juniordiscart

Alright, thanks! I'm gonna try it anyways and see if it resolves anything. If it saves some settings in the NVRAM, I think it might have an effect on the boot process regardless of OS used. I'll report my findings when I have something to tell.

As far as I know, the 8pin to 2 x 6pin + barrel mod is only available from ebay. You either order it from there, or you make such a thing yourself by ordering the parts from, i.e., Amazon.de and soldering everything.

Hi goalque I recently sold my GTX770 because of persisting stability issues (when gaming, after a random period of time, the screen starts to stutter and crash), and I stepped up to an EVGA GTX960 hoping to get rid of the stability issues. So I went from Kepler to Maxwell and I started to see the "black screen on boot without startup chime" problem. I have a 15" MBPr mid 2014 with nvidia 750 dGPU, and reading through the threads, I seem to be not alone with this problem. However, reading your documentation on the first post, you seemed to get rid of this startup problem. I understand that it needs to be applied in OS X, but does it affect the boot process for Windows as well? In other words, will it also allow me to boot into windows without problems? I only run Windows on this machine, no OS X, so that's why I'm asking, if I apply it in OS X, remove it afterwards, will it still run? Thanks in advance.

@eGPUfan You will be able to fit that card in the box, if you bend open the back of it, like TheGrreatGatsby did. Only a few small-form factor cards will only fit in the Akitio box without bending or cutting as listed here: http://forum.techinferno.com/enclosures-adapters/7205-us%24189-akitio-thunder2-pcie-box-16gbps-tb2.html

@MickMer15 Passive solution here refers to the passive cooling of the card. There is no fan on the cooling block, which makes the card silent. Instead, it relies on the external airflow and large cooling block to dissipate heat instead of active fans constantly making noise and cooling the card. So its just a regular eGPU setup. Only the type of cooling differs, which should not have any impact on the building process or setup of the eGPU.

I believe I have seen several people already who got their eGPU setup to work under Windows 10. So if you got it to work under Windows 8(.1), chances are very high you will also get it to work under Windows 10. Edit: Here's a link of a guy who use Windows 10 as his OS: http://forum.techinferno.com/implementation-guides-apple/9802-2013-15-macbook-pro-gt750m-gtx970%4016gbps-tb2-akitio-thunder2-win10tp-%5Biregret%5D.html

As I read a few comments on forums about whether its possible to install Windows on your 2011 MacBook, it seems like it doesn't support the full (U)EFI set, and thus is not possible to install Windows in the EFI mode required to enable the integrated GPU with the EFI mod.

@TheGrreatGatsby Installing Windows in UEFI mode is usually necessary to get a smooth(er) eGPU experience. The other option is installing in MBR mode, which is older, and not recommended. Installing in MBR requires Nando4's software to get rid of some boot erros. When installing Windows on a MacBook through the bootcamp software, it is already installed using EFI (an Apple-specific form of UEFI) assuming a recent version of the MacBook (which you have, older MacBooks would install windows in MBR mode through Bootcamp). So you don't have to worry about that. However, when you install Windows on your MacBook directly (so without using Bootcamp from OS X), you have the option to install it in EFI mode, or regular mode (aka MBR). If you did that, you should have selected the EFI-option. If you want to double check in what mode you installed windows, you can take a look at the partitioning scheme of your C-drive. To do this, follow the next few steps: Hope this helps in explaining a few things.

I don't think the new AMD Fury X is a good candidate for the Dell DA-2. The Fury X has a TDP set at 275Watt, a bit too much for the Dell DA-2 to pull. If you want to use the Fury X, you're better off using a regular ATX PSU with a minimum of 500 Watt to get a good power efficiency. The DA-2 should be fine for the GTX970 you linked though.

If you can select "Disable" for both the GPU's in the device manager, then yes, both are enabled. I guess the 2015 MBPr models have the same issues then as the mid 2014 ones. For me, it wasn't worth all the hassle to get that bit more out of the battery by using only the Iris GPU, since it didn't allow me to dim my display either, so I just gave up and went back to the dedicated nvidia GPU only. I hope you can get more success with your system than me, and if you do, make sure to post about it.

