tusctodd

Has anyone put a 1070/80 in their egpu setup to see if there are worthwhile performance gains or if the TB2 connection mutes any improvement?

came across this today. https://bizon-tech.com/us/bizonbox2-egpu.html

A friend of mine did the exact same procedure you have detailed. The only problem he had was the aux power cable. He ended up removing the casing from the power supply and wired it directly to the posts. After that, everything work flawlessly. Good luck!

The GPU switcher was not necessary on my laptop as I only have the integrated graphics.

I am using windows 10. I haven't had a problem with Optimus working. I can use either the internal or external screen. (typical performance hit when using the internal screen. If I remember correctly my firestrike score was 8400 on the internal screen and ~10,000 on the external screen) I've been really happy with my current setup. My wife has a 2015 mpbr 13". I can confirm I only get the egpu to boot successfully about 10% of the time. I was frustrated enough to give up on the 13" because the 15" works 100% of the time.

I have been following a story about someone who had made the core hot pluggable on a Dell XPS15. Out of curiosity, I wondered if the same setup would work on my TB2 Egpu setup. I can confirm that it does. My Setup: Egpu - Akito Macbook Pro 15 (2015) (integrated only) Nvidia 980 Software installed: latest Intel video drivers Nvidia drivers from Razer, NOT Nvidia (http://www.razerzone.com/gaming-systems/razer-core-updates). After reading the blog it appeared the drivers directly from Nvidia did not work correctly at this time. Razer Synapse 2.0 (may or may not be needed. I only tried with it installed) 1.Installed all the software 2. Reboot with Egpu unplugged 3. Plugged in Egpu Observations: At first the system appeared to freeze for about 5 seconds. After that the Nvidia driver loaded and everything performed normally.

Nope.

I stumbled upon this by accident. I'm not certain if it works 100% of the time but so far, for me, it has. I have a 2015 13" Macbook Pro. Like many of the users on this forum, I have to use the timing trick to get Windows to load the drivers from my external graphics card. Most of the time it works no problem, but every now and then I get the infinite spinning orbs and the machine simply hangs. What I have found that may bypass this issue is to plug a device into a USB2 port. I did it with my mouse by accident. To sum it up: 1) Boot Windows 2) plug in TB2 when spinning orbs start 3) if Windows boots normally (done) 4) If Windows hangs at the spinning orb screen, insert USB2 device 5) SHOULD boot into windows normally at the point. Perhaps some other users can try this and either confirm or deny that it works for them. Thanks to everyone that has contributed to this project. It made setting up my external box really easy!

Check your device manager. Even though the device shows up in the list, it may not have a driver loaded.

Under Windows 8 on the 2015 series macbook pros, you have to wait for the spinning balls to start BEFORE you turn on your EGPU. This works about 95% of the time depending on my timing to turn the EGPU on. If you turn it on too soon you will black screen. If you turn it on too late Windows will crash due to a driver error. DO NOT install the optimus EFI hack used for pre-2015 models. It is not required and may cause more problems.

I have found that if you wait until the spinning balls start before you plug in the EGPU it works 100% of the time. I have also found that you can hot plug the EGPU after already in windows but sometimes it doesn't load the driver, even though the device shows up in the Device Manager.

Hello, Yes. Both displays will work. What I noticed was that if the internal display was the primary display, it used the laptop video for both screens. If the external monitor was the primary display, then the Nvidia card was used for both screens. I used the external monitor as the primary and the laptop as an extended screen. Worked flawlessly. I primarily use my setup for gaming, OSX and Windows. One benefit I never realized was how cool the laptop remains during extended gaming sessions. Good luck! One thing I forgot to mention is in Windows, the loss of control of the brightness for the laptop screen. I tried the sleep method, close the lid and reopen, but every time Windows would blue screen on me. I found a utility called SBright. It allows me to turn off the display without the laptop going to sleep. Touch a key or the trackpad and the internal diplay turns on again. Then the brightness controls work again. It isn't perfect but it works.

MBPr 2014 and the GTX980 does work in OSX. It does not work on the internal screen. It only works on an external monitor. To use the 980 you need to make the external monitor your primary display. There is a guide on this site to modify the 3 files needed for the Nvidia driver to recognize the 980. Follow it and it should work like a champ.