Will OpenCore allow unsupported SMBIOS to work on Catalina

[RandomNumber]

Question is relative to my legacy EX58-UD3R with a Xeon 5650 rig.

My best SMBIOS has always been MacPro 5,1. That was deemed unsupported in Catalina. I installed Catalina using Clover by switching to iMac14,2 SMBIOS. It works but does not function as well as MacPro 5,1 did. Especially in that the Base Clock only maxes out a 12x instead of the 22x of MacPro 5,1. So,
The Question:

If I switch to Opencore (much to learn there) will it allow me to use my MacPro 5,1 SMBIOS and circumvent the arbitrary Apple Unsupported limitation to run Catalina (and possibly Big Sur)?

In other words can Opencore spoof one machine to Apple and still support the actual hardware one is using.

 

[RandomNumber]

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Any answers?

 

[Robbish]

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Any answers?

It's not OpenCore dependent, it's macOS dependent. If it were me then I would use an SMBIOS that is compatible with Big Sur because you may want to upgrade eventually and thus would be covered for both Catalina and Big Sur.

If you change your SMBIOS then logout of your Apple ID firstly and then try a compatible Big Sur SMBIOS.

When everything works well and you are happy then you should generate a new serial for the new SMBIOS and make sure to validate it.

Once that is done, sign back into your Apple ID with the new SMBIOS/Serial and Apple should add a new Mac to your Apple ID Account to which this will be your new Mac (hackintosh) going forward.

 

[semson]

I can give you a direct answer - mostly YES.

I am running Big Sur 11.4 with MacPro 5,1 SMBIOS just fine. Same as Clover, you need to install it with compatible SMBIOS, then running with -no_compat_check boot-args. However, I have speed stepping issue even with MacPro 5,1 SMBIOS; I am stuck with base ratio 12x and boost ratio 22x, just two states.

There's a glitch also for clean install, you can check here for more details. Basically this affects all system without working NVRAM.

X299 Big Sur Support

Big Thanks I will test that tomorrow :clap: and report [EDIT] It Worked Perfectly and exactly as you described Well done I didn't remove my NVMEs but there no OSes on them I boot on the same mobo with catalina to run your script [EDIT] 1 - I can't succeed to replicate the installation an...

www.tonymacx86.com

 

[majikthise]

I can give you a direct answer - mostly YES.

I am running Big Sur 11.4 with MacPro 5,1 SMBIOS just fine. Same as Clover, you need to install it with compatible SMBIOS, then running with -no_compat_check boot-args. However, I have speed stepping issue even with MacPro 5,1 SMBIOS; I am stuck with base ratio 12x and boost ratio 22x, just two states.

There's a glitch also for clean install, you can check here for more details. Basically this affects all system without working NVRAM.

X299 Big Sur Support

Big Thanks I will test that tomorrow :clap: and report [EDIT] It Worked Perfectly and exactly as you described Well done I didn't remove my NVMEs but there no OSes on them I boot on the same mobo with catalina to run your script [EDIT] 1 - I can't succeed to replicate the installation an...

www.tonymacx86.com

sorry in advance.. slight topic derail

hey semson, i have the same x58 board. i'm just still on mojave, but i have never been able to get my x5650 speed stepping working right using mac pro 5,1 smbios. I get the same results as you, 12x to max (20x in my case without turbo boost), no in between steps or steps varying per core. In Win10 the stepping works perfectly. I've tried everything i can think of with clover settings and bios. Also tried generating SSDT via piker-alpha ssdtPRGen specific for the cpu. generated fine, but still no intermediate stepping. did your speedstep work better/correctly on OS < big sur?

Just seeing if you or anyone else has had success getting this board/cpu combo working in this regard. Not a big deal I suppose, at least it can step down to min frequency to save some power.