Contribute
Register

Abomasnow: Multiboot, Gigabyte GA-Z720X-Ultra Gaming, i7 7700K, Gigabyte Geforce GTX 1070 Ti

Status
Not open for further replies.
Joined
Jan 2, 2018
Messages
13
Motherboard
Gigabyte GA-Z270X-Ultra Gaming
CPU
i7-7700K
Graphics
GTX 1070 Ti
Mac
  1. iMac
Classic Mac
  1. iMac
Mobile Phone
  1. iOS
BonzaiRob's Abomasnow:
Gigabyte Z720X-Ultra Gaming, i7-7700K, Gigabyte Geforce GTX 1070 Ti


264558-ce9d4dc6ce38ab70596a0ceceaddc735.jpg

Components

Intel i7-7700K Processor
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01MXSI216/?tag=tonymacx86-21
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MXSI216/?tag=tonymacx86com-20
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117726

Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO Processor Cooler
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0068OI7T8/?tag=tonymacx86-21
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B005O65JXI/?tag=tonymacx86com-20
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103099

Gigabyte GA-Z270X-Ultra Gaming Motherboard
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01MU4SS6O/?tag=tonymacx86-21
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01N66ZESI/?tag=tonymacx86com-20
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128968

Crucial Ballistix Sport LT 64GB DDR4-2400 Memory (in grey)
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01EII64B8/?tag=tonymacx86-21
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01B4F3MNQ/?tag=tonymacx86com-20
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820156116

Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1070 Ti Gaming 8GB Graphics Card (out of stock - see tonymacx86 Buyer's Guide)
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B076VNJZ2Y/?tag=tonymacx86-21
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B076MM66RT/?tag=tonymacx86com-20
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814932013

Corsair 270R Computer Case
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01M35FI12/?tag=tonymacx86-21
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01M35FI12/?tag=tonymacx86com-20
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811139089

Corsair CSM 550W Power Supply
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00GN8VTVW/?tag=tonymacx86-21
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00GH9NA6O/?tag=tonymacx86com-20
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139059

LG 27UD58-B 27" 4K 60Hz Monitor
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01LBQ3QCA/?tag=tonymacx86-21
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01IRQAYPE/?tag=tonymacx86com-20
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824025406

Storage:


Already Owned
Helper: Late 2007 iMac
Monitor: Wacom Cintiq 12WX
Storage: 250 GB Windows drive: Samsung 850 Evo SSD
Headphones: Kotion Each G1000
Keyboard: Apple big keyboard from the iMac
Mouse: Cougar 300M



Comments

When Apple released the touch bar MacBook Pro, I realized I wasn't going to get the beast I wanted direct from them. I'd been aware of hackintoshes for a while, but when I inherited some money, it seemed like now was the time to move on from my 10 year old iMac.

Unfortunately I picked the exact moment when all the graphics cards I wanted went out of stock, so I had to wait a month and get very lucky with Amazon's pre-order price guarantee before I could finish the build :(

The build is multi-boot: Abomasnow on macOS Sierra, and Emboar on Windows 10. Each with a 250GB drive to itself, and a shared ExFAT 1TB storage drive. I'm going to spend some time branding it now it's all working - Clover icons, OS colors, etc. The plan is to make the LEDs change color depending on what OS is active - there's a Windows program that changes the RGB Fusion LED color, but no automation and the Aorus SDK isn't supported. However, I've had some luck decompiling it so I might get it working yet.

Installation:

This was a long and twisty road, 90% of it being "why isn't this working?? Google help what is this kernel panic" which has been excluded for brevity, except where relevant. Is anyone working on a hardware-detection program..?

Unibeast USB
My iMac maxed out at El Capitan, so I tried making a UniBeast stick with that, but El Cap doesn't have the drivers needed for this fancy-pants Mobo/CPU combo. (I got it working in a limited way by adding the FakeCPUID but the problems just added up)
In the end, I got the windows drive working first, then found a Sierra Virtual Machine image, and used that to get the Install macOS Sierra app (via the Apple help page) I then transferred it back to the iMac for Unibeast. I won't link the virtual machine image because I don't know what the legal status is.
UniBeast bootloader should be set to UEFI, ignore the graphics things.

BIOS Settings
Bios Tab:
Windows 8/10 Features: Other OS
Storage Boot Option Control: UEFI Only
Boot Option #1: UEFI USB Drive​
Peripherals Tab:
Initial Display Output: PCIe 1 Slot
XHCI Hand-off: Enable​
Chipset Tab:
VT-d: Disabled
Internal Graphics: Disabled (although I had fun with this one - may need to be enabled while the graphics drivers are setting up!)​

Helpful Threads:
JimmakoS01 CustomMacPro Build - very similar to mine except in a few crucial, kernel-panicking ways. Look here if you're trying to follow my build and find problems
Solving NVidia Driver Install Loading Problems - in the end I didn't need it for the "final" build but there are useful things within.

