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US$189 AKiTiO Thunder2 PCIe Box (16Gbps-TB2)


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Bad news. Continuous 3DMark11 physics part crashing started again… and those two MEIx16 rows have never showed up in my system, stable or not.

AkiTiO + R9 280X total power consumption during the test was mostly 180W and max 214W peak. The physics part is very CPU intensive and when it began, the total eGPU system showed only 47W, then jumped suddenly to 109W and immediately after that a blank white screen. Because the DC jack was almost constant 40-41W in my two PSU test, leaving only ~30W to the x16 PCIe slot, the reason for the crash is the fact that AKiTiO is unstable during low power consumption and quick changes, even if powered from the both sides: http://forum.techinferno.com/diy-e-gpu-projects/7910-diy-egpu-macbook-experiences-25.html#post118869

So we could think: the more the GPU eats watts from the PCIe slot, the more stable it might be with the AKiTiO + a powered riser. This is just speculation.

I was aware of Dschijn’s two PSU tests. The difference was that I didn’t use the original AKiTiO PSU. I did in the beginning and torturing it gave a “buzzing” sound, after that I have never touched it again. And I do not recommend to use two ATX PSUs either.

We know that there is no direct connection to the x16 slot 2nd +12V pin from the DC jack as I confirmed it by a multimeter continuity test. There is a capacitor between those two test points, because the multimeter gave a short beep sound. But I don’t know what it means. My theory is that AKiTiO is adverted correctly 25W because the x4 slot is specified to 25W:

“All sizes of x4 and x8 PCI Express cards are allowed a maximum power consumption of 25 W”

PCI Express - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

That’s not the whole truth as Dschijn’s and my tests proved, x4 can deliver much more than 25W. Regarding the x16 slot, I would also like to mention ithildin’s post here. Maybe he has more knowledge.

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Wikipedia also shows that power is only provided by the pins in the PCI Express x1 area. Everything for x4, x8 and x16 is for data and signals. So in theory the 75W could by provided by any slot.

Edit: The only info I found states that there are two types of slots:

- PCIe with up to x16 lanes and max 25W

- PEG (PCI Express for Graphics) with up to x16 lanes and max 75W

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Yes, I have to agree that my theory seems to be not true.

I noticed the following things with my new Gigabyte GTX 960 Mini ITX, system is running by powered riser + ATX PSU(didn't want to use the Akitio PSU more than necessary):

1. I power up the ATX PSU before starting the Macbook, booting Windows: I don't have access to min/max settings under processor power options in energy settings. The processor is also stuck at full speed or shows wrong values.

2. I start the Macbook first, hold Alt, wait for the boot menu, then power up the ATX PSU and 2 cases are possible to happen(in both I've got access to said options again):

2.1 I see Windows starting on the Macbook display, it then switches to the external display and I've got both iGPU and eGPU present -> Optimus enabled. I've also got a constant load of ~15% by System. Something is wrong then. I shut Windows down. The "bad" MEIx64 lines are present in the event log then!

2.2 I boot Windows after the previous case, no boot can be watched on the internal display and the first picture I get is the Windows log in screen which is hidden by the set image(the colorful one by default). In this case the iGPU is disabled and the CPU speeds down. Only one MEIx64 line again.

3. I reboot to OS X, then reboot to Windows, both times by shutting down the Macbook first, and I am at 2.1 again.

Fastboot in Windows is disabled so that's why I don't understand why booting Windows twice results in different outcomes.

I still don't think any of those freezing problems are happening because of power issues. If I could run an hour of Furmark with GTX 780 OC by factory + OC by myself over more than one hour without crashing and short time later it crashes while starting up my browser, then what is wrong with the power? I tried the above starting variations with the GTX 780 too btw but it always crashed at some time.

There are definitely things happening at boot that differ(by card?) but I neither know why nor when exactly they do and what they're doing to the system.

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@Dschijn: It might not be that simple, the total throughput depends on the electric current per lines. And there is the Thunderbolt controller between, so that makes me wondering... But as said, I trust to power meter numbers. I am happy that I haven't burned my PCIe board yet after these tests :)

I also found this discussion:

http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/2221766

“The PCIe specification allows 25w of power to be drawn through a 16x bus and 10w to be drawn through 4x-8x. Now this can be increased to 75w for 16x and 25w for 4-8x if the PCIe device is 'high powered' spec compliant.”

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I would just cut your 12volt cable going into the thunderbolt card and wire them up to the 12volt going into your GPU. That is what I had to do to make it stable.

Wow. I came into conclusion after playing with a multimeter that the 4pin yellow/black cable was compulsory. Would you like to describe (maybe with a picture) how you did it?

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I haven't had time to test my setup with unstable vs. stable GPU but I looked at over 1000 entries on my Windows logs concerning MEIx64 and none of them were "Warnings", even though I' consistently having problems with instability when using a GTX 670 card. Since my laptop is a Macbook Air and that I haven't found a way to enable Optimus, I think the MEIx64 warning is a particular symptom of Macbook Pros somehow struggling with dual GPU mode. By the way, MEIx64 is part of Intel's Management Engine Interface drivers, which interacts with the ME firmware in the BIOS. Have you tried updating your Intel drivers?

@ha1o2surfer , I'm also interested in your daugther card power cable mod. Could you give us more details?

