- Joined
- Apr 19, 2014
- Messages
- 5
- Motherboard
- GA-Z87X-UD4H
- CPU
- i5 4690k
- Graphics
- Gigabyte GTX 760 4GB
- Mac
- Classic Mac
- Mobile Phone
LudiKure83's Build: GA-Z87X-UD4H - i5-4690K - Gigabyte GTX 760
ComponentsGIGABYTE GV-N760OC-4GD GeForce GTX 760 4GB 256-Bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 HDCP Ready WindForce 3X 450W Video Card
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125470
Sonnet Technologies 1-Port 1 Gigabit Ethernet PCI Express Card
http://www.amazon.com/Sonnet-Technologies-Gigabit-Ethernet-Express/dp/B00IA94IRY/
DELL P2415Q
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00PC9HFNY/
Crucial Ballistix Elite 16GB Kit (8GBx2) DDR3 1866 (PC3-14900)
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B006YG9D0M?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00
Apple iMac 802.11AC BCM94360CD BT4.0 1000Mbps Wifi Card+ Adapter+4xAntenna+Cable
http://www.ebay.com/itm/191392971578?_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Go! Pro USB Audio System with SBX SB1290
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0044DEDC0?
Already Owned
GA-Z87X-UD4H
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128617
Intel i5 4690K
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117372
Kingston HyperX SH100S3B/120G
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA6232HH4910
Comments
Several months ago I purchased Mac Mini i7 2012 (Quad Core) model, with 16 GB RAM and 256 GB SSD. The machine worked great, and it was very fast. It scored almost 11k on 32-bit Multi-Core Geekbench. However, it had one flow. Well at least in my opinion. I could not get used to OS X font rendering. It just looked blurry to me as opposed to Windows 8. Then I decided that I will need retina display. However, graphics in Mac Mini are not powerful enough to run 4k monitor. Since I did not want to break the bank on iMac retina, I sold my Mac Mini and built hackintosh with spec roughly equivalent to those of iMac Retina.
Notes:
I decided to use dedicated Ethernet card and not onboard LAN due to Sonnet Ethernet card having a native OS X support. I chose SYBA USB audio adapter for similar reason. Basically, the goal was to use minimal number of kexts. I replaced SYBA USB audio with Asus Xonar U3 because with SYBA I was able to hear lot of static when restarting the machine. I returned Asus Xonar U3 because the occasionally the device would just disappear, and also it was not correctly recognized by OS X. However, when it worked, it worked superbly. I finally settled for Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Go Pro. As far as I can tell, it produces sound quality equivalent to Xonar U3, but it is also recognized correctly by OS X and stays connected. Therefore, if you are looking for USB sound card, then I recommend this card.
One may find my choice of graphics card contradicting with my comments about Ethernet and sound cards, and all I can say about it is that I did not do a good research on that particular component. GTX 750 does not have native support in OS X being a Maxwell card. However, it is works great with Nvidia web drivers, and I am getting HiDPI 1920 x 1080p at 60 Hz resolution using DisplayPort on my ultra HD Dell. I am thinking about selling this card and getting GTX 760 instead since I read that it works with OS X OOB. The reason I want GTX 760 and not any less capable card with native support is 4k resolution.
Note: I replaced GTX 750 with GTX 760 in order to use OS X native graphics driver.
BCM94360CD with PCIe adapter finally arrived from Shenzhen, China. Based on initial impressions, I am glad I ordered it. Wifi, BT, Handoff and Airdrop all work without any issues. To get handoff working, I had to reset network settings on my iPhone/iPad.
Lately, I've experience two types of kernel panic on a daily basis:
*** Panic Report ***
panic(cpu 3 caller 0xffffff8000417cc2): Kernel trap at 0xffffff800085d97f, type 13=general protection, registers:
*** Panic Report ***
panic(cpu 3 caller 0xffffff80003fe9f0): "Possible memory corruption:
Based on what I read online, both are related to RAM. I therefore, replaced G.Skill RAM with Crucial Ballistix. That did not resolve the issue since I also got kernel panic with the new RAM. This time to ensure that RAM is okay, I ran two passes of memtest which returned no errors. I decided to move RAM to different slots, and I also turned off wake on network access setting since I read that it could be somehow be related to kernel panic. I did not have any kernel panic in the last 24 hours, and my hackintosh slept for about 8 hours which previously generally resulted in kernel panic during wake up.
Installing RAM into different slots or or replacing RAM with another one did not resolve my KP issues. However, installing EmuVariableUefi driver did. Since I installed this driver 4 days ago, I did not have a single KP. Before that, I was experiencing them daily.
UEFI Settings
- Load optimized defaults (F7)
- Intel Virtualization Technology - Disabled
- VT-D - Disabled
- EHCI Hand-Off - Enabled
- XHCI Hand-Off - Enabled
- XHCI Mode - Auto
- SATA Mode - AHCI
- Extreme Memory Profile - Profile1
- Intel Rapid Start - Disabled
- Fast Boot - Disabled
- Limit CPUID Maximum - Disabled
- Windows 8 Features - Other OS Windows WHQL
- Secure Boot - Disabled
- CSM - Disabled
Needed tools/drivers:
- Clover Bootloader
- Clover Configurator
- FakeSMC.kext
- HFSPlus.efi
[*]EFI Mounter V2 - Not needed when latest Clover Configurator is used. - Nvidia web driver
- Standard config.plist
- Download the OS X Yosemite Installer app from the Mac App Store, and place it in Applications folder.
