Radeon VII (and new AMD gpus) compatibility

[juliaan88]

I believe you are not the only one, I used to force quit the windowserver as it uses up majority of the CPU on Activity Monitor (as mentioned by someone in the thread) but realise that all it does was logging out and logging in. Right now, whenever that happens, I immediately restarts my computer. Always better than waiting for 10-20 minutes for it to settle by itself..

Hopefully Catalina beta does not have this issue.

 

[EpicNUFO]

I believe you are not the only one, I used to force quit the windowserver as it uses up majority of the CPU on Activity Monitor (as mentioned by someone in the thread) but realise that all it does was logging out and logging in. Right now, whenever that happens, I immediately restarts my computer. Always better than waiting for 10-20 minutes for it to settle by itself..

Hopefully Catalina beta does not have this issue.

@juliaan88,
While on one hand it's nice to know I'm not the only one experiencing this, it also prompts the question: how do you/we know we aren't having this issue due to improper configuration somewhere?

 

[juliaan88]

@juliaan88,
While on one hand it's nice to know I'm not the only one experiencing this, it also prompts the question: how do you/we know we aren't having this issue due to improper configuration somewhere?

@EpicNUFO, just like you I spent days trying to find solutions to this - not just Hackintosh forums but also Apple forums - but to no avail. My only comfort was through this thread where I knew I wasn't the only one. This is what I did as many have suggested: Smbios iMacPro1,1 with Lilu & WhatEverGreen, and disable iGPU. My config file is pretty clean and I try my very best to check stuff that my setup needs. So hopefully some kind souls can enlighten us on this.

For me, it is always only the first core all red up and then WindowServer or kernel_task maxing up on the % CPU. Sometimes the audio goes crazy as well.

Help is deeply appreciated.

 

[EpicNUFO]

@EpicNUFO, just like you I spent days trying to find solutions to this - not just Hackintosh forums but also Apple forums - but to no avail. My only comfort was through this thread where I knew I wasn't the only one. This is what I did as many have suggested: Smbios iMacPro1,1 with Lilu & WhatEverGreen, and disable iGPU. My config file is pretty clean and I try my very best to check stuff that my setup needs. So hopefully some kind souls can enlighten us on this.

For me, it is always only the first core all red up and then WindowServer or kernel_task maxing up on the % CPU. Sometimes the audio goes crazy as well.

Help is deeply appreciated.

@juliaan88,
Yeah for me it's kernel_task that seems to be using the cpu when this happens. Definitely seems like we have the same root issue with similar behaviors. I think maybe yours behaves slightly differently because you are on Z170, or perhaps because you are using iMacPro sys def where as I'm using iMac 19,2. That's my guess, anyways. But does in fact seem related.

 

[juliaan88]

Glad to hear

Day 2 update: Still no slowdown and lag so far. This is looking good guys!

Edit: Well, it stills not 100% perfect. I had a slowdown in the afternoon. I had to kill WindowServer in the process to get all the speed back.

It might be the cause to our problems.

From Quora: WindowServer is a system service that acts as the liaison between OS X apps and your Mac's graphics hardware. Basically, if an app wants to draw something on your Mac's screen, WindowServer is the one telling the graphics card what and where to draw it.

@Benlehot

Do you still have this issue? How are you dealing with it so far?

 

[Benlehot]

@Benlehot

Do you still have this issue? How are you dealing with it so far?

Still having issues. Most people seems to have pretty stable setup tho. I don't get it. For the moment, I was just using my Hackintosh with the Intel gpu. I'm a bit busy with work and I didn't wanted to spend too much time on it.

I might try to do a clean install in the next few days to see if I can fix everything.

 

[Benlehot]

@juliaan88 @EpicNUFO
Well at least, we have the exact same problem. Bad news, I tried Catalina and I had the same reboots.
I'm also upgrading from a Vega 64 that was working flawlessly.
I will try the fresh install and give you some news. Like you juliaan88, I spend days on that problem. It's the first time in my Hackintosh years that I feel that hopeless.

Also, which brand of VII do you have?

I know that everyone is saying that all VII are equals, but the vBIOS might not be exactly the same. During my days of troubleshooting I tested 3 brands of VII.

I tried with iMac Pro 1,1 and iMac 19,3. Pretty sure it's not my system because it's totally stable with the Intel GPU .

Here were my tests so far:

AMD Radeon VII with lastest vBIOS = Lag and instability after a few hours in Mojave. Computer will probably restart at some points.

AsRock Radeon VII with lastest vBIOS = Same problems.

Sapphire Radeon VII (no vBIOS update available) = My system is running perfectly. No lag and no reboot.

Was it only luck?

It is possible that some brand have a different vBIOS?

Anyone running the AMD or AsRock version without any problem?

Thank you

 

[EpicNUFO]

@juliaan88 @EpicNUFO
Well at least, we have the exact same problem. Bad news, I tried Catalina and I had the same reboots.
I'm also upgrading from a Vega 64 that was working flawlessly.
I will try the fresh install and give you some news. Like you juliaan88, I spend days on that problem. It's the first time in my Hackintosh years that I feel that hopeless.

Also, which brand of VII do you have?

I know that everyone is saying that all VII are equals, but the vBIOS might not be exactly the same. During my days of troubleshooting I tested 3 brands of VII.

I tried with iMac Pro 1,1 and iMac 19,3. Pretty sure it's not my system because it's totally stable with the Intel GPU .

Here were my tests so far:

AMD Radeon VII with lastest vBIOS = Lag and instability after a few hours in Mojave. Computer will probably restart at some points.

AsRock Radeon VII with lastest vBIOS = Same problems.

Sapphire Radeon VII (no vBIOS update available) = My system is running perfectly. No lag and no reboot.

Was it only luck?

It is possible that some brand have a different vBIOS?

Anyone running the AMD or AsRock version without any problem?

Thank you

@juliaan88 @Benlehot

I purchased an AMD reference Vii direct from AMD and their web store. For me personally, it seems I only see success stories with the Sapphire, but if these cards are all supposed to be reference clones, how can this be? They should not be different.

I have done deep research and troubleshooting on this over the past week; the slow down/lag and reboots are being caused by a panic within AppleGFXHDA which is responsible for driving display audio (not to be confused with AppleHDA which drives on-board sound). I have pulled my card back out for about the 20th time and went back to my Vega 56 because it's been so tedious swapping cards in and out every day trying new things to troubleshoot but then having to go back to Vega 56 to do actual work on the computer.

Is it possible to install a Sapphire VBios onto an AMD reference and test?

If you do not need display audio, it would be worth testing blocking or removing AppleGFXHDA.kext within S/L/E temporarily to see if this stops the lag/kernel panics.

 

[Benlehot]

Is it possible to install a Sapphire VBios onto an AMD reference and test?

I tried using the one here : https://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios...&version=&interface=&memType=&memSize=&since=
However, I got an error when trying to flash the card. I was using the flashing app in Windows 10.

 

[EpicNUFO]

I tried using the one here : https://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios...&version=&interface=&memType=&memSize=&since=
However, I got an error when trying to flash the card. I was using the flashing app in Windows 10.

@Benlehot,
I have a session coming so I have to run on the Vega 56 until tonight, but I am receiving help on some various approaches to making the Vii's play nice via disabling display audio or AppleGFXHDA altogether. I will report back with any progress.