Contribute
Register

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

Hi everyone, I am having an interesting issue with my Designaire and am looking for some advice on how to troubleshoot/isolate the problem before I proceed down the path of simplifying my system materially.

I have updated my Designaire to boot OC and am running the latest Catalina. I am using two displays, one of which is connected to a TB2 ATEN switch and then to my Designaire. When using Zoom and on a video call using the TB attached monitor, the screen will blank out after a minute or two and then return when I wiggle the trackpad. Interestingly, this does not happen when I move the Zoom window to the direct attached monitor. I do not have this problem when not using Zoom.

Do you have any advice on how I can confirm via logs or other artifacts what is causing this problem? In parallel I am going to rebuild a simplified system to see if this occurs on a vanilla install running only Zoom.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions!
Implicit in your description is the assertion that moving to OpenCore created this problem. If you still have the previous CLOVER EFI folder, try booting through CLOVER again to re-validate the assertion. If the problem does in fact occur only through OpenCore, then we can start by looking for differences between the CLOVER and OC EFI folders. For example:
  • Which versions of Lilu and WhateverGreen are in CLOVER, and which versions are in OpenCore?
  • Are there any pertinent differences in Boot Arguments between the two (particularly agdpmod)?
  • Because you have multiple monitors, have you tried various agdpmod arguments (pikera, vit9696, ignore)?
  • In System Preferences --> Energy Saver, if the monitor set to sleep after N minutes, have you tried increasing N?
 
Interesting point. The Thunderbolt monitor configuration is new and post-OC install, so I wasn’t explicitly holding this to be OC related, but you may absolutely be right. Let me run this using Clover and then come back with answers to your questions. I’ll come back with specific answers shortly - thanks for the guidance.
 
Another update:

Apple Thunderbolt Display now is almost fully functional without requiring a warm boot. USB hub on the back of the display, FaceTime camera, sound all work, even from a cold boot. I switched EFIs to another one that @pastrychef has posted and that resolved the sporadic issues with the USB hub not being recognized, and almost 50% failure in turning on the display on startup.

The only issue I have now is I need a second monitor plugged into the HDMI port of my graphics card on the first boot or restarts. If I don't have a HDMI monitor plugged in, it never seems to boot into macOS. It isn't just a matter of the screen turning on, it won't even show up as a network drive. Once it boots, I can unplug the second monitor, but then both screens go black, so I need to unplug the TB cable from the TR card and plug it back in. Once I do that, I can use the Apple TB display without the need of a second monitor. Sleep also works fine and I am able to wake up the monitor without issues even without the second monitor plugged in.

Attached is my EFI. Let me know if you have any suggestions to try.
 

Attachments

  • EFI_Z390M_TR_RX590.zip
    23.3 MB · Views: 68
Last edited:
Yes those instructions should work for the AORUS Xtreme, but as you pointed out, some of the SSDTs and Kexts are different. So if you modify the OpenCore config.plist accordingly, it should work just fine.

Liquidctl 1.4.1 is available now and supports Gigabyte RGB Fusion 2.0. I would be very interested to see if it works on the AORUS Xtreme (it should). Please refer to the following post for full details:

Hello CaseySJ,

Yes it does work on the Z390 Aorus Xtreme, (have now just tested 1.4.1) as did the previous version (1.4.0) however, on the Aorus Xtreme, there is RGB Led Lighting that runs down one entire side of the motherboard. Using Liquidctl with the RGB_Fusion2 drivers it appears that it only illuminates one or two of the RGB LEDs on the side of the MB. (I have attached a photo showing in the red circled area the LED's that are working and in the Blue circle the LED's that do not illuminate) The RGB LED edge lighting runs right from the Top to the Bottom of the MB as seen within the Red and Blue circles.

This edge lighting is controlled via the (led2: one of the two 12V RGB headers) in Liquidctl. As I supplied previously with the older version of Liquidctl, please see below for the list of corresponding LED's for my MB.

