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DIY eGPU Macbook experiences


oripash

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@nikyork93: Is the card listed in the "Device Manager" (= are the drivers installed)?

Have you connected all the cables to the graphics card?

Have you done the paperclip trick?

Are you using the AKiTiO power supply as well?

Is the AKiTiO giving you a blue light?

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OK, First up thank you for supplying lots of info, "I've got an eGPU and it doesn't work, why?" is always tough to answer. You seem very thorough so hopefully we'll get you up and running.

Right! I've worked in tech support and I sense the frustration of being drip-fed information when you're trying to help someone :) I appreciate the comment... you can imagine what my implementation guide is going to look like when I get around to it. I have some particularly detailed photos of cracking open the AKiTiO case neatly that I will share.

I've been doing a *lot* of reading before posting. As you have mentioned, it takes a lot of reading around the subject to understand the process from beginning to end and how to troubleshoot it. I guess a wiki would be useful to curate nuggets from these forums and weed out the red herrings... but these are some of the most neatly organised forums I've ever seen so it's a close second ;)

The only thing I see missing is how you turn on the PSU, but I'm guessing you must be doing something or the power lights wouldn't work. So either a SWEX or a paperclip?

Yup, it's a short wire shunt i.e. paperclip trick. I start the PSU using the rocker switch on the back of it.

Have you tried plugging TB in RIGHT AFTER the boot chime?

I have a 2014 Mini and that gives me best results with PC cards into Windows.

I'm sure you're onto something here. The main breakthrough for me was when I was reading the thread-of-dubious-usefulness "how-often-do-you-boot-black-screen?" and came across a comment to that effect from you. So last night I concentrated my efforts on Windows. EFI mode is a real uphill struggle on this machine, even if I nobble the troublesome igdkmd64.sys file, so it's back to legacy/BIOS mode. I'm still refining the timing but I have success most of the time in Windows now if I cold-boot the mini and then flick the rocker on the eGPU PSU just as the mini's power LED illuminates, i.e somewhere between 0.5 seconds and 3 seconds after powering up, when the display fires up but before the boot option screen if I'm holding the Option key. A fraction too early and Windows goes black instead of booting. A fraction too late and Windows boots but it's oblivious to the eGPU! So as far as my setup is concerned for Windows it is all about timing, timing, timing! For me, I put this new-found knowledge on a par with the realization by nando and co. about not needing a powered riser.

Next I would check each of your modded files. If you are on Build 14D136 I will put up a dropbox with the 3 files that definitely work.

I have shared my modded files via pastebin, linked in my post, but it really seems to be IONDRVSupport.kext which is one of the triggers. I get the feeling the crash comes when it hits that part of booting.

Have you looked through the various guides to find someone on same machine?

I have. There are a couple of 2011 Mac mini builds and they seem to work fairly straightforwardly. However this might be the first 2011 mini with a 970 (though I get the impression you will have tried it at some point) and the 970 seems to give more trouble compared to the 960 and 980 for some reason.

Typically, if I have them done correctly I will be able to see them in the "extensions" section of System Profiler and they will be "Loaded" but also "Loadable " "No".

You may be able to see which ones loaded and which ones did not when it shows up as Nvidia Card Model and that may tell you which piece is broken.

All three show as "Loadable: No" and "Loaded" but interestingly NVDAStartup seems to *unload* after sometime. I haven't quite got my around that yet.

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post-34698-1449499994905_thumb.gif

Could someone please tell me if this looks correct for my hardware (2011 Mac mini, i.e. TB1)?

Also, I seem to be missing Physx and CUDA... and there's no option in the NVIDIA control panel.

PCI-E 2.0 x 16 @ x4 2.0

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OK, in case anyone is following my plight...

