Level 1

21 points

White screen with EGPU only connected

I'm using a Radeon RX580 epug with my 2018 mac mini. If I try to boot with Catalina with only the egpu connected I just get white screen on boot. However if I boot with a combination of a monitor attached to the hdmi port and the egpu connected to other monitors, then the mac will boot correctly. It's very strange because the egpu works, but not without a hdmi display connected to the mini. Has anyone else had this bug and any suggestions? For now I'll just keep a hdmi display attached.

Mac mini 2018 or later

Posted on Oct 8, 2019 8:01 AM

Top-ranking reply

selected9

Level 1

9 points

Posted on Oct 9, 2019 11:08 PM

This is a known and repeatedly reported issue which was sadly overlooked during the Catalina Betas by the Apple team. The issue is dubbed "white screen of death"

The problem mostly affects the 2018 Mac Mini running Catalina connected to a AMD Radeon RX570 or RX580 based eGPU.

The symptom is mostly a blank white screen (sometimes black or magenta) upon boot and excessive GPU heat which causes the GPU fans to spin to full speed after a while.

You have to do the following to live with the issue:

When the white screen appears, turn off your eGPU for 5 seconds and then turn back on. The login screen should appear normally.
Turn off "Start up automatically after a power failure" under Settings/Energy Saver
Turn off "Install macOS updates" under Settings/Software Update/Advanced...

The last two actions are needed to prevent your Mac to boot to a white screen unattended causing your eGPU to overheat for extended periods of time (this might cause further hardware related problems).

See these discussions for more information:

https://egpu.io/forums/mac-setup/state-of-egpu-for-macs-catalina-10-15-update

https://egpu.io/forums/mac-setup/macos-catalina-tidbits-egpu-updates/paged/2/

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/catalina-egpu.2193797/page-4?post=27853347#post-27853347

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/mac-mini-2018-hot-egpu-fan-full-throttle-after-upgrading.2204860/

https://www.reddit.com/r/eGPU/comments/dex36o/egfx_breakaway_box_550_amd_580_catalina_troubles/

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151 replies

Oct 25, 2019 1:36 PM in response to AZ longhorn

Also agree 100% I’m fortunate to have other older macs to use but i shelled out on a i5 model 2018 then paid for an official Apple dealer to upgrade ram to keep warranty (£270 as in UK) then got an eGPU with RX580 and a 1TB SSD. I went this route as i prefer my own display and GPU upgradable so they brick it for me after doing it all right!

Oct 25, 2019 3:10 PM in response to rsmith4321

A slight inconvenience doesn’t cause your GPUs fan to hit levels I’ve not even heard after hours of gaming. I don’t use the term brick lightly. I really do worry keep trying this post update is going to fry my whole setup with an overload. I’ll wait. Fair enough regarding firmware but you can downgrade a bios or flash firmware on a Mac. I’ve also heard of people downgrading the old Mac Pro’s so it’s viable is apple released the older firmware.

rsmith4321 Author

Level 1

21 points

Oct 25, 2019 5:08 PM in response to richarddcrossley

You are obviously having a much more serious problem than me and other users if it bricked your gpu. I've solved my problem just by leaving one of my displays plugged into the hdmi so it's no big deal for me.

LEScott

Level 1

24 points

Oct 29, 2019 1:54 PM in response to rsmith4321

I have the same problem with my Mini2018 with Sonnet and RX580. If I boot with the egpu connected I get a blank screen on any monitor connected to the egpu and nothing seems to make it work. If I connect my monitors directly to the mini it works fine. I just installed 10.15.1 with no improvement.

Nov 15, 2019 3:00 AM in response to rsmith4321

One good bit of news is having just googled the issue there are a fair few tech sites highlighting it now (and confirm even happening with Apple developer recommended kits) so hopefully a fix will happen in next few months (I am using a NUC linked to eGPU) instead. Frustrating thing is my eGPU also has a 1TB SSD in where I store all my data vs the 256GB internal model with 32GB upgrade. Makes me not bother using what I paid a fair bit for vs my older iMac 2012 as we all use Mac so we don't have none stop driver issues and upgrades (I'd have been better using the eGPU hacks with an Nvidia card vs buying RX580 atm!) Also not everyone has the ability to just swap machines!

