[Guide] Hackintosh HP Z420/Z620/Z820 OpenCore Sequoia/Sonoma/Ventura/Monterey

[BillDH2k]

OpenCore EFI for HP Z420-Z620-Z820 (1.0.4)

(Last update - 6/23/2025. Updated to OC 1.0.4. Sequoia 15.5 tested)

 

1. macOS support:

• Catalina/Big Sur/Monterey:

  • Native support (Recommended)

• Ventura/Sonoma/Sequoia:

  • Non-native support (due to non-AVX2 CPUs).
  • Root patching with OCLP is required to enable graphic hardware acceleration. Check OCLP page for other limitations.
  • Follow the step-by-step instruction below.

2. Supported Hardware:

• HP Z420/Z620/Z820 (BIOS 3.96, all motherboard revisions)
• CPUs: E5-1600/2600 V1 Xeon's (Sandy-Bridge) or V2 Xeon's (Ivy-Bridge)
• Required BIOS Settings: Enable UEFI boot, set SATA to AHCI mode, Disable Vt-d, and enable "Legacy ACPI Tables".

 

3. What Works:

• CPU Power Management (all processor models)
• On-board Audio (Front/Back Jacks, internal speaker)
• USB2 ports, Ethernet, On-Board SAS (Z820 only)
• USB3 (Catalina only)

 

What Not Work:

• Sleep/Wake (Must disable from macOS, System Preference->Energy Saver->Prevent computer from sleeping)
• USB3 ports not working under Big Sur or higher (no driver support).
• Z820 DUAL CPU Boot Issue (Ventura or higher): random lockup (consistently) before reaching desktop. Solution: stay with Monterey or use single CPU. Z620 DUAL CPUs, however, works! You may experience occasional lockup during booting. Reboot again normally works. So I would recommend temporarily remove the 2nd CPU card for Ventura or newer OS installation.

 

 

4. EFI Folder

4.1 EFI with OC 1.0.4:

• Support Catalina - Sequoia (15.5 tested).
• SYMBIOS: MacPro7,1 (default) or iMacPro1,1. MacPro6,1 is also supported up to Monterey.

4.2. Choose the correct config.plist:

• For Sandy-bridge CPUs (V1 Xeon's), use config_SandyCPUs.plist (rename it to config.plist).
• For Ivy-bridge CPUs (V2 Xeon's), use config_IvyCPUs.plist
• For 2643V2, 2667V2, or 2687w V2 CPUs, use the corresponding config_26XXV2.plist
• Choose the correct CPU PM file that matches your CPU model:
  • You may over-write SSDT_CPUPM.aml (default PM) with the correct PM file, or
  • modify config.plist (ACPI->Add section) to pick the specific PM file.
  • If your CPU is not listed, pick the one with closest match, disable use of any PM file. Once install is completed, generate your own (see Post-Install) for optimal CPU power management.

4.3 For Catalina/Big Sur/Monterey:

• Just use the renamed config.plist, with the correct CPU PM file.

4.4 For Sonoma/Ventura/Sequoia:

• Follow Sonoma/Ventura step-by-step instruction below.

 

5. Other Installation Note:

• Network LAN driver choice: For Z420 (Single LAN port), use IntelMausi.kext. For Z620/Z820 (Dual LAN ports), use AppleIntelE1000e.kext. Otherwise, you might experience random system lock up, especially true if NvMe SSD (via PCI-E adapter) is used.
• Currently AppleIntelE1000e.kext is enabled by default in the config.list.

 

6. Pre/Post-Install

• You must generate and add your own Serial # & Board ID to config.plist

• For full CPU power management, replace "SSDT-CPUPM.aml" file (in ACPI folder) with one matching your CPU model. I have provided a few in the ACPI folder. Simply overwrite "SSDT-CPUPM.aml" with an appropriate file, or modify config.plist to pick a specific PM file to use (ACPI->Add section). If your CPU model is not listed, you need to run ssdtPRGen (link) to create a new SSDT file (Carefully follow the instruction here: bilbo's "Z820 - High Sierra, the Great Guide" (step #29) (link). If you have a mismatched CPU PM file, you might experience booting issue. In this case, disable SSDT-CPUPM.aml from config.plist. macOS will run without CPU power management. Once macOS is installed, generate the SSDT file specific to your CPU.

7. Sonoma/Ventura step-by-step instruction

The steps outlined below were largely tailored from the excellent instruction guide written by 5T33Z0.

 

Preparations:

• Download and create an USB macOS installer (Follow Dortania's guide. Do not use OCLP patcher to create the USB Installer as you'd likely to encounter errors since it adds extra packages designed for real Mac).
• Download the latest OCLP patcher and save a copy for later use (highly recommended!).

 

Step 1. Start with the appropriate config.plist template (Section 4.2)

• Verify that this EFI works with your current Monterey/Big Sur setup (if you have one installed), with full CPU power management (use Intel Power Gadget tool to verify).

