Giacomoleopardo's Workstation for MasterEaster - Xeon E5-2687W v2 - Asus P9X79 WS - Dual 280X

giacomoleopardo · Aug 28, 2015

Giacomoleopardo's Workstation for MasterEaster
Intel® Xeon® E5-2687W v2 - Asus P9X79 WS - Dual AMD Radeon R9 280X
Clover step by step install method

Components

Already owned

Bluetooth dongle Belkin F8T016 (just for dual boot with Apple Wireless Keyboard)
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001BROKXO/

Philips 28-Inch 4K Ultra HD LED Monitor w/ 3840 x 2160 resolution
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00K15LQZM/
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA1G538G7353

Dell UltraSharp U2713H 104P6 27-Inch LED-lit Monitor
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00BBIS0M0/
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824260125

A bunch of monitors (owned, borrowed, etc!) such as:

- 2x 27" Apple Cinema Display (MiniDisplay Port) - 2560 x 1440 - Audio via DisplayPort + USB
- 24" Apple Cinema Display (MiniDisplay Port) - 1920 x 1200 - no Audio
- 23,5 Asus VN247 (HDMI) - 1920 x 1080 - Audio via HDMI
- 24" 4K Dell P2415Q - Display Port - 1920 x 1080 HiDPI - Audio via DisplayPort
- 24" EIZO S2410W - DVI 1920 x 1200 - no Audio

Apple Wireless Keyboard
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005DLDO4U/
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA3781XU7460

Comments

Have you ever noticed those huge advertising posters in the middle of a train station, perhaps at the airport, alongside the highway, or just covering the entire side of a building? Well this machine is going to take care about the entire creation process of those files. The guy, MasterEaster I mean, asked me for a powerful machine and of course my first thought was X99, DDR4 etc... Then he told me that was a stable platform for high-end production kind of thing, hence X79.

Well yes, two graphics cards, eight core CPU (too bad in Italy I didn't find The E5 2690 v2 with 10 cores), 64 GB DDR3 RAM (CAS latency 9!) @1866 MHz.

Stable, fully functional with OS X Yosemite, totally upgradable (see videos in post #2).

For those of you wondering why AMD, rather than nVidia, well, 'cause it's native support (even native ATY Framebuffer). I know a lot of troubles affect AMD cards regarding support or multi monitor configuration, but these ones basically work great in every situation (4K @ 60 Hz HiDPI included).

Installation

Index

Tools
Step 1 - Update Bios
Step 2 - Bios configuration
Step 3 - Pre Installation
Step 4 - OS X Yosemite installation
Step 5 - Post installation

Tools:

- Latest Asus P9X79 WS bios (Version 4802 at the moment)
- Clover Bootloader Installer
- Clover Configurator
- MaciASL Open Beta
- IORegistryExplorer 3.0.X (google for it) or IOJones
- Yosemite install App
- 8 GB (at least) USB pen drive
- A working Mac or Hackintosh

Step 1 - Update Bios

- Download the latest proper bios
- Unzip it and copy the cap file onto a FAT formatted USB pen drive
- Boot PC, press Del key to access Bios
- Now go to Boot/Asus EZ Flash 2 Utility and from there locate the usb Drive and the bios update file (P9X79-WS-ASUS-4802.CAP at the moment) and click the file to flash your bios

Warning: make sure the flashing process won't interrupt, otherwise you'll need to replace bios chip or flash it with a SPI programmer!

