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[Guide] GA-Z97MX-Gaming 5 + i7-4790k + GTX 970 + 32GB DDR3

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Joined
May 6, 2015
Messages
57
Motherboard
GA-Z97MX-Gaming 5
CPU
i7 4790k
Graphics
GTX 1080ti SC2
Mac
  1. MacBook Air
Mobile Phone
  1. iOS
Thanks to tonymac, toleda.

Changelog

v1 [27-Sep-2016]: Original post.

Hardware list

1. Intel Core i7-4790K
2. Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO (CPU Cooler)
3. Gigabyte GA-Z97MX-Gaming 5
4. EVGA GeForce GTX 970 4GB SSC Gaming ACX 2.0+
5. Crucial Ballistix Tactical 32GB Kit (8GBx4) DDR3
6. Samsung 500GB 850 Evo SSD
7. Apple Broadcom BCM94360CD Native (WiFi + Bluetooth)
8. TP-Link 2.4GHz 8dBi Indoor Desktop Omni-directional Antenna (Bluetooth Extender)
9. Corsair CS550M 550 Watt ATX Modular PSU
10. Nanoxia Deep Silence 4 Mini Tower
11. Apple wireless keyboard
12. Apple wireless mouse
13. Rii i8+ Mini Wireless Keyboard with Mouse

Working so far

1. Graphics via PCI-e.
2. WiFi networking (I don't have use for cables on 2016 so no LAN tested).
3. Bluetooth (Apple keyboard and mouse usable on BIOS and Clover bootloader).
4. iCloud sync.
5. Almost working HDMI sound. Works fine in general, but Youtube videos seem to cut off when skipping.
6. Graphics acceleration.
7. Airdrop.

TODO

1. HDMI audio fix for Youtube (and possible HTML5) videos on Safari, Chrome. A little more testing.
2. Proper power management, whatever that means (so far it throttles).
3. Test iMessage/Facetime.
4. Test USB 3 ports.
5. Test waking from Sleep/Hibernation.
6. Test Handoff.

STEP 1: Download macOS Sierra

1. Open Mac App Store on your old El Capitan installation or real Mac.
2. Log in with your Apple ID.
3. Download macOS Sierra.

The Application Install macOS Sierra will appear in /Applications.

STEP 2: Prepare Bootable USB Drive

This step extracts the macOS Installer contents, then installs Clover bootloader to the USB stick.
I used an USB 3.0 16 GB flash drive.

1. Insert the USB drive.
2. Open /Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility.
3. Highlight the USB drive in left column.

Screen Shot 2016-09-25 at 18.16.03.png


4. Click Erase.
5. Click Partition.

Screen Shot 2016-09-25 at 18.18.06.png


6. Under Name: type USB (if you use a different name you'll have to chance the command in step 10).
7. Under Format: choose OS X Extended (Journaled).
8. Click Apply.
9. Open /Applications/Utilities/Terminal.
10. Type the following, enter password and hit enter. This command completely erases the USB, then creates native macOS installer media from the Install macOS Sierra Application.

Code:
sudo /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Sierra.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/USB --applicationpath /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Sierra.app --nointeraction

Screen Shot 2016-09-25 at 18.38.28.png


Upon completion, the USB will be renamed Install macOS Sierra.

11. Download the latest version of Clover from sourceforge (I used Clover_v2.3k_r3763).
12. Open Clover package.
13. Click Continue, Continue, Change Install Location.
14. Choose the USB, now called Install macOS Sierra.
15. Click Customize and install Clover to the same USB.

Screen Shot 2016-09-25 at 18.46.25.png

Screen Shot 2016-09-27 at 10.33.32 PM.png



16. Navigate to /EFI/CLOVER/ and replace default config.plist with the one inside attached file config.plist-UEFI-iMac14,2.
17. Navigate to /EFI/CLOVER/kexts and delete all folders, except for Other.
18. Navigate to /EFI/CLOVER/kexts/Other/ and add FakeSMC.kext.
19. Navigate to /EFI/CLOVER/kexts/Other/ and add NullCPUPowerManagement.kext.

Your Clover Installation USB is now finished.

STEP 3 (Optional): Backup EFI partition to external drive

This is useful if you encounter any issues with the installer and like me, are stuck with a single computer (I only have the hack right now) and wanna do some terminal mastery if for some reason you are halfway the installer, last macOS installation gone and need to boot from something and the USB is playing mind tricks.
All you wanna do is copy the EFI partition to a folder (I used one of my internal drives, asides from the macOS SSD).
As a matter of fact, when the step on the guide comes, to install Clover to the internal partition (for regular boot without USB), this time I didn't touch the Clover PKG again... I just copied the internal "backup" folder (only works if EFI already exists on the target drive).

STEP 4: Install macOS Sierra

I won't go into detail about doing this.

1. Turn off computer.
2. Insert USB drive.
3. Set BIOS configuration (I'm using vF4) to use internal graphics card. I didn't have to disable any Virtualization option ever, neither had to remove any RAM sticks, neither had to remove the GTX. Basically all was connected.
4. Boot from UEFI USB.
5. Install macOS Sierra. Reboot, keep on configuring it (see Step 3 if after reboot the USB drive is not recognized, specifically, its UEFI partition needed to boot), until you reach login screen and can actually login to your fresh install.

