iMac Pro Apple's software QC slipping - iMac Pro

[flyinmac]

I never use boot camp drivers.

Instead check the manufacturer of the actual components such as the sound chip, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, etc. then download the appropriate drivers directly from the manufacturer (or don’t install any drivers and give Windows 10 the chance to identify them on its own first - if that doesn’t work, then get straight from the manufacturer of the component part).

The boot camp drivers from Apple are almost always the wrong ones or poorly suited. It’s almost like they deliberately sabotage the experience and hope you’ll blame Windows.

I learned to avoid any part of the boot camp software. It’s absolutely unnecessary. Just make two partitions and put MacOS on one and Windows on the other. Install Windows like you’re installing it on a PC. Let it do it’s own hardware detection.

I fixed my audio problems by reinstalling Windows without boot camp and getting my drivers supplied by Windows through auto detection. And in the event it doesn’t detect your hardware, then get your drivers from the website of the company that made that component part.

 

[bplein]

Regarding Bplein's comments, that he never get these kernel panicks (in sleep mode) - could there be some defect hardware in various iMac Pro units? However, I've used Bootcamp/Windows 10 a lot, and I don't have reboots/kernel panicks there.

Since Windows has different drivers and a different kernel, it may very well respond differently to a hardware problem than MacOS.

I am sorry that your experience hasn't been as flawless as mine (OK, I did have some issues with the included BT keyboard that were incessant for a few weeks after arrival and are now 100% gone).

I've seen threads about video issues mostly with Vega56, I have the 64 so maybe I got a lucky hardware combination... I wouldn't doubt that Apple QC has gone down, and that both hardware and software are buggier than in years past.

 

[Peter_M]

You make some good points there, Bplein.
I was able to fix the reboot issues and the sound crashes (more or less), by deleting the sound card and audio preferences files. I've gotten a couple of sound crashes since, though a big improvement. Hopefully it's not hardware related, since the screen itself is pretty much flawless. I've also had various issues with my MacBook after updating to High Sierra, so I'm fairly sure this is all software related.

On a related note, Apple just released the 3rd version of iTunes with the cover art bug (non-square cover art not showing), even though I sent them bug reports (incl. affected files) from both previous iTunes versions. I don't want to sound petty, but there have been too many issues like this the last year or so - ie. annoying but (assumably) easy-to-fix bugs that take Apple forever to fix. Hopefully Apple will do better with Mojave (and iOS 12).

 

[fathergll]

Hi,



What's going on here? MacOS used to be rock solid. Now I get constant audio crashes, random reboots, Bootcamp issues, and Apple lets really dumb bugs slip through QC (like bugged monitor brightness).

My rule of thumb in general for most things tech related. The more niche the product the longer you need to wait buying before the bugs of ironed out. Especially true if the tech has a major change. When I first bought my retina iMac back in 2014 performance was horrible for months. iMacs and especially iMac Pros are much more niche over Macbooks and especially iPhones which have the most QC of any product. If you rely on your Apple for work reasons sometimes it pays to upgrade much later into the cycle to take advantage of patches. There is niche enterprise software at work which I wouldn't upgrade until a year after the product is released in order to assure most bugs are addressed as reliability is far more important over new features and performance increases.