Windows: as mentioned above, I've honed my timing and now I have the GTX 970 working beautifully in Boot Camp / Legacy/BIOS mode Windows 10 Preview just by switching on the eGPU about 1-2 seconds after the Mac mini. Starting it at any other time doesn't work. This is golden! :D

OS X: not much progress with OS X yet (still showing as "NVIDIA Chip Model" and not actually usable even for CUDA, despite drivers/kexts loading fine). However, I have found a way to stop it kernel panicking if I boot with the eGPU on...

Following my hunch about it hanging on IONDRVSupport, I experimented in the plist; specifically, the third block:

post-34698-14494999949999_thumb.png

I've changed the string value for key PCIClassMatch from:

0x03000000&0xff000000

…to...

0x10de0000&0xff000000

I did this because I took the original version to mean "Only accept AMD GPUs for…[something]", with 0300 being the AMD vendor id and "FF000000" being a mask.

I replaced the left hand side with 10de because that's the vendor ID for NVIDIA.

And now I can happily boot into Yosemite with the eGPU connected.

However, I won't celebrate just yet because I don't really know what I'm doing and it's possible I've simply gone around the issue instead of actually curing it. Can anyone understand why this has stopped the kernel panics?

Anyway - I'm no further forward really as all I've achieved is being able to boot into the same result as I was getting previously by hot-plugging after booting. Interesting, though…?

Update: I get the same result by removing the IOPCITunnelCompatible modification from that block instead of changing the vendor ID.

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Hi all, I've been lurking for a month or two now, reading up on how to put together an eGPU set-up for OpenCL computation and code development. I don't have a lot of EE / modding experience, so I've been trying to find a route that involves the minimum of case modification, re-wiring, and system file editing. The code I'm developing is difficult enough without putting myself through a lot of hardware setup first.

I was inspired by goalque's post on 2 x AMD 280X "out-of-the-box" here to try my hand at the chEEp version. I have

2013 refurb Macbook Air, OS X 10.10.2

Akitio Thunder2

extra 120W power brick

and an

AMD R7 250x.

Not an impressive card, I know, but I picked it 1. because it's cheap enough to make my initial jump into eGPU less risky and 2. because I compared the list of AMD PCI ID numbers at

https://pci-ids.ucw.cz/read/<wbr>PC/1002

with the AMD7000Controller.kext and AMDRadeonX4000.kext plist files and saw that the 683d PCI ID number of the R7 250x was there, so it should already be supported with a built-in Apple driver on the Air.

No set-up beyond kext editing required, right? I edited the .kexts and refreshed the cache per goalque's how-to (modified to edit the "Verde" portion of the AMDRadeonX4000.kext instead of the "Tahiti"), powered down and re-started with the AMD and Akitio hooked up and powered, hopefully anticipating success, and... kexts are not loading.

Specifically, in About this Mac > System Report > Software > Extensions, I get

"Kext signature validation error code -67030"

for all the .kexts I edited, along with "Loadable: No".

The weird thing is, I DID turn off .kext signing before I refreshed the cache, per JimJ740's comment here, but this didn't help. If I type nvram boot-args I get boot-args kext-dev-mode=1 , as expected, so kext signing should be turned off. I thought disabling .kext signing was supposed to get rid of the above error, but for some reason that's not the case for me.

Is this something simple that I'm doing wrong? Or is there something weird about OS X 10.10.2? I can't imagine that's it, probably this is a basic n00b mistake. Thanks in advance for your help!

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Specifically, in About this Mac > System Report > Software > Extensions, I get

"Kext signature validation error code -67030"

for all the .kexts I edited, along with "Loadable: No".

Those two things won't change even when it DOES load. It will show "loaded" in spite of being "Loadable: No".

So I think the question is: is it being requested to load?

Does the card show up under Graphics in System Information?

Have you eliminated all remaining requests for IOPCITunnelCompatible in the system log?

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@nikyork93: Is the card listed in the "Device Manager" (= are the drivers installed)?

Have you connected all the cables to the graphics card?

Have you done the paperclip trick?

Are you using the AKiTiO power supply as well?