STEP 5: Clone EFI partition from USB to internal (Test internal boot)

It's basically Step 2 starting from #12.

1. Turn off computer.
2. Remove USB drive.
3. Start computer.
4. Boot from internal UEFI.

If everything went fine, you just booted from internal drive and no longer require the USB. Otherwise, then put back the USB drive and check Clover installation on the internal EFI partition.

STEP 6: Post-Installation: GPU, and System definitions

This is where the though part is and where you start, one by one, enabling all the hardware that is not working at this point. For me, it was the GTX 970.

1. Download and install the alternate web drivers from NVIDIA (I used v367.15.10.05f01).
2. Download clover configurator (I used v4.32.1 Vibrant Edition).
3. Download EFI Mounter (I used v3).
4. Mount your internal EFI partition with EFI Mounter (Alternatively, use diskutil + mount commands).

Screen Shot 2016-09-25 at 11.51.36 PM.png

Screen Shot 2016-09-25 at 11.51.44 PM.png


5. Open Clover configurator and open /EFI/CLOVER/config.plist from the internal EFI partition you just mounted.
6. Configure what you need. I used iMac14,2 definitions. I tried with iMac15,1 which matches the CPU better, but getting it to boot (login screen) is a PiTA as you need to perform some tricks. IMHO, not worth the hassle unless I realize later it will be necessary for Power Management.
Notice at the time of writing Clover configurator does NOT include support for the new tags that are required to boot NVIDIA web drivers, so it's best to leave injections untouched (except removing Intel).

Screen Shot 2016-09-26 at 1.08.46 AM.png

Screen Shot 2016-09-25 at 11.44.57 PM.png

Screen Shot 2016-09-25 at 11.49.58 PM.png


7. Save changes.
8. Edit /EFI/CLOVER/config.plist manually to add NVIDIA web drivers' support:

Code:
    <key>SystemParameters</key>
    <dict>
        <key>InjectKexts</key>
        <string>Yes</string>
        <key>InjectSystemID</key>
        <true/>
        <key>NvidiaWeb</key>
        <true/>
    </dict>

9. Save changes.
10. Unmount your internal EFI partition with EFI Mounter (Alternatively, use diskutil + mount commands).
11. Reboot.
12. Set BIOS configuration to use external (PCIe) graphics card.
13. Reboot.
14. Boot from internal UEFI.

At this point you should have a working macOS Sierra hack, using the GTX 970.

STEP 7: Post-Installation: HDMI Audio via GTX 970

Original guide here. I'm basically posting what I needed.

1. Download script (I used v1.0).
2. Mount your internal EFI partition with EFI Mounter (Alternatively, use diskutil + mount commands).
3. Run script (open it like a regular file). Assuming you never used the script before or tried to use an audio SSDT patch, answers should be "Y" every time.

Screen Shot 2016-09-26 at 1.36.02 AM.png


4. Unmount your internal EFI partition with EFI Mounter (Alternatively, use diskutil + mount commands).
5. Reboot.

At this point you should have HDMI audio working.
 

Attachments

  • config.plist-UEFI-iMac14,2.zip
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i have the same build (but gtx970) but i have updated from el capitan. Everything works except one thing - my computer cannot boot if two of my monitors are plugged in. For boot time i have to plug off one of them and after login screen appears on monitor i can plug in the second one. Can you tell me how i can win with that issue??
 
i have the same build (but gtx970) but i have updated from el capitan. Everything works except one thing - my computer cannot boot if two of my monitors are plugged in. For boot time i have to plug off one of them and after login screen appears on monitor i can plug in the second one. Can you tell me how i can win with that issue??
No idea whatsoever, have always used a single monitor. However check this post and that topic in general you may find a solution that works for Sierra as well.
 
This looks really good! I was able to have a successful upgrade to Sierra.

I can check a couple things off your list:

1. iMessage/ FaceTime work flawlessly in Sierra following your guide (if your config.plist is setup right)
2. USB3 is just as good as it was in El Capitan with the same kexts.

But for a fellow Z97MX-Gaming 5 User... I have to ask you:

I just got this board about a week ago and it seems like it's just really finicky. It doesn't have power management no matter what I do, it seems to loop through the splash page weirdly... and mostly... it's just really slow to boot up. It's been that way the whole time. All of my other hacks on SSDs always boot up crazy fast. This one takes like 3 or more min. It was that way in ElCapitan and now in Sierra. Once it's booted it's GREAT. Soooo....

How fast does your machine boot?
Does it loop a bunch in the boot up process?
Does it act really weird when booting?
Could it be my bios? I see you're on F4 and I'm on F6 and as you can see... they prohibit me going back to F4 somehow...

Now after a reboot I can't even get the computer to boot up past the splash screen... I think I got a bad board and I'm going to exchange it at amazon... just wondering if you are getting really fast boots. That might answer my question right there.
 
Good morning. You functioning properly USB 3.0?
 
how do I get the green rear works (speakers)? (I don't need HDMI audio)
 
Are you able to use Photos without constant system crashes?

Recommend looking at Kernel Panic report to see whats causing the kernel to crash.
 
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