Catalina 10.15.6 + 5700 XT: Crashing under load

[canyondust]

Maybe these differences are significant?:
I’m using iMac20,2 smbios, and I do not boot windows through opencore at all; I use the bios boot picker instead to boot windows.

 

[keinowaara]

Maybe these differences are significant?:
I’m using iMac20,2 smbios, and I do not boot windows through opencore at all; I use the bios boot picker instead to boot windows.

Thanks for that detail! I'll have to try that id out. Also, my Opencore is not the latest, 0.6.3... Updating that as well. Windows has not been troubling me anymore but I might go with the bios picker too if that could enable the use of full AMD software. Now the plain driver in use.

 

[canyondust]

Thanks for that detail! I'll have to try that id out. Also, my Opencore is not the latest, 0.6.3... Updating that as well. Windows has not been troubling me anymore but I might go with the bios picker too if that could enable the use of full AMD software. Now the plain driver in use.

Yeah honestly, I don't want my PC showing up in windows as an iMac, it seems like its just a bad idea, even if you completely patch out all of the opencore ACPI stuff to only run in darwinOS. For me it's just cleanest to keep OC out of the windows part completely. I'm not sure what effect that has on the OC+MacOS side, but maybe there is something to do with NVRAM variables or something, no idea... just thinking out loud really.

 

[keinowaara]

Yeah honestly, I don't want my PC showing up in windows as an iMac, it seems like its just a bad idea, even if you completely patch out all of the opencore ACPI stuff to only run in darwinOS. For me it's just cleanest to keep OC out of the windows part completely. I'm not sure what effect that has on the OC+MacOS side, but maybe there is something to do with NVRAM variables or something, no idea... just thinking out loud really.

Well said, and I know many are doing the same. It's really been my laziness to not want to go through bios...

As for the iMac20,2 smbios, I had a rethink because in real Macs it seems to be the 10th gen cpus at play. Of course it's true that we'll hardly ever meet the same specs in our Hacks, though.

 

[keinowaara]

I'm quite hopeful this is my last post to this thread, thanks for all discussion and suggestions!

While updating to OC 0.7.0 I realized there was this igpu related code (image below) that I had prepared according to Dortania guide but which probably was related to my previous mobo, the 3770K, and its igpu. I may be wrong but anyway I decided to get rid of it. Contrary to my plan I didn't change smbios to iMacPro because I wanted to see what effect this deletion would have. So I'm still on iMac19,1. Now it's beem working perfectly for two days, with not a single flickering or hickup. Going to Windows and returning works also smoothly.

There's still one problem which I don't mind that much: OpenCanopy stopped working, although I updated it and the resources folder too. Having doublechecked the config.plist code I still don't know what's wrong. EDIT: Got OpenCore sorted out, it was a problem with "third party" icons, now back to Acidanthera's. But OpenCanopy doesn't show Windows as an option, only Hack and recovery (neither does OC picker). Any ideas on this? Thanks in advance.

@canyondust: Thanks mate, I'll have to try your suggestion! --> "RE open canopy I think you need to go to the opencore boot picker and reset NVRAM each time you upgrade OC now if that hasn’t been done?"

 

[canyondust]

That’s great about the iGPU! Fingers crossed that it remains stable! I haven’t updated to OC0.7.0 yet so I’m not sure any options have changed in regards to the bitmap that selects boot devices and OS types… RE open canopy I think you need to go to the opencore boot picker and reset NVRAM each time you upgrade OC now if that hasn’t been done?

fwiw I don’t see my windows drive by design, I disable the nvme slot it’s in by ssdt when I boot opencore

 

[keinowaara]

Ok, this has drifted away a bit from 5700 XT problems but it's not unrelated. I got my Windows boot option back by changing ScanPolicy to 0 from the suggested value in config.plist. Not ideal, but there are only the options I need.

 

[keinowaara]

Yet another report, if anyone else is battling with this card... Almost immediately after writing my last post about having a stable build for two days since updating OC to 0.7.0 it crashed. And kept crashing, always with the same symptoms: a varying number of flickers of the menu bar and crash to black screen. Sometimes music would still play for long periods, sometimes it would start skipping too. This is not browser specific as some have suggested (on the Windows side, the infamous 5700XT "Chrome acceleration bug") as I've had it happen with Safari as well and even while using Affinity Designer. Curiously enough, many times I've had Apple Music open but not always (maybe it's just because I play it almost all the time).

So I went through the process of changing SMBIOS to iMacPro1,1. The same story, it behaved like an angel for two days and suddenly the trouble began again.

I'm beginning to lose all hope with this card. And I'm also getting convinced this might be a hardware problem, a faulty card, because many have their respective cards working. In that case I'd be totally screwed since it would take many weeks to send the card back in and wait for the inspection and decision. Even if got a new card to replace I'd have no guaratees it would work. I've been reading so much bad about these specific Sapphire cards. I need my Hack for work every single day, it's not an option. And the 6000 family is just too expencive right now and probably even hard to acquire in this sales situation...

There's only this one remaining option to try iMac20,2 SMBIOS as @canyondust recommended. I'm a little wary to do so since we have different CPUs but I guess I'll have to, nothing to lose there...

Is there anyone else still in trouble with this Sapphire Nitro+ version? Has anyone permanently solved it???

 

[energy23]

Yet another report, if anyone else is battling with this card... Almost immediately after writing my last post about having a stable build for two days since updating OC to 0.7.0 it crashed. And kept crashing, always with the same symptoms: a varying number of flickers of the menu bar and crash to black screen. Sometimes music would still play for long periods, sometimes it would start skipping too. This is not browser specific as some have suggested (on the Windows side, the infamous 5700XT "Chrome acceleration bug") as I've had it happen with Safari as well and even while using Affinity Designer. Curiously enough, many times I've had Apple Music open but not always (maybe it's just because I play it almost all the time).

So I went through the process of changing SMBIOS to iMacPro1,1. The same story, it behaved like an angel for two days and suddenly the trouble began again.

I'm beginning to lose all hope with this card. And I'm also getting convinced this might be a hardware problem, a faulty card, because many have their respective cards working. In that case I'd be totally screwed since it would take many weeks to send the card back in and wait for the inspection and decision. Even if got a new card to replace I'd have no guaratees it would work. I've been reading so much bad about these specific Sapphire cards. I need my Hack for work every single day, it's not an option. And the 6000 family is just too expencive right now and probably even hard to acquire in this sales situation...

There's only this one remaining option to try iMac20,2 SMBIOS as @canyondust recommended. I'm a little wary to do so since we have different CPUs but I guess I'll have to, nothing to lose there...

Is there anyone else still in trouble with this Sapphire Nitro+ version? Has anyone permanently solved it???

Yup, I had the exact same problems with the exact same card; crashes to black screen, audio still plays, crashes during gameplay in Windows but typically during load screens, crashes in Mac OS after a game has finished, random crashes too. Tried different SMBIOS, Mojave, Catalina, Big Sur, different power supplies, different motherboards, different ram configurations, various drivers in Windows, etc.

Conclusion?

The Sapphire 5700 XT Nitro+ is garbage.

I got a Gigabyte 5700 XT Gaming OC and it hasn't given me a single crash in months. I spent months wasting my time on trouble shooting. I am NEVER going Sapphire again.

 

[canyondust]

Sounds like I won the sapphire silicon lottery? No idea. Do you need CSM enabled with the gigabyte 5700xt?