Very slow boot 10.13.1 HFS on NVME

[moog84]

Hi. I just started experimenting with a High Sierra boot on 960 EVO NVMe formatted as HFS. The boot time is very slow, 5 mins maybe more. Boot seems to take a normal amount of time with the Unibeast USB plugged.


[UPDATE]

For those with slow boot issues or generally anyone who wants to do a clean, stable High Sierra installation on similar builds, here is a mini-guide based on my build and the experience I had so far:

• If you installed High Sierra on APFS I would suggest to move to HFS as a first step, as it's more stable. You can do that by using two hard drives to clone the APFS installation to a freshly formatted drive, SSD or HDD, either will keep whatever structure you format them after the cloned High Sierra installation is copied over therefore opting out of Apple's APFS. Ideally the installation should be cloned vanilla, soon after the first boot if possible, while still on USB drive "life support". You may have to manually install Clover bootloader to the destinatiion drive.

• Start fresh with config.plist but also kexts to identify the absolute essential ones and keep them all in System/Library/Extensions. Make one change at a time as it makes it easier to identify what goes wrong when it does.

• Fake SMC plugins will break your build. I learned the hard way so I had to use another boot drive to remove them from S/L/E.

• For Kabylake users, no more spoofing as a Skylake due to native support on High Sierra, so a lot of the 'Fake' kexts for CPU, GPU etc are not needed except of course the FakeSMC kext

• As of the time of writing I would avoid using MultiBeast until the one specific to High Sierra is released.

• Native Power Management fix by @RehabMan should always be high up on your list of fixes on a fresh installation.

• Injecting Intel and adding boot flag -disablegfxfirmware in Clover Configurator along with IntelGraphicsFixup.kext in S/L/E should do the trick for using on-board Intel HD 630 graphics on similar builds to mine.

• Even though my ethernet worked natively it stopped when I fixed HD 630 (A bit like whacking a mole ) Intel Mausi kext in S/L/E not only restored it but shows up 'en0' and picked up as built-in which means, with the right SMBIOS setup in Clover Configurator, App Store works unlike on my Sierra setup.

[UPDATE]

Turns out High Sierra isn't that stable on my system after all. As I tested it for a few days I experienced freezes where only the mouse cursor was moving for a few seconds until eventually graphics on screen started going crazy, flickering and flashing, parts of the UI going black....a mess!

I wasn't performing any graphic-intense tasks just browsing, but I still suspect this to be a graphics issue so will test again once I get a discrete GPU in the system but also wait for a couple of updates on High Sierra before switching to it as my main boot. For now going back to a stable Sierra boot.

 

[moog84]

An update on this if anyone else is attempting clean HS install on NVME. I cleaned up the kexts and seemed to do the trick. For my build High Sierra needs even less kexts and patching than Sierra.

My problem was I had kexts in Clover's kexts folder and in L/E. I only have the bare essentials in S/L/E now and boot is fine. S/L/E is where High Sierra seems to like its kexts.

Make sure you implement @RehabMan'native power management fix. So far so good, I like how a lot of stuff work natively without much patching and can finally take advantage of that NVME with native support. I aim to the first post as a simple guide once I sort everything out, specifically for noobs like myself

 

[canyondust]

An update on this if anyone else is attempting clean HS install on NVME. I cleaned up the kexts and seemed to do the trick. High Sierra needs even less kexts and patching than Sierra. Even in Clover I didn't really have to do much.

My problem was I had kexts in Clover's kexts folder and in L/E. I only have the bear essentials in S/L/E now and boot is fine. S/L/E is where High Sierra seems to like its kexts.

Note a few things:

• Injecting Intel in Clover and IntelGraphicsFixup.kext in S/L/E should do the trick for using on-board Intel HD 630 graphics.
• Fake SMC plugins will break your build. I learned the hard way so I had to use another boot drive to remove them from S/L/E.
• Even though my ethernet initially worked OOB it stopped when I finally fixed HD 630 (A bit like whacking a mole Intel Mausi kext in S/L/E not only restored it but shows up as en0, built-in which means, with the right SMBIOS setup in Clover App Store etc works unlike on Sierra!

Make sure you implement @RehabMan's ACPI patch and power management. So far so good, I like how many components work OOB without much patching and can finally take advantage of my NVME. I aim to make a simple guide once I sort everything out, specifically for noobs like myself

Which of Rehabman's ACPI patches specifically?

 

[moog84]

I

Which of Rehabman's ACPI patches specifically?

I may have confused part of the power management guide as a ACPI patch, my bad. I read and followed tons of these guides over the past days it's all a blur

Original post corrected.

 

[telepati]

An update on this if anyone else is attempting clean HS install on NVME. I cleaned up the kexts and seemed to do the trick. High Sierra needs even less kexts and patching than Sierra. Even in Clover I didn't really have to do much.

My problem was I had kexts in Clover's kexts folder and in L/E. I only have the bear essentials in S/L/E now and boot is fine. S/L/E is where High Sierra seems to like its kexts.

Note a few things:

• Injecting Intel and adding boot flag -disablegfxfirmware in Clover Configurator along with IntelGraphicsFixup.kext in S/L/E should do the trick for using on-board Intel HD 630 graphics on similar builds to mine.
• Fake SMC plugins will break your build. I learned the hard way so I had to use another boot drive to remove them from S/L/E.
• Even though my ethernet initially worked OOB it stopped when I finally fixed HD 630 (A bit like whacking a mole Intel Mausi kext in S/L/E not only restored it but shows up as en0, built-in which means, with the right SMBIOS setup in Clover App Store etc works unlike on my Sierra setup.

Make sure you implement @RehabMan'native power management fix. So far so good, I like how a lot of stuff work natively without much patching and can finally take advantage of my NVME in native support. I aim to make a simple guide once I sort everything out, specifically for noobs like myself

So, what is your boot time now 'cause I have the same problem.

 

[moog84]

Probably around 30 secs to desktop.

Was it a clean install or update? APFS or HFS? I found a clean HFS install is best for stability and also High Sierra seems to be less forgiving with unnecessary kexts carried over from Sierra after updating. With newer builds a lot of stuff work natively so some kexts or patches no longer needed may throw the whole system off.

If you are on APFS I would suggest to move to HFS as a first step, as is more stable. You can do that by using two hard drives to clone the APFS to a freshly formatted drive, SSD or HDD, either will keep whatever structure you format them after the cloned High Sierra installation is copied over. Ideally the installation should be cloned as vanilla as possible, upon first boot after installation, while still on USB boot drive "life support".

You may have to manually install Clover bootloader to the destinatiion drive.

This should provide a good, stable basis for the slow boot troubleshoot before trying some of the stuff mentioned above but there may be more fixes/patches/kexts required specific to your build which I wouldn't know.

 

[telepati]

Probably around 30 secs to desktop.

30 secs from start or after clover boot screen?

 

[moog84]

30 secs from start or after clover boot screen?

I am doing a fast boot so skipping the Clover boot screen. I'd say 30 secs max to login screen.

I have since moved back to my Sierra boot though as High Sierra proved unstable for the moment, with some freezes and graphic glitches I wasn't impressed with.

 

[JFPR]

I am doing a fast boot so skipping the Clover boot screen. I'd say 30 secs max to login screen.

I have since moved back to my Sierra boot though as High Sierra proved unstable for the moment, with some freezes and graphic glitches I wasn't impressed with.

Where can I find RehabMans patch? Is that for laptops?