RGB_Fusion2 (Gigabyte Z490 Vision D)
  • led1: the LED next to the IO panel;
  • led2: one of two 12V RGB headers;
  • led3: the LED on the PCH chip ("Designare" on Vision D);
  • led4: an array of LEDs behind the PCI slots on back side of motherboard;
  • led5: second 12V RGB header;
  • led6: one of two 5V addressable RGB headers;
  • led7: second 5V addressable RGB header;
  • led8: not in use.
My System
RGB_Fusion2 (Gigabyte Z390 Aorus Xtreme) As tested and running v1.4.1
  • led1: the LED Lighting around the IO Panel
  • led2: Aorus Xtreme Motherboard RGB Edge Lighting
  • led3: Aorus Logo (Top Left) Covering the PCH Chip
  • led4: ESS Sabre HIFI Logo LEDs beside the PCI Slots
  • led5: LED_C1 Onbaord RGB Header (I have my Power Supply RGB Sync plugged into this)
  • led6: Unknown (Does not appear to be associated with anything on this MB)
  • led7: NVME SSD Covers / Shields
  • led8: not in use.

Hope this helps others that have the Aorus Xtreme MB and the developers of Liquidctl
 

Attachments

  • IMG_3032.jpg
    IMG_3032.jpg
    784.8 KB · Views: 69
Hi All,
I was looking for a mini-guide to installing Windows 10 onto the second NVME on my Z390 Clover Catalina 10.15.6 Hackintosh.
Any pointers?


I have the BEST solution to this :)
1) Get a very fast TB3 NVME external drive
1.1) I got the Samsung Portable SSD X5
2) On a real Mac, install Bootcamp and whatever version of windows you like
3) Boot into Windows and run all updates
4) Plugin the SSD to and available TB3 port on the Mac ; Clone the bootcamp partition onto the SSD
4.1) I used Acronis clone disk for this
5) Move the SSD to the Hackintosh
6) Clover automatically found and presented the Windows as an OS option
7) Booted into Windows. Needed to update drivers for the GPU, enable my webcam for Windows hello and had to re-sign in my MS Windows account

Everything else is perfect and my Hackintosh is untouched
 
Last edited:
Hello again.
I installed a second 250gb SSD as back up of the system. Before changing anything to EFI at the main SSD, I updated the info, so in case of a disaster, I simply copy the backed up EFI.

But my mail SSD is growing s lot (it's 1Tb) , so I decided to buy a NVME 1Tb drive to place it as main SSD.

I heard that Samsung ones are tricky, so I saw your equipment and a brand I never heard:

https://www.amazon.es/dp/B07K1J3C23/?tag=tonymacx86c03-21

Do you think it's a good choice?
Or if you were building now the equipment, what should be your chioce?

What about TRIM? I'm not sure what that means.

Thank you
 
Hello! I'm using the macOS Catalina 10.15.6 on my Designare Z390 + i5-9600kf + RX 5700 XT Sapphire Nitro+ and everything works fine except the SideCar. On my iPad when SideCar is enabled the screen goes black. Any suggestions?

Anyway, thank you CaseySJ for this thread and for all work done.
 
Hello! I'm using the macOS Catalina 10.15.6 on my Designare Z390 + i5-9600kf + RX 5700 XT Sapphire Nitro+ and everything works fine except the SideCar. On my iPad when SideCar is enabled the screen goes black. Any suggestions?

Anyway, thank you CaseySJ for this thread and for all work done.
Hello @fenrrir,

Welcome to the forum! If the screen is going dark momentarily when connecting to iPad via SideCar, that's a good sign. Try the following:

On the Mac:
  • Sign out of iCloud (System Preferences --> AppleID --> Overview)
  • If asked whether you want to keep a copy of Contacts, Reminders, etc. on the Mac, choose either Yes or No (should not matter)
  • Shutdown the Mac
Now go to iPad:
  • Sign out of iCloud on iPad
  • Optional: Restart iPad
  • Sign back into iCloud on iPad
Now back to the Mac:
  • Start the Mac
  • Log back in to iCloud
Now try SideCar once again.
 
Back
Top