[SUCCESS] GA Z170X Gaming 5, Intel P600 m.2 drive

[aeberbach]

The Hardware
* Gigabyte GA-Z170X Gaming 5 mainboard
* Corsair 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 2400
* Intel i7-6700
* Intel P600 NVMe m.2 SSD
* TP-Link PCIe Wireless Adapter TL-WDN4800

The RAM & CPU really don't have much bearing on the success of your Hackintosh. The mainboard is the most important part. The NVMe drive requires a small amount of extra configuration to get it working. The wireless adapter gets you on WiFi from the first boot with no effort.

The Installation
Prerequisites - a Mac running macOS Sierra 10.12.1, UniBeast 7.0.1 and MultiBeast 9.0.1.
1. Get UniBeast 7.0.1 and download macOS Sierra from the Mac App Store.
2. Run UniBeast and make an install USB drive.
3. Mount the EFI partition of the install USB drive - see instructions http://themacadmin.com/mounting-the-efi-boot-partition-on-mac-os-x/ for using diskutil.
4. Look at https://pikeralpha.wordpress.com/2016/06/27/nvmefamily-kext-bin-patch-data/
The patch text must be copied and pasted into the /EFI/CLOVER/config.plist found in the EFI partition you just mounted. It must be pasted into the KextsToPatch array.
5. Copy /System/Library/Extensions/IONVMeFamily.kext from your running 10.12.1 system to /EFI/CLOVER/kexts/Other
6. Download MultiBeast - Sierra 9.0.1 from tonymacx86.com and put it on your thumb drive also.
7. Configure your new machine's BIOS. Set to to optimal defaults, then make sure XHCI Handoff is set to ENABLED - or UniBeast will not boot. I also disabled the serial port, this may not matter. Later you can come back and mess with your memory config to make sure your correct memory speed is recognized.
7. Boot from the UniBeast thumb drive by hitting F12 to select the boot device and selecting the EFI boot partition. You will get a series of boot icons with many choices.
8. Boot MacOS from the thumb drive.
9. When macOS boots it looks just like you're used to. You need to go to Disk Utility (menu bar) and format your new m.2 drive before you can install to it. Make it "macOS Extended (Journaled)". If you don't see it then the IONVMeFamily.kext patch didn't work, try again.
10. Continue with the installation. Eventually it completes and you restart, as always. Again, hit F12, boot the EFI thumb drive and select your just-installed m.2 macOS system.
11. When it boots use MultiBeast, either from the thumb drive (or if you forgot to do that, use your WiFi connection and download it. Nice that the TP-Link just works.)
12. For MultiBeast options I used:
Quick Start: UEFI
Drivers/Audio: ALC1150 - this does not work yet! I use an external DAC/Amp so it does not bother me much.
Drivers/Disk : none
Drivers/Misc: FakeSMC v6.21-311etc.
Drivers/Network: AtherosE2200Ethernet v2.2.0 and IntelMausiEthernet v2.2.0
Drivers/USB: Increase Max Port Limit
Bootloaders: Clover v2.3k r3766 UEFI Boot Mode
Customize/Graphics: Intel HD 530
Customize/System Definitions: iMac 14,2
Then Build - Install.
13. Mount the EFI partition of your new macOS installation according to http://themacadmin.com/mounting-the-efi-boot-partition-on-mac-os-x/ (If you need to! MultiBeast may have left it mounted for you)
14. See https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/skylake-intel-hd-530-graphics-glitch-fix.206410/ for how to fix a slight menu bar flicker when using Intel 530 graphics. First post solution worked for me.
15. FINALLY... and then add the KextsToPatch text exactly as in step 4, but this time to the EFI partition on the hard drive, not the USB drive.
16. Boot and enjoy.

I might one day get a Nvidia 980 or 10-something if support happens but 530 graphics is actually good enough until I want to play some games. For 3D modeling and other uses it is fine.

 

[donestephens]

Used your post as a guide. Same GA-Z170X-Gaming 5 and Intel P600 NVMe m.2 SSD. Went with an i5-6600 and 2 KingWin 8GB. Easiest build in the world. I also use an external USB audio interface, so I didn't bother with installing the audio drives. Thanks for writing this up.

 

[avidracer]

Just to clarify: is there no need to create the hacknvme kext? The config.plist edit alone will suffice for the intel p600 nvme SSD natively in 10.12.3?

 

[aeberbach]

One more thing... the BIOS MUST give maximum memory to the Intel 530 - or it hangs on boot!

 

[geek5nan]

Used your post as a guide, I had build my first hackintosh successful. Thanks for writing this up.
Here is my components
* Gigabyte GA-Z170X Gaming 5 mainboard
* Corsair 32GB (2x16GB) DDR4 3000
* Intel i7-6700k
* Samsung 850 EVO 250GB
* IdeaTrust PCIe Wireless Adapter BCM943602CS

 

[Arklyne]

The Hardware
* Gigabyte GA-Z170X Gaming 5 mainboard
* Corsair 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 2400
* Intel i7-6700
* Intel P600 NVMe m.2 SSD
* TP-Link PCIe Wireless Adapter TL-WDN4800

The RAM & CPU really don't have much bearing on the success of your Hackintosh. The mainboard is the most important part. The NVMe drive requires a small amount of extra configuration to get it working. The wireless adapter gets you on WiFi from the first boot with no effort.

Hi aeberbach and donestephens, I'm using an almost identical setup. Are you experiencing any SSD slow downs with the 10.12.4 update?

Since 10.12.4, my Intel 600p NVMe will slow down to 5MB/s read and writes, but it does this at completely random times. It could be hours, days or even a week of working flawlessly and then out of nowhere 5MB/s read and writes, until I cold reboot. It's a boot drive, so 5MB/s read and write is totally unusable. Same thing happens in safe mode. The drive is using the latest intel firmware, shows no smart uses or disk scan issues. Nothing in the logs either.

Hoping the next OS update resolves the issues, otherwise I may have to switch to samsung.

 

[PlebanAq]

Can you boot to clover from intel 600p NVMe ? I have similar setup - Asus Z170M, i6700k, Intel 600p, and when I try to load clover from NVMe driver it just hangs - need to boot from USB or SATA driver.
Windows 10 on the other hand boots fine

 

[Arklyne]

Yes I can/could. Are you sure you have an EFI partition on that drive? If you do, then are you using rehabman's nvme patch? If you have both of those, then enable verbose logging to see where it's sticking.

I ended up replacing the 600p with a samsung ssd because the 600p slows down (totally crawls 5mb read and write) after a while and the machine has to be rebooted to speed it up again. Apparently 600p is known to preform poorly with OSX.

 

[PlebanAq]

I had both EFI partition and rehabman's patch.
Problem turned out to be lack of NvmExpressDxe-64.efi in Clover partition. now I can boot from NVMe too.

 

[donestephens]

Hi aeberbach and donestephens, I'm using an almost identical setup. Are you experiencing any SSD slow downs with the 10.12.4 update?

Since 10.12.4, my Intel 600p NVMe will slow down to 5MB/s read and writes, but it does this at completely random times. It could be hours, days or even a week of working flawlessly and then out of nowhere 5MB/s read and writes, until I cold reboot. It's a boot drive, so 5MB/s read and write is totally unusable. Same thing happens in safe mode. The drive is using the latest intel firmware, shows no smart uses or disk scan issues. Nothing in the logs either.

Hoping the next OS update resolves the issues, otherwise I may have to switch to samsung.

Hi Arklyne

I apologize for not responding to this until now. I am seeing it for the first time. I have not experienced any slowdowns with that drive, but I never upgraded pas 10.12.2.

Don