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ASUS Impact VIII (Z170 mITX)

zxv

By zxv,
in OSx86 10.11 (El Capitan)

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zxv
zxv
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Needed a Z170 mITX board with components likely to maximize Hackintosh compatibility (no ASMedia or Killer LAN junk, etc). Ended up going with this board because:

+ Intel SATA

+ Intel USB (3.0, 3.1, USB-C); has the Alpine Ridge controller which enables Thunderbolt 3 over USB-C

+ Intel LAN

+ Realtek ALC1150

Potential cons:

~ A U.2 rather than M.2 connector—albeit located topside such that one could readily add an adapter

~ No USB2 ports

Known cons:

! Useless 168c:003e Qualcomm Atheros WiFi (same as used in Killer-AC 1525) with no known OSX compatibility (although the BT part spontaneously works OOTB). On the other hand, if one doesn't care about wireless connectivity, this could be removed to yield an open M.2 slot…

Booting vanilla 10.11.1 from USB via Clover UEFI 3320 using…

Drivers (64UEFI): DataHubDxe, FSInject, HFSPlus, OsxAptioFixDrv2, OsxFatBinaryDrv, PartitionDxe

Kexts: FakeSMC.kext

Progress so far:

1) OsxAptioFix2 seems to cause allocation errors whereupon Clover aborts boot attempt.

-Resolved by instead using OsxAptioFix.

2) FakeSMC plugins seem to cause early kernel panics where last verbose boot line reads "ACPI" followed by nothing else.

-Resolved by disabling all FakeSMC plugins.

3) Some kind of PCI/USB error I neglected to write down.

-Resolved by enabling XHCI Handoff in BIOS.

4) Startup hangs w/ message "Still waiting for root device", the ⃠ graphic appears, then everything on screen distorts.

-Seen this before on my previous machine when attempting to boot OSX installer from a USB3 port. Switching to a USB2 port normally fixed it… unfortunately as noted, this machine has no USB2 ports. Tried connecting installer thru the USB2 hub of an Apple keyboard, and thru a USB2 extension cord—neither worked.

 

Stuck for now.

 

Pike's Skylake AppleAPIC patch made it bootable.

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Badeendje
Badeendje
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I'm really wondering, as soon as you get it going, whether thunderbolt 3 over the alpine ridge chipset works.

As far as I know Apple isn't using this chipset as I read somewhere they're using another solution on the latest iMac.

 

Apart from that I'm also planing an ITX setup and pretty much voted against this board for the exact same reasons.

Although underneath the board there are 2 philips screws to remove the aluminium casing from the wifi module; you're left with an upgradable ngff card.

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zxv
zxv
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You sure you added the skylake patch to clover? This sounds like exactly what happens when you don't have the patch.

And the Skylake patch is…?

 

I'm really wondering, as soon as you get it going, whether thunderbolt 3 over the alpine ridge chipset works.

There's a Thunderbolt section in the BIOS, so yeah probably something to it:

 

https://i.imgur.com/xlqtm83.png

https://i.imgur.com/aFtuhNb.png

https://i.imgur.com/kcAUULk.png

https://i.imgur.com/Rm8IKjd.png

 

… or at least there was. Dammit. Took screenshots prior to updating the BIOS in case it got removed… and of course it did. ASUS probably wanting to gouge people into buying their dumb TB add-on cards.

 

Conversely, Gigabyte has been releasing BIOS updates for some of their gaming series boards that enables exactly this.

 

Although underneath the board there are 2 philips screws to remove the aluminium casing from the wifi module; you're left with an upgradable ngff card.

Oh, cool. I don't care about WiFi/BT much, so if I really need an M.2 slot then I'll do that.

 

I think I've a dead DIMM slot on this board though, so I'm going to RMA it or just refund since they've apparently decided to gut its TB capability.

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zxv
zxv
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Oh, awesome. It works now—thanks. And thank you Pike, if you're reading this.

 

I'd read this a few days ago, but made a dumb tacit assumption that it didn't apply to me as nothing re: APIC errors was coming up.

 

Haven't tried yet as skylake is pretty much impossible to source here due to shortages, the prices have gone up by almost 20% :(

Yeah, it's been crazy. Spent many days diligently stalking online retailers trying to find a 6700K… any place that had it (at a reasonable price) was typically selling out within 30-45 mins (or less) of coming into stock. Started watching this page a lot, finally managed to snag one off Newegg for ~$360 w/ a promo code. Was hoping to find one for $350 (Intel MSRP) to compress the overall build budget as much as possible, but figured this is as good as it gets for the time being. I can see it's now up to $400 across the board, but I'd feel like an idiot spending that much for this CPU.

