How to build your own iMac Pro [Successful Build/Extended Guide]

[kgp]

kgp, how did you connect your nzxt internal USB hub power supply? It has Molex connection, but my power supply doesn't have Molex power supply. Should I use something like on the photo? But then I think it is always 12V, where USB hub needs 5V.

That's what I use and what came with my PSU. A peripheral to Molex cable.

 

[kgp]

Boot System Raid 0 “Apple Software”

2x Samsung 960 Pro 1TB (Raid 0)
Asus Hyper 16x
https://www.amazon.es/dp/B0757XFMJM/?tag=tonymacx86c03-21


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Gorgeous you are the man of the hour

Can you use that as system disk as well?

 

[obus]

Hi kgp.
This might be out of topic but I take the risk.
Last week I've bought myself a new rig.
Asus WS C422 motherboard
64GB 2666 Mhz DDR4 ECC Ram (16384 Mb x 4)
Intel Xenon W-2175
My goal was to try to build my own iMac Pro with hardware as near as the original as possible. I have now put up my rig with an old Zalman water cooler, RX Vega 56 graphics and two M.2 1 TB Samsung 950 Evo Pro.
I've followed your very impressive guide just to get some basic information. My problem is that I can't even boot up and install HighSierra. Could you or anybody else out there guide me in the right direction?

The MSR 0xE2 register on my Asus mobo is unlocked with the UEFI-patch according to your guide. I've tried booting with all different combinations of OsxAptioFix-drivers including Test2-2016.efi and the new AptioMemoryFix without success.
My USB-install HighSierra medium is working (tested on my old rig) but I always get stuck during installation ( see atacchment)
Could maybe you kgp shed some light over this problem?
Best regards
obus

 

[borysbass]

Now we can text "press del to enter uefi bios setting" replace with whatever we want.
Preview in attached files

 

[kgp]

Hi kgp.
This might be out of topic but I take the risk.
Last week I've bought myself a new rig.
Asus WS C422 motherboard
64GB 2666 Mhz DDR4 ECC Ram (16384 Mb x 4)
Intel Xenon W-2175
My goal was to try to build my own iMac Pro with hardware as near as the original as possible. I have now put up my rig with an old Zalman water cooler, RX Vega 56 graphics and two M.2 1 TB Samsung 950 Evo Pro.
I've followed your very impressive guide just to get some basic information. My problem is that I can't even boot up and install HighSierra. Could you or anybody else out there guide me in the right direction?

The MSR 0xE2 register on my Asus mobo is unlocked with the UEFI-patch according to your guide. I've tried booting with all different combinations of OsxAptioFix-drivers including Test2-2016.efi and the new AptioMemoryFix without success.
My USB-install HighSierra medium is working (tested on my old rig) but I always get stuck during installation ( see atacchment)
Could maybe you kgp shed some light over this problem?
Best regards
obusView attachment 318159

Why don't you boot with AptioMemory.fix as implemented in my distributed EFI-Folder? Remove AptioInputFix.efi, EmuVariableUefi-64.efi, OsxAptioFixDrv-64.efi, Test2-2016.efi and the untitled folder!

Just try to use the EFI-Folder attached below..

Good luck,

KGP

 

[obus]

Why don't you boot with AptioMemory.fix as implemented in my distributed EFI-Folder? Remove AptioInputFix.efi, EmuVariableUefi-64.efi, OsxAptioFixDrv-64.efi, Test2-2016.efi and the untitled folder!

Just try to use the EFI-Folder attached below..

Good luck,

KGP

Thank's for your fast reply kgp.

I've already tried this and now I tried again with your EFI-folder without success. Always stuck at "End RandomSeed" according to my atatched picture in my earlier post. Any other suggestions?
Best regards
obus

 

[WoodCabin]

Gorgeous you are the man of the hour

Can you use that as system disk as well?

Yes, the test is done from the Raid with the operating system installed on it, if you look at the first photo, the capture of "Disk Utility", is selectedp the volume "RAID", if you check the icon above, you will see that has the "Apple" logo on the hard drive, that means that the boot is made on that hard drive. Sorry for my English and thank you very much for your guide, greetings.

 

[lajiyujian]

Some fake SMCs cause kp. Some have the sensors already inside the fake SMC and that will often cause kp, especially if you then try to run more sensor kexts outside of the fake SMC.
So far the kozlek ones here (maybe 10 pages or so back) work best for me. I finally get GPU temps.
For me, some of the HWmon softwares really messed with my fans but I think the latest versions work better. The istats seem to work best.
Figure out what's important for you.
GPU temps aren't as big a deal as CPU temps, or system stability.
In fact GPU temps are completely irrelevant given that we can't o/c them on this platform anyway (except bios modding of course).
If you're using kexts that mess with your fans then you will stuff your card so you should probably not use those kexts. In my opinion.
Find the kozlek kexts 10 pages back and if they don't work don't use sensors. Intel power gadget is fine.
Do use the kozlek fake SMC that's with the sensor kexts.