Is the AKiTiO giving you a blue light?

yes yes i can use windows without playing anygames, the problem occurs when i try to launch every games, example: i launch far cry 4, after ten second the the egpu crash, the same for every game or benchmark ! black screen and then automatic reboot.

maybe could be the molex connector that isn't giving enough power to the akitio?

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@nikyork93: And you get a signal from that eGPU on a display connected to it? If the eGPU itself works and you have an output signal, but it crashes on load… I would say it is sth related to the power.

- riser not good, can you get a molex-> barrel plug? Cheap riser cables can cause problems!

- power supply not stable. Can you link the exact model you are using? Is it an od model? Maybe the load on the 12V rail to the 6-Pins is too much

- Can you install Windows 8.1? Windows 8.1 is easier to use regarding to eGPUs.

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@nikyork93: And you get a signal from that eGPU on a display connected to it? If the eGPU itself works and you have an output signal, but it crashes on load… I would say it is sth related to the power.

- riser not good, can you get a molex-> barrel plug? Cheap riser cables can cause problems!

- power supply not stable. Can you link the exact model you are using? Is it an od model? Maybe the load on the 12V rail to the 6-Pins is too much

- Can you install Windows 8.1? Windows 8.1 is easier to use regarding to eGPUs.

yes i will install windows 8.1tomorrow, and i will buy a molex barrel! my power supply is this one: antec VP550F EC and if i use the original cable to supply the akitio could be fine? i know it is one more cable and is not necessary if i use a molex cable but maybe...

thank you for your help !

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...and if i use the original cable to supply the akitio could be fine? i know it is one more cable and is not necessary if i use a molex cable but maybe...

Wait, which cable? Don't use two PSUs at the same time! It might work, but could damage your setup. The Antec itself should be fine powering your whole setup.

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Hi all, I've been lurking for a month or two now, reading up on how to put together an eGPU set-up for OpenCL computation and code development. I don't have a lot of EE / modding experience, so I've been trying to find a route that involves the minimum of case modification, re-wiring, and system file editing. The code I'm developing is difficult enough without putting myself through a lot of hardware setup first.

I was inspired by goalque's post on 2 x AMD 280X "out-of-the-box" here to try my hand at the chEEp version. I have

2013 refurb Macbook Air, OS X 10.10.2

Akitio Thunder2

extra 120W power brick

and an

AMD R7 250x.

Not an impressive card, I know, but I picked it 1. because it's cheap enough to make my initial jump into eGPU less risky and 2. because I compared the list of AMD PCI ID numbers at

https://pci-ids.ucw.cz/read/<wbr>PC/1002

with the AMD7000Controller.kext and AMDRadeonX4000.kext plist files and saw that the 683d PCI ID number of the R7 250x was there, so it should already be supported with a built-in Apple driver on the Air.

No set-up beyond kext editing required, right? I edited the .kexts and refreshed the cache per goalque's how-to (modified to edit the "Verde" portion of the AMDRadeonX4000.kext instead of the "Tahiti"), powered down and re-started with the AMD and Akitio hooked up and powered, hopefully anticipating success, and... kexts are not loading.

Specifically, in About this Mac > System Report > Software > Extensions, I get

"Kext signature validation error code -67030"

for all the .kexts I edited, along with "Loadable: No".

The weird thing is, I DID turn off .kext signing before I refreshed the cache, per JimJ740's comment here, but this didn't help. If I type nvram boot-args I get boot-argskext-dev-mode=1 , as expected, so kext signing should be turned off. I thought disabling .kext signing was supposed to get rid of the above error, but for some reason that's not the case for me.

Is this something simple that I'm doing wrong? Or is there something weird about OS X 10.10.2? I can't imagine that's it, probably this is a basic n00b mistake. Thanks in advance for your help!

Thanks for referring to my 2 X AMD 280X setup. Despite being only ~ 90€ card, AMD R7 250X’s OpenCL performance is nearly comparable to GTX 750 and not far from 750 Ti either:

Test: three variants of the GeForce GTX 750 Ti

The device id for 250X is 0x683D1002, and it’s included in IOPCIMatch collection, so no problem there.

