MP 7,1 Mac Pro freezing randomly

[cloudyo]

Has anyone else experienced random freezes with the new mac pro? I am running this config:

• 3,5 GHz 8‑Core Intel Xeon W Processor
• 32 GB (4 x 8 GB) DDR4 ECC Ram
• 2 TB SSD
• Radeon Pro W5700X

I have not done any hardware upgrades or changes. In fact, I have just unboxed it a few hours ago. I have it hooked to an LG 5K Display (the previous version).

The problem can be described as follows: The computer just freezes randomly without displaying any error. The keyboard and mouse go dead. The magic trackpad stops clicking and on the magic keyboard the caps lock light doesn't turn on anymore.

Sometimes I can still move the mouse on the screen and I feel the haptic feedback of the trackpad when I click but every click is ignored by Mac OS. A few seconds later the mouse freezes too and the mac is completely unresponsive.

The only remedy is holding down the power button to force a shutdown.

I have already run the apple hardware diagnostics (holding "D" on startup) which has not found any error.

Its really sad that a machine that costs more than € 8k cannot seem to run flawlessly.

 

[tsialex]

While it's unfortunately that you are having trouble for something that should be flawless, did you updated your Mac Pro to the current macOS release? 10.15.4 has new firmwares for your Mac Pro:

Apple ROM Version
  BIOS ID:      MP71.88Z.F000.B00.2003170019
  Model:        MP71
  EFI Version:  1037.100.359.0.0
  Built by:     _securitya@pdb391
  Date:         Tue Mar 17 00:19:16 2020
  Revision:     1037.100.359 (B&I)
  ROM Version:  F000_B00
  Build Type:   Official Build, RELEASE
  Compiler:     clang-1103.2.29.8

You can check all firmware versions released here:

2019 Mac Pro BootROM/EFI/iBridge updates tracking thread

macOS release: Availability: Release Date: EFI Version: BIOS version: iBridge: 10.15.1 (19B88) General availability 20191024 1037.40.124 MP71.88Z.F000.B00.1910172048 16.16.6571.0.0 10.15.2 DP1 (19C32e) Beta release 20191107 1037.60.50 MP71.88Z.F000.B00.1910310604 17.16.12535.5.2 10.15.2...

forums.macrumors.com

 

[cloudyo]

Thank you for you input. All Software is up-to-date:

 

[thomast0001]

Has anyone else experienced random freezes with the new mac pro? I am running this config:

• 3,5 GHz 8‑Core Intel Xeon W Processor
• 32 GB (4 x 8 GB) DDR4 ECC Ram
• 2 TB SSD
• Radeon Pro W5700X

I have not done any hardware upgrades or changes. In fact, I have just unboxed it a few hours ago. I have it hooked to an LG 5K Display (the previous version).

The problem can be described as follows: The computer just freezes randomly without displaying any error. The keyboard and mouse go dead. The magic trackpad stops clicking and on the magic keyboard the caps lock light doesn't turn on anymore.

Sometimes I can still move the mouse on the screen and I feel the haptic feedback of the trackpad when I click but every click is ignored by Mac OS. A few seconds later the mouse freezes too and the mac is completely unresponsive.

The only remedy is holding down the power button to force a shutdown.

I have already run the apple hardware diagnostics (holding "D" on startup) which has not found any error.

Its really sad that a machine that costs more than € 8k cannot seem to run flawlessly.

I also recently received the W5700X. I'm not seeing any of these issues. I've got the 12-core with a 1TB SSD (although I'm not using that one -- I'm using a different NVME card also with 1TB). I've run GB5, Unigine Heaven, and Unigine Valley fairly extensively. At the moment I have both the 580X and W5700X cards installed so I can quickly switch between them for performance comparisons. I've run the benchmarks enough to stimulate a fan ramp-up. The temps have reached about 105c for the W5700X, so I've stressed it at least that much, with no issues other than the weird GB5 Metal performance issues I reported.

The first order of business is to remove the W5700X and use the original 580X instead to see if the system instability goes away. You need to isolate the problem as best you can. Another thing is to revisit all the removable components to ensure they are all properly seated. Removing and reinserting them can help. These are the basics. Once you get beyond them you can continue to try to diagnose the issue.

