pastrychef's Asus ROG Strix Z370-G Gaming (WI-FI AC) build w/ i9-9900K + AMD 6600 XT

[pastrychef]

First, SUCCESS.
Then, fail.

Success: After pulling all 3 HDDs from the system and plugging in a fresh blank SATA drive, I was able to do a straight install using Clover5128/BigSur11.1, using iMacPro1,1 definition.

OpenClover still doesn’t work with this setup, fyi.


After successful installation, I shut down and attempted to reboot - but since that very first 1or2 reboots, I can’t get anything to work - or if it IS working, then I’m unable to see it.

I tried reinstalling Big Sur - but that hasn’t worked either, in fact I can no longer get past a series of reboots and blank screens, whether I try to boot with one of the available options, or reinstall. Tried with loading Clover off the USB installer, still no luck.

It’s possible I made some kind of error, or corrupted the config file along the way. Will have to wait until my MacBook Pro comes back from repairs to build another installer USB and try afresh - maybe with Catalina instead.

In the meantime, will try to edit the config.plist options via boot loader and see if I can jog anything to work.

Make sure you are booting from the correct EFI.

Also, please try the EFI in post #11352.

 

[artissmo]

Make sure you are booting from the correct EFI.

Also, please try the EFI in post #11352.

OK thanks I will! I found my old Mac mini so am making USB installers again .

Am making a Catalina installer. What is a stable Clover - or OpenCore - version to try it with?

 

[TSXHACK]

Hi pastrychef

Are you still runnning this machine?

I purchased the Mac Mini M1 16GB version, and thought all was good and well now. Holy cow! What a worthless piece of tech WIFI & Bluetooth disconnects more than it connects, and USB speeds are a joke. 150MB/S less than on the TB3 ports on the Mac Mini than on the Z370-G USB ports I sent it back, but in the mean time, I deleted all system data on the drives from the Hack. Not the best choice in my life I know

Yesterday, I tried to build a Catalina on the Hack again, but I could not get it to boot onto the USB. I reset and changed the BIOS settings as described in your first post, made a new Catalina install on my MacBook Air and replaced the EFI folder with the OC version 0.6.6 you provided. Tried all USB ports with two different USB drives. Nada. Will not boot to the USB. It just boots into the BIOS. Pressed F8 on every boot, and chose the USB drive. Do you think it's a BIOS setting (I checked twice, but I could have missed something) or maybe an invalid boot drive? I made the bootable USB in terminal using the guide Apple provides. THANKS!

 

[pastrychef]

Hi pastrychef

Are you still runnning this machine?

I purchased the Mac Mini M1 16GB version, and thought all was good and well now. Holy cow! What a worthless piece of tech WIFI & Bluetooth disconnects more than it connects, and USB speeds are a joke. 150MB/S less than on the TB3 ports on the Mac Mini than on the Z370-G USB ports I sent it back, but in the mean time, I deleted all system data on the drives from the Hack. Not the best choice in my life I know

Yesterday, I tried to build a Catalina on the Hack again, but I could not get it to boot onto the USB. I reset and changed the BIOS settings as described in your first post, made a new Catalina install on my MacBook Air and replaced the EFI folder with the OC version 0.6.6 you provided. Tried all USB ports with two different USB drives. Nada. Will not boot to the USB. It just boots into the BIOS. Pressed F8 on every boot, and chose the USB drive. Do you think it's a BIOS setting (I checked twice, but I could have missed something) or maybe an invalid boot drive? I made the bootable USB in terminal using the guide Apple provides. THANKS!

Yes. I still have this build running.

Please try downloading the OpenCore 0.6.6 EFI again. I updated it and fixed somethings.

 

[TSXHACK]

Ok, thanks! Would you recommend upgrading to a Gigabyte Z390 M Gaming intead of the ASUS board? I have a 8700K CPU, which I'm not planning on upgrading.

 

[pastrychef]

Ok, tahanks! Would you recommend upgrading to a Gigabyte Z390 M Gaming intead of the ASUS board? I have a 8700K CPU, which I'm not planning on upgrading.

No, I would not recommend that. If you already have this motherboard, there are no real advantages to going with the Z390 M Gaming.

 

[TSXHACK]

Ok. Thanks.

Would my USB boot drive fail if I formatted it as Master Boot Record instead of GUID? I might have done so

 

[artissmo]

Make sure you are booting from the correct EFI.

Also, please try the EFI in post #11352.

TOTAL SUCCESS!! The updated EFI from Post #11352 did the trick, whatever it was! And I built a new Big Sur installer from scratch, as well.

So my steps:
1) I retained the system ID as iMacPro1,1
2) Added the boot argument for pikera (in /NVRAM/3rd UUID/boot_arg)
3) Populated serials for system, mb, and uuid
4) Populated the ethernet Mac no. (as found in /System Preferences/Networks/Ethernet/Advanced)
and everything went really really smoothly after that.

Since I had a few reversals of progress, I'll bat this build about and report with updates, if any.

A big THANK YOU again, for your experience, time, and attention to detail!! You ROCK!

 

[pastrychef]

Updated my OpenCore 0.6.6 EFI with a few bug fixes in post #1. Should work OOTB now.

 

[Huitzilopochtli]

Updated my OpenCore 0.6.6 EFI with a few bug fixes in post #1. Should work OOTB now.

What exactly did you change? The original 0.6.6 from you works smoothly so far, so should I still change to the new one?