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“HackinMouse” Skylake H110 Econo Rig | i5-6500 | GA-H110M-A | 16GB | RX560

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Upgrade to 10.14.4 (18E226)
Just when I was praising the simplicity of the last upgrade, this one appeared to be a bit tricker from all the feedback, and it was. That said, it was still an easy upgrade and it was a chance to get current on Clover and kexts. Everything seems to be stable and running well after a minor hick-up with audio.
  1. Upgraded to Clover v4862 using the TonyMac UEFI build (link below). I was at v4769 before the upgrade.
  2. Upgraded to Lilu.kext v1.3.5 and NoVPAJpeg.kext version built with Lilu 1.3.5.
    • This can easily be done by placing the two kexts on your desktop (make sure you don't have others there too!) and running the KextBeast app (link below). I installed to /Library/Extensions when prompted in KextBeast.
    • Note: the NoVPAJped.kext is still needed for image preview since I installed the new RX560 video card for OOB Mojave support.
  3. Upgraded to 10.14.4 via System Preferences\Software update.
  4. It rebooted into the installer partition 3 or so times, and then the update was complete and back at the logon screen.
No audio after sleep
Everything seemed fine at first, but then I noticed I had audio problems after sleep, but only with the Internal Speaker output (audio jack on Motherboard). My USB headphones\mic were still fine. After reading this post by @carlspsyd and some others about audio trouble in this update, I figured my AppleALC.kext just needed to be upgraded or perhaps the kext cache just needed rebuilt or something. I decided to simply upgrade to the latest AppleALC.kext v1.3.6 (link below) using KextBeast to /Library/Extensions to achieve both in one shot.

Bam! Audio from Internal Speaker output is working again after sleep. I just tested again after sleep this morning and all is well.

References:
 
I just changed my VGA to MSI RX 570 Armour 8GB OC. It works OOB.
But I haven't upgrade to latest update. I will try update soon.

I'm thinking to upgrade i3-6100 to i5-7400. But the price difference is big. I'm not sure it will be worth it.
Click to expand...

Between the RX570 and i5-7400, that would be a nice little bump, a good way to get more mileage from your motherboard for sure. I'd have to upgrade my wimpy 430W power supply to run that graphics card, haha!

I've already got a little itch to build another little machine from the ground up this Summer, so I'll likely hold out on changing anything until then. The 8th generation i3's are already ridiculously fast (double cores from the previous generations), but those require a MB/socket upgrade :(. I'll probably base my new build off an 8th or 9th gen i3, whatever works best at the time I build. They have new F CPUs I read about (ex. i3-8100F) without the Intel Graphics. If these would work in a hack, they might be even more cost effective than the regular i3's.

10.14.4 is still running nicely. Happy and content, at least for now, haha!
 
I was a happy guy with my EC, then i saw that WOW Classic will require at least HS. So, I updated mine to HS using your instructions on post #190 :)

Painless and worked perfect! Thanks for your fantastic documentation.
 
Has anyone upgrade yet? I read H310 is not fully compatible.
I plan to upgrade my proc, because I upgrade my VGA to RX 570. i3-6100 seems cause bottle neck in few games.
Click to expand...

Just update to 10.14.6 using latest Clover 5xxx (forget the number).
1) Blank screen after reboot. Had to boot via USB and replace EFI clover folder with the one from the USB boot.
2) There're some kind screen artifact when booting. Several short horizontal magenta color lines, but don't show up after booting.
3) Sound Line Out doesn't work. Sound HDMI and headphone are work.
Click to expand...

Hi, I still have not upgraded yet...I am still running 10.14.4. I read about some of these issues (at least the magenta lines) early on after .5 came out and I decided to wait. Then, I got busy with work\life and haven't come back to looking at this. Now I see 10.14.6 is out already!

I will need to do some research and give it a shot after getting a good backup. I could live with the boot artifact, but not without internal sound out. Please refresh my memory. Are you using the exact same motherboard GA-H110M-A with ALC887 audio as is listed in the original post?

On another note, I just upgraded the i3-6100 in this system to an i5-6500 after it became available to me in my household for no cost. I did not have an SSDT or anything special configured for the i3 CPU, so it was a drop in/no fuss upgrade. I'll be looking at an SSDT for the i5 if I think it is necessary. Just starting to look into how she is running. Along with the RX 560 4GB, I'd still consider this machine to be far better than any low end system you can buy for $500 or less around here. Hopefully the hardware will stay compatible with MacOS and these upgrade issues will get sorted eventually.
 
Catalina is out!
Click to expand...
I'm still on Mojave 10.14.4 (18E226) and am looking at the Catalina upgrade. I have gathered the updated kexts required, but it looks like I'm due for a Clover upgrade per the official upgrade thread on this site.

The boot screen artifact issue that started in Mojave after 10.14.4 should be taken care of in the latest WhateverGreen kext release, if I recall correctly. If I can get a good backup, I just may go for the upgrade this weekend! That said, i still need to double check on all my regularly used software for compatibility. I'll update once I have some news to share.
 