Leap Sim

Level 1

4 points

Nov 15, 2019 11:51 PM in response to rsmith4321

I'm still using OSX Mojave on my 2018 mac mini with RX580 egpu, but yesterday without warning i cannot boot into my mac with connected egpu.

PLEASE APPLE HAS THIS FIXED! Thunderbolt 3 for what if you don't allow device to connect!

rsmith4321 Author

Level 1

21 points

Nov 16, 2019 8:24 PM in response to Leap Sim

Hopefully, now that this is happening to everyone and not just Catalina users, Apple will take more notice. Unlike myself, most smart professionals wait a long time before upgrading to a new version. So I imagine a lot of eGPU users didn't have the issue until recently.

rsmith4321 Author

Level 1

21 points

Dec 14, 2019 6:04 PM in response to Windowseven

It is frustrating, I really like the Mac but sometimes it seems like they don't care. If I had a Windows PC I could just stick any gpu I wanted in there and it work perfectly. And I could get a more powerful AMD cpu as well. I don't know what I'm going to do when it's time to upgrade.

dre2k25

Level 1

4 points

Dec 16, 2019 12:05 PM in response to Yockster

yeah, let's not even mention the 10.4.7 EGPU issue that has destroyed the render/export speeds for so many editors. I've had to creatively revert back to 10.4.6 to even be functional at this point. Premiere is even starting to look attractive to me at this point lol.

Dec 16, 2019 12:54 PM in response to dre2k25

I am more than tired of all this drama. Apple is not the company we all used to be fanboys for.

Plugging...unplugging...rebooting...standing on one leg...ridiculous! What happened to "it just works." Apple has played bait and switch with their "used to be" support for the eGPUs and the AMD video cards. Most of us have been out around a grand to end up with a boat anchor.

How very sad for their customers.

Jan 30, 2020 6:06 AM in response to dmiko

I also have file vault turned off. I updated to 10.15.3 yesterday with the hopes of fixing the issue. It did not fix the issue. I am still experiencing this problem.

It's unacceptable that I can pay $2000 for a computer and not be able to see the display while I boot.

Feb 11, 2020 12:08 AM in response to selected9

rsmith4321 - please don't set the issue to Solved. :) I understand that in your specific configuration the issue seems to be solved but in my case (and probably for others as well) the only improvement is that instead of a "White screen" I get a "Black screen". I don't consider this a real solution (although in a technical sense the thread title "White screen with EGPU only connected" is no longer fully relevant ;)).

Feb 23, 2020 9:59 AM in response to rsmith4321

Yes, from time to time it doesn't work for me either. The black screen and the lack of progress bar makes the uncertainity worse since one does not know if the system is actually stuck or the boot process just takes longer than usual (e.g. when the OS rebuilds the cache or checks the filesystem or something like that).

Feb 24, 2020 12:37 PM in response to selected9

I'll second this as well. I was eager to have this resolved, but it appears that for me it too still periodically will not reboot with the GPU already on. This occurs most notably when rebooting from Bootcamp into MacOS, but also just on a normal MacOS reboot from time-to-time....

Lerinave

Level 1

20 points

Mar 24, 2020 6:00 PM in response to cruxto

Mac Mini 2018 + eGPU RX580 (Gigabyte), running 10.15.4 official version released 3/24. It's not better, but showed a different problem: with eGPU powered on and connected, powering on the Mac Mini gives me blank black screen (but not no signal from the DisplayPort; it has signal, just pure black). It does not boot into the system. Had to long press power to force shutdown, then power on without eGPU.

Really expected Apple to make some progress in 10.15.4, but totally disappointed.

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White screen with EGPU only connected