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eicca

Suspended
Oct 23, 2014
1,773
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Try to get a spare drive to run 10.14.6.

Its RX580 driver is much more mature than the one in 10.13.6

I updated to 10.14.6 today and it made no difference. Still seems like Safari is causing something to go fatally wrong.
 

eicca

Suspended
Oct 23, 2014
1,773
3,605
are you sure you don't have any maleware extensions in safari?


it is now free

My system setup is about as fresh as it gets. I’ve only installed a few games to test the graphics, a handful of hardware monitors, and Firefox so I can web browse without crashing the whole thing. Haven’t even signed into iCloud or email yet.
 

tsialex

Contributor
Jun 13, 2016
13,455
13,602
My system setup is about as fresh as it gets. I’ve only installed a few games to test the graphics, a handful of hardware monitors, and Firefox so I can web browse without crashing the whole thing. Haven’t even signed into iCloud or email yet.
You problem is related to your hardware configuration, no one is having problems with Safari like you are having.

One thing that you can do is to check if your GPU has the correct firmware, a lot of used GPUs came from mining rigs and have different firmwares with several mods. TechPowerUp has the firmware dumps of every GPU imaginable.

BTW, your GPU is powered by a dual mini 6-pin cable to a PCIe 8-pin? If not, change it.
 

eicca

Suspended
Oct 23, 2014
1,773
3,605
You problem is related to your hardware configuration, no one is having problems with Safari like you are having.

One thing that you can do is to check if your GPU has the correct firmware, a lot of used GPUs came from mining rigs and have different firmwares with several mods. TechPowerUp has the firmware dumps of every GPU imaginable.

BTW, your GPU is powered by a dual mini 6-pin cable to a PCIe 8-pin? If not, change it.

It is powered by dual 6 to single 8 off the main board. I’ve considered the Pixas mod, but I assume that kind of thing is for fixing shutdowns under load, which I definitely do not have. I intentionally put this computer through hell and it doesn’t even stutter. But Safari brings it all crashing down...

Is there a thread on checking firmware in my card, and fixing it if necessary? I’m not finding anything that makes sense.

I hope it wasn’t a mining card—The guy claims it was bought new...

49CF606F-A9BF-40DB-B3A9-4ECE985B1710.jpeg
 

tsialex

Contributor
Jun 13, 2016
13,455
13,602
It is powered by dual 6 to single 8 off the main board. I’ve considered the Pixas mod, but I assume that kind of thing is for fixing shutdowns under load, which I definitely do not have. I intentionally put this computer through hell and it doesn’t even stutter. But Safari brings it all crashing down...

Is there a thread on checking firmware in my card, and fixing it if necessary? I’m not finding anything that makes sense.

I hope it wasn’t a mining card—The guy claims it was bought new...

View attachment 906355
Boot Windows, dump the GPU firmware (GPU-Z for example) and check with your model dump from TechPowerUp.
 

eicca

Suspended
Oct 23, 2014
1,773
3,605
Boot Windows, dump the GPU firmware (GPU-Z for example) and check with your model dump from TechPowerUp.

I was afraid of that... I’m still reading up on all the ways to get windows to boot without an EFI GPU. What a nightmare.
 

eicca

Suspended
Oct 23, 2014
1,773
3,605
Something I suppose I should’ve mentioned: When my computer freezes and restarts, it doesn’t just go blank and start booting again. It actually completely and suddenly shuts off as if someone pulled the plug out, then turns itself back on.

The OP said a power supply fixed his restarts, and his symptoms look almost identical to mine.
 

tsialex

Contributor
Jun 13, 2016
13,455
13,602
Something I suppose I should’ve mentioned: When my computer freezes and restarts, it doesn’t just go blank and start booting again. It actually completely and suddenly shuts off as if someone pulled the plug out, then turns itself back on.

