trx40 [Discussion] - TRX40 Bare Metal - Vanilla Patches

[Jaidy]

@fabiosun you mentioned that Catalina is working with patched web driver. Does that mean nVidia's driver works when patched in Catalina? If so, that'd be great!

[meina222]

8 hours ago, iGPU said:

 

 

This weekend when working up a config.plist file to boot into Big Sur, I would see this if WEG is active. It is okay to leave WEG active, but add -wegbeta to boot arg.

 

I've stressed adding npc-0x2000 several times on this thread whether or not "Above 4G decoding" is enabled or not.

 

The kexts I've loaded with the EFI on GitHub should cause no problems.

 

Overall stability and random reboots will occur if Energy Saver is not disabled. I posted this earlier in this thread and on the GitHub site, Section 7.

 

@iGPU - it was with npci=0x2000 that I actually got the initial error.

 

I actually had missed the energy saver part, and now that you get my attention to it, I was playing with that part of the BIOS (ErP and wake on LAN) around the time my issues started happening, but I later reverted those changes and that didn't fix it.

 

At this point I am more worried about some hardware or NVRAM corruption on my end than actually getting the bare metal itself. However, I still think it is more likely to turn out that it is a subtle bug in the EFI. I will go over your guide and rebuild the EFI from scratch using the tools recommended (I do use OC configurator latest and I see you recommend doing more XML-native edit tools so I will do that too).

 

Thank you for the writeup.

[iGPU]

41 minutes ago, meina222 said:

 

@iGPU - it was with npci=0x2000 that I actually got the initial error.

 

I actually had missed the energy saver part, and now that you get my attention to it, I was playing with that part of the BIOS (ErP and wake on LAN) around the time my issues started happening, but I later reverted those changes and that didn't fix it.

 

At this point I am more worried about some hardware or NVRAM corruption on my end than actually getting the bare metal itself. However, I still think it is more likely to turn out that it is a subtle bug in the EFI. I will go over your guide and rebuild the EFI from scratch using the tools recommended (I do use OC configurator latest and I see you recommend doing more XML-native edit tools so I will do that too).

 

Thank you for the writeup.

 

Ah, I didn't know you were using OC Configurator. I don't use it (I only use to generate SMBIOS data). I had too many weird things happen in past and spent hours trouble shooting more than one corrupted config.plist file (you can find the problems, but you need to study the file in text mode which is laborious). 

 

The developers of OpenCore do NOT recommend using OC Configurator. Truly, the one I prefer is PlistEdit Pro. (Even Xcode can foul up the config file by substituting 'real' values for 'integer' values, leading to boot errors.)

 

I've uploaded more changes this morning to the EFI folder on GitHub with the latest OC commit. It boots just fine. After using it, do a re-set of your NVRAM. Also, remember you'll need to adjust the ACPI section as I've extensively renamed SSDT files to allow us all to use them, no matter the mobo manufacturer, in what I think is a more coherent fashion.

[fabiosun]

2 hours ago, Jaidy said:

@fabiosun you mentioned that Catalina is working with patched web driver. Does that mean nVidia's driver works when patched in Catalina? If so, that'd be great!

No Jaidy

a minimal functionality to have correct resolutions and 2 monitor connected...this is valid also in Big Sur..but no acceleration is possible

 

[tsongz]

Curious @fabiosun, something I was planning on trying with Proxmox version was to create a small virtual disk that would store the EFI partition for separate OSX installations and attach them to the VM, rather than directly modifying the volume/installation EFI partition. Then setting the boot order to load the virtual EFI disk first. My reasoning being that it would allow for interchangeability of EFIs / OSX versions, and being able to modify broken EFIs from a working one. Would be similar to booting first from a USB with OC on it. 

 

Is there a flaw in my thinking that I'm not considering that would make this not work?