1) Can you tell the exact card model? R7 250X is rated at 80W max and has 1 x 6-pin power connector, right? If so, how do you feed power to the 6-pin connector as you mentioned “extra 120W power brick”?

2) Did you run sudo kextcache -system-caches after sudo nvram boot-args="kext-dev-mode=1"?

3) Open console after restart, type “IOPCITunnelCompatible” in filter field - it should not output anything. If it does, you haven’t modified the kexts correctly. AMDVerdeGraphicsAccelerator is the correct portion.

post-28870-14494999950862_thumb.png

post-28870-14494999950737_thumb.png

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OK, in case anyone is following my plight...

Windows: as mentioned above, I've honed my timing and now I have the GTX 970 working beautifully in Boot Camp / Legacy/BIOS mode Windows 10 Preview just by switching on the eGPU about 1-2 seconds after the Mac mini. Starting it at any other time doesn't work. This is golden! :D

OS X: not much progress with OS X yet (still showing as "NVIDIA Chip Model" and not actually usable even for CUDA, despite drivers/kexts loading fine). However, I have found a way to stop it kernel panicking if I boot with the eGPU on...

Following my hunch about it hanging on IONDRVSupport, I experimented in the plist; specifically, the third block:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]14761[/ATTACH]

I've changed the string value for key PCIClassMatch from:

0x03000000&0xff000000

…to...

0x10de0000&0xff000000

I did this because I took the original version to mean "Only accept AMD GPUs for…[something]", with 0300 being the AMD vendor id and "FF000000" being a mask.

I replaced the left hand side with 10de because that's the vendor ID for NVIDIA.

And now I can happily boot into Yosemite with the eGPU connected.

However, I won't celebrate just yet because I don't really know what I'm doing and it's possible I've simply gone around the issue instead of actually curing it. Can anyone understand why this has stopped the kernel panics?

Anyway - I'm no further forward really as all I've achieved is being able to boot into the same result as I was getting previously by hot-plugging after booting. Interesting, though…?

Update: I get the same result by removing the IOPCITunnelCompatible modification from that block instead of changing the vendor ID.

I think you are making a bigger mess of things instead of fixing here.

First up, ATI is 1002, not 300. Also, sometimes these things need to be Endian flipped, so sometimes 10DE is DE10, 1002 is 0210, etc.

But your setup isn't very different form other past builds so trust the past mods and stick to them.

I'm going to guess that your NVStartup is modded wrong.

Or that you permissions have issues.

Even the TB2 Macs that don't allow display output still show the card correctly.

You need to be sure that you still have Nvidia drivers selected, the output you show is what would be there on OSX default drivers.

ON ANOTHER NOTE: Can someone direct me to where the IOPCITUNNEL mod got discovered? I am specifically curious about finding notes in log about this being needed. Curious if the troublesome TB2 Macs may have this, I never looked.

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Thanks Izzard, I'm glad to know the system report warning messages aren't the issue. Thanks goalque, your guides have been very helpful in convincing me I could give eGPU for parallel computing a try.

Regarding your questions, goalque, I did use kextcache after turning off kext signing, and my kexts do match your images, so it looks like they're edited correctly. So the issue must be the power supply.

It looks like I had misinterpreted the Akitio board power discussion here and here and assumed that the Akitio had the additional 4-pin connector I would need to power the HIS R7 250X 6-pin power input. I think I must have looked at the picture in the thread of the OWC Helios with its extra 4-pin connector and thought it was a picture of the Akitio. Pure wishful thinking!

When I got the Akitio and opened it up I realized I was wrong, but I hoped it might be possible for the card to power itself (on idle) through the PCI connector, so that I could just test whether the Air could recognize the card without having to add an external power supply or modify the Akitio. Nope!

