pastrychef's Asus ROG Strix Z370-G Gaming (WI-FI AC) build w/ i9-9900K + AMD 6600 XT

[blindingblue]

My guess is that your video problems are due to the new drivers used for FileVault support. I had to switch to new drivers because the old drivers broke under Catalina 10.15.1.

If these new drivers are giving you problems, you may be forced to try the OpenCore EFI.

Not a problem, I've been interested in switching anyway. I can read previous posts; however, do you have any suggestions on how best to make the switch? Anything I should save or copy?

 

[pastrychef]

Not a problem, I've been interested in switching anyway. I can read previous posts; however, do you have any suggestions on how best to make the switch? Anything I should save or copy?

In the OpenCore EFI, I have included a READ ME file that should illustrate pretty well where you need to enter your Serial, Board Serial, UUID, and MAC address.

After you've added those, you should be able to just boot from it. I suggest testing by putting the EFI on a USB flash drive first. Of course, make backups of everything.

 

[blindingblue]

In the OpenCore EFI, I have included a READ ME file that should illustrate pretty well where you need to enter your Serial, Board Serial, UUID, and MAC address.

After you've added those, you should be able to just boot from it. I suggest testing by putting the EFI on a USB flash drive first. Of course, make backups of everything.

Unfortunately, this didn't make a difference. At first I thought it did, I was able to watch a 20 minute episode of 30 Rock, and then as soon as the next episode started the visual artifacts were back and 10 seconds later the computer stopped responding.

 

[pastrychef]

Unfortunately, this didn't make a difference. At first I thought it did, I was able to watch a 20 minute episode of 30 Rock, and then as soon as the next episode started the visual artifacts were back and 10 seconds later the computer stopped responding.

My intent in asking you to try OpenCore was to address the boot to black screen issue and FileVault.

I don't know why you are getting artifacts watching videos. I have not seen anyone else report this. I have also personally played quite a few videos since the 10.15.1 update without problems. Can heat on the video card possibly be a cause?

 

[pastrychef]

Unfortunately, this didn't make a difference. At first I thought it did, I was able to watch a 20 minute episode of 30 Rock, and then as soon as the next episode started the visual artifacts were back and 10 seconds later the computer stopped responding.

I just started a video in VLC and started a streaming video from Amazon Prime and started a streaming video from Apple TV app.

 

[blindingblue]

My guess is that your video problems are due to the new drivers used for FileVault support.

Sorry, I interpreted this to mean the problems I experienced while watching videos. I only have problems watching videos on my computer; no filevault problems or black screens in any other scenario. Not while running VMs, watching videos in Firefox, or any other task so far.
If heat were the issue, wouldn't I have experienced this before?
This last time, my screens stayed on but everything froze. however a spin report was generated.. how could I go about parsing that to see if I can determine the cause?

I just started a video in VLC and started a streaming video from Amazon Prime and started a streaming video from Apple TV app.

I believe you.. but clearly something is off with my setup and it was caused/revealed by the update.

 

[pastrychef]

Sorry, I interpreted this to mean the problems I experienced while watching videos. I only have problems watching videos on my computer; no filevault problems or black screens in any other scenario. Not while running VMs, watching videos in Firefox, or any other task so far.
If heat were the issue, wouldn't I have experienced this before?
This last time, my screens stayed on but everything froze. however a spin report was generated.. how could I go about parsing that to see if I can determine the cause?

I believe you.. but clearly something is off with my setup and it was caused/revealed by the update.

Did you get any panic reports/logs after restarting from the freeze?
Have you tried playing videos in VLC in Windows or Linux?

I'm going to leave these three videos running for an hour or so to see if I can get a freeze...

 

[blindingblue]

Did you get any panic reports/logs after restarting from the freeze?
Have you tried playing videos in VLC in Windows or Linux?

No panic reports or logs, no dialogs at startup. Only thing is the spindump.
I don't have windows or linux installed at the moment, but I've been meaning to install Win10 so if I can't figure this stuff out in the next day or so, I'll install it.

 

[pastrychef]

No panic reports or logs, no dialogs at startup. Only thing is the spindump.
I don't have windows or linux installed at the moment, but I've been meaning to install Win10 so if I can't figure this stuff out in the next day or so, I'll install it.

Does the spindump reveal where it froze?

All three of my videos are still playing as I type this. Will keep them running for about another half hour...


Edit:
Can you try running some GPU benchmarks like Engine Heaven or Valley? Maybe let it run for about an hour or so.

 

[blindingblue]

Does the spindump reveal where it froze?

All three of my videos are still playing as I type this. Will keep them running for about another half hour...


Edit:
Can you try running some GPU benchmarks like Engine Heaven or Valley? Maybe let it run for about an hour or so.

Will run benchmarks in a sec. Something interesting; on IINA when I disabled hardware decoding, the glitches went away.
The spindump was waiting on the WindowServer but I am not knowledgeable enough to be able to quickly find other potential issues in the log.
So far, running heaven on extreme has been fine with no issues (am about 1/2 way through); however, the only temperature listed is for "CPU Chip" and my GPU isn't listed at all. Is this normal?
EDIT: It finished with a pretty low score (1838). It also says that the render was OpenGL? I thought it was all Metal now. The GPU is correctly listed in the report, so it not showing up in the HUD is probably(?) fine.