My first Hackintosh: Mojave Gigabyte Z390 M Gaming Coffee Lake

Last month I decided to replace my ageing 2015 iMac with my first Hackintosh...and what an experience has it been!  I invested a lot of time in getting it up and running but now it works like a charm and I want to share with you my working configuration.


You may find this useful if you have identical or similar hardware. I will focus on the Clover configuration, drivers and kexts specific to this hardware and provide links to the guides I used for more general info on Vanilla installations.

!IMPORTANT!
Please note that many guides for the Gigabyte Z390 M Gaming use an unsupported memory fix driver called OsxAptioFix2Drv-free2000.efi .  The developer of this driver says that you should never ever use it, as it can cause serious issues to your system (here's his post). After a lot of and trial and error...I managed to use the standard memory fix driver contained in Clover r5033 (OsxAptioFix3Drv.efi) , by changing one little setting in the BIOS!

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UPDATE TO CATALINA PUBLISHED ON 26 DECEMBER 2019

https://www.briskandwise.com/2019/12/my-first-hackintosh-update-to-catalina.html
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Hardware Components

• Gigabyte Z390 M Gaming Mainboard
• Intel® Core™ i5-8400 (8th Generation, Coffee Lake)
• Corsair VENGEANCE® LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) 3200MHz C16 Memory Kit – White
• Sapphire PULSE RX 570 8G G5 HDMI DP
• Sabrent 256GB ROCKET NVMe PCIe M.2 2280 (main drive)
• Crucial BX500 120GB 3D NAND SATA 2.5-inch SSD (time machine)
• TP-link Archer T6E AC1300 Wireless Dual Band PCI Express Adapter
• Asus USB-BT400 Bluetooth 4.0 USB Adapter
• BitFenix Prodigy M (Orange) case
• Sony SRS-XB12 Portable Wireless Speaker (Orange)
• Apple Magic Mouse 2
• Apple Magic Keyboard
• LG 27UD58 27" 4k IPS Monitor

What works

Frankly, I think everything! iMessage, iCloud, Appstore, Continuity, WiFi, Ethernet, Bluetooth, sleep/wake, restart/shutdown, hardware acceleration of the Intel GPU in "headless mode", USB ports, NVRAM, CPU power management...

Software

• Clover EFI (version 2.5 r5033)
• Clover Configurator (5.4.5.0)
• Hackintool (2.7.1)
• 8 standard Kexts: you can find the latest versions directly on Github (links below), Hackintool->Installed or Clover Configurator->kext installer. 
• AirportBrcmFixup (for the WIFI card)
• AppleALC (for audio)
• IntelMausiEthernet (precompiled here) (for Ethernet)
• Lilu (fundamental kext)
• VirtualSMC together with two of its related kexts (fundamental kext)
• SMCProcessor
• SMCSuperIO
• WhateverGreen (for graphic cards)
• 1 custom kext for USBports,  which I created with Hackintool specifically for this mainboard. It activates the 6 USB ports on the back of the mainboard - four USB 3.0, one 3.1 and one USB C- and two USB ports on the case, connected to the USB2.0 header of the mainboard.
• The config.plist template, that you should further customise (see below)
• As to the EFI drivers, we are going to use exclusively the ones included in the Clover installer. This should ensure maximum support with Clover also for the future.

Sources and General Instructions for Vanilla Installation

I started my Hackintosh experience with the videos of Morgonaut, which are a good starting point to get a general idea of how things work with Clover & co. (e.g. Build a Perfect Hackintosh - Beginners Tutorial)

I then switched to more complete and technical guides, like CorpNewt's Hackintosh Vanilla Desktop Guide.  For the creation of a minimal config.plist I took Icymind's  Minimal Clover Config  as a basis and further reduced it.

Again from CorpNewt, I used a guide (and a script) for the mapping of USB ports. I eventually switched to Hackintool for that, but I would have not managed without the understanding gained thanks to CorpNewt.

Other resources I used are  /r/hackintosh/ and the forums of tonymacx86.com (though  I am not using Uni or Multibeast) and InsanelyMac, in particular the very insightful posts from RehabMan.

Specific settings,  configurations and considerations

Graphic Card

VideoProc Hardware Info to check Quick Sync acceleration

The Clover configuration proposed in this post is valid only with a discrete graphic card. I am using a Sapphire Pulse RX570, which is in the recommended list from Apple, connected via  Display Port. The embedded Intel IGPU is used in "headless mode", i.e. it does not drive a monitor but provides encoding hardware acceleration to Mojave via Intel Quick Sync.  Should you have a similar Radeon card from the same series (say an RX 560 or RX580), you should still be able to use this configuration.

If you plan to use the Integrated Graphic card only, you can use this post to get some ideas but will definitely have to use different BIOS and Clover settings to make it work.

Personalise the Clover config.plist

Config.plist

The config.plist file I use is really minimal. Entire sections (Acpi, Boot Graphics, CPU, Devices, Disable Drivers, Gui) have been completely removed or cut to the bone. The Kernel and Kext Patches section is de facto disabled (no need for a USB patch, as we have a custom USB kext), but I had to keep the section as a placeholder or the system will not boot.

Before you can use this plist file, you have to customise it with your generated Serial Number, Board Serial Number, UUID and MLB (Please refer to the general instructions above). I am using iMac 19,2  in SMBIOS: you may want to change that if you use different hardware, especially a different CPU generation.

