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DIY eGPU Macbook experiences


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Anyone else having "lagging" since installing el capitan?

 

Before i installed el capitan, my setup 15" late2013 + 970 worked like a charm. Sadly now the mouse and window-movement stutter and it is like the external gpu slows down whole mac os. No problem without connected egpu. The display connected to the egpu works but it is not useable for working this way...

 

Best regards!

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34 minutes ago, hblockx said:

Anyone else having "lagging" since installing el capitan?

 

Before i installed el capitan, my setup 15" late2013 + 970 worked like a charm. Sadly now the mouse and window-movement stutter and it is like the external gpu slows down whole mac os. No problem without connected egpu. The display connected to the egpu works but it is not useable for working this way...

 

Best regards!

See this thread: https://www.techinferno.com/index.php?/forums/topic/8880-perfomance-boost-when-disabling-internal-monitor/

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Hi,

I had bought the Akitio Thunder 2 Box, and connected it with a GTX 980ti and a MP-700P Rhombutech Power supply.

My Computer is A MacBook Pro 15" Mid. 2014 in Bootcamp.

But windows won't detect the Graphics Card.

I think the Power Supply won't power the Graphics Card and the Graphics Card get only Power from the PCI Slot.

Or could it be a Other Problem?

thx

letsch323

 

PS: Sorry for my bad English :(.

IMG_1353.jpg

IMG_1354.jpg

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I'm thinking about purchasing a thunderbolt PCIe enclosure with an eGPU in mind. I was just wondering whether this tech allows for hotplugging the thunderbolt enclosure or whether I should shutdown before I unplug it. Furthermore, should I also disable the driver modifications prior to disconnecting the thunderbolt device?

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I am wondering if mirroring the displays rather than use the external monitor as a secondary display (and close the macbook) would yield better performance? My laptop somehow runs dangerously high temps (cpu core & dgpu 70c+)  during normal use and over 100c on cpu when just opening the game launcher. Shouldn't the dgpu be very cool since it should not be in use? I am not sure if this is a driver issue or existing difficulties with os x egpu codes. This happens only occasionally with my abandoned Win 8 egpu setup. Is anyone experiencing unusual high temps?

 

------------------------------------------------------

After some testing, mirroring the displays only makes performance worse (intense stuttering)... :(

Edited by helloman
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High temps are normal with MacBooks.

- Instal Intel XTU in Windows an lower the CPUs voltage (-50 or even -75mV).

- Limit the Turbo multiplicator

- Set a more aggresive fan profile

 

Also, do you have a constant 10-20% system load after booting into Windows?

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Unfortunately I have unpartitioned my windows since I bought a new windows laptop, so I cannot do the above. I swear though when I used to be in windows playing the same game my dgpu is around 50'C and egpu around 70C, while in os x dgpu jumps over 100. Cpu temp also has ridiculous leaps. I know macbooks have high temps but egpu in os x actually increased my dgpu temp, which was the opposite for windows. I do custom fan speeds for both osx and windows. 

I tried reinstalling the automate egpu.sh but saw no improvement. Unfortunately I have only used this after 10.11.2 upgrade and 0.98 shell, so I cannot tell if it happens with older versions.

 

Does no one else actually have this problem? Maybe I should reinstall the whole OS to see if that helps... :(

Edited by helloman
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@irundaia Thunderbolt technology allows hot-plugging. Currently Nvidia doesn’t provide hot-plugging support. Drivers are meant for dGPU graphics, not officially for eGPUs.

 

However, the following is possible:

Put your Mac to sleep from the Apple menu, wait until the eGPU powers off, remove the TB cable, plug in the TB cable, press any key to wake the Mac and your eGPU wakes up as well. If you try to wake your Mac when the eGPU is disconnected, it will cause a kernel panic.

 

The I/O Kit framework provides access to a kernel driver, but it may be that Nvidia doesn’t allow invoking its methods from the user space. I’m investigating this, but no workaround at the moment.

 

@helloman Try disabling your internal screen completely since you have 650M dGPU and the web driver likely conflicts with the eGPU.

https://github.com/Eun/DisableMonitor

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Thank you @goalque and @Dschijn for the suggestions.

I tried disabling the internal LCD completely with DisableMonitor, and to my surprise, it actually didn't help at all. Somehow turning off the display or closing the macbook do not really turn off the 650m. Is there another way to switch it off?

I also realized that my epgu gets relatively hot for not really doing anything. At this point I am not even sure what is faulty.

 

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Thanks for this script @goalque. It worked perfectly on my 13" MBPr 2013-late with GTX 960.

 

I have one question to ask. Is there anyway to use my e-GPU just on an external display? my internal display is still on even after i closed it. I just want to use one display(external) for my ogpu.

 

Thank you again. Have a wonderful day.

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1 hour ago, EzRich said:

Thanks for this script @goalque. It worked perfectly on my 13" MBPr 2013-late with GTX 960.

 

I have one question to ask. Is there anyway to use my e-GPU just on an external display? my internal display is still on even after i closed it. I just want to use one display(external) for my ogpu.

 

Thank you again. Have a wonderful day.

 

You can use this App -> https://github.com/Eun/DisableMonitor

Was using this already some time ago.

 

Besides disabling displays it also allows you to change the displays resolution, all for free :)

Edited by Morv
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Hi Guys,

 

I need some help. I'm booting into the Win10 boot camp partition and the egpu just wont get recognised by my MacBook pro. I've tried every boot sequence imaginable and reset the win10 install. When i try to install the NVidia drivers it wont let me continue saying that "This graphics driver could not find compatible graphics hardware". I'll try downloading  win8.1 overnight but I'm doubting that will help since I have a similar problem trying to get it working on OSX. The enclosure, PSU and GPU are all new. Going to go try the GPU in another computer to eliminate that as the issue.

