Testing Thread: Skylake Platform in OS X

[busanut]

Anyone have a fix for Ethernet not working after sleep.I have the GA H170N-wifi and I am using the AppleIGB 5.2.9.4 kext.
Thanks

 

[tonymacx86]

Hey Tony,

Nice work on this, fantastic result. I'd really appreciate it if you could let me know how you're getting on with this system aside from the graphics issues. I sort of went mad the other night and ordered this mobo, hoping it will be relatively smooth. I have a supported nvidia card so graphics don't concern me, and i have a native BT4/WIFIac mac card to use until they sort drivers for Intel 219E. Anything else i should worry about?

Best,
Dave

Thanks for the feedback- I'm only using the machine for testing, but it seems to be ok with the latest workarounds. With the graphics, ethernet, USB 3.1 not working properly I don't think if I would recommend Skylake for daily use right now- only if you're into experimenting and following the latest developments here as an early adopter.

 

[neilhart]

The UUT is:

Motherboard - ASUS Z170I Pro Gaming (Mini-ITX form factor)
CPU - Intel i7 6700T (35W)
Memory - 16 GB (2x8) Corsair Vengeance LPX 2666MHz DDR4
Add on card for Ethernet - Intel Pro /1000 Quad Port (PCIe)
Add on dongle for sound - Logitech G3330 Headset
USB mouse and keyboard.


Humm… not my best work.

Boots to El Capitan 10.11.1 from a 100 GB SATA Hitachi 2.5” HDD.
Clover r3320 UEFI boot from EFI partition located on a small SATA SSD service drive.
Config.plist is a cobbled from bits and pieces from all over (including Pike R Alpha’s patch).
USB connectivity on USB2 and USB3 ports… Only shows USB 3 ports in the system report.
Onboard HD 530 graphics (this version shows as HD 7000) with 1536 MB but major artafacting.
Network via Intel Quad port card in the one PCIe slot.
Sound by USB Logitech dongle (sounds great).

Issues:

Almost too many to list -
Graphics
Only the boot drive appears in Disk Utility and the system report…. what’s up with that?
Sound - to be sorted out.
USB is a major problem (have not tried the 3.1 ports)
On board Ethernet NIC - to be sorted out.
Will not sleep correctly and will not wake from sleep.
Does not power off at shutdown about 50% of the time.
Also restart is problematic.
WiFi and BT
more…

Note I do have the M.2 Samsung SM951 256GB AHCI which boots El Capitan but still has all of the same issues with the OS. It just does not need the Pike R Alpha patch.


Good modding,
neil

 

[ammulder]

Ooh, I'm jealous of the 6700T -- I like lower-power CPUs but it wasn't available when I bought.

To those with the half-memory problem: you can encode memory values in config.plist like this. Note that I have used "4 slots" even on the H170N-WIFI mini-ITX with only two slots, because Clover considers slots 0 and 2 to be the first dual-channel bank and I'm not sure how to change that. I told it my memory was in slots 0 and 2 so it's considered dual-channel. (This goes in the SMBIOS section.)

		<key>Memory</key>
		<dict>
			<key>SlotCount</key>
			<integer>4</integer>
			<key>Channels</key>
			<integer>2</integer>
			<key>Modules</key>
			<array>
				<dict>
					<key>Slot</key>
					<integer>0</integer>
					<key>Frequency</key>
					<integer>2133</integer>
					<key>Part</key>
					<string>CT2C8G4DFD8213</string>
					<key>Serial</key>
					<string>0200020B000C020B</string>
					<key>Size</key>
					<integer>8192</integer>
					<key>Type</key>
					<string>DDR4</string>
					<key>Vendor</key>
					<string>Crucial</string>
				</dict>
				<dict>
					<key>Slot</key>
					<integer>2</integer>
					<key>Frequency</key>
					<integer>2133</integer>
					<key>Part</key>
					<string>CT2C8G4DFD8213</string>
					<key>Serial</key>
					<string>0200020B000C020B</string>
					<key>Size</key>
					<integer>8192</integer>
					<key>Type</key>
					<string>DDR4</string>
					<key>Vendor</key>
					<string>Crucial</string>
				</dict>
			</array>
		</dict>

If you're not sure what part number, serial number, or vendor to use, I think you can set it to "unknown" or "no name" or whatever, but I think it doesn't like it if you leave the settings out entirely.

