MP 7,1 7,1 experienced any freezes, shutdowns or auto-restarts? If so, which Graphics Card?

[choreo]

I have read several threads/posts from people who have experienced either screen freezes, unexpected power downs and/or restarts/logouts (including me). I have also seen a couple forum members who claim that when they switched to a Graphic Card other than the W5700X, that those problems apparently went away (either by switching to the entry level 580X or by upgrading to the Pro Vega II card).

I am just trying to see if there is any correlation before I contact Apple Support again? I see plenty of people who have reported suspected issues with the W5700X, but I am really curious how many people have seen a lot of this behavior that use other graphics cards?

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

My machine would hang when it tried to go to sleep. I'm not sure if it was my video card or my highpoint PCI U.2 card. The solution was to turn sleep off on the machine, which was what I also had to do on my old 5,1.

I still have my screens go to sleep, but the CPU stays on.

Anyway, once I prevented sleep, the system has been very reliable (knock wood).

I would be great to get around the issue, but the solution worked well enough that my curiosity ended there. Hopefully others will have more on point solutions.

My video card is the Radeon Pro WX 9100

 

[LeonPro]

Per previous threads you've been in, chiming in that I experience no issue on your above title description for the Vega II equipped Mac Pro.

 

[erroneous]

I experienced these issues with a third party 5700XT (Red Devil) installed with no other GPUs. I also experienced it with the same 5700xt active alongside the base 580X MPX module.

I have not experienced this with the 580X MPX installed alone, or with the 5700xt alongside the 580 MPX but not active.

 

[TrevorR90]

T2 chip just isn't playing nicely with aftermarket components preventing sleep issues. Disable sleep and the issues should go away, but this has been going on ever since it was released and no fix inbound.

 

[Athraldur]

My MP 7.1 has got Kernel Panics and Freezes after wake up from sleep and then only on launch of any Adobe App or FC. Never got a crash from Start, only after Sleep (no matter if it was a short or deep sleep).

There are also flickering and glitches during work and a red Apple on Start. My Display is a XDR with a fresh (second) TB3 Cable. Never saw that before on my other Macs (MP 6.1 and iMac).

My Graphic Card is... what a miracle... the W5700X.

I have tried everything like fresh Install of Catalina 10.15.4 - 5 and 6, resetting PRAM, deactivating Energy Options, second Installation on a seperate partition, T2 at Medium Level but unfortunately nothing helped!

Some Methods seems to work, like disconnecting my NAS and closing every Adobe App before sleep but the Problem(s) always come back after some Days.

A Guy in a German Forum said that those Problems are caused by the Navi Driver of the newer RDNA Architecture.

In Safe Mode the Freezes and Kernel Panics does not happen so it sounds plausible.

Maybe I‘ll try the Vega II?

 

[OkiRun]

My MP 7.1 has got Kernel Panics and Freezes after wake up from sleep and then only on launch of any Adobe App or FC. Never got a crash from Start, only after Sleep (no matter if it was a short or deep sleep).

There are also flickering and glitches during work and a red Apple on Start. My Display is a XDR with a fresh (second) TB3 Cable. Never saw that before on my other Macs (MP 6.1 and iMac).

My Graphic Card is... what a miracle... the W5700X.

I have tried everything like fresh Install of Catalina 10.15.4 - 5 and 6, resetting PRAM, deactivating Energy Options, second Installation on a seperate partition, T2 at Medium Level but unfortunately nothing helped!

Some Methods seems to work, like disconnecting my NAS and closing every Adobe App before sleep but the Problem(s) always come back after some Days.

A Guy in a German Forum said that those Problems are caused by the Navi Driver of the newer RDNA Architecture.

In Safe Mode the Freezes and Kernel Panics does not happen so it sounds plausible.

Maybe I‘ll try the Vega II?

I purchased with the Pro Vega Duo because that was what was shown working at the 2019 WWDC and I thought the GPU would be rock stable otherwise they wouldn’t risk showing it off...

 

[Schismz]

I purchased with the Pro Vega Duo because that was what was shown working at the 2019 WWDC and I thought the GPU would be rock stable otherwise they wouldn’t risk showing it off...

Same card, same thought processes (except mine is just a Vega II, not the Duo). Absolutely none of the problems in this thread.

Is the Vega card over-priced? Yup. Do I intend to replace or augment it in years to come? Sure. Does it just work right now without causing 101 dumb problems? Yes. Mission accomplished, Apple Tax paid, I can work in peace.

 

[tjh1023]

Has any one tried a sapphire radeon rx 580 as a second card to add a little GPU power to the system. I'm looking at upgrading my 5,1 with a 7,1 and adding the rx 580 in a pcie slot to ad 8 more gb GPU to the system?

 

[avro707]

Has any one tried a sapphire radeon rx 580 as a second card to add a little GPU power to the system. I'm looking at upgrading my 5,1 with a 7,1 and adding the rx 580 in a pcie slot to ad 8 more gb GPU to the system?

Only temporarily had a RX6600XT, but in an EGPU instead. It worked fine, but it was only temporary so I could flash it (via windows) before using it in a 5,1.

What GPU has the 7,1 got to start with? Could you find a RX6900XT that fits? There is a length limit for the cards, some of the 3rd party GPUs are too long to fit.

Whatever you do, make sure you have the power cable kit to be able to power the additional card.

 

[mattspace]

Has any one tried a sapphire radeon rx 580 as a second card to add a little GPU power to the system. I'm looking at upgrading my 5,1 with a 7,1 and adding the rx 580 in a pcie slot to ad 8 more gb GPU to the system?

As @avro707 asks, what does the 7,1 you're looking at have in it currently? If it has a RA580 currently, your system isn't going to behave like it has 16GB of VRAM, it'll behave like it has two 8GB VRAM pools, so when you're browsing the web, for example, sometime Safari will throw its metal processes to the second card, sometimes the second card will be idle.

If you're plugging displays into both of them, that's a different story.

 

[tjh1023]

Thanks for the info. I already have the card because I am using it in my 5,1. I'm on the fence of getting a 7,1 and making my 5,1 a nas that I won't run all the time. I just don't want to 86 the 5,1 it's such a hardy machine.

 

[mattspace]

Thanks for the info. I already have the card because I am using it in my 5,1. I'm on the fence of getting a 7,1 and making my 5,1 a nas that I won't run all the time. I just don't want to 86 the 5,1 it's such a hardy machine.

Honestly, you're better off getting a multibay JBOD case and moving all your 5,1's drives into that. If you have SATA SSDs in the 5,1, grab a transintel bracket and install them internally in the 7,1. Using a Mac as a NAS really doesn't work very well in practice (that was how I handled the transition to my 7,1) - you keep running onto issues with SMB version clashes etc. The 5,1 if it's still working is really good as a machine for maintaining legacy workflows that don't work well in a VM.