Upgraded to Catalina 10.15 (19A602)
I ended up having some time this afternoon and decided to do the update. So far, so good! Audio is working (speakers and headphones with mic), Ethernet is good, sleep seems to be working as well. I’ll report back if I experience any issues!

Here are the steps I took to upgrade from Mojave 10.14.4. It should be the same for any Mojave version, just make sure in the first step to download the proper version of Multi-Beast to upgrade Clover.

Make sure you get a good backup first! I manually backed up my EFI partition contents for Mojave as well before starting, just in case I need to reference later

Starting In Mojave before rebooting...
(1) Upgrade Clover to r4920 using Mojave MultiBeast from downloads on this site.
- Important note: MultiBeast version is specific to the version of macOS you are on, make sure you download the right version.

Notes:
  • Other than upgrading Clover, I made no other changes to my EFI partition or config.plist from how they were in Mojave.
(2) Upgrade\install the following kexts from the desktop using KextBeast 2.0.2
- Choose to install to \Library\Extensions
  • Lilu.kext 1.3.8
  • Whatevergreen 1.3.3
  • AppleALC.kext 1.4.2
Notes:
  • Ethernet AtherosE2200Ethernet.kext 2.2.2 and FakeSMC kexts stayed the same since there have not been updates in quite some time.
  • NoVPAJpeg.kext is no longer required and should be removed from \Library\Extensions. I deleted using Finder, no issues.
(3) Download Catalina (Get) from App Store

(4) Save the Catalina installer .app to an external disk (just in case I needed to make a bootable USB on the wife's Mac, luckily I did not!)
- Optional but recommended.

(5) Start the Catalina installer - it will work for awhile in Mojave and then reboot.
- It rebooted about 3 times that I saw, and booted from the temporary installer partition at least twice.

Done!

----
UPDATE:
System is solid, no known issues after a couple days of heavy use. Can’t really tell any difference from Mojave thus far to be honest.

Tweaks since the install:
  • Now using iMac17,1 instead of 14,2. This should give more modern capabilities and provide a couple more years of life for upgrades, and it properly fits the Skylake i5-6500 CPU I am using. Frequency scaling and clock speeds are working fine without any other changes.
Tested:
  • DRM (good) - YouTube TV, Netflix, and Amazon Video (in Chrome)
  • Messages (good) - make sure your SMBIOS is setup properly with proper serial number, UUID etc.
  • Voice Control (good) - new voice control feature introduced with Catalina works well with Logitech USB headset.
  • MS Teams (good) - tested VOIP calls with Logitech USB headset.
  • iPad Pro connectivity (good) - USB connection shows up in Finder (new Catalina connectivity for iPad since iTunes is gone). I was able to update the iPad and Sync fine using this new macOS interface.
  • VirtualBox (good) - Windows 10 guest working great on latest version of VB for macOS.
  • Davinci Resolve (good) - rendering with Metal (RX560)
  • Dual Monitors (good) - 1920x1080p x 2 (HDMI + DVI).
  • USB ports (good) - USB2/USB3 sticks (case front panel) and powered external USB3 drive (rear) working without issue.
  • Sidecar with iPad Pro (can’t test) - new Catalina feature "SideCar" now shows up in System Preferences since I switched to iMac17,2, but it won’t work using the standard Lightning USB cable. I also don't have a WiFi card in my hack for wireless connectivity. Not sure if true or not, but I read that you need to use a USB-C connection directly on the motherboard for a "wired" setup, which I don’t have. I may try to throw in a WiFI card that I have from another system where it isn’t used any longer, and see if I can get Sidecar working OTA. Not really needed for me, since I have two monitors, but I was intrigued!
Geekbench score in Catalina (i5-6500 as compared to the old i3-6100 64 bit score shown in the first post). I'm using an old version if something has changed.
Screen Shot 2019-10-20 at 3.38.45 PM.png

Attached EFI folder for reference
Note: The config.plist within was cleaned to remove the following 3 unique values that should not be shared. Do not try to use until you put your own values in.
[SerialNumber]
[SmUUID]
[BoardSerialNumber]
 

Attachments

  • EFI.zip
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@mots
Are you guys using SSD or HDD?
I'm using Samsung SSD 850 EVO, and I'm confused with HFS and APFS selection.
As I read from the forum, it says that apfs is still not compatible to normal SSD?

Which format do you guys use?
 
amuse.me said:
@mots
Are you guys using SSD or HDD?
I'm using Samsung SSD 850 EVO, and I'm confused with HFS and APFS selection.
As I read from the forum, it says that apfs is still not compatible to normal SSD?

Which format do you guys use?
Click to expand...
My current SSD is a SanDisk SSD PLUS 240GB. I have been using this SSD formatted with APFS for Mojave and now also with Catalina (I just upgraded to Catalina and didn’t need to do anything since I was APFS formatted already).

Catalina requires APFS for the system partition. It utilizes a read only APFS system volume by default for security.
 
Nice! Thank you for the tutorial.
Did you upgrade directly from Mojave? Or fresh install?
Click to expand...
You are welcome. I updated directly from Mojave 10.14.4 using the App Store.
 
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