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[SUCCESS] Sierra 10.12.3 - GA-Z97-D3H - i7 4790T - Gigabyte Geforce GTX 760 - only Clover/FakeSMC

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Joined
Oct 18, 2012
Messages
94
Motherboard
Gigabyte GA-Z97-D3H-F9
CPU
i7 4790T
Graphics
GTX 760
Mac
  1. MacBook Pro
  2. Mac mini
  3. Mac Pro
Classic Mac
  1. iBook
  2. Power Mac
Mobile Phone
  1. Android
  2. iOS
  3. Other
im82's Semi-Silent Power Build: GA-Z97-D3H - i7 4790T - Gigabyte Geforce GTX 760

Components


Gigabyte GA-Z97-D3H Rev 1.0 Firmware F9 motherboard
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00K2RQDLQ/
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128713

Intel Core i7 4790T SR1QS Processor

Scythe Mugen 2 Rev. B CPU Cooler - discontinued; replaced by the Scythe Mugen 4.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B002SCPH9W

16GB Crucial DDR3-1333 (4 x 4) Memory

Lian Li PC-A05NB Midi Tower (2 OEM fans) Case
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811112218

FSP Fortron Hyper M85+ Modular 700W (2 OEM fans) Power Supply

Gigabyte Geforce GTX 760 (GV-N760OC-2GD) 2048MB/2GB GDDR5 Rev 2.0 Graphics Card
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DGM8B6O/
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125466

Samsung 840 Pro 512GB SSD
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009NB8WTI

Sonnet Presto Gigabit Pro, 1x 1000Base-T, PCIe x1 (GE1000LA-E) Ethernet Card
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0017K6BR8

Creative Sound Blaster X-FI surround 5.1 Pro USB audio card
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0044DEDCA
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147194

GMYLE Bluetooth Adapter Dongle, Ultra-Mini USB Broadcom BCM20702 Class 2 Bluetooth V4.0 Dual Mode Dongle Wireless Adapter with LED
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007MKMJGO/
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA1AZ0F11466

Apple Wireless Keyboard
http://www.amazon.com/Apple-MC184LL-B-Wireless-Keyboard/dp/B005DLDO4U
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16823101013

TeckNet Bluetooh Wireless Mouse BM306
http://www.amazon.com/TeckNet-Bluetooth-Wireless-Mouse-BM306/dp/B000Q7V0W4
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA32J2X46338

Transcend TS32GJF710SPE JetFlash 32 GB USB-Stick USB 3.1

http://www.amazon.com/Transcend-JetFlash-Flash-Drive-TS32GJF710S/dp/B00LFVITLK
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA9FT3EV0306&cm_re=Transcend_710-_-0WX-00FX-000E4-_-Product

Sony Optiarc AD-7241S Lightscribe DVD Burner
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827118032


Additional Components

KAWAI MP8 MKII MIDI Master Keyboard
http://www.kawaius.com/PDF/Kawai_MPII_review_Aug2008.pdf
discontinued; replaced by KAWAI MP11 MIDI Master Keyboard:
http://www.amazon.com/Kawai-MP11-Professional-Stage-Piano/dp/B00IL7PCUC
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA5442FP7017&cm_re=kawai-_-9SIA5442FP7017-_-Product

Yamaha RXV-2700 Home HIFI Receiver
http://www.amazon.com/Yamaha-RXV2700-7-1-channel-Network-Receiver/dp/B000JF54GQ

Canton Ergo RCA x2 HIFI Front Speakers

http://www.amazon.de/Canton-Ergo-RC-A-schwarz-Stand-Lautsprecher/dp/B00007F8CM

Canton Ergo CM 500 HIFI Center Speaker
https://www.amazon.de/Canton-Ergo-CM-500DC-buche-Center-Lautsprecher/dp/B00007F8AW

Canton Ergo RCL x2 HIFI Rear Speakers

https://www.amazon.de/Canton-Ergo-RC-L-Stand-Lautsprecher-Paar-kirsch/dp/B00005LAX5

Superlux semi-open type professional monitor headphones HD681F

http://www.amazon.com/Superlux-semi-open-professional-headphones-HD681F/dp/B002Z9CLD8

ViewSonic LightStream PJD7720HD 3D DLP-Projector
https://www.amazon.com/ViewSonic-PJD7720HD-Lumens-Theater-Projector/dp/B01EAPUHYY/

Ancient Power Mac G5 Dual bundled Apple USB Keyboard

OEM Logitech USB Mouse


Comments

This is a 400 EUR upgrade from an old guard (GA-X58A-UD3R Rev 2.0, 24GB RAM, i7 960). That's the reason for then "old" RAM, "old" GPU, "old" fan etc.

I could find a 4970T for around 250 EUR (used) and the Motherboard for around 65 EUR (used). I did also purchase a FSP modular 85+ 700w power supply for around 70 EUR (new) to un-clutter my Lian Li Midi tower.

Runs 20-25°C idle, 25-30° load, 40-50° heavy load (Prime95 stress test).
Deep sleep works, power management works. No issues at all.
Noise is similar to a Powermac G5 Dual in idle - but - even at full load it does not get any louder.

I listed all the additional components because everything works like a charm, is semi silent and very low temperature - a huge improvement over the X58A UD3R (old guard) and it was a rather cheap upgrade (compared to buying a new Mac).

