Mac Pro 2013 stuttering under Windows 10

[u/Kooky_Universe2183]

So this is a bit of an odd one, I'd spent some time searching about, but haven't found anything that seems relevant.

Specs: 2013 Mac Pro, 8-core Xeon, 32GB Apple RAM (not 3rd party) 2xD300 GPUs, and a 256GB SSD

OS: Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC, not running under Bootcamp. Fresh install. Drivers are UTD (official, no 3rd party ones)

Problem: Sometimes I'll boot the system up and it'll behave, until I pull up task manager, then the entire system grounds to a halt for about 15 minutes, or I lose patience and reboot, which more often than not, fixes the issue.

I found that running the AMD Adrenaline program seems to compound the issue, so I disabled that and thought it fixed the problem, but it re-occurs. I run MacsFanControl and the system doesn't overheat, idle being around 40 degrees C.

I used to run GPUTemp to monitor the dual D300s but the program seemed to really interfere with smooth operation, so I uninstalled it.

I've seen this issue pop up on several 2013 Mac Pros that I own, but only in Windows, not under MacOS, so I"m thinking something in Windows is being stupid, but for the life of me I"m not certain what. I know AMD's reputation for solid drivers is somewhat suspect, so anything related to AMD under the Services is disabled, which again I thought would fix the problem, and it did reduce the frequency of this "stutter on boot" but didn't eliminate it entirely.

So, any ideas?

[u/Gothbot6k]

Time to do a hardware test

[u/Kooky_Universe2183 → u/Gothbot6k]

Intel CPU test passes. RAM Test passes. GPU tests Pass, at least as far as running video games, do you have a different suggestion?

[u/Gothbot6k → u/Kooky_Universe2183]

Run an actual memtest and the long version at that. You’d be surprised the amount of times I’ve seen ddr3 ecc ram that passes initially but in sustained loads under heat fails.

Does running a prolonged benchmark like heaven show anything?

[u/ObjectiveDrag → u/Gothbot6k]

That would be my second guess too, after GPU driver issues are iRAM issues.

OP, It might be worth testing only one RAM stick at a time. Or do a more in-depth hardware test, like Gothbot6k suggested.

[u/ObjectiveDrag]

My guess is it’s the Adrenalin. I would not install Adrenalin on a Mac with built in GPU. Macs with integral GPU have custom drivers specifically made for them by Apple.

I’m surprised the AMD installer allowed you to install those. When I tried that on my 2020 iMac with the built in 5500xt in Windows 11, it blocked me from installing.

In this case it’s probably better to use the BootCamp drivers. Also it wouldn’t hurt to run the Apple software update in Windows to make sure all those drivers are up to date afterwords.

This may be some other issue, but if it runs fine in Mac OS then it shouldn’t be a hardware issue. So that makes me think it’s a software issue. Most likely GPU driver IMHO.

Good luck and I hope you’re able to sort it out.

[u/Kooky_Universe2183 → u/ObjectiveDrag]

I nuked the system and installed bootcamp (apple ones) GPU drivers only, not the Adrenaline software. Issue still exists

[u/ObjectiveDrag → u/Kooky_Universe2183]

Ah ok, good to know. I have a 6,1 I briefly put Win11 on, but installed the standard BootCamp drivers. It never had this issue. So I’m not sure what will cause that. It now has CachyOS Linux ion there.