Step 2 - Bios configuration

- Boot pc
- Press Del key to gain Bios settings
- Press F7 for Advanced settings
- Press F5 to load Optimized Defaults
- Follow these screenshots

- Press F10 key to Save and Reboot

If you don't feel comfortable in settings Bios, you can always use my profile:

Download it from the attachments at the bottom of this post (Giacomoleopardo P9X79 WS/hackintoshbios.CMO)
Copy it onto a FAT formatted usb pendrive
Boot into Bios and go to Tool/ASUS Overclocking Profile
Select Load from USB (or whathever, can't remember the exact path)
Choose USB pendrive (left side of the window)
Choose hackintoshbios.CMO (right side of the window)
Press Enter to load the profile
Press F10 key to Save and Reboot

Step 3 - Pre Installation

We need to take care about a few things before the install process, to set up the USB install pendrive, such as:

Initial DSDT.aml
USB Config.plist
kexts folder
USB install pen drive

Setting up the Initial DSDT.aml

The first real issue I got into trying to install with a generic USB Install pendrive was this one

A panic due to something related to the numbers of cpu: "Should have 16 Threads, but only found 17 for Die 8" etc... So I figured out that I ought to give the system that info by DSDT injection. Then let's prepare an initial DSDT, we're going to complete that in post installation (see step 5 - post installation). Here's what I did:

Installed Windows 10
Downloaded AIDA64 Engineer from here
Extracted DSDT.acpi and renamed dsdt aida.aml
Edited DSDT as follows:

Open MaciASL/Preferences/iASL and select ACPI 5.0, then click on Update iASL button. Close MaciASL
Open dsdt aida.aml with MaciASL
Click on Patch command
Click on Open button (down left)
Select from Giacomoleopardo P9X79 WS folder attached down here, DSDT/DSDT patches/01 - Toleda's clean.txt
Click Apply button
Click on Open button again
Select from Giacomoleopardo P9X79 WS folder attached down here, DSDT/DSDT patches/02 - usb + lenght fix.txt
Click Apply then Close buttons

Find “processor” in DSDT, then based on your cpu’s threads number (mine is 16) leave just the first 17 (or whatever your number of threads is + 1, I mean from #0 to #16). Please note that they are counted in hexadecimal 0 to 9 are the same but Decimal 10 = Hexadecimal 0A, 11 = 0B, 12 = 0C, 13 = 0D, 14 = 0E, 15 = 0F, 16 = 10 etc…). Here you can find an easy way to translate numbers
My last would be

Code:

Processor (C010, 0x0F, 0x00000410, 0x06)
        {
            Name (_HID, "ACPI0007")  // _HID: Hardware ID
            Name (_UID, "PCI0-CP010")  // _UID: Unique ID
            Name (_PXM, Zero)  // _PXM: Device Proximity
            Method (_STA, 0, NotSerialized)  // _STA: Status
            {
                If (LEqual (CSTA (Zero, 0x10), Zero))
                {
                    Return (Zero)
                }
                Else
                {
                    Return (0x0F)
                }
            }
        }

Note C010, The last two numbers are the hexadecimal number of CPU’s thread
Then delete the first one, as well

Code:

Processor (C000, 0x80, 0x00000410, 0x06)
        {
            Name (_HID, "ACPI0007")
            Name (_UID, "PCI0-CP000")
            Name (_PXM, Zero)
            Method (_STA, 0, NotSerialized)
            {
                If (LEqual (CSTA (Zero, Zero), Zero))
                {
                    Return (Zero)
                }
                Else
                {
                    Return (0x0F)
                }
            }
        }

So basically you need to delete everything until you find

Code:

Processor (C31D, 0xE7, 0x00000410, 0x06)
        {
            Name (_HID, "ACPI0007")  // _HID: Hardware ID
            Name (_UID, "PCI3-CP31D")  // _UID: Unique ID
            Name (_PXM, 0x03)  // _PXM: Device Proximity
            Method (_STA, 0, NotSerialized)  // _STA: Status
            {
                If (LEqual (CSTA (0x03, 0x1D), Zero))
                {
                    Return (Zero)
                }
                Else
                {
                    Return (0x0F)
                }
            }
        }

That would be the last one to be deleted.

