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[In Progress] Ascending El Capitan with GA-Z68XP-UD3 and core i7 2600K from 10.7.4

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o_furioso

o_furioso

Joined
Jul 26, 2012
Messages
26
Motherboard
GA-Z68XP-UD3
CPU
i7-2600K
Graphics
GTX 980
Mac
  1. MacBook Pro
  2. Mac mini
Classic Mac
  1. iBook
  2. Power Mac
  3. PowerBook
Mobile Phone
  1. iOS
This is eventually going to be a guide for installing and it's going to say "Success" up there. It doesn't say that yet, and this will be a document of my progress with this hardware with the specific side-steps and caveats that I encounter as I go.

Update: I got my audio working with MaciASL! See detailed instructions below.

Update: I got my EVGA GTX 980 working (easily!)

"Don't fix it it if it ain't broke." No, but how broke is it? Because I had a happy little system that booted ML just fine, supported dual monitors, booted into windows when I asked it to and everything was groovy. But if you're at all like me you can't leave well enough alone. Plus I bought new hardware.

I mostly followed the excellent guide here: http://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/u...orted-intel-based-pc.172672/#alt_post_install

So I'm going to follow that outline here but with a few additions and other bits:

Before You Begin

One thing that's different from when I did my initial Hackintosh for this system is Clover. We're now using the Clover bootloader and it's very different. I like it, but it's different. There is an incredibly useful tool that's pretty well documented called Clover Configurator that seems to take the place of Multibeast. Im not 100% certain on that, but I think we use it in a similar way. This video introduction was handy even though the dude is running Yosemite:


OK, so start downloading the installer because that takes forever, but this is towards making that fateful decision (step 15) in building your USB installer drive. It seems like it might be no-brainer, but, again, I would urge caution here. I did not and as a result had a rocky time getting my system back.

About upgrading your BIOS to UEFI

Let's talk a bit about BIOS. I wish that I had taken more time to look at my options about UEFI, because if I had I think I probably could have saved myself a lot of trouble making this work. And all I had to do was choose clover legacy. My advice would be to very seriously weigh this option before you jump in. Upgrading your motherboard to UEFI may unlock some cool stuff, but it is a fundamental change to your hardware and there will be serious consequences. But if you should go that route I'll tell you what I did.

I went here and searched for my motherboard to see whether UEFI was even an option. You need to be sure you are searching for the correct hardware version and everything here. I keep a list of my hardware in a separate document and copy/paste to be certain I don't mess up. Close enough isn't going to work here. Mine was a GA-Z68XP-UD3 (rev 1.3)
http://www.gigabyte.us/support-downloads/support-downloads.aspx
It was and I downloaded the U1G bios and set about making a USB stick to update it. I followed this video guide with the (still functional) Win 7 install on that system:

It worked and my system now uses (irrevocably) the new UEFI.

Recommended BIOS/UEFI Settings

So if you did upgrade to UEFI, I have some recommendations there. Do what the guide says about Loading the optimized defaults. You do indeed need to set your SATA Mode Selection to AHCI, but I found the other settings (including deactivating USB 3) were not necessary.

Booting off your El Capitan Install USB

So you've gone through and used Unibeast to prepare your USB install disk and made fateful decisions, etc. Now the easy part? Nope. This was my first big snag. Boot, F12, Choose USB-HDD, Clover, Enter to boot from the USB-- kernel panic.

So this looks dire, but what you are trying to do is very complicated. There are going to be problems. I took this snap with my iPhone so I could do some hunting and figure out what went wrong. I searched for "AppleIntelCPUPowerManagement" and eventually found this godsend of a thread:

http://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/big-list-of-solutions-for-el-capitan-install-problems.173991/

You need to tell Clover to add the boot argument "cpus=1". Don't know how to do that? I didn't. This will help: http://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/clover-basics-and-switching-advice.171680/

With that single flag (that took me several hours to find) I was able to boot into the installer, format the drive and install El Capitan.

