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MOST POWERFUL HACKBOOK PRO --ASUS ROG G701VO-CS74K, i7-6820 64GB DDR4 w/980 (dedicated!!)

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Got an INsANE DEAL on MSI GT80S Titan SLI-072. UPDATE (May 2nd): Gotta love Amazon Warehouse Deals! THEY SENT ME WRONG LAPTOP!!!!!!
i7-6920, SLI 980 (!!!!). 32GB DDR4, 512GB SSD + 1TB HDD
Forget MacBook Pro killer, this monster of a laptop is MAC PRO killer!

For DaVinci Resolve, THIS IS THE DREAM MACHINE!
I hope and pray it will run macOS stable (I'm ready for the challenge!). Not expecting all features to work 100%, but stable is what I need.

I hope my guides/posts will help out Pro community, that has been left out by Apple. Taking a leap of faith.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01974IDWQ/?tag=tonymacx86com-20
 
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Kexts will not help. You need to change the SATA mode, or install an M.2 SATA SSD.

No such option. Unfortunately this particular laptop doesn't have SATA devices, just NVMe and RAID mode.
The only option left is to boot it every single time off USB3 SSD.
 
No such option. Unfortunately this particular laptop doesn't have SATA devices, just NVMe and RAID mode.
The only option left is to boot it every single time off USB3 SSD.

When you set SATA to RAID mode, NVMe is handled by Intel RST (eg. connected to the SATA controller).
You need to set SATA to AHCI, so the NVMe drives can be handled as industry standard NVMe.
 
When you set SATA to RAID mode, NVMe is handled by Intel RST (eg. connected to the SATA controller).
You need to set SATA to AHCI, so the NVMe drives can be handled as industry standard NVMe.

This clarifies things! Thank you!
You should add it to your LAPTOP guide! This is a golden nugget of information.

Unfortunately, this laptop doesn't have anything except RAID in SATA settings. So NVMe is always in RST mode, even when drives are in Non-RST-Raid mode. I hope this makes sense.
 
This clarifies things! Thank you!
You should add it to your LAPTOP guide! This is a golden nugget of information.

I will add something to the FAQ/NVMe section.

Unfortunately, this laptop doesn't have anything except RAID in SATA settings. So NVMe is always in RST mode, even when drives are in Non-RST-Raid mode. I hope this makes sense.

Check for a BIOS update.
There was a Lenovo that came up earlier that had the same BIOS limitation, and Lenovo provided a new BIOS as this is an issue in Linux too.
 
I'd be interested to try on a laptop like this one. Discrete 980! That's awesome.

Do you still have the ASUS? That MSI is dual GPU, huh. But not Optimus?

How is the i2c touchpad? For regular use is it okay, compared to a Synaptics?

About the BIOS / SSD issue: do you know what would happen if it had AHCI drives instead of NVMe? For example the SM951 part number for 512GB in AHCI is MZHPV512HDGL. They're getting harder to find.

Otherwise it may be down to BIOS hacking. Possibly this procedure.
 
I'd be interested to try on a laptop like this one. Discrete 980! That's awesome.

Do you still have the ASUS? That MSI is dual GPU, huh. But not Optimus?

How is the i2c touchpad? For regular use is it okay, compared to a Synaptics?

About the BIOS / SSD issue: do you know what would happen if it had AHCI drives instead of NVMe? For example the SM951 part number for 512GB in AHCI is MZHPV512HDGL. They're getting harder to find.

Otherwise it may be down to BIOS hacking. Possibly this procedure.


I have returned all Asus/MSI laptops. I don't have them anymore. Decided to cancel on the MSI laptop with dual 980, because nvidia released Pascal drivers. No need to stay in the previous gen anymore.

i2c touchpad worked fine first couple of days, then for some unknown reason, stopped. I haven't tried to fix it. But it worked fine and I think better than synaptics, but still not as good as Apple's trackpad. :(

I tried AHCI M.2 SSD, it showed it as AHCI in bios, but it didn't allow to change SATA to AHCI, still showed ONLY RAID.
I have opened the bios firmware, and there I saw ZERO reference to the SATA AHCI. I saw only SATA RAID. So no native support. I am not experienced in custom-hacking BIOS, but I can only manage to read the contents of it.
 
If I ever decide to custom MOD bios, that link will be a starting point. THANK YOU!

BIOS hacking can be quite fun. My last laptop, I got lucky. It has an InysdeH2O BIOS that can be hacked with Linux /sys interface. A single bit flipped and you have all the advanced menus, so it made it really easy! Another time, I was able to find the obscure Windows tools to make the modded BIOS that I needed, but nothing could flash it. I ended up having to use a flash programmer with a replacement chip and then solder that in place of the old one on the motherboard. That one was a bit too much work just to get wifi working.

As for new laptops, have you seen this thread? Cookme and I have been discussing options. And somebody else dropped by to say their G502VS has working graphics.
 
I have returned all Asus/MSI laptops. I don't have them anymore. Decided to cancel on the MSI laptop with dual 980, because nvidia released Pascal drivers. No need to stay in the previous gen anymore.

i2c touchpad worked fine first couple of days, then for some unknown reason, stopped. I haven't tried to fix it. But it worked fine and I think better than synaptics, but still not as good as Apple's trackpad. :(

I tried AHCI M.2 SSD, it showed it as AHCI in bios, but it didn't allow to change SATA to AHCI, still showed ONLY RAID.
I have opened the bios firmware, and there I saw ZERO reference to the SATA AHCI. I saw only SATA RAID. So no native support. I am not experienced in custom-hacking BIOS, but I can only manage to read the contents of it.

Appreciate all your work with this computer as I have an Asus Rog as well and they are great for hackintoshing but there is not a ton of detailed posts on the subject so its always great to see more for newer gens. I understand the RAID setting is locked in Bios, and that you used an external SSD to boot. Does this laptop have the ability to slide in a 2.5" SSD if you remove both NVMe slots. I believe the G752 series could if you did it that way, but your post says no SATA, so I just wanted to double check as I cannot find a picture with the back open of this or similar model Rogs.

My main hackintosh is this model (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01DT4A2K6/?tag=tonymacx86com-20) and I have been using it for a little over a year with good stability. I get about 30 - 40fps in Resolve for 4K ProRes 4444 to 422HQ to give you some idea. My test with a G752 yielded a boost of 6-8 fps. Im now considering upgrading to a 1080 series Rog since those gpus are now supported and they have 64gb of ram, which would be a great rendering boost. My main concern is the M.2 Raid issue. It seems from the responses you would have to find a proper Bios to flash. Also, is the i7 7th generation cpu supported (i7 7820HK). Thoughts?
 
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