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Hi, guys. Could someone tell me if it's possible to successfully use AMD cards instead of Nvidia

Most of you are using Nvidia, is there a specific reason for that if we set Optimus feature aside?

Thanks.

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Hi, guys. Could someone tell me if it's possible to successfully use AMD cards instead of Nvidia

Most of you are using Nvidia, is there a specific reason for that if we set Optimus feature aside?

Thanks.

Sure AMD works as well, but I think there will be no "internal display only":

http://forum.techinferno.com/implementation-guides/8585-%5Bguide%5D-2014-15-macbook-pro-2x-r9_280x%4016gbps-tb2-netstor-na211tb-win8-1-osx.html

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Hey everyone, today I received my brand new GALAX KFA2 GTX 970 gpu. It fits perfectly in the Akitio box.

I have the following hardware:

- rMBP15 late 2013.

- Akitio Thunder2.

- GTX 970.

Issue: the GPU is not detected, sometimes Windows does not boot / blackscreen. I am running Windows 8.1 x64 using UEFI.

I already tried to plug in the thunderbolt cable in the bootmenu, and waited for 5 minutes to initialize the akitio but that didn't work. I'm losing my hope now, I already invested a lot of euros into this solution; 240 for akitio, 350 for gpu, 50 for psu etc...

Any ideas or solutions for this?

Help is appreciated.

Thanks

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Did you apply the Paperclip trick to start the PSU?

Are you using a powered riser?

Is the AKiTiO PSU plugged in?

Did you follow this Guide? http://forum.techinferno.com/implementation-guides/8558-%5Bguide%5D-macbook-enabling-optimus-internal-lcd-mode.html#post110757

Yes I have my PSU enabled with the paperclip trick. I have tried it with and without a powered riser. I have the Akitio powered by the default adapter.

I have found a strange thing, when I start the PSU and use the powered riser method, the whole setup shuts down when I plug in the TB cable into my Macbook.

Anyway it should just work with the default adapter, and additional PSU for the gpu, but as I said black screens.

Sorry I forgot to mention that I have the dGPU macbook. So that guide isn't relevant.

Thanks!

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Can you boot into Windows without the eGPU, connect the eGPU once Windows is running and install the Geforce driver?

UEFI Windows is with or without the general Bootcamp?

Thanks for your fast replies.

I tried that too, but the nVidia drivers (from nVidia website) fail and say that there is no nVidia gpu found. Then I also tried the nVidia drivers from Bootcamp and they installed successfully, but still no GTX 970 found.

Yes, it's with bootcamp.

EDIT: The gpu is also never found in Device manager.

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Hi, guys. Could someone tell me if it's possible to successfully use AMD cards instead of Nvidia

Most of you are using Nvidia, is there a specific reason for that if we set Optimus feature aside?

Thanks.

AKiTiO is unstable with the AMD cards on Win8.1:

http://forum.techinferno.com/diy-e-gpu-projects/8844-targeting-akitio-thunder2-pcie-boxs-stability-issues.html

External monitor is not a requirement, internal screen full screen apps will be accelerated by eGPU, if you install Virtu MVP 2.0:

http://forum.techinferno.com/diy-e-gpu-projects/2967-lucidlogix-virtu-internal-lcd-mode-amd-egpus.html#post120413

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External monitor is not a requirement, internal screen full screen apps will be accelerated by eGPU, if you install Virtu MVP 2.0:

http://forum.techinferno.com/diy-e-gpu-projects/2967-lucidlogix-virtu-internal-lcd-mode-amd-egpus.html#post120413

Totally missed that, thx! Good to have an alternative to Optimus :)

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Have you installed the latest Bootcamp driver package? Boot Camp Support Software 5.1.5640

Can you see the AKiTiO in OSX in the system report?

Yes the latest Bootcamp software is installed, under Windows I normally saw my previous card GTX 650 (for testing) even if I didnt install the drivers. This new 970 is just not detected in Windows.

On OSX the Akitio is detected:

AKiTiO Thunder 2 Box:

Vendor Name: inXtron

Device Name: AKiTiO Thunder 2 Box

Vendor ID: 0x41

Device ID: 0x236

Device Revision: 0x1

UID: 0x0041023614800070

Route String: 1

Firmware Version: 24,1

Port (Upstream):

Status: Device connected

Link Status: 0x2

Speed: Up to 20 Gb/s x1

Current Link Width: 0x2

Cable Firmware Version: 0.1.23

Link Controller Firmware Version: 0.14.0

Port:

Status: No device connected

Link Status: 0x7

Speed: Up to 20 Gb/s x1

Current Link Width: 0x1

Link Controller Firmware Version: 0.14.0

UPDATE: I have removed all gpu drivers, and reinstalled the drivers. The 970 pops up in Device manager, but it gives an error "Windows has stopped this device because it has reported problems. (Code 43)".

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It's the latest nVidia drivers from their website: 347.25. I tried rebooting using Akitio without the dual 6 pins connectors connected, and the 970 showed up in devices, but not working. When I plug in the pin connectors the 970 is gone again.

I am getting another PSU in a few days, and will try that. If that doesn't work, I am forced to sell everything :(

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No offence, but that seems to be a very old PSU?! Try to get another one, please.

No offense taken, the PSU came from a working system, that's why I used it.

In a few days I will get the Seasonic M12II Evo 520W, I will get back to you and report here.

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