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

[zzmadd]

Yes, the VRM was good. My 9900K was running great on it. But I was never able to get the RAM stable on anything except with XMP disable and RAM speeds at 2400MHz. Adjusting timings and voltage didn't help at all.

Also, when adjusting timings, the RAM behaved erratically. For example, if I manually set 3200MHz-16-18-18-38, it would sometimes perform like its set to 2133MHz. Or, the RAM would seemingly work correctly at my settings when the system first boots up, but, as the system stays up and running, the RAM speed would steadily decrease until the system eventually freezes.

I would run GeekBench when the system first reboots and RAM speeds would be in the mid-9000s. This score would steadily decrease as system uptime increase. By about day 2-3, GeekBench scores would go all the way down to about the mid to upper-8000s. That's if the system hasn't frozen by then.

That's strange...
What I usually do with Gigabyte Z390 motherboards is to set XMP, then don't touch RAM speed, as if I touch that the systems always gives boot errors.
The solution is to only touch timings and rise them until the system runs well..All the RAM options stay at Auto.
Having said that, that behavior of being unable to down clock RAM otherwise the system boot fails, is quite annoying and true to only Gigabyte boards.

 

[pastrychef]

That's strange...
What I usually do with Gigabyte Z390 motherboards is to set XMP, then don't touch RAM speed, as if I touch that the systems always gives boot errors.
The solution is to only touch timings and rise them until the system runs well..All the RAM options stay at Auto.
Having said that, that behavior of being unable to down clock RAM otherwise the system boot fails, is quite annoying and true to only Gigabyte boards.

Yeah, it was my first and likely last Gigabyte motherboard for a long time.

 

[greenleaf123]

hi @pastrychef ! you helped me a while back with this issue with my Photoshop files that just stop Save progress randomly (pretty much everytime I use Photoshop now ;
issue:
- while using Photoshop, I click Save. Then at 0%, or some point e.g. 68% like the screenshot, it just stopped progress and stay at that number forever. I can still use photoshop though but can't save in the regular Save or Save As way
- it does allow to save using the legacy Save for Web or Export As.. and i can save some of my work of JPG or PNG but always loose all my layers.
- AFTER the saving, when restarting, Mac OS ALWAYS shows this spinning wheel forever at shutdown.(screenshot below).
it goes on forever. even after hours it's still spinning so I hard shutdown by pressing off button for 5 seconds.

I did some tests and identifying some new findings:

- I took off all OC and XMP is off.
- I disabled Graphic Acceleration completely (all the various options of acceleration gave same issue so turned it off)
- I changed the scratch disks for Ps
- I cloned my OS SSD drive to a new SSD to make sure it was not an issue with that drive.
- files on external HHD drive, external and internal SSDs all result in same type of issue. issue.
- this issue happens with all the version of Ps and Mac OS in the last 1year & 1/2 so it's not the Ps

so we can conclude that:
- it is not a hardware issue because of the OS or Ps file drives
- it is not an issue related to GPU or Graphic Acceleration
- it's not the Ps and Mac Os version causing this since they all do it.

any ideas what can be the root cause of this?
- a part of me wants to just buy a new motherboard just to see if that is somehow causing some sort of weird issues of the Mac OS file structures. Is that even possible? any way to test this?

ANY HELP WOULD BE SUPER APPRECIATED! Thanks again for all your help!

 

[pastrychef]

hi @pastrychef ! you helped me a while back with this issue with my Photoshop files that just stop Save progress randomly (pretty much everytime I use Photoshop now ; ( I did some tests and identifying some new findings:

- I took off all OC and XMP is off.
- I disabled Graphic Acceleration completely (all the various options of acceleration gave same issue so turned it off)
- I changed the scratch disks for Ps
- I cloned my OS SSD drive to a new SSD to make sure it was not an issue with that drive.
- files on external HHD drive, external and internal SSDs all result in same type of issue. issue.
- this issue happens with all the version of Ps and Mac OS in the last 1year & 1/2 so it's not the Ps

so we can conclude that:
- it is not a hardware issue because of the OS or Ps file drives
- it is not an issue related to GPU or Graphic Acceleration
- it's not the Ps and Mac Os version causing this since they all do it.

any ideas what can be the root cause of this?
- a part of me wants to just buy a new motherboard just to see if that is somehow causing some sort of weird issues of the Mac OS file structures. Is that even possible? any way to test this?

ANY HELP WOULD BE SUPER APPRECIATED! Thanks again for all your help!

Weird... When you first reported this, I really thought it was an overclock or RAM issue.

Can you try with a clean install of macOS and Photoshop with no plug-ins or any extra macOS apps installed?

