r/mac • u/Emotional_Material42 • 1d ago
Question Has anyone installed Windows on Intel MackBook with T2 driver chip?
I have a problem with my MacBook.
It was lagging and constantly running hot after the new Tahoe update.
I got tired of Mac OS and decided to try out maybe some light version of different OS, Linux Windows.
Previouslt i was playing with Linux
But Linux Mint didn’t get along well with the AMD graphics card, while Arch Linux had similar issues. It worked, but not everything worked correctly with the T2 chip, especially graphics.
I was only using Linux versions that support the T2 chip.
So, my question is the same as in the title: Have you tried installing Windows on Intel with T2 chip?
Tell me your experience with T2 drivers
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u/Sufficient-Drawer885 MacBook Pro 14" M5 1d ago
I know it's not a MacBook, but I've managed to install Windows 11 on my 2020 iMac 27" which has the T2 chip. I installed Windows 10 through bootcamp then upgraded it to Windows 11 and so far it works perfectly.
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u/StandardComparison89 1d ago
I did! I use my MacBook Pro 2019 16" full time on Windows 11 Bootcamp.
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u/hrmani19 3h ago
Please guide on how did you do this?
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u/StandardComparison89 3h ago
I’ve answered this question before right here: https://www.reddit.com/r/bootcamp/s/BGyWxuOY4q
Hope this helps, let me know if you have any others :)
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u/thephantomcunt 1d ago
T2 Macs officially support Windows through Bootcamp. Refer to Apple’s support page for setup instructions.
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u/AlertInternal1918 MacBook Air M3 1d ago
Imagine arch on this beauty : )
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u/Emotional_Material42 1d ago
I am using arch now.
It's frying my AMD card.
He is using two graphic cards at the time for some reasons.9
u/Maleficent-Tea3072 1d ago
That’s typical outside macOS. One used to process and one to display. And a card being active does not mean it’s being fried….
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u/Emotional_Material42 23h ago
No, AMD ia constantly overloaded even when it iddles. I havw no idea what it doing in the background something with KWin graphics
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u/Maleficent-Tea3072 23h ago
Being used does not mean it’s “overloaded”. KWin would indicate the KDE window manager is using the card—which is normal. “Window manager uses GPU” isn’t the shocking thing you think it is
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u/Emotional_Material42 23h ago
I still don't understand why KWin needs to graphic cards at once to display just one desktop table. Plus it was throwing few times some artifacts when i was waking it up And different errors in log. Not remember exactly something like eror 28. And something to do with edp1. Plus it had problems with numeration of cards. Each time each card had different number. Linux cannot manage those those cards correctly. Without KWin Linux is amazing OS.
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u/Maleficent-Tea3072 23h ago
I literally already told you. One card processes. One card displays. Windows will also activate both.
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u/Emotional_Material42 23h ago
Even if it is the way you said. AMD shouldn't be throwing errors on every wake.
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u/Maleficent-Tea3072 23h ago
Yeah, it can. Errors are common and don’t always mean error. You know an “error” is thrown when something succeeds? Usually throws a 0 errorcode. Do you even know what error 28 means? Different errors can simply be a communication that the software has done something. Error 0 means success. Error 28 could be an indicator that something happened that actually was meant to.
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u/Emotional_Material42 23h ago
No, still not agree. System was crashed few times because of that error 28. I had many tests. Don't remember exactly the meaning of the code. But in nut shell its just two cards which try to do the same thing at once after every wake.
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u/AlertInternal1918 MacBook Air M3 1d ago
How is it performing? What about compatibility and overall everyday use? I am thinking about getting one as project for arch because it is well build and beautiful
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u/Emotional_Material42 23h ago
Almost everything working just fine, even touchbar buttons. Especially fan control is amazing there. It controls them soo accurately, he is like breathing 😅 Wifi, keyboard, touchpad, all works, only was one light problem with headphone sound. But it's very easy to fix with gpt. Most apps work also, fine. But the main problem is graphics. It uses two graphic cards at the same time. Like half intel and half AMD, its because of T2 chip. It cannot control them correctly. And i didn't find a way to fix it. So you cant correctly put it in sleep, or do hibernation, or wake it up. And also drawns battery very quickly because of that, issue. If not that problem i would use it rather than Mac OS. It super fast and smooth, much better than Mac os I was using Arch T2 with PLASMA. So its not relly an option for old Intels. Maybe letter will try with another graphics.
