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Success Build!!!: macOS Sierra on gigabyte z97x ud5h+ i7 4770k+ 16gb ram+ gtx 760

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Components

-Intel Core i7-4770K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor

-Gigabyte GA-Z87X-UD5H ATX LGA1150 Motherboard

-Corsair Vengeance LP 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory

-Samsung 850 EVO-Series 500GB 2.5" Solid State Drive

-EVGA GeForce GTX 760 2GB Superclocked ACX Video Card

-Cooler Master Elite 361 ATX Mid Tower Case


ABOUT THE BUILD and MYSELF

This is an old build from around 2013, I built it to run mavericks at the time using the chameleon bootloader. I have tried upgrading before to Yosemite, I had such bad crashes and couldn’t troubleshoot it, Mavericks has been solid but every once in a while it did crash, Bluetooth was getting annoying as well.

I upgraded last night to Sierra, and I am happy!!, this was my first clover install, and I can still boot into mavericks from my other ssd using clover. I'll have to do further testing but everything I use works. My audio interface -Saffire Pro 14 -via Firewire was read automatically after installing the driver from the company’s website, and Bluetooth is a dream so much better than Mavericks. I haven't checked USB 3.0 speeds but all my ports work. Also Internet worked as well.

So how did I do it? There was no real guide for my build so I used El Captain configurations and hoped for the best. I did have trouble at first with getting stuck, I had to use my back ports because the front ones wouldn't allow me to install.

https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/success-i7-4790k-gigabyte-z97x-ud5h-gtx970-el-capitan.192804/

Thank you Hamibh, I followed your guide with some modifications



HOW I GOT THIS THING WORKING

I followed TonyMacx86's installation guide and I recommend that you do as well.

STEP 1

I downloaded Sierra


STEP 2

I chose Sierra and UEFI Boot Mode.

##Please make sure you follow TonyMacx86 guide and use GUID for the partition, I had a flash drive with Snow Leopard and Mavericks on it and forgot that it was set to MBR. So make sure you format it exactly as described in the guide and use a clean USB. I used a USB 3.0 flash drive, however this is not recommended. It did speed up the process though.#


STEP 3

I used the BIOS settings from Hamibh
* note: If you're using a graphics card make sure to disable internal graphics


STEP 4

##I had to use a USB port at the back of the motherboard's IO to get the bootable USB to boot, my case's front port would just leave me with a spinning wheel.#

Once in Clover, I needed to add boot flag nv_disable=1, and I used verbose -v to boot to Sierra installer. Also, I unplugged all other drives (Had another SSD and HDD attached) besides the one that I was going to install Sierra on.


STEP 5

##First boot into Sierra was sad, everything was out of size and the graphics were poor. Once everything was installed, I was impressed.##

I installed everything with MultiMeast 9.0.1. I did it more than once, but the second time was because I added the audio driver Realtek 898, since I couldn't get sound from the motherboard headphone port without it.

MultiBeast
  • Quick Start > UEFI Boot Mode

  • Audio > ALC 898

  • Drivers > FakeSMC v6.18-313-g671f31c.1707

  • Drivers > FakeSMC Plugins v6.18-313-g671f31c.1707

  • Drivers > Network > Intel > AppleIntelE1000e v3.3.3

  • Customize> system definitions> imac> 14,2

  • Install
Following Hamibh's guide, I went ahead and downloaded “KextBeast and RehabMan-FakePCIID-2016-0414.zip. Within RehabMan-FakePCIID-2016-0414.zip was a folder called Release, and within that folder were some kexts. I extracted only these two kexts to desktop along with KextBeast...
  • FakePCIID.kext

  • FakePCIID_XHCIMux.kext
..and then used KextBeast to install them to /Library/Extensions. USB3 works!”

Comments

Overall I'm happy with the build. My audio interface plays back audio perfectly and my Bluetooth speaker does as well. I did the audio fix for this guide. The 14,2 definition is one that worked well for my build, I used it in mavericks and I also used it in Yosemite.

