MP All Models PCIe SSDs - NVMe & AHCI

[tsialex]

Another data point:

I have a H*ckint*sh with the following parts:
---
8700K
ASUS ROG STRIX-Z390-I motherboard
Sapphire RX 580 Nitro+ SE
Crucial 500GB SATA SSD (The Cx500 or whatever)
970 EVO Plus
Vanilla macOS install with SIP fully enabled.
* NO modifications to the OS install itself.
* Latest Lilu, AppleALC, WhateverGreen versions.
---

Trying to use macOS with the 970 EVO Plus, the system freezes within a minute or two of boot. The screen displays my desktop but it's frozen and the keyboard/mouse don't work and the device doesn't ping from a remote device. So, a hard lock.

So I ended up installing macOS on the Crucial for now, and put Windows on the EVO 970 Plus. The Plus works flawlessly under Windows.

When I boot into macOS off of the Crucial, the 970 EVO Plus with its NTFS volume is automatically mounted. If I do not unmount it quickly the system will freeze within a minute or two in the exact same manner. (I fixed this by turning off auto mount with sudo vifs)

I read the posts in this forum and as a test, removed my RX 580 card from my system completely and the lock up scenarios I described continue to happen just the same.

TL;DR: macOS locks up whenever a partition on the EVO 970 Plus is mounted, whether it's APFS, HFS+, or NTFS. If the partition is not mounted, the system does not freeze. The system otherwise runs remarkably.

Edit: Just to clarify, I'm not looking for help, just offering a data point to this discussion. I'd be happy to answer any questions.

Seems 970 EVO Plus have a firmware incompatibility with macOS (NVMe/AFPS/??), that 970 PRO and the original EVO don't have.

Let's keep 970 PRO booting problems separate from the 970 EVO Plus probable incompatibility with MP5,1, it's not the same thing. Mixing both will make it even harder to track this.

 

[handheldgames]

You are making the wrong correlation here, GPU is not the smoking gun. Something else is causing this.

Since lot's of people have 970 PROs working perfectly and the booting problem affect probably two people, maybe we are looking at the wrong thing - I don't doubt that some of 970 PROs could be lemons, but we sure didn't found what is going on yet.

I've been using the Sapphire Pulse RX 580 + 970 Pro in my office Mac Pro since @crjackson2134 started to have problems and I tried to track it unsuccessfully. I boot numerous times a day, shutdown at day's end and I never get this problem.

This mystery continues.

The video card is not the smoking gun, just one of the components that can create chaos for some users. It never hurts to ask when issues like these are happening.

I shuttle a Highpoint SSD7101 with 970 pro's between a Mac Pro 5,1 at the home with a rx480 and the office with a rx470 on a daily basis. I've never had an issue with drive stability or compatibility on the cMP. Once in a while, the rx480 based system refuses to output a valid resolution on a 4k displayport lcd.

If I ever run into an issue as described, the 1st step is to install a clean OS with stripped hardware to track down what's causing the problem. Adding components then software as needed to track down the smoking gun.
[doublepost=1552162100][/doublepost]

Seems 970 EVO Plus have a firmware incompatibility with macOS (NVMe/AFPS/??), that 970 PRO and the original EVO don't have.

Let's keep 970 PRO booting problems separate from the 970 EVO Plus probable incompatibility with MP5,1, it's not the same thing. Mixing both will make it even harder to track this.

All the drives have the same phoenix controller.

 

[tsialex]

All the drives have the same phoenix controller.

But not the same firmware, NAND type or/and NAND construction technique. They are not the same and only 970 EVO Plus seems to have some sort of incompatibility with MP5,1.

 

[handheldgames]

But not the same firmware, NAND type or/and NAND construction technique. They are not the same and only 970 EVO Plus seems to have some sort of incompatibility with MP5,1.

Noted. Until someone with a 970 evo plus that is experiencing the issue takes the 1st step is to install a clean OS with stripped hardware to identify the issue, anything is a guess.

Update: This thread over at TonyMacX86 offers good insight on the Evo Plus problem.

Looks like it happens across Mojave and High Sierra, with a variety of hardware configurations including AFPS and HFS.

Apparently windows requires a custom nvme driver for the 970 evo plus. This may explain the issues in macos since there isn't a custom nvme driver from samsung.

 

[jake541]

Apparently windows requires a custom nvme driver for the 970 evo plus. This may explain the issues in macos since there isn't a custom nvme driver from samsung.

