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[GUIDE] - Hp Z800 Workstation on Mac OS Mojave (10.14.6)

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Not open for further replies.
Joined
Jul 14, 2015
Messages
23
Motherboard
HP Z800
CPU
2X Xeon X5675
Graphics
Gigabyte Rx 570
Mac
  1. MacBook Pro
Hey guys!

Been using my Z800 since 2017 and it's 100% stable on the latest Mojave version (10.14.6). For me it's a perfect build for heavy audio workloads.

The forum members and threads have helped me A LOT on that past couple years, so i wanted to share this build and help others.

My current configuration is:

2x Xeon 5675
48GB ECC Ram
Gigabyte RX 570 4gb
SSD (Running on a Asmedia 1061 Sata III PCIe Card) < Not needed but the onboard Sata works on Sata II Bus.
RME Hdspe AIO Soundcard (flawless)

* Benchmark results attached on the post with the EFI folder



Working:


Everything from CPU Turbo / SpeedStep to Firewire.

Not Working:

Sleep - Since it's a desktop machine that is basically online 24/7 i don't really care about sleep working or not, so i disabled it and didn't test.



First at all - The bios setup:


STORAGE
:

Storage Options

Removable Media Boot - Enable
Legacy Diskette Write - Disable
SATA Emulation: Raid + AHCI
Sata port (All) - Gen 2/3 3.0gbps (Internal Only)



SECURITY:

Network Service Boot - Disable


System Security:

ALL ENABLED except Os Management of Embedded Security Device.


POWER


OS POWER MANAGEMENT:

Runtime Power Management - Enable
MWAIT-Aware OS - Enable
Idle Power Savings - Extended
ACPI S3 HD Reset - Disable
ACPI S3 PS2 MOUSE - Disable
USB Wake on Device Insertion - Disable
Unique Sleep State blink - disable

HARDWARE POER MANAGEMENT:

- All enabled except EUP Compliance Mode.


ADVANCED


PROCESSORS:

Hyper Threading - enable
Active Cores - ALL CORES
Limite CPUID xxx - disable

ONBOARD DEVICES:

Serial and Diskette disabled.


CHIPSET / MEMORY:

PCI Serr## Generation - Disable
PCI VGA Palette Snooping - Disable
Memory Node Interleave - ENABLED
Enhanced Memory Performance - ENABLED

DEVICE OPTIONS:

S5 Wake on lan - Disabled
Multi PRocessor - Enabled
Integrated Audio - Enable
Internal Speaker - Enabled
Monitor Tracking. - Disabled
NIC PXE Option Room Download - DISABLE
SAS OPTION ROM DOWNLOAD - DISABLE (If you are using the SAS (White) Ports to boot)
SATA RAID OPTION ROM DOWNLOAD - ENABLE (If you are using the Sata ports to boot)

* Enabling or disabling the rom options to fit your usage will increase the boot/load speeds.


2 - Building the USB Installer and Installing:


- Create the USB Installer on another MacOS machine using the app Install Disk Creator and a fresh copy of Mojave (Can be downloaded from the app store at https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/macos-mojave/id1398502828?ls=1&mt=12 or using the DosDude patch tool IF you are running Catalina or a later version. Use the tool for DOWNLOADING ONLY!)

- Install Clover on the USB STICK (UEFI Machines / MBR partition)

- Replace all files including the “boot” unix file on the EFI folder attached to this post.

- Rename the INSTALL config.plist to only config.plist (If you try to use the FINAL on the installing process the usb ports won't work).

- Boot the machine with the USB stick connected and the installer should run as expected.

- Install the Mac Os on the desired volume (I'm using the APFS format with zero issues)

- Reboot with the usb stick connected, but select the HD / SSD where the installation is and let it finish.

- Boot to OS and configure normally. When its all done and you are already on the desktop screen, remove the extension AppleHpet.kext at /System/Library/Extensios for the usb ports to work 100%

- Install clover on the main SSD / HD and use the same folder but with the FINAL config.plist (rename it to just config.plist) and delete the install one.

Done :)
 

Attachments

  • Cinebench r20 z800.jpg
    Cinebench r20 z800.jpg
    101 KB · Views: 495
  • z800 Blackmagic DiskSpeed Test (PCIe Card).jpg
    z800 Blackmagic DiskSpeed Test (PCIe Card).jpg
    118.3 KB · Views: 442
  • z800 Geekbench OpenCL.jpg
    z800 Geekbench OpenCL.jpg
    107.7 KB · Views: 396
  • z800 Geekbench Metal.jpg
    z800 Geekbench Metal.jpg
    112.9 KB · Views: 376
  • Geekbench 5 HP z800.jpg
    Geekbench 5 HP z800.jpg
    112.3 KB · Views: 434
  • Geekbench 4 HP z800.jpg
    Geekbench 4 HP z800.jpg
    145.3 KB · Views: 509
  • EFI Z800 MOJAVE.zip
    23.5 MB · Views: 972
Last edited:
Have you tried updating your EFI and use the Z800 with Big Sur yet?
For me it's a perfect build for heavy audio workloads.