[fabiosun]

@tsongzmaybe I miss your point but you can upload different efi uploading it via web interface and then declaring it in vm config

in this way you can choose efi to boot pressing f2 during Proxmox logo on display

but maybe I miss completely your doubt 

[meina222]

@tsongz - yes you can do that. Just set your boot disk to be a small disk image containing the efi with an OC config entry that would be saved in the VM's NVRAM pointing to your OS disk. I boot this way into my Big Sur VM as I find it more likely to change something there due to the beta and frequent updates. For the stable Catalina one I chose to not bother as I found it robust and put EFI on the boot + OS shared disk volumes - that way I can carbon copy clone the entire thing in 1 shot since I don't think the script that does that would work with split-drive EFI and boot volumes. Maybe you can modify the script if you care about cloning both EFI and disk.

[Ploddles]

@iGPU please find attached requested IOReg file for the Gigabyte Xtreme motherboard. We also need a different network kext as we have dual intel 10GB chipset. The (modified)  kext is attached.

 

@Jaidy, sound for me is working. I have not tested the onboard headphone jacks etc as I use a Dell AC511 USB Soundbar (it matches my Dell monitors and is designed to clip onto one of them. You could try changing from alcid=1 to alcid=11 or alcid=16 in the boot-args of your config.plist file. My previous Gigabyte boards (Z370 Gaming Ultra, Z390 Designare and Z390 Master all worked with either 11 or 16.

 

As for your keyboard, have you tried going to System Preferences - Keyboard and clicking "Change Keyboard Type..." It should then get you to press a key or two to verify it. I don't use a trackpad so can suggest anything for that.

Gigabyte-Xtreme.zip SmallTreeIntel8259x.kext.zip

[iGPU]

52 minutes ago, Ploddles said:

@iGPU please find attached requested IOReg file for the Gigabyte Xtreme motherboard. We also need a different network kext as we have dual intel 10GB chipset. The (modified)  kext is attached.

 

@Jaidy, sound for me is working. I have not tested the onboard headphone jacks etc as I use a Dell AC511 USB Soundbar (it matches my Dell monitors and is designed to clip onto one of them. You could try changing from alcid=1 to alcid=11 or alcid=16 in the boot-args of your config.plist file. My previous Gigabyte boards (Z370 Gaming Ultra, Z390 Designare and Z390 Master all worked with either 11 or 16.

 

As for your keyboard, have you tried going to System Preferences - Keyboard and clicking "Change Keyboard Type..." It should then get you to press a key or two to verify it. I don't use a trackpad so can suggest anything for that.

Gigabyte-Xtreme.zip 1.25 MB · 0 downloads SmallTreeIntel8259x.kext.zip 96.17 kB · 0 downloads

 

Ok, I've updated the EFI to add the kext and take into account your IORE. You need to do something different from the Designare mobo besides the kext file (which is off by default). In the ACPI section, you mostly want to use the MSI and not the SSDT for the Designare as that will cancel your BT. Instead use the sections shown below. The two new entries for the GB Xtreme are #24 and 25 (and correct to Xtreme rather than Extreme as in image below). I don't think you want to enable the SSDT-GFX's.

 

Edited August 20, 2020 by iGPU

[Ploddles]

Cor, that was quick. Thanks very much.

[Jaidy]

1 hour ago, Ploddles said:

@iGPU please find attached requested IOReg file for the Gigabyte Xtreme motherboard. We also need a different network kext as we have dual intel 10GB chipset. The (modified)  kext is attached.

 

@Jaidy, sound for me is working. I have not tested the onboard headphone jacks etc as I use a Dell AC511 USB Soundbar (it matches my Dell monitors and is designed to clip onto one of them. You could try changing from alcid=1 to alcid=11 or alcid=16 in the boot-args of your config.plist file. My previous Gigabyte boards (Z370 Gaming Ultra, Z390 Designare and Z390 Master all worked with either 11 or 16.

 

As for your keyboard, have you tried going to System Preferences - Keyboard and clicking "Change Keyboard Type..." It should then get you to press a key or two to verify it. I don't use a trackpad so can suggest anything for that.

Gigabyte-Xtreme.zip 1.25 MB · 1 download SmallTreeIntel8259x.kext.zip 96.17 kB · 1 download

that worked! Thanks a lot. Would you be following up on @iGPU's suggestions to create an updated EFI? If so, would you please post it here?

[Ploddles]

6 minutes ago, Jaidy said:

that worked! Thanks a lot. Would you be following up on @iGPU's suggestions to create an updated EFI? If so, would you please post it here?

