How to extend the iMac Pro to X99 [Successful Build/Extended Guide]

[nmano]

I have the THB_C header cable connected and TB, USB and sleep/wake work. But on X99 I use TBEX 3. I would remove the cable just for hot plug.

From my tests with the Alpine Ridge on X299 I witnessed that with connected THB_C header cable, TB only works with USB3.1 stick connected to the second port. But this weird behaviour mainly depends on the BIOS settings.

Thanks KGP
USB drive worked 2nd port In Alpine Ridge.

 

[kgp]

1. I have two System drives, Crucial is for Sierra and WD is for High Sierra. Sierra is working great with spectacular benchmarks thanks to your previous guide for Sierra on X99.

2. Perhaps I'm messing up with the instruction cd the Nvidia Packager directory. I'm not completely sure I know how to do that. So maybe, that's why the driver installation went wrong (although the installation completes successfully and the driver manager menu is actually showing on the menu bar, so I'm not sure about this either..). This time I used WebDriver-387.10.10.10.30.103

Here's a capture of the instructions, next to what I did to repackage the WebDriver..

View attachment 333591

Now, I'm installing the Repackaged-WebDriver.pkg from Desktop..

View attachment 333592

View attachment 333593

After reboot:

View attachment 333594

@kgp As you can see, although the installation process went successful, the WebDriver Preferences says NVIDIA Web Driver: Not Installed. I don't know if that's normal or not, I presume is not. And also, there's no NVDAStartupWeb.kext in /L/E/ to copy to Desktop and follow the next steps of your guide.

Thanks for this illustrative and nice debugging report, man

What is not normal is that there is no NVDAStartupWeb.kext in /L/E/.

Did you try the version of the repackager provided by my link?

Note that if once you would have NVDAStartupWeb.kext in /L/E/, you would have modified the IOKitPersonalities in the plist of NVDAStartupWeb.kext on your Desktop, and you would have dropped back the modified NVDAStartupWeb.kext to /L/E/ with admin permission, you still have to run the 4 terminal commands below before rebooting your system, as initially requested by the Web Driver Installer:

Your system would still come up with the Default Mac OS Graphics Driver. But now you should be able to select the Nvidia Web Driver in the Nvidia Driver Manager. This change would request another system reboot by default, but this time after system reboot you should have a fully working web driver.

Thus, the remaining issue to be solved is to find the reason why your web driver package installer does not install anything in /L/E.

BTW... I would use web driver 107, instead of 103 and 106.

 

[kgp]

@kgp Here goes a detailed explanation of my failed patching/installing process:

1. Installed macOS HS Public Beta.

2. Looked online for a solution for graphics not working. (then I asked you here and you told me to look on section E.1 of your guide)

3. Try to download the Repackager from the link you provided, but it wasn't working (then I asked you and you told me to log in on InsanellyMac)

4. Felt quite stupid.

5. Logged in on IM and downloaded de Repackager.

6. Followed the instructions provided in the patch with WebDriver-378.10.10.10.25.106.

(in Readme.txt from Repackager downloaded from IM)

i. Wasn't sure how to 2. Open terminal and cd the Nvidia Packager directory.

ii. 4. Close the folder that opens up when it extracts the Payload. Not sure what to do here.

7. Patched the WebDriver-378.10.10.10.25.106 anyway and the file sowed up in Desktop.

8. Installed it.

9. i.) Copy /L/E/ NVDAStartupWeb.kext to your Desktop. (I don't know from which folder. From Payload? System? user/Library?) Looked for NVDAWebStartUp.kext on regular Library folder, wasn't there. Looked on System/Library and it wasn't there either. Didn`t know what to do.

10. Found NVDAWebStartUp.kext in /Payload/Library/Extensions. Don't know if its the right folder or the right file..

11. Moved the file to root/Library/Extensions.

12. Not working..

Well basically you do the following:

1.) You download and copy the Nvidia WebDriver-Payload Repackager.app to your Desktop.
2.) You double-klick on the Nvidia WebDriver-Payload Repackager.app.
3.) In the Finder-window that opens, you go to the "Packages" directory.
4.) You drop with the mouse e.g. vanilla Web Driver 107 into the "Packages" directory
Ensure that the directory just harbours one vanilla web driver to be patched!
5.) You open a Terminal and enter the following commands:

cd ~/Desktop/Nvidia\ WebDriver-Payload\ Repackager/

./repackage.sh

6.) The program will now fully automatically repackage your web driver
7.) Important: Don't interact with the program as indicated! And don't close the folder that opens up when it extracts the Payload. Everything is done fully automatically by the program!!! No interaction required!
8.) Just install the resulting Repackaged-WebDriver.pkg, as soon the repackaging process has finished and the Repackaged-WebDriver.pkg appears on your Desktop.
9.) Directly after installing the Repackaged-WebDriver.pkg and before rebooting the system as requested by the Web Driver Installer, perform all steps once more indicated in post #1770, always provided that NVDAStartupWeb.kext is now in /L/E/.