I should mention that the Akitio itself is powering up (blue light, fan) when I turn the Air on, registering as a Thunderbolt device in system report, and powering down when I turn it off, so it's not the Akitio.

So at this point, it looks like my options are to either mail my Akitio to my pro-EE brother-in-law and have him kindly split the Akitio's input power as described at the bottom of the page here, or return it and get a OWC Helios instead and save him the trouble. I don't want to use an external power supply BTW, since I'd prefer to keep this as portable as possible.

Thanks for the pointers, and sorry if the issue was obvious. Here's hoping I can get the mod or replacement done before the 30 day return period on the card so I can bail if it still doesn't work out!

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The power plugs on video cards are NOT optional.

If it's there, it expects power before it will turn card on.

If you don't plug a toaster in are you going to be surprised if it doesn't work?

The spec calls for 75 Watts Max from slot and 75 more from the 6 pin.

So card is (in theory) able to pull 150 Watts.

The Akitio may possibly cover 75 in a stretch but it can't possibly be expected to do 150.

OWC ships with a more powerful PS.

So, if you want this to be a single plug deal, have a look at Nando4's plans using the Dell DA2.

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Hello everyone! Below is a pic of my attempted eGPU setup: I'm using a 15" macbook pro from 2008 (a1260), 4GB ram, 2.66ghz core 2 duo, on board 512MB Geforce 8600m GT. I'm attempting to use the Bplus PE4C-EC3C to use a PNY Nvidia Geforce GTX 260 XLR8 performance edition through my express card 34 slot. I'm using a cooler master 600w power supply. To the right of the pic is a 24" 1080P monitor hooked up to the eGPU via DVI.

I'm running both mac OS X Yosemite and Windows 7 Professional 64 bit (Bootcamped) and have had no luck so far getting this to work in either OS, but I know there's more to this than I'm aware of so I've joined the forums here looking for some help and/or education! From a connectivity stand point everything seems to be connected fine. I get the green light on the PE4C and on the express card adapter plugged into my laptop, but neither OS recognizes that there is anything plugged in. Also, the external GPU doesn't turn on when I hit the power button on my laptop like I've seen with other setups, i've had to turn it on manually each time. I've tried switching the delay switch to all 3 settings on the PE4C, and have also tried changing the power switch settings on the PE4C to "PWR", "AUTO", and "ON".

Is the fact that I'm trying to do this on an apple logic board make things different from some of the windows laptops i've seen? I've seen windows laptop setups which were practically plug and play. Should I verify somehow that OS X Yosemite and/or windows 7 are even recognizing the express card 34 slot and that I have functioning drivers? (i was thinking about going to get another express card 34 device just to see if the slot itself is being recognized by the system)

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated! Thanks everyone!

post-35520-14494999953869_thumb.jpg

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Hello everyone! Below is a pic of my attempted eGPU setup: I'm using a 15" macbook pro from 2008 (a1260), 4GB ram, 2.66ghz core 2 duo, on board 512MB Geforce 8600m GT. I'm attempting to use the Bplus PE4C-EC3C to use a PNY Nvidia Geforce GTX 260 XLR8 performance edition through my express card 34 slot. I'm using a cooler master 600w power supply. To the right of the pic is a 24" 1080P monitor hooked up to the eGPU via DVI.

I'm running both mac OS X Yosemite and Windows 7 Professional 64 bit (Bootcamped) and have had no luck so far getting this to work in either OS, but I know there's more to this than I'm aware of so I've joined the forums here looking for some help and/or education! From a connectivity stand point everything seems to be connected fine. I get the green light on the PE4C and on the express card adapter plugged into my laptop, but neither OS recognizes that there is anything plugged in. Also, the external GPU doesn't turn on when I hit the power button on my laptop like I've seen with other setups, i've had to turn it on manually each time. I've tried switching the delay switch to all 3 settings on the PE4C, and have also tried changing the power switch settings on the PE4C to "PWR", "AUTO", and "ON".

