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[Success] PK's HTPC: i7-8700K | ASRock Z370 Fatal1ty Gaming ITX | 16GB | UHD 630 | High Sierra

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Dec 30, 2015
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Motherboard
ASRock Z370 Fatal!ty Gaming ITX
CPU
Coffee Lake i7-8700K
Graphics
UHD Intel 630
Mac
  1. iMac
PK’s Media Server “Overclocked” Coffee Lake Build:

ASrock Z370 Fatal1ty Gaming Mini-ITX | i7-8700K | UHD 630



Components

Intel Core i7-8700K Coffee Lake 6-Core 3.7 GHz Processor
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117827

ASRock Fatal1ty Z370 Gaming-ITX Motherboard
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157794

16GB (2 x 8GB) Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4-3000 SDRAM
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233852

250GB Samsung 960 EVO M.2 250GB VNMe PCI-Express 3.0 x4 SSD
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147593

CORSAIR Hydro Series H105 Extreme Performance 240mm Liquid CPU Cooler
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835181060

Noctua NF-F12 PWM 120mm Case Fan (x2)
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA9PV3H16655

Corsair Carbide Series Air 240 Arctic White Steel Micro ATX Mid Tower
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811139045

CORSAIR CX-M Series CX550M 550W 80 PLUS BRONZE Power Supply
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139147


Comments

Confession: Did I build this because I accidentally fried the motherboard in my other Devils Canyon Media Server? Yes. Was it stupid? Yes.

OK, with that out of the way, just a couple quick other comments. I was looking to do this build anyway because I was bored and Coffee Lake seemed like a decent upgrade. I could not really OC my Devils Canyon build because the chip runs very hot, and my machine was quite mini. But, after a few years, I decided performance was more important, and my Media Server is now hidden so need for an emphasis on aesthetics. The i7-8700K (paired with the excellent ASrock Z370 board) seems tpo overclock (OC) really well, and I have been stable at 5.2GHZ OC with my Hydro 105.

Since I run this as media server, I don’t use a GFX card, and I don’t care about the sound. I also am not using the WIFI, yet, so I haven’t bothered to get it working or upgrade the card.

This was quite an easy build overall. Leveraged the good work Erik did on his build, which was immensely helpful, see here:

I also had a particular complicated requirement that ill highlight below in case anyone else is in a similar situation. Lets get to it.


Installation Notes (as of 1/6/18)

BIOS
I'll highlight the base settings I used, and than my OC settings. Also, latest BIOS is 1.4 which I upgraded to using ASrocks Internet Flashing tool built into the BIOS.

Stock build

Most BIOS settings can be left on default, but see what did below:

Advanced > Chipset Config > Primary Graphics Adapter > Onboard
Advanced > Chipset Config > Vt-d > disabled
Advanced > Chipset Config > Restore on AC Power Loss > Enabled [Not required]
Advanced > USB Configuration > XHCI Handoff > Enabled
H.W. Monitor > CPU_OPT / W_Pump Switch > Water Pump
H.W. Monitor > CPU Optional Fan Control Mode > DC
H.W. Monitor > Fan Tuning > *This tunes fans based on their capabilities and sets appropriate levels of RPM based on temps. Not necessary but it did a nice job.

Additional O.C. Settings:
Main > XMP Profile > 1
OC Tweaker > CPU Configuration > CPU Ratio > 52
OC Tweaker > Voltage Configuration > CPU Core/Cache Voltage > 1.34
OC Tweaker > Voltage Configuration > CPU Load Line Calibration > Level 2
* Surprisingly, this is all I needed to do to get my OC working well. YMMV as each chip is different. I AM ALSO NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY OC’ing YO DO.

Prepare for High Sierra Install
UniBeast
Followed the 10.13 UniBeast instructions (I was installing 10.13.2) to put High Sierra onto a USB. UEFI only mode.

Samsung EVO Format
The EVO is not formatted yet and needs to be after you load macOS with your USB. I had trouble with the traditional Disk Utility format so I used terminal. From Terminal at the macOS install screen:
  1. type diskutil list and look for the drive identifier of the EVO, something like /dev/disk0 or /dev/disk1.
  2. Then type: diskutil eraseDisk JHFS+ HighSierra /dev/disk0 -->replace HighSierra if desired with whatever name you want to name the disk.
Now continue to follow UniBeast guide to to install High Sierra onto the EVO.