Install Process
  • Download all of the NVidia drivers for Sierra and named them by build number (e.g. 16G29).
  • Download Lilu.kext v1.2.2, along with NVidiaGraphicsFixup and AppleALC, all v1.2.2 (when people say to match your kexts to the Lilu version, this is what they mean - this was a 2 day problem for me)
  • Downloaded KextBeast, MultiBeast (8 for Sierra) and Clover Configurator
Put all the above on the installer USB
  • Used the USB to boot and install Sierra. If the graphics card isn't working, change the BIOS setting to enable internal graphics and connect the monitor to that.
  • Used MultiBeast with the following settings; if something's not there, it's not ticked.
Audio:
ALC1220
100/200 Series​
Misc:
FakeSMC
HWMonitor​
Network:
Intel mausi 2.3.0​
USB:
3rd party USB (maybe not necessary?)
200 series​
Bootloaders:
Clover with emulated NVRAM​
Graphics:
NVidia Web drivers boot flag
NVidia graphics fixup​
System Definition:
iMac18,3​

Don't restart yet!
  • Put Lilu, NVidiaGraphicsFixup and AppleALC on the desktop, along with KextBeast, then use it to install them to /L/E
  • Start CloverConfigurator and mount the EFI drive
  • Go into /Library/Extensions (/L/E) and delete the FakeSMC GPU kext
  • Find AppleALC.kext, USBInjectAll.kext and XHCI-200-series-injector.kext in /L/E, move them into EFI/CLOVER/kexts/Other and delete from /L/E
Now restart, making sure to boot the mac from the USB stick's Clover! You will still have no graphics drivers - this is fine. Because now you will have Ethernet drivers, and should be able to open the App Store and update Sierra to latest (16G1212 at time of writing).
After the install, restart again in the same way.

Now it's time for the graphics drivers - go Apple Menu > About this Mac > System Report > Software and find the build number. Then install the right NVidia driver pkg from your USB stick. It will prompt to restart - do it.

In BIOS, change the graphics setting to PCi-E and disconnect your monitor from the internal graphics.

THIS TIME, boot from the Mac's Clover and not from the USB. At this stage I was tearing my hair out from kernel panics, before realizing that you must only have monitors connected to the graphics card.

If it works, then great! If not, you can boot from the USB stick Clover to check things out. Turn of Integrated Graphics on the motherboard to boost startup speed!

Final post-post-install Clover Configurator options:
Acpi:
Rename HDAS to HDEF should be present from MultiBeast
FixShutdown ticked​
Boot:
Arguments:
dart=0
nvda_drv=1​
XMPDetection=Yes (if memory speed is >2000)​
Devices
Audio: Inject 11​
Graphics:
Make sure InjectIntel is not ticked, this panel is empty for me​
Kernel and Kext Patches:
for me this has the KextsToPatch from MultiBeast with nothing extra​
RtVariables:
Set ROM to UserMacAddr0​
SMBIOS:
Open Terminal and type uuidgen; copy that ad paste it into SmUUID, and add two random numbers at the end.​
System Parameters:
Inject System ID ticked
NvidiaWeb ticked​

These settings with the SmUUID should fix iMessage.

Check your System Prefs > Audio > Output, the top Line Out was my green jack. Test the USB 3.0 ports.


Summary

What Works:
Audio
Ethernet
Wake from Sleep
USB 3.0
iMessage

What Doesn't Work:
Multiple monitors (help)
USB 3.1 (there's only one port, I don't mind)
Any Bluetooth or WiFi things like Airdrop (no radio on this motherboard)

What I Don't Know Works Or Not:
FaceTime (no camera to test with)

full



If anyone has any insight into multiple monitors with this card, that would be great - the 4K monitor is DP and the Cintiq is DVi, works fine on Windows, along with a Vive in HDMI. Haven't had the chance to try the HDMI ports or another DisplayPort on Mac.

When creating the thread, I can't create new tags for the motherboard, graphics card or cpu.

Next steps:
Sort out multi monitor
Get the Windows RGB thing working
Set up backups
 
How's the 1070 Ti holding up?
 
How's the 1070 Ti holding up?
Pretty great! On Windows, Overwatch plays with all settings on ultra in 4K, which is awesome.

After using for a few weeks, I've got a weird bug where occasionally it restarts after shutdown, and the microphone line in doesn't seem to work, but otherwise it's been very stable.

The other issue is that Overwatch seems to be corrupting sometimes on the ExFAT drive so I may need to move its install - my theory being that macOS is doing something permissionsy to it.

EDIT: Ok, now some files are corrupting for macOS too. I'm going to split the ExFAT drive into two partitions, one HFS and one NTFS. Apparently it's a known issue with ExFAT :(
 
Last edited:
One year later! Generally things have been fine. Here are some problems I had/have:

  • I had to give up on shared drives after all, it just doesn't work. However, I bought Paragon's NTFS For Mac, and can transfer files across that way. It's best to have NTFS drives unmounted as much as possible - lost some Windows things to corruption from it. Always unmount cleanly and try to never mount the drive Windows is actually installed on.
  • I never go the motherboard lights to change colour nicely :( Gigabyte's support on this is awful
  • I had to use the Voodoo audio drivers to get audio to work via HDMI (or at least, the DP>HDMI adaptor).
  • I've been getting stuttering when it's left idle for a few minutes - this seems to be a power management thing. It's worst when a netflix show is paused. However, it persists even after following [this thread], so I think it might actually be to do with the next point
  • I need to upgrade to High Sierra to get graphics drivers that are "for" the 1070 Ti. It works ok on the Sierra driver, but it hard crashes instantly when a monitor is connected or turned on, unless I change the audio device to the right Digital Out slot and dance round my chair thrice widdershins.
  • I'm scared to upgrade the OS because it's been a year and I forgot most of how I made this house of cards stand up. Changing the file system is especially scary. Thinking I'll backup the EFI partition as well as the OS, and keep my original Sierra USB installer.
I'll note my upgrade process here when I build up the courage.
 
Another year later:
  • The stuttering "power management" thing turned out to be the graphics card drivers, and upgrading to High Sierra solved it.
  • The untouched self-update to High Sierra did not work - when booting into the created update partition, it would just die.
  • However, building a new USB with Unibeast for High Sierra worked nearly perfectly without changing any kexts
  • I moved the computer physically and had to buy a wifi USB dongle - went with the TP-Link Archer T4U which worked perfectly with the TP-Link drivers.
  • However, on updating to High Sierra, it won't connect to 5 GHz connections any more - no idea why.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top