Success - Asus Sabertooth 990FX R2.0 / FX 8350 / Nvidia GTX 690 / OC 0.7.6 - Big Sur 11.6.2 & Monterey 12.1

[Edhawk]

I have been playing around with my old AMD FX 8350 system (again) and decided to see if I could get it running macOS Big Sur.

I used OpenCore 0.7.6 and followed the Dortania AMD Bulldozer guide when creating the EFI folder.

I created my macOS Big Sur USB installer using the following CreateInstallMedia Terminal command:
sudo /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Big\ Sur.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/Untitled

Installation was slow, with many pauses and some initial Kernel Panics during the various installation stages. However, the end result was Big Sur 11.6.1 was installed on the old AMD system.

I have attached below a copy of the EFI folder I used, obviously with the Serial Number etc redacted from the config.plist. So you need to add your own if you choose to use this EFI folder. I used the MacPro6,1 SMBIOS, just because, not for any specific reason. You could just as easily select an iMacPro1,1 or MacPro7,1 if you wish.

The screenshot below show the expanded contents for the OC folder:

OC folder contents

Here is a screenshot showing the About this Mac window, after updating the system to Big Sur 11.6.2, using the Apple Software Updater method.



I will provide another post below, with a number of Bios screenshots, so you can see how I set up my bios.

A further post will contain some more screenshots, showing the components, setup and other information from the FX 8350 system.

 

[Edhawk]

Here are the Bios Screenshots, as promised, these might need to be spread over a few posts as I think there is a 10 attachment limit per post.

 

[Edhawk]

2nd Batch of Bios screenshots:

 

[Edhawk]

3rd batch of Bios screenshots:

 

[Edhawk]

Here are a bunch of other screenshots, taken from System Information reports:

 

[Edhawk]

More System Information screenshots, with a few from the Hackintool app and one from HSMonitorSMC2:




Hope these posts are helpful.

 

[wheazzy]

can i use this efi for AMD A8-7600 ?

 

[Edhawk]

The EFI was created for a Bulldozer (15H) AM3+ system, which OpenCore supports. Your Kaveri FM2+ AMD CPU is quite different and uses an integrated GPU. It is not part of the Jaguar (16H) series of CPU's, which this EFI folder should also support.

Using this EFI is likely to cause a kernel panic early in the boot process with your system.

 

[wheazzy]

The EFI was created for a Bulldozer (15H) AM3+ system, which OpenCore supports. Your Kaveri FM2+ AMD CPU is quite different and uses an integrated GPU. It is not part of the Jaguar (16H) series of CPU's, which this EFI folder should also support.

Using this EFI is likely to cause a kernel panic early in the boot process with your system.

can you create efi for my pc ? I didn't understand that very well

 

[wheazzy]

I did it with your efi setting, I don't think it worked

 

[Edhawk]

Give me the specifications for your PC, include the following:

1. Motherboard or pre-built system make and model.
2. Graphics card make and model
3. CPU make and model
4. Ethernet controller make and model.

Then we will see what I can do for you.

 

[Edhawk]

I have answered most of these questions myself by searching for your HP motherboard - https://support.hp.com/gb-en/document/c04783128

This page provided me with the information I required.

I have amended the EFI I posted for the FX 8350 system above to better suit your 4-core Kaveri CPU. I have provided a copy of the revised EFI Folder in your other post.

 

[wheazzy]

Give me the specifications for your PC, include the following:

1. Motherboard or pre-built system make and model.
2. Graphics card make and model
3. CPU make and model
4. Ethernet controller make and model.

Then we will see what I can do for you.

1. Motherboard - HP 2B52
2. GPU - NVIDIA GEFORCE GTXX 750 2GB
3. CPU - AMD A8-7600
4. ETHERNET - Realtek PCle Gbe Family Controlle


r

 

[wheazzy]

What can I do when installing macos mojave freezing mouse ?

 

[wheazzy]

.

 

[Edhawk]

We need to enable the Kernel >Quirk>XhciPortLimit entry in the configuration.plist. So your USB ports work.

