Build your own Customac Pro with Z97 chipset and Gigabyte GA-Z97-UD7TH running Mac OS X El Capitan 10.11.3

Prequel

You already own a Mac and need one for testing purposes, or you’re simply a new age MacGyver? Ever thought about building your own Customac Pro Hackintosh computer (aka HackPro)?

Powerful Operating System with powerful hardware and the best marketing you can get on planet earth = powerful user with a permanent smile 🙂

Don’t blame me, if anything goes wrong. You’re on your own.

Well, let’s start.

TL;DR: What’s functional and what’s not?

Is this guide up to date?
- Well, as of 2015/08/14, Mac OS X 10.10.5 is still running smoothly, i’ve taken any updates since initial setup of OS X 10.10.1 and had no problems so far.
- On 2016/03/07 i’ve updated from Mac OS X 10.10.5 to Mac OS X 10.11.3, see:”Update from Mac OS X 10.10.5 (Yosemite) to Mac OS X El Capitan 10.11.3 (as of 2016/03/07)”
BIOS:
- Ozmosis 894m working properly, but non writable NVRAM. Sleep mode doesn’t work properly.
- Ozmosis 1479 working properly until OS X Yosemite 10.10.5, timeout when entering BIOS, writable NVRAM, Sleep mode works well.
- Ozmosis 167X working properly with El Capitan.
GPU: Works OOB. No additional driver neccessary. Optional drivers:
- NVIDIA WebDriver: If you want, you can install the NVIDIA web driver. When using the NVIDIA driver in versions newer than 343.01.02f01 i’ve had some noisy fan problems shortly after login. Looks like in new driver versions the GTX 760 card isn’t fully supported, maybe it has problems reading the GPUs hardware sensors. Check for yourself which version works best, otherwise switch back to the default driver. Benchmark results only show marginal difference between the OOB driver and the NVIDIA Web driver.
- NVIDIA CUDA driver for GPU based compution:
  - working CUDA driver: 7.5.25
  - working GPU driver: 10.8.14 310.42.15f01 (as of 2016/03/07)
Gigabit LAN: Works after installing Intel E1000 driver through MB:
- Drivers -> Network -> Intel -> AppleIntelE1000e v3.1.0
Audio: Since the board uses an Realtek ALC1150 chip, sound works using the ALC1150 audio driver, installable through MB:
- Drivers -> Audio -> Realtek ALCxxx -> ALC1150
- Drivers -> Audio -> Realtek ALCxxx -> Optional EFI Installed Bootloader Support
- Drivers -> Audio -> Optional HDA Enabler -> Audio ID: 1
- I’m running an external audio card, so i’ve disabled the internal audio card.
Bluetooth: Works OOB. Magic Trackpad: Working, Apple Magic Mouse: Working, Apple Wireless Keyboard: Working
TRIM: As of OS X 10.10.4 “trimforce enable” works like a charm for my non Apple SSDs!
TRIM: Apple does not support TRIM on non Apple SSDs. This could shorten lifetime of the SSDs. I’ve read a lot about TRIM, and there are different statements about wear leveling with newer SSDs for sure… Todays garbage collectors in SSDs should be aware of not killing your SSD by wearing it up too much, but decide for yourself what to do. Just in case, if you’re looking for a few workarounds:
- ~~Yosemite TRIM patch (find out yourself how to do it)~~
- ~~By running “Check volume” in Disk utility the TRIM command should be issued.~~
- ~~By running “sudo fsck -fy” in Terminal the TRIM command should be issued, too. Could be run in a cron job daily or so…~~
- ~~Get yourself an Apple SSD, TRIM works OOB with Apple SSDs.~~
- ~~Get yourself a SSD with patched firmware.~~
Thunderbolt: Haven’t tried yet. TB devices need to be attached before your CustoMac boots, otherwise they won’t be discovered. On CustoMacs, the TB devices will be listed under PCIe devices, and not under TB devices in “About this Mac -> System Report”. TB has to be activated once in Windows by installing the Intel TB drivers and maybe even pairing with a TB device. After activation TB should work OOB. If you have slow boot times with TB devices attached (about 45 seconds delay), there seems to be a workaround to drastically speedup boot time, TB will be functional even after deletion of the Kext file. I’ve read about a hotswapping bug. Devices only will be paired upon reboot… Execute this in a Terminal session:
- ```
sudo -s
cp -R /System/Library/Extensions/AppleThunderboltNHI.kext ~/Desktop
rm -R /System/Library/Extensions/AppleThunderboltNHI.kext
touch /System/Library/Extensions
```

Update from Mac OS X 10.10.5 (Yosemite) to Mac OS X El Capitan 10.11.3 (as of 2016/03/07)

Just did the update to Mac OS X 10.11.3. Took me about 15 Minutes until i got it to install the update on the USB installer. Everything but networking worked in my case, but even that that was a quick fix.