 

Which bit worked, sound or keyboard?

 

I will be updating my EFI (on a separate USB drive for testing first) but it will probably take me a while. Once I have it done I'll let you know. 🙂

 

Firstly, I've installed Big Sur on an old MacBook, 13" mid 2014 - so not the fastest machine out there, with only 8GB ram!!, and will next create a CCC image on a USB HD to then CCC to another NVMe on the TRX. I can then validate the new EFI for both Catalina and BS on the Xtreme. At some point I'll also have another look at liquidctl to see if it will play nicely with the RGB. It has just been updated to better work with the latest Gigabyte MBs that support Fusion 2 (Windows). I'm not that fussed about RGB but if it is there then there is another challenge and I like the odd challenge. Having been retired for some time I must keep the old brain cells working - I do voluntary work with the Ambulance Service now to keep me busy during the day but need more than that, hence moving onto the TRX from the 3 Intel Hacks I have built so far.

 

[Jaidy]

2 hours ago, Ploddles said:

 

Which bit worked, sound or keyboard?

 

I will be updating my EFI (on a separate USB drive for testing first) but it will probably take me a while. Once I have it done I'll let you know. 🙂

 

Firstly, I've installed Big Sur on an old MacBook, 13" mid 2014 - so not the fastest machine out there, with only 8GB ram!!, and will next create a CCC image on a USB HD to then CCC to another NVMe on the TRX. I can then validate the new EFI for both Catalina and BS on the Xtreme. At some point I'll also have another look at liquidctl to see if it will play nicely with the RGB. It has just been updated to better work with the latest Gigabyte MBs that support Fusion 2 (Windows). I'm not that fussed about RGB but if it is there then there is another challenge and I like the odd challenge. Having been retired for some time I must keep the old brain cells working - I do voluntary work with the Ambulance Service now to keep me busy during the day but need more than that, hence moving onto the TRX from the 3 Intel Hacks I have built so far.

 

the sound worked :). Keyboard I just set the shortcuts manually in the settings..

Cool, looking forward to the updated EFI 🙂

[meina222]

@iGPU - went over the full write up on your GitHub finally - great job 👍.

 

I noticed you wrote that BIOS could get corrupted. After all my travails the past 2 days I had reached the same conclusion so I re-flashed earlier today. Now I am wondering if I should re-test with emulated NVRAM to prevent NVRAM writes by OC and MacOS? Are OC NVRAM writes avoidable?

 

Another question - I had tried before my stability issues to dump the memmap file for the slide in the EFI via the console (on fs0: as per your instructions) but later on when OC would boot into MacOS that file would be gone from the EFI folder. I could only see it if I am in the openspell itself but then I did not know how to open an editor there. Anything I missed before I retry?

 

 

Edit: I am also finally catching up on the Proxmox old threads, as for me Proxmox runs rock solid. Wanted to find out what else can I improve i.e. extra USB 3.1 expansion, USB controller speeds etc. I noticed you had a Designare too and abandoned due to instability! Funny, but I am so tired of the quirks of this board that I am close to pulling the same trick, but I am eyeing the Asus Zenith II as there is a discounted open-box one in a store nearby. Trying to sort out with Gigabyte and their BIOS team, will give it 1-2 more weeks. Proxmox is rock solid as well as Ubuntu - the only reason I keep this board (and the free add-ons of course).

Edited August 21, 2020 by meina222

[Driftwood]

I'm going to test DaVinci Resolve, Logic Pro, Camtasia and Adobe CC with a bare metal config this weekend. These apps work fine under Proxmox, under Mac 7,1 config, so I'm a little bemused by all the Perl scripts required!

[iGPU]

11 hours ago, meina222 said:

@iGPU - went over the full write up on your GitHub finally - great job 👍.

 

I noticed you wrote that BIOS could get corrupted. After all my travails the past 2 days I had reached the same conclusion so I re-flashed earlier today. Now I am wondering if I should re-test with emulated NVRAM to prevent NVRAM writes by OC and MacOS? Are OC NVRAM writes avoidable?

