Random freezes w/ YouTube/audio?

Hello!

Figured I'd post my thread from another forum here to see what you guys think.

Occasionally, I have an issue where the system will randomly lock up when watching YouTube videos, yet I’m still able to move the mouse. Some testing showed that while the time between crash varies, it always seems to happen in Safari. I've been going at it for days trying and applying possible solutions without much success. What makes this more difficult is that I never see any freezes or related crashes recorded in Console.app. I’ve even had it running on my second monitor while using the computer, and it doesn't seem to crash when it's running (of course!).

First, here are the specs for my build, if that helps:

• CPU : Intel - Core i5-7500 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor
• Motherboard : Gigabyte - GA-B250M-DS3H Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard
• Onboard Audio: Realtek ALC887, using Lilu + AppleALC w/ audio ID set to 1 under Devices/Audio in Clover Configurator.
• Memory : Crucial - 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR4-2400 Memory
• Network Card: BCM94360CS2 + PCIe adapter w/ 3 9dBi antennae, ~2dBi antennae (not too sure on the dBi) installed previously
• Solid State Drive Storage : 180GB OCZ Agility SSD (took out, reinstalled to the Toshiba hard drive, see below why)
• Storage : Toshiba 3TB Internal Desktop Hard Drive (this I just bought)
• Video Card : Gigabyte - Radeon RX 460 2GB WINDFORCE OC Video Card
• Case : NZXT - S340 (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case
• Power Supply : SeaSonic - G 550W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply

I am running 10.13.3 and am using Clover Configurator 4.60.1.0 to make changes to my config.plist as necessary.

Here's a list of everything I've tried up to this point:

• It should be noted I started with audio ID 7 as suggested from the hackintosher guide linked below.
• Before I bought the current network card, I used a TP-Link T2UH 802.11ac Wi-Fi dongle to access the Internet. Not only did the connection often drop, but the Wireless Utility for it popped up very frequently to the point of being annoying. That alone was enough of a reason to purchase the card I’m using now. Still had the crashes, sadly.
• I reinstalled macOS with the new card in (which works great). Definitely thrilled with the native Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, but had issues keeping a connection with our 5GHz network (which I normally connect to). My line of thinking was the unstable connection may be the cause of the freezes. I went in and made sure the antenna cables were connected to the card properly and even reseated the entire card in the PCie slot. I ended up figuring out the antennae the PCIe adapter came with sucked, since I had to point them straight out to have an only ok-ish connection. Upgraded to some 9dBi omni-directional antennae and while I now have a much better RSSI reading than before, the freezes still happen. :P
• Thinking it had something to do with my graphics card, I set the ig-platform-id to 0x59120003 per this guide (@ https://hackintosher...sierra-10-12-6/ ) + set the -rad4200 custom boot flag, as well as set the framebuffer to Acre + checked RadeonDeinit. No gas.
• For grins, I decided to download and run DriveDx to see if my SSD was failing. Sure enough, it showed the S.M.A.R.T. status as “FAILING” and a lot of other values which pointed to a possible failing SSD. I kept this in the back of my head for later.
  
• The guide I used on Hackintosher’s website ( @ https://hackintosher...all-full-guide/ ) came with a provided config.plist, which — while giving me a working install — I suspected had a few settings causing the freezes. Thanks to some users here, I was able to get two config.plists for my motherboard. I replaced the SMBIOS information with my own, and tried the first config.plist. I seemed to have better luck with this one, going a few hours without a crash. I can’t remember because of constantly trying stuff, but I think it crashed on this setting, too. There is one other issue I noticed…
• …I began to notice the rare, occasional audio stutter when playing any sound at all. This happens when playing anything through my speakers, and it, too, happens randomly. The only reason I picked up on it was from macOS randomly switching the output from my AirPods to the “Internal Speakers” setting. On top of that, in one of the crashes, YouTube wasn’t even open — I was just listening to music. Audio continued to play and I could still move the mouse. I now have reason to believe audio ties into everything. In an attempt to fix the AirPods issue, I first disabled “automatic ear detection”, thinking it was just being buggy. When it disconnected there too, I knew I was onto something.
• I then started playing around with audio IDs. I tried 7, and not even 30-45ish minutes after using the system, it locked up just as described. Even checked ResetHDA, still froze. I reset it back to 1 and decided not to play around with that again. Crashed from then on. In an attempt to at least fix the occasional audio stutter, I enabled ResetHDA and tried IDs 1 and 7. Nada. Still stuttered and randomly froze at some point. Hah.
• On Hackintosher’s audio guide (@ https://hackintosher...-audio-working/ ), it is mentioned that audio playback freezes may be due to the latest versions of Lilu.kext and AppleALC.kext being incompatible with my motherboard. Since it mentioned this being more likely with Gigabyte or ASRock mobos — and I have a Gigabyte mobo — I followed the steps and downgraded Lilu and AppleALC to 1.0.0 and 1.1.0, respectively. I lost audio doing this, and could not get it back with any audio IDs I tried, presumably because ALC887 wasn't added until v1.1.1 of AppleALC.kext. I re-upgraded both kexts back to the latest, so we’re back at square one.
• Figuring there wasn’t much to lose (and with everything I messed with), I took out my SSD and reinstalled 10.13.3 — this time onto my hard drive. Went back to the first config.plist given to me with my SMBIOS information, with the ig-platform-id set, the -rad4200 boot flag set, the framebuffer set to Acre, the audio ID to 1, and this is where I’m at now.
• It just crashed as I was going to load a YouTube video and post this thread. This tells me the SSD is not the culprit, and there has to be something I'm missing in the config.plist I'm using. Definitely either audio or graphics related at this point.
  
• Additionally, I've reenabled Internal Graphics in the UEFI settings, set the IntelGFX and ig-platform-id values to the ones for Kaby Lake, and checked Inject Intel. Not sure if that's a solution just yet, but I'll keep my eye on this until either another crash happens or a working solution is found.

As you can see, I’ve tried a lot and still haven’t gotten anywhere. I may switch to the second config.plist which was given to me and see if that helps, but it was very similar to the one I started out with from Hackintosher. I can also compare the second one to the Hackintosher config.plist and see what’s different. Other than that, I am at my wit’s end, and am coming to you all for assistance.

Let me know if you would like to see my config.plist, or heck, my entire EFI folder. I’ve tried all I can think to do, and am hoping it’s something simple I’m missing. Thanks in advance.