How to get Z390 motherboards working on a Hackintosh

With the 10th generation of Intel processors and motherboards on the horizon its getting pretty hard to find a decent Z370 motherboard that isn’t out of stock or overpriced leftovers by third party vendors. While the Z390 chipset doesn’t have native nvram support it still can be configured to run smooth in macOS Catalina or even Mojave if a little extra steps and are taken.

Z390 Hackintosh Notes

• Recommended to install macOS over Display Port when Intel UHD 630 Graphics is used as the primary display driver without a discrete graphics card.
  • This is because the HDMI port included with certain Z390 motherboards may boot only to show a black screen this can be fixed later by mapping the HDMI port.
• When Intel UHD 630 Graphics is used without a discrete graphics card adding a AAPL,ig-platform-id patch in config.plist will cause a couple seconds of lag on boot + system wake removing the patch removes the lag, but if you are depending on WhateverGreen.kext for patching you may need it.
• When Intel UHD 630 Graphics is used without a discrete graphics card there is an issue with HDMI/DP audio causing a kernel panic when the system is waked up. Problem only happens on Catalina, fixed by disabling HDMI audio with No-hda-gfx in config.plist
• Certain motherboards require a RTC patch to get past a AppleEPC…. error on boot.
• Without native NVRAM support Z390 motherboards require EmuVariableUefi placed in the drivers folder of the EFI folder.
• slide=0 is not a requirement but can be useful.
• Catalina has 9th generation Intel CPU support, if you are attempting to install an earlier version of Mojave instead of Catalina adding a device-id patch may be needed.
•  Do not use OsxAptioFix2Drv-free2000, I’ve been able to boot Catalina on a Z390 build with any of these: FwRuntimeServices.efi + OcQuirks.efi, AptioMemoryFix, OsxAptioFix3Drv, OsxAptioFix2Drv.
• Add slide=0 as a bootflag in config.plist under Boot -> Boot Arguments or in the Clover Boot Menu if you experience any freezes or crashes.
• If you need a preconfigured EFI folder to drop in and work with: Hackintosher-Catalina-10.15-EFI.zip from Catalina Hackintosh Install Guide
  • All I did was enable an EC0 to EC patch, add slide=0 as a boot flag and add the BIOS patch for my ASUS Z390-A motherboard and it work.
  • Dont forget to place it in the EFI partition ofc.

1.  Z390 Required EFI Drivers

This is what I use at minimum with Z390 in my drivers folder EFI/Clover/drivers/UEFI/. Notice I have FwRunetimeServices.efi and OcQuirks.efi. This is my preferred method memory driver since support was ended for AptioMemoryFix.efi in Clover as the developer shifted over to OpenCore. OcQuirks.efi ports back the updates back into and it’s dependent upon FwRunetimeServices.efi so they must be together in the drivers/UEFI/ folder.

There are other memory driver options that work in macOS Catalina/Mojave I’ve tested. Use FwRuntimeServices.efi + OcQuirks.efi to start with if you have any issues you can try driver fixes in this order, AptioMemoryFix, OsxAptioFix3Drv, OsxAptioFix2Drv. All of these options worked with my ASUS Z390-A motherboard.

Make sure to use your memory driver(s) with EmuVariableUefi.efi which should be located in the same folder as Z390 doesn’t have native NVRAM support.

Use slide=0 as as a boot flag to avoid any random freezes when using macOS on the Z390 platform.

1.1 Extra step for Gigabyte Z390 motherboards Error allocating runtime area

The only memory drivers that work with Gigabyte Z390 motherboards are QcQuirks.efi/FwRunetimeServices.efi and OsxAptioFix2Drv-free2000.efi. Most people end up using OsxAptioFix2Drv-free2000.efi but you really should avoid it if possible see: Developers warning.

Without a working memory driver this error will appear on a Gigabyte Z390 motherboard.

The better way is with OcQuirks.efi + FwRunetimeServices.efi, but to get these drivers working on Gigabyte motherboards it also requires DevirtualiseMmio set true and ForceExitBootServices set false. These values can be set by either building OcQuirks in XCode with these values or editing a supplementary OcQuirks.plist with TextEdit and placing it in the same drivers folder as OcQuirks.efi.

• Download & Unzip the latest version of OcQuirks.efi from the RELEASE page.
• Paste QcQuirks.efi, FwRunetimeServices.efi and OcQuirks.plist to /Volumes/EFI/EFI/CLOVER/drivers/UEFI/
• Open  OcQuirks.plist with TextEdit by Right-clicking OcQuirks.plist -> Open With -> Other… -> Text Edit
• Change the value under DevirtualiseMmio to true
• Change the value under ForceExitBootServices to false
• Save & Exit
• Delete nvram.plist if it exists in /Volumes/EFI/ (otherwise the fix wont work): 

EC Patch needed for Catalina

Changes in Catalina require the EC to be renamed/faked to work. If you’re going with the rename method its most likely going to be the EC0 to EC patch with Z390.

EC Patching – Dealing with AppleACPIEC on a Catalina Hackintosh

3. BIOS Patch for Z390 ASUS/ASRock Motherboards

Certain ASUS and ASRock motherboards need a RTC BIOS patch to get past the loader hanging on an error.

This patch goes under Apci -> Fixes in config.plist

4. Z390 HDMI port black screen fix

The HDMI port(s) included on the motherboard might not work without being patched on a Z390 motherboard and will boot to a black screen. It’s recommended to install macOS over displayport until a patch is added to map the Bus ID of each port correctly.

To map the HDMI/DP ports properly use Hackintool. This is a time consuming process trying to match the correct ports but it can be done with some patients. There are there are various guides on the web such as this one here.

If you have Xcode installed you can build the latest version of Hackintool here

Related:

Guide to fresh installing macOS Catalina on a Hackintosh (10.15 Update)

ASUS PRIME Z390-A Hackintosh Build Guide w/ RX 5700 XT

GIGABYTE Z390 AORUS Ultra i7-9700k Vega 64 Hackintosh Build Guide