This is my first write up and I hope it helps, I feel great adding value to the community; since up until now I've just been using it for my updates. ^_^

***Update 2/25/18 I want to make a note that all the crashes have stopped. I had left internal graphics enabled in my bios, after disabling it I have no more crashes. Sound from the headphone jack does still stop if I let the computer fall asleep.
I also want to report that I was able to update directly from 10.12.2 to 10.12.6 from the app store without needing to repair anything. The build is stable now minus the audio loss after waking from sleep.
 
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Quick update: It has been about two weeks with the computer but the issue with the crashes is apparent. This is an issue that has occurred in mavericks and Yosemite for me and it happens when I perform the same task. I get this crash using mavricks on my other ssd as well. I get a crash when I'm surfing the web and have multiple tabs open, I use google chrome and I'll have a video open or two, along with additional webpages (about 5 tabs minimum). It crashed twice in the past week, the screen turns dark and the system reboots. I'm going to wait for next friday to try a fresh install with the audio ktext off and see what happens. I'm also going to try using a different browser till then to see if it's google chrome, but I like using google chrome since I have a chromecast. I have to note that the crashes don't occur when I have one or two tabs open. On the bright side sleep works and waking from sleep works. I enjoy that I can turn bluetooth on and off, something I couldn't do in mavricks with my usb bluetooth. Also I am able to control my computer's volume with my jbl bluetooth speaker. Overall I'm using Sierra more than my mavericks install, because it's such a great upgrade. I notice the difference in terms of functionality and responsiveness. Which is something I could not say for this build on Yosemite, because the crashes on Yosemite were too frequent.

update 2/25/18****I forgot to disable internal graphics in my bios. I have experienced no further issues regarding crashes***
 
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Quick update: It has been about two weeks with the computer but the issue with the crashes is apparent. This is an issue that has occurred in mavericks and Yosemite for me and it happens when I perform the same task. I get this crash using mavricks on my other ssd as well. I get a crash when I'm surfing the web and have multiple tabs open, I use google chrome and I'll have a video open or two, along with additional webpages (about 5 tabs minimum). It crashed twice in the past week, the screen turns dark and the system reboots. I'm going to wait for next friday to try a fresh install with the audio ktext off and see what happens. I'm also going to try using a different browser till then to see if it's google chrome, but I like using google chrome since I have a chromecast. I have to note that the crashes don't occur when I have one or two tabs open. On the bright side sleep works and waking from sleep works. I enjoy that I can turn bluetooth on and off, something I couldn't do in mavricks with my usb bluetooth. Also I am able to control my computer's volume with my jbl bluetooth speaker. Overall I'm using Sierra more than my mavricks install, because it's such a great upgrade. I notice the difference in terms of functionality and responsiveness. Which is something I could not say for this build on yosemite, because the crashes on yosemite were too frequent.

Update: I have been using firefox as my web browser and I experienced one crash, although not as frequent as google chrome it happens when I have multiple tabs and youtube videos open.

Chrome is known to cause Kernel Panics. Attach crash log.
 
@adrianstone,

I finally got around to upgrading my "Fractal Design Hackintosh", which is practically identical to yours. I am using a Clover install as well. There are a few key differences in our experience / slightly different issues.

For one, I originally had this computer running completely stable on Yosemite for several years. I believe my install was based heavily on Snbd889's Video Editing Build. Never had it crash once on me.

Tried doing a direct upgrade to Sierra with varying amounts of success. Ended up rebuilding my Clover installation, uninstalling / disabling Nvidia web drivers, and tried out dozens of config options (you should see my notes). Installed Nvidia Web Drivers too. It'd work for about a week and refuse to boot all the way. Monitor would show a black screen about 80% through booting and go into sleep mode.

My other mac can see my computer, but can't connect to it via Screen Sharing. It just constantly tries to connect. I can, however, connect to the "Fractal Design Hackintosh" via SSH and browse files.

So, I tweaked a few more things and got it working again. Same thing. Eventually got it running stable (or so I thought) and then the random crashes started. Got it running for about the 6th time this weekend, and now it won't boot again. Monitor still going to sleep about 80% through the boot.