Is the fact that I'm trying to do this on an apple logic board make things different from some of the windows laptops i've seen? I've seen windows laptop setups which were practically plug and play. Should I verify somehow that OS X Yosemite and/or windows 7 are even recognizing the express card 34 slot and that I have functioning drivers? (i was thinking about going to get another express card 34 device just to see if the slot itself is being recognized by the system)

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated! Thanks everyone!

[ATTACH=CONFIG]14771[/ATTACH]

A windows installation would provide an easier platform to diagnose if the video card is detected and if there are errors. Consider too using Setup 1.30 for diagnosis purposes: http://forum.techinferno.com/diy-e-gpu-projects/2123-diy-egpu-setup-1-30-a.html

As an aside, would you mind taking close up photos of the PE4C-EC3C board near where the EC cable connects to see if there is another connector near/next to it? I had a user claim there were two inputs; thereby making it x2 capable but with no schematics and no detailed pictures I was never able to verify the claims. Your pic will also show us the power arrangements possible with that board.

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A windows installation would provide an easier platform to diagnose if the video card is detected and if there are errors. Consider too using Setup 1.30 for diagnosis purposes: http://forum.techinferno.com/diy-e-gpu-projects/2123-diy-egpu-setup-1-30-a.html

As an aside, would you mind taking close up photos of the PE4C-EC3C board near where the EC cable connects to see if there is another connector near/next to it? I had a user claim there were two inputs; thereby making it x2 capable but with no schematics and no detailed pictures I was never able to verify the claims. Your pic will also show us the power arrangements possible with that board.

I have attached a close up picture and yes, there are two connectors. The other is right next to where I currently have it plugged in. Does which one I use matter? Also, I have no problem working within windows for this as I use my windows partition for gaming and the osx partition for everything else.

post-35520-14494999951779_thumb.jpg

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I have attached a close up picture and yes, there are two connectors. The other is right next to where I currently have it plugged in. Does which one I use matter? Also, I have no problem working within windows for this as I use my windows partition for gaming and the osx partition for everything else.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]14772[/ATTACH]

Thanks for the pic. Still not clear what that second connector does, though logic would suggest it's likely to support a x2 link.

I've emailed BPlus requesting more info. In the meantime, any chance you could remove the bottom legged plate and take photos of the rear of the circuitboard? It may have some silkscreened writing to indicate what the connectors are for.

Thanks!

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Thanks for the pic. Still not clear what that second connector does, though logic would suggest it's likely to support a x2 link.

I've emailed BPlus requesting more info. In the meantime, any chance you could remove the bottom legged plate and take photos of the rear of the circuitboard? It may have some silkscreened writing to indicate what the connectors are for.

Thanks!

Hello again!

First of all, thank you so much for the help so far and even emailing Bplus for more info!

Second of all, I've got an update for you:

Before you had replied I decided to take another windows laptop I had laying around (Toshiba Satellite A500, 2gb ram, basic intel integrated graphics, windows 7 pro 64bit, core i5) and hook up the PE4C to it. I still got nothing at first. Then your reply came in requesting to see the close up and long story short, after looking at some pics online I noticed that all of the pics showed the cable hooked up to the other connector. I shut everything down, switched to the other connector, turned the delay switch on to the middle setting (9.8 sec) and voila! it worked first boot! My external display fired up just in time for me to see the "successfully installed nvidia geforce gtx 260". I was able to play world of warcraft at a smooth 60fps. I've attached some screen shots of it working. (does this mean that one slot is 2x and the other is for 1x cards or something?)

I've since re-connected my macbook pro back up to the PE4C in hopes that it would now work with my windows bootcamp install just as easily but unfortunately it did not work. I'm not sure whether its the logic boards "bios" preventing it or perhaps it's the fact that even with the maximum delay timer set on the PE4C, the card fires up before windows starts to load. I noticed with the Toshiba that using the middle delay setting on the PE4C created perfect timing. I hit the power button, the lights on the PE4C came on red/green, it would pass post, windows would start to load, then the card would fire up and the lights would go from red/green to all green.

