A water-cooled Hackintosh with custom hardline loop, using OpenCore bootloader!
My first attempt into building a custom hardline water-cooling loop, as well as my first attempt into an OpenCore build -- I have been using a Hackintosh as my main machine for over 10 years -- my last major upgrade was back in 2012 on a Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UP5 TH. It had served me well but large Lightroom edits and hires DSD streaming were starting to feel sluggish. This build is therefore intended to be a starting from scratch, major overhaul.
| Component | Make | Part Name |
|---|---|---|
| CPU | Intel | Core i9-9900KS 5GHz Special Edition |
| Motherboard | Gigabyte | Z390 Designare, BIOS version F9G |
| RAM | Corsair | Vengeance RGB Pro 64 KB (4 x 16 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 ver 5.32 |
| GPU | ASUS | ROG Strix RX-5700-XT 8G |
| Internal Storage | Samsung | 970 EVO Plus NVMe M.2 SSD 1TB x2 |
| WiFi/BT | fenvi | FV-T919 Wireless Network Adapter |
| 10G Ethernet | LR-LINK | 94T0255 PCIe x4 10G SIngle-Port Server Adapter |
| RAID Card | Highpoint | RocketRAID 2721 (1xInt/1xExt Mini-SAS ports) |
| Fans | ThermalTake | Riing Trio 12 x6 |
| Fan Hub | ThermalTake | TT Sync Controller |
| RGB Hub | Gamer Storm | 5V DRGB to 12V ARGB Convertor/Hub |
| USB Hub | Generic | PAN8USB-G01 USB3.0/2.0 x2 PCB Internal Hub |
| Case | Lian Li | O11 Dyanmic XL Full Tower Case |
| Power Supply | Seasonic | Focus GX-580 850W |
| Component | Make | Part Name |
|---|---|---|
| Distro Plate/Pump | EKWB | O11 Dynamic XL Distro Plate G1 D-RGB + DDC 3.1 PWM |
| CPU Waterblock | EKWB | EK-Velocity RGB - Full Nickel |
| GPU Waterblock | EKWB | EK-Quantum Vector Strix RX 5700 +XT D-RGB - Nickel + Plexi with Nickel Blackplate |
| Radiators | EKWB | EK Coolstream Classic PE 360 x2 |
| Fittings | EKWB | EK-HTC Classic 16mm – Black Nickel |
| Tubings | Bitpower | 16mm Outer Diameter PETG hard tubings |
| Coolant | EKWB | EK Cryofuel Concentrate - Amber Orange |
| Component | Make | Part Name |
|---|---|---|
| Enclosure | Stardom | 4 HDD eSata enclosure |
| Storage | Toshiba | Enterprise Series 10T HDD x4 |
- First time getting into watercooling -- planning and bending hardline PETG tubes was hard but a lot of fun!
- Getting all the RGB wired up was unexpectedly challenging. Gigabyte Z390 Designare motherboard supports only 12V ARGB (analog) but not 5V DRGB (digital). I ended up with mixed ARGB and DRGB devices connected to the analog motherboard using Gamer Storm's DRGB to ARGB converter hub. I was able to synchronize RGB via Gigabyte's AmbientLED app -- very barebone but servicable. Note that some of the lighting effects are not perfect, but good enough for what I want.
- ThermalTake fans use a proprietary combined fan PWM + RGB connector. I used TT Sync Controller as a fan hub and route its standard 5V DRGB output through the RGB converter hub.
- Lian Li O11 Dynamic XL case comes with 4x USB 3.0/2.0 ports (plus an USB 3.1 Type C port). I used an internal USB 3.0/2.0 hub PCB connected to F_USB30 (HS05/SS05 and HS06/SS06) to support all 4 physical ports.
- This is also my first OpenCore build. For my own learning and education, I chose not to take a pre-built EFI package as-is. I followed Dortania's very well-written OpenCore Desktop Guide to customize my own config.plist and SSDT's -- the idea is that I want to understand the exact purpose of every changes to the sample.plist before I add to mine.
- CaseSJ's incredibly detailed guide on this motherboard also provided a wealth of information to explore (the thread is 2,254 pages long as of this writing!)
- To unlock writing to MSR 0xE2 register for native NVRAM support, initially I went for the latest beta firmware version F9H (as of this writing, the latest official BIOS version is F9B which is locked.) However, while it could boot into the O/S perfectly fine, I could not ESC into the BIOS setup screen -- got a blank screen from both the dGPU and iGPU DisplayPort output. I ended up downgrading into F9G, which is also still in beta as of this writing, and everything worked fine.
- After a period of flawless burn-in, it suddenly began to fail at POST after switching power off and back on. The BIOS error status LED's on the motherboard was stuck at the red "DRAM" LED in an infinite reboot cycle. BIOS reset pins, holding power button down trick to get into backup BIOS etc. did absolutely nothing. Taking out some/all RAM modules also didn't seem to work. I switched off the power, removed the onboard battery, and let it sit overnight -- same error next morning.
- After many frustrating hours of trial-and-error, I noticed an important detail which I had missed until now: version numbers printed on the sticker on the RAM modules are different! I bought 2 separate packs of 2 x 16G each, and apparently there is no way to figure out without first opening the packaging -- I got both version 4.31 and 5.32, and only 5.32 is officially supported according to Gigabyte's Memory Support List Thanks God, I was able to get pass POST once again with 2 sticks of 5.32! Moral of the story: read the fineprints...