Hope this helps

edit: heres a direct link to the kexts https://github.com/kozlek/HWSensors

Thanks for the suggestions! I'm now able to see the GPU temp in HWMonitor. The temp is alway around 55-58C which is much higher than running win10 (around 25-30C). I guess this may be related to the graphic driver or ROM. I saw only two fans are running with relatively low speed. I was expecting to run my deep learning GPU experiments on my hackintosh. Maybe if I start utilizing the GPU, the temp will be higher and then the fans will run at a higher speed. Or maybe I should look at the Apple Graphics Power Management? I saw some posts talked about this. Do you or anyone else have suggestions on this? Thanks again.

 

[WillWeb]

Hello everyone,

I am brand new to the world of hackintosh, although I have built hundreds of PC's and serviced Macs for years. I have followed this guide using these components
Mainboard: Asus Prime X299-A
CPU: i9-7900X 10core
RAM Memory: Tridentz DDR-4 3200 Mhz 64B (4x16GB)
GPU: ASUS Geforce GTX 1080 8GB
System Disks: EVO 960 NVMe M.2 1TB (system disk macOS High Sierra 10.13.3)
Power Supply: Thermaltake ToughPower 850
Bluetooth + Wifi: PC/HACKINTOSH - APPLE BROADCOM BCM94360CD - 802.11 A/B/G/N/AC + BLUETOOTH 4.0
Internal USB2.0 HUB: NZXT AC-IUSBH-M1T
CPU/GPU Cooling: Corsair H115i

I used EFI-X299-10.13.3-Release-iMacPro1,1-200218.zip along with createInstaller.sh.zip to create my usb stick and did a clean install on a 64G ssd and got things up and running perfectly. Then I used the ssd to format and install a fresh copy of the OS to my EVO 960 along with the EFI files. As long as I have the ssd installed I can boot to the EVO 960 through clover and the OS on the EVO runs flawlessly, but once I take the ssd off the system the NVMe will not boot to clover by itself. Is there something in the BIOS i need to change or a patch that needs to be implemented to boot from my EVO 960 NVMe M.2?

Thanks for any help you can give me,

Will

 

[Leukipp0s]

Answer to question 1: See my guide, Section C.11.b) !

Answer to question 2: The Windows installer package creates its own ESP, however not necessarily on the drive, which is meant

for the Windows installation. Thus, unplug all other drives before the Windows installation! See Section E.5.1) - E.5.5) in the originating post of this thread/guide!
​

Answer to question 3: Please don't mix BIOS Boot Menu (F8, primer to Clover Boot menu) and Clover Boot menu. In the BIOS

Boot Menu, you define, which EFI folder you select for Booting, in the Clover Boot menu you define, which partition you boot with the EFI-Folder selected in the BIOS boot Menu. To follow my current guidelines, you need an EFI-Folder on both, macOS USB Flash Driver Installer and 10.13 System Disk. Else, I don't understand your Question 3 at all, do you?​

Good luck,

KGP

1)
Have you tried installing the latest Clover on your macOS drive? That usually is enough. But the drive must have been formatted as GPT by macOS. Then, of course, you must place the correct config.plist and kexts on that partition. Usually, most people use Clover Configurator for that.

2)
Windows creates its own ESP when you boot in UEFI mode and installs in a GPT disk. So you should not have to worry about that. But: Windows does not behave well on multiboot system. It tends to destroy the ESP for the other systems. Since you are installing Windows on a different drive, you should be safe, but don't trust it. Keep the USB drive bootable, and don't be surprised if you have to use it to boot after a Windows installation.

3)
I think there are two issues there: the default partition to boot from and you not being able to boot from the installer.

To boot from a default partition, you have to define the partition name in Boot/DefaultVolume (Clover Configurator).

The fact that you can't boot from the USB Installer means that something is not good with it. Post the memory error you are getting (screen pic). Depending on the place during installation, it can be several different things (wrong OsxAptio, missing kexts, wrong config.plist, etc). If everything is good, you might need to simply create a new USB installer. Sometimes this fixes errors too.

Also, remember to disable CFM (BIOS compatibility mode) in your UEFI, so you don't boot in legacy mode by mistake. If you don't disable it, you might get all kinds of weird erros in Windows and macOS.

Thanks to you both!

I've been using my system without any issues, but I finally need to install Windows on that drive in order to enable the Thunderbolt 3. Although my mac recognizes the Thunderbolt 3, my system freezes when I plug in the Universal Audio Thunderbolt 3 Arrow. I'm hoping this issue is resolved and the motherboard recognizes it once I try that Windows installation hack with the motherboard for Thunderbolt 3 devices.

Again, the system runs fine, provided I have the USB plugged in and I select the Boot OSX option from the USB, otherwise I receive a memory error. After it has booted, everything runs without any problems, and I can unmount the USB.

Do you have any other advice or feedback on installing Windows on the separate drive in order to resolve the Thunderbolt 3 freezing error? Thanks KGP and everyone!