Z87E-ITX Updates

[indefinitedrums]

Flashed to 2.3a, and it boots into the installation media and my already installed OS X partition, no problem. Also no issues running the original OS(Windows 8.1) either. It did set my boot option to "Windows Boot Manager" which I guess is an alternate UEFI boot into windows(? - shows AsRock logo but has the windows 8 loading circle-of-dots). Anyway, I had to set that back to my ssd to get chimera to load.

OP, please report to asrock that it is working great so far, and there are others out there who would really like to see more updates to fully support osx power management, since unfortunately sleep is still not working. It will go to sleep but instantly wakes back up... no KP though, so that's great.

tl;dr ༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ thanks asrock, give sleep

 

[WonkeyDonkey]

I cant help thinking sleep may be an osx thing, im not sure though. It works perfectly under windows and also linux.

Have any of you guys tried with darkwake= yet ?

Im still waiting a reply over the memory speed reporting. Asrock think its osx related and i can see what they are thinking, but i still think they are wrong - as I told them ! lol

Im busy working on my haswell nuc right now but will be returning to this very soon.

 

[gorg]

Sorry for not reporting earlier, I didn't have enough time to complete the build. I had to return home so I left it incomplete. As I am now in a different country I will get my hands on it after a few months I tried with the 2.30A rom and had a working system, apart from the built-in WiFi. Regarding the memory speed reporting, it didn't bother me, I also had the same issue in a previous Asus hackintosh system AFAIR. I thought I had some issues with the HDMI but I was wrong, it works.

 

[fifo]

I'm using Clover to boot OS/X Mavericks on this board and as far as I can tell, sleep is working 100%. I had the same sleep issues as you guys before I used Clover but with Clover sleep works. Take a look at my comments here:

http://www.tonymacx86.com/mavericks...t-working-dsdt-help-requested.html#post745963

Also, with Clover, memory speed reporting is correct. It's a pain to setup but it brings tremendous benefits; at least it has for me.

 

[okwchin1]

Great to see more progress with the Asrock Board.


I have been using my system with 10.8.5 since November. I am on a PM Patched 1.90 bios. Had to spend some time with DSDT edits at the time to get audio and sleep partially working to some degree.

I have not yet moved to mavericks, mostly because of a lack of Nvidia driver support for Mavericks for my 670. I Need Nvidia driver support because afaik the OSX native drivers do not support triple monitors. I guess I should try again, but for now my system is mostly working.

What I am looking for is an improvement in sleep compatibility, where I can use more than just the power button to wake it up.

Clover has been suggested, and something I failed at implementing first time round in november. Will also need to look into how nvidia drivers are activated, which according to some sources say chimera is required to inject the nvda_drv=1 code...


Well to summarise my system so far


Asrock Z87eITX
Bios = 1.90 PMPatched
i5 4570

Asus GTX670 DCII (on Nvidia drivers for triple monitor support)
4+4 CL8 1600 GSkill Ram
256 Samsung 830 SSD (10.8.5)
256 Plextor M5M SSD (windows 7)
1.5Tb Hitachi 2.5"

Silverstone ST450SF-G
NCase M1 black case (finally upgraded from Cardboard ITX case V2 (see my post in link below))


Non-Operational
- Bluetooth - Could not get operational, however I am happily using a USB Bluetooth dongle, simplifies things.
- Sleep - Partially operational. Sleeps fine, Auto-sleep works fine. Can only be woken up by the power button. Required DSDT Edits to edit out the pathways that woke it up, LAN, USB, something else... but thats also the reason why nothing else wakes it up. Essentially I didn't fix the sleep issue, but rather, just silenced the ability for things to wake the computer.


I have put up my installation method in the other Z87eITX thread if people are interested.

Ah, found a link to my post. #16

 

[WonkeyDonkey]

Hi guys,

Another update for you all.

Its good news.

I have a new version beta bios and it works. What they have done is added code to the bios that makes the system appear to have 4 memory slots instead of 2. While that may seem odd, it fixes the issue of memory reporting speed quite nicely, as shown below :

What I could do with is some opinions if we prefer this or to leave it as before.

What are your thoughts ?

 

[giacomoleopardo]

That is quite interesting. Though, I guess the really question is: is this just cosmetic? Or even better: is the old 1333 MHz system report real? Any benefits with this new beta on RAM performance?

 

[fifo]

To my way of thinking this is not a good solution since the system does not have 4 memory slots. Booting the same board but using Clover as the boot loader, memory speed etc is displayed correctly.

 

[WonkeyDonkey]

That is quite interesting. Though, I guess the really question is: is this just cosmetic? Or even better: is the old 1333 MHz system report real? Any benefits with this new beta on RAM performance?

Ram performance is identical, and is running at full speed.

Windows, Linux and apparently Clover all report the correct speeds, which kinda points to Chimera as the possible issue. Asrock have been over the bios many times now and can find no fault, so my guess right now is that its a Chimera issue.

Its not a massive issue, just cosmetic.

Using dmidecode in windows and linux shows both sticks at the identical speed, dmidecode in OSX shows the original problem of one stick running at 1333. But thats after Chimera has loaded.

The cosmetic issue can be resolved by adding a couple of lines to smbios.plist.

Regarding sleep/wake; i get both working here just fine in OSX, Linux and Windows, but in OSX i have to wake it using the power button. Not a great deal i think.

Functionally, i cant think of anything else that needs fixing, but i am going to ask them for a couple of things. First is UEFI option of securely erasing an ssd (The kind way), the second is a UEFI screenshot save option.

These are extra functions though, and not needed for a working setup, so no idea if they will agree to it. I get the feeling they are putting a little extra into this board since it has been used on the beta steamboxes, and so it is in their interests to have it as fully working and functional as possible.

Also, my sleep may be down to the fact that i have swapped out the bluetooth wifi combo card for a plain old broadcom wifi only one and Ive also extracted and compiled a clean DSDT. I need to check the wake options further regarding wake from mouse/keyboard.

 

[giacomoleopardo]

Thanks for reporting. Are you planning to try Clover in UEFI boot mode?