atheotsky

i was just curious about it, so i tried and it crashed. i don't think i will do it on purpose again. but it can happen again if there is power outage issue and my Mac still work on battery

hi @Dschijn thank you for your quick answer  . is it ok for me to do hot unplug it ? is there anything other than system restart that i should worry about ?

i'm wondering what will happen if we do hot plug/unplug for Akitio Thunder 2 (mine has GTX 750 Ti) to Windows 10 on MacBookAir. i tried both i got result below 

1. hot plug : nothing happen, it doesn't recognize the eGPU

2. hot unplug : Windows 10 shutdown immediately, system restart

what do you get if you do the same ? is it ok to do that ? 

20 hours ago, dludingt said:

I was using the EVGA GTX 750Ti card, which drew power from the PCIe slot. I too had the 120W power supply and everything sounded like it would work. But I would get random kernel panics 3-4 times a day for no apparent reason. The only explanation I could think of is that the card was not getting enough power at those points and would cause the Mac to think there was no GPU.

 

So, I returned the GTX750Ti, purchased the Dell power supply and a EVGA GTX 950 card, made the appropriate mods to the PSU cable and have been running 100% stable. And the beauty of that solution was that it only cost ~$75 more than the 750Ti w/no PSU solution. And I have a much more powerful card to boot!

i have installed Windows 8.1 for eGPU and underclocked my MSI GTX 750 Ti, it seems it is stable for now. but i will definitely try your solution, thank you!

53 minutes ago, dludingt said:

If you have this setup, the 12oW power brick still won't provide enough power to the 750Ti, which will crash under even modest use. I had the same setup and had to replace the card. Unless the MSI version has a 6pin power adapter, the GPU card won't be able to draw enough power directly from the PCIe slot and will kernel panic.

hi @dludingt , could you tell me what card are you using ? from what i can see, that card only draw power from PCIe slot and according to this post , i think 120W is ok for this case.

Quote

 

Originally Posted by AKiTiO Engineer

We implemented the x16 PCIe slot although we only use x4 lanes signal that Thunderbolt can support. By spec the x16 PCIe slot is capable of 75W power while the x4 is spec’ed at 25W.. That means, if the user uses a power supply that is big enough, there is no problem that our design can support x16 PCIe card that requires 75W power. I do not know why this post described that many complicated HW reworks. The fact is, no rework is needed. That is the reason why OWC’s PCIe Box has the identical PCBAs as ours but they shipped with the 120W power supply.
 

By the requirement of Intel/Apple, we need to reserve 30W power for the Thunderbolt circuits because it may need to provide power to the bus-powered downstream devices. That’s why we use 60W power supply but we only leave 25W for the PCIe card. For the eGPU application, users do not connect anything else to the Thunderbolt daisy-chain. In such case 10W for the Thunderbolt circuits should be enough and there is 50W to the PCIe card. In order to support 75W power to the PCIe card, users can simply upgrade the power to 90W or larger.

 

this is the power brick i used http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00B8TRF0A/

it happens randomly , when i browse websites, when i play games, when i leave my Mac and do other things 

i have MSI GTX 750 Ti and i often get kernel panic with Mac after 30 mins to 1 hour of use. this is my setup :

Akitio Thunder2

MSI GTX 750 Ti link
12V 10A power Brick link

MacBook Air mid 2013 with intel Core i7 and 8GB of RAM

OSX 10.11.1 and 10.11.2

is this a popular issue ? how can i prevent it ? will it be stable if i use it with Windows 8.1 ?

No, there is no known way. If there was it would be obviously implemented in the script. So, yes, for OS X you need an external display to use the eGPU for games or other things. The eGPU will not be used for games etc. on your internal display.

from what you said, does it mean we can use Macbook Air screen on Windows without an external display ?

hi @goalque, is there any way to active it on my Mac Display ? is an external display must-have ?

thank you for your answers

i just tried to install driver with latest automate-eGPU.sh script. my MSI GTX 750 Ti shows up in system report > Graphics/Displays but 'About this Mac > Overview' tab still shows Intel HD5000. what is the problem here ? i tried both 0.9.6 and 0.9.7 script

My Mac is MacBook Air (13-inch, Mid 2013)

OS : El Capitan

i'm using MacBook Air display, no external display.

@Dschijn, thank you for your answers , it seems i don't have many choices here . if i'm going to use Dell DA-2 12V 18W , is it ok for me to plug it directly to AkitiO box ? this type power Supply is popular in my country , but i'm not sure if it's ok to use with AkitiO box http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008MU0CHG

@Dschijn: thanks alot for the information, can you describe those unknown problems ? what if i go for 8A or 9A instead

12V and 10A will be 120W, is that enough for your GPU + AKiTiO?

Also you have to check if the plug can be used our if you need to attach your own adapter.

i have msi gtx 750 ti , which consumes 60w. and akitio is the only thunder bolt device i have. i am wondering if akitio thunder 2 can handle 120w well out of box.

perhaps 12V 8A is a better option for this setup ?

sorry , a guy told me he has it, i think its DA-2 220W . i just found another one name 'Sunny Adapter 12V 10A' , is this one good ?

i have found another adapter Dell 12V 18A , is it ok to use it ? can i plug it to the Akitio directly ?

is it ok for me to use Adapter 15V 8A or Adapter 18-20V, 4.7A with this box ?