I have removed the verbose boot as the system is now very stable and I do not have to troubleshoot. If you want to enable it to see what's happening behind the scene, just add the -v argument in Boot/Arguments.

BIOS

I am on BIOS revision F7, the latest available at the time of writing.
I tried to stay with the Optimised Defaults to the extent possible, and changed just four settings.

1. Save&Exit: Load Optimised Defaults and confirm
2. M.I.T: no changes here. Well talk about the ram settings later.
3. System: no changes.
4. BIOS: no changes.
5. Peripherals:
1. Super IO: disable Serial Port
2. USB configuration: enable XHCI Hand-off
6. Chipset:
1. Enable Internal Graphics (we use the Radeon, but we need this for HW acceleration)
2. set DVMT Pre-Allocated to 32M. This single change enabled the use of the standard driver OsxAptioFix3Drv.efi  With the standard setting (64M), I can only boot with the unsupported OsxAptioFix2Drv-free2000.efi (see above)
3. Other posts suggest to disable VT-d. I left it enabled and all seems to be working fine.
7. Power: no changes

Clover Install and EFI folder

I am assuming that you have successfully created a USB Install stick following the general instructions for Vanilla installations.

Before the Mojave installation: Install Clover on USB Installer

1. Open the Clover EFI package (r5033)
2. click "Change Install Location" and select your USB installer as target disk
3. click "Customise"
4. uncheck everything and then check ONLY the following:
1. Clover for UEFI booting only
2. Install Clover in the ESP
3. UEFI Drivers->File System drivers-> ApfsDriverLoader
4. UEFI Drivers->File System drivers-> VBoxHfs
5. UEFI Drivers->Memory fix drivers > OsxAptiofix3Drv
6. UEFI Drivers->Additional drivers > EmuVariableUefi
5. click Install and complete the installation
6. mount and open the EFI folder (with Clover Configurator or Hackintool)
7. copy all the nine kexts above in EFI/CLOVER/kexts/Other
8. replace the config.plist with your customised one

After the Mojave installation: Install Clover on the main drive, i.e. exactly like before BUT:

• In step 2 "Change Install Location" and select the drive where Mojave is installed 
• In step 4 also Install RC scripts on target volume (this is needed together with EmuVariableUefi for proper NVRAM emulation)

RAM settings

In the BIOS settings described above, I have intentionally left the M.I.T section unchanged. The RAM runs at the failsafe speed determined by the mainboard (in my case 2133 MHz at 1.2v).

As my modules are rated to run at 3200 MHz with XMP,  I went into BIOS->M.I.T. -> Advanced Frequency Settings and enabled XMP to Profile 1. This immediately boosted the RAM to 3200 MHz and 1.35v. Mojave correctly recognised the new speed in System Report, Geekbench scores improved, and all seemed to work perfectly ok at a first.

However, two weird behaviours appeared:

1. wake from sleep took longer and required pressing a key on the keyboard twice, once to wake the system and a second time to get an image on the screen. Before tweaking the RAM, the wake was very fast and completed with one keypress only
2. after wake from sleep, I got the message "Disk was not ejected properly" if external USB disks were connected

The solution to this was to the set the speed to 2666 MHz, i.e. the fastest on current Macs. This still gives a tangible speed increase compared to stock setting. I also disabled XMP, so the voltage stays at 1.2v. At 2666 MHz, the RAM seems stable at 1.2v and I could see no difference in benchmarks with XMP disabled vs enabled.

To conclude, I changed only one RAM setting in BIOS compared to Optimised Defaults:

• M.I.T. -> Advanced Frequency Settings->System Memory Multiplier, set to DDR4-2666

A few posts I found on this:
https://www.reddit.com/r/hackintosh/comments/bngrrk/usb_30_drive_ejected_on_sleep_and_remounted_on/
https://www.reddit.com/r/hackintosh/comments/apcijb/a_guide_to_vanilla_hackintosh_from_scratch/
https://github.com/macfanatic77/hackintosh/blob/master/07_Troubleshooting.md

If you find a way to make it work at full speed let me know in the comments!

Enable TRIM for SSD

TRIM was not enabled by default. You can check your drive by opening System Report/Sata or System Report/NVMExpres.  If "TRIM Support: NO" then run "sudo trimforce enable"  from Terminal and follow the instructions on the screen. The system will reboot. Check again in System Report that "TRIM Support: YES"

Extra Info

I originally installed Mojave 10.14.5.  After that, two updates for 10.14.6 were released. I run the updates as I would do on my normal Mac. They eventually installed without problems, but I encountered a strange behaviour. The progress bar got stuck at zero progress and showing 12 or 13 minutes remaining. The system seems not respond and you may be tempted to force a shutdown: please don't, just be patient! The system is not blocked, it will eventually restart after 10-20 minutes with the updates correctly installed.

Conclusion

I am happy to have learned something new and I am satisfied with the results. The system runs reliably and much faster that my 2015 iMac! Once setup, there's really not much maintenance, apart from the occasional Clover and kext refresh prior to a macOS update.

If you found this post useful or have questions, leave a comment below!

Cheers

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UPDATE TO CATALINA PUBLISHED ON 26 DECEMBER 2019

https://www.briskandwise.com/2019/12/my-first-hackintosh-update-to-catalina.html