10.14.5 Freezing, Reboots, Graphic Glitches, and General Instability Since Adding dGPU - Help??

[Mulanzo]

Hello,

Prior to installing my new dGPU (Radeon VII), I was running a pretty stable Hack with few issues (if ever). Ever since hearing 10.14.5 beta 2 supported the Radeon VII, I decided to step up my graphics game. I also realized my RAM wasn’t clocked at the correct speed and I wanted to OC my i7 8700k so I attempted to adjust this in BIOS as well. Doing all of this resulted in a very unstable, constantly crashing system with weird graphical glitches. I probably changed way too many things all at once making it hard to troubleshoot…but I digress…

Goals:
1. Stop Freezes / Reboots (always happens with Safari, always happens in Lightroom after doing intense work, if left overnight, freezes, sometimes cursor still works, sometimes boots to black screen with Apple logo and working cursor, sometimes freezes during login, sometimes I get 2 hours uninterrupted work before a freeze – it’s very unpredictable)
2. Stop Graphical Glitches (pink squares, patches all over the screen)
3. Set dGPU as primary and run IGPU headless (or not) for Quicksync, Hardware encoding for HEVC and H.265
4. Proper power management for dGPU and CPU
5. Successful OC of CPU to 4.7 or 4.8GHz
6. Successfully clock the RAM to the spec’d speed (3600Mhz)
7. Get Bluetooth (AirDrop) Working
8. I used to be able to autoboot into OSX after a certain amount of time has elapsed in Clover Bootloader - now it just sits there waiting for user input - I cant seem to get it to autoboot into macOS. Thoughts?

My system:

Asrock Fatal1ty z370 gaming-itx/ac
Intel Core i7-8700K (Water Cooled)
Gigabyte Radeon VII 16GB
2x16 GB G.Skill Trident Z RGB F4-3600C17-16GTZR 3600mhz
Samsung SSD 850 EVO x2
4k ASUS ProArt PA329 - Connected via DisplayPort

BIOS Settings:
Advanced>Chipset Configuration>Primary Graphics Adaptor>PCI Express
Advanced>Chipset Configuration>Above 4G Decoding>Enabled (Disabled causes no-boot)
Advanced>Chipset Configuration>VT-d>Disabled (I believe this was initially enabled, and disabling may have coincided with freeze/graphical issues)
Advanced>Chipset Configuration>IGPU Multi Monitor>Enabled
Advanced>USB Configuration>Legacy USB Support>Enabled
Advanced>USB Configuration>XHCI Handoff>Enabled
H/W Monitor>CPU_OPT / W_PUMP Switch>W_PUMP
Fan-Tuning Enabled
Boot>Fast Boot>Disabled

BIOS Memory and OC Settings:
XMP Profile 1
OC Tweaker>DRAM Configuration>DRAM Frequency>DDR4-3600
OC Tweaker>Load Optimized CPU OC Setting>Turbo 4.8GHz

SMBIOS – iMacPro1,1

Kexts Installed:

ACS6x
AppleALC
ArcMSR
ATTOCelerityFC8
ATTOExpressSASHBA2
CalDigitHDProDrv
CodecCommander
FakePCIID_Broadcom_Wifi
FakePCIID_XHCIMux
FakePCIID
FAKESMC_ACPISensors
FAKESMC_CPUSensors
FAKESMC_GPUSensors
FAKESMC_LPCSensors
FAKESMC
HighPointlOP
HighPointRR
IntelMausiEthernet
Lilu (latest)
PromiseSTEX
realtekALC
SoftRAID
USBInjectAll
WhateverGreen (latest)

Drivers Installed:

APFS.efi
ApfsDriverLoader-64.efi
AptioInputFix-64.efi
AptioMemoryFix-64.efi
AudioDxe-64
DataHubDxe-64.efi
EmuVariableUefi-64.efi
FSInject-64.efi
SMCHelper-64.efi
VBoxHFS-64.efi

I have not included my config.plist / DSDT / SSDT but can if that is necessary.

I know you will all look at this and say…”this guy is an idiot”. And you’re right. But that’s why I can’t get it to work.

Please help?

If I need to post anything else please let me know!