The OP said a power supply fixed his restarts, and his symptoms look almost identical to mine.
Probably dying PSU, maybe GPU cabling problems. You should test the GPU itself with a PC to eliminate possibility of problems with it.
 

eicca

Suspended
Oct 23, 2014
1,773
3,605
Ok. Just a little more help, if you don't mind. I think I've almost got my head around dual-booting. I've read that I need to install Win10 in Legacy mode to not bork the Mac's firmware. I believe that means following this website:

My one question about the BootCamp recipe: The very first steps mentioning deleting SSD partitions confuse me a little. My setup is nothing like that. I have four 1TB drives in all my bays and a 1TB mounted in the second optical bay. The optical bay drive is my Mojave system drive. I intend to just use one of the sled drives (not sure which physical slot it's in, if that matters) partitioned via BootCamp tool to 500GB so I can tell it apart. Will there be issues with using the sled-mount drive?
 

tsialex

Contributor
Jun 13, 2016
13,455
13,602
Ok. Just a little more help, if you don't mind. I think I've almost got my head around dual-booting. I've read that I need to install Win10 in Legacy mode to not bork the Mac's firmware. I believe that means following this website:

My one question about the BootCamp recipe: The very first steps mentioning deleting SSD partitions confuse me a little. My setup is nothing like that. I have four 1TB drives in all my bays and a 1TB mounted in the second optical bay. The optical bay drive is my Mojave system drive. I intend to just use one of the sled drives (not sure which physical slot it's in, if that matters) partitioned via BootCamp tool to 500GB so I can tell it apart. Will there be issues with using the sled-mount drive?
This topic has nothing to do with this thread, be a good forum user and don't hijack threads.

You are making a mess:
  1. Macs don't have BIOS, forget the Microsoft support page, it's for PCs.
  2. Mojave don't support BootCamp at all with a MP5,1. Erase a disk and use it only for Windows - don't mix macOS and Windows on the same disk, use a dedicated disk, it's a Mac Pro after all.
  3. You will only use the BootCamp drivers after Windows is installed, not the app on macOS to partition a disk.
  4. CSM Windows don't support NVMe, use a SATA disk installed on the native south bridge SATA ports.
  5. To install CSM/Legacy, you boot Windows installer disk from a DVD. Windows installed from DVDs installers are always CSM. You will need a dual-layer DVD to burn 1909, if I remember correctly it's 1609 the last one that fits a single-layer DVD.
 
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eicca

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Oct 23, 2014
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I assume the drive sleds are the SATA ports you mentioned, because google tells me NVMe is PCIe or something like that. Remember, I’m way out of practice here...

Maybe I’ll start with replacing the PSU because I do speak fluent screwdriver.
 

MarkC426

macrumors 68040
May 14, 2008
3,700
2,097
UK
Yes the drive sleds are what the standard HDD’s hang from. You can put an SSD in place (with the correct sled). An NVMe blade connects to PCIe slot.
 
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kohlson

macrumors 68020
Apr 23, 2010
2,425
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I assume the drive sleds are the SATA ports you mentioned
There are also 2 SATA ports in the optical bay. If you have a Super Drive in there, there's still an available port. For testing purposes, an inexpensive 250 GB SSD can just be plugged in - no mounting required.
 
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eicca

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Oct 23, 2014
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There are also 2 SATA ports in the optical bay. If you have a Super Drive in there, there's still an available port. For testing purposes, an inexpensive 250 GB SSD can just be plugged in - no mounting required.

That's where my system drive lives.
 

Jayson A

macrumors 68030
Original poster
Sep 16, 2014
2,671
1,935
I updated to 10.14.6 today and it made no difference. Still seems like Safari is causing something to go fatally wrong.

I had the same exact issue as you and even a fresh install didn't help. Turns out it was my power supply. Bought a refurbished one and haven't had a single problem since.
 

eicca

Suspended
Oct 23, 2014
1,773
3,605
I had the same exact issue as you and even a fresh install didn't help. Turns out it was my power supply. Bought a refurbished one and haven't had a single problem since.

Where did you buy your refurb PSU?

Also, did/do you use Safari as your primary web browser? As you've probably read I can consistently replicate the freeze-reboot by using Safari. No problems if I use Firefox.

Windows 10 testing will commence very shortly.
 

eicca

Suspended
Oct 23, 2014
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Got Win10 installed successfully through VirtualBox and was able to install Bootcamp 6 to boot back to macOS. GPU-Z info matches TPU’s info.

Computer continues to run flawless in every imaginable case as long as I don’t open Safari.

I’ll try a refurb power supply and see what happens.
 

tsialex

Contributor
Jun 13, 2016
13,455
13,602
Got Win10 installed successfully through VirtualBox and was able to install Bootcamp 6 to boot back to macOS. GPU-Z info matches TPU’s info.

Computer continues to run flawless in every imaginable case as long as I don’t open Safari.

I’ll try a refurb power supply and see what happens.
Shasum match?
 

eicca

Suspended
Oct 23, 2014
1,773
3,605
Shasum match?