Using El Capitan

Which is great, only... So are you going to have to set that damned boot flag every time? No. So post-install you've got Clover Configurator going mostly to build you a fake SMBIOS so that the decidedly non-apple hardware in your make makes sense to the OS. That is helpful. Awesome. At this point, my machine believes it is an iMac 12,2 which had the Sandy Bridge processor like this one so thing should be comparatively smooth there. But it still doesn't really understand your processor and that's where you're going to need to create and install an SSDT. I don't really know what that is, but as far as I know it's what tells your hardware about your processor which is useful for power management (that thing that was causing kernel panic earlier.)

http://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/quick-guide-to-generate-a-ssdt-for-cpu-power-management.177456/

After I did that, my system boots from Clover without me having to set any boot args or anything.

It even uses both monitors.

And my USB3 ports work (I have not tested rigorously, so they may only be working at USB 2.0 speeds, but at least they work and don't crash the OS like they used to.)

But audio still is not working. And I haven't really addressed the Windows install I want to do. More to come...
 
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Snoblowr
GA-Z68XP-UD3 |  i7 2600K |  Radeon HD 6870
Update. I got my audio working. In a related story, you're not going to like it.

Basically follow the instructions to install El Capitan and do the CustomMac Essentials. In looking up this problem I found this thread which had the same motherboard as mine but a different problem in that there were no audio devices showing up. I had audio devices, they just weren't doing anything:

http://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/el-capitan-ga-z68xp-ud3-no-audio-devices.189531/

His solution was to follow these instructions:

https://github.com/toleda/audio_ALCInjection/blob/master/[Guide]-Add_or_Edit_HDEF-dsdt.pdf

Which sort of outlines (in a fairly cryptic way) how to hack your DSDT.aml file using a utility and some pre-rolled scripts to make your RealTek audio devices play nice with MacOS. What's a DSDT? That's nerd for a file that tells your OS what the hell all that weird stuff on your motherboard does. I had tried before installing my old DSDT file. That resulted in almost instantaneous kernel panic. I'm not sure whether it was a problem with the UEFI upgrade (I strongly suspect this) or what, but anyway, I'm going to distill the parts of the above guide into something a little easier to follow.

First of all go grab the tool. It's called MaciASL and it's free and really sexy and seems like it would make it very easy to break all sorts of fun things on your computer. The link in the guide wasn't a link for me:

http://maciasl.sourceforge.net/

I also grabbed ioreg from here: http://www.osx86.net/files/file/4251-ioregistryexplorer/ , but I didn't wind up using it.

They recommend using Carbon Copy Cloner to make a bootable backup of your system. I'm going to recommend you do that to and Carbon Copy Cloner is just awesome so if you don't have it already, do yourself a big favor and get it. I was brave/foolish and besides hadn't really done much to personalize my system yet beyond checking certain functionality and so I didn't.

One thing that may be confusing in the Guide is the compression of key instructions. While, say, each of the Hex Device IDs of the RealTek drivers gets it's own line, something as important as, say, adding the MOST IMPORTANT SCRIPTS IN THESE EFFING INSTRUCTIONS as a source via the preferences menu gets compressed into "MaciASL/Preferences/Source/+/https://raw.github.com/toleda/audio_ALCinjection/master" .

