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Gobias’s Comet Lake Build: Prime Z490-A - i7-10700K - RX 6600 - macOS Ventura & Windows 11 Pro

Heartfelt thanks to Gobi, Feartech and to UtterDisbelief.

Open Sesame! Finally the HS06 door has opened and the Bluetooth works very well!
Now, however, since the usbport.kext you gave me, only sees 2.0 ports, how can I integrate those 3.1 as well?

I am an economics expert but I am a sorcerer's apprentice for computer science, even if it is my passion, and with my 73 years of age it is already a lot I can do.

My PCs (first Z170A then Z590 and last Z690 and always MB MSI) I have assembled them myself and the problems encountered, asking for help on this forum, I have always solved them.
This PC belongs to a friend of mine who had it assembled without in a particular way but without a prior compatibility study with macOs and the Asus card is not familiar to me.

Thanks again for your competence and availability.

Glad you got the ports all working. :thumbup:

Okay, now you can make a note of all the ports you need and what they connect to. Create a new USBPorts.kext for the PC. Remember ports on the back panel are colour-coded (with a few odd choices!) But generally USB2-only ports are Black. USB3/USB2 ports are Blue. Red ones are the same as Blue but faster. Ports on internal motherboard headers are: 9-pin headers = USB2, 20-pin headers = USB2/3.

Knowing this, set the header port supplying Bluetooth as "Internal" in Hackintool. Any ARGB/LED ports will be "Internal" too. If a header is connected to a front case port then it is either USB2 or USB2/3.

Hope that helps. Refer to the main USB guides here for any more detailed help.

:)
 

Update 7: NVMe SSD Upgrade for Windows

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Background

I’ve been planning to upgrade both of my Samsung EVO 860 SATA SSDs to NVMe SSDs since my original build. Since the only one M.2 slot (M.2_1) on my motherboard has a heatsink, I planned to get a WD_BLACK SN750 2TB NVMe SSD without a heatsink (Amazon | Newegg) to use for macOS in the M.2_1 slot and a WD_BLACK SN750 1TB NVMe with Heatsink (Amazon | Newegg) for Windows in the M.2_2 slot.

If the SN750 is sold out, you can get the SN770 (Amazon | Newegg), which is the newer PCIe 4.0 version of the SN750 (see this post for more info). Note that the SN770 does not come with a heatsink, so you'd have to buy one separately if you want one.

Recently, I managed to get the SN750 1TB with Heatsink model on sale to upgrade my Windows drive. These are the steps I followed to get everything set up on the new drive:

Installation & Cloning

Installation

  1. Shut down and unplug the computer.
  2. Follow the motherboard manual’s instructions to install the SN750 into the M.2_2 slot with the M.2 standoff and screw included with the motherboard (see section 2.1.4 M.2 Installation in the manual).

Configure BIOS M.2 settings

  1. Plug in and turn on the computer again.
  2. Press Delete or F2 to enter BIOS.
  3. Go to the Advanced\Onboard Devices Configuration menu.
  4. Set M.2_2 Configuration to M.2_2 X4. (Note that this will enable the fastest speed for the M.2_2 slot, but it will also disable SATA ports 5 and 6.)
  5. Go to the Exit menu.
  6. Select Save Changes & Reset and press Enter.
BIOS M.2_2.png



Clone Windows drive

  1. Download Acronis True Image for Western Digital from the Western Digital website and install it.
  2. Open Acronis True Image for Western Digital.
  3. Follow the instructions in chapter 7 Disk cloning and migration of the user manual to clone the old Windows SSD to the SN750.

Disconnect the old SSD

  1. Shut down and unplug the computer.
  2. Disconnect the SATA and power cables from the old Windows SSD. I left the SSD mounted in the case to potentially use for additional storage in the future. You can rem
  3. Plug in and turn on the computer again.

Fixing Boot Order, OpenCore GUI, and Startup Disk

Fix boot order in BIOS

After turning on my computer, it was defaulting to booting from my new Windows drive instead of my macOS drive, so I changed it to my macOS drive.
  1. Turn on the computer and press Delete or F2 to enter BIOS.
  2. Press F7 or click Advanced in the bottom right corner to enter Advanced Mode.
  3. Go to the Boot menu.
  4. Set Boot Option #1 to the macOS drive.
  5. Go to the Exit menu.
  6. Select Save Changes & Reset and press Enter.

Reset NVRAM to fix OpenCore GUI issue

After restarting, when I got to the OpenCore Picker, the GUI did not load, and the resolution was so low that the list of drives barely fit on the screen. I’m not sure what happened, but remembering that an NVRAM reset is required to apply changes to the OC UI Scale, I thought (correctly) that an NVRAM reset might fix the issue.
  1. At the OC Picker, press Space and then select Reset NVRAM. The computer will reboot.