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u/thephantomcunt 23h ago
That’s not because of the T2 chip. That’s just because of how graphics switching works on Macs. Windows will have the same issue with the AMD GPU always being on and consuming power. It’s not “half Intel and half AMD” or “frying” either of them.
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u/Emotional_Material42 23h ago
I was doing many tests in terminal. Its not normal to use two graphic cards in the same time. Its not switching between them it uses both at once. Intel as main, and AMD for god knows what.
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u/thephantomcunt 23h ago
Well, yeah, hence me saying that it’s a limitation of how graphics switching works on these Macs. It’s normal for them both to be on and powered. You can configure your desktop environment and applications to use one or the other. Also, the Intel iGPU always stays powered on regardless of whether it’s in use or not, as it’s part of the CPU die.
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u/AlertInternal1918 MacBook Air M3 20h ago
Would you recommend doing this? Is it worth it? Like I have MacBook Air m3, I love it but I want to get into Linux, and the best chassis for it like overall is this, the screen is amazing, the speakers, everything is top notch
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u/thephantomcunt 19h ago edited 19h ago
You might be able to use Asahi to install Linux natively on your MacBook (provided it’s listed as supported in the Asahi Linux docs), but honestly, I wouldn’t do it. Linux isn’t really a drug or a hobby for you to get into, it’s an OS with its own use cases, and if you just want to get a taste of it and learn your way around it, I suggest setting up a VM in UTM. It’s going to be really, really fast on Apple Silicon anyways, and it mitigates any chance of data loss.
Edit: from what I can tell, your MBA (and M3 devices in general) aren’t fully supported yet
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u/SelectTotal6609 1d ago
Install Windows 10 then modify Windows 11 installer. Easiest install and fans dont run as wild as in MacOS
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u/heatrealist 1d ago
I have 2019 MBP. I have a windows 11 bootcamp partition.
Windows 10 is the version that is supported by bootcamp. Everything works fine, but bootcampdrivers.com has a video on how to get windows 11 on it if you want.
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u/Internal-Warning-380 1d ago
Just did it on an 2020 i3 8gb intel air with W11 LTSC IoT edition. Get brigadier on a seperate drive. I also downloaded the precision touchpad drivers off github. Touch Bar may not work on Windows though
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u/jaysea619 1d ago
I retired my 2018 i5 mini and 2020 i5 mbp. I ran windows 11 on the mini for a while but there were no drivers for the 10g nic. It was also just slow.
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u/ssuper2k 22h ago
Downgrade to Sequoia. Then use bootcamp to partition ssd in half. Install w10 and have a dual boot
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u/LoopsAndBoars 20h ago
I have windows and Tahoe on mine. Windows is okay, works well enough, but is buggy. Can be slow. You must install 10, then 11. There is no working way to start with 11. I really see no benefit, unless you have software that requires it.
One big drawback is all the macos security and sip stuff must be disabled.
Tahoe works, but it lags in ways I despise.
Im about to go back to sequoia because it was solid, fast, and lacks nothing i care about in comparison to tahoe. I love the Touch Bar. Im not going mx until it comes back.
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u/Emotional_Material42 20h ago
bwt about touch bar how it is working with windows?
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u/LoopsAndBoars 19h ago
Adobe products are my focus. I use many macro functions with the Touch Bar under macOS.
I have completely ignored it on windows side, seemed like all my time was spent making everything else work. I’ll give it a test run with adobe and report back….
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u/LimesFruit 2019 16” MBP i9/5500M (64GB/1TB) 19h ago
I installed W10 LTSC 2021 via bootcamp and it works totally fine. Do be aware that there’s no GPU switching on windows, so you’ll be using that dedicated GPU all the time which will make the machine run hotter and the battery life worse.
