Installed the beta and now I can boot with my TB3 EGPU (RX570 in Razer Core X) with the monitor attached to the EGPU.
That was the top of my list for fixes.
That was the top of my list for fixes.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
My 2018 Mac mini now boots with EGPU attached !
- Thread starter jabbawok
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
This is fantastic news! It's been about a month since you posted this – are you still able to boot with your monitor attached to the eGPU? After the Catalina fiasco, I'm trying not to get my hopes up _too_ high. But it would be amazing if Apple manages to fix this blunder for good.
The Radeon RX 590 is currently not on Apple's official list of recommended cards for eGPUs. Don't blindly take my word for it, go look at the official eGPU document on Apple's support site yourself.
The Radeon RX 580 is mentioned in the document with Apple specifically citing the Sapphire Pulse model as recommended.
I know this because I spent several months debating on buying an eGPU and I read the Apple support document carefully and revisited the page multiple times over that period to see if there were any changes. I ended up buying the Sapphire Pulse Radeon RX 580 card instead of the more recent RX 5700 because I am still running Mojave and the latter is only supported at a certain version of Catalina and later.
READ THEIR DOCUMENT.
The Radeon RX 580 is mentioned in the document with Apple specifically citing the Sapphire Pulse model as recommended.
I know this because I spent several months debating on buying an eGPU and I read the Apple support document carefully and revisited the page multiple times over that period to see if there were any changes. I ended up buying the Sapphire Pulse Radeon RX 580 card instead of the more recent RX 5700 because I am still running Mojave and the latter is only supported at a certain version of Catalina and later.
READ THEIR DOCUMENT.
Last edited:
Well dang, I just got my Mini a month ago and an eGPU was probably going to be my next purchase for it in August. I bought an RX570 in 2018 so my Mac Pro could limp along with Mojave, but now that its gone I might as well put the 570 to use since I do game from time to time. Guess I can save some money and wait a bit longer. Hopefully they dont break Big Sur again in between now and the gold master..
I have read this DOCUMENT may times. At the bottom of the page above the publish date. Small print kinda nullifies any claim to Compatibility. I have called Apple on this many times. They told me I need to turn off FileVault and to swap cables after boot screen on my Mini if I do not have a second monitor set up. (item 1. below) That's not really compatible. Forget Bootcamp... Catalina will go down as maybe the worst release next to 10.7 Lion, at least for me. Hopefully, Big Sur is a little less beta. I still get random kernel panics and re-starts. On my third clean install of Catalina.
Yes, bad sadly only for a bit and then it went back to how it was before.
Again I'm relying on the dummy HDMI-4K plug thing, which boots 100% of the time.
Updated to Big Sur today. My GPU and Monitor was connected via DisplayPort on my RX580.
When it updated, my eGPU did not even turn on (Sonnet Breakaway Box). I can hear the Power Supply turn on but the lights didn't turn on like they normally would.
I then switched from using the DisplayPort to an HDMI. Once I connected the HDMI. The eGPU turned on and viola, its working. This is a new behavior.
I turned off the Mac mini to do a cold boot and then.....APPLE LOGO!!! It has never done this before. Booting from a ColdBoot with the monitor connected to the eGPU shows the Apple Logo. I usually have an HDMI Dummy connected and while booting its just a black screen and when the Mac mini is done booting the monitor just turns on to the Login Page. Now I no longer need the HDMI Dummy connected to the Mac mini. It just works.
I HOPE I'm not going crazy here.
I'm going to do more tests
When it updated, my eGPU did not even turn on (Sonnet Breakaway Box). I can hear the Power Supply turn on but the lights didn't turn on like they normally would.
I then switched from using the DisplayPort to an HDMI. Once I connected the HDMI. The eGPU turned on and viola, its working. This is a new behavior.
I turned off the Mac mini to do a cold boot and then.....APPLE LOGO!!! It has never done this before. Booting from a ColdBoot with the monitor connected to the eGPU shows the Apple Logo. I usually have an HDMI Dummy connected and while booting its just a black screen and when the Mac mini is done booting the monitor just turns on to the Login Page. Now I no longer need the HDMI Dummy connected to the Mac mini. It just works.
I HOPE I'm not going crazy here.
I'm going to do more tests
that is a step in the right direction ... I have not seen my apple logo since I installed my EGPU lol. That would be nice ... still waiting on the official release of Big Sur as so far things are working for me and dont want to shake it up just yet haha