Hmm, no idea if that is normal behaviour. I wasn't satisfied with enabling the Iris internal GPU because I would have to disable the nvidia GPU all the time, otherwise I would boot with a black screen, flashing some icons periodically. So I'm just running Windows with the dedicated GPU only now with just the e-GPU. You indeed have to re-select the new EFI entry in the boot menu in order to enable the Iris GPU. Maybe there is a way to automate it, but I'm not an expert in that, so you'll have to figure out that yourself, or see if someone else can help you with that. Glad you got it working now though.

Once rEFInd is installed on the EFI partition, then you can certainly just continue from Windows on. That's correct, there is no drive letter for the EFI-boot partition. Windows hides it. I'll try to summarize the steps for Windows, assuming you indeed have rEFInd installed. Sorry if some of the commands sound too simple or obvious, but I just want to make sure everything is clear to what you have to do. Also, download the apple_set_os.efi file and place it in an easy-to-access location. I'll here assume that this is your Desktop, for me that would be: C:\Users\Jan\Desktop\. Yours will probably be different, just make sure you switch out the name of my user account for yours. Alright, so open a command line or Powershell window as administrator (search for "cmd" or "powershell", right click the program and select to run it as administrator. Enter the following commands: This will mount the EFI partition in Windows and assign it the drive letter S. You won't be able to see it appear in "My Computer" however, it remains hidden. Check the output after these commands. If you see a directory for refind, then you have refind installed and you can proceed with the next set of commands. Otherwise, make sure you follow the installation instructions for rEFInd for Windows on this link: The rEFInd Boot Manager: Installing rEFInd This last one copies the efi file to the custom folder of the EFI partition. Make sure you get all of the "\" right and that your path to your apple_set_os.efi file is correct. It should ask you to create any custom directory if you don't have one already. After this, you should see an extra entry in the boot menu when you reboot. This should be it.

@TheGrreatGatsby So you have rEFInd installed, right? The /efi/EFI/custom directory is not standard available on the EFI partition, even if you have installed rEFInd, so you have to create the directory using the mkdir command, like in the instructions on Github first, like so: You might have to do that as root to get it to make the directory. Although I have a MacBook Pro, I don't have OS X installed, only Windows. I managed to install rEFInd and the apple_set_os.efi file from Windows. The installation instructions for rEFInd for Windows were, in my opinion, easier. However, when installing the apple_set_os.efi file from Windows, you must be aware of the differences in paths to place the apple_set_os.efi file. These instructions were not available on Github. For OS X the pa<code></code>th is: /boot/efi/EFI/custom/ For Windows, this path is: S:\EFI\custom\ (S is the letter of the drive you assigned to the EFI partition when mounting it in the commandline tool or powershell, this may change depending on what letter you gave it.) I hope this helps.

Hey guys, I was able to get the integrated card active, but I run into the problem that I can't have both cards active at the same time. (Macbook Pro 15", mid 2014, nvidia 750m) I can run with the dedicated card active, and if I want to switch to the integrated one, I first have to disable the dedicated card in device management (this makes my screen go black, because there is no display adapter anymore). Next I shutdown the laptop, select the EFI entry to active the integrated card, boot and I get a view, this time through the integrated card. In device management, I can see my dedicated is disabled. However, when I re-enable my dedicated card, reboot with the entry for the integrated card, I get a black log-in screen with the icon of the ethernet connection sometimes flashing. Has anybody else encountered this problem as well? Are there specific steps to follow to have them both active at the same time? Or is this simply wishful thinking? :/ Thanks in advance.

I believe nobody attempted this (yet). I'm not planning to, since I run a good setup with an Akitio, and since this has a very high success rate for a reasonable price, I believe its the best choice. However, we would still appreciate if somebody was willing to experiment with this idea further of course. I think the reason nobody attempted to this yet, is because of the signaling channel that is present on these small Thunderbolt expansion cards. I think nobody really knows how to address this. I also tried mailing several companies (incl. Asus and HP) to help me explain, but didn't receive any replies (probably because I'm just a random guy )

I don't think it will decrease your gaming performance when that external Thunderbolt drive is mainly idle. When you would game, and actively read / write from the disk at maximum capacity, then the thunderbolt link will get slightly filled with other data than graphics data, so that may have an impact. But since the majority of disk activity happens during the loading of a game, and less during, it may have just a minimal impact on performance.