 

Another question - I had tried before my stability issues to dump the memmap file for the slide in the EFI via the console (on fs0: as per your instructions) but later on when OC would boot into MacOS that file would be gone from the EFI folder. I could only see it if I am in the openspell itself but then I did not know how to open an editor there. Anything I missed before I retry?

 

 

Edit: I am also finally catching up on the Proxmox old threads, as for me Proxmox runs rock solid. Wanted to find out what else can I improve i.e. extra USB 3.1 expansion, USB controller speeds etc. I noticed you had a Designare too and abandoned due to instability! Funny, but I am so tired of the quirks of this board that I am close to pulling the same trick, but I am eyeing the Asus Zenith II as there is a discounted open-box one in a store nearby. Trying to sort out with Gigabyte and their BIOS team, will give it 1-2 more weeks. Proxmox is rock solid as well as Ubuntu - the only reason I keep this board (and the free add-ons of course).

 

Thanks. (I re-wrote some of section 7 and 10 this morning, adding the NVRAM reset stuff --- very important as I found out again while attempting to do a fresh BS install under bare metal.)

 

As for the "fs0:" that may not actually be your boot EFI partition. Look at other EFI partitions on your setup. You'll probably find the memmap file located on another EFI partition.

 

I can't comment on the emulated NVRAM as I've not tried it on this build. I briefly used it on a Z390 Designare build and I wasn't convinced it was much better than doing nothing. The only time I think emulated NVRAM is to permit the system to boot. On some of the Z390 builds (like the ASRock Z390 ITX build I wrote on my thread here a while ago, emulation was critical for proper booting). I think OpenCore gets around this (somehow) whether you've got emulated NVRAM working or not.

 

Native NVRAM is theoretically the superior approach. I think it gets fouled up when we get crashes or when we attempt to boot between OS X  versions. I alluded to this above when I mentioned having to reset NVRAM while attempting to install BS bare metal yesterday. I finally got half way through the 2nd stage of install when it froze. I could not get it pass that point. And after trying to continue the install, I could not boot back into Catalina until I did an NVRAM reset. There were no BIOS problems, just corrupted NVRAM, but again, this was fixable with a reset. I don't know how any of this would have faired if I'd been using emulated NVRAM.

 

As for Proxmox, I've had my share of corruption of the entire macOS requiring me to re-install things. I've not written much about it, but when I've been silent here for several days it was due to those issues. (And yes, I gave up on GB TRX40 Designare; the MSI seems better, although I don't like its BIOS interface, preferring GB or ASUS.)

[iGPU]

4 hours ago, Driftwood said:

I'm going to test DaVinci Resolve, Logic Pro, Camtasia and Adobe CC with a bare metal config this weekend. These apps work fine under Proxmox, under Mac 7,1 config, so I'm a little bemused by all the Perl scripts required!

 

DaVinci will probably not work on bare metal with AMD unless you do the mods I wrote about earlier In this thread. I've used those mods successfully on AMD X570, but not yet tested on the TRX40 platform.

 

Logic Pro X is no problem, and no problem with Final Cut Pro. I've tested both. Reaper is also functional.

 

Adobe doesn't play nicely with AMD, but I cannot comment as I refuse to pay Adobe a penny for rental fees. I stopped using after Mojave (I keep Mojave on Intel machines to use older Photoshop, which is 32-bit).

[fabiosun]

hi @iGPU mod you posted for Davinci works, tested yesterday

 

Now I have solved my fresh installation problems (bad EFI structure for my fault)

 

I have a problem with Cinebench 15

running cpu benchmark produces often an instant reboot

 

ah..also Adobe need patching but then works pretty fine (nt tested intensively)

 

[valmeida]

She is alive Barre Metal 

[valmeida]

I have a few  SATA drives are not loading . It leads me to believe that a specific SATA controller is not loading . I have attached my EFI folder and list of PCIE devices I pulled from Hanckingtool .  Should I add special devices to the Device Properties  in my config.plist or can a ssd be or DSST be crated and added. One more thing does the 15 port usb limit apply with AMD ? In my previous  builds I would have to map out each port using the Hackingtool and then export a USBPorts.kext. Also not shutting down. 