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  • 2 weeks later...
Andres ZeroCross
Andres ZeroCross
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OsxAptioFix2 works fine. But FakeSMC plugins remain incompatible, inducing kernel panics early in boot.

 

It's not FakeSMC fault,, it's cause "CPUSensor.kext". You need to use "CPUSensor.kext" that has supported SKYLAKE Processor. And put in "FakeSMC.kext/Contents/Plugins" or You can delete this plugin to avoid this issue

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zxv
zxv
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It's not FakeSMC fault,, it's cause "CPUSensor.kext". You need to use "CPUSensor.kext" that has supported SKYLAKE Processor. And put in "FakeSMC.kext/Contents/Plugins" or You can delete this plugin to avoid this issue

 

Cool, thanks.

 

Will finally have time to work on the build again later today, and will try this.

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zxv
zxv
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Update:

 

Fixed issue w/ board not recognizing one of the DIMM slots—apparently this can be caused by CPU coolers being screwed down too tightly. Loosened the screw a bit near the DIMM slots, and the board posted w/ full 16GB recognized. Probably needn't RMA it after all.

 

CPUSensors works using the Skylake beta that Andres ZeroCross mentioned.

  • Audio: Works using toleda's latest Skylake-compatible patches (ty toleda). A minor issue is that sound seems to shut off in OSX after ~10 seconds of inactivity, and when it activates again the 1st initial bit of sound doesn't get played (so one might not hear an alert or notification sound they otherwise would). There's also a slightly audible tonal background hum when using the headphone port, I'm guessing from some sort of EM interference, though it goes away whenever actual sound is being played—this occurs in Windows just the same, so is not a Hackintosh-specific issue. Been meaning to contact ASUS about it, but lazy; could also be something to do with the case front panel.
  • Bluetooth: Works with no special kexts or modifications required.
  • Graphics (Intel HD 530): Not working, but I'm using discrete gfx… so whatever.
  • Graphics (AMD Radeon 380): Mostly works, albeit in a convoluted way. Display will turn off and refuse to turn back on during OSX boot phase, unless I boot using IGFX and allow discrete gfx to activate when the system reaches desktop. To do this I've Clover injecting both Intel & ATI graphics. And the card must be toggled to UEFI mode. Fans don't kick in unless under very heavy load, so the card can get extremely hot after hours of casual non-gaming usage (to a point of blowing at max speed like a jet turbine after reboot when the fans initialize). I'm assuming that to get this card more fully operational in OSX, there's some additional device strings that need to be passed? No idea, and there appears to be little to no interest in the community re: these cards thus no information.
  • LAN: Works using a newer AppleIntelE1000e.kext listed here.
  • Memory: OSX mistakenly reports 4 available slots with 2x4GB DDR4 3200MHz DIMMs installed. According to bdmesg, Clover doesn't have DDR4 implemented, so I can only correct this SMBIOS anomaly to a limited extent (see screenshot below). Mostly fixed; see next post.
  • Sleep: Appears to work with no edits necessary. I don't use sleep/hibernate much, but I'd be glad to test aspects of this further if someone wants.
  • USB: All 6 USB3 ports (2x front, 4x back) seem to work with no edits necessary. The USB-A 3.1 port works as a USB3. Nothing to plug into the USB-C 3.1 port, so cannot test it.
  • WiFi: Not working, no known kexts for enabling Qualcomm Atheros module (168c:003e).
10aplfx.pngtrFy1sj.png

 

I think that covers everything so far. If anyone's curious for further details/information about whatever, ask.

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zxv
zxv
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Intel I219-V LAN now works (kext here).

 

Memory recognition issues largely resolved per advice here, yielding more appropriate description:

 

x3W2bDT.png

OSX still thinks there's 4 memory slots total (2 available), but I can live with that for now.

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  • 3 months later...
suntoryTime
suntoryTime
Posted
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any updates on your asus ITX build?
This motherboard looks reall interesting.

It has both M.2 and U.2 and has a thunderbolt capable chip.
Can the thunderbolt be restored with a EFI firmware downgrade?
Do you think there will be an M.2 based wifi card that OS X recognizes? Maybe it will be possible to convert the M.2 slot to mini PCI-e with some sort of adapter in the future...

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