Click on Compile command and no errors should appear
If you find a Warning reporting: “ResourceTag larger than Field (Size mismatch, Tag: 64 bits, Field: 32 bits)”
then replace CreateDWordField with CreateQWordField
If you find a Warning reporting: “ResourceTag smaller than Field (Size mismatch, Tag: 16 bits, Field: 32 bits)”
then replace CreateDWordField with CreateWordField
If you find a Remark reporting “Control Method should be made Serialized (due to creation of named objects within)”
then replace NotSerialized with Serialized

If you find a Warning reporting: “Not all control paths return a value (Name)”
then add Return (Zero) before the last “}” of the Method like this from

Code:

Method (WX82, 2, NotSerialized)
                {
                    ShiftLeft (One, Arg0, Local0)
                    If (Arg1)
                    {
                        Or (LPCE, Local0, LPCE)
                    }
                    Else
                    {
                        Not (Local0, Local0)
                        And (LPCE, Local0, LPCE)
                    }
                }

to

Code:

Method (WX82, 2, NotSerialized)
                {
                    ShiftLeft (One, Arg0, Local0)
                    If (Arg1)
                    {
                        Or (LPCE, Local0, LPCE)
                    }
                    Else
                    {
                        Not (Local0, Local0)
                        And (LPCE, Local0, LPCE)
                    }
                Return (Zero)
        }

Click again on Compile command and no errors should appear
Save as DSDT.aml (ACPI Machine Language Binary)
Initial DSDT.aml is finally ready to get to the install process

Setting up config.plist

A few clover configurator screenshots.

Anyway, you can find it in the attached folder :thumbup:

.

Setting up kexts folder

You need to gather all the needed kexts based on your hardware configuration and put them into kexts/10.10 folder. In my case:

AHCI_3rdParty_SATA.kext (for Marvell controller)
AppleIntelCPUPowerManagementInfo.kext (to check cpu p-states)
FakeSMC.kext (mandatory for any hackintosh)
UPDATE #1
IntelMausiEthernet.kext (for the first Intel LAN controller, the second one is not supported) AppleIntelE1000e.kext v. 3.2.4.2 (taken from MultiBeast 7.5.0) ---> No longer necessary! See UPDATE #2 or post #19
UPDATE #2
Thanks to forum member valitor we can use clover patch on the fly feature through a sort of "dummy kext" called IONetworkingFamilyInjector.kext (attached at the end of this post) which overlay the IONetworkingFamily.kext/Contents/Plugins/Intel82574L.kext with an extended device ID list that also matches the CT PCIe NIC of the native Intel 82574L NIC. See post #19 for more info.
Mieze's IntelMausiEthernet.kext for the other NIC Intel® 82579V Gigabit LAN Controller

Attached Giacomoleopardo P9X79 WS/kexts/10.10

Preparing bootable USB pen drive with UEFI Clover

Follow these steps to set up the USB pen drive installer:

Make sure your Install OS X Yosemite.app would be in Applications folder
WARNING! I did the installation with OS X 10.10, with 10.10.3 and 10.10.4 I had some kind of cache panic, didn't have time to find why, but basically a 10.10 installation wouldn't give that problem
Plug your 8 GB USB in and open /Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility
Open /Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility
Highlight the USB drive in left column
Click on the Partition tab
Click Current and choose 1 Partition
Click Options...
Choose GUID Partition Table
Under Name: type USB (You can rename it later)
Under Format: choose Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
Click Apply then Partition
Open /Applications/Utilities/Terminal
Type the following, enter password even if you don't see anything typed and hit enter. This command completely erases the USB, then creates native OS X installer media from the Install OS X Yosemite Application.
Code:
```
sudo /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ Yosemite.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/USB --applicationpath /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ Yosemite.app --no interaction
```
Upon completion, the USB will be renamed Install OS X Yosemite
Download the latest Clover installer from here
Open Clover package installer
Hit Continue, Continue, Change Install Location...
Choose the USB, now called Install OS X Yosemite
Hit Customize and install Clover to the same USB with the following Custom Install settings:
The USB EFI partition will be mounted
Put Initial DSDT.aml we prepared before in EFI/EFI/CLOVER/ACPI/patched and rename it DSDT.aml
Replace config.plist in EFI/EFI/CLOVER
Replace kexts folder in EFI/EFI/CLOVER
Download HFSPlus.efi from here and copy it in EFI/EFI/CLOVER/drivers64UEFI
Remove VBoxHfs-64.efi from EFI/EFI/CLOVER/drivers64UEFI
Copy Clover installer package onto Install OS X Yosemite partition of the USB pen drive