People using a hackintosh build for Pro or even amateur audio work in general don't use Big Sur yet.
Much of their software and plugins will not work with Big Sur. Any 32 bit software will require that
they stay on Mojave. Catalina or newer is 64 bit only.

Due to the age of the Z800, Big Sur will not be that easy to get fully working. It will likely require the use of OpenCore instead of Clover. You can certainly give it a try if you'd like to. Try using Mac Pro 6,1 SMBIOS.

These old workstations came with Windows Vista pre-installed. That's pre Windows 7. Very old. About 14 years.
Screen Shot 6.jpg

Screen Shot 5.jpg
 
Last edited:
People using a hackintosh build for Pro or even amateur audio work in general don't use Big Sur yet.
Much of their software and plugins will not work with Big Sur. Any 32 bit software will require that
they stay on Mojave. Catalina or newer is 64 bit only.

Due to the age of the Z800, Big Sur will not be that easy to get fully working. It will likely require the use of OpenCore instead of Clover. You can certainly give it a try if you'd like to. Try using Mac Pro 6,1 SMBIOS.

These old workstations came with Windows Vista pre-installed. That's pre Windows 7. Very old. About 14 years.
View attachment 506773
View attachment 506774
I couldn't say any better! Catalina / Big Sur kinda suck for audio right now. Too many new incompatibilities.The only diference is my Z came with OEM Windows 7 pre installed instead of vista, there were 2 variations. First one had on top spec support for Xeons X55xx and the second revision had support for X56xx (<That's mine). The second one uses the exactly same chipset, CPUs and type/speed of ram as the real Mac Pro 5,1, and that's why it is so stable with mac os, even better than with windows 7/10.
 
Hey guys!

Been using my Z800 since 2017 and it's 100% stable on the latest Mojave version (10.14.6). For me it's a perfect build for heavy audio workloads.

The forum members and threads have helped me A LOT on that past couple years, so i wanted to share this build and help others.

My current configuration is:

2x Xeon 5675
48GB ECC Ram
Gigabyte RX 570 4gb
SSD (Running on a Asmedia 1061 Sata III PCIe Card) < Not needed but the onboard Sata works on Sata II Bus.
RME Hdspe AIO Soundcard (flawless)

* Benchmark results attached on the post with the EFI folder



Working:


Everything from CPU Turbo / SpeedStep to Firewire.

Not Working:

Sleep - Since it's a desktop machine that is basically online 24/7 i don't really care about sleep working or not, so i disabled it and didn't test.



First at all - The bios setup:


STORAGE
:

Storage Options

Removable Media Boot - Enable
Legacy Diskette Write - Disable
SATA Emulation: Raid + AHCI
Sata port (All) - Gen 2/3 3.0gbps (Internal Only)



SECURITY:

Network Service Boot - Disable


System Security:

ALL ENABLED except Os Management of Embedded Security Device.


POWER


OS POWER MANAGEMENT:

Runtime Power Management - Enable
MWAIT-Aware OS - Enable
Idle Power Savings - Extended
ACPI S3 HD Reset - Disable
ACPI S3 PS2 MOUSE - Disable
USB Wake on Device Insertion - Disable
Unique Sleep State blink - disable

HARDWARE POER MANAGEMENT:

- All enabled except EUP Compliance Mode.


ADVANCED


PROCESSORS:

Hyper Threading - enable
Active Cores - ALL CORES
Limite CPUID xxx - disable

ONBOARD DEVICES:

Serial and Diskette disabled.


CHIPSET / MEMORY:

PCI Serr## Generation - Disable
PCI VGA Palette Snooping - Disable
Memory Node Interleave - ENABLED
Enhanced Memory Performance - ENABLED

DEVICE OPTIONS:

S5 Wake on lan - Disabled
Multi PRocessor - Enabled
Integrated Audio - Enable
Internal Speaker - Enabled
Monitor Tracking. - Disabled
NIC PXE Option Room Download - DISABLE
SAS OPTION ROM DOWNLOAD - DISABLE (If you are using the SAS (White) Ports to boot)
SATA RAID OPTION ROM DOWNLOAD - ENABLE (If you are using the Sata ports to boot)

* Enabling or disabling the rom options to fit your usage will increase the boot/load speeds.