 

[burpethead]

Ooh, I'm jealous of the 6700T -- I like lower-power CPUs but it wasn't available when I bought.

To those with the half-memory problem: you can encode memory values in config.plist like this. Note that I have used "4 slots" even on the H170N-WIFI mini-ITX with only two slots, because Clover considers slots 0 and 2 to be the first dual-channel bank and I'm not sure how to change that. I told it my memory was in slots 0 and 2 so it's considered dual-channel. (This goes in the SMBIOS section.)

		<key>Memory</key>
		<dict>
			<key>SlotCount</key>
			<integer>4</integer>
			<key>Channels</key>
			<integer>2</integer>
			<key>Modules</key>
			<array>
				<dict>
					<key>Slot</key>
					<integer>0</integer>
					<key>Frequency</key>
					<integer>2133</integer>
					<key>Part</key>
					<string>CT2C8G4DFD8213</string>
					<key>Serial</key>
					<string>0200020B000C020B</string>
					<key>Size</key>
					<integer>8192</integer>
					<key>Type</key>
					<string>DDR4</string>
					<key>Vendor</key>
					<string>Crucial</string>
				</dict>
				<dict>
					<key>Slot</key>
					<integer>2</integer>
					<key>Frequency</key>
					<integer>2133</integer>
					<key>Part</key>
					<string>CT2C8G4DFD8213</string>
					<key>Serial</key>
					<string>0200020B000C020B</string>
					<key>Size</key>
					<integer>8192</integer>
					<key>Type</key>
					<string>DDR4</string>
					<key>Vendor</key>
					<string>Crucial</string>
				</dict>
			</array>
		</dict>

If you're not sure what part number, serial number, or vendor to use, I think you can set it to "unknown" or "no name" or whatever, but I think it doesn't like it if you leave the settings out entirely.

Thanks ammulder that looks really fancy. Do we know if the root issue is a system or a memory count display issue? As in, does putting these settings mask the issue just to show 16 GB in the system profiler, but the system is still really is only using 8 GB?

Hope this is the actual fix!! If so thanks so much.

 

[MikeLP]

Hi guys! I used attached by tonymacx config.plist (patched) but i still getting error "Still waiting for root device (with disallow icon)". I used Unibeast 6.1.1 - El Capitan - EFI mode.

My config is
processor - Core i7 6700k
motherboard - Asus Maximus VIII Gene (Intel® Z170 Express) - latest bios 0907
graphics - Integrated intel
storages - SSD Samsung Evo 1TB | SSD Kingston 120GB
memory - Kingston HyperX Savage 16gb
cooling - DeepCool Maelstrom 240T

Short story)
Every time, when I am buying new PC I have a troubles with installing mac os x. (like a loser, I know it Last time I could not stand and bought Mac Book , but I was forced to give to my wife. Last week i bought new working PC and I hope that you help me break the curse.

So, maybe I dont turn off /turn on some options in bios or put wrong kext? I will be grateful if you'll help me or give me advice. Thanks!

 

[janmunich]

Hi guys! I used attached by tonymacx config.plist (patched) but i still getting error "Still waiting for root device (with disallow icon)". I used Unibeast 6.1.1 - El Capitan - EFI mode.

My config is
processor - Core i7 6700k
motherboard - Asus Maximus VIII Gene (Intel® Z170 Express) - latest bios 0907
graphics - Integrated intel
storages - SSD Samsung Evo 1TB | SSD Kingston 120GB
memory - Kingston HyperX Savage 16gb
cooling - DeepCool Maelstrom 240T

Short story)
Every time, when I am buying new PC I have a troubles with installing mac os x. (like a loser, I know it Last time I could not stand and bought Mac Book , but I was forced to give to my wife. Last week i bought new working PC and I hope that you help me break the curse.