EFI.zip pcidevices.plist.zip

Edited August 22, 2020 by valmeida

[iGPU]

2 hours ago, valmeida said:

I have a few  SATA drives are not loading . It leads me to believe that a specific SATA controller is not loading . I have attached my EFI folder and list of PCIE devices I pulled from Hanckingtool .  Should I add special devices to the Device Properties  in my config.plist or can a ssd be or DSST be crated and added. One more thing does the 15 port usb limit apply with AMD ? In my previous  builds I would have to map out each port using the Hackingtool and then export a USBPorts.kext. Also not shutting down. 

EFI.zip 18.89 MB · 0 downloads pcidevices.plist.zip 2.07 kB · 0 downloads

 

I'm not sure that you want a Microsoft boot folder inside the OC EFI folder.

 

What specific SATA are missing? Are they formatted for OS X or other OSs as this will affect what shows up. (If you want other OSs, you'll need different drivers.)

 

Load a IORE file for your build.

 

You don't want to use DSDT in OC on this build. As for USBs, I've never seen more than 10 ports per device. The 15 port limit is per device, not per machine.

 

 

****

 

9 hours ago, fabiosun said:

I have a problem with Cinebench 15

running cpu benchmark produces often an instant reboot

 

I've not seen any reboots with any tests on bare metal or VM.

 

Some tests crash, like the Corona test, but on forced exit, the macOS was fine.

 

Edited August 22, 2020 by iGPU

[fabiosun]

1 hour ago, iGPU said:

 

I'm not sure that you want a Microsoft boot folder inside the OC EFI folder.

 

What specific SATA are missing? Are they formatted for OS X or other OSs as this will affect what shows up. (If you want other OSs, you'll need different drivers.)

 

Load a IORE file for your build.

 

You don't want to use DSDT in OC on this build. As for USBs, I've never seen more than 10 ports per device. The 15 port limit is per device, not per machine.

 

 

****

 

 

I've not seen any reboots with any tests on bare metal or VM.

 

Some tests crash, like the Corona test, but on forced exit, the macOS was fine.

 

In vm i have a perfect system and i have not problem

in bare metal with cinebench 15 i have an instant reboot when i try cpu benchmark

sometimes it works and produces a result of about 7800 point

often it reboots

if it works in catalina for you, can you try to test this for 2/3 times ?

ty

[fabiosun]

@valmeida

our sata controllers are seen well in osx

if you have big sata disk greater than 4tb they could be appear (sometime) after a bit , if you see in disk utility app they are there but osx loose some time to mount them

in my case it happens with two 10tb exfat formatted drive

i do not know if your asus extreme ii use differents kind of sata controller

maybe you can check but i do not think so

[fabiosun]

only for the sake of testing I have installed successfully Catalina using an USB full installer and same EFi

Instead, Big Sur hangs here:

I have not removed my Thunderbolt card

I am not using any ssdt in ACPI, only DevirtualizeMMIO in booter boot loader quirks

Other stuff identical to the Proxmox config.plist (obviously with different kernel patches)

 

[valmeida]

11 hours ago, iGPU said:

 

I'm not sure that you want a Microsoft boot folder inside the OC EFI folder.

 

What specific SATA are missing? Are they formatted for OS X or other OSs as this will affect what shows up. (If you want other OSs, you'll need different drivers.)

 

Load a IORE file for your build.

 

You don't want to use DSDT in OC on this build. As for USBs, I've never seen more than 10 ports per device. The 15 port limit is per device, not per machine.

 

 

****

 

 

I've not seen any reboots with any tests on bare metal or VM.

 

Some tests crash, like the Corona test, but on forced exit, the macOS was fine.

 

Here is my IORE 

iMacPro Victor.zip

9 hours ago, fabiosun said:

@valmeida

our sata controllers are seen well in osx

if you have big sata disk greater than 4tb they could be appear (sometime) after a bit , if you see in disk utility app they are there but osx loose some time to mount them

in my case it happens with two 10tb exfat formatted drive

i do not know if your asus extreme ii use differents kind of sata controller

maybe you can check but i do not think so

The drives are 4 TB and one is formatted in NTFS and the other is APFS