[Success] ASRock Z390 Phantom Gaming-ITX + TB3 + iGPU + Mojave + SFF Build

[Qres]

Hello! Could someone help me?
My MB was at BIOS 4.0 for 1 week with almost everything worked, except Thunderbolt. I have no Type-C device to test Thunderbolt. However, several days ago, I tried to boot with a USB flash drive in Win 10 to check the Thunderbolt interface in Windows devices manager. Without a Thunderbolt device plugin, nothing show up there, no Thunderbolt interface was noted, tech-service from Asrock confirmed this. Then, things went sour, I lost the ability to wake from sleep after the Win 10 experiment. The hack goes to sleep smoothly and easily to be waked with BT devices, however, only the fans star to spin, no signal to the screen. The hack was totally hanged with fans spinning and the red LEDs of MB breathed slowly, even lost trace in the local network.
My build:
Asrock Z390 Phantom Gaming-ITX/AC
i7-8700
ADATA 3000 DDR4 16GB at 2666.
BCM943602CS in NGFF to M2 E-key adapter
WD SN 750 M2 SSD

Any idea ? Thanks!

 

[rj510]

Hello! Could someone help me?
My MB was at BIOS 4.0 for 1 week with almost everything worked, except Thunderbolt. I have no Type-C device to test Thunderbolt. However, several days ago, I tried to boot with a USB flash drive in Win 10 to check the Thunderbolt interface in Windows devices manager. Without a Thunderbolt device plugin, nothing show up there, no Thunderbolt interface was noted, tech-service from Asrock confirmed this. Then, things went sour, I lost the ability to wake from sleep after the Win 10 experiment. The hack goes to sleep smoothly and easily to be waked with BT devices, however, only the fans star to spin, no signal to the screen. The hack was totally hanged with fans spinning and the red LEDs of MB breathed slowly, even lost trace in the local network.
My build:
Asrock Z390 Phantom Gaming-ITX/AC
i7-8700
ADATA 3000 DDR4 16GB at 2666.
BCM943602CS in NGFF to M2 E-key adapter
WD SN 750 M2 SSD

Any idea ? Thanks!

One option is to try to load the latest Thunderbolt software from within Windows. While the new driver won't have a device to connect, it will load as there is TB hardware on the mobo. If you've already installed it, and things are not working, then go into Programs and Features in Windows and un-install the TB driver. I've had this reverse technique work for somehow re-activating TB on the Mac side.

If that doesn't work, then I would try to downgrade the BIOS. On one thread, I think it was on this forum, someone claimed to have downgraded from BIOS v4 from within Windows. I don't recall a technique for this being described.

 

[hoypolloy]

Hi!
Looks like excellent build. I want to build kinda same, and have couple of questions.
1 if its possible to install 64gb ram (2x32gb)
2. do i understand right that it has 3 M.2 ports while 1 of them is for network card? if I don't use it can I use this M.2 for some other PCI device? (I want to connect as much GPUs as possible with extenders/risers for certain tasks on windows and even x1 PCIe lane is totally fine for it.)
3. High Sierra will work fine? As currently, I already have a GTX 1080 Ti mini.
Thanks.

 

[rj510]

Hi!
Looks like excellent build. I want to build kinda same, and have couple of questions.
1 if its possible to install 64gb ram (2x32gb)
2. do i understand right that it has 3 M.2 ports while 1 of them is for network card? if I don't use it can I use this M.2 for some other PCI device? (I want to connect as much GPsU as possible with extenders/risers for certain tasks on windows and even x1 PCIe lane is totally fine for it.)
3. High Sierra will work fine? As currently, I already have a GTX 1080 Ti mini.
Thanks.

1. Yes.
2. Only the two indicated M.2 sites as shown on first page of this thread are for M.2 SSDs. The M.2 is in the corner intended for the network card. There is no vertical support for an SSD. It might work (I don't know) for an SSD, you'd have to experiment. Most of us use if for BT.
3. My build is for late Mojave (10.14.5). I cannot speak for earlier versions even working with my supplied config.plist: you'll have to experiment with graphics, etc. I have no NVIDIA cards nor wish to load an older OS. Mojave 10.14.5 is fine for AMD cards but guaranteed NOT to work with most NVIDIA cards. High Sierra should certainly work on this mobo, but I cannot help you with trouble shooting.

 

[Qres]

One option is to try to load the latest Thunderbolt software from within Windows. While the new driver won't have a device to connect, it will load as there is TB hardware on the mobo. If you've already installed it, and things are not working, then go into Programs and Features in Windows and un-install the TB driver. I've had this reverse technique work for somehow re-activating TB on the Mac side.

If that doesn't work, then I would try to downgrade the BIOS. On one thread, I think it was on this forum, someone claimed to have downgraded from BIOS v4 from within Windows. I don't recall a technique for this being described.

Thanks! Turns out it's a conflict between VirtualSMC and Clover v4961. Switch to FakeSMC, solved the problem.
Thanks again.

 

[digiboy]

Great to hear!

Airdrop depends on BT. Make sure the antennas are plugged in and go into the BT preferences section and delete any old connections in order to properly set up new ones. Once new connections are made, you should be good to go. (If BT remains an issue, we can try some other things.)

