<< Solved >> Random Graphical Glitch Freeze / Monitor Speakers Screech

[blaziken584]

Hi all,

I have been experiencing an odd issue with my hackintosh where completely randomly the following happens:

• Computer freezes
• Cursor becomes glitched in appearance, but generally can still move
• Most / all monitor speakers start screeching (they are not set as the audio output)

I don't believe this to be a hardware issue as I do not experience these issues while in Windows, or when I used the Radeon VII in an eGPU enclosure with my Macbook Pro. Also I do not recall Console giving any useful error messages at the time of the freeze, but I could be mistaken.

The issue comes at random, I can not experience it for a day and then the next day have it happen a dozen times repeatedly. Some of the steps I have taken to troubleshoot the issue:

• Disable overclocking
• Try both FakeSMC and VirtualSMC
• Change SMBIOS from iMacPro1,1 to iMac19,1
• Rebuild Clover setup including:
  • Update to latest Clover v5033
  • Remake clover.plist
  • Cut down on UEFI drivers to the bare minimum
  • Cut down on kexts to the bare minimum, and update each one to the latest commit (instead of stable release) at the time of making this post
• Try only a single monitor (out of 4)
• Enable / disable iGPU in the BIOS
  • I can confirm it is working for H.264, etc. acceleration
  • Does not currently work as only display output
• Try with and without WhateverGreen

Attached is my latest Clover EFI that is pretty much fully working (iMessage, USB, etc.) except for the annoying freezing issue. Let me know if there is any other information that would be helpful for troubleshooting this issue.

Thanks!!

 

[blaziken584]

So after a long while, I finally figured out what the issue is from testing everything possible. Apparently my RAM was overheating. Amazing. That's it. Didn't really think it could happen, but after searching around apparently it's possible, or maybe one of my sticks is just particularly volatile.

Turns out that it did actually happen in Windows, but it was far more rare and I generally attributed it to something else. The reason it was far more rare I believe is because I don't use nearly as much RAM in Windows as macOS. In macOS I'm generally close to maxing out even while I'm "idle". So once the RAM started to overheat it was far more likely to cause errors.

My current solution is to just run my fans a bit higher so they get proper airflow, but I'm going to be looking into reducing their voltage, and if that doesn't solve the issue possibly water-cooling or testing other sticks of RAM to see if I have a problem one. Or maybe water cooling my RAM is now on the table

Attached is my Clover config that is more up-to-date and should be in general a bit better if you have a similar system. It is compatible with Catalina, whereas the previously attached one only works up to Mojave.

 

[Maverick2880]

Just stumbled upon your post, got all excited as you had the exact same issue as me ! then I saw your RAM was having issues. not sure if this would be the same case for me as my 580 worked perfectly before I put the Radeon VII in. do you happen to know of anything else that could cause this ?

 

[blaziken584]

Hey Maverick2880, I might have actually been mistaken and it might have been a side-effect or a coincidence. My Radeon VII seems to be the issue, which is unfortunate. It's gotten progressively worse and even has started crashing in Windows now even on stock settings and on known good drivers.

Slower RAM speed might have just been bottlenecking the GPU is some way(?) causing it to be stable coincidentally. And the extra airflow is... helping, but I'm unsure what since nothing is overheating in my system. I've checked everything in HWiNFO 64. Granted setting all of my fans to 100% doesn't fix the instability completely, but only recently as my card has started dying more and more.

It's possible that the Radeon VII was just rushed to market and the 7nm process wasn't mature enough or something and there were a lot of bad cards out there - and some might only be cropping up recently. I'm on my third one after the previous 2 I had were also faulty... which is incredibly frustrating. I'm past my warranty, and I've watercooled it anyway so no warranty left.

Considering just waiting for the Nvidia Ampere cards and chucking a spare 580 in my computer as well to dual-boot macOS and Windows. At least I know that card is stable :/ Sorry that I couldn't help more, it just seems to be a really unfortunate situation possibly. I'm at a complete loss.