 

[cloudyo]

The first order of business is to remove the W5700X and use the original 580X instead to see if the system instability goes away.

I ordered the machine with the W5700X installed already. I don't have a 580X.

But, I have tried a few things and so far there have been no more crashes. First, I hooked the external SSD to a different thunderbolt port. It was previously plugged into a port on the GPU. And I reset PRAM/NVRAM.

I have a feeling that using the thunderbolt ports on the GPU for other things than display output is not stable yet.

 

[Theophilos]

Were you moving files by any chance? There is a known Catalina bug relating to this.

 

[handheldgames]

Were you moving files by any chance? There is a known Catalina bug relating to this.

Catalina with the T2 chip? My 12-core AMD 3900X hackintosh with a 5700XT and dual PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD's is rock solid and it left $6000 in the bank compared to a true 7,1.

 

[thomast0001]

I ordered the machine with the W5700X installed already. I don't have a 580X.

Ah. I hadn’t thought anyone would have received a configuration with the W5700X by now. Good to know.

But, I have tried a few things and so far there have been no more crashes. First, I hooked the external SSD to a different thunderbolt port. It was previously plugged into a port on the GPU. And I reset PRAM/NVRAM.

I have a feeling that using the thunderbolt ports on the GPU for other things than display output is not stable yet.

Oooooooooh. You’re using an external drive connected via thunderbolt. NOW the hangs and crashes make sense!

I’ve had the same issue. Depending on the chipset, external drives are flaky to say the least. You may find moving it around won’t really do much good if it’s a chipset issue. I’d suggest doing some stress testing with large file transfers to see if that external drive is really and truly stable.

What external drive are you using, and what kind of cabling? Not all USB-C/thunderbolt3 cables are created equal.

 

[cloudyo]

What external drive are you using, and what kind of cabling?

It is this enclosure: https://www.asus.com/ROG-Republic-Of-Gamers/ROG-STRIX-ARION/
with this drive: https://www.samsung.com/us/computin...ssd-970-evo-plus-nvme-m-2-1-tb-mz-v7s1t0b-am/

Edit: BTW, I haven't had any freezes for hours now. Previously they happened every 15-20 minutes.

 

[thomast0001]

It is this enclosure: https://www.asus.com/ROG-Republic-Of-Gamers/ROG-STRIX-ARION/
with this drive: https://www.samsung.com/us/computin...ssd-970-evo-plus-nvme-m-2-1-tb-mz-v7s1t0b-am/

Edit: BTW, I haven't had any freezes for hours now. Previously they happened every 15-20 minutes.

Thanks for the info! It took me a while, but I finally found a mention of the chipset it uses: https://www.unboxingtreatment.com/2019/10/asus-rog-strix-arion-ssd-enclosure-release.html?amp

According to the article it uses the ASMedia ASM2362 bridge chip which is good! The one you want to avoid is the JMS583. That chipset can best be described as unstable. If you have an enclosure that uses that bridge chip you are in for a world of hurt.

With that out of the way, I’d agree using the board’s ports for something other than graphics apparently can be problematic from your experience.

 

[Hessel89]

My maxed out Mac Mini 2018 i7 has the same issue. There is no solution besides leaving my Magic Keyboard and Trackpad connected through USB at all times. Kind of ridiculous that even a machine that costs a small fortune has this problem.

 

[Meads]

Got the same with my iMac Pro. It’s a GPU issue, that‘s all I could find out. Only solution for me is having Amphetamine running at all times. Great job, Apple.

 

[startergo]

Has anyone else experienced random freezes with the new mac pro? I am running this config:

• 3,5 GHz 8‑Core Intel Xeon W Processor
• 32 GB (4 x 8 GB) DDR4 ECC Ram
• 2 TB SSD
• Radeon Pro W5700X

I have not done any hardware upgrades or changes. In fact, I have just unboxed it a few hours ago. I have it hooked to an LG 5K Display (the previous version).

The problem can be described as follows: The computer just freezes randomly without displaying any error. The keyboard and mouse go dead. The magic trackpad stops clicking and on the magic keyboard the caps lock light doesn't turn on anymore.

Sometimes I can still move the mouse on the screen and I feel the haptic feedback of the trackpad when I click but every click is ignored by Mac OS. A few seconds later the mouse freezes too and the mac is completely unresponsive.

