Asus Strix G15 AMD Advantage Edition (5900HX/6800M)

[SchmockLord]

Hi guys,

I have successfully installed Sonoma on my Asus Strix G15 AMD Advantage Edition (5900HX/6800M).

I also have the iGPU running using NootedRed, though only with 512MB.

But as soon as I enable NootRX.kext instead of NootedRed.kext, it wont start anymore. It hangs where it usually switches from the verbose mode to the Login Screen.



What is working:

• CPU Power Management: SSDT-CPUR.aml and AMDRyzenCPUPowerManagement.kext. Seems to work well, in Idle I get <10W on the CPU.
• iGPU: NootedRed.kext, but only with 512MB VRAM. Seems to be not enough, but can't change in BIOS.
• Keyboard: Took me days to get this running. It now works using VoodooPS2Controller.kext, but only after I disabled XHC1 and XHC2 (SSDT-Disable-USB.aml) and then used GenericUSBXHCI.kext)
• Trackpad: VoodooI2C.kext, VoodooI2CHID.kext and -vi2-force-polling
• USB: all ports working.
• Wifi: AirportItlwm.kext
• Ethernet: RealtekRTL8111.kext
• Battery

Issues:

• 6800M not working
• Battery Lifetime: 6800M seem to drain battery very quick.

Help:
1. Can somebody check my Disable-dGPU Variants to power-off the 6800M if I don't get it working? 6800M ACPI path is:
2. Can somebody check my SSDT-IGPU-DISABLE.aml? Is it required to get the 6800M working through NootRX.kext?

iGPU: \_SB.PCI0.GP17.VGA
6800M: \_SB.PCI0.GPP0.SWUS.SWDS.VGA

Best,
Chris aka SchmockLord

 

[Edhawk]

No, the DeviceProperties don’t work. Best not to have any DeviceProperties in your config.plist when using NootedRed.

There is another way to set the VRAM if your bios lacks those options. I read about them a while ago, but can’t recall where!

A shell command is used when the bios can’t be used. I will have a search around to see if I can find the link again.

 

[Edhawk]

The tool I was thinking about for editing the VRAM is Smokeless_UMAF. The Github page for the tool is linked below.

GitHub - DavidS95/Smokeless_UMAF

Contribute to DavidS95/Smokeless_UMAF development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

Be sure to read the warnings and notes about which settings to change, and which settings might not stick after a reboot.

Using this Tool should allow you to edit the UMA buffer size, which would increase the VRAM available to the APU.

As an example, one of my systems had 16GB RAM and I could increase VRAM to 8GB without any issues.

Depending on what you plan to use the laptop for, will dictate how much VRAM you should allocate. Most Intel IGPU's are limited at 1536MB VRAM and work just fine in macOS. So 2GB might be sufficient for general usage. If you plan to play higher end games or use graphics software then 4GB or more would be better.

 

[SchmockLord]

@Edhawk Mate, thank you sooo much for pointing me to that tool. This is so cool. I love tools like this. Really, thank you. How do you find such things?

It is like having a full featured BIOS now.

It was so easy and now I have 8GB VRAM.

I have also found some options to disable iGPU and use dGPU as Primary Adapter.

But as soon as I disable the iGPU, I don't have any display output any more.

Even with Windows.

But now with these plenty of features, do you we think there is any chance to get the 6800M working?

Here are some screenshots of the settings available.

 

[Edhawk]

I don’t know what most of those dGPU settings are for, so I am not able to tell you which to use.

The IGPU probably drives the laptop display when booting, not the dGPU. So it isn’t unexpected for the laptop screen to be blank, usually until you see the login screen. Does your laptop have a function key that allows you to shunt the display from the laptop to an external display and back again. Function key F5 or similar was used to throw the laptop display to a projector, so it might be something similar. Pressing this key might also initialise the laptop display.

What might also be happening is that the dGPU display out signal is initially being routed to the HDMI out port. If you connect an external display to the laptop via HDMI, does the external display show the OC boot screen etc?

 

[SchmockLord]

@Edhawk No, the external Display via HDMI is taking over when Windows/macOS are on the login screen. So after BIOS and any early-OS loading.

So on Windows earliest I see is the blue loading screen where you also see when Updates are installed.

And also the white verbose text of macOS is only showed on the internal display.

And when I tested all this NootRX and NootedRed, I always check if something comes out of the HDMI too. I have also noticed that DP via USBC is not working with NootedRed, but HDMI does.

I think I have also found a good summary of what is going on:
You can't disable it it'll make the machine unstable. Your G15 needs to have a MUX switch in order for you to switch from integrated to dedicated. My G15 AE edition doesn't have a MUX switch so the only way to really use the dedicated graphics card is by using an external monitor in which I have to buy a USB-C to Display port because that's the port that's connected to the dedicated graphics card.