Steps neccessary, you’ll need 2 usb sticks:

Create an USB installation stick with El Capitan installer on it (just google it, command looks a lot like the previous one for Yosemite)
Get yourself the additional kext files needed, eg. IntelE1000.kext for Network and VoodooHDA.kext for the internal sound card.
Copy the extra kext files on your El Capitan USB installer stick in a separate folder, eg. extrakexts.
Open a terminal session and navigate to your El Capitan USB stick, eg. /Volumes/Install……. Execute the command “nvram -p > nvramsettings-yosemite.txt” just in case you have to reset the NVRAM.
Unmount the El Capitan usb stick.
Get yourself the 167x F6 BIOS of Ozmosis and copy it on another freshly FAT formatted usb stick. Unmount the usb stick.
Make notes of your actual BIOS screen settings (eg. take photos of it)
Reset BIOS settings to default
Flash the 167x F6 Ozmosis BIOS
Reapply all BIOS settings as stated above
Boot from the El Capitan USB stick and install the update.
When the update is finished it should automatically boot up and greet you with the login screen.
Login into your account, open a Terminal and check if you got internet connection, eg. by “ping www.google.de”.
- If you get a ping, everything is okay.
- If you don’t get a ping or it says unknown host or something, you need to put the IntelE1000.kext into the Ozmosis EFI partition.
- As of El Capitan GM Release it is no longer possible to put unsigned Kernel extensions into the /L/E or /S/L/E folders. They just won’t be loaded upon boot.
- Open a Terminal session and find out which Ozmosis EFI partition you need to mount by entering “diskutil list”. This should display a bunch of partitions flagged with fstype and a name beneath an unique disk identifier.
- Create a mount point for the efi partion: “mkdir /Volumes/EFI”
- Mount the EFI partition to the mount point: “diskutil mount -mountPoint /Volumes/EFI /dev/diskXsY”
- Copy the unsigned kext files to /Volumes/EFI/Efi/Oz/Darwin/Extensions/Common
- Unmount the EFI partition: “unmount /Volumes/EFI”
- Reboot
- Check if the kexts have been loaded, in case of the IntelE1000.kext you should now have network connection. For other kexts you could use: “kextstat | grep -i yourkexttobefound”
- We’re done. Hopefully everything works as expected.
- Cheers!

Parts needed

Tools needed

To create a Yosemite installation USB thumb drive, you’ll need a Mac at your hand!
Multibeast [aka MB] Yosemite 7.1.1, download here
BIOS F4 Ozmosis 1479, download here (or here without VoodooHDA) [NVRAM writable]
- Don’t wonder, entering the BIOS takes a while:
  - Upon pressing DEL on startup only a black screen and cursor appear, just wait.
  - If you’re unable to enter the BIOS, try this:
    - Revert to default F4 BIOS (eg by pressing the CMOS reset button or by manually flashing).
    - Load defaults
    - Reboot
    - Enter BIOS again
    - Flash OZM 1479 again
    - Enter BIOS
    - Load defaults
    - Check if it is working now. Otherwise flash 894m.
~~BIOS F4 Ozmosis 894m, download here (build 1479 didn’t work for me, so stick to build 894m)~~ [NVRAM not writable]

Patching the UEFI BIOS

Format your USB thumbdrive with FAT32
Copy the Ozmosis F4 BIOS ROM file to the newly formatted USB thumbdrive
Securely eject the thumb drive not to corrupt the FS/BIOS file
Insert the USB thumbdrive into your Hackintosh
Enter the BIOS (DEL)
Load otimized defaults (F7)
Save and restart
Enter the BIOS again (DEL), load Firmware flash utility
Select the USB thumbdrive and pick the F4 BIOS file
Start the flashing process, let it finish, Computer restarts
Enter the BIOS again (DEL)
Load optimized defaults (F7)

Configuring BIOS settings

Get into the BIOS (DEL), configure as listed:

SATA-Mode: AHCI
xHCI-Mode : Auto
xHCI-Hand Off : Enabled
EHCI-Hand Off : Enabled
VT-d: Disable (otherwise you’ll be stuck at a black login screen with only a mouse pointer)
- Virtualization seems to work even when VT-d is disabled!
Wake On Lan : Disable
Fast Boot: Disable
Secure Boot : Disable
CPU EIST : Disable
Internal GPU: Disable
Processor Graphics: Disable (we’ll only use the NVIDIA card)
Initial Graphics Device: PCIe Slot 1 (could be another slot, depends on the slot number you’ve put the card into)
RAM mode: Optimize for stability. Otherwise you’ll get random freezes!

Create an USB thumbdrive containing Yosemite 10.10 installer

Connect an USB thumbdrive with at least 8 GB to your Mac, format it with “Mac OS Extended (Journaled)” and rename the drive to Untitled. Otherwise the following Terminal command won’t work. Be sure to have the Yosemite installer, called “Install OS X Yosemite.app” located in its default location in your main Applications folder (/Applications). If you moved it before installing Yosemite, you’ll need to move it back before creating the installer disk!
Execute this Terminal command. Caution: All data on the volume “/Volumes/Untitled” will be erased:

sudo /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ Yosemite.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/Untitled --applicationpath /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ Yosemite.app --nointeraction

Wait until you see the text “Copy Complete. Done.”
Eject the thumb drive and remove it from the Mac.

Start the installation

Boot from the newly created Yosemite USB thumbdrive installer (F12)
Start the installation of Mac OS X as usual
Let it finish (could take some while)
Reboot, remove the USB thumb drive
Create a new user, and log in

Get network up and running

As you’re now running your freshly installed copy of Mac OS X Yosemite, it’s time to get up and running the networking interface. For hints have a look at the intial TL;DR block!

Troubleshooting

Voodoo HDA driver messes up boot

Try to disable it:

sudo nvram 1F8E0C02-58A9-4E34-AE22-2B63745FA101:DisableVoodooHda=%01

To enable again, replace %01 with %00

Virtualization doesn’t work

If you get error messages in Parallels or other virtualization tools, try to reenable VT-d in BIOS:

VT-d: Enable

But be aware that this could possibly lead to some strange LSOD (login screen of death – just a black screen with only a cursor)!

What’s left todo?

See the initial TL;DR block for hints.

Have (ph|f)un!

Benjamin Wiedmann

Benjamin Wiedmann is an IT Professional, Software Developer, Photograph and Musician. Read more...