So, maybe I dont turn off /turn on some options in bios or put wrong kext? I will be grateful if you'll help me or give me advice. Thanks!

You have to either patch your bios to disable APIC registers or do a patch:

see https://pikeralpha.wordpress.com/2015/11/06/appleapic-kext-binary-patch-for-skylake/

In addition add FakeSMC and USBInjectAll kext
thx to Rehabman.
Be advised that USBInjectAll is not a long term solution just a fix to detect all(15max +patch20max) usb devices and get installer running. Afterwards you should patch your USBIO properly and sort out which usbs are actually physically available.

I have a full skylake setup running right now, only thing that does not work at the moment is my wifi/bt with gets to be replaced by a broadcom chip mid of this week.

I personally patched my bios for registers and also removed MSR lock

So i can confirm whats working:
M.2 SATA -> gets replaced with NVME mid of this week
USB2.0/USB3.0
Gigabit ethernet Killer 2200
Graphics nvidia 970gtx
audio realtek 1150 with sleep wake patch
modified ssdt to support all C+P states for my 6700K

Not working right now:
USB 3.1 -> but i didnt but much effort to even try to get it running.

It took me a while to patch all the needed kexts etc. but there is plenty information around here and on the other side of insanelymac.

 

[DaveLloyd]

I personally patched my bios for registers and also removed MSR lock

If you could talk me through or point me in the right direction as to how to do this, i'd really appreciate it.

M.2 SATA -> gets replaced with NVME mid of this week

I've read loads of reports that no one can get NVMe working on hacks yet seems apple's version of NVMe is different.

EDIT: Also, thanks for your response Tony, very useful

 

[neilhart]

You have to either patch your bios to disable APIC registers or do a patch:
...



I personally patched my bios for registers and also removed MSR lock

janmunich - please share the detail process that you used to patch your bios. And the process used to re-flash your bios.

Good modding,
neil

 

[janmunich]

janmunich - please share the detail process that you used to patch your bios. And the process used to re-flash your bios.

Good modding,
neil

Hey neil,

well Pike recommends not patching the bios, i'd recon that you try it with his patch first:
as described here:

https://pikeralpha.wordpress.com/2015/11/06/appleapic-kext-binary-patch-for-skylake/

add the following patch to your clover config.plist: (screenshot of pikes description onboard)

the next thing you should add is Rehabman's USBInjectAll.kext:
-> this goes to efi/clover/kexts/Other
remove all 10.xx folders if they are present

This injects all 15 possible usb combinations (macosx is limited to 15).
If you still get a "waiting for root device" error you have to go one step futher adding a little patch to clover to increase the amount of usb ports: (not recommended by Rehabman for "production" use)
https://github.com/RehabMan/OS-X-USB-Inject-All/blob/master/config_patches.plist

also added to clover config.

Afterwards you should be able to boot to installer, if you set all the needed flags depending on your system.

mine are the following:

Fix HPet AddDTGT FixHDA newWay, Fixregions, DeleteUnused, AddHDMI
DropOEM Sata

bootflags: nv_disable=1 if you have an nvidia card installed.
devices: usb inject, addclockid, fixownership, resetHDA

Kextpatches as described above either just one (pike's for fixing APIC registers) or two by also adding the patch to Rehabman's USBInjectAll.kext


But if you really want to flash your bios you need the following tools:
AMIBCP
Efiflash
rufus/freedos -> for creating a bootable media to start efiflash

What you want to do is to add the option to disable APIC IO registers -> If your bios does not provide this menu item anyway.


But since you are already up and running in OSX there is no need to flash your bios.
You just have to map your USBs properly and thats a different story.

Use Rehabmans usb injector and inject all usb ports with patch, than use IORegistryExplorer to determine which physical usb devices you got and patch your IOUSBHostFamily.kext accordingly.


Im planning to write a more detailed post about how to do it, since the information are all out there and just have to be gathered. I'll hope I can do it tonight.

Just shot your questions if you have any - im tying to answer if im possible to do so.

Regards

Jan