 

Any help or advice you can give is highly appreciated.

 

MacBook Pro Iris Early 2013

Akitio Thunder2 box powered via default brick

Corsair VS550 PSU w/ paperclip trick

ASUS GTX 970 MIni

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Hey guys,

 

So I'm planning on purchasing a 2013 Macbook Pro retina 13" (switched from a macbook air) and using with a AKitiO Thunder2 and Quadro k1200 eGPU. This would be used in my studio space and I'm wondering how optimus is working in windows and whether this is a reliable setup. I mostly want to make sure that Optimus would work essentially 100% of the time (os x or windows) while I'm in class. Used to use an expresscard/sonnet TB adapter setup that was 100% compatible with the internal display, but it seems that pure thunderbolt isn't always the case. If anyone has any tips with my setup and what kind of Operating system I need to get optimus working the most reliably, I'd be very grateful :)

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20 hours ago, EpicBlob said:

Hey guys,

 

So I'm planning on purchasing a 2013 Macbook Pro retina 13" (switched from a macbook air) and using with a AKitiO Thunder2 and Quadro k1200 eGPU. This would be used in my studio space and I'm wondering how optimus is working in windows and whether this is a reliable setup. I mostly want to make sure that Optimus would work essentially 100% of the time (os x or windows) while I'm in class. Used to use an expresscard/sonnet TB adapter setup that was 100% compatible with the internal display, but it seems that pure thunderbolt isn't always the case. If anyone has any tips with my setup and what kind of Operating system I need to get optimus working the most reliably, I'd be very grateful :)

I'd love to see how that Quadro card performs on a eGPU setup! I've been eyeing that card for a while now.

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Hi guys,

 

I have now a Sonnet expansion chassis with an Titan X connected to a mid 2014 MBP 15" Retina 750m 16GB 2.8Ghz running. The system is rock solid, it is also a lot more stable now as it used to be when I work with cuda accelerated Software. I'm quite happy :-)

 

However, there is a detail that bugs me. When I connect everything and try to power on the system, it straight up won't boot. It stops around the Post I guess, because there is no apple chime, not even the display is turning on. The expansion chassis does though...

So I have to turn the Laptop on without eGPU and plug it in as soon as the apple shows up, after the sound. Then it works like a charm.

 

I know, that's probably because of the internal 750m graphics card, but is there a solution since the problem is probably around the EFI boot rom? :-/

 

I'm all in all pretty happy about the system, yet I just want to try to make it running as smooth as possible. :-)

 

Thanks a lot.

Marco

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Hi to everybody.

 

Fist of all, I'd like to thank all the people who share this knowledge.

After some time thinking about make my own eGPU, today I received the last part.

 

The specs of my Mac are the followings: 2012  MacBook Pro  I7, 16 GB RAM and Intel Graphics 4000 and Geforce 650M (discrete). I'm concern that my Mac have TB1 and the performance of the eGPU it's low than TB2.

I bought the Dell DA-2, the PIN cables, the Akitio Thunder2 and the Zotac GTX 970 graphic card.

 

First I tried to power the Akitio and the card with Dell DA-2, but it seems that the system was unable to start (maybe I'm doing something wrong).

Later, and with an old PSU ATX 450W, I finally powered the whole system.

With the Goalque software my Mac got the eGPU and started running in an external display via HDMI, but after aprox. 15 min of use, the Mac crashed and restarted. Since then, when I try to use the eGPU, the Mac restarts again and again when I load X-Plane simulator. The errors report indicates a kernel panic error. 

I think that it could be the NVIDIA drivers, but Im not sure. I have installed both the CUDA drivers for Mac and the WEB drivers for Mac too.

Please could somebody help me with this problem? Could come the error from using the old PSU ATX 450W?

 

P.D.: I'll try to power the eGPU again with the Dell DA-2.        

Thank you so much.

Danny.

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Setup: Mid 2014 Retina Macbook Pro with GT750m. Graphics Card : EVGA GTX 750ti , Akitio Thunder 2. Windows 8.1 Power Supply: 120W 'Brick'

 

To all, 

 

If anyone could help I would be immeasurably grateful. Essentially I have tried and failed miserably when it comes to setting this up. Initially I connected the  Macbook Pro - Thunder 2 - Graphics Card and External Monitor. Booted Black and would not progress. 

 

Then tried 'hot plugging'- switching on the akitio after selecting the windows OS. I was able to get to the desktop however neither the external graphics card was recognised in the Device manager ( didn't even appear' ) nor did the external monitor work ( not even a flicker, remained black ). Needless to say drivers were updated beforehand. 

 

I have also tried installing the 1.3 setup although having great difficulty as not sure how to install windows in EFI mode! Even tried converting from GPT to MBR but ruined the partition somehow

 

Any help to the above would be enormously gratefully received. As you can see I am on somewhat of a learning curve but determined to make it succeed. 

 

All the Best, 

p3nzance 

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Okay, so I have a MBP late 2013 with Iris Pro and GT 750m, I have managed to get it working in OSX but when I bootcamp into Windows 10, the system doesn't seem to recognize the gpu. I know I probably need to download or do some tinkering in terminal or something but I don't know what to do, please help, thank you. Also I have already download the drivers for it (or at least I think I downloaded the correct drivers). P.S. I only experience 30 FPS in CSGO on max settings in OSX, is this normal? I just felt that I must have to do some optimizing to make it run better.

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