Adding some dampers and its a perfect pro audio machine.

Geekbench3 32Bit: 12085
Geekbench4 64Bit: 12536

iMessage seems to be working fine OOB!

The Build

Use Case

  • Audio / MIDI / Sound Production
  • Semi-Silent Home Theatre / Office
  • Casual Gaming


Installation

Installation and Setup

  • Used an USB Keyboard and USB Mouse for UEFI BIOS configuration and installation purposes.
  • Followed TonyMacs Installation Guide
  • UEFI BIOS BIOS Pre Install:
    • I did disable Ethernet and Audio in the UEFI BIOS as I got dedicated solutions for that
  • UniBeast 6.1.1: UEFI Mode
  • MultiBeast 8.1
    • System iMac 14,2
    • Clover UEFI
    • FakeSMC kext + HWMonitor Bundle - No other kexts.


Use Case


Files
 
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*[SUCCESS] 10.11.4 - GA-Z97-D3H - i7 4790T - Gigabyte Geforce GTX 760

Understand deadlines. I'll help with the component list and formatting headers in my spare time over the next couple of days. Check back here tomorrow. Under the Comments section, you can add way you built your system and how that led to you choosing the components. Then you can work on how you installed El Capitan (at a high level) as time permits. User Builds target audience is newbies to hackintoshing looking to build a system like yours.
 
Thanks. When I find some time, I'll DSLR-Shot some BIOS photos.

Note: the i7 4970T is missing from ALL sources:

- TonyMac
- Amazon
- Newegg

Its an awesome thing of a processor. The best I have had since I can think of desktop CPUs. The 4970S runs a lot hotter and has a lot higher base clock speed - at the same time while turboing there is almost no difference.

Edit Updated

EDIT2: The List formatting of the editor seems kind of broken (Firefox Latest Stable OS X 10.11.4). Can'T get into editing the opening post in pure HTML (or UBB)
 
Everything working super smooth.

I have added UEFI BIOS Screen Shots (see opening post imgur Link)


Have encountered one issue
: iTunes Store movie HD trailers don't play (black screen), as far as I can tell from reading tonymac it is related to HDCP/DRM and unsigned video drivers. However, it does not bother me at all (those who buy into DRMed content, ... /me *shakes head*).
 
Sometimes the boot screen hangs (it becomes slow and the graphics mode does not switch to desktop and the DVI display is okay but HDMI stays blank)... then hitting F2 and selecting the zip drive with UniBeast to boot from works... within the clover screen of the boot stick just select the Macintosh HD)

^ Had 2 USB Sticks both bootable which confused things.
 
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I also had random crashes during boot after updating from 10.12 to 10.12.2, removing HWSensors and FakeSMCPlugins revoled this issue. These happend once then it booted perfectly. Then after shutdown and reboot it happend again, 2nd boot worked fine again.

Boots perfectly now, is ultra stable.

Small gripes:
- Graphics: SSAO does not work in Alien Isoliation or The Long Dark
- Firewall and iCloud wants me to enter login every time I reboot.
 
Last edited:
Btw. updated to 10.12.0 and then 10.12.2 with any changes required.
Updated clover and FakeSMC through latest Multibeast for Sierra.
I am very very pleased with the CPU btw. It is ultra speedy and runs at 27-30°C no load and 34-40°C load.
 
The only issues I have are sometimes a boot time and stand-by panics.
After installing 10.12.3 I noticed that the trace of crash was only caused by/traced back to FakeSMC.
I have then downloaded latest FakeSMC by rehab from 2017-01-17 https://bitbucket.org/RehabMan/os-x-fakesmc-kozlek/downloads and installed it via EFI Mounter and it seems I don't have issues anymore.

However! When mounting with EFI Mounter v3 I had some issues and I think I am beginning to understand. EFI Mounter v3 always shows all my hard disks but sometimes the order is different if I run diskutil list
atm it is:

Code:
$ diskutil list
/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *2.0 TB     disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Storage                 2.0 TB     disk0s2

/dev/disk1 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *2.0 TB     disk1
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk1s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Time Machine            2.0 TB     disk1s2

/dev/disk2 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *320.1 GB   disk2
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk2s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Photos                  319.7 GB   disk2s2

/dev/disk3 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *500.1 GB   disk3
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk3s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD            499.2 GB   disk3s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk3s3

/dev/disk4 (external, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *31.6 GB    disk4
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk4s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Install OS X El Captain 31.2 GB    disk4s2

The 500GB drive is my SSD and atm appears as /dev/disk3 (internal, physical):
However it used to appear as disk0 or disk1 and it seems to move around with every boot.

Because of history or Multibeast (not sure) I have got an EFI partition on at least one of the 2TB drives.
Cause of that maybe that EFI partition was loaded sometimes.

When "fixing" my install, I mounted multiple times and copied the same recent REHAB fakeSMC to both.
Should all of my drives have an EFI partition?
How would I tell clover what drive to use? Can I tell it by uuid or something?

I am trying to kill all the EFI partitions that are not on my "boot drive" or "os x installer usb-zip" now, via https://www.mede8erforum.com/index.php?topic=14019.0, aka
Code:
diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk2

sudo gpt remove -i 1 disk2
 
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