Leaderboard

Hi people! I just wanted to share my gGPU setup with you and talk about the benefits and problems. I bought the Akitio along with a passive Palit GTX 750 TI because I didn't want my gGPU to make any noise nor to need any extra power supply. The Maxwell GTX 750 ti does all that since it only draws 60W and like this, I just needed to apply the guide (here) to pass up to 75 W through the PCIe port so that I could make the most compact setup possible (with a passive GPU). I even got to make it work under OS X and Windows stable, although on Windows I didn't activate optimus with the internal screen of my 13" rMBPr Late 2013. The setup works very stable in idle and whenever I really push it hard, I just put a little 6cm NB-Fan in Front of the GPU which it cools down to less than 60 degrees on 100 % load without any noise. My only problem now is, that there shouldn't be any noise, but yesterday the Akitio and its PSU startet to make a buzzing noise at full load which I am not sure if it is coming from the coils of the PSU or the Enclosure itself. Anyway my main problem is now that I then found that the Akitio makes a subtle but perceivable very high frequent noise as soon as the PSU is plugged (Akitio not activated) Now my question is, could someone who ownes a Akitio check, if you can hear this noise on any Akitio or if it is just mine that has a problem. Thank you very much in advance! Regards, salut

OK I ran a few more experiments and it turns out that the PCIe power cable is not an issue. The boot state (Optimus vs. external monitor only) of the eGPU is what determines the numbers in Firestrike. When I tried to revert driver versions, I noticed that the system reverted back to the old behaviour (disabling the iGPU upon boot) and kept working like this until I powered the Macbook Air down AND disconnected the Thunderbolt cable. Once everything is disconnected and reconnected, the next system boot will have Optimus enabled. Here is a summary of what I have done: Switched drivers between 9.18.13.4752 and 9.18.13.4709 Alternated between using one or two separate PCIe cables to power the GTX 970 FTW+ Changed between Optimus to eGPU-only (iGPU disabled) boot modes I ran Firestrike on all combinations of driver version, power config and boot mode. The conclusion is that in Optimus Firestrike scores are >6000 whereas in iGPU disabled mode the scores drop to ~4000. Driver version or power configuration had no influence in these results. Despite my initial concerns, powering with a single PCIe power cable seems to be OK - the image flickering I had noticed before was simply Windows 8.1 silently updating the GPU drivers. I didn't test the two power configurations too extensively but I saw no difference in the Firestrike results. I currently don't have a good explanation for why the system takes such a performance hit when running with iGPU disabled since the FTW+'s predecessor, an EVGA GTX 970 SC ACX 2.0, got >6000 on Firestrike without Optimus. In both cases, PhysX was configured to used the GPU and nothing stood out from monitoring the card using GPU-Z during the benchmarks. It is possible that this behaviour is specific to this specific card but I'm not sure why/how. Optimus working on the Macbook Air cannot be attributed to the new Nvidia drivers (v9.18.13.4752) since it also works with older drivers (9.18.13.4709). Instead, Optimus may have been enabled by another Windows update (e.g. KB3000850) or due to a particular feature of the VBIOS on the GTX 970 FTW+. Reverting a cumulative Windows update can be tricky but I can easily test the latter hypothesis by trying to get Optimus to work with my GTX 460.

Hi Guys, I would like to share a story that really saved my PC and wallets from being ripped off. I was messing with my newly modded y400 BIOS (thanks to Svl7). I changed a few setting in the PCIE configuration under the Advance tab and the whole system went blank.. not even the Lenovo sign. (Should've headed Svl7's warning not to mess with thing i don't understand) I couldn't even enter BIOS as the display chip was shut off while the system continue to load. It freaked me out until i found this post. Edmar Hobby - Electronic: Lenovo Ideapad Y580 Insyde Bios Reset/Recovery I used the first method to recover from the mess " to the following key presses to do a factory reset of the BIOS: left, 4x down, 4x enter" And before i know it, my beloved computer came back to life. The post also teach about how to recover from corrupted BIOS running on insydeh20 BIOS system, although i was scarred to hell to try it. I hope the above link can help someone (as careless as me) and a million thanks to Slv7 and Edmar!

Post here your vbios. I will look.

I used several thermal pastes for ex. ic7 diamond, zalam stg2, gc extreme, mx 2, phobya hegrease extreme. My best is GC Extreme! - best temp, and easy to place, or mx-2 best effective/cost.

If this is, what bothers you... Please forget about the "may be." I did not notice any performace impact anyhow. Especially as 347.xx did not allow for OC which has a bigger effect on my system I guess. All I wanted to point out is that 345.20 has OC enabled again. Best regards phila

I have a M17x R4 GTX 680m vbios here if you could kindly take a look please backup.zip

Hey, great guide! BUT WHAT'S THE COMMAND TO RESTART THE COMPUTER? Or is it ok just to hit the power button on my PC? Would appreciate a quick reply as ima leave my PC on until I get a reply xD

Hello every one! Im semi new here and Ive got a question if you dont mind.. Im running the mod drivers and every thing seems to crash.. I have a cf set up and well even minecraft blue screens me..yet i can run other things.. Ive searched hi and low for Drivers that are stable.. any advice would be great! Also these vbios what system are they made for or are they universal? thanks

I suck at soldering Big time.