Which is to say:
  1. Install MaciASL
  2. Launch the application
  3. Go to the MaciASL Menu, choose Preferences.
  4. Select the Pane for Sources (a Purple Folder).
    This points to some internet locations where this application will look for resources to install or modify your local resources. It's already populated with some ASUS and Gigabyte ones.
  5. Add a new source by clicking the "+" button at the top right of the list.
  6. Name this new source "Toleda"
  7. Point it at the URL
    https://raw.github.com/toleda/audio_ALCinjection/master
  8. Close the Preference Window
  9. Press the Compile Button on the main Window
  10. You should get a Compiler Summary window
    With any luck, at the bottom of that window it should say 0 errors. It may say that it has warnings. (I had 2) But no errors. If you have errors... well I don't know what to do. Start over. Ask someone else? I dunno. I would stop at this point if you have errors.
  11. If you have no errors, then we're going to go find your HDEF block
  12. From the Edit Menu choose Find > Find...
  13. Type HDEF and hit return
    You should get something highlighted that says "Device HDEF"
  14. If you don't find HDEF, Stop.
    Well something is wrong. Maybe you didn't do the CustomMac Essentials bit. Basically you need something there for these scripts to edit. They won't work otherwise. Figure out what's wrong or start asking. For me, I found HDEF and it looked like this:
  15. Click the Purple "Patch" Icon in the main window
  16. Find the "Toleda" Source you added earlier
    I clicked the triangles next to ASUS, Gigabyte, and Sourceforge to make it easier.
  17. Select "Enable Audio ID: 1"
    It'll take a second to load, but you should see a script appear after a few seconds that starts with "Method"
  18. Click the Apply button
    It'll take a second. Congratulations! You've just edited how your Mac is going to see hardware on your motherboard. It's terrifying!
  19. Select "Enable Audio ID: 2"
    It'll take a second to load, but you should see a script appear after a few seconds that starts with "Method"
  20. Click the Apply button
    It'll take a second.
  21. Click the Close button
    The Patch overlay should disappear and you are staring at an edited DSDT. Now we'll need to do something with this.
  22. From the File menu, choose Save As...
  23. Save this file to your desktop or someplace convenient
    I called mine "System_DSDT.aml" (do add the ".aml") but I'm not sure how much it matters what you name it because in the next steps we're going to make sure clover loads the right one here.
  24. Launch the application Clover Configurator
    If you've gotten this far and you haven't used Clover Configurator, I don't really know what to tell you. This is maybe a bad idea? Make sure you're really using the Clover bootloader. If you aren't you're gonna have a bad time.
  25. If it isn't already mounted, go to the Mount EFI tool and click the button to Mount EFI partition
  26. Click the Open Partition button
    This will open a Finder window looking at your EFI partition.
  27. Drag the DSDT.aml file you saved a few steps back into the folder: EFI>CLOVER>ACPI>patched>
    If you're following my instructions you may already see SSDT files in here. Those are supposed to be here. Leave them be.
  28. Back in Clover Configurator, go to the File Menu and choose Open
  29. Open the config.plist file which will be in: EFI>CLOVER>
    This, by the way, is the little bit of important information that took me a while to sort out. You need to edit the config.plist file in your EFI partition for any of this Clover Configurator stuff to have any effect. This may not be obvious to the uninitiated, but it's critical here. If you aren't editing that file, you aren't going to see much of anything change.
  30. Go to the Acpi section
  31. In the DSDT Name field, enter the name of the DSDT file you edited
    and presumably just copied into the EFI>CLOVER>ACPI>patched> folder
  32. From the File Menu choose Save
    You have defined some audio hardware on your motherboard to the OS and when the bootloader loads, you should have some operational sound devices.
  33. Restart
    You won't notice any differences yet.
  34. Go to System Preferences
    The Apple Menu is probably the quickest way if you don't have it in your Dock.
  35. Choose Sound
    This is the Sound preferences pane. I would tick the box for "Play feedback when volume is changed" at least for now. You can always switch it back later. Apple defaults to having this off now, and it can be kind of annoying, but for now we want to make sure it's working and if you are at all like me, by this point the little blits you get adjusting volume will be music to your ears.
  36. Click on the Output tab
  37. Choose one of the Line out port options
    By default mine was pointing to the Optical Digital Out, but I wasn't using my digital out. If you are, err, I hope this works for you.
  38. Adjust the Volume
    Did you hear blits?
    Yes? Yay! You're done. You have audio. That's rad.
    No? Try the other Line out port. Adjust volume.
    No? Seriously? Damn. Something got messed up. I'm just telling you what worked for me. At some point before I had tried the audio_CloverALC-110command from http://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/audio-realtek-alc-applehda-guide.143757/ , but it didn't work. It may be that this does something to set up the above method for success, but if you are still having problems, keep searching. I'm sure there is an answer here someplace.
 
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Snoblowr
GA-Z68XP-UD3 |  i7 2600K |  Radeon HD 6870
Update: I got my EVGA GTX 980 Working. In a related story, you're going to love it.