Source:

https://www.reddit.com/r/ASUSROG/comments/zueson/_/j1jf2ow

I might try to boot again with NootRX and -wegnoigpu, but with USBC to DP and see what happens.
Tried it again, didn't work. Boot just takes forever and ends up in Vesa Mode.

I think I give up on the dGPU Support for now.

Apart from that I only have these issues remaining:

• Display not waking up after Display sleep
• Device doesn't turn into real sleep, just display sleep

Do you think if that can be fixed?

 

[Edhawk]

Yeah, those issues will usually be related to USB power calls and SystemWide Power settings. As if either or both are set incorrectly then your system won'w sleep.

For the USB power calls you need to generate a custom USBMap.kext.

For the systemwide power issues you need to use a few Terminal commands to set the system power settings to a specific configuration.

These are the terminal commands I use to set systemwide power options.

Terminal Commands
sudo pmset -g

The command above will display your current systemwide power options. The commands below (in italics) will change/set your systemwide power to cause less issues when the system tries to sleep.

Disable Hibernation
sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 0
sudo rm /var/vm/sleepimage
sudo mkdir /var/vm/sleepimage

Disable other hibernation options
sudo pmset -a standby 0
sudo pmset -a autopoweroff 0
sudo pmset -a womp 0
sudo pmset -a sleep 1

If you find that Hibernatemode 0 doesn't work you can also use Hibernatemode 3 or hibernatemode 29.
Both alternative hibernation mode settings are known to work ok with Intel laptops, they may work with an AMD laptop too.

 

[ExtremeXT]

• Device not waking up after Display sleep
• Device doesn't turn into real sleep, just display sleep

Enable S3 instead of Modern Standby in UMAF.

 

[Edhawk]

Also macOS Sonoma has introduced a Sleep/wake issue that wasn't present in Ventura or older versions of macOS. This wake issue effects M1, M2 and M3 Macs as well as Hacks.

Here is a post regarding Sleep issues in Ventura that leads in to the latest issues in Sonoma. No resolution to the wake issue yet,

https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/solved-ventura-random-scheduled-pm-wake-from-sleep.323359/page-6#post-2387692

 

[SchmockLord]

Enable S3 instead of Modern Standby in UMAF.

Yeah, I have found this option yesterday on my own and it worked pretty well. Now sleeps works like I want.

I also noticed that now my sleep issue under Windows is also fixed. Most of the time my laptop is connected to my LG OLED via HDMI. And before switching to S3 I had the issue, that my LG detected some HDMI Signal Input every 5-10min and said "HDMI1 available". This was very annoying while watching TV.

Now I am super happy with how the build turns out, except that it is still using a lot of battery under macOS. But I think this is because the dGPU is not fully disabled in macOS yet.

What is working now:

• iGPU with 4GB VRAM (using AMD BIOS Modifier Tool (UMAF) to set UMA-Specified VRAM to 4GB)
• Wifi
• BT
• Internal Speakers (alcid=21)
• Keyboard (VoodooPS2Controller)
• USB Ports
• Sleep/Wake (using AMD BIOS Modifier Tool (UMAF) to disable Modern Standby and switching to S3)
• CPU Power Management (on idle 6-8W, averaging 15-20W, peaking 80-100W)

 

[ExtremeXT]

Yeah, I have found this option yesterday on my own and it worked pretty well. Now sleeps works like I want.

I also noticed that now my sleep issue under Windows is also fixed. Most of the time my laptop is connected to my LG OLED via HDMI. And before switching to S3 I had the issue, that my LG detected some HDMI Signal Input every 5-10min and said "HDMI1 available". This was very annoying while watching TV.

Now I am super happy with how the build turns out, except that it is still using a lot of battery under macOS. But I think this is because the dGPU is not fully disabled in macOS yet.

What is working now:

• iGPU with 4GB VRAM (using AMD BIOS Modifier Tool (UMAF) to set UMA-Specified VRAM to 4GB)
• Wifi
• BT
• Internal Speakers (alcid=21)
• Keyboard (VoodooPS2Controller)
• USB Ports
• Sleep/Wake (using AMD BIOS Modifier Tool (UMAF) to disable Modern Standby and switching to S3)
• CPU Power Management (on idle 6-8W, averaging 15-20W, peaking 80-100W)

Remove AMDRyzenCPUPowerManagement, not optimized for laptops (in fact, even on desktops it's not too good) and always results in higher temps than without it, the firmware knows how to manage the CPU.