 

Step 2. Modify the boot-args (to disable the video card hardware acceleration)

• Add the following flags to the boot-args:
  • "-amd_no_dgpu_accel"      if you have an AMD/Radeon card
  • “nv_disable=1”                     if you have an nVidia Kepler card
• Copy the EFI to the macOS USB installer's EFI partition.
• optional:
  • "revpatch=sbvmm"          for Sonoma 14.3 only. Not needed for 14.2, or 14.3.1 (my own testing). Otherwise, you may encounter "Software Update Error” after 1st reboot. If you encounter this error, just do a restart (or reboot) and the install would complete succesfully, except that the boot partition would end up as “Sonoma - Data” (you could rename it later).

 

Step 3. Install Sequoia/Sonoma/Ventura (latest version recommended)

• Boot with the modified boot-args from Step 2. Make sure to perform a NVRAM reset (At OC picker screen, hit SPACE BAR to review NVRAM Reset option, if not shown).
• Start Sequoia/Sonoma/Ventura installation:
  • by booting from an USB installer stick (Now is required to avoid potential issues), or
  • (for updating from existing Ventura/Sonoma only) directly from a downloaded full installer copied to the Application folder (Note: for NVME ssd, you must boot from USB installer).
• Once macOS is installed successfully, proceed to Step 4.

 

Step 4: Apply OCLP patcher (to enable graphics card acceleration).

• Modify config.plist again:
  • csr-active-config to 03080000
  • Add “amfi=0x80” to boot-args
• Reboot, and perform NVRAM Reset. Reboot again.
• Install the latest OCLP patcher (OpenCore-Patcher-GUI.app or use a local copy saved in Preparation step)
• Launch the OCLP patcher and choose “Post-Install Root Patch”.

 

Step 5: Post OCLP change

• If OCLP root patching is successful (Step 4), remove the following boot-args , if they were added from the previous steps:
  • "-amd_no_dgpu_accel"
  • "nv_disable=1"
  • "amfi=0x80"
  • "revpatch=sbvmm"
• Leave csr-active-config as 03080000
• Reboot, and perform NVRAM reset. Reboot again.

 

Note:

• If you properly followed the steps above, the final EFI should be able to boot existing Big Sur, Monterey, and Ventura/Sonoma.

 

Credits:

• bilbo's "Z820 - High Sierra, the Great Guide" (here). Also many of the follow-up posts in the same forum. My build wouldn't possible without these guy's work.
• Dortania's OpenCore Install Guide (Here)
• "Installing macOS Ventura or newer on Ivy Bridge systems" (Here )

 

 

Hackintosh-HP-Z420-Z620-Z820-OpenCore-V3.5.zip

Edited July 14, 2025 by BillDH2k
Updated to OC 1.0.4. Sequoia tested.

[antonio.clb]

Hello to everybody, hope everything well for you and your beloved ones! Long time no see here...

Just a quick post to show you my progress on Sonoma on my Z620 (see attached picture).

Thanks to @BillDH2k, @bilbo and 5T33Z0 for their precious work, my Z620 workstation is now perfectly working with Sonoma 14.5!

I've made a mix of these various tutorials and spent a couple of hours optimizing my previous EFI (0.9.7 with Monterey) and now latest version of Sonoma works!

Time to update my signature again!

 

Have a lot of fun and thanks again to everyone involved in this awesome project!

 

AC

[antonio.clb]

Just updated to Sonoma 14.6 folks!

Have a lot of fun!

 

AC

[kobiemexx2]

Thanks

[BillDH2k]

Updated to Sequoia 15.5, with OC 1.0.4 & OCLP  2.4.0

 

 

Test platform: Z620, 2x 2667V2, AMD M290X 4GB.

Edited June 24, 2025 by BillDH2k

[antonio.clb]

10 hours ago, BillDH2k said:

Updated to Sequoia 15.5, with OC 1.0.4 & OCLP  2.4.0

 

 

Test platform: Z620, 2x 2667V2, AMD M290X 4GB.

 

Awesome!
I've just tried to upgrade my Sonoma and everything went well except for the very last step: when I put back the 2nd CPU board, my Z620 does not reach graphic OS (stuck in verbose bootlog). Any Idea?
Sonoma 14.7.6 worked perfectly with 2nd CPU connected.

 

Thanks again for your great hard work!

AC

[BillDH2k]

@antonio.clb  Make sure you do NVRAM reset, then try reboot. My test platform (Z620, 2X 2667V2) would experience lockup, from time-to-time, stuck in verbose log.  But reboot again normally worked.

[antonio.clb]

7 minutes ago, BillDH2k said:

@antonio.clb  Make sure you do NVRAM reset, then try reboot. My test platform (Z620, 2X 2667V2) would experience lockup, from time-to-time, stuck in verbose log.  But reboot again normally worked.

 

Oh yes! It worked finally!!! Thanks for the tip!

