[GUIDE] Injection of AMD Vega Power and Fan Control Properties

[iDrakus]

Is there any information on VGATab support for AMD RX 5700 and RX 5700 XT graphics cards?
They are already supported on macOS Catalina 10.15.1, and work well. I would like to control the fans.

 

[CMMChris]

You don't need VGTab. Here you go: https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/...enerator-oc-uv-fan-curve.285975/#post-2024246

 

[bendelaurence]

Hi @jaymonkey. I just wanted to check I’m walking down the correct path here before i start reading all 49 pages of this thread.

With the need for Mojave’s I’ve finally been forced into an AMD GPU (Sapphire Vega 64 Nitro+ And 10.14.6 And whatevergreen/multibeast - Asus Z370-f).

I believe the fans are not functioning correctly. They are currently off once OS is booted, then they spin up to idle speed once the card reaches 50 degrees. No matter how hard i push the card the fan speed never increases and i feel like the card is getting very hot.

I cant currently check this as HWmonitor only shows a static temp of 127 degrees for the GPU die.

My thinking is that the OS is not controlling the fans. People are getting fooled into thinking the fans are working when the GPU activates the fans.

You stated in your OP that this guide is really for pre Mojave systems. So my question is, given the currently available information above, do you think this is going to help me? Or am i barking up the wrong tree?

My first job tonight is to try and install HWMonitor3 to get an accurate temp reading of the card under load. If it is indeed overheating, i plan on using your method to try and get these fans cooling properly unless you say otherwise.

Im not a expert, but am a fast fast learner. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Many Thanks, Ben.

 

[jaymonkey]

AMD GPU (Sapphire Vega 64 Nitro+ , The fans are currently off once OS is booted, then they spin up to idle speed once the card reaches 50 degrees.

@bendelaurence,

The Sapphire Vega 64 Nitro+ card is a bit different from almost all other Vega cards in that it has an on-board Fan Controller with a zero fan mode, which will keep the fan from spinning up until the die temp reaches 50 degrees C. So what your seeing is normal and correct behaviour for your GPU. Almost all other Vega GPU's have the fans controlled by MacOS which is why we can over-ride the fan curve using a custom SPPT.

If you search these forums you'll find many posts from Nitro+ users reporting the same behaviour.

I would install HWMonitorSMC2 as per the guide and check the GPU temps and fan control while stress testing the GPU, the best utility to stress test your GPU is Luxmark which will keep the GPU pegged at 100%, bench marks such as Unigine Heaven don't really stress the GPU fully. Hopefully you'll see a response in the fans once the temp get's into the 70's. Vega GPU's start to thermal throttle once the temps get into the 80's.

You stated in your OP that this guide is really for pre Mojave systems. So my question is, given the currently available information above, do you think this is going to help me? Or am i barking up the wrong tree?

Mojave 10.14.5+ fixed a lot of power and fan control issues that many users where experiencing with 3rd party OEM Vega cards (except Nitro+), however injecting a custom SoftPowerPlay Table in Mojave and Catalina still works ... I use it myself to overclock the HMB2 memory on my Vega 64 LC.

You could try injecting a custom SPPT but i don't think it will effect the fans as they are controlled by the on-board controller.

Cheers
Jay

 

[bendelaurence]

@bendelaurence,

The Sapphire Vega 64 Nitro+ card is a bit different from almost all other Vega cards in that it has an on-board Fan Controller with a zero fan mode, which will keep the fan from spinning up until the die temp reaches 50 degrees C. So what your seeing is normal and correct behaviour for your GPU. Almost all other Vega GPU's have the fans controlled by MacOS which is why we can over-ride the fan curve using a custom SPPT.

If you search these forums you'll find many posts from Nitro+ users reporting the same behaviour.

I would install HWMonitorSMC2 as per the guide and check the GPU temps and fan control while stress testing the GPU, the best utility to stress test your GPU is Luxmark which will keep the GPU pegged at 100%, bench marks such as Unigine Heaven don't really stress the GPU fully. Hopefully you'll see a response in the fans once the temp get's into the 70's. Vega GPU's start to thermal throttle once the temps get into the 80's.




Mojave 10.14.5+ fixed a lot of power and fan control issues that many users where experiencing with 3rd party OEM Vega cards (except Nitro+), however injecting a custom SoftPowerPlay Table in Mojave and Catalina still works ... I use it myself to overclock the HMB2 memory on my Vega 64 LC.

You could try injecting a custom SPPT but i don't think it will effect the fans as they are controlled by the on-board controller.

Cheers
Jay

Perfect, thank you for the clarification Jay. So Nitro+ fan controler isn’t controlled by OS, but on the plus side the on board controller should be unaffected by by the OS and should therefore be working as intended.

I have Luxmark. I’ll sort HWM tonight and report back.

If you get a minute a minute could you point me in the right direction for removing HWMonitor supplied in multibeast.

also, Thank you for the quick response. Hackintosh SL’s are great once they’re dialled in. I hate updating and hardware changes though .