 

[Edhawk]

Using the same OpenCore EFI folder that I provided above, I have been able to install macOS Monterey 12.1 on this old AMD system.

• I downloaded Monterey via the System Preferences > Software Update option in Big Sur 11.6.2.
• Ran the installer but selected a clean APFS container/volume as the installation location, not the existing Big Sur container/volume
• The Installation proceeded as expected with three system reboots.
• The installation got stuck at the point where you would normally select the Country/location. I couldn't get past this point after three different installations.
• So I removed the Monterey macOS Drive and installed it in a USB dock, connected to another Hack (Intel).
• I selected the Monterey macOS drive as the default boot drive and rebooted the system.
• The Intel Hack booted the Monterey drive, and this allowed me to complete the Installation wizard, selecting the location country, creating the new User Account etc.
• When I booted to the desktop I opened System Preferences, > Sharing pane and enabled screen sharing, file sharing and remote login, as is my normal practice. As this allows me to remotely boot the system and share files from other systems on the network. This is my normal safeguard should the screen connected to the Hack become unavailable.
• I reset the default boot drive to the original Intel Hack's macOS drive and shutdown the system, so I could remove the Monterey macOS drive.
• This was then reinstalled in my old AMD FX hack and worked as expected, with the new User Account.
• When I booted to the desktop for the first time on the AMD system the graphics acceleration was of course missing, as I am using an Nvidia dGPU.
• This is one of two main issues I need to resolve.
• The other is my Ethernet port is named en1 and my WiFi en0, which is a pain, as this prevents me signing in to my iCloud account and syncing my bookmarks, photos, Keychain etc.

Here is a screenshot of the About This Mac pane.

Graphics 7MB, as Nvidia kexts not yet installed for Monterey.

There are probably a few other issues I am yet to discover with this Hack running Monterey 12.1.

 

[maclinux1960]

Hallo Edhawk,

I have a AMD FX 4300 on a BIOS Mobo (no UEFI like your Mobo).
I have tried your EFI with the CPU Patch from jsl2000.
Does Monterey support your GPU (Nvidia GTX 690) without NVIDIA Patch from Chris1111?
And is the SMBIOS MacPro6.1 the right SMBIOS for Kepler?

Regards maclinux

 

[Edhawk]

No, Monterey doesn't support the Nvidia GTX 690, without the legacy patching by Chris1111.

Yes, SMBIOS MacPro6,1 is the best match for an old AMD system with an Nvidia GPU.

You need to add a few elements to the EFI I created for my UEFI Sabertooth motherboard, if your board is using a Legacy bios. The main one being the Boot File that sits alongside the EFI folder. This allows your legacy system to boot OC and then to boot macOS.

This legacy boot file might look like this, in the EFI partition on your macOS drive or USB installation drive.

EFI Partition contents when booting OC in legacy mode.

To add the Boot file in macOS (may be the same in Windows, but I have not tried it).

• You need to open the OpenCore-0.8.0 folder you downloaded.
• Then navigate to the Utilities sub-foler
• Then navigate to the LegacyBoot sub-folder.
• Double-click on the BootInstall_X64.toolitem.
  • /OpenCore-0.8.0/Utilities/LegacyBoot/BootInstall_X64.tool item highlighted.
• This will open a Terminal window, which display all the drives in your system
  • . Terminal window showing list of disks, with disk numbers highlighted in red rectangle.
• It will ask you to enter the disk number containing the EFI partition of your installation drive.
• When you select the disk, the tool will add the legacy boot file to the EFI partition.

See if that helps with your legacy booting motherboard.

There may be a few other config.plist tweaks required for a legacy bios, but I can't remember them if there are.

 

[GiannisLar]

Hello I have a similar system with you .I have FX 8350 Gigabyte GA 970 UD3P and rx570 .I was running the last version of big sur problem free .Today I tried to update to Monterey 12.4 but after the 2 reboots I got an image saying that my PC failed to boot any ideas? Thanks in advance