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Asrock Boards with unlocked MSRs


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Yesterday I got my new mainboard, an Asrock Fatal1ty B85 Killer. The first thing I did was upgrading the BIOS to the latest version available (V1.30). Next I wanted to patch it with PMpatch in order to unlock the MSRs but I was very surprised that PMpatch didn't found a match pattern in the power management module. This made me curious and I tried to boot Mavericks with the vanilla BIOS and it succeeded. No KP, no early reboot.

 

Obviously Asrock has decided to change their policy with regard to the CPU's MSRs in some of their latest BIOS releases for at least a few of their boards because I don't think that the Fatal1ty B85 Killer is the only board with unlocked MSRs. I wouldn't be surprised in case other members of their Fatal1ty series of mainboards are affected of this change of mind too. It would be great if anybody with access to one of these boards could confirm this.

 

Update:

 

I downloaded the BIOS files of the following boards from Asrock's website and tried to patch them with PMPatch but it didn't find a matching pattern in any of these BIOS files. It looks like all these boards have unlocked MSRs too. Well, it might also be the case that PMPatch lacks some matching patterns but you would need a board in order to verify this.

  • Asrock Fatal1ty H97 Killer (Version 1.10)
  • Asrock Fatal1ty Z97 Killer (Version 1.30)
  • Asrock Fatal1ty Z87 Killer (Version 1.40)

Mieze

Edited by Mieze
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I have the Fatal1ty H97 Killer board; do I just need to run PMPatch in order to verify whether it works or not?

 

No, try to boot OS X with the vanilla kernel and disabled PM kernel patch in Clover. In case it boots successfully the MSRs are unlocked too.

 

Mieze

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No, try to boot OS X with the vanilla kernel and disabled PM kernel patch in Clover. In case it boots successfully the MSRs are unlocked too.

 

Mieze

 

In my BIOS, I have all power saving tech disabled (including Turbo and SpeedStep), and a fixed clock rate. Would I still need the disabled PM kernel patch? Or should I just re-enabled some of those features in order to test for unlocked MSRs?

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In my BIOS, I have all power saving tech disabled (including Turbo and SpeedStep), and a fixed clock rate. Would I still need the disabled PM kernel patch? Or should I just re-enabled some of those features in order to test for unlocked MSRs?

 

It's best to start with the optimized defaults in BIOS. As Clover is able to do kernel patches it is crucial for a test to make sure that these patches are disabled:

<key>KernelAndKextPatches</key>
<dict>
   <key>KernelPm</key>
   <false/>
   <key>AsusAICPUPM</key>
   <false/>
</dict>

Mieze

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I used this guide to make a Mavericks install USB: http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/298027-guide-aio-guides-for-hackintosh/?do=findComment&comment=2019599

Enabled Turbo and SpeedStep, the installer booted without issue. Disabled Turbo and SpeedStep, installer still booted fine.

 

How do I verify if Clover is using any kernel patches? Would I just look at the plist file I generated when I was making the USB?

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So it seems I can't boot properly when using Clover from my HDD (just goes from the boot menu to a black screen). The Clover on my flash drive however boots the installed Mavericks.

 

Edit: Got it. Not entirely sure how though...

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So it seems I can't boot properly when using Clover from my HDD (just goes from the boot menu to a black screen). The Clover on my flash drive however boots the installed Mavericks.

 

If the installer flash drive boots properly without Clover's kernel patches, the MSRs are definitely unlocked. The problem with the black screen when booting from the HD is probably an issue with the graphics card / onboard graphics configuration.

 

Mieze

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  • 4 weeks later...
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