The only remedy is holding down the power button to force a shutdown.

I have already run the apple hardware diagnostics (holding "D" on startup) which has not found any error.

Its really sad that a machine that costs more than € 8k cannot seem to run flawlessly.

This normally should be logged as a kernell panic. Have you looked in the system logs?

 

[cloudyo]

There is no solution besides leaving my Magic Keyboard and Trackpad connected through USB at all times.

Thats exactly what I did and it didn't help. The keyboard and trackpad were at all times connected to the thunderbolt display via lightning cables.

This normally should be logged as a kernell panic. Have you looked in the system logs?

I looked in the "console" app. There were no kernel panics that I could find. The logs only "assumed" an error, because the system wasn't shut down correctly.

 

[aleksoctop]

With freezes, I'd recommend running Rember to see if perhaps one of your ramsticks is awry.
Otherwise, try the latest Catalina beta. It's a longshot, but it COULD help

 

[eflx]

Best solution IMO -> boot into recovery mode, and re-install Mac OS. I have had to do that on my Mac Pro as well and I purchased mine recently with the W5700X as you have.

The Mac Pro came with 10.15.2 and I got it while the 10.15.4 supplemental update was required too; still needed a full-fresh reinstall.

You won't lose any data, and everything will remain for you. Just go do a re-install; the other thing I did was set the T2 security settings to "medium". I've not had a single crash since, and I've done this on 2 Mac Pro's now - both of which were crashing, mostly due to sleep related issues it seemed in my case. It didn't crash at all during regular use to note.

Apple has silently fixed the 10.15.4 update to be bundled into one, but it requires a re-install to re-set things correctly. I'm "99.9%" positive that'll work for you, as it did twice for me with 2 different machines. The 10.15.4 update was a completely botched release. Hope they make things much better with the upcoming .5 release. C'mon Apple!

 

[Theophilos]

With freezes, I'd recommend running Rember to see if perhaps one of your ramsticks is awry.
Otherwise, try the latest Catalina beta. It's a longshot, but it COULD help

Thanks for your feedback. Yes, I tried removing all of my third-party DIMMs and running the machine with the Apple memory. Same problems.
[automerge]1589747445[/automerge]

Best solution IMO -> boot into recovery mode, and re-install Mac OS. I have had to do that on my Mac Pro as well and I purchased mine recently with the W5700X as you have.

The Mac Pro came with 10.15.2 and I got it while the 10.15.4 supplemental update was required too; still needed a full-fresh reinstall.

You won't lose any data, and everything will remain for you. Just go do a re-install; the other thing I did was set the T2 security settings to "medium". I've not had a single crash since, and I've done this on 2 Mac Pro's now - both of which were crashing, mostly due to sleep related issues it seemed in my case. It didn't crash at all during regular use to note.

Apple has silently fixed the 10.15.4 update to be bundled into one, but it requires a re-install to re-set things correctly. I'm "99.9%" positive that'll work for you, as it did twice for me with 2 different machines. The 10.15.4 update was a completely botched release. Hope they make things much better with the upcoming .5 release. C'mon Apple!

Thanks for this. I will try it and report back.

 

[cobra521]

Well I tried the recovery mode reinstall. It seemed easy and successful. Except it refused to shut down - I had to hold the button down after waiting a half hour...

 

[Theophilos]

Well I tried the recovery mode reinstall. It seemed easy and successful. Except it refused to shut down - I had to hold the button down after waiting a half hour...

I tried it, too, but it didn’t solve my Mac Pro crash while sleeping issue. Apple said the issue is related to a hardware failure with PCIe slot 5, so they picked up the machine today and promised to return it with a new logic board tomorrow.

 

[eflx]

Darn, sorry to hear! At least you know the issue now; that's unfortunate. Let us know if that fixes it completely for you. I haven't seen my crashes come back at all since I reinstalled. Definitely no hanging while in use or refusing to shut down though.

After the 2nd crash overnight with sleep on the 1st machine, I promptly re-installed the updates and didn't see the issue persist. Same with my 2nd machine - after the first sleep crash, I reinstalled and not a crash now since reinstalling on the 14th.

Let us know if that fixes it completely for you with the new logic board. Curious to know!