Another data point: I did not have to manually install a driver for the 970 EVO Plus to work. Windows 10 just installed and presumably auto-downloaded whatever drivers are needed.

 

[Fangio]

Update: This thread over at TonyMacX86 offers good insight on the Evo Plus problem.

Recent comment from there

I bought a 1tb 970 evo plus before I read this. I have windows 10 running fine on it. I made an hfs+ and exfat partition. [...] The 970 evo plus shows up, all 3 partitions. I'm able to copy files to the exfat partition. I'm not getting random freezes, but it seems to eject itself randomly and I get the eject your drive before removing it message. It seems like whatever is going on is OSX related.

I hope someone comes up with a fix, it's ridiculously fast in windows. I tried to get the regular 970 evo but microcenter was sold out, and best buy doesn't carry them in store anymore. Also I have a hard time paying the same price or more for something that is outdated and not as fast. The Plus seems to be the future.

 

[ascendantP]

Saw a deal on Microcenter for a 1TB intel NVME blade for $110 that I couldn't resist.

https://www.microcenter.com/product...80-pcie-nvme-30-x4-internal-solid-state-drive

Picked it up because my Crucial P1 500GB NVME was filling up fast due to my Bootcamp partition. Newegg seems to be matching Microcenter's price if anyone wants a budget 1TB blade.

Running in Mojave on 140 bootrom using the Lycom DT-120 controller for about 2 days with no hiccups. The only notable difference between the Intel blade and the Crucial P1 is that the Intel is able to write about 500 MB/s faster than the Crucial P1 but the Intel blade runs 4 C hotter than the Crucial P1. Temperature readings taken after doing transferring 210 GB of data using Migration assistance from my Time machine backup.

 

[flowrider]

Update: This thread over at TonyMacX86 offers good insight on the Evo Plus problem.

I see no insight - only that the 970 EVO Pro doesn't work. Thanks to tsialex, much more insight here.

Lou

 

[Bugs713]

Regarding the 970 EVO Plus, yesterday I bought and installed a 1TB in the KyroM.2 adaptor and loaded a cloned copy of HS 10.13.6(17G5019) in cMP 2010, 12 core 2x 3.46GHz), 140. boot rom, Nvidia 980TI. I cloned from a High Point 7101A adaptor with two 970 Pro 512GB in RAID/0 with HFS format, the KyroM.2 I formatted with APFS with the 970 Plus.
Started shutting down after a 10 minutes with this Error:

*** Panic Report ***
panic(cpu 2 caller 0xffffff7f84eede2b): nvme: " NVMe: Command timed-out and request found in the completion queue \n"@/BuildRoot/Library/Caches/com.apple.xbs/Sources/IONVMeFamily/IONVMeFamily-356.71.1/IONVMeController.cpp:5184

I had read a few days ago on page 1 Compatibility status for this drive and it showed nothing, but thought I'd try it anyway. Came back here this morning and that status changed to Issues/not compatible. My timing has always been a little off...lol
I copied two of the Panic Reports if anyone needs them?
Anyway, returning the 970 EVO Plus for a 970 EVO or Pro.
Thought I would post this, sorry if in the wrong area.

 

[tsialex]

Regarding the 970 EVO Plus, yesterday I bought and installed a 1TB in the KyroM.2 adaptor and loaded a cloned copy of HS 10.13.6(17G5019) in cMP 2010, 12 core 2x 3.46GHz), 140. boot rom, Nvidia 980TI. I cloned from a High Point 7101A adaptor with two 970 Pro 512GB in RAID/0 with HFS format, the KyroM.2 I formatted with APFS with the 970 Plus.
Started shutting down after a 10 minutes with this Error:

*** Panic Report ***
panic(cpu 2 caller 0xffffff7f84eede2b): nvme: " NVMe: Command timed-out and request found in the completion queue \n"@/BuildRoot/Library/Caches/com.apple.xbs/Sources/IONVMeFamily/IONVMeFamily-356.71.1/IONVMeController.cpp:5184

I had read a few days ago on page 1 Compatibility status for this drive and it showed nothing, but thought I'd try it anyway. Came back here this morning and that status changed to Issues/not compatible. My timing has always been a little off...lol
I copied two of the Panic Reports if anyone needs them?
Anyway, returning the 970 EVO Plus for a 970 EVO or Pro.
Thought I would post this, sorry if in the wrong area.