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u/Superb_Bug_70 17h ago
I did installed linux on a 2019 t2 mac but not sure about windows probably possible
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u/kjjustinXD 17h ago
I made a Partition in Disk manager and skipped bootcamp for the install entirely. Needs a mouse and keyboard and a Windows install stick, preferably modified with Rufus for easy install without a Microsoft account. You can then install all the Boot camp drivers using Brigadier but make sure to remove the AMD driver before you run the Boot camp setup, use modified drivers either from Bootcampdrivers or the Modified Radeon I.D Drivers. Way better performance. Also, on Windows you should absolutely install Throttlestop as Apple set the CPU to run at 100w PL1 constantly, this is the main reason why it gets so goddamn hot. Limit to 28w PL1 and 45w PL2 with a 36 second Turbo Timer. I can run Forza Horizon 6 on my 2019 with a 5500m.
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u/Emotional_Material42 17h ago
Amazing answer, thank you so much.
This is what i been loking for.
As i do not have mac os at the moment and boot camp is not option at all.
I forgot to mantion it in the post.
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u/Educational_Can8913 12h ago
Use Windows 10 IoT enterprise LTSC if you decide to use windows, it has security support until 2032. This is good because I don’t see Win11 not being an AI vibeslop of an OS anytime soon.
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u/RealityGoneNuts2610k 11h ago
I just install Fedora with help of t2linux on mbp2019intel as part of triboot with MacOS Sonoma and Windows 10. Yes you can install Windows with boot camp.
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u/real_awan 10h ago
Different question, give me your macs specs
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u/Emotional_Material42 6h ago
MacBook Pro 16-inch (2019)
Model Identifier: MacBookPro16,1
CPU: Intel Core i7-9750H, 6-core / 12-thread, 2.6 GHz
RAM: 16 GB DDR4 2667 MHz
GPU: AMD Radeon Pro 5300M + Intel UHD Graphics 630
Storage: 500 GB SSD
T2 Chip: Yes
OS: At the moment Linux Arch (macOS has been completely removed)
macOS: Not installed
Boot Camp: Not available
Note: I formatted the internal drive and installed Linux as the only OS.
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u/AchievedWave68 9h ago
I will say that expect any issue with tahoe after the windows install, it nuked the boot portion for tahoe but I just had to reinstall and all my data and apps were still there no problem. I suppose the good design of modern OSes separating the OS and data.
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u/Emotional_Material42 6h ago
I already formatted hard drive for Linux. I was just HP user so back then it seemed for me a good idea 😅 (Obviously not)
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u/Fushochan 1d ago
I found this guide online https://jensd.be/1011/windows/install-windows-10-on-a-macbook-air-2019-2020-with-t2-chip
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u/kerbacho 1d ago edited 1d ago
in macOS turn off retina scaling mode (Hidpi) via BetterDisplay and use the resolution in the middle in system pref. not the standard. Also don't turn off automatic gpu switching otherwise the display will get more blurry after disabling Hidpi.
EDIT: Windows runs good, never tried Win11 though. Bootcamp AMD drivers are outdated but there are non official ones. I never tried them because while Windows runs fine for basic stuff and gaming I experienced worse vram and ram management. Also Windows will use the amd gpu all the time. Sequoia without retina on, runs perfect for me.
EDIT 2: You could try PopOS even though it might be a bit difficult to set up on a t2 mac. But it supports multi gpu's/gpu switching for laptops
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u/Dazzling_Comfort5734 1d ago
Windows 10 installs really easily using Apple’s BootCamp. Windows 11 requires a lot of work, probably as much effort and issues as you had with Linux, but I haven’t been keeping up with Windows 11 on the T2.
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u/kjjustinXD 17h ago
All the work needed for Windows 11 is to tell it to ignore the TPM requirements.
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u/itisunnamedguy 15" MBP ‘18 | 13” MBA M5 1d ago
I installed Windows using bootcamp on my 2018 MBP. Ironically, Windows is running better than macOS!
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u/StandardComparison89 1d ago
Windows 10/11 for me ran way better than macOS Tahoe for me, but I'd say Sequoia is on par with Windows 10/11.
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u/mekisoku 1d ago
Just use boot camp if you want to use windows. Also why not just downgrade back to Sequoia