MacMan's Build: ASUS TUF Z390-PRO GAMING - i9-9900K - Vega 64 - Updated for 10.14.6 and NVRAM Support

[mhmacgre]

If you still have issues I recommend at least making sure you have the latest version of Lilu/Whatevergreen, and nothing else from Clover is interfering. Flickering is weird and I haven't experienced that but only when coming from sleep. When I added this boot-arg with WEG, it went away: igfxonln=1. You could try a fresh install of OpenCore or try the settings in the above in Clover which should work in the "Device" section.

@PhantomSlapESQ I hope to follow your steps outlined in #339 above soon! thanks for sharing.

As for trying igfxonln=1, no luck with that, however in playing around I did find a hack that makes both monitors usable for now:
-in Displays, toggling the Refresh Rate from 60 to 50 and back to 60 fixes the Flickering/Horizontal lines.
-So, I used automator to make a quick script/app that does that toggle on Startup, working great so far.

It's a hack, but does what I need for the short term until I can make a backup and follow your steps for OpenCore

 

[PhantomSlapESQ]

@PhantomSlapESQ I hope to follow your steps outlined in #339 above soon! thanks for sharing.

As for trying igfxonln=1, no luck with that, however in playing around I did find a hack that makes both monitors usable for now:
-in Displays, toggling the Refresh Rate from 60 to 50 and back to 60 fixes the Flickering/Horizontal lines.
-So, I used automator to make a quick script/app that does that toggle on Startup, working great so far.

It's a hack, but does what I need for the short term until I can make a backup and follow your steps for OpenCore

You're welcome! I hope someone else can take what I've learned through my struggles. You have a nearly identical setup to me, so I find it strange you are having so much trouble unless your monitors are specialized or something. My guess is starting anew with OpenCore will solve it or being careful to remove all other iGPU hacks other than Lilu/Whatevergeen. Using Automator to hack a solution on a Hackintosh is clever! I never would have thought that. As far as the backup, I just used Time Machine and loaded it when installing Catalina from the USB on the new APFS Volume. Let me know how it goes when you get around to doing it!

 

[macger]

1. Make sure you have a second computer.
2. Create a backup of data
3. Create a new partition/container or put on a new hard drive (so it doesn't mess up Mojave if install goes poorly).
4. Setup OpenCore EFI using the official Guide & Coffee Lake instructions.
5. Remove Clover EFI on Hard drive.
6. Remove Clover EFI from Unibeast/Clover USB Drive or create new one according to OC instructions.
7. Fill in a fake APPL,ig-platform-id in your OC config.plist. (something that isn't real that isn't suggested, and especially nothing from this list. Make it 12345678 or something (not the ones suggested by the OC Guide yet).
8. Install from OpenCore USB to new partition/container on Hardrive.
9. You won't have any graphics acceleration, but I think a functional iGPU is required for install.
10. Move EFI on USB to EFI on Hard drive.
11. Turn on VNC/Screenshare/Remote Desktop (just in case).
12. Put these graphics settings to get iGPU stable:
    View attachment 489211
    
13. Reboot and ensure your iGPU connectors and acceleration work (if that matters to you).
14. Put this boot-arg in the NVRAM section so you have stable sleep with monitors: igfxonln=1
    View attachment 489213
15. Drop the Mic and realized I've saved you 2 weeks of time (if everything goes well).
16. I might post my EFI once I feel like I've perfected it and if anyone cares to see it.
17. I don't know anything about dGPU stuff.

Thanks to @pastrychef & @UtterDisbelief for their help finally getting Catalina on this mobo.

Wow, that's a lot more then expected. Clover is a no go with Catalina?

 

[PhantomSlapESQ]

Wow, that's a lot more then expected. Clover is a no go with Catalina?

You can do Clover on this board with Catalina. I think ultimately it's simpler to go to OpenCore, and you don't have to worry about the patches originally described in this mobo guide. I wasn't able to get it to work with Clover, but I think that you could. I did it to help zero in on the graphical issues and start fresh. I was having trouble with root cause analysis (RCA) with a Clover EFI that someone was modifying for me to help me with the issue but was from another Z390 board. OpenCore provides a very clean basis to start out with for 300-series boards and Coffee Lake, and then if you run into problems, they have specific guides to help with those problems.

BTW, you'll probably have less problems if iGPU acceleration is not as important to you (regardless of Clover or EFI). Just put in a fake iGPU ig-platform-id to get it to boot and you can skip the busID / framebuffer patching I do in OpenCore.