Everything looks peachy. Also confirmed that heavy gaming in both macOS and Win10 causes zero issues.

Looks like I’ll be sourcing a refurb PSU. For how little I spent on the computer itself, it’s worth a shot, especially given the OP’s experience. Any idea if DVWarehouse is trustworthy?
 

tsialex

Contributor
Jun 13, 2016
13,455
13,602
Everything looks peachy. Also confirmed that heavy gaming in both macOS and Win10 causes zero issues.

Looks like I’ll be sourcing a refurb PSU. For how little I spent on the computer itself, it’s worth a shot, especially given the OP’s experience. Any idea if DVWarehouse is trustworthy?
I usually buy from eBay, never bought from them, but people here bought in the past.

It's weird that you have problems with Safari and not gaming. Did you tried to run Furmark? Furmark it's considered one of the best stress tests and a nightmare for GPUs powered incorrectly. See if you can run the stress test without your backplane/PSU shutting down.


Another thing, when PSUs are dying, sleep becomes a source of problems. Did you checked if your Mac goes to sleep without any problems? One good test is to keep it at sleep overnight and see if it works again next morning, usually at least 10h of sleep. Some people only have problems 24h+ later.
 

eicca

Suspended
Oct 23, 2014
1,773
3,605
I usually buy from eBay, never bought from them, but people here bought in the past.

It's weird that you have problems with Safari and not gaming. Did you tried to run Furmark? Furmark it's considered one of the best stress tests. See if you can run the stress test without your backplane/PSU shutting down.


I’ll try furmark, but for what it’s worth I’ve already tried running LuxMark stress test, Call of Duty 4 max graphics, a terribly-inefficient Logic project and 4K YouTube videos all at the same time and the computer didn’t hiccup in the slightest.

I’ve run for hours straight doing everything from Halo 5 Forge and Overload (great game, check it out) to boot camp management and mindless web browsing in Firefox. As long as I don’t touch Safari, it’s totally flawless.

It makes me wonder if there’s some kind of security patch in Safari for Spectre or Meltdown or the likes that shoots into action, causes a voltage glitch at the CPU that the aging PSU can’t handle and freezes the whole system. If it were software related I should expect to find it in the logs, right? As far as I can tell from the console, the computer has no idea that it turned off.
 

tsialex

Contributor
Jun 13, 2016
13,455
13,602
I’ll try furmark, but for what it’s worth I’ve already tried running LuxMark stress test, Call of Duty 4 max graphics, a terribly-inefficient Logic project and 4K YouTube videos all at the same time and the computer didn’t hiccup in the slightest.

I’ve run for hours straight doing everything from Halo 5 Forge and Overload (great game, check it out) to boot camp management and mindless web browsing in Firefox. As long as I don’t touch Safari, it’s totally flawless.

It makes me wonder if there’s some kind of security patch in Safari for Spectre or Meltdown or the likes that shoots into action, causes a voltage glitch at the CPU that the aging PSU can’t handle and freezes the whole system. If it were software related I should expect to find it in the logs, right? As far as I can tell from the console, the computer has no idea that it turned off.
If was software related lot's of people would have it too, your exact config is very common since was recommend by Apple for Mojave. It's something wrong on your Mac hardware.

The fastest Xeon that can be used on a Mac Pro when in maximum power consumption draws 130W each, yours is rated for 80W each. Your PSU is rated for 980W, so it's not power consumption related, but something else.

When PSUs are dying, sleep becomes a source of problems. Did you checked if your Mac goes to sleep without any problems? One good test is to keep it at sleep overnight and see if it works again next morning, usually at least 10h of sleep. Some people only have problems 24h+ later or over the weekend.
 

eicca

Suspended
Oct 23, 2014
1,773
3,605
If was software related lot's of people would have it too, your exact config is very common since was recommend by Apple for Mojave. It's something wrong on your Mac hardware.

The fastest Xeon that can be used on a Mac Pro when in maximum power consumption draws 130W each, yours is rated for 80W each. Your PSU is rated for 980W, so it's not power consumption related, but something else.

When PSUs are dying, sleep becomes a source of problems. Did you checked if your Mac goes to sleep without any problems? One good test is to keep it at sleep overnight and see if it works again next morning, usually at least 10h of sleep. Some people only have problems 24h+ later or over the weekend.

It does go to sleep just fine, but I haven’t left it there for very long. I’ll give long term sleep a try next. What am I looking for there? Shutting off while sleeping? Not waking properly?
 
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