 

[Khaibit]

Well, I'd definitely start by running the RAM and CPU at stock clocks. If that doesn't get you stable, pull the GPU. You're right that you changed so many potentially de-stabilizing things at once that it's impossible to narrow it down right now. Make sure that you don't have inject Intel or inject AMD enabled in your Clover config.plist -- if you do, Whatevergreen isn't doing anything for that device.

 

[Mulanzo]

Hi thanks for the reply! I have tried clocking back to stock and for the most part it helps a bit but I still get crashes and reboots. Graphical issues tend not to happen as often this way as well. Regarding Kexts? Full disclosure: I don’t know where or when those were all installed nor do I know what they all do. I’m reluctant to delete anything because prior to this issue it all worked well. As far as I can tell InjectIntel and InjectAMD are not set.

One issue I’m concerned about is that originally I was on iMac18,1 prior to adding the dGPU and then when I installed it, I changed to iMac18,3 because I read that it runs the dGPU as primary and the IGPU headless for quicksync encoding. Then I read that iMacPro1,1 can do hardware encoded HVEC and H.265 which is what I’d prefer so I switched to that SMBIOS. This didn’t change or fix the graphical and freezing issues which were present with 18,3 as well. I’m concerned that if I remove the dGPU I will have to roll back to 18,1 because 18,3 is headless and I feel like I’ll just be back where I started.

 

[Khaibit]

iMac 18,3 actually does that as well -- QuickSync includes HEVC as that's what macOS uses for Airplay encoding now. I'd try reverting back to iMac 18,3 (make sure to update all your SMBIOS information with an appropriate serial number, board ID, and other info to match the model) and try stock clocks with that setup. The iMacPro system definitions may be doing something odd because they expect no IGPU at all -- the real ones use Xeon CPUs that do not have an IGPU.

Edit: In fact, in your screenshots I don't see any SMBIOS information at all other than a serial number and an SMUUID; are you generating all needed SMBIOS info when you change system definitions? You'll also want to change the "CsrActiveConfig"; 0x3E7 isn't a valid value as far as I know. I think you meant 0x3, disabled SIP partially. The other valid values are 0x0 (enabled entirely) and 0x67 (disabled entirely).

Another edit: Remove all device properties from your config.plist (AAPL,ig-platform-id and framebuffer-*). Whatevergreen will automatically choose an appropriate platform ID and that choice should only be overridden if you have a reason to. The platform ID you've picked is the headless one it will choose anyway, and the stolenmem patch isn't necessary for headless configurations.

 

[Mulanzo]

An update: Thank you for helping me through the SMBIOS issue. I have it set back to 18,3 with the generated SMBIOS information there. It appears to be a bit smoother now. I also cleaned up the config.plist as you suggested. I reduced ram speed to what the CPU is rated for (despite being a lot slower than the manufacturers rated speed) and I O'C'd the CPU "successfully" it seems. I no longer have the graphical glitches which is excellent! I have not tested hardware encoding yet so that result is pending.

Issues still:
1. Stop Freezes / Reboots still occurring (especially with Safari and any video content including quick look, though it IS better)
2. Stop Graphical Glitches (pink squares, patches all over the screen)
3. Set dGPU as primary and run IGPU headless (or not) for Quicksync, Hardware encoding for HEVC and H.265
4. Proper power management for dGPU and CPU
5. Successful OC of CPU to 4.7 or 4.8GHz
6. Successfully clock the RAM to the spec’d speed (3600Mhz) (doesn't seem possible - freezing at anything over 2666mgz)
7. Get Bluetooth (AirDrop) Working
8. I used to be able to autoboot into OSX after a certain amount of time has elapsed in Clover Bootloader - now it just sits there waiting for user input - I cant seem to get it to autoboot into macOS. Thoughts?

 

[Khaibit]

8. I used to be able to autoboot into OSX after a certain amount of time has elapsed in Clover Bootloader - now it just sits there waiting for user input - I cant seem to get it to autoboot into macOS. Thoughts?

Try changing your Default Boot Volume (in the Boot section of Clover) to your actual macOS system drive?

 

[Mulanzo]

Thanks. I have the boot volume issue resolved. It was a bit tricky with APFS but seems to be working. Thanks!

Now for the graphics- this is what console output as an error prior to freezing. I’ve searched everywhere and though I’ve seen people with similar freezing issues, nobody has had it with exactly my hardware, version of macOS or other variable. I’m at a complete loss for how to proceed.

See below image for the errors it threw out.