Step 4 - OS X Yosemite installation

- Power on and press F8 key to get Boot menu
- Boot from UEFI USB (Uefi name of your USB)
- Follow the install process until desktop
- Copy on desktop the Clover installer package from Install OS X Yosemite partition of the USB pen drive
- Open Clover package installer
- Install Clover on the main OS partition (from now on Mac partition) with the same settings as above
- Open Applications/Terminal and type

Code:

defaults write com.apple.DiskUtility DUDebugMenuEnabled 1

and close Terminal
- Open Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility
- Select Debug/Show every partiton from the menu bar. Hidden partitions will show up in the left window
- Mount the USB EFI partition
- Replace ACPI folder, kexts folder, drivers64UEFI folder and config.plist from USB EFI/EFI/CLOVER to Mac EFI/EFI/CLOVER
- Reboot

Step 5 - Post installation

Last steps:

DSDT.aml final (with Audio and graphics patches)
SSDT.aml (Power Management ---> CPU speedsteps)
Audio Patching "On the fly"
iCloud, iMessage and FaceTime issues

Patching Initial DSDT.aml

We need to locate our graphics card via IORegistryExplorer, then customize Toleda's 5series DSDT patch and patch the DSDT.aml.

Open IORegistryExplorer then search for display0, probably you'll find something like this

Please note that this is located in NPE3@2. Maybe you'll have different values (let's say P0P1@1)
Now go to (attached) Giacomoleopardo P9X79 WS/DSDT/DSDT patches and open 03 - first VGA AMD.txt (if you have AMD card) or 03a - first VGA nVidia.txt (if you have nVidia card), find NPE3 and replace all with your value P0P1, then find 0x00020000 (NPE3@2) and replace all with 0x00010000 (P0P1@1)
Save the patch file
I have two graphics cards, so searching for display (not display0) in IORegistryExplorer I found this

The second card is located in NPE7@3. If this is your case, then open (attached) Giacomoleopardo P9X79 WS/DSDT/DSDT patches/04 - second VGA AMD.txt (or 04a - second VGA nVidia.txt) and replace all the values as before (depending in what you'll find, of course).
Save all txt changes
Open MaciASL, make sure ACPI 5.0 compiler is selected (see Initial DSDT.aml)
Copy DSDT.aml from EFI/EFI/CLOVER/ACPI/patched to desktop and open it with MaciASL
Click on Patch/Open and select your custom patches, then click Apply
Again, click on Patch/Open and select (attached) Giacomoleopardo P9X79 WS/DSDT/DSDT patches/05 - Add dsdt/HDEF/Audio ID 1.txt, then click Apply
Click on Close button
Click on Compile command, no error should appear, the DSDT is ready, at last!
Remove dsdt.aml from EFI/EFI/CLOVER/ACPI/patched and place the new one there
Reboot and check in IORegistryExplorer (Search for display), the card(s) location should be like this

Create custom SSDT.aml

Thanks to PikeRAlpha's work, and a lot of useful info founded here to create a proper SSDT.aml is now really a piece of cake!

Open Application/Terminal and type

Code:

curl -o ~/ssdtPRGen.sh https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Piker-Alpha/ssdtPRGen.sh/master/ssdtPRGen.sh

That will download ssdtPRGen.sh to your user directory.