 

[SocialWorker]

Sorry to hijack this thread to ask to all the Asus TUF Z390M gaming Pro users motherboards what are the initial BIOS versions when you first installed macOS in them?
Thanks in Advance

 

[mhmacgre]

You're welcome! I hope someone else can take what I've learned through my struggles. You have a nearly identical setup to me, so I find it strange you are having so much trouble unless your monitors are specialized or something. My guess is starting anew with OpenCore will solve it or being careful to remove all other iGPU hacks other than Lilu/Whatevergeen. Using Automator to hack a solution on a Hackintosh is clever! I never would have thought that. As far as the backup, I just used Time Machine and loaded it when installing Catalina from the USB on the new APFS Volume. Let me know how it goes when you get around to doing it!

@PhantomSlapESQ
After behaving like an amateur and messing up my build by installing Clover 5123 (pre-release) and not having a good EFI backup accessible I decided to follow your steps for OpenCore.
Took a few hours to carefully follow both OpenCore guides and then apply your recommended configs.
Only been running for about 8 hours but all is looking good!
Note:
-To fix my HDMI 2nd Monitor causing black screen and/or horizontal scrolling/flickering I had to follow the note in the Coffee Lake guide for "AAPL,ig-platform-id", right now both monitors are working great, sleep/resume etc all tested:
Note: With macOS 10.15.5, there seems to be a lot of issues with black screen using 07009B3E, if you get similar issues try swapping to 00009B3E

TODO:
-Fix Apple ID login, right now I can not login but I think that is covered in the docs to generate new Serial Number, I'll try that later.
-Reboots end in POST error (Again, there are other threads that talk about fixing this so I'll look into that later, restarting again solves it.).

Thank you for sharing. Maybe we compare EFI's once stable to see if we have any differences that should be noted for others

 

[PhantomSlapESQ]

Quick question before I respond in depth:

• Do you have an issue where you cannot log into the BIOS? When you try to press F2 or DEL, it just goes to a blank screen?
  • The only way I've been able to get around that is to disconnect the SSD where OpenCore resides.
  • I suspect that NVRAM is storing a display that the BIOS can't show or there is a setting in OpenCore telling the BIOS not to show.

After behaving like an amateur and messing up my build by installing Clover 5123 (pre-release) and not having a good EFI backup accessible I decided to follow your steps for OpenCore.

Don't feel bad. I'm an amateur too. I've used my root cause analysis skills in my primary line of work for Hackintoshing. I just started in September myself! I definitely felt like this was all much harder than I anticipated.

Took a few hours to carefully follow both OpenCore guides and then apply your recommended configs.
Only been running for about 8 hours but all is looking good

Glad to hear that you made progress though the initial setup seems longer than it should. I'm sure you can agree it will save you time in the long run. I'm pretty sure it took me 60+ hours to get to a point I wanted to be at with a fully functional Hackintosh with no quirks or strangeness, and able to share it with you sharing you time. I also had the help of folks from this site too (@pastrychef @UtterDisbelief) that did their darnest to help me as best they could and that helped point in me the right direction.

Also, I think fundamentally, OpenCore is a better hack/boot platform and is ready to boot into Big Sur (not sure if Clover is there yet). I also think it's probably more likely that a good automated tool could be made for it like Unibeast and work more consistently. The approach and documentation for OC is very consistent.

-To fix my HDMI 2nd Monitor causing black screen and/or horizontal scrolling/flickering I had to follow the note in the Coffee Lake guide for "AAPL,ig-platform-id", right now both monitors are working great, sleep/resume etc all tested:
Note: With macOS 10.15.5, there seems to be a lot of issues with black screen using 07009B3E, if you get similar issues try swapping to 00009B3E

I am currently on 10.15.6, and I'm using 07009B3E, and don't have a problem. I think there is some confusion on the hex swapping that needs to be done. Any valid ig-platform-id with 3 connectors on the Whatevergreen iGPU will work for me (Note you must hex swap and I created a spreadsheet that converts it for you for Coffee Lake so you can troubleshoot in OpenCore). I couldn't see anything until I did the framebuffering as outlined in step 12 in my post with a valid hex swapped ig-platform-id. Did you have to do that or could you get it work without that?

-Fix Apple ID login, right now I can not login but I think that is covered in the docs to generate new Serial Number, I'll try that later.

You'll want to be VERY CAREFUL and deliberate with your Apple ID so you don't get locked out. The most concise guide I've found and I've read a few is the OpenCore one, but the others on this site might be good if you run into a strange problem. Note I'm using model iMac19,1

-Reboots end in POST error (Again, there are other threads that talk about fixing this so I'll look into that later, restarting again solves it.).

Yes, there are other posts, and now I only get that problem when I wasn't able to get Windows 10 to install and had to restart. I think it's a simple flag to change in OC. I can't think of it now. My config.plist has it in there somewhere.