Also, please set XMP to No in your config.plist:

 

[zzmadd]

Hi all,

A question just to check things. I'm testing:
FwRuntimeServices.efi
OcQuirks.efi

And they run nicely on a Z370 Asus board. But a Z390 Asus board doesn't boot with them.
Is it supposed to be this way? Anything else I have to add or modify in order to use those drivers on Z390 boards?
Thanks!

 

[pastrychef]

Hi all,

A question just to check things. I'm testing:
FwRuntimeServices.efi
OcQuirks.efi

And they run nicely on a Z370 Asus board. But a Z390 Asus board doesn't boot with them.
Is it supposed to be this way? Anything else I have to add or modify in order to use those drivers on Z390 boards?
Thanks!

Usually on Z370, you can use AptioMemoryFix, OsxAptioFix3Drv, or OcQuirks+FwRuntimeServices. Once you find an Aptio fix that works, macOS updates shouldn't break it. The only thing that should be able to break an Aptio fix is a radically new BIOS update.

OcQuirks+FwRuntimeServices can work with Z390. I've used it myself. But booting consistency will still not be 100% with it. Make sure to configure OcQuirks with the correct set of Quirks enabled. The default settings didn't work for me. Also, disabling IGPU on Z390 can help booting consistency a little, but it still won't be 100%.

You can try with the following Quirks:

For me, the most consistent booting was with OpenCore and IGPU disabled.

 

[zzmadd]

Usually on Z370, you can use AptioMemoryFix, OsxAptioFix3Drv, or OcQuirks+FwRuntimeServices. Once you find an Aptio fix that works, macOS updates shouldn't break it. The only thing that should be able to break an Aptio fix is a radically new BIOS update.

OcQuirks+FwRuntimeServices can work with Z390. I've used it myself. But booting consistency will still not be 100% with it. Make sure to configure OcQuirks with the correct set of Quirks enabled. The default settings didn't work for me. Also, disabling IGPU on Z390 can help booting consistency a little, but it still won't be 100%.

You can try with the following Quirks:
View attachment 438871

For me, the most consistent booting was with OpenCore and IGPU disabled.

Alright...thanks.
On the Asus Z370 I'm testing OcQuirks+FwRuntimeServices work OOB.
On the Asus Z390 I'm testing I usually use AptioMemoryFix+EmuVariableUEFI and it's totally fine. I wanted to try OcQuirks+FwRuntimeServices but they don't work.

Does your image come from OpenCore?

 

[pastrychef]

Alright...thanks.
On the Asus Z370 I'm testing OcQuirks+FwRuntimeServices work OOB.
On the Asus Z390 I'm testing I usually use AptioMemoryFix+EmuVariableUEFI and it's totally fine. I wanted to try OcQuirks+FwRuntimeServices but they don't work.

Does your image come from OpenCore?

On Z370, there's really no need to use OcQuirks, AptioMemoryFix or OsxAptioFix3Drv should work fine.

You are lucky that AptioMemoryFix works for you on Z390. It never worked right on my Z390.

Yes, the image is from my OpenCore config.plist. But it should work the same of OcQuirks since OcQuirks just pulls the Aptio fix portion from OpenCore.

 

[zzmadd]

The Gigabyte need EmuVariableUEFI + OsxAptioFix2Drv-free2000.efi
Asus Rog Striz Z390-I Gaming needs AptioMemoryFix + EmuVariableUEFI

With the combo OcQuirks+FwRuntimeServices I was looking for a "always working couple of drivers" solution but I can continue pinpointing the right ones according to the motherboard.

Do you think there any value in using OpenCore as of today compared to Clover? Thanks.

 

[pastrychef]

The Gigabyte need EmuVariableUEFI + OsxAptioFix2Drv-free2000.efi
Asus Rog Striz Z390-I Gaming needs AptioMemoryFix + EmuVariableUEFI

With the combo OcQuirks+FwRuntimeServices I was looking for a "always working couple of drivers" solution but I can continue pinpointing the right ones according to the motherboard.

Do you think there any value in using OpenCore as of today compared to Clover? Thanks.

With Z390, there are no consistencies. One set of drivers may work for one guy but not for the next guy who is using the same motherboard. What allows me to boot today may not allow me to boot tomorrow. It's crazy and infuriating.

I have been using OpenCore pretty much exclusively for a few months now and it has been solid. It should be quite obvious that, moving forward, OpenCore will probably supplant Clover as the de facto standard for hackintoshing. May as well get acquainted with it now... In terms of macOS performance, I can't really tell any difference when booted from OpenCore or Clover. Everything works really well for me regardless of which bootloader I boot from.

One cool thing about OpenCore is that if I boot Windows from OpenCore, Windows will think I'm running on a Mac and the Bootcamp drivers work as they would on a real Mac. This makes installing the AirPort drivers, Magic Trackpad drivers, etc., easier to install.