Install Part 1
I installed High Sierra onto my Samsung EVO 960 WITHOUT formatting to APFS. I have read folks who have had issues with this file format and I have no real need for it. So I followed Step 4, section 9 in the UniBeast guide to format my SSD as HFS instead. This went well with no issues. For the final part of the install, I used MultiBeast 10.2. and the following basic settings
  1. Quick Start > Clover UEFI Boot Mode
  2. Drivers > Audio > Realtek ALCxxx > ALC1220
  3. Drivers > Misc > FakeSMC Plugins
  4. Drivers > Misc > FakeSMC HWMonitor App
  5. Drivers > Network > Intel > IntelMausiEthernet 2.3
  6. Customize > Graphics Config > Intel Graphics Fixup (for the onboard UHD 630)
  7. Customize > System Definitions > iMac > iMac 18,3
That is it. Another reboot, setting the EVO as the boot drive, Clover loaded up and booted into my new build of High Sierra on the EVO. Easy peasy. Ultimately I moved to using Clover Configurator and my EFI folder (because I prefer this approach for east of CC) vs the default kext location /L/E that MultiBeast uses. I'll document those steps below in Part 2.

Install Part 2
Remember my confession above? So my previous HTPC build was working perfectly and was highly customized with Plex, nginx, Sonarr, Radarr, Ombi, a fully working automated conversion process using SABNZBD and Don Melton's awesome transcoding program. I obviously did not want to start from scratch. So why not just swap the drive in or clone to the EVO? Because I was running Yosemite (hey if it ain't broke, why fix it??), and this simply would not work with the new Z370 and Coffee Lake builds. But, I had no other hardware to load up the Hackintosh, only the new parts. So I had to try and upgrade the Yosemite build as the no booted drive. Here was my approach (which worked perfectly after much research in advance).
  1. Connect the Yosemite drive ("Y-SSD") to the MB, any SATA port
  2. Boot up the EVO working build
  3. Copied the 10.13.2 Install High Sierra app build from my laptop (which is the machine I used to make the UniBeast stick) onto the EVO
  4. As I mentioned, I did not want to update to APFS. From what I had read, this would still occur in an upgrade so I had to do the upgrade without formatting. I followed this guide for updating to High Sierra and the part about "Alternative Guide: Update Directly to macOS High Sierra (HFS+)"
  • Mount the EFI folder on the Y-SSD
  • I had already updated my Clover build before the crash so I didnt need to follow this step
  • Copy all kexts MB installed on the EVO in /L/E into my Clover/Kexts/Other folder and remove any existing kexts in the Other folder
  • I also used Erik's config.plist for ease although I could have created a fresh one on my EVO build to use. Put it in the /Clover folder on the Y-SSD.
  • For Step 4 in the guide above above, use the following command in the Terminal to install High Sierra (assuming its in your Applications folder) onto your non boot drive, my Y-SSD: /Applications/"Install macOS High Sierra.app"/Contents/Resources/startosinstall --volume the_target_volume --converttoapfs NO --agreetolicense --> replace the_target_volume with your upgrade drive, in this case my Y-SSD which had the volume name "PKPro". So my revised command would look like: /Applications/"Install macOS High Sierra.app"/Contents/Resources/startosinstall --volume PKPro --converttoapfs NO --agreetolicense
  • The system will copy some files, then reboot, and you'll be able to start the installer (without APFS conversion) by booting from clover with "Boot macOS Install from..." option. Note that it is the "macOS install" which you need to select so the upgrade can finish on your Y-SSD.
  • Also note, the --volume option is not available unless running with SIP disabled
At this point, I knew from reading I could not boot from my upgraded Y-SSD because the actually install was not finished (yields "macOS could not be installed on your computer"). The necessary packages for completing installation did not install on the upgrade. So I had to manually add them by doing the following.
  1. Boot back into the EVO drive
  2. Select on the Install macOS High Sierra app, right click and choose Show Package Contents
  3. Go to: Contents/SharedSupport/ and copy the InstallESD.dmg to your Y-SSD at /System/Installation/Packages (I did not have this Installation folder on my Y-SSD so I had to create it and then Packages folder)
  4. Restart
  5. At the Clover Boot screen, select the Y-SSD. At this point, the Y-SSD will boot! and installation will finish and you will be presented with the options screen to make some selections for High Sierra.
Post Installation, Clover Clean-up
As I mentioned, I wanted to move to Clover Config and using the EFI folder. I made the following changes once I was booted up into my Y-SSD:


Kexts
Following kexts in Clover/Kexts/Other (all from my MB install except Lilu.kext)

  1. FakeSMC.kext
  2. FakeSMC_ACPISensors.kext
  3. FakeSMC_CPUSensors.kext
  4. FakeSMC_GPUSensors.kext
  5. FakeSMC_LPCSensors.kext
  6. IntelGraphicsFixup.kext
  7. IntelMausiEthernet.kext
  8. RealtekALC.kext
Config.plist
My Clover config.plist is attached. A few notes:
  1. ACPI: DSDT Pacthes: HDAS -> HDEF, HECI -> IMEI, GFX0 -> IGPU, PEGP -> GFX0
  2. ACPI: Under Generate Options, selected PluginType -->This is all that is needed to get full native power management under High Sierra. No custom SSDT. No other options. See this post here for more info.
  3. Boot: dart=0, -disablegfxfirmware
  4. Boot: XMPDetection=Yes (for my OC)
  5. Devices: IntelGFX=0x59128086, Audio=1
  6. Graphics: Inject Intel, ig-platform-id=0x59120000
  7. SMBIOS: 18,3
There are other options as well but you can see them in my config.plist file attached.