I updated the first post earlier today, we already have enough reports to exclude individual blade problems, 970 EVO Plus have some macOS incompatibility - not only MP5,1 are having 970 EVO Plus problems but MP6,1 and even MM7,1.

 

[tsialex]

Looks like it happens across Mojave and High Sierra, with a variety of hardware configurations including AFPS and HFS.

Apparently windows requires a custom nvme driver for the 970 evo plus. This may explain the issues in macos since there isn't a custom nvme driver from samsung.

Seems to be a general macOS incompatibility problem.

Btw, Sierra don't support NVMe blades with 512 bytes / sector drives, all Samsung NMVe consumer blades are 512 bytes / sector, so you won't find anyone with Sierra reporting problems - it just don't work

 

[handheldgames]

I see no insight - only that the 970 EVO Pro doesn't work. Thanks to tsialex, much more insight here.

Lou

Snarkey.. Nice. One can only see what they are gifted with. No offense taken. Unlike macrumors macpro forums, every user with a 970 Evo is displaying their hardware configuration. There is one user here at macrumors where its working and a whole bunch of users where it isn't. Something is different with the hardware / software configurations between the working and the not.
[doublepost=1552260106][/doublepost]

Regarding the 970 EVO Plus, yesterday I bought and installed a 1TB in the KyroM.2 adaptor and loaded a cloned copy of HS 10.13.6(17G5019) in cMP 2010, 12 core 2x 3.46GHz), 140. boot rom, Nvidia 980TI. I cloned from a High Point 7101A adaptor with two 970 Pro 512GB in RAID/0 with HFS format, the KyroM.2 I formatted with APFS with the 970 Plus.
Started shutting down after a 10 minutes with this Error:

*** Panic Report ***
panic(cpu 2 caller 0xffffff7f84eede2b): nvme: " NVMe: Command timed-out and request found in the completion queue \n"@/BuildRoot/Library/Caches/com.apple.xbs/Sources/IONVMeFamily/IONVMeFamily-356.71.1/IONVMeController.cpp:5184

I had read a few days ago on page 1 Compatibility status for this drive and it showed nothing, but thought I'd try it anyway. Came back here this morning and that status changed to Issues/not compatible. My timing has always been a little off...lol
I copied two of the Panic Reports if anyone needs them?
Anyway, returning the 970 EVO Plus for a 970 EVO or Pro.
Thought I would post this, sorry if in the wrong area.

If you have any SATA devices, hard disks, cd-roms, USB disks, etc. Can you disconnect them and see if the problem persists? While it's a shot in the dark.. Ya never know.

 

[fatespawn]

I saw some comments about the Velocity cards and wanted to reiterate that I'm running a Velocity Solo X2 with a Samsung 850EVO simultaneously with the Kryo M.2 + Samsung 970Pro and they seem to work seamlessly together. See my sig for configuration. No problems. The Evo Plus was a problem.

 

[MIKX]

I hope that not working 970 EVO Plus owners are sending lots of bug reports to Apple.

From tonymacx86 website

post #33
https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/...work-spoiler-alert-no-they-dont.270757/page-4

I bought a 1tb 970 evo plus before I read this. I have windows 10 running fine on it. I made an hfs+ and exfat partition. I'm now running 10.12.6 on an 850 evo sata ssd. The 970 evo plus shows up, all 3 partitions. I'm able to copy files to the exfat partition. I'm not getting random freezes, but it seems to eject itself randomly and I get the eject your drive before removing it message. It seems like whatever is going on is OSX related.

I hope someone comes up with a fix, it's ridiculously fast in windows. I tried to get the regular 970 evo but microcenter was sold out, and best buy doesn't cary them in store anymore. Also I have a hard time paying the same price or more for something that is outdated and not as fast. The plus seems to be the future.

 

[Fangio]

Yep @MIKX I've quoted that before in #656 because the last part sums up my thoughts exactly

Btw I'm getting PMs like this

Is your Samsung 970 EVO Plus still working without any shutdowns, problems etc.?

I do have longer uptimes, it doesn't crash as boot drive, even sleep/wake works. BUT I'm not satisfied with the write performance, it drops significantly after a short time. As I've said, too many issue reports, not yet recommended. I'm still within the return window at that big river warehouse and edit2 can send it back till end of march, probably for a Pro.

Edit, I like the kryoM.2 though, cooling works well. Thats a keeper.

