[Success] xmark’s fanless mini Mojave: i5-7600 | *ASRock Fatal1ty Z170 Gaming-ITX/ac | Intel HD530

[xmark]

xmark’s fanless mini w/ Mojave: i5-7600 | *ASRock Fatal1ty Z170 Gaming-ITX/ac | Intel HD530

(* bodgied the motherboard install, see below)

Note
This is not a conventional “success” report. I used a fairly unorthodox method to get Mojave on my ASRock Z170 ITX. But hey it works!

Components:

• ASRock Fatal1ty Z170 Gaming-ITX/ac (via Gigabyte Z270MX Gaming 5 mATX, read below)
• Intel i5-7600
• Corsair 2 x 8GB DDR4 2133MHz
• Samsung 850 EVO 500GB
• TP-Link AC1900 (buyers guide, used low profile bracket to fit case)
• IOGEAR Bluetooth 4.0 USB Micro Adapter (buyers guide but a random one works too)
• Streacom FC8WS Alpha fanless case w/ ST-NANO160 PSU & ST-MH1 Short Heatpipes

Chassis
This is my Streacom FC8 fanless PC chassis. It’s Mini-ITX and when I bought the m/b the ASRock Z170 Gaming-ITX was the only one on the buyers guide that had DP (needed for my widescreen monitor).

Build
Using a Mac, I followed the instructions [https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/...ojave-on-any-supported-intel-based-pc.259381/] and built the USB installer with the current downloadable version of Mojave. Popped the installer in the front and booted. Got as far as the first reboot but then the “no entry – no way – stop now” icon appeared. The ASRock didn’t want to rock.

Probably it was because of lack of USB support for the ASRock, but anyway, I wasn’t going to screw around. Instead I swapped the Windows SSD into my gaming machine which has a Gigabyte Z270 mATX m/b and went through the install. At the end, it came up fine, with network.

Took the SSD out and popped it back in the ASRock machine. No joy. No USB control, no network, useless.

So I put the SSD back in the gaming PC and booted up. Then I looked for MultiBeast. Now there is no Mojave (at time of press) but whatever. I fired up the High Sierra version and plodded through the options. Once done, the SSD went back in the ASRock m/c and it mostly works. The Multibeast set-up is (as far as I remember):

What works:

• USB works on the USB3/3.1 ports but only with USB 2 devices
• Sound (audio jack and also HDMI and DP audio to monitor)
• Ethernet (using onboard Intel LAN)
• WiFi (using AC1900 card only, the original internal card doesn’t work for BT either)
• BT (using IOGEAR dongle)
• Display sleep (not system sleep, set that to “never”)

What does not work:

• USB 3/3.1 (wish it did because transfer rates on 2 are so slow)
• Full system sleep wake does not work (didn’t under El Cap/Sierra either)
• Original WiFi and BT card (got them to work under El Cap following the guide … have a replacement BCM94360HMB card as per guide, have ordered the tiny antenna clips which are different to the original
• Every now and then the screen goes black then recovers. I read this is not uncommon

Acknowledgements:
Thanks very much to all on the forum, esp @tonymacx86 & @aamulder & @toleda & @RehabMan for such great work & guides. It’s a joy to build & run a hackintosh.

Bonus material
Pic of FC8's heat pipes (pic shows original build w/out WiFi card and original Crucial Ballistix Sport LT Red RAM).

 

[bbatla]

I just clean installed Mojave on asrock z170 itx with a NVMe (Samsung 960evo). No external graphics card. Using built in HD530. With vanilla unibeast built config.plist I was getting panic prior to installer coming up but I got it working. It was USB support issue. Instructions below.

1. Prior to running Unibeast. make sure EFI partition is created correctly on blank 2.0 USB. Use disktutil and turn on show all devices and then format at top level of usb. Choose Guid Partition once the erase window comes up. This will ensure EFI partition is created. First time I just erased a newly bought usb and didn’t get an EFI partition on it. Thus unibeast didn’t make the usb bootable.
2. update config.plist to add Inject USB + FixOwnership.
3. put USBInjectAll.kext in /kexts/other in USB
4. Once installer comes up, Prep SSD
   
   1. Delete EFI partition. From terminal
      1. unmount NVMe
      2. Go to terminal and use command line to delete EFI
      3. “Diskutil list” command to find path to EFI partition of internal drive
      4. gpt remove -i 1 /dev/disk0 (assuming EFI is on disk0)
5. Follow instructions to install Mojave https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/...ojave-on-any-supported-intel-based-pc.259381/
6. System will auto reboot few times. Just make sure you choose boot Mojave from clover boot screen. Don’t boot from usb after you do it the first time.
7. After few reboots I got to the graphical installer of Mojave and choose language, created my user,etc
8. At this point I have Mojave up but no video acceleration. Thought about putting the ig-platform key in config.plist to see if acceleration would come on, but realized my nvme doesn’t have bootable EFI yet.
9. Downloaded Mojave Multibeast and ran it. Choose these options. Plus UEFI
   1. IntelMausiEthernet latest. v2.4.0 is what i used
   2. 3rd Party USB 3.0
   3. Remove XHCI USB Port limit
   4. USBInjectAll
   5. iMac 14,2

Note: I don’t care about WiFi or built in Bluetooth. I am using iogear Bluetooth dingle and my Mac keyboard and trackpad work great. I am also not sure if I get usb 3.0 support. But don’t care for it. Time machine backup is slow I believe, but that is fine.

 

[bbatla]

Created a Guide post here. I spent couple of days playing around with High Sierra install and then Mojave. Hope this helps others.

https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/guide-mojave-on-the-asrock-fatal1ty-z170-gaming-itx-ac.268914/