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[SUCCESS] i7-6700 / HD530 / ASUS Z170-A / Sierra 10.12.2 - slow boot?

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Sep 28, 2012
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Motherboard
Asus ROG Strix Z370-G Gaming (WI-FI AC)
CPU
i7-8700
Graphics
RX 580
Mobile Phone
  1. iOS
i7-6700 Skylake CPU
onboard HD530 graphics / updated to AMD Radeon 7970
ASUS Z170-A motherboard
Sierra 10.12.2 downloaded from Apple

I offer a few notes because there are issues in my install, and while everything seems to be "mostly" working I do see a slow boot right now (50+ seconds) a lot slower than my El Capitan install on Ivy Bridge. (*Update: a lot of my slow boot seemed connected to the native HD 530 graphics starting up. After I put in a dedicated graphics card, boot to OSX was appreciabley faster.)

NOTES / ISSUES:

(1)
This motherboard needs to have all BIOS settings precisely correct as stated in the Tonymac Sierra install guide. If anything is not correct in the BIOS, you will get a "hang" at the black Apple install screen with Unibeast. The settings are accessible in the ASUS bios, if in doubt try a few things -- but getting these right is critical to proceeding with the install. I could find all the options suggested in the Tonymac guide except for a way to disable serial port.

(2)
Post-installation, I was not able to get a working boot from my SSD with Multibeast. What I got was a cycle of rebooting & loop restarting though the clover start up screen. I solved this by replacing the config.plist file that Multibeast generated on the EFI section of the SSD with the config.plist that was on the installer USB (which I knew was working.) Once I copied the config.plist from the installer USB into the EFI folder on the SSD (replacing the one created by Multibeast) I then got a clover screen at boot that allowed me to select my SSD drive to start -- and Sierra 10.12 started up normally -- though as noted, with a longish boot time, resolved by adding a graphics card. I attach my config file that is working below. If you want to access these EFI volumes on the drives and copy or study the working files like config.plist a great tool is Clover Configurator. It's free too. I used it to see what was going on in my EFI volumes.

(3) Video
Occasionally I see some graphics glitches (horizontal lines) with the HD 530 graphics, but since I will add a graphic card later I am not going crazy about this. After I added a Gigabyte 7970 card, video is all good.

(4)WIFI
TP-Link wifi card worked immediately without further configuration.

(5) Sound
Initially I saw no devices listed in my sound selection pane. After trying many solutions, what I understood was my install was not seeing a codec/device installed, in other words I needed a "AppleHDA892.kext" for OSX to see the device hardware.

I reinstalled the original AppleHDA.kext off the install USB in S/L/E (this is needed unmodified) but if you haven't fooled with it, the one the USB installer placed in your S/L/E at install is fine.

Next, I downloaded and ran this shell script to create an AppleHDA892.kext

from: https://github.com/Piker-Alpha/AppleHDA8Series.sh

If you don't know how to run a shell script, you can change ".sh" to ".command" and it will execute in the terminal.

Running that worked -- after a reboot, and device is recognized in audio pane, sound is now stereo via the green central port and internal speakers.

(6) Graphics update:

After installing Sierra 10.12.2, I was struggling to get Nvidia drivers working with a $300 Nvidia 980 GPU. I changed my plans and decided to try an AMD card. I put in a Gigabyte 7970 card (GIGABYTE Radeon HD 7970 DirectX 11 GV-R797OC-3GD 3GB 384-Bit GDDR5 REV 2.1 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX.)

I got this card for $100 on Ebay. The card was "plug-and-play" and was recognized over my DVI port immediately at boot with no fooling around and it runs my DELL U2413 @ 1920 x 1200 @ 60 Hz and Pixel Depth:30-Bit Color.

This was a very easy install, it just works. I don't need 4K or 5K. And this card rips through photoshop and video editing. GPU scores with Geekbench open CL 106,389 which is ample for my needs -- I edit 1080 video and do graphics -- no gaming here. I don't know if all 7970 cards are equally good, other manufacturers may vary but so far this is a great $100 solution.
 

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I have the same setup and I'm having issues. Can you describe where you found each setting in BIOS? For example I can't find anything about "Secure Boot Mode" in addition to "IO SerialPort"
 
I have the same setup and I'm having issues. Can you describe where you found each setting in BIOS? For example I can't find anything about "Secure Boot Mode" in addition to "IO SerialPort"

I downloaded the motherboard manual PDF from online and it helped me find the screens in the BIOS I needed to set. You want to follow these settings from Tonymac:

1. To access BIOS/UEFI Setup, press and hold F2 on a USB Keyboard while the system is booting up
2. Load Optimized Defaults
3. If your CPU supports VT-d, disable it
4. If your system has CFG-Lock, disable it
5. If your system has Secure Boot Mode, disable it (but not critcal on ASUS Z170)
6. Set OS Type to Other OS
7. Set XHCI Handoff to Enabled

I will go look at my settings now, and give some screenshots more specific to ASUS Z170-A.
 
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I have the same setup and I'm having issues. Can you describe where you found each setting in BIOS? For example I can't find anything about "Secure Boot Mode" in addition to "IO SerialPort"

Votemikejones, some more specifics.

