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

[MarcoL86]

been browsing and learning about hackintoshes through this website, thank you everyone!

I had an opportunity to pickup a motherboard similar to pastrychef's, but I had one question.
I have the Asus ROG Strix Z370-G Gaming (non-wifi A/C) model; i think this is an asia specific board. My question is, will this board still work if i follow the original guide and purchase a PCI-e based wireless card/adapter?

Forgive me, I'm still a newb in all this.

 

[pastrychef]

been browsing and learning about hackintoshes through this website, thank you everyone!

I had an opportunity to pickup a motherboard similar to pastrychef's, but I had one question.
I have the Asus ROG Strix Z370-G Gaming (non-wifi A/C) model; i think this is an asia specific board. My question is, will this board still work if i follow the original guide and purchase a PCI-e based wireless card/adapter?

Forgive me, I'm still a newb in all this.

Yes, it will work. There have been quite a few users with the non-Wi-Fi AC model who have reported success on this thread.

 

[Thorsager]

@MarcoL86 Im based in europe (Denmark) I also have the non-WI-FI AC model. So its not asia specific - and it works flawlessly with pastrychefs EFI folders.
Only reason my signature says otherwise is that I was unable to pick the non-wifi version in the dropdown menu when selecting items in my build.

 

[MarcoL86]

@MarcoL86 Im based in europe (Denmark) I also have the non-WI-FI AC model. So its not asia specific - and it works flawlessly with pastrychefs EFI folders.
Only reason my signature says otherwise is that I was unable to pick the non-wifi version in the dropdown menu when selecting items in my build.

Thanks for the information!
Curious as to whether you have wifi on your build? If so, what components are you using in terms of wifi card?

Yes, it will work. There have been quite a few users with the non-Wi-Fi AC model who have reported success on this thread.

Thanks for the information! I’ll look into a bit more!

 

[pastrychef]

Thanks for the information!
Curious as to whether you have wifi on your build? If so, what components are you using in terms of wifi card?



Thanks for the information! I’ll look into a bit more!

You can add Wi-Fi/Bluetooth using one of the Apple branded cards in a PCI-e adaptor. Something like this:

 

[pastrychef]

Just in case it's useful information to someone, I was able to resolve my issue ultimately by rolling back the Asus BIOS from the most recent version to a previous version (for my Maximus X Hero, it mean rolling back from BIOS 1704 to 1602). Technically, the previous BIOS is no longer approved for the 9th gen Intel processors like the 9900K, but it was the initial BIOS to support the 9th gen processors, so I figure it was worth a shot.

Once I rolled back the BIOS, the ability to select a primary display re-appeared, and once I was able to set the primary display, my issues with not being able to see POST and enter BIOS were resolved. Also, my internal graphics now no longer shows up in system information, which is the correct setup for a headless configuration. In IOReg, the iGPU is properly configured under a headless platform-id as outlined by @pastrychef and h.264 and HEVC hardware encoding/decoding is working perfectly.

So my issues seem to have resulted from Asus's unfortunate decision to remove the primary display option from the current BIOS. I can't seem to find any issues with running an older BIOS, even though it's no longer the recommended BIOS. Hopefully Asus will bring back the primary display option in future BIOS updates. Interestingly, my system agent shows up as Kaby Lake instead of Coffee Lake, which is probably a direct result of this BIOS being released before the 9th gen processors were released.

BIOS1602Graphics

• golfleep
• Dec 20, 2018

BIOS1602KabyLake

• golfleep
• Dec 20, 2018

I filed a bug report with Asus. Hopefully, they will bring back the ability to choose Primary Display.

 

[golfleep]

I filed a bug report with Asus. Hopefully, they will bring back the ability to choose Primary Display.

Thanks for doing that! I actually have a ticket open with them as well, that I initiated back when I first noticed this issue a few weeks ago. Not much productive has come of it, just a lot of "we're continuing to investigate the issue" responses every few days.

Obviously, you have the same issue with the current BIOS on your Z370-G as noted from your most recent BIOS screenshots, but I'm assuming you're having no problems with the PEG being the primary display, right? Just wondering why in your case (and I presume many others as well, since not too many seem to be reporting this as a problem) the BIOS defaults to setting PEG as primary where in my case it doesn't seem to want to. I did initially use the integrated graphics alone when first testing things out to make sure all the parts were working, so maybe the BIOS retained these settings as part of "loading optimized defaults" but that shouldn't have persisted across the several BIOS flashes that I performed trying to figure things out.

 

[pastrychef]

Thanks for doing that! I actually have a ticket open with them as well, that I initiated back when I first noticed this issue a few weeks ago. Not much productive has come of it, just a lot of "we're continuing to investigate the issue" responses every few days.

Obviously, you have the same issue with the current BIOS on your Z370-G as noted from your most recent BIOS screenshots, but I'm assuming you're having no problems with the PEG being the primary display, right? Just wondering why in your case (and I presume many others as well, since not too many seem to be reporting this as a problem) the BIOS defaults to setting PEG as primary where in my case it doesn't seem to want to. I did initially use the integrated graphics alone when first testing things out to make sure all the parts were working, so maybe the BIOS retained these settings as part of "loading optimized defaults" but that shouldn't have persisted across the several BIOS flashes that I performed trying to figure things out.

Maybe that's the difference. I never used IGPU only and always used a video card...

 

[xanderevo]

Hi @pastrychef, I followed the Designare build and my machine is rock-solid, I just have a little hiccup that I'm unable to solve maybe you can help me. I also have a Vega64 with the Intel UHD 630, following both guides I am able to get them work both with the iMac 18,3 smbios but I can't work with jpeg files.

Otherwise if I swap the SMBIOS to iMacPro 1,1 jpegs are working, but my UHD doesn't show up.

any Ideas? the config.plist is configured as yours in devices/etc, Bios too.

I fixed it with the help of FBPatcher, enabling into devices a framebuffer patch enable, sorry for bothering.

 

[pastrychef]

Hi @pastrychef, I followed the Designare build and my machine is rock-solid, I just have a little hiccup that I'm unable to solve maybe you can help me. I also have a Vega64 with the Intel UHD 630, following both guides I am able to get them work both with the iMac 18,3 smbios but I can't work with jpeg files.

Otherwise if I swap the SMBIOS to iMacPro 1,1 jpegs are working, but my UHD doesn't show up.

any Ideas? the config.plist is configured as yours in devices/etc, Bios too.

I fixed it with the help of FBPatcher, enabling into devices a framebuffer patch enable, sorry for bothering.

What did you enable?

If it works with iMacPro1,1 and not iMac18,3, it's probably because iMacPro1,1 doesn't use IGPU. You probably need to spoof Coffee Lake ig-platform-id.

Quick Look and iTunes DRM issues can be resolved by using iMacPro1,1 because iMacPro1,1 doesn't use IGPU. But using this method would also sacrifice the benefits IGPU/Quick Sync provides. There's a Lilu plugin called NoVPAJpeg that helps with this but it essentially bypasses the IGPU which I, personally, find less than ideal. It's kind of like if you car engine isn't working right and instead of fixing the engine, you decide punch a hole on the floor of the car and propel your car with your feet.


In my opinion, the ideal solution is to figure out the problem, configure everything properly, and use iMac18,3.