Also do make certain that your Ethernet has an 'en0' connection. If not this can lead to all sorts of problems like difficulty logging into the App Store. To check this out, open the System Information viewer and highlight the Network tab on the left:
View attachment 411974 View attachment 411976

Then look at the Device Name on the right side of the window. One should be 'en0'. If not, then an item in the Preferences folder needs to be re-set.

To re-set 'en0' Ethernet configuration, in Terminal type the following, then re-boot the computer:

sudo rm /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/NetworkInterfaces.plist

I had success with Airdrop and Bluetooth (just had to make sure that I had my antenna attached properly). Things are working really well, I looked through this thread but didn't discover any mention of these few outstanding issues:

• Sound (I'm just using the green jack in the back presently, I also tried the front headphone jacks but nothing was discovered in the sound panel)
• Bluetooth on startup - not essential, but I have to plug-in a wired keyboard every time I want to boot in via Clover.
• Messages - I encounter a standard error when I attempt to sign-in: "Could not sign into iMessage." An error occurred during activation. Try again.

Had a chance to play with my build a bit today as I was installing applications and opening files. It's super fast and responsive. This is going to be a great machine to get work done!

 

[rj510]

I had success with Airdrop and Bluetooth (just had to make sure that I had my antenna attached properly). Things are working really well, I looked through this thread but didn't discover any mention of these few outstanding issues:

• Sound (I'm just using the green jack in the back presently, I also tried the front headphone jacks but nothing was discovered in the sound panel)
• Bluetooth on startup - not essential, but I have to plug-in a wired keyboard every time I want to boot in via Clover.
• Messages - I encounter a standard error when I attempt to sign-in: "Could not sign into iMessage." An error occurred during activation. Try again.

Had a chance to play with my build a bit today as I was installing applications and opening files. It's super fast and responsive. This is going to be a great machine to get work done!

Good to hear most things are working well. As to the problems:

1. Sound. I've not investigated as I use TB3 to Apollo AUD. I'll look into later. (Although as mentioned in an earlier post, here, ASRock mobos seem to have an issue with their audio ports even on Windows; maybe not a Hackintosh matter.)

I did notice one potential mistake in the config.plist file. In the Devices/Properties section, change "layout-id" from 10000000 to 01000000. The first value is true if the Audio inject in the upper right corner was 16. But since it is 1, the layout-id needs be 1 (hex) to match. The correct version is in the image below.

2. BT early in boot. This is a BIOS issue, and may remain outside of our Hackintosh control. One thing to try, is to move the BT kexts in the /L/E/ folder (and then re-built the cache). It may allow earlier BT detection.

3. Your 'en0' Ethernet section looks good. So the next thing to try is adjusting some settings.

a) Make certain that you have valid SMBIOS SN and board SN in Clover. If you don't,
iMessages won't work.

b) If SNs okay then do the following with Terminal:
i) type: sudo rm -rf /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/NetworkInterfaces.plist
ii) type: sudo rm -rf /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/preferences.plist
iii) re-boot and see if iMessages is working.

If this doesn't work, let me know and we can try some other things.

 

[abynormal]

Hi, can one use the i3-9100 CPU with this motherboard? (Mojave in mind). Asrock lists the 9100 compatible only with bios 4.0 Which have not been tested with Mojave. Anyone have an input? I had a good working build with 9900K at 1.60, but it was way too hot so I sent that CPU back. (now I don't have a cpu) and not sure what to get. Looking to the 9900T but i is not available. Thanks!

 

[rj510]

Hi, can one use the i3-9100 CPU with this motherboard? (Mojave in mind). Asrock lists the 9100 compatible only with bios 4.0 Which have not been tested with Mojave. Anyone have an input? I had a good working build with 9900K at 1.60, but it was way too hot so I sent that CPU back. (now I don't have a cpu) and not sure what to get. Looking to the 9900T but i is not available. Thanks!

I have no knowledge using the i3 9100. Hopefully someone else can contribute.

If you do need to use BIOS v4.0, Qres earlier on this page, seems to have v4 working after changing to FakeSMC.

 

[fadotyan]

Hi, RJ!

I just wanted you to know that I've successfully build my hackintosh. Strangely, I took two guides - from yours and from @ammulder's thread here.

- I cannot make the installer running using ammulder's config.plist or your config.plist. So I have to create my own by following ammulder's guide, and copy paste some of the settings from your config.plist.
- It works using 1.2 BIOS (using your BIOS settings).
- I'm using the latest version of UniBeast for Mojave (9.2.0-6) and the latest Clover Boot Manager (Clover_v2.4k_r4961).
- Post installation. If i use all of your attached kext, the system won't boot. So I'm only using your USB kext + suggested kext from ammulder's thread, it worked fine. (I don't mind the inactive USB port near the Ethernet, but perhaps I will activate it later.)
- Haven't try the Thunderbolt port. (I don't have USB C or Tthunderbolt device.)

All seems to work fine, except iMessage. Besides that, I haven't find any troublesome issue. I already use it extensively for editing video with Final Cut Pro X, and it does the job very very well.

Thank you so much.

Oh, I have a question. What is the purpose of the "patched" file?