Thank you for sharing. Maybe we compare EFI's once stable to see if we have any differences that should be noted for others

You're welcome. I'm glad someone could make use of my struggles with a similar build. I'll post my EFI since you requested it. I'd like to see yours as well. Some notes regarding my EFI:

• I've removed my SMBios info to keep my iMessage data confidential. You should do the same when posting EFI/config.plist.
• I've made small changes for Dual Boot to Windows (If you have questions on that, let me know. I ran into some weird stuff and manage to invalidate a legitimate copy of Windows).
• My USB setup is probably different than yours since I have the USB 2.0 port described at the beginning of this guide attached to the internal 2.0 connector. I also have a Broadcom/Fenvi Wif-BT card connected to the other internal 2.0 connector. I have the top panel USB 3.0 connectors attached to one of the internal 3.0 connectors
  • I recommend using the Hackintool USB Mapper instead of what's recommended in OpenCore though theirs will work fine too.
  • So my USBPorts.kext probably doesn't apply to you though all of the 6 ports on the back will work fine. It might also cause you other issues if you are using any of the internal USB ports.
• Note that this EFI has the debug version of everything and I haven't yet gotten the "RELEASE" versions of all the kexts and OC itself.
• This works for 10.15.6. I haven't tested it on any other version of Catalina.

Enjoy!

 

[mhmacgre]

Quick question before I respond in depth:

• Do you have an issue where you cannot log into the BIOS? When you try to press F2 or DEL, it just goes to a blank screen?
  • The only way I've been able to get around that is to disconnect the SSD where OpenCore resides.
  • I suspect that NVRAM is storing a display that the BIOS can't show or there is a setting in OpenCore telling the BIOS not to show.

No, I was able to get into BIOS fine.
That is how I just fixed the POSTED error, by disabling the Boot->wait for F1

Glad to hear that you made progress though the initial setup seems longer than it should.

I was watching a few episodes of The Boys at the same time

I am currently on 10.15.6, and I'm using 07009B3E, and don't have a problem. I think there is some confusion on the hex swapping that needs to be done. Any valid ig-platform-id with 3 connectors on the Whatevergreen iGPU will work for me (Note you must hex swap and I created a spreadsheet that converts it for you for Coffee Lake so you can troubleshoot in OpenCore). I couldn't see anything until I did the framebuffering as outlined in step 12 in my post with a valid hex swapped ig-platform-id. Did you have to do that or could you get it work without that?

Since we have the same board I followed your step #12 before testing, it worked so I have left it in place.

You'll want to be VERY CAREFUL and deliberate with your Apple ID so you don't get locked out. The most concise guide I've found and I've read a few is the OpenCore one, but the others on this site might be good if you run into a strange problem. Note I'm using model iMac19,1

All set with this now, logging in worked fine tonight for whatever reason.

You're welcome. I'm glad someone could make use of my struggles with a similar build. I'll post my EFI since you requested it. I'd like to see yours as well. Some notes regarding my EFI:

• I've removed my SMBios info to keep my iMessage data confidential. You should do the same when posting EFI/config.plist.
• I've made small changes for Dual Boot to Windows (If you have questions on that, let me know. I ran into some weird stuff and manage to invalidate a legitimate copy of Windows).
• My USB setup is probably different than yours since I have the USB 2.0 port described at the beginning of this guide attached to the internal 2.0 connector. I also have a Broadcom/Fenvi Wif-BT card connected to the other internal 2.0 connector. I have the top panel USB 3.0 connectors attached to one of the internal 3.0 connectors
  • I recommend using the Hackintool USB Mapper instead of what's recommended in OpenCore though theirs will work fine too.
  • So my USBPorts.kext probably doesn't apply to you though all of the 6 ports on the back will work fine. It might also cause you other issues if you are using any of the internal USB ports.
• Note that this EFI has the debug version of everything and I haven't yet gotten the "RELEASE" versions of all the kexts and OC itself.
• This works for 10.15.6. I haven't tested it on any other version of Catalina.

Enjoy!

I too am on 10.15.6 and have dual boot with windows. Perhaps I'll update to 10.15.7 soon but no rush. Just happy to be back to stable with my new hackintosh. My Old one is still running and has been in daily use since ~2012, solid as a rock.

I'll try to review our EFI's soon and post mine after removing SMBios.

Thanks again!

 

[SocialWorker]

Hi all,
I have this motherboard too, but I can't install macOS in it, only windows 10... no matter what I do... what was your bios version that came with the mobo?
Thanks

 

[UtterDisbelief]

Hi all,
I have this motherboard too, but I can't install macOS in it, only windows 10... no matter what I do... what was your bios version that came with the mobo?
Thanks

Hi there.

Sorry, you haven't given us anything to go on.

At what point does the installation failure happen, and what do you see?

A good idea is to boot using "verbose" mode so you get a screen output of what is happening. Press Spacebar at the Clover menu and select it. Post a photo of it.

If Windows is already on the same drive, that will cause problems.