CypressXt

Hi All,

Nice build Relentless !

Did you try some high-end graphic card like a GTX 980 or AMD R9 290X ?

I ask you this because I bought the same board (an OWC Helios II that is using the same pcb as yours, here is my try hard post) and I can't use any cards that need the 75W from pci-e port.

Did you met some power issue ?

Hello Dschijn,

Yes, I tried without the raid card, but the result was sadly the same.

@Nando,

As you suggested, I have removed the last ribbon of my PCIe riser but still have the same issue.

Thanks for the suggestion, but it has no effect.

I tried with the DC barrel and the Molex powered riser without success.

Hello Nando,

Thanks for your quick reply !

Sadly I already try this without any success .

The gpu crash appear earlier without the powered riser (about 3 sec after passing the windows login screen against 2-3 mins with the riser 0.0 ) .

Any other idea ?

Hello everyone,

Here are some informations about my eGPU setup.

Hardware:

• Macbook pro retina 15' (mid 2014 | MacbookPro 11,2 )
  
• XFX R9 290x
  
• SATA III controller (RocketRaid 640L)
  
• SSD Samsung 850 Pro 256Gb
  
• OWC Helios II (Thunderbolt II enclosure)
  
• Corsair AX 650 PSU
  
• Pci-e 16x powered riser
  

Software:

• Windows 8.1 (UEFI install)
  
• Lastest AMD Omega drivers (14.12)
  
• Lucid Virtu MVP 2.0
  
• Bootcamp drivers (downloaded from OSX)
  

What is currently working ?:

• Windows 8.1 over thunderbolt (using the RocketRaid controller)
  
• Lucid Virtu MVP 2.0 using the Optimus trick (Thx to Evo* by the way )
  
• Internal Screen and all Macbook internal devices like speakers, mic, keyboard, trackpad...
  
• Midrange graphics card (tried HD6870, HD5850, GTX 570, R7 260X )
  

What doesn't work now :

• high-end graphics card (tried r9 290x, Nvidia gtx 980)
  

Benchmarks:

• AMD HD 6870 Firestrike 3495
  
• Nvidia GTX 570 Firestrike 3070
  

Need help about:

I'm really close to my goal, having an all in one box for gaming (containing a PSU, a GPU and an drive to store the Windows system).

This goal is achieved with low and midrange GPU but when I'm using a high-end graphic card, Windows boot and, after ~ 2-3 mins the screen freeze and I ready for a hard shutdown.

The strange with is that I'm using a powered riser as you can see on the third picture below.

I have tried to use the OWC Helos self powered by it own given psu but it didn't help, then powered by the riser only (I can boot normally on windows but the gpu problem is still there, freeze after 2-3 mins).

I have tested the riser in a standard desktop pc with the r9 290x and all worked fine.

I have also tested the setup on OS X, and strange thing, every thing work (on a external display) but the GPU is stuck at 300Mhz so it didn't bring any performances boost, it was even worse than the iGP, BUT it didn't crash.

My question is HOW ?

How can my helios board be powered by the riser only and don't give enough power to my GPU 0.0 ? Can this be an other problem, else as power issue ?

As anyone some suggestion or idea, I'm trying to solve this issue for month now and it became a bit frustrating :/ .

Feel free to ask me if you have any questions !

(Sorry for my English by the way, feel also free to correct me )

Pictures:

Hi guys,

Here are some benchmark done with the eGPU setup (Macbook pro 10.1 with Radeon HD 6870) before writing more about the differents test that I have made during 3 weeks:

3D Mark Fire Strike HD 6870 @940Mhz

3D Mark Fire Strike HD 6870 @1Ghz

See you soon in the verse !

Hi @Nando4 and the others too,

Whaou how did you find this video (#NSA I post it yesterday and you saw it instantly 0.0 ).

I would be pleased to explain my work here but I'm not really happy with my solution for the moment.

I didn't find a solution to make it work in native EFI mode cause of the pci-e lane attribution.

So after hours and hours of testing I through all throw the windows (it's an image, don't do it) and I made an Windows 8.1 Bios install.

By the way I found this, it can be usefull for others: Win7 x64 booting natively via EFI (no BIOS emulation) - Page 36 - MacRumors Forums (it's about rEFIt configuration)

The USB key that I haved used to install windows 8.1 in bios mode dosen't boot on my macbook so I used a "normal pc" to install it on the external ssd.

After that I plugged the ssd (using an usb adapter) to my mac and boot on it. Then I installed the normal bootcamp drivers here.

A wild and fonctionnal Windows 8.1 installation appear BUT my HD4000 isn't visible in the device manager and I can't install the Intel driver (I didn't really understand it now...).

Afterward I follow the dsdt override guide here (just the first part concerning the dsdt not the driver part).

Finally I boot on the external ssd (still in usb, the highpoint rocket 640L don't want to) with the eGPU plugged in BUT the psu down.

When you're logged in open the device manager and start your external power supply and make a secondary click on your pc's name and chose something like "search for plug-and-play devices" and my HD 6870 mystically appear.

In conclusion, I'm not really happy for 2 reasons,

the first one: I can't boot directly from the highpoint rocket 640L sata controller (On the video I let it over the psu but it normally stay just behind the HD 6870)

and the second one: It works great and I don't really understand why 0.0 .

So Nando if you judge it useful I would be happy to write a proper guide !

Hi guys,

I'm trying to make my setup work base on this tread informations but until now without success .

I have a macbook pro retina (mid 2012 with the Intel HD 4000 and this really nice nvidia 650M card that cause tonnes of issues ^^).

So my eGPU is a Radeon 6870 that I connect to my Mac using a OWC Helios 2 (seems to be some of Sonnet's pcb) it's a native thunderbolt solution.

On this pcb there are 2 pci-e slots, one for the Radeon and on the other I plugged a highpoint rocket 640L SATA III controller for the Windows 8.1 (Installed in EFI mode) ssd.

So for using the eGPU, I'm booting on the ssd that's connected on the same thunderbolt as the GPU.

I followed the guide concerning the rEFIt but when I'm booting windows with the eGPU and the SATA controller I get a BSOD with "Inaccessible_boot_device" like if the GPU was replacing the controller 0.0.

I tried to boot on the ssd with a usb->sata device but same issue.

I think that my pci-e line/register are not really optimised for this.

I've also check, if I unplug the gpu from the sonnet board all works great, windows boot normaly and all is ok. But as soon as I plug the GPU something goes wrong.

Someone as an idea or an advice ?

By the way the syntaxe for the "mm" command dosen't work for me, the mm 00020004 1 ;PCI :0

give me too many arguments.

Hello @goalque,

Really nice build !

I follow your instructions with my macbook pro (mid-2012 this one have a dGPU Nvidia 650M) but I'm a bit confuse, you didn't use the dy Setup 1.x ?

You didn't get some deadly Windows "Code 12" or some other pci allocation issues ?

Hello @goalque,

Really nice build !

I follow your instructions with my macbook pro (mid-2012 this one have a dGPU Nvidia 650M) but I'm a bit confuse, you didn't use the dy Setup 1.x ?

You didn't get some deadly Windows "Code 12" or some other pci allocation issues ?