- Format 8 GB USB flash drive to Mac OS X Extended (Journaled) using Disk Utility. Under Current select 1 Partition. Under Options choose GUID Partition Table.
- Change the name of USB flash drive to MyVolume or modify below code to correspond to the name of your USB flash drive.
- Run below command in Terminal. This will create bootable USB Yosemite installer.
-
Code:
[COLOR=#666666][FONT=monospace]sudo /Applications/Install OS X Yosemite.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/MyVolume --applicationpath /Applications/Install OS X Yosemite.app[/FONT][/COLOR] - Run Clover, and change installation location to Install OS X Yosemite. (your USB drive)
- Click continue and then click customize.
- Select options shown in screenshots:
-
- Finish installation.
- If your EFI partition is not mounted, run EFI Mounter.
- Navigate to /EFI/CLOVER.
- Delete config.plist and add Standard config.plist to /EFI/CLOVER.
- Navigate to /EFI/CLOVER/drivers64UEFI.
- Delete VBoxHfs-64.efi and add HFSPlus.efi.
- Navigate to /EFI/CLOVER/kexts/10.10 and add FakeSMC.kext.
- Restart, press F12 and select USB.
- In Clover Options add boot flag nv_disable=1. (this is needed if you have the same graphics card as mine. If you are using HD 4600 intel graphics, skip this step)
- Return to boot screen, and select your Yosemite USB installer.
- Install will run approximately between 15 and 20 minutes, and then your machine will restart. (Select your SSD as install location. You may have to format it to OS X Extended (Journaled))
- On Bios screen, press F12, and select USB.
- In Clover Options add boot flag nv_disable=1. (this is needed if you have the same graphics card as mine. If you are using HD 4600 intel graphics, skip this step)
- Return to boot screen, and select your Yosemite USB installer again.
- Wait for installation process to finish. (Approximately this will take 20-25 minutes)
- Once completed, the system will restart.
- On Bios screen, press F12, and select USB.
- In Clover Options add boot flag nv_disable=1. (this is needed if you have the same graphics card as mine. If you are using HD 4600 Intel graphics, skip this step)
- Return, and select your Yosemite SSD and finish OS setup.
- Once your Yosemite OS X is booted, repeat steps 6-17. This time select SSD as your location, and make sure that mounted EFI is the one on your SSD and not USB. (At this point you may eject your USB to avoid confusion)
- Install Nvidia web driver. (If your graphics is GTX 750)
- Reboot.
Post installation config.plist editing to enable iMessages
Important: These are post installation steps. When creating USB installer, standard config.plist provided in Tony's guide should be used unmodified. If you are happy with performance of your system using standard config.plist, you may ignore the rest of the steps. For me, iMessages only worked when below steps were applied.
- Run Clover Configurator and mount EFI partition on your SSD.
- Load config.plist on /EFI/CLOVER
- Select settings as shown on below screenshots.
Boot:
Gui:
Graphics:
System Parameters:
RT variables:
SMBIOS:
Note: My understanding is that setting ROM and MLB in RT Variables are critical steps in order to get iMessage. I used below steps to create unique Serial Number, SmUUID, ROM, and MLB.
- Copy /EFI/CLOVER/config.plist to your Desktop.
- Open config.plist on your Desktop with Clover Configurator. (At this point you will have two sessions of Clover Configurator running)
- On the first Clover Configurator window where you are making changes on /EFI/CLOVER/config.plist switch to SMBIOS tab.
- On the second Clover Configurator window where you are editing config.plist from your desktop switch to RT variables tab.
- On the first window in SMBIOS tab, click on magic stick and select iMac, and then in the drop down select iMac 14,2 (selecting iMac retina did not work for me).
- Click shake buttons few times to obtain random Serial Number.
- On the second window where you have Rt Variables open, click calculate.
- Go to System preferences > Network > Advanced > Hardware and make a note of your MAC address.
- Replace last sequence of characters/digits (last 12 characters) in System ID in Rt Variables tab with your MAC address (remove colons from MAC address) .
- Randomly change third and fourth group of characters in System ID. Make sure that the length of System ID remains the same. In the screenshot I grayed out the changes I made.
- Copy System ID from RT Variables to SmUUID on SMBIOS in your first Clover Configurator window.
- In MLB on RT Variables on your second Clover Configurator window, replace four characters in the middle of MLB with another four random characters (I grayed out those that I used in the screenshot). MLB must remain 17 characters long.
- Copy MLB from RT Variables to Board Serial Number in SMBIOS tab in your first Clover Configurator window..
- Close instance of Clover configurator where you have your RT Variables (the second instance you opened to edit config.plist from your Desktop).
- Switch to RT variables tab from SMBIOS tab.
- Copy your MAC address (without colons) to ROM field. (It should be the same as last sequence of characters in SmUUID).
- Copy Board Serial Number from SMBIOS to MLB box on RT Variables.
- Leave other boxes empty on RT Variables (do not click calculate again).
- Modify System Parameters settings as shown in below screenshot.
- Save config.plist.
- Reboot, and iMessages should work.
Benchmarks
Last edited by a moderator:
