[SUCCESS] Gigabyte Designare Z390 (Thunderbolt 3) + i7-9700K + AMD RX 580

[faithie999]

Thanks! I just discovered it by accident, because a friend had problems with it.
About your front USB2 ports: The internal header has two USB ports (HS11 and HS12), so one is always wasted when you use the standard connectors. I just soldered an adapter myself, so I can use both. Easy thing if you know how to solder and where which USB pin belongs to. View attachment 399902

I did this yesterday, using another approach. I used wires with Dupont connectors. the connectors are 2.54mm in cross section, the same as the center-to-center spacing of the pins in the USB header. so I used 4 M-F wires to connect the HS12 set of pins in the header to the BT connector from the pci-e card, and set HS12 to port type 0xFF (thanks to your advice!). I will set HS11 to 0x03, and use it for the front panel ports.

if anyone wants to go the "solderless" route go to amazon and search for "Dupont connector wires".

 

[CaseySJ]

I did this yesterday, using another approach. I used wires with Dupont connectors. the connectors are 2.54mm in cross section, the same as the center-to-center spacing of the pins in the USB header. so I used 4 M-F wires to connect the HS12 set of pins in the header to the BT connector from the pci-e card, and set HS12 to port type 0xFF (thanks to your advice!). I will set HS11 to 0x03, and use it for the front panel ports.

if anyone wants to go the "solderless" route go to amazon and search for "Dupont connector wires".

HS11 is a USB 2 port, hence connector type can be either 0xFF or 0x00.

 

[faithie999]

I tried both and this does seem to make the signal more stable. I am thinking maybe replacing the antennas with something longer/stronger might be a solution.

Back in the EARLY days of WiFi (802.11b!), I had a computer that was relatively far from my WiFi router, and I guess in those days the access points weren't as powerful as allowed by current standards. I discovered a Hawking high-gain antenna that sat on my desk and had a cord long enough to reach down to the PCI card. There's one right now on ebay for $11.

I'm not an expert on this, but I just found an installation guide for a aftermarket BCM94360CD for a Mac Pro. One of the pictures shows the antenna connections, and it confirmed what I always wondered--one of the connections is for BT and the other 3 are for WiFi. So I can only assume that whatever card you have, in a like manner one of them is for BT. So you could buy the Hawking antenna and experiment to see which connection gives you the best BT signal. Here is a picture from those instructions. YMMV.

I don't know if I am allowed to post an eBay link, so go to eBay and search for Hawking wireless antenna.

Edit: I am using a DW1560 wifi/BT card, which has 2 antenna connections. I moved my BT trackpad out of range of the stock antennas. I found my old Hawking antenna and tried it in both connections and confirmed that only one of them is for BT (the out-of-range trackpad reconnected). again. Your card may be different but for a few bucks it might be worth a try.

 

[kageman]

Hi @CaseySJ, @avtor

Thank you for your advice!
Finally, I successfully installed High Sierra.
However, the OS can boot with USB disk but cannot boot with SSD.
The process stopped with Apple's logo when the progress bar was at the end.

Post-installation procedure I did was almost same as the guide except for SIMBIOS (iMac18,3), Device in the config, and I used MultiBeast 10.4.0 for High Sierra.

Do you have any idea about the problem?

 

[shaunfalcone]

So - I ended up ordering a Fenvi wifi/bluetooth card - I'll see if that fixes my issue.

I did attached an ethernet cable and it works like a champ.

I have a few things that are acting odd:

• SoftRAID Lite crashes any time I try to launch it (I'm running the latest release of version 5 - I'm going to try to see if I can get a copy of the beta of 6 to see if it works. My root drive is APFS and I have a 5 drive SSD HFS+ RAID 0 that I created in disk utility since SoftRAID wouldn't work)
• I have 6 SSDs connected to the motherboard SATA ports... all but one works great. I have verified on another machine that all 6 drives are working and I have swapped SATA cables on the drive that will not connect. I haven't tried another SATA power cable but at this point I think that one of my SATA ports isn't working. Is there a way to verify if all 6 SATA ports are working?
• I cannot get OWC Thunderbolt 3 RAIDs to mount via the Thunderbolt 3 ports on the back of the machine. I own 2 of the RAIDs and they mount fine on a MacBook Pro and Mac Mini. This could conceivably be related to the SoftRAID issue since OWC uses SoftRAID for their RAIDs.

A couple of positive things to note:

• The Focusrite Scarlet2i2G2 audio interface works like a champ out of the box!
• The Blackmagic Design Decklink SDI PCIE card works like a champ once you install their Desktop Video software and reboot a couple of times (it will give you an update notice on the firmware of the device after the first reboot). Right now this card is occupying the PCIE slot that my wireless/bluetooth card will eventually occupy so I'll try to test swapping it to another slot to make sure it's solid.
• DaVinci Resolve 16 beta is working very, very well. Transcode speeds are incredible and overall everything feels very snappy!

Thanks for all of the help @CaseySJ (and everyone else that has chimed in!)

 

[CaseySJ]

Hi @CaseySJ, @avtor

Thank you for your advice!
Finally, I successfully installed High Sierra.
However, the OS can boot with USB disk but cannot boot with SSD.
The process stopped with Apple's logo when the progress bar was at the end.

Post-installation procedure I did was almost same as the guide except for SIMBIOS (iMac18,3), Device in the config, and I used MultiBeast 10.4.0 for High Sierra.

Do you have any idea about the problem?