 

[nifranza]

Well basically you do the following:

1.) You download and copy the Nvidia WebDriver-Payload Repackager.app to your Desktop.
2.) You double-klick on the Nvidia WebDriver-Payload Repackager.app.
3.) In the Finder-window that opens, you go to the "Packages" directory.
4.) You drop with the mouse e.g. vanilla Web Driver 107 into the "Packages" directory
Ensure that the directory just harbours one vanilla web driver to be patched!
5.) You open a Terminal and enter the following commands:

cd ~/Desktop/Nvidia\ WebDriver-Payload\ Repackager/

./repackage.sh

6.) The program will now fully automatically repackage your web driver
7.) Important: Don't interact with the program as indicated! And don't close the folder that opens up when it extracts the Payload. Everything is done fully automatically by the program!!! No interaction required!
8.) Just install the resulting Repackaged-WebDriver.pkg, as soon the repackaging process has finished and the Repackaged-WebDriver.pkg appears on your Desktop.
9.) Directly after installing the Repackaged-WebDriver.pkg and before rebooting the system as requested by the Web Driver Installer, perform all steps once more indicated in post #1770, always provided that NVDAStartupWeb.kext is now in /L/E/.

@kgp Thanks for the detailed instructions. Here's what I did:

1. Downloaded WebDriver 107 as suggested and WebDriver-Payload Repackager.app to Desktop.
2. Double-click on the Nvidia WebDriver-Payload Repackager.app.
3. Go to the "Packages" directory and drop the WebDriver there (only one).
4. Open Terminal and the following commands:

Note: Some folders are returning "No such file or directory".

6 & 7. I didn't interact with the program in any way. Even when installing the Driver, I did not close any folder.
8. Installed the resulting Repackaged-WebDriver.pkg and rebooted as requested by the installer.

9. Cannot perform the following steps of your guide since there is no NVDAStartUpWeb.kext on /L/E/.

Any thoughts?

 

[kgp]

@kgp Thanks for the detailed instructions. Here's what I did:

1. Downloaded WebDriver 107 as suggested and WebDriver-Payload Repackager.app to Desktop.
2. Double-click on the Nvidia WebDriver-Payload Repackager.app.
3. Go to the "Packages" directory and drop the WebDriver there (only one).
4. Open Terminal and the following commands:

Note: Some folders are returning "No such file or directory".

View attachment 333661

6 & 7. I didn't interact with the program in any way. Even when installing the Driver, I did not close any folder.
8. Installed the resulting Repackaged-WebDriver.pkg and rebooted as requested by the installer.

View attachment 333662

9. Cannot perform the following steps of your guide since there is no NVDAStartUpWeb.kext on /L/E/.

View attachment 333663

Any thoughts?

No..no further thoughts.. I am at the end of my wisdom... No idea why everything works in my case and in the case of many others, but in your case everything fails....

I hope you can find a solution for solving your knot though...

Good luck!

KGP

 

[kgp]

@nifranza,

what about uninstalling the Nvidia Driver Manager and starting from scratch with the Web Driver installation?

Something seems to be totally messed up on your system.

 

[nifranza]

Could it be possibble that I might be looking in the wrong folder?

I certainly don't want to waste your time, but I also checked on my Crucial SSD that has Sierra 10.12.6 on it and I did not found any NVDAWebStartUp.kext in it. That got me thinking that perhaps I was looking in the wrong Library folder.

Perhaps I'll just wait for 10.13.5 official WebDrivers or downgrade to 10.13.4.

However, I do wanna say that your guides, with all its precission, are what got me into the Hackintosh world and community. You are extremely helpful and I'm trully grateful you for that!

 

[kgp]

Could it be possibble that I might be looking in the wrong folder?

I certainly don't want to waste your time, but I also checked on my Crucial SSD that has Sierra 10.12.6 on it and I did not found any NVDAWebStartUp.kext in it. That got me thinking that perhaps I was looking in the wrong Library folder.

Perhaps I'll just wait for 10.13.5 official WebDrivers or downgrade to 10.13.4.

However, I do wanna say that your guides, with all its precission, are what got me into the Hackintosh world and community. You are extremely helpful and I'm trully grateful you for that!

The 10.12.6 web driver is still installed in S/L/E!

The 10.13 web driver is installed in /L/E!

Did you follow my advise to uninstall the Nividia driver manager und to start from scratch with the web driver installation?

 

[nifranza]

@nifranza,

what about uninstalling the Nvidia Driver Manager and starting from scratch with the Web Driver installation?

View attachment 333691

Something seems to be totally messed up on your system.

I did overwrite the existing driver a few times, and also uninstalled it and started from scratch another couple of times and nothing changed. I really believe I'm in fact looking in a wrong Library folder since.on Sierra NVDAWebStartUp.kext is located in S/L/E and not in L/E. I don't think its possible that it works on every system but mine. I might be doing something wrong or broken something.

 

[kgp]

I did overwrite the existing driver a few times, and also uninstalled it and started from scratch another couple of times and nothing changed. I really believe I'm in fact looking in a wrong Library folder since.on Sierra NVDAWebStartUp.kext is located in S/L/E and not in L/E. I don't think its possible that it works on every system but mine. I might be doing something wrong or broken something.

I already told you that the 10.12.6 web driver must be in /S/L/E and the 10.13 web driver must be in /L/E!

Once more... did you ever try to totally uninstall the web driver manager and to start from scratch with the web driver installation?

If not, PLEASE, just do it..