Fix boot order (again)

After resetting NVRAM, my computer defaulted to booting from my Windows drive again, so I had to change it to my macOS drive again.
  1. Go to the BIOS and set Boot Option #1 to the macOS drive again (see Fix boot order in BIOS above for detailed steps).

Set startup disk in macOS

At this point, the OC Picker was also defaulting to my Windows drive.
  1. If this happens to you, select your macOS drive and log in.
  2. Open System Preferences and select Startup Disk.
  3. Select your macOS disk and click Restart.
  4. The OC Picker should now default to your macOS drive.

Optimization and Benchmarking

Turn on the gaming mode (optional)

Since I use Windows almost entirely for gaming, I turned on the Gaming Mode setting in Western Digital Dashboard. Gaming Mode is supposed to slightly improve latency and speeds by disabling power-saving features in firmware. This can increase the temperature of the SSD, but I found that the included heatsink keeps the drive cool. The temperature of my SSD never went over 50°C while gaming or 54°C while benchmarking, and it typically idles around 42°C.
  1. Boot into Windows.
  2. Download Western Digital Dashboard from the Western Digital website and install it.
  3. Open Western Digital Dashboard.
  4. Set Gaming Mode to ON in the top-right corner of the window.
  5. Restart and boot into Windows again.
  6. Gaming mode should be turned on in the WD app.
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CrystalDiskMark Benchmarks

WD_BLACK SN750
Ws3JkHZiCPdqY9V3cDX9duV1SahrgGtxwa0AHxtOOjJtBCuqGxVFM1Ff-gIAhQ23av-wgaLhK_4oJM2bTnczlso-6iAbezTSJiwp94gtMwaKr2mm_rFTMY0drRBUz0iSzRFFz8mkOOHek97qYQ


OLD Samsung 860 EVO
yX2oB6PFoXkcT-EiX5wgbRS9L2763I1bP59INnx8rxeGWVnuVP-w_Z3X5l1Y3c2YzGjSL4Vy1mQD3NAN968QbTlBHaF69pnVfjPqmWEjUOTrR2GWbfIzaOsGLVxmNbjj0p9XUNc4jzDG9DgS3A
 
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@Gobias,

Congratulations on being selected a Golden Build! :clap::thumbup::headbang:
 
Congratulations on being selected a Golden Build!
+1 this is very well written and clear. Good job Gobias.

The link to the WD SN750 NVMe drive in post #1 can be changed to this: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09QV692XY/?tag=tonymacx86com-20

The SN770 is just the PCIe 4.0 version of the SN750. It uses the same controller, WD proprietary, so it will work the same as the SN750 does. The 750s are out of stock most everywhere because they've sold so well.
 
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Congrats Gobi!. Really well written, informative and lovely case!, square power button?, Nice!. I long for a golden build, I bow before you and your godliness!. :clap:
 
+1 this is very well written and clear. Good job Gobias.

The link to the WD SN750 NVMe drive in post #1 can be changed to this: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09QV692XY/?tag=tonymacx86com-20

The SN770 is just the PCIe 4.0 version of the SN750. It uses the same controller, WD proprietary, so it will work the same as the SN750 does. The 750s are out of stock most everywhere because they've sold so well.
Thanks for the info on the SN770. I've actually been considering getting the 2TB SN770 to use for macOS if the price goes down or if I can't get the SN750 anywhere, but I was a little hesitant because I hadn't seen many people that had used it. I'll add the link to my post.
 

Update 9: OpenCore 0.8.1


I followed the OpenCore Post-Install guide for Updating OpenCore to update OpenCore from 0.8.0 to 0.8.1. One important change to note is that Reset NVRAM and Toggle SIP were switched to configurable boot entry protocol drivers.
  • I replaced these OpenCore files with the latest versions:
    • BOOT/BOOTx64.efi
    • OC/OpenCore.efi
    • OC/Drivers/OpenCanopy.efi
    • OC/Drivers/OpenRuntime.efi
  • I added the new ResetNvramEntry.efi driver to OC/Drivers.
  • If you also want the Toggle SIP boot entry, then you need to add ToggleSipEntry.efi to OC/Drivers, too.
  • I removed old properties from config.plist that were identified in OCConfigCompare.
    • Under Misc -> Security, remove:
      • AllowNvramReset
      • AllowToggleSip
  • In ProperTree, I selected File > OC Snapshot to add ResetNvramEntry.efi to my config.
OpenCore 0.8.1 config changes.png


I also updated kexts to the latest versions:
  • AppleALC.kext: 1.7.1 -> 1.7.2
  • WhateverGreen.kext: 1.5.8 -> 1.5.9
Upon restarting, if you press Space at the OC Picker, the Reset NVRAM boot entry should still show up.

My latest EFI folder is attached for reference.
 

Attachments

  • Update 9 EFI.zip
    5.4 MB · Views: 69
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