Could it be that apple didn't include a driver for the express card 34 after a certain point and therefore it's not even activated in my windows bootcamp installation? I have a feeling if i had leopard or something and bootcamped windows xp or vista this might be working. I'm not sure though, any suggestions? Anyway, below are the pics of the setup working on the Toshiba I had kickin around:

post-35520-14494999953277_thumb.jpg

It also let me use both displays but I chose to turn off the laptops internal display and have only the external monitor on. PS: still want me to remove the bottom plate and snap pics of the underside of the PE4C v1.2? (I forgot to mention at the start of the thread that this is the PE4C v1.2 i'm working with here)

post-35520-14494999952263_thumb.jpg

post-35520-14494999952779_thumb.jpg

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Hello again!

First of all, thank you so much for the help so far and even emailing Bplus for more info!

Second of all, I've got an update for you:

Before you had replied I decided to take another windows laptop I had laying around (Toshiba Satellite A500, 2gb ram, basic intel integrated graphics, windows 7 pro 64bit, core i5) and hook up the PE4C to it. I still got nothing at first. Then your reply came in requesting to see the close up and long story short, after looking at some pics online I noticed that all of the pics showed the cable hooked up to the other connector. I shut everything down, switched to the other connector, turned the delay switch on to the middle setting (9.8 sec) and voila! it worked first boot! My external display fired up just in time for me to see the "successfully installed nvidia geforce gtx 260". I was able to play world of warcraft at a smooth 60fps. I've attached some screen shots of it working. (does this mean that one slot is 2x and the other is for 1x cards or something?)

I've since re-connected my macbook pro back up to the PE4C in hopes that it would now work with my windows bootcamp install just as easily but unfortunately it did not work. I'm not sure whether its the logic boards "bios" preventing it or perhaps it's the fact that even with the maximum delay timer set on the PE4C, the card fires up before windows starts to load. I noticed with the Toshiba that using the middle delay setting on the PE4C created perfect timing. I hit the power button, the lights on the PE4C came on red/green, it would pass post, windows would start to load, then the card would fire up and the lights would go from red/green to all green.

Could it be that apple didn't include a driver for the express card 34 after a certain point and therefore it's not even activated in my windows bootcamp installation? I have a feeling if i had leopard or something and bootcamped windows xp or vista this might be working. I'm not sure though, any suggestions? Anyway, below are the pics of the setup working on the Toshiba I had kickin around:

It also let me use both displays but I chose to turn off the laptops internal display and have only the external monitor on. PS: still want me to remove the bottom plate and snap pics of the underside of the PE4C v1.2? (I forgot to mention at the start of the thread that this is the PE4C v1.2 i'm working with here)

I have nothing from BPlus explaining what that second connector is. So yes, wouldn't mind you taking photos with the bottom plate off which may give some silkscreen board text as clues.

As for your Macbook situation, I'd anticipate that even MacOSX would pick up the video card if it all was working correctly. As mentioned, Windows is a bit easier (for me) to troubleshoot with. You could even download and install Linux onto a USB stick, boot it up and type 'lspci -tv -n' and look for a NVidia devices (10DE:xxxx).

We do have examples of older core2duo Macbook eGPU implementations at http://forum.techinferno.com/diy-e-gpu-projects/2109-diy-egpu-experiences-%5Bversion-2-0%5D.html#macbook so they can host an eGPU.

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I have nothing from BPlus explaining what that second connector is. So yes, wouldn't mind you taking photos with the bottom plate off which may give some silkscreen board text as clues.

As for your Macbook situation, I'd anticipate that even MacOSX would pick up the video card if it all was working correctly. As mentioned, Windows is a bit easier (for me) to troubleshoot with. You could even download and install Linux onto a USB stick, boot it up and type 'lspci -tv -n' and look for a NVidia devices (10DE:xxxx).