All of this is really irritating (and confounds me), since this was working perfectly under Yosemite. And I've been seeing other people have success upgrading this build to Sierra.
 
@adrianstone,

Sorry for that explanation being long and drawn out...I've been dealing with these issues for about a month now. I figure that sharing our experiences / config for this build might be helpful. So here's my questions / clover config:

Have you had any boot issues like the one I mentioned above? If so, how did you solve it?

I'm attaching my clover config, just in case @adrianstone (or someone else) wants to look at it. Maybe I'm doing something terribly wrong? This config has been based on a lot of guides from multiple versions of Mac OS, since this is kinda a niche motherboard in the hackintoshing world.

Would you mind uploading your config as well? I'm interested in seeing why yours boots and mine doesn't.

Update: probably should mention I've also tried out BOTH the iMac15,1 and MacPro5,1 system definitions. Both of them worked for a while and eventually stopped working on their own. Black sleep screen after Clover boot screen and a lot of verbose text.
 

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@Callaginn2013, Hey getting back to you a bit late. If it's for the fractal build you have, make sure you follow my guide and all the settings I chose, setup is basically the same. Also make sure your bios settings are correct. Any issues I encountered along the way are in the guide. I used the 14,2 definition, and I did a clean install so perhaps try that. I didn't have to install anything for the gtx 760 graphics card. After setting up mutibeast and doing the first boot up everything was working. As for the boot issues you're describing I have not had any like yours, I did have a freeze once and just restarted the computer. I've also had a crash where the computer restarts itself.
 
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Update: Safari with multiple tabs is working no crashes, finally!!!; going to keep throwing my daily searches along with youtube videos for the next week.

@Callaginn2013, Hey getting back to you a bit late. If it's for the fractal build you have, make sure you follow my guide and all the settings I chose, setup is basically the same. Also make sure your bios settings are correct. Any issues I encountered along the way are in the guide. I used the 14,2 definition, and I did a clean install so perhaps try that. I didn't have to install anything for the gtx 760 graphics card. After setting up mutibeast and doing the first boot up everything was working. As for the boot issues you're describing I have not had any like yours, I did have a freeze once and just restarted the computer. I've also had a crash where the computer restarts itself.

I actually tweaked your settings a few weeks ago and it's been booting up successfully and running stable. I think the key was running on 14,2 and rebuilding the kernel caches with these terminal commands:
Code:
sudo rm -r /System/Library/Caches/com.apple.kext.caches
sudo touch /System/Library/Extensions
sudo kextcache -update-volume /

After switching to 14,2...I was able to disable the Nvidia Drivers and still get some basic acceleration. Figured the web drivers could be a potential issue. Uploaded my Clover settings to a public github repo, in case anyone else has issues with a setup like ours: https://github.com/reynardfox/z97x-ud5h

I probably could remove a bunch of my boot options...but hey, it works. Got tired of fooling with it.
 
@adrianstone: Have you had any more issues with random restarts? My computer has been running stable for the past 1 1/2 months, but started random rebooting last night after opening an old iPhoto catalog. Now it's stuck in a reboot cycle.

It'll boot up fine, but then do an unprompted reboot about one or two minutes after logging into Mac OS X. Same thing in safe mode. However, I can run it without issues in Recovery mode...just can't do anything.

Any ideas?
 
Update: Did some research on this issue tonight. It looks like this is a known issue with the facial recognition feature in iPhoto on the z97x-ud5h. After opening iPhoto for the first time, the computer reboots within a minute of logging in.

Here's the steps I took to break out of that reboot cycle:
  • Booted into Recovery HD from Clover
  • Opened up Terminal and added an underscore to all iPhoto Libraries
  • Removed the iPhoto Photo Analysis Launch Agent from /System/Library/LaunchAgents:
    Code:
    rm -rf com.apple.photoanaysisd.plist
  • Rebooted and ran successfully for 90 minutes until I shut it down. It was previously auto-rebooting within a minute.
I'll repost here if anything changes.
 
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