keymone

finally finished my setup to the point where i can close akitio box:

though i still need to make holes for air flow in the enclosure because it got so heated, the labels fell off of the fans!

has anybody had problems where fps would rarely go above 60 even in non-demanding games and sporadically drop to 40 without much correlation to the load? i'll try to investigate this more closely this weekend, seems weird.

why would kext extension randomly stop loading? any ideas?

@keymore: If the card makes "noise" like this, it is the common coil whine / buzzing problem that many GTX 970 owners have. And that is to be considered normal, unfortunately.

well this is quite ugly.. do you think i can get better result with a zotac card?

Can you use the HDMI port on the eGPU? Maybe the adapter is broken?

monitor came with mini-dp -> display port, i didn't bother getting any adapters and decided to go for simplest possible thing - dvi-hdmi (although i'm not really sure if it's the simplest).

anyway my problem got solved by re-running Kext Wizard and doing whatever that thing does.

Have you tried running goalque's shell script? http://forum.techinferno.com/mac-os-x-discussion/10289-script-automating-installation-egpu-os-x-inc-display-output.html

It sounds like you are trying to get the eGPU working through hot plugging. Hot plugging has never worked for me. My method is to power on the Macbook with the eGPU powered on and already connected.

i did run it previously and tried again - it didn't help. what did help was running Kext Wizard and rebuilding cache/whatever.

booting with egpu plugged in works, display started in mirrored mode, so i disabled it and made external one primary, diablo 3 started and was certainly using gpu to render. one thing that got me worrying was that when i entered the game card started making weird sounds, which is possibly the ground loop problems mentioned to me earlier because of my powering setup (i mix original akitio psu with dell da-2 to power the card exclusively). i'll wait with testing until i get the barrel attached and power everything using dell da2.

cc/ @Dschijn

i have problem getting display output from my akitio+kfa2 setup. how do i troubleshoot this?

i boot into osx without egpu, stick thunderbolt, everything powers up, device gets recognized but no display detected. display is connected by simple dvi->hdmi cable.

hi @Dschijn,

here's my setup:

2015 13" mbp with iris 6100

akitio thunder2 with original psu in barrel and dell da-2 in gpu (2x6pin)

kfa2 gtx 970

dvi-i -> hdmi cable -> dell u2414h monitor

when i plug thunderbolt cable into my macbook everything powers up, gpu fans work, gpu is recognized in my system information but there is no monitor detected. did you have problem like that?

clarification: i've now selected hdmi as input on monitor, it still says there is no signal

clarification 2: i'm booting into osx

thanks

I can't see any link? ^^

I can find the short Inno 970 as a "Combat" not HerculeZ X1, but I guess it is the same: Inno3D GeForce GTX 970 Combat, 4GB GDDR5, 2x DVI, HDMI, DisplayPort (N97V-1SDN-M5DS) Preisvergleich | Geizhals Deutschland

hmm this is confusing, links are: http://www.inno3d.com/products_detail.php?refid=184 and http://www.inno3d.com/products_detail.php?refid=122, hope forum won't hide them now

and this is what i got when googling "Inno3D GeForce GTX 970 Combat": http://api.monosnap.com/rpc/file/download?id=1LJUse7jOnZDBtDvDlpBo8obvxRaJv

EDIT: links

Yeah true, the Inno should fit in as well!

i see you've updated first post but you've linked a larger card, this is what i found:

Inno3D GTX970 HerculeZ X1 - length 172

Inno3D GTX970 HerculeZ X2 - length 215

not sure if 215 will fit

possibly another gpu to add to the list: Inno3D

it's 172x111, dual-slot width, Maximum Graphics Card Power -145W

it has slower base clock than KFA/GALAX card though

@keymone you should not mix psu as this can bring ground loops and potentially damage your equipment.

ugh.. wow. thanks for letting me know. what is ground loops? are there any noob-friendly resources that explain that sort of stuff?

yeah, i ordered GALAX card via Amazon(it clearly had GALAX label on fans) but got KFA. Thinking of just sending it back and getting Zotac.

