I had to connect it to my TV to be able to see the BIOS screen. After I made my BIOS settings, I reconnected it to my monitor and was able to see the BIOS screen again. I think this is just some weird issue with my monitor though or maybe it was CSM...

If you decide to try this BIOS, unzip it and put it on a Fat32 formatted USB flash drive. Then use the Q-Flash function in BIOS to update the BIOS. Just to be safe, I did not update the backup BIOS to this version.

* Disclaimer: I take absolutely no responsibility if you brick your motherboard!! You use this BIOS entirely at your own risk!!
 

Attachments

  • Z390MGAMING.F9k.zip
    6.7 MB · Views: 237
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Update went well, thanks. I have an issue with sleep, it looks like system is waking up, but there is no signal from display.
Should i reconfigure something because I have integrated graphics? (it wasn't working before update)
 
Update went well, thanks. I have an issue with sleep, it looks like system is waking up, but there is no signal from display.
Should i reconfigure something because I have integrated graphics? (it wasn't working before update)

Does it sleep and wake up or does it never go to sleep?
 
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