Asus X99-Pro Motherboard and OS X Yosemite (Hackintosh)

Let me start off by stating that this is NOT a how-to for installing a Apple's OS X on an ASUS X99-Pro motherboard. A how-to is way beyond the scope of what this blog post is capable of. I am writing this as a informational log of the tasty morsels I have collected over the past few weeks. With that being said... LET'S GO!

The motherboard in question is ASUS's X99-Pro. This fine slab of PCB provides a 2011-v3 CPU socket complimented by Intel's X99 chipset. My particular board is paired with an Intel i7 5820K processor. Other compatible CPUs differ in clock speed, number of cores and the amount of cache. I chose the "low end" 2011-v3 chip due to budget and personal computational need.

The ASUS X99-Pro motherboard has a number of features which I found really nifty and at the time seemed desirable. Of them we have onboard WiFi a/b/g/n/ac & Bluetooth v4.0, 8 DDR4 quad channel RAM slots, a nice sounding Realtek ALC1150 audio codec and a plethora of USB 3.0 ports (USB 3.1 with latest BIOS update, 1401 from 02-17-2015). To me these features were things I had been wanting in a motherboard and helped make the purchase decision. Instead of yammering on about the X99-Pro and it's hardware let me make a quick reference list of the boards finer Hackintosh related points.

Chipset: Intel X99
CPU Socket: 2011-v3
Audio Chipset: Realtek ALC1150
WiFi Chipset: Broadcom BCM4352 (PCIe via shared miniPCIe slot)
Bluetooth Chip: Broadcom 20702A3 (USB via shared miniPCIe slot)
Network: Intel i218v

I'm going to start with the CPU. Depending on the number of cores your CPU has will determine which VoodooTSCSync kernel extension needs to be installed. I have a 6 core CPU, therefore I used the VoodooTSCSync-6.pkg. If you have an 8 core chip use the VoodooTSCSync-8.pkg. From what I understand this is necassary for booting our board into OS X.

It also worth noting the power management does NOT 100% work on the X99 chipset motherboards. Since there is no Apple hardware which use the X99 this is completely understandable. The best I could muster up was stock clock speed or overclocked speed all the time. Sadly, nothing in between. As a saving grace I have found you can use NullCPUPowerManagement.kext to gain 2 to 3 frequency steps. My CPU scales between 1.2GHz, 2.4GHz and 3.3GHz. This goes a long way to keep power consumption and temperatures down. For CPU frequency scaling you'll need to change the UEFI/BIOS setting to allow speedstep to run but disable turbo ratio. Configure your BIOS and install NullCPUPowerManagement.pkg if this sounds good to you.

To make full use of your USB 3.0 and SATA III ports you'll want to install AHCI_Intel_Generic_SATA.pkg and GenericUSBXHCI-v1.2.8d9.pkg. Also and while not directly hardware related you'll need FakeSMC to boot your system. I highly recommend installing FakeSMC-v6.14.1364.pkg,  FakeSMC-v6.14.1364-Plugins.pkg  and FakeSMC-v6.14.1364-HWMonitor.pkg. This will provide a really slick app to monitor your systems sensors, fans, CPU temps and voltages. I use it all the time and like I said, recommend it.

For Internet or network access you'll need to install the AppleIntelE1000e-v3.1.0a.pkg. Nothing special to say about it. The Intel i218v is fast at copying files across my gigabit network. No complaints or issues.

The Audio circuitry on the X99-Pro is provided by a Realtek ALC1150 chip. I tried and tried to configure it via ways of clover patches and the AppleHDA.kext. I ultimately failed in this endeavorer.  For my audio kernel extension I ended up using VoodooHDA.kext version 2.8.7. Everything except SPDIF seems to work. Install the VoodooHDA-v2.8.7.pkg for working audio.

The Broadcom 20702A3 Bluetooth functions thanks to the BTFirmwareUploader.kext. Nothing special here, just install the kext via your preferred method. I tested bluetooth by pairing my Sol Republic DECK speaker. It worked splendidly.

Of the X99-Pro's hardware, WiFi is the only component I cannot persuade to function as intended. OS X will not even boot with the card enabled, resulting in a kernel panic on the Broadcom WiFi kext. I was forced to enter the UEFI/BIOS and disable the mini PCIe slot which houses the WiFI card. The Bluetooth will still function with the WiFi's PCIe slot disabled, it's actually considered USB.

UPDATE 02.28.2015 - After doing some reading I was able to get the WiFi to work. It was fairly easy once I found out the card is actually well supported. Instructions and needed files are included in v2 of the X99-Pro DMG on my Google Drive.

Again, this is not hardware related but you'll need a software bootloader to get OS X to... well... boot. I recommend Clover, but there is also Chameleon. Clover is the most compatible as it provides on the fly kernel patching for our CPUs. With Chameleon you'll need to manually patch OS X's kernel via a perl script to boot. A Clover vs Chameleon debate is something I do not want to get into. Pick one and read up on your choice.

Just so everyone is clear, I did not create or magically discover any of the kexts used to make our Motherboard function. Most of the kernel extensions were ripped from Multibeast 7.2 as well as postings on various forums. The only thing I did was place finger to keyboard and write this piece.

Click here to download the X99-Pro kext pack from my Google Drive.

UPDATE 09.10.2015  - As requested here are the Clover boot flags used to boot my system. This is under the 'Boot' section of Clover Configurator.

Also here is the 'Kernel and Kext Patches' section of Clover Configurator.

Also for the SMBIOS section of Clover Configurator use iMac14,2 for your computer type. Hope this helps :)

UPDATE 11.25.2015 - To keep your system from kernel panicking at boot time when using the two Bluetooth kext's in the driver pack you should disable the Serial Port in the UEFI BIOS.