[DEPRECATED] ASRock Rack EP2C602 Install Guide for Sierra and High Sierra

[teamawesome]

I have begun testing 10.14 Mojave on this build. I hope to have a stable setup and be able to release a guide concurrent with the public release in the fall. Since Mojave is still early in the beta process, I don’t plan to publish a guide or release regular updates. I can say that I have everything working well right now and I’m very optimistic that upgrades or new installs will be possible in the fall.

 

[teamawesome]

I am editing the guide for length but will preserve the old information here in the comments.

Why It Works
For those curious as to what everything is doing, or if you have a similar board with the C602 chipset such as the EP2C602 4L/D16, I will explain the most critical elements contained inside the downloadable files.

1. The config.plist contains a Clover DSDT patch. Without the patch the High Sierra installer will kernel panic. You could alternatively resolve this with a custom DSDT or an SSDT. You can successfully boot Sierra without this fix but it is critical to successfully booting High Sierra.
2. USB will not function without using RehabMan's USBInjectAll and the corresponding SSDT to define the ports. If you have a different board then the EP2C602, it will be easy enough to fix your USB with RehabMan's guides. Expect installation errors if attempting to install on any C602 platform without going all the way through RehabMan's USBInjectAll guides. The provided config.plist contains the patches to rename EUSB->EH01 and USBE->EH02.
3. AHCIPortInjector C602 Injector.kext enables support for the Marvell SE9230. The C602 chipset will work without this kext but it cosmetically corrects the chipset name in System Profiler.
4. AppleIntelE1000e enables the two LAN controllers. The process outlined in Step One reprogramed your device ID's to match those of official Apple hardware and lineup with the device id's contained in vanilla kexts. This "one and done" approach eliminates the need for any future kext injection, kext patch, SSDT, etc. Now your LAN NIC's will simply work out of the box.
5. ssdtPRGen enables properly functioning CPU power management.

 

[teamawesome]

Benchmarks
To give ourselves a frame of reference, here are the scores Geekbench publishes for official Apple computers.

Geekbench-mac

• teamawesome
• Feb 7, 2018

And here is what you should now be doing. You have bested Apple's new flagship $5K iMacPro.

10.13.3

• teamawesome
• Feb 15, 2018

 

[Coool]

ASRock released BIOS 1.90 on 6/26/2018 for the EP2C602.

Lucky bastard

 

[teamawesome]

Lucky bastard

They also released a 1.90 for EP2C602-4L/D16

 

[Coool]

They also released a 1.90 for EP2C602-4L/D16

I recently checked still latest was 1.80 version. Nice. Need to test it. I hope maybe some improvements in Shell (bcfg fix), NVME and other stuff. @teamawesome do know AMI Shell source?

 

[teamawesome]

Fix URL link.

It is their site.

I hope maybe some improvements in Shell (bcfg fix), NVME and other stuff.

You will be disappointed. BCFG is still not present. There is no NVMe support in 1.90. Support couldn't even answer if there was or wasn't NVMe support, but an inspection of the BIOS shows the OPROM is not present. I added NVMe support on my own to the EP2C602 BIOS. I am using a Samsung 970 EVO without any issues.

 

[Coool]

Benchmarks
...

Remember MC560LL model (Mac Pro Early 2008) with

• One 3.2GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon "Nehalem"
• 24 GB (3 x 8GB)
• 1TB 7200RPM SATA2 (3 Gbit/s)
• ATI Radeon HD 5770 1GB
  
• One 18x SuperDrive
  
• Apple Magic Mouse
• Apple Keyboard with Numeric Keypad (English) & User's Guide

Cost 4174 USD

I have the same spec. 1/3 cost on X58 with i7-920 CPU and 24 GB DDR3.

 

[Coool]

You will be disappointed. BCFG is still not present. There is no NVMe support in 1.90. Support couldn't even answer if there was or wasn't NVMe support, but an inspection of the BIOS shows the OPROM is not present. I added NVMe support on my own to the EP2C602 BIOS. I am using a Samsung 970 EVO without any issues.

You are talking about your UEFI - ASRock released BIOS 1.90 on 6/26/2018 for the EP2C602.
How Samsung 970 EVO performance and boot time? How big drive GB do you have?

 

[Coool]

ASRock Rack EP2C602-4L/D16 Support - What's new, fixed and still no progress 1.90 UEFI.