I've just to fix the external NVMe (easy) and the misconfigured RAM warning before updating my signature again!

You're great!

 

[antonio.clb]

Thought it was a verbose logging problem and tried to disable it but, without NVRAM reset, my Z620 won't boot...

I'll try to find some time to investigate more.

 

Meanwhile: signature updated!

[ckamee]

Thank you so much! It works on my z620 using your efi for Sequoia. Is it possible you could include IOSkywalkFamily.kext and IO80211FamilyLegacy.kext for wifi in your next release? I add these in the Kext folder and using ProperTree adding these in config.plist>Kernel but it panic at boot. 

[antonio.clb]

On 6/24/2025 at 5:12 PM, antonio.clb said:

Thought it was a verbose logging problem and tried to disable it but, without NVRAM reset, my Z620 won't boot...

I'll try to find some time to investigate more.

 

Meanwhile: signature updated!

Hello to everybody! Just a quick update on my Z620 Sequoia journey.

I was a little upset regarding the dual-CPU not working and decided to invest a couple of hours in resolving this issue.

I've freshly installed Sonoma with my old EFI (OC 1.0.0 with tailored SSDT made following @bilbo's guide) following this @BillDH2k's guide, tested everything was working fine, updated both OC and kexts to the latest version and then made a Sequoia 15.5 update from USB installer.

After the last step (root patching and removing amfi=0x80), I ended up with a black screen: no mouse, no prompt, nothing! The Mac was working because it was visible on the network and pingable.

After many tries, I put back "amfi=0x80" in the NVRAM arguments and the system came back to life! ^__^

Now my HP Z620 is fully working (BT, video HW acceleration, etc.) and it rocks!

Additionally: I've performed every step WITHOUT removing my second CPU/RAM board and it works like a charm!

 

Thanks again to everybody for your hard work and dedication to this project. Unfortunately, it looks like macOS 26 will be the last OS supporting Intel CPUs, so we can hope to reach Tahoe at most.

Anyway, it was (and still is!) a really nice journey. Keep it up!

 

Attached you can find my EFI folder (see specs in my signature).

Antonio's EFI for HP Z620 dual 2680v2 OC 1.0.5 Sequoia 15.5 perfect 20250725.7z

Edited July 26, 2025 by antonio.clb

[antonio.clb]

Just updated to macOS 15.6 (almost) flawlessly...

No OTA available so, after downloading 15.6 installer, I've launched it and let it go resulting in a black screen.
Reason was the need to re-apply root patches so I add the "-amd_no_dgpu_accel" flag to NVRAM (or "nv_disable=1" depending on your GPU), logged in and OCLP asked me to re-apply them.

After patches (and before restarting) I removed the "-amd_no_dgpu_accel" from NVRAM, rebooted, performed NVRAM reset, and then 15.6 showed up!

Only a minor issue: BT was not working (USB BCM20702A0 adapter). Removing the "-btlfxallowanyaddr" boot argument from NVRAM did the trick!

 

Once again: signature updated! ^__^

 

Next step: Tahoe beta! O_o

 

Happy hackintoshing to everyone!

[antonio.clb]

On 7/30/2025 at 1:17 PM, antonio.clb said:

Just updated to macOS 15.6 (almost) flawlessly...

No OTA available so, after downloading 15.6 installer, I've launched it and let it go resulting in a black screen.
Reason was the need to re-apply root patches so I add the "-amd_no_dgpu_accel" flag to NVRAM (or "nv_disable=1" depending on your GPU), logged in and OCLP asked me to re-apply them.

After patches (and before restarting) I removed the "-amd_no_dgpu_accel" from NVRAM, rebooted, performed NVRAM reset, and then 15.6 showed up!

Only a minor issue: BT was not working (USB BCM20702A0 adapter). Removing the "-btlfxallowanyaddr" boot argument from NVRAM did the trick!

 

Once again: signature updated! ^__^

 

Next step: Tahoe beta! O_o

 

Happy hackintoshing to everyone!

Looks like Tahoe is impossible to install (made a couple of tests but no success).

Meanwhile, by following a new procedure (similar to the one I've written above), the 15.7 update was successfully installed!

1. download (from OCLP) the full Sequoia 15.7 installer;
2. make sure to have another Mac which can connect to my Z620 via remote desktop;
3. add the "-amd_no_dgpu_accel" flag to NVRAM and launch the installer going ahead with relevant prompts;
4. let it work (you may have black screen but keep the faith!) and, when needed, use the Screen Sharing App on other Mac to monitor/input (it will be veeeeeeeeery laggy, have a lot of patience!);
5. apply OCLP patches (it does the job automatically after the final reboot) and remove the GPU disabler flag from NVRAM (I do it from the command line in EFI shell, feel free to use your preferred method);
6. reboot.

No need to perform NVRAM reset for me.

 

For the next update I'll try to skip the NVRAM variable stuff and work from VNC when needed.

 

Happy hackintoshing to everyone! ^__^