X570 Taichi BIOS Upgrade (2.80 -> 4.60) Borked OC Boot

[Toddnix]

I had a working X570 Taichi w/ 3950x, RX5700XT, Fenvi, etc. I'm going to do a system refresh soon and move to an ITX case, likely with an ROG Strix B550-i motherboard in the near future, dump the Fenvi T919 for an M.2 boardcom card, and maybe a few other tweaks. Before the refresh I wanted to get my Taichi BIOS updated so it would support the Ryzen 5000 CPUs (easier to sell, ya know?). Hence my ancient v2.80 BIOS from the spring of 2020 wasn't going to cut it.

Originally I used Aleksander Vacic's write-up to get my Taichi to hackintosh SUCCESS, and those settings worked well for me until I updated the BIOS to 4.60.

In poking around before I updated the BIOS I found @baronerosso post and repository. He states that he's using version 4.60 (on github), and while I was tempted to just grab the latest version (i.e. 4.80 at the time of this post) I figured I'd take what he had first to eliminate variables. After successfully updating the BIOS to 4.60, and restoring the fresh defaults (just for good measure, and per the Asrock directions), I rebooted and...

<insert puking sound...>



I tried multiple times to find the 'right' BIOS config, but I'm at a loss now. I even went back to Dortania and the plain Vanilla directions (at the very bottom of the page) and found just about everything except XHCI (which I don't think is an option on the BIOS any more). Nothing budged.

So after banging my head for a while I started wondering if there was something new in the BIOS that requires an opencore upgrade as well (I'm on the equally ancient v5.2 of opencore). So I grabbed baronerosso's EFI folder, modified it for my 3950x cpuid, and...

Now I'm posting for HELP!

Here's the background:

OC Versions: 5.2 (<- my working version) and 7.8 (<- baronerosso's EFI version, I think) both loaded and showed a boot option (I have Windows and macOS in dual boot)
Boot failed FAST- the screen shot is as far as it went, which lasted about 1-2 seconds into the boot.

Taichi X570 BIOS was the only change. I verified and rebooted to make sure there weren't any patches/updates/etc. on both sides (macOS and Windows) before I updated the BIOS.

System:
X570 Taichi (BIOS Version 4.60)
3950x Ryzen 9 CPU
64 GB Trident Z Neo 3600 memory (16GB x 4)
Samsung 970 EVO 1TB NVME drives (x2)
PowerColor Red Dragon 5700XT
Fenvi T919 PCI WiFi + BT card

MacOS 10.15.7 (Catalina)

Anyone got a good X570 Taichi BIOS v4.60 config handy...?

 

[Toddnix]

Quick update: I down graded the BIOS to 4.10 just to see. I set all the BIOS parameters the best I could (90% sure I got everything, but stuff moves around between versions). Same results.

Also, I'm typing on the Windows partition on the same machine, so the X570 Taichi works. I guess I can keep trying to roll-back to my past version in incrementally upgrade the BIOS- I've seen posts where jumping BIOS versions doesn't go so well on the Taichi boards...

If anyone has thoughts in the meantime please let me know. BIOS updates scare the crap out of me.

 

[baronerosso]

If it helps, this is the EFI I use with the configuration you see in my signature.
Add your serial number data.
I use BIOS 4.80
The only problem is the bluetooth after the wake, but I solve it with sleepwatcher, https://www.bernhard-baehr.de/

 

[Toddnix]

Thanks @baronerosso! I expect to be at the same versions you are at in the near future- BIOS 4.80, OC0.8.3, and MacOS 12.5. I've got a bit of a hike however.

I have continued to play with my BIOS (<- sounds funny when I put it like that, but no risk of going blind here). I rolled back to 2.80 with a successful boot, then patched to 3.00. The only BIOS changes from the defaults on these are below.

NOTE: I'm not doing a full regression test to make sure everything works with these settings. If you are using these settings, along with future settings as I progress, be warned: these are the setting that are getting me a loaded MacOS that appears to be functional. I'm not testing audio, AirDrop, WiFi (I am on a wired connection), Bluetooth, etc.).