2 - Building the USB Installer and Installing:


- Create the USB Installer on another MacOS machine using the app Install Disk Creator and a fresh copy of Mojave (Can be downloaded from the app store at https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/macos-mojave/id1398502828?ls=1&mt=12 or using the DosDude patch tool IF you are running Catalina or a later version. Use the tool for DOWNLOADING ONLY!)

- Install Clover on the USB STICK (UEFI Machines / MBR partition)

- Replace all files including the “boot” unix file on the EFI folder attached to this post.

- Rename the INSTALL config.plist to only config.plist (If you try to use the FINAL on the installing process the usb ports won't work).

- Boot the machine with the USB stick connected and the installer should run as expected.

- Install the Mac Os on the desired volume (I'm using the APFS format with zero issues)

- Reboot with the usb stick connected, but select the HD / SSD where the installation is and let it finish.

- Boot to OS and configure normally. When its all done and you are already on the desktop screen, remove the extension AppleHpet.kext at /System/Library/Extensios for the usb ports to work 100%

- Install clover on the main SSD / HD and use the same folder but with the FINAL config.plist (rename it to just config.plist) and delete the install one.

Done :)

Could you expand on this part:
- Install Clover on the USB STICK (UEFI Machines / MBR partition)

- Replace all files including the “boot” unix file on the EFI folder attached to this post.

Are you saying that the usb device should already be partitioned in mbr and then run the usb installer for mojave? then for clover, do i run the pkg file and change destination to my usb drive, then replace the boot file in the root directory? i ask because at first glance it sounds like i'd replace the boot folder in efi with this boot file from your download you included. i've tried both ways and it failed btw. I have the same machine, but with one x5660 currently and the nvidia quadro 400. Thanks
 
Could you expand on this part:
- Install Clover on the USB STICK (UEFI Machines / MBR partition)

- Replace all files including the “boot” unix file on the EFI folder attached to this post.

Are you saying that the usb device should already be partitioned in mbr and then run the usb installer for mojave? then for clover, do i run the pkg file and change destination to my usb drive, then replace the boot file in the root directory? i ask because at first glance it sounds like i'd replace the boot folder in efi with this boot file from your download you included. i've tried both ways and it failed btw. I have the same machine, but with one x5660 currently and the nvidia quadro 400. Thanks
Hey! hello.

Unfortunately, i was running a quadro 4000 too, but it isn't compatible with mojave or newer versions. About the usb setup, i usually macos installer usb using a 3rd party tool like DiskMakerX or InstallDiskCreator and after it's all done, i run the clover installer with the described option (UEFI Machines / MBR partition) only to guarantee that ist gonna create / show the EFI folder, and then simply move all the contents inside. Don't forget to generate a new serial number and stuff.
 
Hey! hello.

Unfortunately, i was running a quadro 4000 too, but it isn't compatible with mojave or newer versions. About the usb setup, i usually macos installer usb using a 3rd party tool like DiskMakerX or InstallDiskCreator and after it's all done, i run the clover installer with the described option (UEFI Machines / MBR partition) only to guarantee that ist gonna create / show the EFI folder, and then simply move all the contents inside. Don't forget to generate a new serial number and stuff.
Yeah i'm trying with high sierra to see if that will make a difference. Thanks for the reply. do you have a preferred location for the clover download? I just googled it and grabbed what appeared to be the latest version of clover. Thanks
 
Yeah i'm trying with high sierra to see if that will make a difference. Thanks for the reply. do you have a preferred location for the clover download? I just googled it and grabbed what appeared to be the latest version of clover. Thanks
Hey mate! Sharing with you now the EFI folder that i used to run on High Sierra with the quadro 4000! You can download a previous clover version at https://sourceforge.net/projects/cloverefiboot/files/Installer/ (i suggest trying 4586 first, i used to run 4506 on high sierra) BUT i guess that since you gonna replace all efi folder files, it doesn't really matter the version =)


The serial number and etc was freshly generated by me, so just copy the contents of the folder to your efi folder!
 

Attachments

  • HIGH SIERRA Z800 QUADRO 4000.zip
    18.5 MB · Views: 370
I am also a Z800 workstation. The processor is the same as yours, but the only difference is that I use an AMD FIREPRO W7000 graphics card. When I booted with the EFi file you provided, the screen went black. There is no output. Can you help me analyze the reason? thanks.
 
Hi! I have purchased a Gigabyte RX 570 4g following your example. My problem is the 8 pin connector of the graphic card seems to be incompatible with the default power supply DPS850 that provide two 6 pin connectors. How did you do?
 
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