Yes, the Akitio box comes with a 0.5meter Thunderbolt cable. So no need to buy a separate one. I bought a 2meter cable tho, because 0.5meter was just a bit too short for my needs.

The problem you describe may not have anything to do with using an eGPU setup (still could be, but the problem you describe seems familiar to other posts). Many users have reported problems launching GTA V and then suddenly nothing happening anymore. The problem could be related to your username or computername containing some special characters. Rockstar is currently working on a patch to fix that. Take a look at this thread for more information. I have played GTA V for the past couple of days on my eGPU setup without any problems (Macbook Pro 15" mid 2014 - eGPU GTX770).

You're not the only one. Two days ago I noticed that the yellow-side part of my molex connector from my powered riser got molten as well... The plastic tubing around the cable was still intact though. Weirdly though, I noticed a burning scent a few weeks ago, but hadn't had any problems with powering or stability. So I thought that the smell came from somewhere else. Only when I noticed two days ago that the molex got burned, I took it apart for a checkup to see whether nothing else was damaged, it refused to power up afterwards... So, while waiting for a new riser, I made a new molex-to-barrel, this time with a little more attention to detail, thicker wires and a better soldering job. So I hope this will do the trick in keeping my eGPU going for a while.

Could you please point me in a direction of posts where this was done? I would like to try that, and see if it works with my GTX770 and GTX760. I'm not too familiar with downclocking or underclocking. But I guess I could look up the official specs of the GPU that nvidia has foreseen to run it on, and set the parameters on my, presumably overclocked 760 and 770.

To further add to your statement, @ithildin, also tested my GTX460 (Gigabyte 1Gb)and a friend's GTX560Ti (Gainward 1Gb Phantom), and both run extremely stable. I've had them both for about 3 weeks in my Akitio each. So I think you're right in saying that the problem is more a specific type of GPU, and maybe some manufacturer-related card design. I will probably sell my GTX700 series cards and get a 900 series instead, since hardly any problems have been reported with them. Thanks for the summary btw.

Yes, with every "desktop" PSU you use, you will need to apply the paperclip trick for the PSU to turn on.

Ah, sorry, I hardly paid attention to disregard the information in the spoiler. Maybe a dumb question, but how do I disable optimus then? I do have 2 GPUs listed: the 750m and (for this moment) the GTX460. Can I just disable the 750m from the device manager? (The MacBook doesn't recognize the Intel iGPU in Bootcamp, so I can't disable that). Or should I do something in the nvidia control panel? Thanks for your reply and effort in investigating this.

@Morv I assume you are referring to me in one of the spoilers. I'm the person who switched out his GTX770 for a GTX760. I must admit I was a bit fast in crying victory, as I mentioned in a few post further down in that thread. The GTX760 does reduce the problem significantly compared to the GTX770 (it happens a lot less often and also much later compared to my GTX770). However, I do have a GTX460 (1GB, 2 x 6 PCI-e power pins) as a spare graphics card and have been using it for over a week now without a single crash. It's obviously not as powerful as a 700-series card, but it runs flawlessly. I may get my hands on a GTX560 of a friend for a while and can use it to test this card as well. Btw, I checked my event logs when using the GTX760 and GTX770, and both of them give the entries you describe in the OP. Using the GTX460 only gives one MEIx64 entry in the log after the WinLogon event.

Glad to see yours seems to work proper now. I have to admit that my system (with the GTX760) is still not perfect. I still run into the aforementioned problems, but A LOT less frequent. It feels almost stable. But my gtx760 and gtx770 are from the same manufacturer (Gigabyte). Maybe their BIOS or internal workings isn't well suited to be used for e-gpu purposes. So I might search for a similar gpu from another manufacturer and see how that works out. Thanks for posting your update though. Always happy to see ppl getting their problems resolved.