 

[0134168]

Yep @MIKX I've quoted that before in #656 because the last part sums up my thoughts exactly

Btw I'm getting PMs like this

I do have longer uptimes, it doesn't crash as boot drive, even sleep/wake works. BUT I'm not satisfied with the write performance, it drops significantly after a short time. As I've said, too many issue reports, not yet recommended. I'm still within the return window at that big river warehouse and will return it this week.

I think PRO is the best option nowadays

 

[MIKX]

Of course there is the possibility that Apple will fix the 142.0.0.0.0 bootrom seeing that 5,1 cMPs will all be affected by the 970 EVO Plus. .. . if there are a ton of bug reports regarding the 970 EVO Plus . . . OR . .if Samsung releases a firmware update.

In the meantime I agree that the proven 970 EVO or Pro is the best for the present.

I saw one report of a guy buying TWO 1Tb 970 EVO Pus models .. . ouch ! there is a lesson here for us all.

 

[bsbeamer]

Also I have a hard time paying the same price or more for something that is outdated and not as fast. The plus seems to be the future.

Compatibility is the first checklist item, then all other benefits fall in line after that. The future is now and 2009/2010/2012 Mac Pro in the same sentence are almost oxymoron. This will likely be resolved at SOME POINT with firmware updates, but buying the bleeding edge tech upgrades for macOS has rarely been recommended for any of their product lines... either wait it out or buy the "older" model which is still extremely fast.

FYI, plenty of legitimate vendors are selling 970 EVO an 970 PRO models still.

B&H has EVO 970 in 1TB and 2TB:
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1398241-REG/samsung_mz_v7e1t0bw_1tb_970_evo_nvme.html

B&H also has PRO 970 in 512GB and 1TB:
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1398243-REG/samsung_mz_v7p512bw_512gb_970_pro_nvme.html

SOME of the unavailable capacities MIGHT be replenished in the coming weeks. There were sales on several models recently which cleared inventory.

 

[flowrider]

There are only two reviews referencing the macintosh on Amazon. I will be adding a third:

And with the second review, it's now apparent that it's not just the cMP 5,1 that's the issue.

Lou

 

[tsialex]

Of course there is the possibility that Apple will fix the 142.0.0.0.0 bootrom seeing that 5,1 cMPs will all be affected by the 970 EVO Plus. .. . if there are a ton of bug reports regarding the 970 EVO Plus . . . OR . .if Samsung releases a firmware update.

In the meantime I agree that the proven 970 EVO or Pro is the best for the present.

I saw one report of a guy buying TWO 1Tb 970 EVO Pus models .. . ouch ! there is a lesson here for us all.

You are making a wrong assumption here, it's not the Mac Pro firmware that is incompatible with 970 EVO Plus, it's macOS. Or better, 970 EVO Plus is incompatible with macOS. If you run only Windows, it will work, as people already showed.

Stick with 970 PRO, it's faster overall, much more faster when doing big writes, has more cache, warranty is bigger, endurance is a lot greater and it's fully compatible. Btw, it's not much more expensive nowadays.

 

[MarkC426]

Has anyone tried a Wolftech Pulsecard pcie adapter?
I tried to order an Angel Bird Wings PX1, but got a call telling me they couldn’t get hold of one (as they are discontinued). The support agent told me the Wolftech is ‘exactly the same’ but without led’s. I thought I should grab a PX1 before they become extinct.
I was intending to use a 970 evo with it.

 

[bsbeamer]

Has anyone tried a Wolftech Pulsecard pcie adapter?
I tried to order an Angel Bird Wings PX1, but got a call telling me they couldn’t get hold of one (as they are discontinued). The support agent told me the Wolftech is ‘exactly the same’ but without led’s. I thought I should grab a PX1 before they become extinct.
I was intending to use a 970 evo with it.

Nice find, it certainly looks nearly identical to my PX1 with EVO 970. Wonder if it will be available outside of Europe.

 

[MarkC426]

Yep it does look similar.
But I don’t know the ins and outs of the different specs on these cards, like some of the dudes here.
I looked on the first page and it’s not listed as to use or not.

 

[tsialex]

Yep it does look similar.
But I don’t know the ins and outs of the different specs on these cards, like some of the dudes here.
I looked on the first page and it’s not listed as to use or not.

It's the basic version of PX1. I'll add it.

 

[MarkC426]

What is basic about it, is it less of a spec?
Would I get better performance/compatibility with the PX1.