SSDT
For the USB Fix, I used the great work by Erik to add his custom SSDT for fixing the 15 port limit. I am attaching his SSDT. While we are using different boards, this has worked fine for my board.

*NOTE: When I had it all finally working, I cloned the Y-SSD to EVO since I ultimately wanted this as my boot drive.

Performance and Temperatures
This new machine is suuuuper quiet and cool. Part of this is my fans. Part is the case. My idle temps average 25C. At load its mid 50Cs. With my 5.2Gz OC, idle temps are about the same because of the power management. Under load, hitting mid 60Cs which is damn good. When stress tested, temps maxed out at 78C. This is quite impressive in my view.

See my Geekbench 4 results (stock and OC) at the end.

Testing
Power Management: To double check your power management is working (Pstates), you can use the attached AppleIntelInfo.kext from PikerAlpha which I have compiled. Download to your downloads folder. Than run the following commands:
  1. Open Terminal
  2. cd ~/Downloads (if this is where you put the kext)
  3. type sudo kextload AppleIntelInfo.kext and hit enter
  4. Wait 2-3 minutes
  5. type sudo cat /tmp/AppleIntelInfo.dat --> this will show you lots of good info. But at the bottom, you can check all your Pstates and making sure you are hitting the top end of your Turbo or OC
  6. type sudo kextload AppleIntelInfo.kext to end the logging
Stress Testing your OC: I dont fully understand why but using Geekbench or Cinebench would not max out my frequencies for my OC. HWMonitor and Intel Power Gadget would always top out at 0.4Ghz below my top end OC. Plus both those apps dont provide prolonged stress testing. You can use the following simple process for maxing all cores and threads (in my case 6/12 cores/threads):
  1. Open terminal
  2. I am going to type the command yes > /dev/null & -->This command will stress one core/thread to 100%. So to max my 8700K, I need to type this 12 times into terminal as follows: yes > /dev/null & yes > /dev/null & yes > /dev/null & yes > /dev/null & yes > /dev/null & yes > /dev/null & yes > /dev/null & yes > /dev/null & yes > /dev/null & yes > /dev/null & yes > /dev/null & yes > /dev/null &
  3. You can open activity monitor to see all cores/thread maxed out. Run this as long as you want for your appropriate stress test.
Conclusion
:thumbup::thumbup::headbang::clap:


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PK’s Media Server “Overclocked” Coffee Lake Build

ASrock Z370 Fatal1ty Gaming Mini-ITX | i7-8700K | 16GB | UHD 630 | High Sierra

...


Hi, where are your benchmarks?
 
I don't understand... I've done everything exactly the same but my system will hang on boot. :banghead:

Edit: Got it to boot. Problem was a corrupted EFI partition. Now the only problem is graphics. Upon boot the graphics will lag and I can't log in.

Edit: Got graphics to work, but only by installing patches with MultiBeast. :(

Edit: Graphics are only partly working. I get tearing/laggy graphics and/or no HDMI video. I got the exact same processor-mobo combo, but doesn't work.
 
Last edited:
Awesome build! I just put together something very similar myself. I followed your recommendations on drivers selection with UniBeast but my sound card doesn't work, nor does it show up as an output device under Sound. Any idea what is going on? Not sure why it works for you and not for me. I'm trying to use audio over DisplayPort, but its not showing any output device.

I am having the exact problem and am looking at the before installing audio post but it is not very intuitive to follow any guidance would be greatly appreciated.
 
I am starting from scratch today so reinstall base system and using MB to post install then do a clover move like OP. I am following the guide to a t to see if there was anything I missed. I am using APFS as I really dont think it matters that much but otherwise everything else is same. Its the no audio with MB that is confusing me as well as I realised the bluetooth initially showed up in System Profiler but can't get it to happen again. Any advice would be greatly appreciated as this machine has so much potential.
 
Ok latest update is that I was able to get everything except Thunderbolt up and running. I am connecting an Apollo Twin via TB3 > TB2 adapter and system profiler says nothing is connected and UA console doesn't see device. Any assistance with this would be really appreciated as I am using this machine as my daily driver in my home studio and need thunderbolt for my interface.
 
Does the Twin work in Windows? Check that first before you try OSX. Did you activare the TB driver and update the TB firmware? This has to be done in Windows, no way around this.
Are we talkng about a Z97 system here? Is your sig up-to-date?
 
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