So I was anticipating great pain. Getting my ATI card to talk to my first system was a bit of a bear. Here's the steps I took:

  1. Shut down the machine.
  2. Pulled the old card.
  3. Installed the new card.
  4. Power on. (grit teeth)
  5. It totally worked and posted and allowed me to log in and sound still worked. It was at the default I-have-no-idea-what-this-card-is 1024 x 768 which looks preposterous on my 27" monitor, but it worked.
  6. Looked up what the guide had to say about these cards: followed these instructions.
  7. Downloaded the drivers and installed.
  8. Rebooted.
  9. Glorious full resolution and the system even understands the card.
Seriously. That was it. No hex editing. No plugging and repluging and patching and... it's weird. I've got that "too quiet" feeling. Anyway, it in there and it's awesome.
NVidiaGTX980-InstalledandWorking.png
 
Snoblowr
GA-Z68XP-UD3 |  i7 2600K |  Radeon HD 6870
So after upgrading to UEFI, did you use UEFI boot mode or Legacy when doing unibeast?

Edit: So I used Legacy at first, then decided to try UEFI boot mode instead after a few successful installs, but nothing worked post. All I got were reboot loops. Granted my board is the same and it's running UEFI, most tutorials say to use Legacy. UEFI worked. Onto post install Clover setup and kext setup.
 
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dell500 said:
So after upgrading to UEFI, did you use UEFI boot mode or Legacy when doing unibeast?

Edit: So I used Legacy at first, then decided to try UEFI boot mode instead after a few successful installs, but nothing worked post. All I got were reboot loops. Granted my board is the same and it's running UEFI, most tutorials say to use Legacy. UEFI worked. Onto post install Clover setup and kext setup.
Click to expand...

Best of luck! I was dumb. I picked UEFI and then upgraded my motherboard. Retrospect tells me this was a painful decision as I had taken steps to ensure my old install would still be functional while I monkeyed with this new OS. I was naive or brave or impatient and my reward has been a lot of effort to get my system talking to me again. But it is. And it's pretty awesome I've got to say.
 
Snoblowr
GA-Z68XP-UD3 |  i7 2600K |  Radeon HD 6870
Hey, Z68x mobo and i2600K user here too. El Cap has given this PC new life. Much faster/smoother/more stable than ever!

Jjust for other readers, I have an "ancient" F8 bios running El Capitan. :)
So upgrading to UEFI bios isn't necessary if you want to avoid messing up with your mobo's bios.

I'm not using DSDT.

For Unibeast, I use Legacy... but during post-install, and selecting Legacy or Legacy-root, didn't work for me either. So I selected UEFI and that didn't work either... I ended up copying manually all the files from the USB stick to the EFI partition on my hard drive. It worked!

Mt USB3 ports are working, but I think running at USB2 speeds.

My ESATA ports are working too... but can't be used during bootup. But works fine as a USB3 alternative after OSX has booted, very fast transfers!

For a very long time, I was stucked on 10.8.4... can't even upgrade to 10.8.5 - lots of problems, can't make it work. This is my work machine so not really in a hurry to upgrade to latest versions but I'm being left behind software versions I can't use. So had to grit my teeth and upgrade to El Capitan. This new installer Unibeast and Clover is probably the easiest install ever! (I started back in 10.6 with hackintoshing.)
 
Awesome! Old school. Yeah, things were a bit more rough and tumble back then. Glad yours is working so well and went smoothly. If I'm giving advice it would be to do what powerpcg5 did. My system is running fairly smoothly now, but it was an awful lot of work getting it there.
 
Snoblowr
GA-Z68XP-UD3 |  i7 2600K |  Radeon HD 6870
Doing a SSDT seems to fix all the issues I had. Finally have a stable build up. Thanks for all the info!
 
Glad to hear it, dell500! Yeah, I think the kernel panic thing can be really scary, but once you identify the cpu seems like things go more smoothly. I'm still getting intermittent Finder lock-ups. Very few and far between. I haven't been able to figure out a common trigger. What's weird is that other apps will keep going. But even if I try to relaunch Finder it doesn't seem to want to come back. It may be screen sharing as that's how I've been driving the machine lately. Anyway if I can get it to reboot, it comes back fine. One time it went into a restart loop so I'm not sure what happened there. It seemed to sort itself out though. I was half asleep at the time. Not really sure what went wrong.
 
Snoblowr
GA-Z68XP-UD3 |  i7 2600K |  Radeon HD 6870
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