[SUCCESS] Sonoma on Atermiter X99 + E5-2670v3 + AMD RX6600 | OpenCore 0.9.4

[ChristopherAta]

  

 

 

 

 

Details of my build:

• CPU: Xeon E5-2670 v3 | 12 cores 24 threads | 2.3GHz turbo 3.1GHz.
• GPU: Sapphire PULSE | AMD RX6600 8GB.
• RAM: 64GB 2133 MHz ECC DDR4 (4x16GB).
• Motherboard: Atermiter X99H v1.41.
• Ethernet Card: Realtek RTL8111.
• Wifi/BT Card: CSR 4.0 Bluetooth USB card (Qualcomm/Cambridge Silicon Radio CSR8510).
• NVME: ADATA XPG Spectrix S20G 1Tb | macOS Sonoma.
• SSD: Apacer AS340 240GB | Windows 11 Parallells virtual machine.
• HDD1: Seagate ST1000LM035-1RK172 1TB | Downloads and misc stuff.
• HDD2:Seagate ST2000LM007-1R8174 2TB | Multimedia and software.
• Audio Codec: ALC897.

 

Extra details

• USB Audio Interface: Teyun Q24 | 24bit/192KHz.
• Speakers: Genius SP-HF500A | 14W.
• PSU: Redragon | 80 Plus Gold | 850W.
• Case:Cooler Master NR200P.
• Monitor1: Coradir 20WHE | 1080p HDMI.
• Monitor2: Viewsonic VG1921 | 1440*900 VGA (using a DP to VGA adapter).

 

Regarding the motherboard: There are a lot of different version of these chinese boards under the brands Essenc, Atermier, Jingsha, and Machinist, some identical, and some with differences.

The particular one I got running is this one (popular on Aliexpress)

 

 

What procedure I followed to get it running:

At first I tried Dortania's OpenCore Install Guide. And did not work. I ended up using an EFI from a guy on GitHub as a starting point. As it bootted the installer, I then changed SMBIOS info like serial number, UUID, ROM, etc. And also removed and added kexts needed for my hardware like the bluetoothe ones (more info below).

 

What's working, and what isn't working:

 

GPU: AMD RX6600 is fully supported by Apple. Check this for further information on the support for the RX6600 on macOS. You should add this in boot-args:

agdpmod=pikera

 

Hardware sensors: One thing to take into consideration are the hardware sensors, if you like to monitor stuff using apps like iStatica or iStat Menus. VirtualSMC seems to lack support for the sensors on this system. After looking for a solution I got to a fork of FakeSMC that has the perfect support for this hardware: FakeSMC3 from CloverHackyColor. I find it very stable and provides a lot more sensors to monitor temperatures.

But I cannot guarantee its stability and performance since a lot of people on the community say VirtualSMC is superior. This just works for me, guys. Feel free to try what is best for you.

 

Sleep: I completely disabled sleep, since I don't need it on this desktop setup, and I don't completely understand how sleep works. So to get it working means a lot of work for something I don't need. Not gonna happen. Sorry.

 

Audio: The your layout ID for the on-board audio card is 1. I suggest to check here. You should use this in boot-args:

alcid=1

 

Facetime and Messages: both work fine. I didn't need to do anything. Fired the apps, set them up, and everything just works. If you run into troubles, read this guide.

Bluetooth: Here it becomes a bit tricky. Apple dropped support for some bluetooth devices with Monterey. My USB dongle "CSR 4.0 Bluetooth USB card (Qualcomm/Cambridge Silicon Radio CSR8510)" is no longer supported. To get it working on Sonoma follow this guide, and this comment is VERY IMPORTANT.

Turbo Boost: It seems that for enabling turbo boost, the BIOS needs to be modified. I haven't try this, but there is a software called Mi899, which has a database of modified BIOS roms for these chinese motherboards, and prepares a batch script for flashng the BIOS chip. If you got it working, please let me know in comments, or PM.

 

 

EFI folders:

I made public two different EFI configurations for this build, as described below:

 

• EFI VirtualSMC: This one is very stable and safe to use.
• EFI FakeSMC3: This one replaces VirtualSMC with FakeSMC3, which in my case has better support for hardware sensors.

 

Both includes the kexts and OpenCore entries for the bluetooth dongle. Please check the reddit post for further info on that particular bluetooth setup. You can test them if want. But, please, take into consideration that if your CPU, motherboard, or GPU, are different, then it might not work if you don't adapt it. The SMBIOS info like serials, UUID, etc are safe. But please change them as someone else might be using them already.

 

 

Thanks for reading, and wish you a successful build!

Edited November 2, 2023 by ChristopherAta
Corrected the title, removed an outdate description for the links to my EFI, and replaced the screenshot with a more beutiful one.

[miliuco]

@ChristopherAta

Great job!!!

[Slice]

Be sure FakeSMC3 has best stability and performance. Just holly war.