[GUIDE] OC Monterey Z490 Gigabyte Aorus Xtreme + Core i5 10500 / i9 10900K

[Middleman]

This guide is an updated version of my last guide on the Z490 Aorus Xtreme for Big Sur & Monterey. Please refer to my previous guide to install on High Sierra, Mojave, or Catalina.

COMPONENTS

• Gigabyte Z490 Aorus Xtreme board
• Thermaltake Toughram RGB 32GB 3200Mhz DDR4 RAM
• Intel Core i5 10500 4.3GHz Chip / Intel Core i9 10900K 5.3GHz Chip
• Samsung 500GB 970 EVO PCIE NVMe
• Gigabyte AORUS 1TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe
• ADATA SP920 256GB SSD
• Thermaltake Pure14 ARGB Sync fans
• 750W Thermaltake Toughpower GF1 Cooling Fan
• Thermaltake 20GT RGB Plus PC Case
• Keychron K1 mechanical 104 key keyboard

What works

NVMe detection and bootup
USB 3.1, 3.0 & 2.0 (hot-plugging and eject on USB 3.1 works)
Full sound with volume adjustment and digital out
Full screen 1040P
Video playback
Graphics acceleration
2.5GBe & 10Gbe Ethernet
Thunderbolt 3
VDA Decoding
WiFi


What doesn't

Bluetooth (under Monterey)

(First release: 20th November 2021)

With this build I have managed to get most of the functions enabled for Big Sur and Monterey on the Z490 Aorus Xtreme using OpenCore 0.6.8., which includes working sound from the sound card and the included Gigabyte ESS Sabre USB DAC, and working WiFi and 10GBe LAN. 2.5GBe works for Big Sur and not Monterey. For technical reasons I have disabled the Intel Bluetooth drivers in the EFI and waiting for a better version to be released before I will include it in the EFI.

For reasons of simplicity, I have also separated the EFIs into their own zip files for each corresponding macOS versions, as functionality-wise Big Sur differs a little from Monterey. To enable WiFi in the Big Sur EFI you must disable itlwm.kext, whereas in the Monterey version Airportitlwm.kext must be enabled.

The versions are also differed by Intel IGPU or AMD dGPU versions of the EFI. Just pick the version that suits your setup (using Intel IGPU to boot or AMD dGPU to boot).

Update: 10th April 2022

This is for all intents and purposes, a major update to the Z490 build. Opencore has been updated from 0.6.8 to 0.7.8. It is designed to address a number of issues discovered since the build went up, which I'll explain below.

For the longest time I had been having a problem with this build which I hadn't mentioned before, and that was shortly after booting up Monterey 12 Beta on the system, my setup would suddenly kernel panic, usually about 5 minutes after logging in, resulting in a system reboot. I couldn't work it at first and so that is why it has taken me a long while to get the build to OC 0.7.8 as it took me some months to figure out what was going on with my build.

So after a bit of digging I have finally uncovered what the issue was! It turns out it was a small number of issues.
The first is I hadn't enabled EnableWriteUnprotector. Without this enabled, an error regarding Safaribookletmarker would appear on the system every few seconds (which I think is the program unable to write back onto NVRAM). Also disabling the TB3HP SSDT - it somewhat helps the system stabilise (as DTPG is already enabled). On top of that was AdviseFeatures, which now has been enabled and is a key quirk to use for anyone who has this issue. I have also added USBWakeFixup which seems to have fixed a wake up issue.

After applying the above adjustments, the system seems to have stabilised.

I have also uncovered issues with the IGPU under the previous build on Monterey. Under Big Sur, the Intel IGPU could utliise actual Comet Lake UHD 630 values like 9BC5 even when the CPUID was spoofed. Unfortunately Monterey seems to have an issue sending the video signal to the IGPU, and so following advice from member's Z490 build I have opted to utilise the platform id of 07009B3E, device-id of 923E0000 and SMBIOS of iMac20,1 for Intel builds and iMacPro1,1 for AMD builds.

I have also found a new AQC107 Aquantia kernel patch from Mieze. This new patch is designed to resolve the ports issue under Monterey 12.3+. If this new patch is enabled under Monterey 12 Beta however I found the system may KP. Looking deeper into the issue, I think the problem is twofold. According to one poster I read the Z490 2.5GBe LAN has two versions of chip - V1 & V2. V1s & V2s work fine under Catalina or Big Sur but V1s KP under Monterey a few minutes after login after a DHCP call because of OS compatibility issues. The second issue is Monterey Beta itself. The OSI networking stack for the I225-V NIC I read is (has been) incorrectly implemented. Which is why we need to update the beta if we want a more stable setup.

Anyways I have now placed the relevant config files inside the EFI/OC folder, so if anyone is looking for builds to for an Intel IGPU-only, an AMD based build or hybrid Intel Nvidia-disabled build, the files are there.

Update: 12th April 2022

I have added a minor update. This update with OC 0.7.8 finally resolves sound for the system but also the LAN ports.

For 12 Beta - 12.2 users

Please download EFI Monterey OC 0.7.8 12 Beta-12.2.zip file. DO NOT DOWNLOAD the zip meant for 12.3+ users as this may crash your system at bootup.

For 12.3+ users

Please download the EFI Monterey OC 0.7.8 12.3+.zip file.

You will also need to enable VT-d in BIOS to enable the Aquantia 10GBe port as this includes a new fix for the AQC107 Aquantia under Monterey 12.3+ ONLY. However the 2.5GBe ports will not work.

This is the AQC107 v3 kernel patch for Monterey 12.3+, (which also requires DisableIOMapper to be disabled and VT-d enabled in BIOS):

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<array>
    <dict>
        <key>Arch</key>
        <string>Any</string>
        <key>Base</key>
        <string></string>
        <key>Comment</key>
        <string>AQC 107 10 GbE v3 for Monterey 12.3 - DisableIoMapper=False</string>
        <key>Count</key>
        <integer>1</integer>
        <key>Enabled</key>
        <true/>
        <key>Find</key>
        <data>D4RFAwAA</data>
        <key>Identifier</key>
        <string>com.apple.driver.AppleEthernetAquantiaAqtion</string>
        <key>Limit</key>
        <integer>0</integer>
        <key>Mask</key>
        <data></data>
        <key>MaxKernel</key>
        <string></string>
        <key>MinKernel</key>
        <string>21.4.0</string>
        <key>Replace</key>
        <data>Zg8fRAAA</data>
        <key>ReplaceMask</key>
        <data></data>
        <key>Skip</key>
        <integer>0</integer>
    </dict>
</array>
</plist>

 

[FormerUser-400995]

If you consider also updating the OpenCore version to 0.7.5, you might be pleasantly surprised that the i225 (2.5GBe) and HDMI audio will work as expected, without relying on FakePCIID, and the accompanying injector kexts. Of course, this is an educated guess based on the configuration of a Prime Z490-A, which is very similar to yours.

Cheers.

 

[Bergier3K]

Hey Middleman, awesome build and crystal clear guide! I'm in the process of using the same motherboard, that i could buy for a fair(ish) price. Would you recommend going with the straightforward 10th gen cpu or to get an11th gen? If you think 11th gen is the way to go, would you know the changes to do to the plist to make it work ? My goal here is to have an everyday workstation, trouble free for the next 5 years or so...

Thanx again for this guide !

 

[Middleman]

Hey Middleman, awesome build and crystal clear guide! I'm in the process of using the same motherboard, that i could buy for a fair(ish) price. Would you recommend going with the straightforward 10th gen cpu or to get an11th gen? If you think 11th gen is the way to go, would you know the changes to do to the plist to make it work ? My goal here is to have an everyday workstation, trouble free for the next 5 years or so...

Thanx again for this guide !

Thanks and you're welcome!

As for the motherboard, I would day it is an excellent choice, as it is a very versatile board. There's a lot of expansion options available with this system including 3 NVMe slots, a slew of drive ports plus Thunderbolt 3 and 10GBe/2.5GBe LAN ports, WiFi 6, USB 3.1 & 3.2 Gen 2 and the board comes with a bonus ESS Sabre USB DAC. If you want my honest opinion I think it would be best to go for the Comet Lake i9 if you can because it works natively with Catalina/Big Sur/Monterey (and it can work retroactively with High Sierra if you want an Nvidia card say because it can spoof the Coffee Lake chip properly unlike Rocket Lake). That said, Rocket Lake is a little bit quicker and I do have a Rocket Lake based build using this board in my other guide here so that aspect is covered if you need help. > https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/...re-i5-10400-i9-11900k-nvidia-gtx-1060.310287/

It is quite easy to configure for the Comet Lake and Rocket Lake i9s as I use different CPUID values under the Opencore Kernel section for each build. For this Monterey version I've reverted the chip to i9-10900K. If you want this EFI to work with the i9-11900K for instance, just copy the CPUID & PCI Root IGPU info from the Big Sur build over from the other thread to this one.

Good luck with your build!

 

[Bergier3K]

Thanx for the blitz answer ! I guessed the comet lake was the better option. I was considering rocket lake only for the pcie 4 capabilities. Though, the difference might not be that impressive on an already high performing drive (sn850 or 970evo). I will go the safe route i think.
Do you remember which USB ports are disabled to fit under the 15 limit?

Bonus ponder, why did you stick to OC 0.6.8 ? No time to update it, or is there a more technical reason ? (Maybe avoiding all the shim shaming in the plist after 0.7.3?)

Cheers again !

 

[Middleman]

Thanx for the blitz answer ! I guessed the comet lake was the better option. I was considering rocket lake only for the pcie 4 capabilities. Though, the difference might not be that impressive on an already high performing drive (sn850 or 970evo). I will go the safe route i think.
Do you remember which USB ports are disabled to fit under the 15 limit?

Bonus ponder, why did you stick to OC 0.6.8 ? No time to update it, or is there a more technical reason ? (Maybe avoiding all the shim shaming in the plist after 0.7.3?)

Cheers again !

You're right on that account...I initially bought the Rocket Lake for that also - for the extra PCIe4 features and performance to match the Gigabyte SSD I put in (which is faster on read & write). That said, on the CPU benchmarks i9 Comet Lake does run a bit faster than i9 Rocket Lake, because on RKL the bandwidth is taken up by the chip to handle Thunderbolt 4 and the PCIe4 bus. As the RKL iGPU is disabled, it does feel it a bit of a waste to use for macOS. The WD SN850 is a great drive though, it is insanely quick (at PCIe4) running on my other Alder Lake build back at the office. For Samsung I much prefer the 980 Pro these days.

As for the ports, I didn't enable some near the front side other than 1-2 ports as I prefer to use the rear ones for my build including the two TB4 ports. I've enabled the main ports on the inside though because I do have some TT RGB controllers and LED strips fitted.

As for the build, I stuck to OC 0.6.8 actually because I found it somehow worked better as I found there were bugs in the 0.7.x version with regards to the soundcard under Monterey during testing, so I reverted to 0.6.8 on this build. And yes also because of time. I was working on multiple builds at the time as this was being completed. I'll probably get it upgraded again soon though.

You're welcome anyhow!

 

[redshift82r]

Hi Middleman, using your EFI's, I built a dual-boot Gigabyte z490 Extreme / i9 10850K desktop over Christmas, with an RX 6600 XT (Monterey) / GTX 1070 (Win 11 / Machine Learning using WSL) using OpenCore 7.5. It's been running happily (it's an absolute beast!) up until last weekend when I updated Monterey to 12.3. It boots up, but freezes within 30 seconds once through to the desktop. I think its an issue with the 10GB ethernet port, so will probably upgrade the OC version and check kexts, etc. I'll comment back with the fix when I eventually figure it out. Your threads have been immensely helpful, and I meant to post a thank you earlier.

 

[Middleman]

Hi Middleman, using your EFI's, I built a dual-boot Gigabyte z490 Extreme / i9 10850K desktop over Christmas, with an RX 6600 XT (Monterey) / GTX 1070 (Win 11 / Machine Learning using WSL) using OpenCore 7.5. It's been running happily (it's an absolute beast!) up until last weekend when I updated Monterey to 12.3. It boots up, but freezes within 30 seconds once through to the desktop. I think its an issue with the 10GB ethernet port, so will probably upgrade the OC version and check kexts, etc. I'll comment back with the fix when I eventually figure it out. Your threads have been immensely helpful, and I meant to post a thank you earlier.

That's awesome! Thank you for letting me know, I'm always intrigued by what everyone uses their builds for. I guess running dual GPUs is one way to go with the Nvidia incompatibility - at least the GTX 1070 gets utilised under Windows.

Thanks for the tip about the 10Gbe port too, I was about to upgrade the Z490 to 12.3 so I will keep an eye out and see what comes up. I have a suspicion it could be the SMBIOS setting (might need MacPro7,1) or possibly just needs an update to OC 0.8.0. I heard there is a new Aquantia-related setting in OC which might be of interest. On a separate note I discovered this weekend that if you have a Sinetek-rtsx.kext SD card driver installed (especially if it's installed on a laptop) there's a chance it can cause a system lockup in Monterey.

 

[Bergier3K]

@redshift82r Thanx for the heads up, the same motherboard is on my desk waiting to receive a new cpu and a new case (just opening the box is an experience on its own!). What makes you think the problem is related to the 10Gbe ? Could you guys post a little update when/if you got that figured out ?

Also, @Middleman what SMBIOS did you originally use for this build ? I hadn't ponder on that yet, but i guessed imac20,1 or imac20,2 from the top of my head.

Cheers!

 

[Middleman]

Also, @Middleman what SMBIOS did you originally use for this build ? I hadn't ponder on that yet, but i guessed imac20,1 or imac20,2 from the top of my head.

Cheers!

I believe I used iMac19,1 with Monterey.