[SUCCESS] Old Hack, New Tricks II - Upgrading My GA-Z77X-UP5 TH System to Catalina

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You probably have but, might check compressed air on cooling vents to clear and checking cpu temps, might be cooling paste has fizzled away because some of that sounds heat related. Also memtest86 which is annoying to run buy cheaper than replacing it, sims do go bad on occasion.

 

[phreakymonkey]

mickelsn, would you mind posting your BIOS settings? And what SMBIOS definition did you end up going with?

 

[Kidney05]

You probably have but, might check compressed air on cooling vents to clear and checking cpu temps, might be cooling paste has fizzled away because some of that sounds heat related. Also memtest86 which is annoying to run buy cheaper than replacing it, sims do go bad on occasion.

turns out the main cause was that one of my windows drives died. that was what was causing the slow boot. only thing I'd like to figure out now is how to get the clover screen to look decent now that i'm on a 4k monitor. Doesn't seem like I can turn off CSM because then I boot to a black screen but that seems to be what people suggest elsewhere on the web.

 

[mickelsn]

mickelsn, would you mind posting your BIOS settings? And what SMBIOS definition did you end up going with?

Sorry for the delayed reply...I'll try to post my BIOS settings sometime soon, but I've basically left them alone compared to the very first Hackintosh I've done on this board based on guides here on TonyMac.

For SMBIOS, I'm using iMac 14,2 as described in my original Mojave post for this build (see the Clover Configurator section).

 

[Kidney05]

two more questions for you guys-- does your machine ever just quit on the network? When I'm running Plex my machine will just go offline, regardless of ethernet or wifi. It's quite frustrating.

Also do any of you have a 4k Screen? ever since I hooked mine up, my clover comes in very low res. I've read you're supposed to disable CSM and tell the bios you're booting to windows 10/other OS but I'm not seeing anything like that in our bios.

 

[mickelsn]

two more questions for you guys-- does your machine ever just quit on the network? When I'm running Plex my machine will just go offline, regardless of ethernet or wifi. It's quite frustrating.

Also do any of you have a 4k Screen? ever since I hooked mine up, my clover comes in very low res. I've read you're supposed to disable CSM and tell the bios you're booting to windows 10/other OS but I'm not seeing anything like that in our bios.

I used to have problems with WiFi somehow freezing up traffic on my entire wireless network, but that hasn't happened in a few years. No other network issues. I'm using the on-board Ethernet port primarily (first in the list in the Network Preferences Panel) but WiFi is also enabled all the time. For Bluetooth and WiFi, I'm using a card from OSXwifi.com.

Unfortunately, no 4K screen. I can't help you there. Since I hardly reboot, I frankly don't worry too much about Clover resolution as long as I can see my drives. <shrug>

 

[hitINdaGs]

Hey, thank you so much for all your work. I am currently in High Sierra and I would start fresh from Catalina. Is it pretty much the same procedure you used with Mojave?

 

[Kidney05]

I'm thinking about updating my system defintion from 13,2 to 14,2. Do any of you guys have experience doing this? I don't want it to lock me out of iCloud or anything.

 

[mickelsn]

Hey, thank you so much for all your work. I am currently in High Sierra and I would start fresh from Catalina. Is it pretty much the same procedure you used with Mojave?

I believe so, but honestly I’m not 100% sure since I haven’t done that myself yet. I’m waiting until a Catalina version of MultiBeast is available. If you try it and it works, let us know what you did!

 

[mickelsn]

I'm thinking about updating my system defintion from 13,2 to 14,2. Do any of you guys have experience doing this? I don't want it to lock me out of iCloud or anything.

I would be very careful here. Changing your system definition means changing other things like serial number and SmUUID. Those are key numbers for iCloud...

First, I suggest cloning your working clover.config file and doingyour work in the clone so you can always go back to a known working state. I would also completely disable both WiFi (remove card) and Ethernet (disconnect cable) so you don’t try to talk to iCloud until you are positive you’re ready to.

Some other suggestions...

1. If you have a small spare SSD to use as a scratch install, I would suggest using it to do a vanilla install. Then you can move that working clover.config file to your original SSD and upgrade the config.
2. Take a look at my original post about upgrading to Mojave. That has info on how I did my system definition change.
3. Remember that doing this will also cause some software registration issues for titles that tie registration to serial number or whatever. You’ll need to work those case by case.

I hope this helps!