I am running ASUS BIOS 2202 x 64, which came with the board. If you boot and hit F2, you will get the Asus BIOS screen. At the bottom is a button to select "Advanced" mode for this BIOS which lets you tweak some of the needed settings. The PDF manual can help you find these. But for clarity, I needed to get into advanced mode and select a few options to get the installer to run. Sometimes, in advanced mode you have to SCROLL DOWN in a BIOS screen to see these hidden options appear.

Advanced mode > System Agent > VT-D > DISABLE
Advanced mode > PCH STORAGE > SATA mode selector > AHCI
Advanced mode > Launch CSM > AUTO
Advanced mode > USB Configuration > (Enable all) XHCI handoff ENABLED
Advanced mode > BOOT > Secure Boot > Enabled > OS Type > Other OS.

F10 to save settings.

I tried to disable secure boot -- but this seems not to critically matter on the install.
I couldn't find a selector to turn off serial port but it seems not to have mattered.
You will know it works when the white installer bar under the Apple logo proceeds and does not hang.
Be patient, it takes awhile but if it is frozen for 10 minutes you got a hang on the install and need to try other BIOS settings.
The critical settings are VT-D, XHCI handoff enabled, Boot "other OS," etc.
This hang can be made more clear if you do a verbose boot (hit spacebar at clover boot screen to get a verbose boot option.)

Read my above post to get sound working if you need it. Working sound was a pain in the ass.
 
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Can you please specify the options you chose in multibeast? Also, for the audio, besides what you specified, did you have to modify the boot.plist file? I cannot for the life of me get audio working. Another issue is that if it goes to sleep, the screen is black upon wake. I have the exact board as you running 12.2.2 Sierra. Any help appreciated!
 

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Can you please specify the options you chose in multibeast? Also, for the audio, besides what you specified, did you have to modify the boot.plist file? I cannot for the life of me get audio working. Another issue is that if it goes to sleep, the screen is black upon wake. I have the exact board as you running 12.2.2 Sierra. Any help appreciated!

Using Multibeast (alone) did not yield a working system for me. After a Multibeast installation using the choices that seemed most obviously correct that gave me a system that froze in the booting process. There was something wrong in my config.plist. I was able to replace the plist Multibeast created with the one that is on the installer USB stick, and it boots seemingly correctly from that. My functional .plist is attached. I don't thik you can just use this one, but you can see what a working .plist for this hardware should look like. Note I do not have any video cards installed yet. I do get some screen artifacting from the HD530 graphics so I will need to get a graphics card shortly.

** Sleep** for me -- I have the energy saver preference pane in Sierra set to "never" and I go to a screen saver mode. I am not sure if I could sleep the system.
 

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I followed your method and I still don't have sound output. Suggestions?

SOUND: I got this working by moving some kexts around, installing kexts and mostly what seemed to make the difference was successfully running the Piker-Alpha shell script to create an AppleHDA892.kext. It was only after running that script that I saw a "device" in my previously empty sound selection pane in Apple/System Prefs/Sound.

from: https://github.com/Piker-Alpha/AppleHDA8Series.sh

I also stuck in the Codec Commander kext from here. Not entirely sure that helped, but I installed it in S/L/E.

https://bitbucket.org/RehabMan/os-x-eapd-codec-commander/downloads.

I attach screenshots of my Library extensions folder (L/E) and my System/Library/Extensions folder (S/LE/E). The AppleHDA.kext is unmodified (I colored this green for discussion.) The relevant modified Kexts I colored orange. I had a discussion with people that know more about audio than I because this was a frustration. Multibeast did not enable my audio and a post-install run with Multibeast did not enable it. I don't claim to be an expert, I was just hacking at this until it worked. I would be glad to see anybody post what works for them in this thread.

The tool I used to move Kexts around (and clear cache and reset permissions) was:
-- Kext Utility --
v2.6.6 © cVad 2008-2016
Mac OS X 10.5-10.12
macOS "Sierra" Super Speed Edition
 

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Votemikejones, some more specifics.

I am running ASUS BIOS 2202 x 64, which came with the board. If you boot and hit F2, you will get the Asus BIOS screen. At the bottom is a button to select "Advanced" mode for this BIOS which lets you tweak some of the needed settings. The PDF manual can help you find these. But for clarity, I needed to get into advanced mode and select a few options to get the installer to run. Sometimes, in advanced mode you have to SCROLL DOWN in a BIOS screen to see these hidden options appear.

Advanced mode > System Agent > VT-D > DISABLE
Advanced mode > PCH STORAGE > SATA mode selector > AHCI
Advanced mode > Launch CSM > AUTO
Advanced mode > USB Configuration > (Enable all) XHCI handoff ENABLED
Advanced mode > BOOT > Secure Boot > Enabled > OS Type > Other OS.

F10 to save settings.

I tried to disable secure boot -- but this seems not to critically matter on the install.
I couldn't find a selector to turn off serial port but it seems not to have mattered.
You will know it works when the white installer bar under the Apple logo proceeds and does not hang.
Be patient, it takes awhile but if it is frozen for 10 minutes you got a hang on the install and need to try other BIOS settings.
The critical settings are VT-D, XHCI handoff enabled, Boot "other OS," etc.
This hang can be made more clear if you do a verbose boot (hit spacebar at clover boot screen to get a verbose boot option.)

Read my above post to get sound working if you need it. Working sound was a pain in the ass.

Thank you! I will try this tonight!
 
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