 

[bendelaurence]

Also, does the on board controller negate the need for whatevergreen?

thanks

B

 

[jaymonkey]

If you get a minute a minute could you point me in the right direction for removing HWMonitor supplied in multibeast.

@bendelaurence,

You need to delete the old FakeSMC kext and any old FakeSMC sensor plugin kexts such as FakeSMC_GPUSensors.kext, FakeSMC_CPUSensors.kext ..etc.

Just delete them from /Library/Extensions and /EFI/Clover/Kexts/Other using Finder.

Then install the new FakeSMC included in the HWMonitorSMC package and any of the optional plugins, as the guide states do not install the Radeon sensor plugin, its for old AMD GPU's only. Configure HWMonitorSMC2 to useMacOS IOAccelerator module.

Look at the included documents to figure out which motherboard sensor plugin you need.

Also, does the on board controller negate the need for whatevergreen?

No ... you should have Lilu + WEG installed so that MacOS is configured with the correct AMD framebuffer and settings.

Cheers
Jay

 

[bendelaurence]

Thank Jay.

So I got HWMonitorSMC2 working fine. Interesting results......

I used LuxBall HDR for these tests as that seems to be what everybody is using in the benchmarking thread.

Stress test begins:

-As you said, around 53 degrees the fans activate (core clock - 1612MHZ, Fan speed 1482)
-As we hit 58 degrees, both the core clock and fan speed begin to drop (core clock - 1610MHZ, Fan speed 1426)
-623 seconds later we top out at 67 degrees, fan speed and core clock seem to settle (core clock - 1589MHZ, Fan speed 1157)
*See time stamped screen shots

What I find interesting is that as the temperature rises from 53 to 67, the fan speed drops and the clock is throttled (way before 80 degrees)

Straight out of stress test into a bench mark leaving no time for cooling and we achieve a seemingly respectable score of 30378.

I found a post where someone claims success of SPPT with a nitro+, so I'm going to give it a go and see if we can get the fans moving in the right direction as temp increases and hopefully overt this core clock throttling I seem to be experiencing.

But for people considering the Nitro+ GPU, it seems totally useable like this. Temps haven't exceeded 67 degrees. I'm just interested to see how much extra power I can muster with the fans working correctly. I just ran the test again from scratch, the fans never run faster than 44%

 

[bendelaurence]

OK, first issues.....

-I cannot find the properties section in my config.plist (attached)

-My GPU "does not have the GFX0 ACPI identity which is critical for correct operation"

I have the most recent versions of Lilu + WhatEverGreen installed and I've checked that "Change XXXX to XXXX" is nowhere to be found in config.plist

Any ideas?

***Update***

In Hackintool it seems to be labelled correctly as GFX0, but when I try to run "./gfxutil -f GFX0" I get "error: unsupported registry entry class type 'IORegistryEntry'."

See attachments

***Update update***

I also seem to be suffering from this 'Mojave can't preview jpg problem' which is apparently solved by whatevergreen. Im just adding this as extra information just incase it all points toward WEG problem.

Thanks in advance for your insight. Im off to bed.

(PS. let me know if you have a tip jar or anything, id like to give what I can for this help)
(PPS. I miss my 1070ti lol)

 

[jaymonkey]

What I find interesting is that as the temperature rises from 53 to 67, the fan speed drops and the clock is throttled (way before 80 degrees)

@bendelaurence,

Hummm that was a common issue (fan curve inverted) with Vega cards before the Mojave 10.14.5 update, after that most fan issues where resolved without the need to use a SPPT. You might want to take a look at @CMMChris's Excel spreadsheet which can be used to generate a SPPT, it has the added benefit of allowing you to adjust a setting called FanPWMmin which is a calibration value for the fan control that might be the key to getting things working correctly with your Nitro +.

The excel spreadsheet is attached to this post :-

[TOOL] VGTab: Control your Vega in macOS without flashing the vBios

Undervolting does not work... do a video to proof it with actual measurements. I can run my V64 cards with PPT set to 700mV on highest power state and its perfectly stable. No change in temp or power consumption or fan speeds. I may know why you have that experience. Undervolt not necessary...

www.tonymacx86.com

I believe that the correct value for FanPWMMin is 28 for the Nitro+ but you may want to ask @CMMChris just to be sure.

Straight out of stress test into a bench mark leaving no time for cooling and we achieve a seemingly respectable score of 30378.

A luxmark score of around 30K is about right for Vega 64 at stock speeds.

I found a post where someone claims success of SPPT with a nitro+, so I'm going to give it a go and see if we can get the fans moving in the right direction as temp increases and hopefully overt this core clock throttling I seem to be experiencing.

I personally don't have any experience with the Vega Nitro+ but i know its a common card on Hacks as its usually discounted more than the others ... i'm sure the fan issue can be resolved one way or another, you just need to do a bit of digging on these forums.

Cheers
Jay