We do have examples of older core2duo Macbook eGPU implementations at http://forum.techinferno.com/diy-e-gpu-projects/2109-diy-egpu-experiences-%5Bversion-2-0%5D.html#macbook so they can host an eGPU.

I will take the bottom plate off and post those pics later today after work. Could you recommend any sources for a bootable copy of linux? I have the usb flash drive and would do that. As far as my macbook goes, I have the hard drive partitioned and have both windows and mac osx installations and so far still haven't gotten it to work in either OS.

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I will take the bottom plate off and post those pics later today after work. Could you recommend any sources for a bootable copy of linux? I have the usb flash drive and would do that. As far as my macbook goes, I have the hard drive partitioned and have both windows and mac osx installations and so far still haven't gotten it to work in either OS.

The pics will help solve the mystery of the PE4C 1.2

While you may not be able to get the eGPU to work, it should at least appear as a device in device manager. If it doesn't appear in device manager then for whatever reason the eGPU isn't appearing on the PCIe bus. A faulty expresscard slot may be one reason. Worth also hotplugging the powered eGPU to see if you get detection as well as sleep, hotplug eGPU, resume.

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MVC, I get that I made a dumb mistake. I did of lot of research to make sure my toaster was compatible with my toast and not enough on whether I could plug it into the wall. So, guys, help me avoid another dumb mistake.

Is there a cable available that connects a mini 4 pin PCB-mounted power connector to the 6-pin connector required by the card? Not much point in modifying the Akitio to split the input power per Nando's schematic here, or getting a OWC Helios instead that already has this connector, if I can't actually get the power to the card.

The whole point of this build is to keep this portable, which to me means that I can close up the case and throw it in my backpack. So the Dell DA2 solution is out, since the BPlus swex wouldn't fit into the case. The R7 250X draws 95 W max per Wikipedia, and the Akitio board draws 10W as discussed in the Dell DA2 thread, so my understanding is that it should be no problem to get this to work with an external 120W power brick plus split input power and an internal cable from the 4 pin to the card. So it's just this internal cable that's the limiting factor.

I'm fine with stripping and crimping cable wires, so if I need to custom-build such a cable I would just need to know which wire to attach to which.

Thanks in advance,

M. Burrito

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MVC, I get that I made a dumb mistake. I did of lot of research to make sure my toaster was compatible with my toast and not enough on whether I could plug it into the wall. So, guys, help me avoid another dumb mistake.

Is there a cable available that connects a mini 4 pin PCB-mounted power connector to the 6-pin connector required by the card? Not much point in modifying the Akitio to split the input power per Nando's schematic here, or getting a OWC Helios instead that already has this connector, if I can't actually get the power to the card.

The whole point of this build is to keep this portable, which to me means that I can close up the case and throw it in my backpack. So the Dell DA2 solution is out, since the BPlus swex wouldn't fit into the case. The R7 250X draws 95 W max per Wikipedia, and the Akitio board draws 10W as discussed in the Dell DA2 thread, so my understanding is that it should be no problem to get this to work with an external 120W power brick plus split input power and an internal cable from the 4 pin to the card. So it's just this internal cable that's the limiting factor.

I'm fine with stripping and crimping cable wires, so if I need to custom-build such a cable I would just need to know which wire to attach to which.

Thanks in advance,

M. Burrito

The OWC Helios Mercury costs more than the AKiTiO Thunder2. It might be a better fit to your requirements given it comes with a 120W AC adapter, the extra J6 4-pin header and (I believe!) a 4-pin to 6p PCIe cable as listed in the manual "+75W (supplemental power cable)". All you'd need to do then is plug it in, wire the J6 lead to your R7 250X and off you go.

AKiTiO is aware of the differences of the slightly higher specced Helios Mercury offers compared to the near identical Thunder2 as per http://forum.techinferno.com/enclosures-adapters/8848-%24299-owc-mercury-helios-16gbps-tb2-discussion-2.html#post123036 .

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