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

[nachosband]

Hey, Rulebreaker01, quick question. I have the TB EX3 Card installed in my system and soon I'll have to take my machine and work at another studio where they only have an Apple TB display. I've never tried to use one but I read a few pages back that it didn't let you boot correctly. Did it worked properly if you plugged it after boot?

 

[Henties]

Hi @kgp and all participants of this thread and board. Although I am not yet in the process of building the beast that this thread is all about I nevertheless follow the proceedings from time and with great interest indeed. As a small contribution from my side I have written a guide as to how to actually go about in generating/compiling Lilu.kext, NvidigraphicsFixup.kex, Shiki.kext and AppleALC.kext. The attachments refer, which also includes a working build folder with the latest sources and pre-built kexts
Enjoy or destroy

 

[RuleBreaker01]

Hey, Rulebreaker01, quick question. I have the TB EX3 Card installed in my system and soon I'll have to take my machine and work at another studio where they only have an Apple TB display. I've never tried to use one but I read a few pages back that it didn't let you boot correctly. Did it worked properly if you plugged it after boot?

Yes it will work, two ways to do it:
1- if you only want to use the Apple display as Display only and not use the facetime, USB ports etc: disable TB in the BIOS, just having the DP cables plugged in is enough to make the Apple TB screen work as a plain DP screen. That way no need to always unplug the screen
2- With TB enabled in the BIOS, just insert it once you're in the CLOVER screen.

Mind you, with option 2, neither the USB ports nor facetime works now, I believe it's due to the new SSDT, I'll be experimenting with that today.

 

[flymovies]

@flymovies : Before I start try it via ssdt, could you test this ?

I have just tried this - it results in a black screen scenario at boot. Once all the fancy command lines have passed and you would expect the login screen, you get a black screen and the monitor powers off.

 

[flymovies]

@flymovies just curious: Did you had only the Nvidia installed at that time ? Since the Kext seems to work and disable the Nvidia card. Which was the point for macOS if I followed your discussion between you and DSM2 correctly.

I had the Asus Vega 64 in Slot 1 and Nvidia in Slot 3 installed. As I see from google research this kext origins from the idea to shut down discrete Nvidia cards on laptops with intel GPU. Since I am running a 7900x, I have no Intel GPU.

In Clover, I have nv_disable=1 set and disabled all Nvidia related checkboxes. In my kext folder I have removed Nvidiafixup, lilu and whatevergreen.

 

[flymovies]

I got something from DSM2 for you @flymovies.
Put it in your EFI in ACPI/Patched Folder.

OK. I will try that. Do I leave the NoNvidia.kext in my kext folder at the same time?

 

[zzmadd]

Yes. You have to use this acpi patch: 47505257 02 > 58505257 02 Together with this ssdt

Thanks a lot, I'm testing now!

 

[flymovies]

@flymovies He said remove the kext !

OK, I have removed the kext and placed the file in the specified folder. Unfortunately I get still the black screen issue.

 

[flymovies]

@flymovies : He said the dsdt seems to work also like the kext but its time to find out what exactly is the bottleneck and how to solve it since something still is messed up.
Please upload your efi folder, I will send it to him.

Thanks really a lot for helping with this! I have attached the EFI folder of my boot drive. I should also mention I am running a patched Bios version 1102 as provided by @kgp in post 1.

 

[perfecto245]

Ok, I've noticed that the Nvidia Graphics card is showing up in slot 6 along with a pci0defb9 Audio Device on the same PCI slot than slot one. So I've applied the KGP SL05 -> GFX0 Dsdt replacement patch, but now I get the Nvidia web drivers disabled and VGA compatible controller still showing up on Slot 6 along with the audio device attached to it. Guys any help would be great at this point... I've thrown in the X299.SSDT attached in this guide too, but I don't know if it has loaded correctly.. everything boots up, all ports and devices seem to work.. except using logic pro instantly freezes the system without any audio plugins installed.

Update.. I managed to reactivate the Nvidia drivers but it still shows slot 6 post patching. I do see a GFX0 entry in IOregistry though.

Also, If I connect an external usb Hdd to one of the ports on the computer it shows up as an internal drive, just noticed this as I was using it through my monitor hub which is connected to my computer via a Pci Fresco Logic usb3 card earlier.

any suggestions?