Change the file mode (+x) with terminal command:
Code:
```
chmod +x ~/ssdtPRGen.sh
```
Drop ssdtPRgen.sh on the terminal window to auto fill the path then on the same line, after a space type
Code:
```
-c 1 -w 3
```
then hit Enter. The SSDT.aml file will be generated (among a bunch of other ones) in user/Library (hidden folder)/ssdtPRGen.
Copy SSDT.aml to EFI/EFI/CLOVER/ACPI/patched
Reboot and check speedstep typing in Terminal
Code:
```
cat /var/log/system.log | grep "AICPUPMI:"
```
You'll find something like this

Now we know that the CPU goes from 1200 to 4000 MHz.

Audio Patching "On the fly"

Clover gives us this amazing feature. During boot. it takes care of the hackintosh needed kext, including the dummy audio kext to patch real Apple HDA, without modifying it (System Updates resistant!)
Again, PikeRAlpha's and Toleda's work.

Mount EFI partition from Disk Utility (see steps above)
Download audio_CloverALC-master.zip from Toleda's repo, unzip it and
unzip audio_cloverALC-100.command.zip as well.
Double click on audio_cloverALC-110_v1.0b.command, a Terminal window will appear, follow the instructions (basically typing "Y" a bunch of times)
Reboot
Check Audio and HDMI Audio (if you have supported displays) via System Preferences

Setting up iCloud, iMessage and FaceTime

This could be very tricky, my advice is to get info and solutions from the iMessage Fix huge thread

CREDITS

Tonymac - For gathering info on Clover installation
PikeRAlpha - Too many things to enumerate!
Toleda - For great support, guides, and infos
shilohh - For the very useful guide on X79 speedsteps
jaymonkey - For iMessage solution and huge work
Slice & co. - For the amazing Clover, what else?
Mieze - For LAN kext and a lot of support
Azimuth1 - For monitors, headaches and trynotbuy
Valitor - For IONetworkingFamilyInjector.kext

Jump to the next post to check some pictures and a couple of video. Enjoy!

giacomoleopardo · Aug 28, 2015

Giacomoleopardo's Workstation for MasterEaster

UPDATES LOG

UPDATE #1 - 26th September 2015 - Replaced IntelMausiEthernet.kext with AppleIntelE1000e.kext for full Ethernet support (both of the Intel Controllers)

UPDATE #2 - 27th September 2015 - Reintroduced IntelMausiEthernet.kext, replaced AppleIntelE1000e.kext with Valitor's IONetworkingFamilyInjector.kext

VIDEOS

PICTURES

Abe Frohman · Aug 29, 2015

Giacomoleopardo's Workstation for MasterEaster

As always, I am astounded by the amount of detail you put into your builds, Giacomoleopardo.

Grazie mille!

giacomoleopardo · Aug 29, 2015

Giacomoleopardo's Workstation for MasterEaster

Abe Frohman said:
As always, I am astounded by the amount of detail you put into your builds, Giacomoleopardo.

Grazie mille!

InsaneCultist · Sep 8, 2015

Incredible write up, enjoyed reading it very much. :thumbup:

iUserosx · Sep 9, 2015

Let me call it A Complete Guide......Very Informative and Precise......Thanx for Sharing

Ahram · Sep 9, 2015

Great job, as usual. Your guides are the best!!!!! Thanks for sharing

GeraldB · Sep 9, 2015

Really nice guide. Kudos for that. If I had the money for the CPU I would immediately start a Build with your guide.

tstones · Sep 9, 2015

Thanks a lot for this guide, one of the best on this forum. It's well written, very detailed, magnific.

With this guide I has able to learn new things.

All of your guides rocks!

Thanks again

Robbish · Sep 9, 2015

Fantastic write-up man,

I like that you went the extra mile to show the numerous BIOS setup images, all of the Clover patches, DSDT patches and custom SSDT not to mention your YouTube vids.

Anybody installing OSX with Clover should reference this

Great work Giacomoleopardo and a Kick-Ass Hackintosh :thumbup:

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Giacomoleopardo's Workstation for MasterEaster - Xeon E5-2687W v2 - Asus P9X79 WS - Dual 280X

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