ASRock X580 Taichi BIOS Ver 2.80 & 3.00 Settings
Boot
↳ CSM
↳ CSM: Disabled
↳ Above 4G Decoding: Enabled

the rest of the parameters are defaults (i.e. load defaults and then change those two things).

BIOS Version 3.20 and 3.40 failed to successfully boot MacOS however (Windows does work though). There were some options that moved around and changed after 3.20. Specifically I can't find the "Above 4G Decoding" option to enable it. The "Above 4G Decoding" option reappears somewhere before 4.60 under the Advanced menu... I just need to find it.

 

[Toddnix]

I've got great news and some not so great news...

GREAT NEWS:
Using the EFI zip that @baronerosso included above I got things working. I had to modify the config.plist to include my CPU patch (the counts) and a few other tweaks, but I'm up and running on OC 8.3 now (unbelievable really).

And, AND... (best Peter McKinnon voice)

I'm also successfully running on BIOS version 4.80!

... that's simply fantastic!!

Not So Great News:
It really chaps my butt that I have no idea what the issue was. I put BIOS version 4.80 back on after baronerosso's post above, banged my head for a few more hours as I traversed the depths of ASRocks nasty BIOS innards, failed, failed, and failed again. On a whim I thought I'd go back and see if I could get the EFI working from baronersso's file, and POOF! It worked!!!

All I can assume is there was some limitation in OC 5.2 that didn't know how to even approach the updated BIOS after version 3.00 and simply gave up. It bugs me that I don't know what it was, but none the less I hit my goal of updated BIOS and the latest OC version.

In Summary:
Beware that BIOS and system level stuff do have dependencies UP the stack to OpenCore, ACPI, KEXTS and MacOS (kind of a "DUH" statement). I'm going to run the new OC for a while to make sure everything works, document my BIOS changes to make sure it's really just the two I mentioned above, and then update MacOS.

For now, it's time for a glass of wine @baronerosso ! Thanks for the help!

 

[Toddnix]

I'm moving along well and have Monterey installed now- just put the 12.5.1 patch in today. The patching/updating isn't perfect and there is usually a freeze or two during the patch that requires a reset, but I'm still tweaking things at this point.

One issue I'd like help with is getting AirPlay to work with my T919. WiFi works just fine. I can play music to my original Airpods (via Bluetooth) just fine as well, but I cannot AirPlay to my homepod mini. It used to work when I had my old Catalina install, but somewhere along the upgrade path (early on too) it stopped working.

Anyone have idea on getting AirPlay running on a T919 in Monterey, or what I can look for in my config.plist?

UPDATE: If I restart the Homepods from the Home app on my iPhone I can AirPlay to the speakers. But if I stop the music, switch apps (Music to PodCasts, other) the pairing gets messed up and I have to reset the homepod again. I'm not so sure this is a hackintosh thing at this point...

UPDATE, 8/23/22: Good and bad news (again). My hunch about this not being a hackintosh things was spot on. Turns out that macOS doesn't support AirPlay 2 (at least as of now). At much tinkering and troubleshooting I was able to find a few facts:

1. I can play in Stereo if I reset the HomePod mini stereo pair and leave it alone. It has played for several hours if I don't pause things or touch it, but I don't know just how sensitive it is.
2. If I split the pair I can easily AirPlay to either of the two speakers, which show up individually as AirPlay devices.
3. I can AirPlay to the stereo pair from my iOS device or AppleTV.
4. macOS doesn't support AirPlay 2 in a way that enables a macOS device to use a stereo pair of homepods as my system speakers: https://www.imore.com/you-cant-use-...-mac-speakers-despite-airplay-and-its-madness. But in Monterey I can Airplay songs from my phone, to my hackintosh, which uses the single homepod mini as a system speakers... This is kind of nuts- they missed an easy use case with the homepods there!!!

So my hackintosh is 100% fine and the Fenvi T919 works perfectly. macOS, working with Apple products in the ecosystem, eh, not so much.

Next update hint: Thermals- glad I got SMCAMDProcessor and AMDRyzenCPUPowerManagement up and running with the AMDPowerGadget.app. My current thermals are too high and need some attention.