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Mojave on Biostar TH55HD Socket 1156 / NVidia 9800GT

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I've tested my software builds on an SSD (SATA 3) connected to the "built-in" SATA 2 ports (on the Biostar TH55HD motherboard) and on an SSD (SATA 3) connected to the I/O Crest PCIe x2 SATA 3 card. Build times are virtually identical, so the SATA 3 card did not improve performance. This indicates that disk i/o is not the bottleneck on this system or that the I/O Crest card performance isn't as advertised. Not sure which (yet).
 
I couldn't resist the temptation to try a Xeon X3460 (< $13 on Ebay) with my Biostar TH55HD motherboard. The X3460 has two additional turbo multipliers above the X3450 (x25 and x26). I delidded the X3460, applied my own thermal paste between the CPU die and the heat spreader and left my CPU Clock at 160. The only BIOS change needed was to set VCore to +.04V (all speedstep settings remained unchanged). MacOS Mojave needed no changes and CPU multiplier works perfectly (observing low multiplier of x9.0 with turbo multipliers of x21-x26). If you already have an X3450 overclocked as I described earlier, it's not worth the effort, but it was a fun experiment. Attached pix show the delidded X3460, Geekbench results and a HWMonitor screenshot with all 4 cores running at x26 (4.16GHz).

EDIT: Uploaded a new Geekbench result after realizing that my BIOS memory settings were wrong. Newer Geekbench results are with memory timing set by XMP2 (8-8-8-24).

EDIT2: After using the upgraded Mac for a day, the system seems noticeably more responsive. As I noted earlier, the upgrade from an overclocked X3450 to an overclocked X3460 is probably not worth the time, but you won't be disappointed.
 

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I applied 10.14.6 Supplemental Update 2 to my Biostar TH55HD / Xeon X3460 (MP5,1) and my Dell Latitude E6410 (MBP6,2). Both updates worked flawlessly.
 
EDIT: For Xeon X3460 on my Biostar TH55HD, I found that configuring DRAM and VTT voltages to Auto is actually over-volting these settings. I set DRAM voltage to 1.60 and VTT to 1.210 (Auto had this over 1.3). Now the system is stable with Vcore = +.04 and VPLL = 1.80 (lowest). Still running with all Speedstep/Power-saving enabled. CPU idle temps are 4-6 deg C above Ambient and Prime95 torture temps are less than 40 deg C above Ambient - amazingly cool thanks to the delid and also the discovery of the over-volt problem.

EDIT 2: Setting DRAM Timing to "XMP-2" on the Biostar TH55HD also sets the command rate to 1. I manually change command rate back to 2 after setting DRAM Timing to XMP-2 in BIOS. If you're experiencing any stability issues on you TH55HD Motherboard, check your RAM command rate. I didn't see any noticeable performance difference when overclocking with command rate 1 and command rate 2 and prefer to run my overclock with more conservative settings for stability.

Keeping this comment below for historical purposes, but I no longer need to increase VPLL for BCLK of 160 if I reduce DRAM and VTT:

I read that increasing BCLK (what I have been referring to as "CPU Clock" since that's how my BIOS labels it) on Socket 1156 motherboards may require an increase in CPU VPLL. I increased VPLL and found that my multicore Geekbench score is higher. You may need to experiment with VPLL if you're overclocking. From what I've read, you won't need VPLL over 1.9V. The attached Geekbench score is with CPU VPLL at 1.830V, CPU VCore at +.04V and CPU VTT on Auto. All speedstep/power-saving settings are enabled and PCIe CLK is set to 100.
 

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Hi everyone,

i just found this thread, im planning on using my old pc
i7 860 lynnfield
motherboard DFI lanparty p55 t3eh9
xfx rx 470
SSD 250gb

can you guys help me which guide i can follow to install mojave into this device?

thank you for the help
 
Hi everyone,

i just found this thread, im planning on using my old pc
i7 860 lynnfield
motherboard DFI lanparty p55 t3eh9
xfx rx 470
SSD 250gb

can you guys help me which guide i can follow to install mojave into this device?

thank you for the help
I don't have experience with your motherboard or with the RX 470. If you Google your motherboard (e.g. Google "DFI lanparty p55 t3eh9 hackintosh"), you will find comments that suggest that the AMD RX-series video cards need UEFI boot to work and I think your motherboard supports only legacy CLOVER. I don't know for sure about the UEFI requirement, so hopefully someone else chimes in.
 
I don't have experience with your motherboard or with the RX 470. If you Google your motherboard (e.g. Google "DFI lanparty p55 t3eh9 hackintosh"), you will find comments that suggest that the AMD RX-series video cards need UEFI boot to work and I think your motherboard supports only legacy CLOVER. I don't know for sure about the UEFI requirement, so hopefully someone else chimes in.
hey deeveedee thanks a lot for the explain..
yea i will wait for someone to help me out hopefuly there is a way

latest update
so i tried installing mojave with unibeast legacy mode, usb on mbr format.
i managed to get into bootloader. but now during apple loading it loads half bar then it restarted

attached picture of verbose during appleloading and before rrstarting
 

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hey deeveedee thanks a lot for the explain..
yea i will wait for someone to help me out hopefuly there is a way

latest update
so i tried installing mojave with unibeast legacy mode, usb on mbr format.
i managed to get into bootloader. but now during apple loading it loads half bar then it restarted

attached picture of verbose during appleloading and before rrstarting
I would recommend that you start another thread that is specific to your system. I started this thread to focus on the Biostar TH55HD motherboard with legacy NVidia graphics. I do have some off-topic posts about my other systems running Mojave, but most of this is focused on the TH55HD. You'll get better response with less confusion if you start a new thread.
 
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I would recommend that you start another thread that is specific to your system. I started this thread to focus on the Biostar TH55HD motherboard with legacy NVidia graphics. I do have some off-topic posts about my other systems running Mojave, but most of this is focused on the TH55HD. You'll get better response with less confusion if you start a new thread.
hey deeveedee thanks for the reply and sorry for being out of topic.

can you share your installation step for the biostar, i would like to use the same install method to my setup.
and are you using unibeast installaiton?
 
hey deeveedee thanks for the reply and sorry for being out of topic.

can you share your installation step for the biostar, i would like to use the same install method to my setup.
and are you using unibeast installaiton?

I created a DSDT as described in Post #1 of this thread and then installed "vanilla" macOS using a Clover-bootable USB installer. The DSDT for your motherboard will be different. You could find/create the DSDT for your motherboard and use unibeast. Google your motherboard and you will find others who have installed macOS. When you start another thread that is specific to your motherboard and your graphics, feel free to post the link to your thread here.
 
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