hi all, just thought i'd mention this:

i've got myself KFA/GALAX card but my friend from gpu business seriously suggested to stay away from that brand. he works for Inno3D so there is obvious conflict of interests there, but his suggestion was to use Zotac if it fits inside Akitio.

so this is the question - does Zotac card fit? unfortunately zotac doesn't specify the dimentions on it's spec page: GeForce 900 Series: ZOTAC - It's time to play!

cc/ @Dschijn @goalque @seefew @Tech Inferno Fan

True, I should use absolute paths. I will fix it in next version. You can send PM or post here the script output and tell about your system configuration. I would try first what “sudo ./automate-eGPU.sh -skipdriver” says.

current output looks normal, no errors, finds the driver, IOPCITunnelCompatible mods are valid. my problem is probably the power or i'm missing something about how it all works.

should this gpu take over Iris in rendering main macbook screen?

It depends on the GPU, some can draw a big amount of power through the PCIe slot. Without any load it shouldn't be a big problem.

I don't really understand your problem, could you please explain in detail your setup and your problem?!

standard stuff: akitio, dell da-2, kfa2 gtx970. i powered akitio using it's stock psu and gpu with da-2 through 6pin splitter. i've ran the script from goalque with relative success (first couple runs failed because i had osx incompatible sed in my PATH, last one succeeded, i have nvidia web driver installed).

now the problem is if i boot up my macbook normally - everything is fine, nvidia has the checkbox next to it's web driver in system panel.

if i boot up with thunderbolt connected and akitio powered - i get black screen.

P.S. system report shows additional gpu so it's a win, making it primary is apparently not possible at the moment so i'll just get external monitor somewhere.

I would strongly advise you to get the 2nd splitter!

could it be the reason i'm getting black screen when booting with akitio connected?

no monitor is connected to gpu itself, i'm running 2015 rmpb osx 10.10.4

hi,

i have a problem - whenever i boot while akitio is connected and powered up - i get black screen.

it could be because i'm powering akitio with it's own psu and gpu with dell da-2 (still waiting for second 6pin splitter). it could be because something got messed up in the process of running the script - i had gnu sed in my PATH which is incompatible with mac os sed (use /usr/bin/sed to avoid this) and few runs were erroring out in different parts of the script.

any ideas how do i debug why i'm getting black screen?

Yes!

hi Dschijn, i just noticed that i by mistake only ordered single splitter, is it dangerous to mix Akitio psu with dell da-2 psu? thanks

I'm 100% certain it does not fit fully enclosed. I had the Gigabyte card when I first bought the Akitio and confirm it's too tall to have the outer case closed. However, if you don't plan on modifying the Akitio to allow proper cooling, it doesn't really matter (presuming you are not looking to use the outer case as protection for traveling only). If its just going to sit on your desk as a chassis, then you are good to go.

thanks martinm0, i've figured that out by browsing more threads got myself kfa/galax card that should fit entirely. waiting for all that stuff to be delivered.

hi LukeHero, am i right that what you have there is 2 6pin splitters into 2 6pin, one of which is cut off and a barrel plug is attached instead of 6pin head?

so 2 of these - StarTech.com 15cm 6pin PCI Express Splitter Kabel: Amazon.de: Computer & Zubehör

right?

hi, noob question here: i read that 6pin pcie connector gives 75W of power. that makes 150W for 2 of them, how is that enough to power GTX 970? what am i missing?

EDIT: apparently pcie slot gives another 75W. question that remains is how does 220W flow from DA2 into 6pin splitter? is 75W per 6pin only arbitraty restriction on the PSU side and cable can actually transfer much more? thanks

hey. i'm thinking of doing the same setup. i have no experience doing things like that, especially soldering. am i crazy? is there a chance i will succeed? any tips for fresh beginner?

Hi bsohn,

awesome job! could you let me know how certain you are Gigabyte GTX970 mini doesn't fit in Akitio? i've just googled for specs and Akitio height is 149, gigabyte - 129 - will that just not fit at all or does it leave not enough space for something i don't know yet?

thanks