Please try the following:

• Remove USB flash disk and boot with internal SSD.
• At Clover Boot Menu, press Spacebar then use arrow keys to move down to "Verbose" and press Spacebar again to enable it.
• Boot your High Sierra disk.
• When the boot process freezes, capture and post a photo.

Also:

• Boot from USB flash disk, login to High Sierra, then Mount EFI partition of High Sierra SSD and compress/upload the CLOVER folder from that SSD.

 

[CaseySJ]

So - I ended up ordering a Fenvi wifi/bluetooth card - I'll see if that fixes my issue.

I did attached an ethernet cable and it works like a champ.

I have a few things that are acting odd:

• SoftRAID Lite crashes any time I try to launch it (I'm running the latest release of version 5 - I'm going to try to see if I can get a copy of the beta of 6 to see if it works. My root drive is APFS and I have a 5 drive SSD HFS+ RAID 0 that I created in disk utility since SoftRAID wouldn't work)
• I have 6 SSDs connected to the motherboard SATA ports... all but one works great. I have verified on another machine that all 6 drives are working and I have swapped SATA cables on the drive that will not connect. I haven't tried another SATA power cable but at this point I think that one of my SATA ports isn't working. Is there a way to verify if all 6 SATA ports are working?
• I cannot get OWC Thunderbolt 3 RAIDs to mount via the Thunderbolt 3 ports on the back of the machine. I own 2 of the RAIDs and they mount fine on a MacBook Pro and Mac Mini. This could conceivably be related to the SoftRAID issue since OWC uses SoftRAID for their RAIDs.

From Page 29 of the Designare owner's manual:

• If you install a PCIe or SATA M.2 SSD into the top M.2 slot (M2M) you will lose the last 2 SATA ports (SATA4 and SATA5).
• If you install a PCIe M.2 SSD into the bottom M.2 slot (M2P) you will lose the first SATA port (SATA0).
• If you install a SATA M.2 SSD into the bottom M.2 slot (M2P) you will lose the second SATA port (SATA1).
• SATA2 and SATA3 are never impacted and therefore always available.

To overcome these restrictions, we can buy a PCIe x1 card that provides 4 internal SATA ports. The following cards should work:

• https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815124159
• https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07NZSBQ5S/?tag=tonymacx86com-20
• https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07KNXZFRH/?tag=tonymacx86com-20

A couple of positive things to note:

• The Focusrite Scarlet2i2G2 audio interface works like a champ out of the box!
• The Blackmagic Design Decklink SDI PCIE card works like a champ once you install their Desktop Video software and reboot a couple of times (it will give you an update notice on the firmware of the device after the first reboot). Right now this card is occupying the PCIE slot that my wireless/bluetooth card will eventually occupy so I'll try to test swapping it to another slot to make sure it's solid.
• DaVinci Resolve 16 beta is working very, very well. Transcode speeds are incredible and overall everything feels very snappy!

Thanks for all of the help @CaseySJ (and everyone else that has chimed in!)

Glad to hear!

 

[Snoots]

I have run into a problem after running for a while I can't do a shutdown any longer. My machine always does a reboot where in the past my other machines would shutdown ok. I did not have this problem on my first run through the new build, I started over due to instability and reboot issues and I have all working well except I noticed I can't shut down. I have done a search but have not found any one thing that people have found causing this. I'm happy with the state of the machine, also noticed my USB BluRay drive is not recognized but have not chased that down yet.

 

[faithie999]

HS11 is a USB 2 port, hence connector type can be either 0xFF or 0x00.

ok.

I started with your SSDT-UIAC and modded for my UD without understanding the distinctions between port types.

Now, after re-reading (for the nth time) RehabMan's guide for creating a USB SSDT, I think I understand. plain-ol' USB2 ports are type Zero. (on the UD the only USB2 connector is the internal header.) the HS port in a USB3 connector is type 03, as is the SS port in a USB3 connector, and USB-C ports are type 09 or 10.

So I will change HS11 to Zero, make all the other HS ports type 03, since they are associated with USB3 connectors, and change my SS01 to 03 since it's not USB-C.

thanks

ken

 

[KristoferG]

Back in the EARLY days of WiFi (802.11b!), I had a computer that was relatively far from my WiFi router, and I guess in those days the access points weren't as powerful as allowed by current standards. I discovered a Hawking high-gain antenna that sat on my desk and had a cord long enough to reach down to the PCI card. There's one right now on ebay for $11.

I'm not an expert on this, but I just found an installation guide for a aftermarket BCM94360CD for a Mac Pro. One of the pictures shows the antenna connections, and it confirmed what I always wondered--one of the connections is for BT and the other 3 are for WiFi. So I can only assume that whatever card you have, in a like manner one of them is for BT. So you could buy the Hawking antenna and experiment to see which connection gives you the best BT signal. Here is a picture from those instructions. YMMV.View attachment 399989

I don't know if I am allowed to post an eBay link, so go to eBay and search for Hawking wireless antenna.

View attachment 399987


Edit: I am using a DW1560 wifi/BT card, which has 2 antenna connections. I moved my BT trackpad out of range of the stock antennas. I found my old Hawking antenna and tried it in both connections and confirmed that only one of them is for BT (the out-of-range trackpad reconnected). again. Your card may be different but for a few bucks it might be worth a try.

This info is a game changer - I have have now angled the third antenna to where my mouse is and my first tests indicate it's stable!! This also explains why the effect of tuning the antennas seemed random.

Thanks a million faithie999! If I need further range I will look into boosting that third antenna for sure!

edit - and as I reach down to mark the third antenna with a permanent marker for future reference, I notice someone has already done exactly that!